placenamesStraffan
Teach Srafáin
An eighteenth-century newspaper notice and the church’s surviving fabric document Catholic worship beside the village road.
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
- Teach Srafáin · Irish · main form
- Straffan · English · main form
Place & story
A chapel finished in 1788
The Dictionary of Irish Architects cites Faulkner’s Dublin Journal for August 1788, announcing that a Catholic chapel had just been completed at Straffan. The notice credited its entire cost to a local estate owner named Henry. The dictionary tentatively identifies him as Hugh Henry of Lodge Park; that fuller identification remains uncertain. The same research records restoration and a new altar in 1913–1915, drawing on the Clonliffe College archive. [2]
A T-shaped church on the corner
Saint Brigid’s occupies a corner site, with transepts extending from its short nave to form a T-shaped plan. The architectural inventory dates the church to 1786–1788 and the gateways to about 1860. Those entrances combine round stone piers with wrought-iron gates and railings. Inside, the survey recorded carved wooden Stations of the Cross, plasterwork around the openings, ceiling rosettes and Gothic marble altar furniture. These features document successive decoration of the older chapel. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Kildare
- Barony
- Salt North
- Coordinates
- 53.31600, -6.62471
- Mapped area
- 9.53 km²
- Logainm ID
- 1227 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Straffan. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Straffan, Church of Saint Brigid (RC), work55196 · Irish Architectural Archive, Dictionary of Irish Architects
- Saint Brigid’s Catholic Church, record11809014 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2021-10-29. How this page was prepared.