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
Leic Snámha· Irish · main form · validated name
Lixnaw· English · main form
Place & story
What remains of Old Court
Old Court, formerly Lixnaw House, survives as a ruined country house. The national architectural survey dates the main building to about 1680, with an extension around 1700, and records that it was already derelict in 1775. Its walls retain narrow window openings, fragments of render and a large internal fireplace with an oven beside it. Later agricultural use left evidence of sheds against part of the structure. These details belong to a substantial residence that passed through several uses before becoming the fragmentary building visible today.[2]
The end of a family connection
The Fitzmaurices were closely associated with Lixnaw and the earldom of Kerry. Thomas Fitzmaurice, the first earl, married Anne Petty, daughter of Sir William Petty, in 1692. By the time of Francis, the third earl, much estate business was conducted through agents during the owner's absence. Large portions of the Kerry property were sold to Richard Hare in the 1780s. Francis's death in 1818 ended the connection between the Earls of Kerry and Lixnaw, after the family's residence had already fallen into decline.[3]
Folklore & tradition
Joan Harman's journey
Alfred Webb's 1878 biography preserves a family anecdote, attributed to the earlier peerage writer Lodge, about Thomas FitzMaurice's return to Lixnaw. Thomas was serving as a soldier in Milan when a relative occupied his inheritance. His former nurse, Joan Harman, then elderly, set out with her daughter to find him. They sailed from Dingle to France and travelled onwards to Milan. In the story she succeeded in delivering her message but died on the journey home. Thomas eventually recovered the family lands after considerable difficulty. The episode gives a woman usually absent from accounts of aristocratic succession a central part in the family's remembered history.[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
Lixnaw — 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
Lixnaw, Kerry — 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
Lixnaw, Kerry — 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
Lixnaw, Kerry — Census town, CSO 1986 report — census population
These figures use different area definitions. Read the boundary note before comparing them.
Lixnaw, Kerry
Published census settlement populations
696people · 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
