placenamesBunnacurry
Bun an Churraigh
Bunnacurry’s history runs from a Franciscan educational settlement to twentieth-century church building and a modern distillery on the island’s business park.
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
- Bun an Churraigh · Irish · main form · validated name
- Bunnacurry · English · main form
Place & story
McHale’s Bunnacurry estate
Archbishop John McHale acquired Bunnacurry from the sale of the O’Donel estate of Newport. University of Galway’s Landed Estates database dates the purchase to 1854 and records 1,226 acres in Achill parish. The townland later passed to the Congested Districts’ Board on 12 September 1908. These transactions place Bunnacurry within the reorganisation of the great west-Mayo estates, as land passed from an older landlord family through ecclesiastical ownership to a public body concerned with rural conditions. [2]
The Franciscan monastery
The Franciscan monastery developed in the 1850s as a Catholic response to the Protestant mission at Doogort. Its surviving complex combines a five-bay, two-storey main block with projecting wings in a U-shaped plan and a slender northern tower. Crow-stepped battlements give the tower a distinctive outline. The architectural inventory also records outbuildings, a burial ground and the shell of a national school dating from 1915. Together these structures preserve the layout of a religious and educational settlement that served surrounding communities. [3]
Saint Joseph’s Church
Saint Joseph’s Catholic Church was designed in 1941 by Ralph Henry Byrne, built in 1941–42 and opened in 1943. The elongated nave and chancel, battered walls and narrow round-headed windows give it a streamlined Romanesque character. Inside, an exposed timber roof and an arcaded choir gallery contrast with the simplicity of the outer walls. The inventory records a Connemara-marble sanctuary dais and a stained-glass Trinity Window. Wartime timber controls affected its construction, linking the village church with the practical restrictions of the Emergency. [4]
A new industry at the business park
Achill Island Distillery and its visitor centre were officially launched on 14 June 2019 at the Údarás na Gaeltachta business park in Bunnacurry. Irish American Trading Company developed the project with support from the Gaeltacht development authority. The opening announcement combined whiskey production with a visitor centre and anticipated employment across both activities. It marked a new manufacturing and tourism use for the village’s business park, adding another workplace to a locality previously associated with religious education and farming. [5]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Mayo
- Barony
- Burrishoole
- Civil parish
- Achill
- Coordinates
- 53.97786, -9.98170 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 36853 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Bunnacurry. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- McHale estate 23 · Landed Estates database, University of Galway
- Achill Monastery, inventory 31305503 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Saint Joseph’s Catholic Church, inventory 31305501 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Irish American Trading Company look to prove the west is truly awake!, 14 June 2019 · Údarás na Gaeltachta
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.