placenamesCornafean
Corr na Féinne
Cornafean’s history reaches beyond its football titles to a long tradition of bands, céilí music and cultural competition.
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
- Corr na Féinne · Irish · main form · validated name
- Cornafean · English · main form
Place & story
A club bringing local teams together
Cornafean Naomh Fionnán was formed in 1908 under the leadership of Pól McSeain, bringing together previously separate local teams. In a 2026 interview, club historian George Cartwright described its strongest periods as the 1910s and 1930s. The club accumulated twenty Cavan senior championships, the last in 1956. Its playing area embraced several rural townlands across the Killeshandra and Kilmore parish surroundings. [2]
John Joe and Tom O’Reilly
John Joe O'Reilly joined Cornafean's senior football team in 1935 and won county championships in 1936 and 1937. He later captained Cavan to All-Ireland victories in 1947 and 1948, including the celebrated final in New York's Polo Grounds. His older brother Tom played senior football for Cornafean from 1932 to 1948, winning nine county championships and captaining the club in seven of those successful seasons. [3]
Recording fifty years of cultural life
A community archive project launched in 2023 gathered photographs, film and written accounts of Cornafean's bands, céilí groups and Scór competitors. The collection included the Macra na Tuaithe band at the 1978 Belturbet Fleadh and the céilí group's 1984 appearance on The Late Late Show. It also documented the club's first All-Ireland Scór success, a juvenile question-time victory at Cork City Hall in 1984. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Cavan
- Barony
- Tullyhunco
- Civil parish
- Killashandra
- Within
- Cornafean
- Coordinates
- 53.95715, -7.48199 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1412184 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Cornafean. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Cornafean:Cavan’s trailblazers,7September2026 · Niall Gartland,Gaelic Life,interview with George Cartwright
- O’Reilly,John Joe,a6992 · John P.Wilson,Dictionary of Irish Biography
- Rolling Back the Years:Cornafean’s Cultural Story,22September2023 · Damian McCarney,The Anglo-Celt
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.