placenamesKilmihil
Cill Mhichíl
Kilmihil’s older cemetery and shrine stand alongside a nineteenth-century parish church, while a village monument recalls a fatal confrontation during the independence struggle.
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
- Cill Mhichíl · Irish · main form · validated name
- Kilmihil · English · main form
Place & story
The medieval church and the shrine
The ruined church in Kilmihil’s old cemetery was the medieval parish church. The cemetery also contains distinctive house-shaped tombs noted by Clare Libraries. The adjoining holy well became an established pilgrimage site, and the church ruins, well and shrine underwent repair and renovation between 1934 and 1937. This work preserved the older religious enclosure alongside the later parish church, giving the village two separate places through which to trace its history of worship and commemoration. [2]
Saint Michael’s on Church Street
The present Catholic church of Saint Michael the Archangel was built on Church Street in 1834 and extensively repaired and refurbished in 1926. The community’s parish account distinguishes it from the older graveyard church and the Main Street shrine, which opened in 1937. These are related institutions within the village, but they represent different buildings and phases of devotional life. The continued use of the nineteenth-century church also contrasts with the ruined fabric retained at the earlier site. [3]
John Breen and the April 1920 confrontation
Clare Libraries records an attack on an RIC patrol after Sunday Mass in Kilmihil in April 1920. John Breen, a twenty-two-year-old local Volunteer, and Sergeant Carrol of the RIC were killed; Constable Collins was severely wounded and civilians were injured amid the fighting. Breen had joined the Kilmihil Company when it formed in 1917 and became one of its early officers. A monument in the village commemorates him, preserving the local memory of a confrontation that also caused wider civilian alarm. [2]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Town
- County
- Clare
- Barony
- Clonderalaw
- Civil parish
- Kilmihil
- Coordinates
- 52.72241, -9.31583
- Logainm ID
- 1416529 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Kilmihil. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Kilmihil: Historical Background · Clare Libraries Local Studies
- Saint Michael’s Parish and Church · Kilmihil Community
- Saint Michael's Shrine, Kilmihil illustration: based on a St Michael's Shrine Kilmihil Co Clare by JMTMcGrath. AI-assisted watercolour and ink adaptation; cream paper margins added, incidental clutter omitted and fine details simplified. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.