placenamesChurchtown
Baile an Teampaill
An eighteenth-century tower and the memories of new schools and a new church mark different stages in Churchtown’s development.
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
- Baile an Teampaill · Irish · main form · validated name
- Churchtown · English · main form
Place & story
Hall’s Barn on Whitehall Road
The Bottle Tower on Whitehall Road is also known as Hall’s Barn. South Dublin Libraries dates its construction by Major Hall to 1742 and records grain storage on its ground floor. Fireplaces on the upper floors suggest that parts of it may also have been inhabited. Stone stairs spiral around the outside, giving the building its unusual profile and the possibility of a viewing function. Its surviving form leaves room for more than one use over time. [2]
A church for the new housing estates
The Church of the Good Shepherd opened on 24 March 1957 amid a rapidly growing residential area. The parish’s 1982 anniversary booklet recalls young families arriving for the ceremony and a building with blue-dashed walls and a red roof, seating 1,100 people. Initially attached to Rathfarnham parish, it became the centre of a separate Churchtown parish on 10 June 1965, with Francis Kenny appointed its first parish priest. [3]
The schools and Berwick House
The De La Salle Brothers established themselves at Berwick House, which the anniversary booklet describes as a former travellers’ rest and later a holiday home for working girls. Their primary school opened in July 1959 with eight classrooms, an assembly hall and 240 pupils. Growth brought temporary classrooms, followed by a permanent extension begun in 1975 with nine classrooms and a library. The changing school buildings followed the needs of the expanding suburb. [3]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Churchtown. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Rathfarnham’s Top 5: The Bottle Tower · South Dublin Libraries
- 25th Anniversary Booklet, 1982: New Churchtown and School History · Churchtown Parish; Phil O’Keeffe and school-history contributors
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2024-06-28. How this page was prepared.