placenamesBrosna
An Bhrosnach
Brosna’s modest nineteenth-century settlement sits within a landscape of substantial houses and estate connections.
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 Bhrosnach · Irish · main form · validated name
- Brosna · English · main form
Place & story
Brusna in 1837
Samuel Lewis described the village as Brusna in 1837, placing it in Kilmurry-Ely parish, east of Shinrone, in what was then King’s County. He recorded 134 inhabitants, a Catholic chapel and a constabulary station. His brief entry identifies a small riverside settlement rather than a large town. It provides a useful historical distinction from the many mills and communities associated with the separate River Brosna farther north in Offaly. [2]
Brosna House
Brosna House stands beside the road leading into the village. Built around 1830, its three-bay front has the balanced proportions of an early nineteenth-century house. A broad window sits above an elaborate entrance with fluted columns, sidelights and a fanlight. Timber sash windows and cast-iron railings formed part of the fabric recorded by the National Inventory in 2004. The doorway and roadside position make the house a particularly visible element of the local built heritage. [3]
Gloster and the Lloyds
Nearby Gloster was associated with the Lloyd family from Trevor Lloyd’s marriage to Margaret Medhop in 1639. The family’s own estate history connects a later Trevor Lloyd with Edward Lovett Pearce, engaged to enlarge the house in the 1720s. It also records John Wesley preaching there on 13 June 1749. The estate passed out of Lloyd ownership in 1958, when it was sold to a religious order. Later institutional buildings added another phase to a property whose history extends well beyond the village’s nineteenth-century gazetteer entry. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Offaly
- Barony
- Clonlisk
- Civil parish
- Kilmurryely
- Coordinates
- 52.99671, -7.88084 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1414288 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Brosna. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Brusna, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland1837 · Samuel Lewis, reproduced by GB HistoricalGIS
- Brosna House,14942010 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- History of Gloster House · Gloster House
- Village water pump, Brosna, County Offaly illustration: based on a Brosna, County Offaly (2) 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.
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Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2017-12-01. How this page was prepared.