placenamesAllen
The village’s religious history sits beside the Hill of Allen, where nineteenth-century craftsmanship and stories of Fionn meet.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- Allen · English · main form
Place & story
A Gothic church for the parish
John Sterling Butler designed Allen’s Catholic church for the parish priest, Eugene O’Reilly. Tenders were invited in October 1866, and the Dictionary of Irish Architects records the project in the period 1866–68. A later entry documents a renovation tender in July 1920, under Foley & O’Sullivan, for the parish priest John Kane. These records distinguish the original Victorian building campaign from a substantial later period of care and alteration. [2]
The tower above the village
The nearby hilltop tower, commonly called Aylmer’s Folly, was commissioned by Sir Gerald George Aylmer of Donadea. Work began in 1859 and continued in summers over the following four years. Brothers Lawrence and William Gorry built it; their names appear on its upper landing. Eileen Ryan’s 1963 account describes limestone brought from Edenderry by canal to Robertstown and then carted uphill, with the names of Aylmer’s tenants commemorated on the staircase. [3]
A landscape associated with Fionn
The hill’s connection with Fionn Mac Cumhaill belongs to its legendary identity. Ryan’s account records a summit mound called Suidh-Fionn, or Fionn’s Chair, and a local belief that a large skeleton reportedly found during construction of the tower was Fionn’s. These are attested stories about the hill; they do not establish the identity of any burial or turn the legendary warrior’s residence into an archaeologically verified palace. [3]
The Mass stone and its changing setting
On the hill’s approach, the Allen Mass stone preserves memories of worship during the Penal Laws. A local-studies account traces its successive moves from a reported original position on the northwestern side of the hill, followed by displacement during forestry and quarrying. It also documents a commemorative Mass in July 1987, concelebrated by Bishop Laurence Ryan. The stone’s history includes both the tradition of an earlier refuge and the community’s later acts of remembrance. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Kildare
- Barony
- Connell
- Civil parish
- Kilmeage
- Within
- Ballintine
- Coordinates
- 53.23928, -6.85544 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1418009 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Allen. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Allen Catholic church: commissions of 1866–68 and 1920 · Dictionary of Irish Architects, Irish Architectural Archive
- The Tower on the Hill of Allen, Leinster Leader, 3 August 1963 · Eileen Ryan; reproduced by Kildare Local Studies
- The Allen Mass Rock, 12 November 2025 · Kevin Dowling, Kildare County Archives and Local Studies
- Holy Trinity Church, Allen, County Kildare illustration: based on a Allen Church by James Allan. AI-assisted watercolour and ink adaptation; cream paper margins added, incidental clutter omitted and fine details simplified. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2016-08-18. How this page was prepared.