placenamesArmagh
Ard Mhacha
Two collections in the city record successive efforts to share books, scholarship and objects with a wider public.
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
- Ard Mhacha · Irish · main form
- Armagh · English · main form
Place & story
Richard Robinson’s library
Archbishop Richard Robinson founded the library in 1771, opening his collection of books and fine art to the public. The upstairs Long Room, with books rising along its walls, preserves the setting of a Georgian library. Among its distinctive holdings is Jonathan Swift’s own copy of Gulliver’s Travels, carrying notes in his handwriting. The book supplies a precise literary association through a surviving object, rather than evidence that Swift wrote the work in Armagh. [2]
From a schoolhouse to the county museum
In 1856 the Philosophical Society moved from Abbey Street into a former schoolhouse on the Mall. It established a reading room and developed a museum containing material gathered locally and farther afield. Armagh County Museum opened in the building in 1937 and inherited the Society’s collection. The institution therefore grew from an existing civic collection, while the Society retained a reading room within the museum. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Armagh
- Barony
- Armagh
- Barony
- Oneilland West
- Coordinates
- 54.11826, -6.39402 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 2742 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Armagh. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Armagh Robinson Library: the library and its collections · Armagh Robinson Library
- Armagh County Museum: Natural History and Philosophical Society · Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2021-12-20. How this page was prepared.