placenamesTamlaght O'Crilly
Tamhlacht Uí Chroiligh
Church stewards, an early nineteenth-century parish church and Churchtown’s Presbyterian congregation shaped the village’s religious history.
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
- Tamhlacht Uí Chroiligh · Irish · main form · validated name
- Tamlaght O'Crilly · English · main form
- Tamlaght · English · main form · local name
Place & story
The O’Crilly church stewards
The parish history connects the O’Crilly name with a family who acted as erenaghs, stewards of church lands, and also supplied clergy. It identifies the church site in Drumnacanon and records its connection with the parish named in Archbishop Colton’s visitation of 1397. After the Plantation, the church became a Church of Ireland place of worship, although Catholic families continued to use its burial ground into the nineteenth century. [2]
The Upper parish church
The Irish Architectural Archive dates the present Upper parish church to 1816, describing a new building near its predecessor with a three-storey, pinnacled belfry. Its record gives the original cost as £1,000 Irish. A second entry identifies work by J. Welland and Son in 1859, including the chancel, seating and pulpit, supported by drawings preserved in the Representative Church Body Library. [3]
Churchtown’s Presbyterian congregation
Churchtown Presbyterian Church is also known as Tamlaght Scots Church. The Bann Valley historical record dates its building to 1836 and places it in Tamlaght village. Its ministerial chronology begins with Andrew Mitchell’s short ministry in 1836–37, followed by Robert Torrens from 1839 to 1876. Subsequent ministries included William James Stronge and Henry Cunningham Mulholland, whose service extended from 1884 until 1928. The record also identifies nineteenth-century baptism and marriage transcripts. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Derry
- Barony
- Coleraine
- Barony
- Loughinsholin
- Coordinates
- 54.89335, -6.58157 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1411726 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Tamlaght O'Crilly. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Our parish history: Tamlaght O’Crilly · Greenlough Parish, Diocese of Derry
- Tamlaght O’Crilly Upper Church: architectural works · Irish Architectural Archive
- Churchtown Presbyterian Church: historical record · Bann Valley genealogy project, drawing on Robert M. Armstrong,1986
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2011-06-27. How this page was prepared.