Furbogh, also written Furbo and known in Irish as Na Forbacha, links Galway Bay’s coastal history with a country-house estate and a national centre for Gaeltacht development.
⊕Recorded locationFurbogh53.24971° N · 9.20881° WInteractive map supplied by OpenStreetMap.
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
Na Forbacha· Irish · main form
Furbogh· English · main form
Place & story
A harbour for small craft
The Gazetteer of Ireland of 1843–44 described Furbogh as a small boat harbour in Rahoon parish, within the barony of Moycullen. Its account placed it west of Barna on Galway Bay and stressed its occasional usefulness to small vessels. This was a modest coastal landing place rather than a major commercial port. The same entry noted the nearby residence of A. W. Blake. Read together, those details place maritime activity and the landed estate side by side in a contemporary description of the district.[2]
The house and its surviving traces
University of Galway's Landed Estates database identifies Furbogh House in Ballynahown townland. Andrew Blake held the property in fee at the time of Griffith's Valuation, when the house was valued at £34. The family estate had roots in grants to the Galway merchant Andrew Blake in the seventeenth century, with a later generation established at Furbogh. The house itself was demolished in the later twentieth century. Remains of its walled garden preserve evidence of the estate landscape, although they should not be mistaken for a surviving complete country house.[3][4]
A centre for the Irish-speaking districts
Na Forbacha is the headquarters of Údarás na Gaeltachta, the regional authority established in 1980 to support the Gaeltacht's economic, social and cultural development. Its stated aim places the continued use and transmission of Irish at the centre of that work. Enterprise support, employment initiatives and community activity are therefore connected with language policy. The headquarters gives this coastal settlement a role extending well beyond its own immediate district: decisions and programmes developed here concern Irish-speaking communities in several counties.[5]
Both counts use the 2016 settlement boundary, allowing like-for-like comparison. CSO supplies the 2022 count on this older boundary for comparison only. The official 2022 Built Up Area has different boundaries.
View population figures
Na Forbacha — Census 2016 settlement footprint — census population
Na Forbacha, Galway — Census town, CSO 2006 report
2002–2006: census town
175people · 2006
These are the historical areas published in the 2006 census report. Boundaries may differ between censuses and from modern settlements. Legal towns, environs and suburbs are shown separately; none has been combined into a modern settlement total.
View population figures
Na Forbacha, Galway — Census town, CSO 2006 report — census population
These figures use different area definitions. Read the boundary note before comparing them.
Na Forbacha, Galway
Published census settlement populations
356people · 2016
Settlement boundaries changed during this period. Differences may reflect boundary changes as well as population change. Where a 2011 legal-town-and-environs count is shown, it has not been recalculated onto the 2016 settlement boundary.
placenames