placenamesCloghans Hill
Na Clochánaí
Cloghans Hill’s recorded history links an eighteenth-century house with the changing fortunes of a rural school on the Mayo–Galway border.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- Na Clochánaí · Irish · main form · validated name
- Cloghans Hill · English · main form
- Cloghan's Hill · English · main form · local name
Place & story
Cloghans House and the Lewins
Cloghans House stands in Cloghans Beg, in the civil parish of Kilmainemore. The Landed Estates database records a residence called Cloghan Castle occupied by a Mr Lane in the 1770s and by Mr Lewin in 1786. Henry H. Lewin owned the property outright at the time of Griffith's Valuation. General Arthur Lewin occupied it in the early twentieth century, before moving to Nairobi in the 1930s. [2]
Three successive years of coding awards
Cloghans Hill National School achieved three successive years of Junior Spider awards between 2015 and 2017. Projects included a farm-safety website, work with a Raspberry Pi computer and a group website about the school's science activities. In 2017, when the school had fifteen pupils, four projects reached the finals. The record shows a small rural school participating successfully in a national competition for digital creativity. [3]
A school facing demographic change
An Irish Times report in June 2019 found just six pupils attending the school under principal Iseult Mangan. The account placed its uncertain future alongside the earlier closure of the local shop and post office, and the departure of younger families. Mangan described the advantages of independent learning in a small classroom, while acknowledging that the lack of local children made the school increasingly difficult to sustain. [4]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Cloghans Hill. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Cloghans House,property447 · University of Galway,Landed Estates Database
- Three in a row for Mayo digital school of distinction,19May2017 · Mayo Advertiser
- Ireland’s small schools:Inside the battle for their future,29June2019 · Carl O’Brien,The Irish Times
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.