placenamesCarrick
An Charraig
The Westmeath parish beside Lough Ennell appears in nineteenth-century accounts of rural education and later archaeological testing around Carrickbridge.
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
- An Charraig · Irish · main form · non-validated name
- Carrick · English · main form
Place & story
The lakeside parish in 1837
Samuel Lewis described Carrick as a parish of 2,115 statute acres, bounded by Lough Ennell on the north and west. Most land was under tillage, with little bog, and the ground rose sharply above the lake. His account placed 576 inhabitants in this rural parish and named Carrick and Robinstown as its principal residences. These figures describe the parish in 1837, rather than a population count for a village. [2]
A hedge school and divided church districts
Lewis recorded a hedge school teaching about thirty children. Ecclesiastically, Carrick was a rectory within the Church of Ireland union of Moylisker, while its Catholic population belonged partly to Fartullagh and partly to Mullingar. He also noted an old church near Carrick, castle remains near Robinstown and numerous raths. The school and church divisions show how local institutions could serve communities across different parish arrangements. [2]
Evidence beneath the road corridor
Testing for the N 52 Carrickbridge–Clonfad road scheme in September 2010 identified a curved gully at Carrick 1 and several patches of fire-reddened clay at Carrick 2,4 and 5. The gully was provisionally interpreted as possible habitation evidence. These were findings from the testing stage, ahead of planned excavation, and the report does not establish a date for those features. They should therefore be distinguished from the dated rural snapshot supplied by Lewis. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Westmeath
- Barony
- Fartullagh
- Coordinates
- 53.44892, -7.36969
- Mapped area
- 13.32 km²
- Logainm ID
- 2450 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Carrick. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Carrick, Fartullagh, Westmeath: A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis
- 2010:666: N 52 Carrickbridge to Clonfad testing · Yvonne Whitty, Irish Archaeological Consultancy Ltd., Excavations.ie
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2021-10-29. How this page was prepared.