placenamesKilmore
An Chill Mhór
The Cavan parish preserves an early church name, a Victorian cathedral and medieval carving whose earlier location remains uncertain.
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 Chill Mhór · Irish · main form
- Kilmore · English · main form
Place & story
The parish in written records
The Placenames Database explains Kilmore’s Irish name, An Chill Mhór, as the big church. It records Keallmor in 1427, a Latin form, Ecclesia Magna, in 1590, and Killimore Parish on the Down Survey. The civil parish extends across Clanmahon and Upper Loughtee baronies. These records identify a long-established ecclesiastical place while also distinguishing its administrative parish from the much larger diocese bearing the same name. [2]
William Slater’s cathedral
The present cathedral was built in 1860 to designs by William Slater, with William Hague as local contractor. Its cruciform plan includes aisles, transepts and a central tower, with a smaller hexagonal stair tower alongside. Dark limestone contrasts with lighter Dungannon sandstone dressings. A funeral porch followed in 1869. The earlier cathedral survives nearby, allowing successive phases of the church complex to remain visible together. [3]
A medieval doorway reset
A Romanesque doorway survives in the north wall of the cathedral’s vestry. Roger Stalley’s specialist survey dates the carving to around 1170 on stylistic grounds. He notes that the familiar claim of an origin on Trinity Island lacks conclusive evidence. The doorway has been dismantled and rebuilt, and its stones are no longer all in their original sequence. Its medieval date is clearer than the details of its journey. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Cavan
- Barony
- Clanmahon
- Barony
- Loughtee Upper
- Coordinates
- 53.96503, -7.41748
- Mapped area
- 68.32 km²
- Logainm ID
- 386 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Kilmore. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Kilmore civil parish: historical references and explanatory note · Placenames Branch; Gaois
- Saint Feidhlimidh’s Cathedral, record 40402505 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Saint Fethlimidh Cathedral, Kilmore, Cavan · Roger Stalley, Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2026-09-19. How this page was prepared.