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
Béal Átha Conaill· Irish · main form · validated name
Ballyconnell· English · main form
Place & story
Folklore & tradition
The pursuit of Conall Cernach
Patrick Weston Joyce recorded a tradition linking Ballyconnell with the death of Conall Cernach, the warrior of the Ulster tales. In this story, Conall spends his old age at Cruachan in Connacht. After killing Ailill with a javelin, he is pursued eastwards by the men of Connacht. They catch and kill him at the river crossing where Ballyconnell stands. Joyce noted that the story remained known locally, connecting the familiar ford with the distant world of the heroic sagas.[2]
A defended plantation settlement
Lewis's 1837 account describes the town's development around a plantation grant to Captain Culme and Walter Talbot. By Pynnar's survey of 1619, their settlement had a substantial defensive enclosure: a bawn measuring a hundred feet square, with two flanking towers, and a three-storey castle. These details show the military planning behind the early settlement. Lewis also counted 453 inhabitants in the nineteenth-century market and post-town, providing a later snapshot of a community whose importance centred on its crossing and local trade.[3]
An ambitious link between two rivers
The Ballinamore and Ballyconnell Canal opened in 1860, completing a connection between the Shannon and Erne systems. Construction had begun in 1847 under engineer John MacMahon, following William Mulvany's investigation of a route in 1838. Commercial use proved disappointing: the authority's history records only eight boats paying tolls during the next decade. Its eventual revival gave Ballyconnell a very different relationship with the waterway, as the restored Shannon–Erne navigation reopened in 1994 for a new era of boating.[4]
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
Ballyconnell — Census 2016 settlement footprint — census population
Ballyconnell, Cavan — Census town, CSO 2006 report
2002–2006: census town
747people · 2006
These are the historical areas published in the 2006 census report. Boundaries may differ between censuses and from modern settlements. Legal towns, environs and suburbs are shown separately; none has been combined into a modern settlement total.
View population figures
Ballyconnell, Cavan — Census town, CSO 2006 report — census population
Ballyconnell, Cavan — Census town, CSO 1996 report
1991–1996: census town
433people · 1996
These are the historical areas published in the 1996 census report. Boundaries may differ between censuses and from modern settlements. Legal towns, environs and suburbs are shown separately; none has been combined into a modern settlement total.
View population figures
Ballyconnell, Cavan — Census town, CSO 1996 report — census population
Ballyconnell, Cavan — Census town, CSO 1986 report
1981–1986: census town
466people · 1986
Figures cover the historical town area printed in the 1986 report. Boundaries may have changed between censuses. Legal town, environs and suburb totals remain separate and differ from modern settlement boundaries.
View population figures
Ballyconnell, Cavan — Census town, CSO 1986 report — census population
These figures use different area definitions. Read the boundary note before comparing them.
Ballyconnell, Cavan
Published census settlement populations
1,105people · 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