placenamesDenn
Deinn
Crosskeys and Drumavaddy link a farming parish’s nineteenth-century institutions with the formation of Denn GFC.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- Deinn · Irish · main form · non-validated name
- Denn · English · main form
Place & story
A parish across three baronies
Denn extended across parts of Upper Loughtee, Clonmahon and Castlerahan in Lewis’s 1837 account. Most of its land was arable or pasture, with smaller areas of bog and woodland. Slieve Glagh rose in the north and Ardkilmore in the south-west. Crosskeys held fairs for farming stock on 12 January and 17 March. Lewis also recorded a recent ecclesiastical change: five townlands had been detached to help form the benefice of Ballyjamesduff. [2]
Churches and classrooms
Loans from the Board of First Fruits supported the rebuilding of Denn’s Church of Ireland church in 1812 and the construction of its glebe-house in 1817. Lewis recorded Catholic chapels at Drumavaddy and Crosskeys, describing the latter as already old in 1837. About seventy pupils attended the parochial school, while five fee-paying schools taught roughly 290 children. These figures describe the institutions of the nineteenth-century parish, before later buildings and school consolidation. [2]
Two clubs become Denn
Drumavaddy St Matthew’s and Crosskeys united as Denn GFC in 1969, following a meeting late in 1968. The club’s anniversary account identifies Fr John P. Young as its first president and Fr Owen Collins as chairman; Packie Galligan combined the secretary’s and treasurer’s duties. A league victory in 1982 brought Denn its first county-board competition success, followed by a first championship in 1984. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Cavan
- Barony
- Clanmahon
- Barony
- Castlerahan
- Barony
- Loughtee Upper
- Coordinates
- 53.91833, -7.28725
- Mapped area
- 46.93 km²
- Logainm ID
- 374 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Denn. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Denn, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland 1837 · Samuel Lewis
- Denn GFC Club Notes, 22 December 2009 · Denn GFC, published by Hogan Stand
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2026-07-13. How this page was prepared.