placenames.ie
Townland

Ballybrack

A local placename study and the original 1901 census distinguish this Antrim townland from its namesakes.

Recorded locationBallybrack55.09533° N · 6.08058° 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

  • Ballybrack · English · main form

Place & story

The local interpretation of the name

In his study of Layd’s placenames, first published in The Glynns in 1980, Cahal Dallat gave Ballybrack as Baile breac and interpreted it as “the speckled townland”. This is his published interpretation of the particular Layd locality. [2]

Five inhabited houses

The 1901 census recorded seventeen people in Ballybrack, eight males and nine females, living in five inhabited houses. The comparative figures show thirty-two residents in 1881 and twenty-six in 1891, with eight and seven houses respectively. The table locates Ballybrack in Layd parish and Lower Glenarm barony, within Cushendall electoral division. It gives no explanation for this townland’s population decrease. [3]

Geographic information

Place type
Townland
County
Antrim
Civil parish
Layd
Coordinates
55.09533, -6.08058
Mapped area
0.58 km²
Logainm ID
62388 ↗

People & family history

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

1926 census

This year is outside the available dataset’s coverage. This does not indicate a population of zero.

Sources & further reading

  1. Logainm.ie — Ballybrack. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
  2. Place-names in the parish of Layd; The Glynns volume 8 (1980), republished July 2016 · Cahal Dallat; Glens of Antrim Historical Society
  3. Census of Ireland 1901: County Antrim, page 19; published 1902 · His Majesty’s Stationery Office; printed by Cahill and Company, Dublin
  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 2019-06-27. How this page was prepared.