placenamesKilranelagh
Cill Rannaileach
Kilranelagh’s hillside cemetery preserves family graves, a remembered funeral custom and a modern history of community care.
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
- Cill Rannaileach · Irish · main form · validated name
- Kilranelagh · English · main form
Place & story
Restoring the cemetery
A local restoration group began caring for Kilranelagh cemetery in 2005. A report published the following year recorded twenty-seven people at the first meeting, fundraising to clear the undergrowth and historical research in archives and libraries. The cemetery includes the memorial to Sam MacAlastair, associated with Michael Dwyer’s resistance after the 1798 rebellion. Its continuing family burials gave the restoration a practical purpose as well as an interest in the past. [2]
The Gates of Heaven
Two upright stones in the cemetery are known as the Gates of Heaven. Writing about his home landscape in 2020, novelist Michael Russell described the local custom of carrying a coffin between them before burial, understood as marking passage from this life to the next. His account records the meaning given to the stones in funeral practice; it does not establish when the custom began. [3]
A writer’s landscape
Kilranelagh also forms part of Russell’s Stefan Gillespie detective novels. In his own account of their setting, he explained that his fictional policeman grew up beneath Kilranelagh Hill, and that the cemetery appears in the series as a place of family burial. The association is a modern literary response to a real landscape, distinct from the historical lives commemorated on its gravestones. [3]
The estate entrance and milestone
The western entrance to Kilranelagh House has a gate lodge incorporated into a curving wall with two carriage gateways, dating from about 1780. Its stepped gable forms part of the entrance screen. Nearby, a milestone records distances towards Dublin and Dunlavin in one direction and Hacketstown, Rathdrum, Arklow and Wicklow in the other. The architectural inventory identifies this small roadside group as surviving late Georgian estate work. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Wicklow
- Barony
- Talbotstown Upper
- Civil parish
- Kilranelagh
- Within
- Kilranelagh
- Coordinates
- 52.95328, -6.66074 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1412682 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Kilranelagh. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Locals uncover the rich history of Kilranelagh, 2 March 2006 · Wicklow People / Irish Independent
- Kilranelagh: inspiration for ancient saga and modern detective series, 7 July 2020 · Michael Russell / The Irish Times
- Kilranelagh House gate screen and lodge, NIAH 16402719 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.