placenamesBawnboy
An Bábhún Buí
Bawnboy’s history connects an early seventeenth-century enclosure with a substantial workhouse whose rooms later served education, worship and entertainment.
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
- An Bábhún Buí · Irish · main form · validated name
- Bawnboy · English · main form
Place & story
The bawn recorded in 1622
A 1622 survey, reproduced by local historian Chris Maguire, describes Sir Richard Greames’s estate at Bawnboy. Its stone-and-lime bawn measured sixty feet square, with walls nine feet high and a small stone house inside. Lieutenant William Ruttledge occupied it under a21-year lease that also included 200 acres. Other parts of the estate were let annually to Irish tenants. Maguire connects this enclosed plantation residence with the village’s name. [2]
A later generation of workhouse design
Bawnboy Union Workhouse was built in 1852 to George Wilkinson’s design. Separate children’s blocks flanked its entrance, while a central dining hall connected with the adult accommodation. The infirmary stood apart, and yards and service buildings reinforced the separation of men, women and children. The architectural inventory identifies it as Ulster’s only example of Wilkinson’s later, 1850 type. Its surviving layout records the organisation of poor relief in the years following the Great Famine. [3]
From poor relief to village activities
After the workhouse closed in 1921, its buildings acquired several community uses. A wing became a vocational school in the 1930s and remained in use until a new school opened in 1967. The former boys’ schoolroom hosted concerts, dances, plays and films, as well as boxing and Irish dancing. Father Patrick Brady’s 1979 history recalls local performances of George Shiels’s plays and screenings of Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy. The dining hall also served as a chapel. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Cavan
- Barony
- Tullyhaw
- Civil parish
- Templeport
- Within
- Bawnboy
- Coordinates
- 54.11956, -7.67881 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1412179 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Bawnboy. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Bawnboy and Templeport: History Heritage Folklore, Bawnboy village, paragraph 84 · Chris Maguire
- Bawnboy Union Workhouse, inventory 40400907 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Bawnboy Workhouse, originally published 1979 · Rev Patrick F. Brady, Templeport: Souvenir of the Dedication of St Mogue’s Church; authorised reprint by Bawnboy Workhouse
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.