placenamesLeckemy
Leic Éime
Leckemy’s church and stone sweat house preserve different aspects of local life, while a published family recollection records an unusual geography lesson.
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
- Leic Éime · Irish · main form · validated name
- Leckemy · English · main form
Place & story
A remembered geography lesson
Jim Mac Laughlin opens his 2001 study of nation-building with his father’s memories of Leckemy’s national school. Master Kane, teaching with few maps available, outlined Ireland on the wooden floor with nails so that pupils could copy it into their exercise books. Mac Laughlin presents this as a lasting childhood memory transmitted by his father, rather than as a surviving classroom feature or a contemporary school inspection. [2]
Saint John’s and its predecessor
Saint John’s Catholic church was built about 1910, replacing an earlier church in the old graveyard across the road. Its long nave has round-headed windows and a projecting entrance porch. The national architectural survey records coloured glass, a timber gallery above the entrance and timber altar furnishings. The church and the burial grounds on both sides of the road form a substantial group within Carrowblagh or Leckemy townland. [3]
The stone sweat house
A small stone sweat house survives on the western side of Crocknameragh Hill. Its circular chamber is roofed by walls that draw inward to form a dome, entered through a low opening beneath a stone lintel. The architectural survey notes that dating is uncertain: it is absent from the first Ordnance Survey map of about 1837 but appears, named, on the later nineteenth-century survey. [4]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Leckemy. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Reimagining the Nation-State, Introduction, page 1 · Jim Mac Laughlin, Pluto Press, 2001
- Saint John’s Catholic Church, Carrowblagh or Leckemy, survey 40901230 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Sweat house, Carrowblagh (Tremone), Leckemy, survey 40901232 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.