A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
An Cabhán· Irish · main form · validated name
Cavan· English · main form
Place & story
A landscape that crosses borders
Cavan County Council describes the Cuilcagh Lakelands Geopark as spanning Cavan and Fermanagh, with lakes, rivers, caves, drumlins and upland cliffs. The geological landscape does not stop at the county line. That is a useful starting point for understanding neighbouring places: a modern boundary can divide a continuous landform and leave closely connected communities in different administrative systems. The geopark is one part of the county’s geography, not a synonym for all Cavan.[3]
Breifne and the O’Reilly country
Lewis’s 1837 history distinguishes eastern Breifne, associated largely with Cavan, from western Breifne in Leitrim. It records several spellings, including Breffny and Brenny, and explains Cavan’s county name by reference to its chief town. Those regional forms can appear in historical writing without identifying a single civil parish. The story of the O’Reilly chiefs helps locate political authority, but neither the regional label nor the surname alone establishes an individual family’s descent.[2]
Small units within a county
The directory describes the formation of the county and the division of land into baronies, including the historical use of poles as units in land descriptions. Such terminology deserves to be preserved before it is translated into a modern address. For family research, identify townland, parish and source date, then distinguish a county-wide history from a record of a particular property. A lakeside location or Cavan postal address may connect a household with a market town without placing it inside that town.[2]
Figures cover the whole county including its cities. CSO recommends this series for long-term comparison, although minor boundary changes have occurred.
View population figures
County Cavan, including its cities — census population
placenames