Mountshannon began as an eighteenth-century linen settlement beside Lough Derg. Its later community history includes school gardens and a landmark event in the return of white-tailed eagles to Ireland.
Illustration, St Caimin's Church, Mountshannon, 1980
⊕Recorded locationMountshannon52.93157° N · 8.43310° WInteractive map supplied by OpenStreetMap.
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
Baile Uí Bheoláin· Irish · main form · validated name
Mountshannon· English · main form
Place & story
Alexander Woods's linen settlement
In 1738 Limerick linen manufacturer Alexander Woods leased land from the Dalys of Dunsandle. His agreement required fifty houses for tradespeople, a place of worship, a school and a market house, together with twenty acres of parkland. The settlement was intended for Protestant tenants working in farming and manufacture. By 1751 seventy girls were employed in the spinning school, alongside village weavers, carpenters and other trades. These arrangements explain Mountshannon's planned beginnings: houses, education and employment were conceived together as parts of the same industrial project.[2]
The market house's altered arcade
The market house dates to around 1740. Its ground floor originally had an open arcade of round-headed arches, enclosed and remodelled around 1920. Restoration followed in 2009. A central gable and side carriage arch distinguish the surviving building.[5]
School gardens and new classrooms
Iniscealtra National School's history records an original building from the 1840s, used until the present school opened in 1957. Teacher Patrick Haran, who worked there from 1969 to 1979, laid out its grounds. The school won first place in the All-Ireland National School Gardens Competition in 1980. A major extension and refurbishment in 2000 replaced temporary classrooms and improved the older rooms. The record adds a sustained local educational story to a village whose founder had also made schooling part of his plans.[4]
Caimin, Saoirse and the 2013 chicks
White-tailed eagles from Ireland's reintroduction programme established themselves around Mountshannon from 2011. Local children named the male Caimin and the female Saoirse. In 2013 the pair successfully fledged two chicks from a Lough Derg island near the village. Their visible nesting site drew large numbers of visitors and prompted the formation of the Mountshannon Eagle Group. The community's development report describes monitoring and organised viewing, making the return of the birds both a conservation milestone and a new part of village life beside the lake.[3]
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
Mountshannon — Census 2016 settlement footprint — census population
Mountshannon, Clare — Census town, CSO 2006 report
2002–2006: census town
133people · 2006
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
Mountshannon, Clare — Census town, CSO 2006 report — census population
These figures use different area definitions. Read the boundary note before comparing them.
Mountshannon, Clare
Published census settlement populations
200people · 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