placenamesListowel
Lios Tuathail
The parish’s nineteenth-century history extends beyond the market town into cultivated land, government road building and the architecture of poor relief.
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
- Lios Tuathail · Irish · main form · non-validated name
- Listowel · English · main form
Place & story
Wheat and limestone
Samuel Lewis described Listowel parish in 1837 as fertile wheat-growing country surrounded by extensive bog and wet ground. Limestone was quarried principally for burning, linking the local geology with agricultural improvement. His account names Tullamore, Gurtinard, Dromin, Grenville, Bedford and Ennismore among the principal residences. Ballinruddery crossed a parish boundary: part lay in Listowel, but the greater portion belonged to neighbouring Finuge. [2]
A government road completed in 1829
A new road towards Abbeyfeale and Newmarket was completed in 1829 under Griffith, the government engineer. Lewis placed it within a wider programme of roads near the meeting of Kerry, Cork and Limerick. Education was also changing: his 1837 account counted about sixty children in the parochial school and fifty in two private schools. A national school with accommodation for a master and mistress was proposed, rather than recorded as already built. [2]
George Wilkinson’s workhouse
The Irish Architectural Archive associates Listowel Union Workhouse with architect George Wilkinson and dates the project to 1845. Its record separates construction costs of £5,980 from £1,276 for fittings. By May 1847 a fever hospital was being erected. The archive also identifies surviving drawings in its Workhouse Drawings Collection, providing a documentary route into the design of an institution established during the Famine years. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Kerry
- Barony
- Clanmaurice
- Barony
- Iraghticonnor
- Coordinates
- 52.45913, -9.47259
- Mapped area
- 33.4 km²
- Logainm ID
- 1112 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Listowel. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Listowel in A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis
- Listowel Union Workhouse: architectural record · Irish Architectural Archive
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2022-02-09. How this page was prepared.