placenamesJonesborough
Baile an Chláir
The civil parish’s nineteenth-century description records its creation, church endowments and schools, alongside the contrasting resources of mountain ground and building stone.
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
- Baile an Chláir · Irish · main form
- Jonesborough · English · main form
Place & story
A parish separated from Killeavy
Samuel Lewis’s 1837 account dates the formation of Jonesborough parish to 1760, when it was separated from Killeavy. Primate Robinson endowed it with tithes and glebe in 1789. These institutional dates distinguish the parish from the village bearing its name. Lewis counted 1,598 people across the parish, a considerably larger community than the settlement at its centre. [2]
Church and rectory funding
The same account dates the Church of Ireland building to 1772 and its consecration to 1785. The Board of First Fruits contributed £400 towards repairs in 1812. Four years later, a £450 grant and an £80 loan from that board helped finance the glebe-house. Lewis identified the rector in his own time as Robert Henry and recorded a glebe of just under seven acres. [2]
Schools, mountain ground and stone
Lewis described a parish of approximately 2,186 statute acres, including some 700 acres of bog and mountain. Clay-slate and building granite were local resources. About a hundred children attended two privately supported schools. Catholic arrangements followed a different geography from the civil parish: Jonesborough formed part of the Faughart district, whose chapel stood in the village. These details belong to the landscape and institutions recorded in 1837. [2]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Armagh
- Barony
- Orior Upper
- Coordinates
- 54.09091, -6.36451 (approximate)
- Mapped area
- 8.84 km²
- Logainm ID
- 2760 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Jonesborough. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Jonesborough: A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland,1837 · Samuel Lewis
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2021-12-20. How this page was prepared.