placenamesKill
An Chill
A church landmark and an unusual nineteenth-century observation at Hartwell reveal different aspects of the parish landscape.
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
- An Chill · Irish · main form
- Kill · English · main form
Place & story
Saint John’s in Kill West
Saint John’s Church combines a compact nave with a three-stage tower and a slender stone spire. The architectural inventory records Gothic tracery, diamond-leaded windows and a porch approached by steps. Its churchyard contains carved memorials from several periods, including stones predating 1700. A granite gateway marks the entrance. The building and its burial ground preserve different layers of parish history, with older memorials surviving around the nineteenth-century church. [2]
Lewis’s account of Hartwell tufa
Near Hartwell, Samuel Lewis described a stream bordered by extensive deposits of calcareous tufa in 1837. He reported that the porous material hardened on exposure to air and was sometimes used for building. His account also noted branching formations he called stalactite. This is a dated record of local stone use and natural-history observation, rather than a modern assessment of the deposit’s condition or an identification of particular surviving buildings made from it. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Kildare
- Barony
- Naas South
- Barony
- Salt South
- Coordinates
- 53.22355, -6.59755
- Mapped area
- 19.6 km²
- Logainm ID
- 1239 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Kill. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Saint John’s Church, Kill West, NIAH11815019 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Kill, South Salt: A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland1837 · Samuel Lewis
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2021-10-29. How this page was prepared.