placenamesCastletown
Baile an Chaisleáin
Also known as Castletown Conyers, this Limerick village preserves a long church ruin, an estate house with a workhouse connection and a well remembered in local tradition.
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
- Baile an Chaisleáin · Irish · main form · validated name
- Castletown · English · main form
- Castletown Conyers · English · main form · local name
Place & story
Fairs and farming in 1837
Samuel Lewis described Castletown Conyers as a village with a dispensary and four annual fairs, trading chiefly in cattle, sheep, pigs and small goods. The surrounding parish combined large dairy farms with tillage, limestone quarries and turf grounds. His account already recorded the old church in ruins and only small fragments of the MacEnery castle, showing that these landmarks were remnants of an earlier settlement by the nineteenth century. [2]
The long church ruin
The ruined church was once the parish church of Corcomohide. The Limerick Diocesan Heritage Project records a dedication to the Purification in 1410 and cites the antiquary Thomas Johnson Westropp’s measurement of a building 120 feet long. Within it is a burial vault belonging to the Harte family of Coolruss. Its considerable length helps explain its prominence among the remains around Castletown. [3]
A house used for poor relief
Castletown Conyers House was a seat of the Conyers family. At the time of Griffith’s Valuation it appears to have served as an auxiliary workhouse, leased by the Croom Guardians from the doctor William Bailey and valued at £25. By 1894 it was again recorded as the residence of Charles Conyers. The house’s changing use connects estate history with the administration of local poor relief. [4]
Lady’s Well and a travelling-well story
Lady’s Well in Castletown has a statue of Our Lady, enclosing walls and steps down to the water. The Diocesan Heritage Project describes worn paths marking the devotional rounds and associates the well with the feast of the Assumption on 15 August. It also records a local legend that the well moved after clothes were washed in it. The story presents the spring as a sacred place whose water demanded respect. [5]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Limerick
- Barony
- Connello Upper
- Civil parish
- Corcomohide
- Within
- Castletown
- Coordinates
- 52.42782, -8.80865 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1414033 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Castletown. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Castletown-Conyers, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837 · Samuel Lewis
- Ballyagran-Colmanswell: Church Ruins · Limerick Diocesan Heritage Project
- Castletown Conyers, property 2511 · University of Galway, Landed Estates
- Ballyagran-Colmanswell: Local Sites · Limerick Diocesan Heritage Project
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2020-06-25. How this page was prepared.