placenamesMonkstown
Baile an Mhanaigh
Monkstown’s historic parish joined a harbour village to part of Passage West, with schools and charitable institutions serving both communities.
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
- Baile an Mhanaigh · Irish · main form · validated name
- Monkstown · English · main form
Place & story
A parish along the harbour
Samuel Lewis’s 1837 account described Monkstown as a parish of 1,546 acres on Cork Harbour, including part of Passage West. Its landscape combined farmland, wooded grounds and rocky shoreline. A road designed by Robert Shaw wound around the coastal hills, helping to connect Monkstown and Passage with Cork and neighbouring settlements. [2]
Schools shared with Passage
The parochial and infant schools stood in Passage rather than Monkstown village. Founded by subscription in 1836 on land provided by W. Parker, they admitted children from both places; Lewis reported capacity for about 250 pupils in the parochial school. Three private schools provided further teaching, showing how the parish’s educational connections crossed the village boundary. [2]
Subscription and assistance
Lewis also recorded a library intended for poorer parishioners and an Indigent Room-Keepers’ Society, both supported by subscriptions. Alongside the school fundraising, these institutions reveal organised local efforts to provide reading and assistance within the harbour community during the 1830s. [2]
Saint John’s and its glass
William Hill designed Saint John the Evangelist’s Church, completed in March 1832 with a cruciform plan, tower and spire. Later stained glass added other named craftspeople to its history: Charles Gibbs supplied a transept window in 1859, while John Hardman and Company made the 1874 east window depicting the Resurrection and Ascension in memory of Amos Langton Newman. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Cork
- Barony
- Kerrycurrihy
- Coordinates
- 51.85695, -8.34875
- Mapped area
- 6.45 km²
- Logainm ID
- 662 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Monkstown. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Monkstown, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837 · Samuel Lewis
- Monkstown, Church of Saint John the Evangelist, work 60847 · Irish Architectural Archive
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.