placenamesCabragh
An Chabrach
Cabra in Clonduff parish developed around a church, an estate household and schools founded to serve the surrounding community.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- An Chabrach · Irish · main form · validated name
- Cabragh · English · main form
Place & story
Saint Mary’s and its rebuilding
The parish history traces Saint Mary's at Cabra to a Mass House erected on Magennis land in 1783 and enlarged in 1832. Further rebuilding in 1865 produced a larger church. Renovations in 1934 included new Stations of the Cross, while work in 1998 brought a granite altar, a redesigned sanctuary, replastered walls and a replacement roof. These successive campaigns record the changing fabric of a continuing place of worship. [2]
The Gartlans at Cabra House
Family research records George Henry Gartlan's marriage to Mary McMullan at Cabra House in 1846. She was a daughter of Alexander McMullan, who had built the house after acquiring the property in 1823. George Henry and Mary moved there in 1853 following her inheritance. His later role as a Rathfriland magistrate and his provision of a school connect the household with institutions beyond the estate itself. [3]
From the estate school to Saint Paul’s
Gartlan built Cabra School for his workers in 1854, according to the published parish account. The school became church property in 1932. Saint Paul's Primary School at Ballykeel opened on 6 April 1964, blessed by Bishop Eugene O'Doherty, at a recorded cost of £12,800. It replaced the older Kingshill School, which had opened in 1834, bringing another strand of the district's educational history into the newer institution. [2]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Down
- Barony
- Iveagh Upper, Lower Half
- Coordinates
- 54.23053, -6.08290 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1413224 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Cabragh. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- History of Clonduff Parish:churches and schools · Clonduff Parish;history drawing on Dean Davies’s2004account
- George Henry Gartlan of Cabra House · Gartlan family-history research
- Saint Mary’s Chapel, Cabragh (Cabra), County Down illustration: based on a Church of the Blessed Virgin - St Mary's Chapel, Cabra by Eric Jones. AI-assisted watercolour and ink adaptation; cream paper margins added, incidental clutter omitted and fine details simplified. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2019-10-08. How this page was prepared.