placenamesGarryfine
Garraí Phaghain
A contemporary newspaper report places Garryfine at the centre of a large gathering seeking relief in October 1847. Earlier survey notes describe the surrounding agricultural townland.
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
- Garraí Phaghain · Irish · main form · validated name
- Garryfine · English · main form
Place & story
The surveyors’ townland
The Ordnance Survey namebooks described Garryfine as Mr French of Dublin's property, extending to about 1,024 acres. Rough ground and bog accounted for some eighty acres, with the remainder classed as arable. A triangulation station stood in the western part of the townland. [2]
The meeting of 12 October 1847
The Northern Star of 23 October 1847 reprinted a Limerick Examiner account of a relief gathering on Garryfine hill eleven days earlier. The correspondent estimated at least two thousand people, drawn from neighbouring districts. Bugles sounded as people assembled on the high ground near the Croom road. The meeting decided to approach Fetherstone, a magistrate at Bruree, for assistance. At Rockhill, clergy urged the procession to present its grievances to Kilmallock's poor-law guardians and preserve order. [3]
A confrontation over relief
According to the same report, Fetherstone explained that he could not individually assume responsibility for providing relief. The crowd then drove away cattle belonging to him and the Reverend Massy, and later took cattle from parish priest Ryan's yard. Ryan followed the procession and persuaded the people to return the animals. The episode survives through a contemporary newspaper's account of hunger, protest and negotiation, rather than an independently established record of every participant's actions. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Limerick
- Barony
- Connello Upper
- Civil parish
- Bruree
- Coordinates
- 52.41033, -8.73485 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1414140 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Garryfine. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Ordnance Survey namebooks: Bruree parish, Garryfine pp262–263 · Ordnance Survey, hosted by Limerick Local Studies
- Northern Star23October1847, p6: Limerick Examiner account from Garryfine · Northern Star, reprinting Limerick Examiner; Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2017-12-01. How this page was prepared.