placenamesGreenane
Grianán
Greenane's shore preserves the old Templenoe church and traces of a later chapel, within a landscape whose protection shaped a modern development decision.
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
- Grianán · Irish · main form · validated name
- Greenane · English · main form
Place & story
The medieval church at the shore
Old Templenoe church stands in Greenane above Kenmare Bay. The archaeological record associates its builder with Conchur O'Sullivan, active before about 1450, while a 1576 document records the leasing of half its rectory to Thomas Clinton. The church was still in repair in 1615 but had become ruinous by the middle of the eighteenth century. [2]
A chapel beside the ruins
The first Ordnance Survey map shows a T-shaped Catholic chapel against the medieval church's north wall. By the 1895 map it had apparently been removed, leaving the older structure. Tombs and graves later occupied its former footprint. The site's history therefore includes both the surviving medieval ruin and a vanished place of worship known through mapping. [2]
Tourism development and the bay
In April 2006 Anne Lucey reported that An Bord Pleanála had upheld the refusal of a hotel and holiday-home development at Greenane's Ring of Kerry Golf and Country Club. The decision considered rural landscape protection, traffic on the N 70, water supply and potential effects on watercourses. The proposed elevated hotel would have been visible across the bay. The case records the tension between expanding tourism accommodation and conserving this coastal setting. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Kerry
- Barony
- Dunkerron South
- Civil parish
- Templenoe
- Within
- Greenane
- Coordinates
- 51.87047, -9.66988 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1412438 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Greenane. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Kenmare Bay archaeological-sites appendix,29July2025, recordsKE092-034 andKE092-034001, pp12–13 · BioAtlantis, reproducing National Monuments Service records derived from The Iveragh Peninsula archaeological survey1996
- Kerry golf course hotel rejected,18April2006 · Anne Lucey, The Irish Times
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.