placenames.ie
Townland

Brideswell

Tobar Bríde

Archaeological testing and twentieth-century accounts add civic and sporting history to Brideswell’s well-centred landscape.

Recorded locationBrideswell53.45430° N · 8.09227° WInteractive map supplied by OpenStreetMap.
Recorded place location · Logainm.ie

The name

tobarwell

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

  • Tobar Bríde · Irish · main form
  • Brideswell · English · main form

Place & story

A courthouse reduced to one gable

An archaeological assessment in 2006 recorded a small but useful trace of Brideswell’s civic past. Beside the proposed development site, a house garden occupied the footprint of an old courthouse, of which only the western gable remained. The report placed this site between the village centre and the holy-well complex, with marshy land nearby giving way to pasture. [2]

What the test trenches established

Bernard Guinan’s investigation opened three trenches before a proposed house development near the well complex. Two measured twenty-five metres in length and the third ten metres. All showed a thin covering of topsoil above deep glacial gravel, with no archaeological objects, structures or deposits identified. The result concerns this tested site; it does not establish the absence of archaeology throughout Brideswell. [2]

Football and the modern revival

The pattern’s twentieth-century history included sporting gatherings as well as devotion. Historian Gearoid O’Brien found a 1944 football fixture between St Brigid’s and Taughmaconnell and a 1953 match against St Kieran’s. He traced the religious revival to a 1956 visit by An Realt members from Athlone, followed by Fr Brendan Fitzmaurice’s work in 1957. A local committee also planned the erection of Brigid’s statue. [3]

Geographic information

Place type
Townland
County
Roscommon
Civil parish
Cam
Coordinates
53.45430, -8.09227
Mapped area
1.06 km²
Logainm ID
42356 ↗

People & family history

Census figures refer to the matched historical census area for each year. Boundaries and spellings can change over time.

Sources & further reading

  1. Logainm.ie — Brideswell. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
  2. Brideswell,2006:1714, licence06E0677 · Bernard Guinan
  3. Street Wise – Brideswell,8September2022 · Gearoid O’Brien / Westmeath Independent
  4. Boundary geometry retains its source attribution and licence in the downloadable geographic record. Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2017-12-01. How this page was prepared.