placenames.ie
Townland

Lacken

Leacán

Excavation revealed a burnt mound, a possible sweathouse and a later mapped water source.

Watercolour and fine ink view along a gravel path to a wooden stile, with a slender white memorial cross and small Irish flag beyond, framed by a large tree.
Illustration, the 1798 monument on Lacken Hill, County Wexford, as photographed in July 2016
Recorded locationLacken52.40133° N · 6.87430° WInteractive map supplied by OpenStreetMap.
Recorded place location · Logainm.ie

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

  • Leacán · Irish · main form · non-validated name
  • Lacken · English · main form

Place & story

A mound and a possible sweathouse

Archaeologist Yvonne Whitty’s report records the discovery of Lacken 4 during construction monitoring for the N25 New Ross bypass in May 2017. Burnt stone and dark soil had accumulated around a pit interpreted as a possible sweathouse. Fourteen stake-holes were found within that pit; the interpretation remains tentative. [2]

A well on the same site

About twelve metres north of the burnt mound, excavators recorded a stone-lined well with a circular opening. Whitty identifies this as the location of a pump shown on the 1902 Ordnance Survey map. The report treats the site as containing evidence from different periods. [2]

Geographic information

Place type
Townland
County
Wexford
Barony
Bantry
Civil parish
Oldross
Within
Whitemoor
Coordinates
52.40133, -6.87430
Mapped area
4.51 km²
Logainm ID
53625 ↗

People & family history

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

1901 census

101People recorded
18Households recorded

Most frequent surnames in this year’s matched records

  • Kehoe 45
  • Quigley 11
  • Kelly 7
  • Lannon 7
  • Redmond 7
Explore the 1901 records ↗

1911 census

No verified place match is available for this year. This does not indicate a population of zero.

Sources & further reading

  1. Logainm.ie — Lacken. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
  2. Lacken 4, 2017:203, excavation E004869 · Yvonne Whitty, IAC Ltd.
  3. Boundary geometry retains its source attribution and licence in the downloadable geographic record. Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors.
  4. The 1798 memorial cross on Lacken Hill, County Wexford illustration: based on a Lacken Hill 1798 monument by Hywel Williams. AI-assisted watercolour and ink adaptation; cream paper margins added, incidental clutter omitted and fine details simplified. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.

Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2026-08-06. How this page was prepared.