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
Cill an Dísirt· Irish · main form · validated name
Killadysert· English · main form
Kildysart· English · main form · local name
Place & story
The quay and the Limerick trade
Samuel Lewis’s 1837 description gives Kildysart about sixty houses and a Wednesday market. Boats carried pigs, grain, butter and other farm produce to Limerick, returning with groceries and building materials. He records an application for public aid to improve the quay, and notes that vessels of 105 tons had loaded there. The village’s importance depended on its relationship with the water and its agricultural hinterland, rather than on the much larger population Lewis gives for the whole parish.[2]
Churches and a writer’s grave
Clare Libraries identifies the old church by its substantial structure and square western tower. The writer Frances Marcella O’Brien, known as Attie O’Brien, is buried in its graveyard beneath a white marble Celtic cross. Her books include Won by Worth and From Dawn to Darkness. The same local heritage account dates Saint Michael’s Catholic church to 1829–31, while distinguishing the separate Church of Ireland church of 1812, demolished in 1951.[3]
People & connections
Denis McCarthy seeks his wages
A file in the Chief Secretary’s papers records labourer Denis McCarthy’s effort to recover unpaid wages in 1831–32. McCarthy complained that proceedings at Kildysart and Kilrush had not secured justice against Martin McMahon. The surviving correspondence includes a legal opinion supporting his claim and a Dublin Castle reply directing the magistrates to prepare the necessary conviction and warrant. The archive preserves an individual worker’s struggle behind the village’s commercial and administrative 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
Kildysart — 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
Kildysart, Clare — 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
Kildysart, Clare — 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
Kildysart, Clare — Census town, CSO 1986 report — census population
These figures use different area definitions. Read the boundary note before comparing them.
Kildysart, Clare
Published census settlement populations
386people · 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
