placenamesPortglenone
Port Chluain Eoghain
The parish’s nineteenth-century institutions developed in stages, with distinct Church of Ireland and Catholic foundations and schools supported by several bodies.
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
- Port Chluain Eoghain · Irish · main form
- Portglenone · English · main form
Place & story
The district parish of 1825
Lewis dates Portglenone’s district parish to 1825, when twenty-one townlands were separated from Ahoghill. The Church of Ireland living remained a perpetual curacy under Ahoghill’s patronage. Its church predated the new parish: Bishop Hutchinson had built it as a chapel of ease before 1739 and was buried beneath its chancel. The parish arrangement and the church building therefore belonged to different phases of institutional growth. [2]
Ten public schools in 1837
About 600 children attended ten public schools in the district when Lewis wrote. Erasmus Smith’s trustees supported one, seven belonged to the London Hibernian Society’s system, and two came under the National Board. Three private schools taught around seventy children, while eight Sunday schools supplemented instruction. This mix of charitable, denominational and national provision shows that education already extended through a network beyond the main settlement. [2]
St Mary’s and the later Catholic parish
The Catholic parish became independent of Ahoghill in 1866 under Bishop Patrick Dorrian. Its first parish priest, John MacConnell, promoted a new church to replace the inadequate Aughnahoy chapel. The parish’s published chronicon records the foundation stone on 15 February 1870 and dedication on 10 September 1871. Basalt came from the Largy. MacConnell subsequently completed St Mary’s School in 1875, adding education to the new church site. These dates concern the Catholic foundation, distinct from Lewis’s 1825 district parish. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Antrim
- Barony
- Toome Lower
- Coordinates
- 54.86040, -6.45812 (approximate)
- Mapped area
- 43.62 km²
- Logainm ID
- 63002 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Portglenone. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Portglenone in A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis
- Parish of Portglenone: history from the parish chronicon · St Mary’s Parish, Portglenone
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2021-05-26. How this page was prepared.