placenamesBallycowan
Baile Mhic Comhainn
Lewis recorded a former bleach-green workforce alongside a recently established distillery.
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 Mhic Comhainn · Irish · main form · validated name
- Ballycowan · English · main form
Place & story
Textiles and distilling
Durrow parish lay chiefly in Ballycowan, with a portion across the county boundary in Westmeath’s Moycashel barony. Samuel Lewis’s 1837 account describes linen manufacture there in the past tense, including an extensive bleach-green belonging to Mr Armstrong where about fifty people had worked. In contrast, he described a distillery on the Silver River as recently established. The account places changing industries within the parish without supplying the bleach-green’s closure date or identifying its workforce with the newer distillery. [2]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Ballycowan. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Durrow: 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.