placenamesColbinstown
Baile Choilbín
Killeen Cormac in Colbinstown brings together early inscriptions, later burials and an archaeological debate about the origins of its mound.
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 Choilbín · Irish · main form · validated name
- Colbinstown · English · main form
Place & story
An inscribed landscape
Killeen Cormac occupies a terraced gravel hillock beside the River Greese. Sharon A. Greene’s archaeological study records seven ogham stones, including an example carrying both ogham and Roman lettering. Cross-inscribed stones, a pillar bearing a cleric’s image and later grave markers add evidence of successive uses of the burial ground. The present mortared enclosure wall replaced a dry-stone wall at the end of the nineteenth century. [2]
Excavation and uncertainty
R. A. S. Macalister excavated the mound in 1929, finding evidence against its proposed prehistoric burial-mound origin. Cut stone and a small granite gable finial provided indications of a former church. Monitoring near the site during construction of the Cork–Dublin gas pipeline in the early 1980s produced no early features or artefacts. Greene cautions that the limited excavation and difficult monitoring conditions leave the possibility of further remains open. [2]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Kildare
- Barony
- Narragh and Reban East
- Civil parish
- Davidstown
- Within
- Colbinstown
- Coordinates
- 53.03511, -6.74767 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1412371 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Colbinstown. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Killeen Cormac, Colbinstown: an ecclesiastical site on the Kildare–Wicklow border · Sharon A. Greene / Kildare eHistory Journal
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.