placenamesTirkane
Tír Chiana
Tirkane’s surviving sweat house records an older communal practice, while school documents preserve episodes from the district’s more recent history.
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
- Tír Chiana · Irish · main form · validated name
- Tirkane · English · main form
Place & story
The turf-covered sweat house
Tirkane’s sweat house is built into the side of a small valley. Beneath its grassy covering lies a rectangular stone chamber with a paved floor, stone lintels overhead and an opening for smoke. A nearby pool supplied cold water for plunging. The Department for Communities records a tradition of group use and suggests an eighteenth-century date, while acknowledging that the structure is difficult to date securely. [2]
A school closure recorded in 1981
Correspondence preserved by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland records Tirkane Primary School’s closure on 15 May 1981 after a threatening telephone call. The school’s honorary secretary notified the Department of Education the following day. The department accepted the exceptional closure and reduced the required operating days for that school year. These surviving letters provide a specific record of disruption to local schooling. [3]
Irish-medium education
An Irish-medium unit was established at St Brigid’s in 2001, with 45 children transferring from Bunscoil Luraigh. It became known as Bunscoil Naomh Bríd and shared a principal and governing body with the English-medium school. Later growth prompted a proposal to increase the unit’s approved capacity. The Education Authority records approval of the development proposal in February 2018, marking a further stage in the school’s bilingual provision. [4] [5]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Derry
- Barony
- Loughinsholin
- Civil parish
- Killelagh
- Within
- Tirkane
- Coordinates
- 54.87695, -6.72238 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1413342 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Tirkane. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Tirkane Sweat House, LDY 032:015 · Department for Communities
- Tirkane Primary School correspondence,16 May 1981 and departmental response, PRONI ED/13/2/549 · Public Record Office of Northern Ireland / CAIN, Ulster University
- Development Proposal 531: Case for Change, background section 1 · Council for Catholic Maintained Schools / Education Authority
- St Brigid’s Primary School (Tirkane): Development Proposal 531 decision · Education Authority
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2011-12-06. How this page was prepared.