placenamesDesertoghill
Díseart Uí Thuathaile
Lewis recorded support for local schooling and a tradition attached to a stone in the old churchyard.
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
- Díseart Uí Thuathaile · Irish · main form
- Desertoghill · English · main form
Place & story
Schools under several patrons
Samuel Lewis’s 1837 account of Desertoghill lists two schools under the Mercers’ Company and two under the Ironmongers’ Company. The parochial school at Ballyagan was supported by the rector, while another school operated under the National Board. His description also records households combining agriculture with linen weaving at home. School provision and domestic weaving thus appear together in his account of the parish’s working landscape. [2]
A tradition in the churchyard
Lewis described a stone in the old churchyard with two small hollows. Local people, he wrote, regarded them as marks left by Saint Columbkill’s knees while praying. This is an attested nineteenth-century explanation of the stone, rather than evidence that the hollows were formed by the saint. [2]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Desertoghill. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Desertoghill: A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2016-10-03. How this page was prepared.