placenamesDrumraney
Droim Raithne
Drumraney’s old graveyard, nineteenth-century parish church and recorded field names preserve different layers of the parish’s past.
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
- Droim Raithne · Irish · main form · validated name
- Drumraney · English · main form
Place & story
The older church site
Drumraney’s old graveyard occupies a religious site traditionally associated with St Enán. Drumraney Heritage draws attention to medieval annals recording destructive attacks on the church and guesthouse in the tenth century. Later evidence includes fifteenth-century papal correspondence naming St Enán’s parish. The burial ground also preserves the Dillon family’s long local association: an identifiable ledger slab commemorates Edmond and Una Dillon and dates from 1621. [2]
An abandoned church and a restored graveyard
A Church of Ireland building was erected in the old graveyard in 1811, followed by a nearby glebe house in 1814. The church fell out of use after 1874. According to Drumraney Heritage, the county council demolished the remains in the early 1940s and reused the stone in road improvements. A volunteer project begun in 2013 subsequently worked to restore the graveyard’s condition, preserving the burial ground after the disappearance of its church. [2]
John Bourke’s parish church
The Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception was built or rebuilt around 1857 to designs by John Bourke. Its T-shaped plan combines a nave, two transepts and a shallow chancel. Dark rubble limestone contrasts with lighter dressed stone around the openings and corners. The National Inventory notes evidence of an earlier chapel on the site, recorded by 1807. A separate cast-iron belfry survives behind the church, which has neither a masonry bell tower nor a bellcote. [3]
Recording the names of fields
Drumraney and Taghmon were the two parishes selected for the Westmeath Field Names Recording Project’s pilot in 2018. Local volunteers gathered names for fields and other landscape features, making sound recordings and photographs where possible. Led by researcher Aengus Finnegan and supported by the Heritage Council and county council, the project recorded a form of local knowledge often carried in speech rather than on maps. Its work added another source for understanding the parish landscape. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Westmeath
- Barony
- Kilkenny West
- Civil parish
- Drumraney
- Within
- Drumraney
- Coordinates
- 53.48175, -7.74390 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1413766 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Drumraney. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- The Old Graveyard · Drumraney Heritage
- Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception, NIAH 15402304 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Westmeath Field Names Recording Project · Aengus Finnegan
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.