placenamesReens
Roighne
A former turnpike village on the Rathkeale–Newcastle road, with a surviving country house.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- Roighne · Irish · main form · validated name
- Reens · English · main form
Place & story
The turnpike village
The Ordnance Survey name books describe Reens Turnpike as a small village on the road between Rathkeale and Newcastle, spread across Reens East, Killeheen and Ballinlyny. A tollgate stood there, while the Limerick–Tralee mail-coach road passed through the surrounding district. The same survey records Reens East and West as property of Sir Lucius O’Brien, used for tillage and pasture, with parts liable to flooding. Road traffic and farming thus appear together in this early survey of the locality. [2]
Reens House
Reens House is a two-storey building of about 1810, with five bays and a later projecting end bay. A Venetian window gives particular emphasis to the upper floor of its front elevation. Limestone sills and red-brick surrounds distinguish the openings against the stone and rendered walls. A later conservatory and replacement windows reflect subsequent changes, while the national architectural survey recognises the house’s architectural and artistic interest. [3]
The Hartigan family
The magistrate Patrick Hartigan lived in Reens and is buried in Clonagh churchyard. Two of his sons died during the First World War: Luke Joseph served with the Royal Munster Fusiliers and was killed in August 1917; Edward Patrick, a Royal Flying Corps officer, died that November aged twenty-two. Their commemoration in Rathkeale links this Reens family with memorials beyond the settlement, a connection documented in Mary Kury’s study of local graveyards. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Limerick
- Barony
- Connello Lower
- Civil parish
- Kilscannell
- Within
- Reens East
- Coordinates
- 52.50736, -8.98687 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1166994 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Reens. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Ordnance Survey name-book transcript: Kilscannell parish, pp1187–1190 · Ordnance Survey; Limerick Local Studies
- Reens House, NIAH21902822 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Finding the stories of real lives in the churchyards of West Limerick · Patrick Comerford, reviewing Mary Kury, In Loving Memory
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2017-12-01. How this page was prepared.