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
Cloch na Rón· Irish · main form · validated name
Roundstone· English · main form
Place & story
Alexander Nimmo’s village
Roundstone’s community website traces the village’s foundation to Scottish engineer Alexander Nimmo in the mid 1820s, followed by settlement by Scottish fishing families. By the 1840s it records seventy-five houses and an active fishing industry. The harbour remains central to the village, with fishing boats landing shellfish and other catches. Its position on Bertraghboy Bay, below Errisbeg Mountain, gave the planned settlement a sheltered working waterfront.[2]
People & connections
Malachy Kearns and the bodhrán
Malachy Kearns’s Roundstone workshop makes bodhráns using goatskin stretched across a birch frame. The maker’s account describes hand-painted decoration, including commissioned designs, and records his supply of instruments for Riverdance. Roundstone Musical Instruments combines a working craft with demonstrations of its making and use. This is a specific local musical connection: the village is a place where instruments for traditional performance are manufactured, as well as played.[3]
The paired beaches outside the village
Nearby Dogs Bay and Gorteen Bay occupy opposite sides of a tombolo: a sandy link joining a granite headland to the mainland. Geological Survey Ireland explains that much of their pale sand consists of calcareous shells of tiny marine organisms called foraminifera, carried in from deeper water. Wind and coastal deposition have also produced dunes, with brackish pools and freshwater marsh adding further habitats. These are features of the bays outside Roundstone, rather than of the village harbour.[4]
Both counts use the 2016 settlement boundary, allowing like-for-like comparison. CSO supplies the 2022 count on this older boundary for comparison only. The official 2022 Built Up Area has different boundaries.
View population figures
Roundstone — Census 2016 settlement footprint — census population
These are the historical areas published in the 2006 census report. Boundaries may differ between censuses and from modern settlements. Legal towns, environs and suburbs are shown separately; none has been combined into a modern settlement total.
View population figures
Roundstone, Galway — Census town, CSO 2006 report — census population
These are the historical areas published in the 1996 census report. Boundaries may differ between censuses and from modern settlements. Legal towns, environs and suburbs are shown separately; none has been combined into a modern settlement total.
View population figures
Roundstone, Galway — Census town, CSO 1996 report — census population
Figures cover the historical town area printed in the 1986 report. Boundaries may have changed between censuses. Legal town, environs and suburb totals remain separate and differ from modern settlement boundaries.
View population figures
Roundstone, Galway — Census town, CSO 1986 report — census population
These figures use different area definitions. Read the boundary note before comparing them.
Roundstone, Galway
Published census settlement populations
214people · 2016
Settlement boundaries changed during this period. Differences may reflect boundary changes as well as population change. Where a 2011 legal-town-and-environs count is shown, it has not been recalculated onto the 2016 settlement boundary.
placenames