placenamesWhitechurch
An Teampall Geal
A medieval church ruin preserves the history of worship and burial in this small Dublin townland.
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
- An Teampall Geal · Irish · main form · validated name
- Whitechurch · English · main form
Place & story
The abbey’s church
In his history of County Dublin, F. Elrington Ball traced Whitechurch's medieval parish church to the lands of Balgeeth. Early in the thirteenth century it was confirmed to St Mary's Abbey under the name Kilhunsin, or the White Church. A later confirmation acknowledged an agreement with Holy Trinity Priory, which was asserting rights at nearby Rathfarnham. The record places this small church within the property and ecclesiastical relationships of medieval Dublin. [2]
Ruins and a tithe dispute
By the eighteenth century the church was ruined and Whitechurch was in the care of the Vicar of Tallaght. Ball records a 1728 letter in which Archbishop King discussed parishioners refusing to pay the vicar's tithes. They alleged that their landlord, Speaker Conolly, encouraged them; King doubted that explanation. His account preserves a specific dispute over the parish's obligations rather than simply the history of its surviving masonry. [2]
A burial place beyond the church
The architectural inventory records three surviving gables, a north doorway and the small arch between nave and chancel. Two early Christian stones were attached to the east gable when surveyed in 2002. Although the church had been superseded, its graveyard continued to accommodate burials across denominational lines. Carved headstones and cast-iron markers dating from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries surround the ruin, within a retaining wall entered through a granite arch. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Townland
- County
- Dublin
- Barony
- Rathdown
- Civil parish
- Whitechurch
- Coordinates
- 53.27423, -6.28483
- Mapped area
- 0.22 km²
- Logainm ID
- 17480 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Whitechurch. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Parish of Whitechurch, A History of the County Dublin, volume III, ecclesiastical history · F. Elrington Ball, reproduced by Chapters of Dublin
- Whitechurch Road graveyard, record 11216027 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Boundary geometry retains its source attribution and licence in the downloadable geographic record. Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2024-06-28. How this page was prepared.