placenamesCortown
An Baile Corr
Cortown’s churchyard preserves traces of older religious and burial activity, while its football club carries a local saint’s name into community sport.
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 Baile Corr · Irish · main form · validated name
- Cortown · English · main form
Place & story
The old churchyard
A 1975 field survey by Beryl Moore and the Cawkhills recorded the old church at Cortown as a nave-and-chancel building whose surviving walls had become grass-covered mounds. They noted part of an enclosing bank and ditch to the northwest of the large graveyard. Their account also recalled William Wilde’s 1845 excavation of a stone burial there, containing bones in a decorated urn. The site therefore preserved evidence of more than one period of burial. [2]
A Plunket family monument
Among the memorials recorded in that survey was a large slab erected by Thomas Plunket, who identified himself as a son of Richard Plunket of the Ballinacadd family. It commemorated his wife Mary, daughter of James Plunket of the Killeen family, who died on 25 April 1707. Such inscriptions preserve the connections claimed by families who chose Cortown for their burial place, even where the church itself has largely disappeared. [2]
Páirc Naomh Baoithín
Cortown GAA was founded in 1969, and its ground, Páirc Naomh Baoithín, officially opened in 1981. The club went on to win Meath’s junior football championship in 1993 and the intermediate title in 1996, followed by nine years playing at senior level. Its county-board profile places it within Bohermeen parish and records its underage partnership with Saint Ultan’s. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Meath
- Barony
- Kells Upper
- Civil parish
- Balrathboyne
- Coordinates
- 53.68318, -6.84962 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1414644 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Cortown. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Cortown ruined church and graveyard:1975 field survey · Dr Beryl F. E. Moore and Mr and Mrs Cawkhill, reproduced by Meath History Hub
- Cortown club information · Meath GAA
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.