placenamesInishlounaght
Inis Leamhnachta
At Marlfield, reused masonry preserves fragments of Inishlounaght’s medieval monastery.
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
- Inis Leamhnachta · Irish · main form
- Inishlounaght · English · main form
Place & story
A medieval doorway
The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture records Inishlounaght as a daughter house of Mellifont, founded in 1147–1148 and transferred to Monasteranenagh in 1151. It dates the surviving doorway’s mouldings and scalloped capitals to about 1180–1200. The doorway has been reset inside the west wall of the later parish church at Marlfield. [2]
St Patrick’s and its boundary wall
St Patrick’s Church was built in 1818 to Thomas Tinsley’s design. The national architectural inventory records its three-stage tower and medieval stones incorporated into the building, including a grave slab forming part of a threshold. The surviving church occupies the abbey site. [3]
A discovery in 2018
Archaeologist Neil Jackman spotted a decorated medieval stone in the church’s boundary wall while walking his dog in 2018. His published account leaves its original function uncertain: it may have belonged to a grave slab or another architectural feature. The fragment was subsequently entered in the Archaeological Survey of Ireland. [4]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Inishlounaght. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Marlfield (Inishlounaght), report 14918 · Tessa Garton, Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland
- Saint Patrick’s Church (Inishlounaght), record 22112014 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Hidden in Plain Sight — a Medieval Architectural Fragment at Marlfield, 5 May 2020 · Neil Jackman
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2009-04-28. How this page was prepared.