placenamesRath
An Ráth
Clifden and Adelphi, within Rath electoral division, preserve the history of neighbouring residences and the families who occupied them.
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 Ráth · Irish · main form
- Rath · English · main form
Place & story
Clifden’s changing occupants
Clifden House stands beside Inchiquin Lough. The University of Galway’s Landed Estates project traces its occupation by the Burton family in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: William Wilson recorded Edward W. Burton there in 1786. Lieutenant Colonel Marcus Patterson was resident in the 1870s and was still associated with the house in 1906. [2]
A house with stables and a mill
The architectural survey records a seven-bay house with two storeys above a basement. Its limestone entrance has Tuscan columns and carved rosettes, with a blind niche above. An attached stable range had become residential accommodation by the 1997 survey. The grounds also contained a ruined three-storey former mill, evidence of activity beyond the principal residence. [3]
The Fitzgeralds at Adelphi
Nearby Adelphi, also in Clifden townland, was a house on the Burton estate occupied by the Fitzgerald family. Francis John Fitzgerald lived there in 1814 and held it at Griffith’s Valuation, when the house was rated at £30. Marriage brought it into the Wilson-Fitzgerald family; Brian Blood subsequently lived there in the middle of the twentieth century. [4]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Rath. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Clifden, property 1712 · University of Galway, Landed Estates
- Clifden House, NIAH 20401710 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Adelphi, property 1713 · University of Galway, Landed Estates
- Adelphi House in Clifden townland, Rath district, County Clare, as photographed in May 2015 illustration: based on a Adelphi House by Margaret Barton. AI-assisted watercolour and ink adaptation; cream paper margins added, incidental clutter omitted and fine details simplified. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2012-12-21. How this page was prepared.