Freemount's early descriptions centre on its chapel and school. A documented belfry project and later heritage-centre events add detail to that community history.
⊕Recorded locationFreemount52.27704° N · 8.88469° WInteractive map supplied by OpenStreetMap.
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
Cillín an Chrónáin· Irish · main form · validated name
Freemount· English · main form
Place & story
The village in 1837
Samuel Lewis placed Freemount on the Liscarrol–Newcastle road in the civil parish of Knocktemple. His 1837 entry records a constabulary station and a plain, cross-shaped Catholic chapel with an attached public school. The chapel gave its name to a wider religious district. In his separate Knocktemple account, Lewis recorded about sixty children in the national school at Freemount. These descriptions show a small village providing education, worship and services for a broader farming area.[2][3]
A belfry for Saint Michael’s
The Irish Architectural Archive records a new belfry and bell for Saint Michael's Church in 1861. Its source is a report in the Cork Examiner of 17 June that year. The architect is identified only as McDonald of Kanturk, working for the Reverend William Cosgrave. This limited but precise record connects a named parish priest and a local building professional with the church's development. It does not establish McDonald's authorship of the whole church.[4]
Music in the heritage centre
The county's 2012 Culture Night programme included a Freemount Comhaltas session in the village heritage centre, alongside an exhibition of local artists' work. Musicians were invited to participate, placing shared performance at the heart of the event. This documented occasion gives a specific example of the centre's cultural role: a building used to bring music, visual art and local gathering together. It complements the older institutional history preserved in the chapel and school records.[5]
Both counts use the 2016 settlement boundary, allowing like-for-like comparison. CSO supplies the 2022 count on this older boundary for comparison only. The official 2022 Built Up Area has different boundaries.
View population figures
Freemount — Census 2016 settlement footprint — census population
These figures use different area definitions. Read the boundary note before comparing them.
Freemount, Cork
Published census settlement populations
159people · 2016
Settlement boundaries changed during this period. Differences may reflect boundary changes as well as population change. Where a 2011 legal-town-and-environs count is shown, it has not been recalculated onto the 2016 settlement boundary.
placenames