placenamesKillowen
Cill Eoin
Killowen’s history includes Gerd Hay-Edie’s hand-weaving workshop and a nineteenth-century church overlooking the lough.
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
- Cill Eoin · Irish · main form · validated name
- Killowen · English · main form
Place & story
Gerd Hay-Edie’s workshop
Norwegian designer Gerd Hay-Edie settled in Ireland in 1947 and had established a workshop at Killowen by 1949. Her initial plan was to design fabrics for machine production elsewhere. When she could not find suitable manufacturing, she trained local farmers’ children to weave the designs by hand. The history preserved by Mourne Textiles records the importing of Norwegian looms and machinery, and a loom made to her specifications by a local coffin maker. [2]
Connections with furniture and fashion
The workshop developed links far beyond the Mournes. In 1951 Hay-Edie’s rugs accompanied Robin Day’s furniture at the Milan Triennale and received a silver medal. Her fabrics subsequently appeared on Day’s furniture for Hille. Terence Conran commissioned designs in 1954, while Sybil Connolly’s work with her from 1956 helped bring her tweeds into fashion collections. These collaborations made the Killowen workshop part of a wider network of twentieth-century design. [2]
The Church of the Sacred Heart
Richard Hynes designed the Church of the Sacred Heart, begun in April 1870 beside its predecessor of 1826. The Irish Architectural Archive records a cruciform Gothic building, an Italian marble altar supplied by Chapman and Son of Dublin, and an east window by Mayer of Munich. John Valentine Brennan later oversaw restoration and renovation in 1920–22. The church belongs to the wider Killowen district along Carlingford Lough. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Down
- Barony
- Iveagh Upper, Upper Half
- Civil parish
- Kilbroney
- Coordinates
- 54.07032, -6.18197 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 130108 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Killowen. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Our History and The Birth of the Workshop · Mourne Textiles
- Church of the Sacred Heart, Killowen: works record 53831 · Irish Architectural Archive
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2019-10-08. How this page was prepared.