placenamesBrierfield
An Driseachán
A ruined house, nineteenth-century estate sales and a school sustained by local effort provide distinct threads in Brierfield’s history.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- An Driseachán · Irish · main form · validated name
- Brierfield · English · main form
Place & story
The Burned House
Brierfield House, known locally as the Burned House, stands in the Moylough-parish townland of Brierfield, east of the settlement’s approximate centre. The 1838 Ordnance Survey map recorded a larger complex than survives. Local researcher Jimmy Laffey describes a remaining gable 24 feet wide and foundations indicating a49-foot-long building. An upper window suggests dormer accommodation. Beside the fireplace, a second opening connects with the main chimney flue; Laffey interprets it cautiously as a possible oven. The surviving masonry records the house’s arrangement, although its burning date is not established. [2]
The estate changes hands
Brierfield featured in the nineteenth-century court sales that broke up indebted estates. University of Galway’s Landed Estates database records Dublin solicitor Thomas Davies advertising 140 acres at Briarsfield in Moylough parish and Tiaquin barony in June 1850. Thomas Henry Davies later offered parts of his estate for sale in 1873 and 1877. Brierfield was sold to Samuel Nulty and George H. Pentland in November 1877. These notices place the locality within the changing ownership of the Davies family’s wider Galway property. [3]
A school built on local support
Brierfield National School opened in 1892. Its refurbishment in 2004–06 was funded by the Department of Education, but that grant did not include a hall. The school community raised the extra money, donated building materials and supplied labour without charge. Mary Hanafin, then Minister for Education, opened the refurbished school and new hall in June 2006. Another classroom followed in 2007, an autism class opened in 2016, and the community funded the purchase of a playing field in 2019. The school’s history documents successive generations investing in a shared local institution. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Galway
- Barony
- Tiaquin
- Civil parish
- Moylough
- Within
- Brierfield
- Coordinates
- 53.46222, -8.66254 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1413455 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Brierfield. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Brierfield House/Burned House, 9 June 2025 · Jimmy Laffey, Skehana & District Heritage
- Davies (Kentstown), estate 1091 · Landed Estates database, University of Galway
- Brierfield National School: Our Journey Through Time · Brierfield National School
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2012-01-11. How this page was prepared.