placenames.ie
Population centre

Castlecat

Caiseal Cait

Castlecat, also written Castlecatt, has a distinctive history of basket making and local employment linked to the Denny family.

Watercolour and fine ink illustration of Castlecat Orange Hall.
Illustration, Castlecat Orange Hall
Recorded locationCastlecat55.17101° N · 6.50894° WInteractive map supplied by OpenStreetMap.
Approximate recorded location · Logainm.ie

The name

caisealstone ring-fort

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

  • Caiseal Cait · Irish · main form · validated name
  • Castlecat · English · main form
  • Castlecatt · English · main form · local name

Place & story

Craft work at the Basket House

In the early twentieth century, Mrs Denny established a cottage industry at Castlecatt’s Basket House. Local workers made baskets and other crafts for sale around the district. Apprentices travelled to firms in England to learn skills they could bring home to the north coast. [2]

People & connections

A working life in photographs

The family photographs preserved by the Uncharted Histories project show Alec “Aky” Walker, who worked as Mrs Denny’s chauffeur, cutting bulrushes from a small flat-bottomed boat to supply the cottage industry. Two of his daughters also worked for Mrs Denny. The collection records the family’s part in this local enterprise during the 1920s and 1930s. [2]

The neighbouring post office

The Castlecat post office stood in Ballylough Beg. Local memories recorded in the Ballylough history recall children buying sweets there on their journeys to school; Mamie McKendry was postmistress in 1928. [3]

Geographic information

Place type
Population centre
County
Antrim
Civil parish
Billy
Coordinates
55.17101, -6.50894 (approximate)
Logainm ID
62025 ↗

Sources & further reading

  1. Logainm.ie — Castlecat. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
  2. Castlecatt Cottage Industries, Aky Walker · Causeway Coast and Glens Heritage Trust; NI Community Heritage Archive
  3. Ballylough local history: Castlecat Post Office and the Basket House, pages 88–89 · Ballylough local history project; NI Community Heritage Archive
  4. Castlecat Orange Hall illustration: based on a Castlecat Orange Hall by Kenneth Allen. AI-assisted watercolour and ink adaptation; cream paper margins added, incidental clutter omitted and fine details simplified. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.

Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2021-05-26. How this page was prepared.