placenamesBallynahown
Buaile na hAbhann
Ballynahown, commonly written Ballinahown locally, brings together a Georgian country house, a prominent church and a modern craft practice rooted in the Midlands bog landscape. These different buildings and activities record successive ways of working and living in the village.
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
- Buaile na hAbhann · Irish · main form · validated name
- Ballynahown · English · main form
- Ballinahowen · English · main form · local name
Place & story
Ballynahown Court and its owners
Edmond Malone and his wife Ruth built Ballynahown Court in 1746. Its brick construction was unusual in eighteenth-century Westmeath, and a later wing was added around 1850. Andrew Ennis bought the property in 1828; his son John, later a governor of the Bank of Ireland, occupied it at the time of Griffith’s Valuation. The house subsequently passed through the Ennis and O’Donaghue families before the O’Donaghues sold it in 1968. Its history links the village with changing patterns of wealth and estate ownership. [2]
Saint Colmcille’s church
Saint Colmcille’s church was designed by William Hague and completed after his death by his younger partner Thomas Francis McNamara. A date stone records construction between 1897 and 1902. The Gothic building has transepts, a tower and an octagonal spire that gives the village a clear landmark. Inside, polished granite columns, a timber scissor-truss roof and a gallery reached by a cast-iron spiral staircase combine different materials and forms of workmanship. [3]
Helen Conneely and Celtic Roots
Helen Conneely, also known as Eibhlín Ní Chongháile, established Celtic Roots in 1990 and based the studio in Ballinahown from 1998. Her work uses reclaimed bogwood, including material sourced from Lough Boora in County Offaly. The studio describes drying the timber slowly over two years before carving and polishing it into sculpture and jewellery. Its workshop and interpretative space bring the making process into public view, connecting a contemporary village enterprise with a material recovered from the surrounding Midlands landscape. [4] [5]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Westmeath
- Barony
- Clonlonan
- Civil parish
- Kilcleagh
- Within
- Ballynahown
- Coordinates
- 53.35339, -7.84807 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1413759 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Ballynahown. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Ballynahown Court: Landed Estates property 5763 · University of Galway, Landed Estates
- Saint Colmcille’s Catholic Church, NIAH 15403512 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Celtic Roots Studio: Our Story · Celtic Roots Studio / Helen Conneely
- Celtic Roots Studio: formation and craft process · Celtic Roots Studio
- Village fountain and community hall, Ballynahown illustration: based on a Ballynahown, County Westmeath by Sarah777. 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 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.