A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
Beannchar· Irish · main form · validated name
Banagher· English · main form
Place & story
Seven arches across the Shannon
Banagher's seven-arched bridge was built between 1841 and 1843. It crosses a boundary between Offaly and Galway, and between Leinster and Connacht. A surviving fragment of the earlier 1685 bridge recalls the long importance of this crossing. The bridge gives the town a direct connection with the opposite bank, while its sequence of arches remains one of the most recognisable elements of Banagher's riverside landscape.[2]
People & connections
Charlotte Brontë's honeymoon visit
Arthur Bell Nicholls grew up in Banagher, where his uncle headed the Royal School at Cuba Court. After becoming a curate at Haworth, he married Charlotte Brontë in 1854; they spent part of their honeymoon at Cuba Court. Following Charlotte's death and the later death of her father, Nicholls returned to Banagher and lived at Hill House. Another novelist, Anthony Trollope, had worked in the town as a post-office surveyor's clerk between 1841 and 1844, at the house identified on the heritage trail as Ivory's House.[2]
Portraits above a wardrobe
Banagher later became the setting for a remarkable artistic rediscovery. Mary Anna Nicholls, Arthur's second wife, found two Brontë portraits above a wardrobe at Hill House. News of their reappearance attracted public interest in 1914, when the National Portrait Gallery acquired them. Branwell Brontë's group portrait of his sisters had been folded, and the damage remained visible. Its preservation in Banagher linked a private Irish household with one of the best-known images of the literary family.[3]
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
Banagher — Census 2016 settlement footprint — census population
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
Banagher, Offaly — Census town, CSO 2006 report — census population
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
Banagher, Offaly — Census town, CSO 1996 report — census population
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
Banagher, Offaly — Census town, CSO 1986 report — census population
These figures use different area definitions. Read the boundary note before comparing them.
Banagher, Offaly
Published census settlement populations
1,760people · 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
