placenamesDunmore
Dún Mór
Dunmore's religious history survives in a small ruined church, nineteenth-century parish registers and St Colman's on the mountain slopes.
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
- Dún Mór · Irish · main form · validated name
- Dunmore · English · main form
Place & story
Templemoyle’s surviving walls
The 1940 Ancient Monuments survey recorded Templemoyle Church a short distance northwest of Dunmore village. Its investigators found the ruin on a small, clearly defined rath, with walls surviving nowhere more than four feet high. The building measured 48 by 24 feet externally. They noted that it had been a chapel attached to Dromara church and cautioned that the loose stones around it could not readily be distinguished as building rubble or uninscribed grave markers. [2]
The parish registers
The National Library of Ireland preserves microfilms of registers for the Catholic parish named Ballynahinch and Dunmore, also catalogued as Magheradroll. The surviving baptismal series begins in May 1827 and extends into 1881, while the marriage volume covers March 1829 to July 1864. The library microfilmed originals held in local parish custody. These records document the wider parish, rather than a separate register confined to Dunmore village. [3]
St Colman’s on the mountain
Eric Jones's dated photographic record identifies St Colman's Church on the slopes of Dunmore Mountain. His accompanying account dates its dedication to 1840 and describes its service from Ballynahinch. It also records the removal in 2011 of the neighbouring presbytery, formerly the residence of Dunmore's own priest. The photograph, taken in June 2016, provides a later record of the church after that change to its surroundings. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Down
- Barony
- Kinelarty
- Civil parish
- Magherahamlet
- Coordinates
- 54.35370, -5.92332 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1413238 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Dunmore. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Preliminary Survey of the Ancient Monuments of Northern Ireland,1940, County Down p103 · Ancient Monuments Advisory Council
- Ballynahinch and Dunmore parish registers · National Library of Ireland
- St Colman’s Church, Dunmore,9June2016 · Eric Jones
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2019-10-08. How this page was prepared.