placenamesFenagh
Fíonach
Records of quarrying and Castlefore broaden the parish’s history beyond its celebrated medieval churches.
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
- Fíonach · Irish · main form · non-validated name
- Fenagh · English · main form
Place & story
Millstones from local gritstone
Fenagh’s parish economy drew on several kinds of stone. Samuel Lewis’s 1837 survey records limestone extracted for burning and gritstone quarried at Curnagan to make millstones. He described a landscape of hills, valleys and small lakes, with arable and pasture ground alongside bog. The millstone quarries connect this rural district with the equipment needed to process grain. [2]
Castlefore’s earlier industries
Lewis placed Castlefore within Fenagh parish and attributed its ruined castle to Colonel Coote in the mid-seventeenth century. The remains he described suggested three irregular sides defended by bastions, with part of one bastion still standing. His account also records an earlier furnace for smelting locally obtained iron ore, giving the parish an industrial history beyond its better-known monastic buildings. [2]
A temperance hall site becomes a visitor centre
Fenagh Visitor Centre opened in 2006 on the site of the former Fenagh Temperance Hall. The development company combined exhibition space with a café and indoor play facilities, and organised historical tours. This reuse provided a base for interpreting the surrounding parish while continuing the site’s role as a place for people to gather. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Leitrim
- Barony
- Carrigallen
- Barony
- Leitrim
- Barony
- Mohill
- Coordinates
- 54.02313, -7.86998
- Mapped area
- 39.52 km²
- Logainm ID
- 1480 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Fenagh. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Fenagh parish, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland,1837 · Samuel Lewis
- Fenagh Visitor Centre: About us · Fenagh Development Company
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.