placenamesMagherally
An Mhachaire Abhlaigh
Lewis connected parish weavers with Banbridge’s manufacturers in 1837.
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
- An Mhachaire Abhlaigh · Irish · main form
- Magherally · English · main form
Place & story
Weaving beyond the market town
Many inhabitants of Magherally wove linen for manufacturers in Banbridge, according to Samuel Lewis’s 1837 account. He placed this work within a parish of fertile arable and pasture land, alongside some bog and water. Agricultural improvement also had a cost for older remains: Lewis reported numerous forts scattered through the parish but disappearing rapidly as farming advanced. His description does not locate individual weaving households or identify the monuments lost. It records both the parish’s connection with Banbridge’s linen trade and a nineteenth-century observer’s concern about changes to its older landscape. [2]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Down
- Barony
- Iveagh Lower, Lower Half
- Coordinates
- 54.34019, -6.20084 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 65723 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Magherally. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Magherally, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2018-10-22. How this page was prepared.