placenamesKenmare
Neidín
The Carnegie building’s changing uses and the convent school’s meal provision record practical forms of community support.
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
- Neidín · Irish · main form
- Kenmare · English · main form
Place & story
Library, hall and wartime damage
Kenmare’s Carnegie library and attached community hall opened in 1916. The arts centre’s own history records Irish classes, Cumann na mBan first-aid sessions, concerts and dances there. British troops occupied the building for seven months in 1921, and it burned during the Civil War in September 1922. Reconstruction under R. M. Butler followed in 1924, with the rear hall enlarged and a stage added. [2]
A new arts centre
The reading library occupied the upper floor as community events resumed. After the hall’s later decline, a committee formed in the late 1990s to develop arts facilities. The Carnegie Arts Centre was launched in November 2008. Its history therefore includes an early library, a reconstructed social hall and a subsequent theatre project, rather than one uninterrupted use. [2]
Breakfast in an old coach house
Saint John’s National School’s history recalls the sisters’ temporary accommodation at Rose Cottage after their arrival in 1861. An old coach house became a breakfast kitchen serving 150 children porridge and a lunchtime bun. The school traces that provision into a later custom of offering hot cocoa, maintained until the old building closed in 1983. In 2012 Saint Francis’ and Saint Clare’s schools amalgamated as Saint John’s. [3]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Kenmare. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Our Story: Carnegie Arts Centre Kenmare · Carnegie Arts Centre Kenmare
- School History · Saint John’s National School, Kenmare
- The Carnegie Arts Centre at Kenmare, as photographed in July 2018 illustration: based on a Kenmare Theatre (Carnegie Arts Centre) by N Chadwick. 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 2010-02-11. How this page was prepared.