placenamesTahilla
Tathuile
Tahilla’s chapel remains, nineteenth-century church and changing school provision record how community institutions have moved and developed within the district.
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
- Tathuile · Irish · main form · validated name
- Tahilla · English · main form
Place & story
The earlier chapel
The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage records the remains of a Catholic chapel in Tahilla dating to about 1775. It was a small stone building on a T-shaped plan, with a transept projecting to the northeast. The inventory describes it as already ruinous in 1895–96 and mostly collapsed at the time of its survey, distinguishing these remains from the later church at Tahilla Bridge. [2]
St Patrick’s and its renovation
St Patrick’s Church was built in 1873 to replace the church in Old Tahilla village. The parish history records substantial renovation in 1958–59: windows were donated, the floor tiled, new Stations of the Cross installed and the exterior given marble dashing. Local volunteers cleared trees and roots and built a wall around the grounds. The same account recalls a creamery collection point outside the church gate, linking the site with everyday agricultural life. [3]
A school serving neighbouring communities
Scoil Eoin opened in 1967 after the closure of Blackwater Bridge and Direenanave national schools. Patrick Egan donated its site; Maura Nash was principal and Mary Hayes her assistant. An extension begun in 2008 required a temporary move to the Sneem Hotel during spring 2009, before pupils returned to enlarged accommodation. The school’s next major institutional change came in 2019, when it transferred from diocesan patronage to Kerry Education and Training Board and became Tahilla Community National School. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Kerry
- Barony
- Dunkerron South
- Civil parish
- Kilcrohane
- Within
- Tahilla
- Coordinates
- 51.82295, -9.84221 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1412538 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Tahilla. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Tahilla Catholic Chapel, NIAH 21310001 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- St Patrick’s Church, Tahilla: parish history · Sneem Catholic Parish
- History of Primary Education in Tahilla · Tahilla Community National School
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.