placenamesInver
Inbhear
Kilmacreddan and Port preserve evidence of agricultural processing, maritime enterprise and later underwater investigation within Inver electoral division.
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
- Inbhear · Irish · main form
- Inver · English · main form
Place & story
The kiln at Kilmacreddan
A circular lime kiln at Kilmacreddan dates from about 1860. Its builders used rubble stone and set it into a slope, allowing limestone to be loaded from the higher ground while the fire was tended through the front opening. Burning produced lime for agricultural and building uses. The architectural inventory notes that circular kilns are less usual than square examples, although several occur in this part of Donegal. [2]
Thomas Nesbitt’s fishery at Port
Maritime archaeologist Martin McGonigle identifies Port, Inver, as the location of Thomas Nesbitt's eighteenth-century whale-rendering plant. His study connects the shore-based fishery with Nesbitt's invention of a swivel-mounted harpoon gun. This was an unusual undertaking in an industry whose better-known European operations worked in northern waters. The published abstract establishes the association; it does not provide a complete chronology of the enterprise. [3]
An underwater investigation in 2009
A proposed pier development and dredging scheme prompted an underwater assessment at Port in January 2009. Eoghan Kieran's report describes a stone-and-concrete pier beside a sandy beach, with a sandy approach channel bordered by rock and gravel. Neither the visual inspection nor twelve metal-detector contacts revealed archaeological material in the surveyed area. That limited result does not establish the absence of remains elsewhere around Port. [4]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Inver. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Kilmacreddan lime kiln, NIAH 40909824 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Oil and Water: eighteenth-century whale and basking-shark fisheries of Donegal Bay, abstract · Martin McGonigle; International Journal of Nautical Archaeology
- 2009:211, Port, Inver, underwater assessment · Eoghan Kieran; Excavations.ie
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2024-05-09. How this page was prepared.