placenamesLissatava
Lios an tSamhaidh
Lissatava’s documentary history includes an estate lease of 1666, a changing nineteenth-century population and the establishment of Lehinch School.
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
- Lios an tSamhaidh · Irish · main form · validated name
- Lissatava · English · main form
Place & story
Lissatawe in an estate lease
The National Library’s Westport Estate Papers catalogue identifies a lease of Lissatawe, which it equates with Lissatava. Dated 28 May 1666, it records Theobald, fourth Viscount Mayo, leasing the land to Redmond Purcell of Lissatawe for 21 years. Preserved among the estate’s seventeenth-century papers, this entry places the locality within a documented landholding arrangement long before the national census returns. [2]
Population in the famine decade
The 1851 census records 395 inhabitants in Lissatava, compared with 597 in 1841. Inhabited houses fell from 103 to 74 over the same decade. These are townland totals, documenting a substantial contraction without distinguishing deaths, migration or other reasons for the change. [3]
Lehinch School at Lissatava
Gerard Delaney’s study of early education around Hollymount dates the opening of Lehinch School in Lissatava to 1852 under the national school system. The same study identifies a teacher named Mellett from Lissatava working at Carras in the preceding educational network. These references connect the townland with both the older parish schools and the nineteenth-century expansion of national education. [4]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Lissatava. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Westport Estate Papers, Collection List 78, MS40,893/2(11), page112 · Brigid Clesham and Wesley Geddis, National Library of Ireland, 2002–2005
- Census of Ireland1851, County Mayo, Kilcommon parish, printed page155 · Census Commissioners1852; Central Statistics Office digitisation
- Pre National School Education, Hollymount, South Mayo Family Research Centre Journal1988 · Gerard M. Delaney
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.