placenamesBalla
Buildings at Legaun and Balla record nineteenth-century church provision and the arrival of a purpose-built bank in the 1920s.
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
- Balla · Irish · main form · non-validated name
- Balla · English · main form
Place & story
What remains of Holy Trinity
Holy Trinity Church at Legaun was begun in 1865 and consecrated in 1867. The architectural inventory attributes its design to William John Welland and William Gillespie, architects to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. Worship ended in 1963 and the church was demolished in 1965, leaving the spire-topped tower. Its contrasting sandstone and limestone bands, pointed bell openings and surviving masonry preserve part of a building whose main worship space has disappeared. [2]
A bank designed in Dublin
John Valentine Brennan designed Balla’s bank in 1926, with construction following in 1926–27. The two-storey building has an L-shaped plan, a projecting end bay and a formal doorway framed by fluted pilasters. Bars protected its lower sash windows. The inventory records its sale in 2006 and renovation for another use in 2008. Its banking origin therefore belongs to the building’s history, rather than establishing that banking services continue there. [3]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Balla. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Holy Trinity Church, Legaun, NIAH 31309013 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Former bank, Balla, NIAH 31309021 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.