placenamesDonaghmore
Domhnach Mór
Near Newry, farming and household weaving supported a parish whose churchyard preserves both an underground monument and a reconstructed medieval cross.
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
- Domhnach Mór · Irish · main form
- Donaghmore · English · main form
Place & story
Weaving for Banbridge
Donaghmore lay on the Dublin–Belfast road, north of Newry. In 1837 Samuel Lewis described its arable and pasture land as generally well cultivated, alongside smaller areas of woodland and bog. Many inhabitants wove linen for Banbridge merchants. At Sheepbridge, monthly fairs brought cattle, sheep and pigs to a settlement that Lewis counted as only two houses. Drummantine and Beech Hill were among the parish’s principal residences. [2]
Schools supported by local patrons
The parochial school stood on the glebe and dated from 1818. The vicar supported it and allowed its master an acre of land without rent. Trevor Corry built and maintained another school at Derrycraw; five private schools also operated in the parish. Lewis recorded the glebe-house as a building of 1786, on land comprising the townland then called Tullagh or Tullynacross. [2]
A cross reassembled in 1891
Donaghmore’s granite high cross dates to the late ninth or early tenth century. Newry and Mourne Museum records its re-erection in 1891 by the Reverend Joseph Davison Cowan with assistance from the Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club. Its narrower head may come from a second cross. The churchyard also overlies a souterrain, encountered during road works in August 1837 and sealed in the 1930s. Weathering makes some of the cross’s biblical carvings difficult to identify. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Down
- Barony
- Iveagh Upper, Upper Half
- Coordinates
- 54.24807, -6.35829 (approximate)
- Mapped area
- 33.97 km²
- Logainm ID
- 65744 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Donaghmore. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Donaghmore, Upper Iveagh, in A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis
- The history of Donaghmore High Cross · Joanne Cummins, Newry and Mourne Museum
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2019-10-08. How this page was prepared.