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 Ladhar· Irish · main form · validated name
Lyre· English · main form
Place & story
Church and graveyard
Saint Joseph’s Catholic Church stands at the centre of Lyre, with its graveyard in the surrounding grounds. IRD Duhallow dates the building to the 1850s. The village also has a national school and belongs to Banteer parish, linking its institutions with a wider rural district. The church and burial ground remain particularly important landmarks for understanding the settlement’s nineteenth-century development and the people commemorated there.[2]
People & connections
Denis Horgan’s resting place
The athlete Denis Horgan is buried in Lyre churchyard. Born in the Banteer area in 1871, he became a leading shot-putter and won the silver medal at the London Olympics in 1908, representing Great Britain. He also worked as a policeman in New York. After returning to Cork he lived in Crookstown from 1909 until his death in 1922. His burial connects Lyre with a sporting career that extended across the Atlantic and to the Olympic Games.[3]
Farming and organised sport
IRD Duhallow’s village account describes agriculture as the principal local occupation until the late 1960s, followed by increasing travel to work in Cork and neighbouring towns. It also records a shared sporting arrangement: Lyre fields footballers, while hurling is associated with Banteer within the same parish. The village’s history consequently involves both changes in working life and organisations drawing their membership from several neighbouring communities.[2]
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
Lyre — Census 2016 settlement footprint — census population
These figures use different area definitions. Read the boundary note before comparing them.
Lyre, Cork
Published census settlement populations
163people · 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