placenamesMothell
Maothail
Lewis described underground rooms and stalactites in his 1837 parish account.
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
- Maothail · Irish · main form · validated name
- Mothell · English · main form
Place & story
An underground landscape
Samuel Lewis placed Dunmore Cave within Mothell parish in 1837, with its entrance on a hillside south of the church. His description follows a large first chamber into another room through a narrow passage, with winding routes continuing beyond. He identified limestone rock, water percolating through the roof and stalactites revealed by visitors’ torches. The account also mentions a stream inside the cavern, preserving a nineteenth-century description of its underground setting. [2]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Kilkenny
- Barony
- Fassadinin
- Barony
- Gowran
- Coordinates
- 52.75641, -7.17992
- Mapped area
- 28.65 km²
- Logainm ID
- 1337 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Mothell. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Mothell, Kilkenny, 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.