placenamesDoora
Dúire
The parish east of Ennis preserves an old church whose surviving details were studied by antiquarians, alongside records of later local institutions.
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
- Dúire · Irish · main form
- Doora · English · main form
Place & story
Seaweed carried up the Fergus
Lewis described Doora under the name Dowry in 1837. Arable and pasture land shared the parish with substantial bog and limestone crag. Seaweed and sand carried up the Fergus were used to manure the ground. He named Moriesk, Wellpark, Castlefergus and Tuoreem among its principal residences, identifying Wellpark with Dr McMahon, the Catholic bishop of Killaloe. The account places the parish within the agricultural and river-based economy east of Ennis. [2]
Two materials in an old church window
Westropp’s 1900 survey recorded Doora’s ruined parish church as roughly fifty-eight feet long. He tentatively dated its side walls and south windows to the early eleventh century. The two lights of the east window used different materials: one had a moulded sandstone head, while the other copied it in limestone. A lintelled north doorway and two corbels in the south wall were further details he observed, recording features of a building altered over time. [3]
Plans for a chapel and school
In 1837 the Catholic congregation used a small thatched chapel, while a replacement was being planned on another site. Lewis also reported that a school supported by Mr Howley had recently closed and that another, organised on a broader basis, was contemplated. His description captures a moment of intended change. It records what parishioners then used and proposed, rather than establishing when the new chapel or any succeeding school actually opened. [2]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Clare
- Barony
- Bunratty Upper
- Coordinates
- 52.83038, -8.91207
- Mapped area
- 23.8 km²
- Logainm ID
- 418 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Doora. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Dowry or Doora, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland 1837 · Samuel Lewis
- The Churches of County Clare, 1900, Doora entry 78, page 147 · Thomas Johnson Westropp
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2021-11-01. How this page was prepared.