placenamesClonleigh
Cluain Lao
The old burial ground beside the Deele preserves Clonleigh’s earlier church site; a twentieth-century discovery brought an unexpected medieval object to light.
The name
These Irish name elements are associated with this record in the Logainm glossary.
An element’s translation is a clue, rather than a complete explanation of the name. Its form and meaning depend on local history and the full Irish name.
Recorded forms
- Cluain Lao · Irish · main form · validated name
- Clonleigh · English · main form
Place & story
The abbey above the floodplain
Edward James O’Kane photographed Clonleigh Abbey on 7 July 1994 for the Our Own Place project. His accompanying account describes ivy-covered church walls and a burial ground on a hill above the Deele plain, approached by a raised road. The setting mattered: flooding could surround the higher ground and turn the approach into a causeway. The catalogue records that the graveyard remained in use when the photograph was taken. [2]
A medieval seal, without its document
The Donegal Annual reported in 1948 that Frank Connolly had found a lead seal near the abbey ruins while digging in a field. It bore the name of John XXIII, whose pontificate the report dated to 1410–15. Researchers examined papal registers but could not identify the document to which it had belonged. Their account explicitly allowed that the object might have reached Clonleigh among somebody’s personal possessions. [3]
The later parish church
The parish’s later Catholic centre stands at Lifford Common, rather than at the old abbey. St Patrick’s was designed by Liam McCormick with Frank Corr and Father Anthony McFeely. An octagonal lantern illuminates the crossing of its cruciform plan. The older church’s Gothic tower survived demolition after the Presbyterian minister at Ballindrait, James Bewglas, argued for its retention; a covered walkway connects it to the newer building. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Donegal
- Barony
- Raphoe North
- Coordinates
- 54.85563, -7.48612 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1411718 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Clonleigh. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Clonleigh Abbey Lifford: Edward James O’Kane photograph and catalogue account, 7 July 1994 · National Library of Ireland; Edward James O’Kane
- Medieval Bulla: Found in the Parish of Murlog, May 1948, Donegal Annual vol.1 no.2, p.145 · County Donegal Historical Society
- A History of St Patrick’s Church · Clonleigh Parish
- Bell tower of Saint Patrick’s Church, Murlog, near Clonleigh illustration: based on a St. Patrick's Church, Murlog by James Denham. AI-assisted watercolour and ink adaptation; cream paper margins added, incidental clutter omitted and fine details simplified. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.