placenamesWalkinstown South
Baile Bhailcín Theas
Walkinstown South shares in the wider district’s transformation from farmland into a suburb, recorded in local memories and the history of Assumption’s schools.
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 Bhailcín Theas · Irish · main form · validated name
- Walkinstown South · English · main form
Place & story
From houses and fields to a suburb
The Walkinstown Residents Association traces the district’s rapid housebuilding from the 1950s and recalls an older landscape centred on Walkinstown House. The house stood on the site later occupied by the supermarket on Walkinstown Road. The association’s account also follows changing map spellings, including Wilkinstown, preserving a link between the suburb and the rural settlement that preceded it. [2]
Schools for the new neighbourhood
The Religious Sisters of Charity acquired land in Walkinstown in the mid-1950s and opened primary schools in 1958. Assumption Secondary School followed on 12 September 1962, beginning with nine teachers and 94 pupils. Its own history recalls that farms still stood near the school, with Norton’s Pig Farm opposite until around 1985. New classrooms and surviving agricultural land therefore overlapped during the suburb’s development. [3]
A founding principal
Assumption’s first principal was Katherine Bailey Butler, known in religion as Sister Alphonsus. The school remembers her as an English scholar who contributed to interfaith dialogue and ecumenism. She led the new secondary school at its opening in 1962, and the school’s historical account records her death in 2000. [3]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Walkinstown South. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- History of Walkinstown · Walkinstown Residents Association
- The Religious Sisters of Charity: History and Tradition · Assumption Secondary School, Walkinstown
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2024-06-28. How this page was prepared.