placenamesCashel
An Caiseal
Cashel’s surviving buildings and census records reveal a coastal settlement of homes, services and hospitality, later visited by Charles de Gaulle.
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 Caiseal · Irish · main form · validated name
- Cashel · English · main form
Place & story
Cashel House
Cashel House was built in 1840 by Geoffrey Emerson for Thomas Hazell. Its unusual stepped layout creates an irregular frontage, with projecting bays and a porch fitted into the changing line of the building. The architectural inventory highlights the carefully coordinated window shapes and raised plaster details. Later extensions stand to the side and rear. The house’s conversion into a hotel continued its association with the landscape around Cashel Bay while adapting a nineteenth-century home to another use. [2]
St James’s Church
St James’s Catholic Church was built in 1901. Its granite walls, pointed windows and buttresses give it a Gothic character, while the bell tower changes from a square base to an octagonal upper section beneath a conical roof. The architectural survey identifies this tower as a particularly distinctive feature. Built within the small settlement, the church marks a different kind of local investment from the country houses and hotels: a permanent centre for the surrounding Catholic community. [3]
The townland in 1911
Roger Harrison’s study of Cashel’s 1911 census returns identifies a national school, post office, hotel and police barracks among the townland’s buildings. The accompanying farm returns record stables, coach houses, cow houses, piggeries, turf houses and a workshop. These details put the larger buildings in context: services for travellers and residents existed alongside agriculture and the everyday storage and workspaces of a rural community. The census townland figures describe that particular area, rather than a modern village boundary. [4]
A hotel and a visiting former president
Dermot and Kay McEvilly bought Cashel House in 1967 and opened it as a hotel in May 1968 after refurbishment. The following May, Charles and Yvonne de Gaulle stayed there during their Irish holiday, shortly after his resignation as president of France. The hotel’s history records their two-week stay. This was a brief but well-remembered episode in Cashel’s hospitality history, distinct from an official visit by a serving head of state. [5] [6]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Galway
- Barony
- Ballynahinch
- Civil parish
- Moyrus
- Within
- Moyrus
- Coordinates
- 53.42345, -9.80536 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1413565 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Cashel. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Cashel House: architectural record 30405102 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Saint James’s Catholic Church, Cashel: record 30405103 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Cashel townland: 1911 census overview · Roger Harrison, Forum Connemara and Galway County Heritage Office
- Cashel House Hotel: history · Cashel House Hotel
- Documents on Irish Foreign Policy: de Gaulle’s 1969 visit · RTÉ Archives and Royal Irish Academy
- St James Church, Cashel, County Galway illustration: based on a St James Church, Cashel Townland by Mac McCarron. 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 2018-11-12. How this page was prepared.