placenamesKildorragh
Coill Dorcha
Kildorragh’s early records describe small farms and household textile work, while Holy Trinity preserves a carefully detailed nineteenth-century church.
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
- Coill Dorcha · Irish · main form · validated name
- Kildorragh · English · main form
- Kildorough · English · main form · local name
Place & story
Farming on church land
The Ordnance Survey Name Books of 1836 describe Kildorragh as church land belonging to the Deanery of Kilmore. Farms ranged from three to fifteen acres, with oats, potatoes and flax grown on light, sandy soil. Bog could be used without a separate rent. The account, transcribed by Cavan Townlands, gives a practical picture of the locality before the Famine: small holdings, variable ground and crops serving both food production and textile work. [2]
Work within the household
The surviving 1821 census, also transcribed by Cavan Townlands, shows how several livelihoods could exist under one roof. Thomas Condron was recorded as both farmer and schoolmaster, while his wife Bridget and adult daughters Mary and Bridget were spinners. Elsewhere, William Condron combined farming with weaving, and Bernard McCabe combined it with shoemaking. These named occupations show a rural community whose work extended beyond cultivation, with women’s spinning repeatedly recorded alongside farming and skilled trades. [2]
Holy Trinity’s stone and glass
Holy Trinity Church was built in 1862 to a design by Welland and Gillespie, architects to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. Its compact Gothic Revival plan includes a nave, chancel, vestry and a southwest tower rising into a slated spire. Carefully dressed limestone frames the openings, and the east window combines trefoil-headed lights with elaborate stone tracery. The architectural inventory found much original material surviving when it recorded the disused church in 2012. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Cavan
- Barony
- Castlerahan
- Civil parish
- Castlerahan
- Within
- Kildorragh Glebe
- Coordinates
- 53.83885, -7.20999 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 127346 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Kildorragh. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Kildorragh Glebe:1821 census and1836 Name Books · Cavan Townlands, transcriptions of historical census and Ordnance Survey records
- Holy Trinity Church, Kildorragh Glebe,40403815 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.