placenamesCarnmoney
Carn Monaidh
Carnmoney’s churches, aviation experiments and remembered witch case sit beneath a hill now partly protected as a nature reserve.
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
- Carn Monaidh · Irish · main form · validated name
- Carnmoney · English · main form
Place & story
Two long church histories
The Church of the Holy Evangelists was consecrated in 1856, replacing an older church to its east. The parish’s history credits George Chichester Smythe with supporting the new building and connects its dedication with the evangelists depicted in the east window. Carnmoney’s Presbyterian congregation traces its own establishment to 1657 and identifies an earlier meeting house in 1622. These are distinct institutional histories within the same locality. [2] [3]
Lilian Bland’s experimental aircraft
At her Carnmoney home, Lilian Bland developed the Mayfly, beginning with a glider and then adapting her design for an engine. The Ulster Transport Museum places her early trial flights on Carnmoney Hill and distinguishes these from the powered flight at Randalstown in late August 1910. Her work made her a pioneering woman aircraft designer and pilot; the two locations mark different stages in her experiments. [4]
The Carnmoney witch case
In 1807, Mary Butters was summoned to Carnmoney to treat a cow whose milk was believed to resist butter-making because of witchcraft. Three people died during the attempted remedy. Patrick Geoghegan’s biography records that the inquest attributed their deaths to suffocation and that charges against Butters were dismissed at the 1808 assizes. A contemporary satirical ballad and her later reputation as the Carnmoney witch show how a fatal incident became part of local supernatural tradition. [5]
The hill as a nature reserve
Carnmoney Hill became a Local Nature Reserve in 1996. Its mixture of old woodland, grassland and wetland was augmented by a pond and shallow wetland features in 2003. The Woodland Trust and borough council own much of the eastern slope, while the crest and western portion remain privately owned. The hill’s public woodland paths therefore occupy only part of the larger landscape overlooking Belfast Lough. [6]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Antrim
- Barony
- Belfast Lower
- Civil parish
- Carnmoney
- Coordinates
- 54.67772, -5.95334 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1417275 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Carnmoney. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Church history: Holy Evangelists, Carnmoney · Maurice Atkinson, Carnmoney Parish Church
- Who we are: Carnmoney Church · Carnmoney Presbyterian Church
- Lilian Bland · Ulster Transport Museum
- Butters, Mary · Patrick M. Geoghegan, Dictionary of Irish Biography
- Carnmoney Hill · Woodland Trust
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2021-05-26. How this page was prepared.