placenamesCastlecomer
Caisleán an Chomair
The parish’s educational history survives in the Presentation archive, a former school on Kilkenny Street and an early account of teaching around the collieries.
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
- Caisleán an Chomair · Irish · main form · validated name
- Castlecomer · English · main form
Place & story
Teaching begins in the sacristy
The Presentation Sisters arrived in Castlecomer on 29 June 1829 after the curate, John Walsh, sought a foundation from Kilkenny. The community’s archive names its first three sisters as Lewis Aylward, Angela Feehan and Catherine Aylward. They initially occupied a four-roomed thatched cottage and taught in the parish church’s sacristy. In 1830 they moved into a convent; an adjoining school occupied a former fever hospital and later became known as St Anne’s. [2]
The former school on Kilkenny Street
The building recorded as Thomas Coogan Library began as a convent school after 1879 and may incorporate part of an earlier hospital. Its seven-bay, two-storey frontage has contrasting window shapes: curved heads below and rectangular openings above. A projecting gabled porch marks the entrance. The heritage survey records its conversion to library and office use, retaining the exterior form of an educational building beside the convent. [3]
Parish schools around the collieries
Lewis’s 1837 account distinguished Castlecomer civil parish from the Catholic districts serving it: Castlecomer, Clough and Muckalee. Schools beside the parish church and the chapel of ease received annual support of £100 from Charles Butler Wandesford and £34 from the rector. Alongside an infants’ school, these taught about 380 children without fees. Eight pay schools taught roughly 330 more, and three Sunday schools added another form of instruction. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Kilkenny
- Barony
- Fassadinin
- Coordinates
- 52.83811, -7.17730
- Mapped area
- 87.7 km²
- Logainm ID
- 1272 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Castlecomer. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Castlecomer Convent Papers, IE PVBM 24 · Presentation Sisters Congregational Archives
- Thomas Coogan Library, registration 12301037 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Castlecomer in A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.