placenamesCadamstown
Baile Mhic Ádaim
Cadamstown in north Kildare preserves the old churchyard of an ecclesiastical district later incorporated into Balyna parish. Its memorials connect local religious history with the More O’Ferrall family of nearby Balyna.
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
- Baile Mhic Ádaim · Irish · main form · validated name
- Cadamstown · English · main form
Place & story
An old churchyard and its inscriptions
Michael Comerford’s nineteenth-century history recorded surviving portions of Cadamstown’s old parish church within an extensive burial ground. Among the inscriptions he transcribed was that of Lewis Dempsy, parish priest and vicar-general, who died in 1704 after forty-seven years in charge of his flock. Other memorials commemorated Dominick Dempsey, Philip Farrell and Michael Kennedy. The churchyard consequently preserves names and offices from several generations of the district’s religious history. [2]
The More O’Ferrall mausoleum
Cadamstown was also a burial place of the More O’Ferrall family. Comerford records that Richard More O’Ferrall erected a mausoleum with family memorial tablets on its side panels. The family’s connection with nearby Balyna followed the marriage of the daughter of James, the last O’More, to Richard O’Ferrall of County Longford. The Cadamstown monument belongs to that wider history of the Balyna estate, rather than evidence that the family mansion stood in the village itself. [2]
Schooling in the surrounding parish
Samuel Lewis’s 1837 account of the wider Cadamstown parish records a school at Balyna, chiefly supported by Richard More O’Ferrall, teaching about one hundred boys and sixty girls. He also noted a smaller private school. Cadamstown’s own national school now describes its use of the local hall and field alongside its school grounds, where handball alleys also serve as hurling walls. These sources describe different periods and institutions, without establishing that today’s school directly succeeded the school listed by Lewis. [3] [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Kildare
- Barony
- Carbury
- Civil parish
- Cadamstown
- Within
- Cadamstown
- Coordinates
- 53.39652, -6.94757 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1412369 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Cadamstown. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Balyna parish: Cadamstown, from Collections relating to the Dioceses of Kildare and Leighlin (1883) · Michael Comerford, reproduced by Balyna Parish
- Cadamstown or Cadmanstown, Kildare: A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis
- Our School · Cadamstown National School, Kildare
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.