placenamesMeenbannad
Mín Beannaid
Known to railway passengers as Kincasslagh Road, Meenbannad connects the Burtonport line’s surviving landscape with the history of the Cope.
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
- Mín Beannaid · Irish · main form · validated name
- Meenbannad · English · main form
Place & story
Kincasslagh Road station
Meenbannad’s station was officially called Kincasslagh Road, a name preserved alongside its local identity in the Old Railway Walk guide. It belonged to the railway linking Burtonport and Letterkenny between 1903 and 1940. The former station forms the inland end of the walk from Burtonport harbour; surviving gatehouses, cuttings and embankments along the route help explain how the railway crossed this landscape. [2]
An ambush recalled
A Bureau of Military History witness statement describes hurried preparations for a train ambush at Meenbanad in January 1921. According to this account, Peadar O’Donnell alerted the column to a troop train travelling towards Burtonport. The men were driven to Dungloe, where Joe Sweeney and Anthony McGinley had local IRA members assembled, before moving towards a cutting near the station. The recollection documents the railway’s military importance as well as its transport role. [3]
The Meenbanad Cope
The Templecrone Co-operative Agricultural Society, usually known as the Cope, opened a Meenbanad branch in 1914. The society’s own chronology records its closure in 1972. This gives the locality a long association with the co-operative founded in 1906 under Paddy Gallagher’s leadership, whose trading network extended through the Rosses. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Donegal
- Barony
- Boylagh
- Civil parish
- Templecrone
- Within
- Rutland
- Within
- Meenbannad
- Coordinates
- 54.98191, -8.37490 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1413090 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Meenbannad. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- The Old Railway Walk: Burtonport to Meenbannad · Arranmore Blueway / local walking-trail guide
- Bureau of Military History witness statement WS 0763, page 13: Meenbanad train ambush · Bureau of Military History / Military Archives
- History of the Cope · Templecrone Co-operative Agricultural Society
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2011-09-23. How this page was prepared.