placenamesClontallagh
Cluain tSalach
Clontallagh contains the old Mevagh ecclesiastical site, where archaeological records, historical photographs and census returns preserve different aspects of local life.
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
- Cluain tSalach · Irish · main form · validated name
- Clontallagh · English · main form
Place & story
The recorded ecclesiastical remains
The Record of Monuments and Places identifies a group of ecclesiastical remains at Clontallagh, including a church and graveyard, a cross, a standing stone and rock markings. It also lists an enclosure site slightly to the north. The separate entries show that the churchyard belongs to a wider archaeological landscape, with several recorded features rather than a single monument. [2]
The cross and a remembered wishing stone
County Donegal Historical Society visited the old Mevagh graveyard during its Carrigart field day in July 2009. Its report noted the cross's appearance in older photographs, including work by R. J. Welch. It also recalled a wishing stone formerly shown beside the cross, which the visitors found had disappeared. This records an association preserved through photographs, without establishing the details of any former wishing custom. [3]
A small townland in the census
The published 1911 census places Clontallagh in Rosguill electoral division and Mevagh civil parish. Its townland table records fourteen inhabited houses and one hundred residents, comprising forty-eight males and fifty-two females. The entry situates the churchyard within a small residential and farming locality, while the wider electoral division covered numerous neighbouring townlands. These figures belong to the townland, rather than to Mevagh parish as a whole. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Donegal
- Barony
- Kilmacrenan
- Civil parish
- Mevagh
- Within
- Rosguill
- Within
- Clontallagh
- Coordinates
- 55.21591, -7.81145 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1412962 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Clontallagh. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Donegal Record of Monuments and Places1996,sheet16 · National Monuments Service
- 2009FieldDay,Carrigart · County Donegal Historical Society
- Census1911,CountyDonegal,Clontallagh,RosguillDED · Census of Ireland1911,Central Statistics Office
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2012-01-04. How this page was prepared.