placenamesHospital
An tOspidéal
Buildings on the town’s streets record education and policing alongside the parish’s better-known medieval remains.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- An tOspidéal · Irish · main form · validated name
- Hospital · English · main form
Place & story
From classrooms to a community building
The former vocational school at the Knocklong Road and Emly Road junction dates to about 1935. The architectural inventory recorded its later use as a community centre. Its five-bay front has a central porch and a broad three-part upstairs window, with additional accommodation extending behind. Timber sash windows, moulded surrounds and a hipped roof preserve details of the school building through that change of purpose. The record documents the building’s reuse without supplying a date for the end of teaching there. [2]
A pair of houses becomes a station
The building catalogued as Hospital Garda Síochána Station on Main Street was originally a pair of houses, dated to about 1800. Their adaptation brought a public function into an older domestic frontage. The survey recorded sash windows, stone sills and substantial decorative copings at the ends of the roof. Moulded surrounds and lintel details distinguish the entrances. These surviving features help explain the building’s earlier residential character beneath its later institutional identity. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Limerick
- Barony
- Smallcounty
- Coordinates
- 52.46754, -8.43140
- Mapped area
- 16.2 km²
- Logainm ID
- 1548 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Hospital. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Former vocational school, Coolalough, record21811001 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Hospital Garda Síochána Station, Barrysfarm, record21811026 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.