placenamesMoville
Bun an Phobail
Ballynally’s decorated hall and the Presbyterian church on the western approach preserve buildings made for Moville’s social and religious life.
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
- Bun an Phobail · Irish · main form
- Moville · English · main form
Place & story
A building for the temperance movement
St Eugene’s Hall at Ballynally carries an 1887 date plaque. Originally a temperance hall, it later became a parish hall. Its corner position at James’s Street and Montgomery Terrace faces towards Lough Foyle. The building gives the nineteenth-century temperance movement a physical presence in Moville: a meeting place whose later parish use continued its communal role, rather than a monument associated only with one individual benefactor. [2]
An unusually elaborate hall front
The hall’s gables curve through concave and convex outlines, ending in pediments and urn-shaped finials. Decorative surrounds frame the upper windows, while the doorways have pilasters and projecting pediments. These details produce an ornate public frontage on a comparatively modest two-storey building. The architectural inventory records alterations to windows and roofing alongside surviving earlier features, allowing its decorative design and later changes to be read together. [2]
The Presbyterian church at Glencrow
West of the town centre, Moville Presbyterian Church at Glencrow was built in 1863 to designs by Derry architect John Guy Ferguson. James Gallagher, also of Derry, was its contractor, and the estimated cost was £1,100. A yellow-brick spire rises above the stone tower beside the six-bay church hall. Its pointed openings and stepped buttresses express Gothic Revival design, while the neighbouring manse completes the church group. [3]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Moville. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- St Eugene’s Parish Hall, Ballynally:40809057 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Moville Presbyterian Church, Glencrow:40809016 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2024-05-09. How this page was prepared.