placenamesBallynamona
Baile na Móna
Ballynamona near Mourneabbey preserves a church, a historic milestone and evidence of nineteenth-century livestock fairs.
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
- Baile na Móna · Irish · main form · validated name
- Ballynamona · English · main form
- Ballinamona · English · main form
Place & story
A place for cattle and pig fairs
Samuel Lewis recorded three annual fairs at Ballinamona in 1837, held on Whit Monday, 21 August and 5 December for cattle and pigs. His account places the surrounding Mourneabbey parish on the mail-coach road between Cork and Mallow. The fairs gave the settlement a recurring role in the local farming economy, bringing livestock trading to a district where tillage, pasture and mountain land supported different kinds of agricultural work. [2]
Temple Michael Church
Temple Michael Church stands within Ballynamona’s graveyard. Its west tower provides the building’s main landmark, with sandstone pinnacles rising above the roof and a carved limestone inscription on its western face. The nave ends in an unusual bowed apse, possibly added later. Rubble sandstone and roughcast walls, blocked traceried windows and the surrounding gravestones preserve several layers of the site’s architectural and commemorative history. The architectural inventory records the church as disused. [3]
A milestone from the coaching road
A painted stone milestone dating from about 1810 survives at Ballynamona, with carved lettering on its top and three sides. It has been moved back from the original line of the main Cork–Mallow road. This modest roadside object preserves evidence of the route’s earlier importance, complementing Lewis’s account of the mail-coach road and the fairs held in the settlement before railway transport arrived in the district. [4] [2]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Cork
- Barony
- Barretts
- Civil parish
- Mourneabbey
- Within
- Ballynamona
- Coordinates
- 52.08738, -8.62740 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1417279 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Ballynamona. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Mourne or Mourne Abbey, also called Ballinamona, 1837 · Samuel Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland
- Temple Michael Church, architectural inventory 20904204 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Ballynamona milestone, architectural inventory 20904205 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.