placenamesOld Town
An Seanbhaile
Old Town’s Clonfad locality connects a nineteenth-century parish chapel with an unusual work of modern stone carving.
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
- An Seanbhaile · Irish · main form · validated name
- Old Town · English · main form
Place & story
A chapel recorded in 1837
Samuel Lewis recorded a Roman Catholic chapel at Clonfad in his 1837 description of Moore parish, alongside another chapel at Moore. This establishes a place of worship here well before the present century, without supplying a construction date for the church now standing. Lewis described the wider parish as agricultural country beside the Shannon and Suck, with limestone available locally. His figures for inhabitants and schools cover that whole parish rather than Old Town alone. [2]
Micheal Cregg’s stone rosary
In December 2000, the Irish Times visited an extraordinary millennium project associated with Oldtown stonemason Micheal Cregg. Working at his local workshop, he had made a rosary some 43 feet long from limestone, marble and stainless steel. Cregg told the newspaper that he wanted to mark two thousand years of Christianity. The report describes help from friends during evening and weekend work. It records discussions about displaying the sculpture at Knock, rather than confirming a completed transfer there. [3]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Old Town. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Moore: A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis
- Stone rosary beads weigh half a tonne, 7 December 2000 · Sean MacConnell, The Irish Times
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.