placenamesCloonyquin
Cluain Uí Choinn
The songwriter grew up at Cloonyquin House, a family seat later demolished; the nearby church preserves another part of the district’s nineteenth-century fabric.
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
- Cluain Uí Choinn · Irish · main form · validated name
- Cloonyquin · English · main form
Place & story
Percy French at home
William Percy French was born at Cloonyquin House on 1 May 1854, the third of Christopher and Susan Emma French’s nine children. The festival devoted to his work describes a childhood of drawing, carving wooden figures, fishing and playing games around the house. When he was ten the family moved to Derbyshire for the children’s schooling. His later career combined songwriting, performance and landscape painting, pursuits whose beginnings lay partly in that childhood. [2]
The French estate
Cloonyquin House stood in Boyanagh townland and was a seat of Arthur French by 1786. The University of Galway’s estate research records Christopher French owning 3,701 acres in County Roscommon in the 1870s, with part of the family estate conveyed to the Congested Districts’ Board in July 1906. The family sold the house in the 1950s. Its demolition in the following decade removed the building associated with Percy French’s early life. [3] [4]
St Catherine’s beside the school
St Catherine’s Catholic church, also recorded as Killynagh church, dates from around 1860. Its T-shaped plan has a bellcote over one gable and a porch and sacristy at the rear. Carefully dressed limestone surrounds frame its doors and narrow pointed windows. Stained glass includes a rose window at the chancel. The church stands beside the national school, enclosed from the road by stone walls and wrought-iron gates. [5]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Roscommon
- Barony
- Roscommon
- Civil parish
- Elphin
- Within
- Cloonyquin
- Coordinates
- 53.80530, -8.22770 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1414646 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Cloonyquin. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Percy French: growing up at Cloonyquin and subsequent career · The Percy French Festival
- Cloonyquin House, Boyanagh · University of Galway, Landed Estates Database
- French family estate at Cloonyquin · University of Galway, Landed Estates Database
- St Catherine’s Catholic Church, NIAH 31922001 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.