placenamesRathkeale
Ráth Caola
Lewis recorded machinery, milling capacity and employment at Castle Matrix in 1837.
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
- Ráth Caola · Irish · main form · validated name
- Rathkeale · English · main form
Place & story
Water power and a hundred workers
The flour mill at Castle Matrix, called Castle Matras by Samuel Lewis, drew its power from the River Deel. In 1837 he credited proprietor J. Southwell Brown with equipping it with improved machinery. Lewis gave an annual grinding capacity of twenty thousand barrels of wheat and reported employment for a hundred people. Capacity is not the same as recorded output: the entry does not say that the mill processed that full quantity in a particular year. [2]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Limerick
- Barony
- Connello Lower
- Coordinates
- 52.50289, -8.93175
- Mapped area
- 50.84 km²
- Logainm ID
- 1588 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Rathkeale. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Rathkeale: A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.