placenamesMagherahamlet
Machaire Thamhlachta
Lewis connects the church’s location with the nearby Ballynahinch baths.
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
- Machaire Thamhlachta · Irish · main form
- Magherahamlet · English · main form
Place & story
A building at the district’s edge
Magherahamlet’s church was placed at the edge of the ecclesiastical district to accommodate visitors to Ballynahinch spa, according to Samuel Lewis. He described a square-towered building erected in 1814 at a cost of £500, paid entirely by the Board of First Fruits. The glebe house belonged to a later scheme: Lewis dated it to 1830 and recorded a £450 gift and a £50 loan towards it. The church’s construction cost and the residence’s grant and loan therefore refer to separate buildings and campaigns. [2]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Magherahamlet. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Maghera-Hamlet, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2019-10-08. How this page was prepared.