placenamesRathmullan
Ráth Maoláin
This County Down parish includes the headland where a modest white lighthouse grew into a tall, banded coastal marker.
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
- Ráth Maoláin · Irish · main form
- Rathmullan · English · main form
Place & story
A church overlooking the bay
Samuel Lewis’s 1837 survey describes Rathmullan’s parish church as a small classical building on rising ground overlooking the bay. He records an 1817 glebe house supported by a Board of First Fruits grant and loan. His description places the parish’s religious buildings within a coastal farming landscape, with Killough providing a separate chapel of ease. [2]
Lighting the headland
Irish Lights records approval for the Saint John’s Point lighthouse in 1839 and its first illumination on 1 May 1844. George Halpin designed the original station, comprising a white tower and two dwellings. Local landowner Captain P. R. Browne acted as building contractor. A landing was cut into the rock to the south-east. [3]
A taller tower and changing colours
Later enlargement raised the tower and added a fog signal and an auxiliary light in 1893. Two additional dwellings accommodated the increased staff. Three black bands were added in 1902; the black-and-yellow scheme followed in 1954. Automation in May 1981 brought the resident keepers’ service at the station to an end. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Down
- Barony
- Lecale Lower
- Barony
- Lecale Upper
- Coordinates
- 0.00000, 0.00000
- Logainm ID
- 65761 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Rathmullan. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Rathmullen, Down: A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837 · Samuel Lewis
- Saint John’s Point, County Down: station history · Commissioners of Irish Lights
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2019-10-08. How this page was prepared.