placenamesGortin
An Goirtín
Gortin's buildings preserve several layers of local history, from the remains incorporated at Beltrim Castle to the conversion of a workhouse site for Catholic worship.
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
- An Goirtín · Irish · main form · validated name
- Gortin · English · main form
Place & story
From workhouse to church
The official record for St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church traces a change in the use of its Chapel Lane site. The 1854 Ordnance Survey map showed Gortin Union workhouse there. Valuation revisions removed the workhouse entry in 1892 and added a temporary Catholic chapel the following year. The present Gothic Revival church, designed by E J Toye, bears the date 1898 on its tower. Its stonework and stained-glass rose windows remain important features of the building. [2]
Recording the older churchyard
Ann K Robinson's survey of the Church of Ireland graveyard records how the present Lower Badoney church, built in 1856, occupied a slightly different site from its predecessor. She compared successive Ordnance Survey maps to trace the earlier church and school. Her inscription project also documented weathering, lost metal grave markers and stones becoming difficult to read. It preserves a record of the churchyard while explaining the limits of what could still be deciphered. [3]
Beltrim’s layers of building
Beltrim Castle stands north-west of Gortin above the Owenkillew River. Its official architectural survey describes a five-bay, two-storey house with a long rear wing and an extensive yard of outbuildings. Remnants of the earlier bawn survive within that complex, including towers and sections of rubble wall. A short crow-stepped wall also remains beside the main front. The ensemble combines a formal country-house frontage with conspicuous traces of an older fortified site. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Tyrone
- Barony
- Strabane Upper
- Civil parish
- Bodoney Lower
- Coordinates
- 54.71957, -7.23952 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1414258 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Gortin. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church, HB11/16/009A · Department for Communities, Historic Environment Division
- St Patrick’s Church of Ireland, Lower Bodoney: cemetery inscriptions · Ann K Robinson
- Beltrim Castle, HB11/16/013B · Department for Communities, Historic Environment Division
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2012-01-25. How this page was prepared.