placenamesBright
Breachtán
An administrative change in 1834 and records of local education illuminate Bright’s history beyond its hilltop church.
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
- Breachtán · Irish · main form
- Bright · English · main form
Place & story
Separation from the deanery union
Samuel Lewis records that Bright had formed part of the six-parish union associated with the deanery of Down. An act of council separated it in 1834, adding Carradressy, previously in Kilclief, to the new parish. His account also describes a different Catholic arrangement: Bright headed a district including Rathmullen, with chapels at Conierstown, Killough and Rossglass. The two ecclesiastical jurisdictions therefore covered different areas. [2]
A subscription-built schoolhouse
Lewis's 1837 survey lists a schoolhouse in Bright churchyard built through subscriptions. Its school taught about eighty boys and fifty girls. A separate fee-paying school had about twenty boys and twenty girls. These figures describe ordinary schooling alongside the parish's better-known Sunday-school tradition, and show both voluntary contributions and family payments supporting education in the pre-Famine parish. [2]
The school at Legamaddy
Saint Patrick's Primary School at Legamaddy identifies itself as serving Bright parish. Its account records completion of an extension and renovation in 2014. The layout provided separate spaces for younger pupils, including a play-learning area, connected to classrooms for older children and an information-technology area. The school stands in the countryside outside Ballynoe, extending the parish's educational geography beyond Bright churchyard. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Down
- Barony
- Lecale Upper
- Coordinates
- 54.27769, -5.69679 (approximate)
- Mapped area
- 22.81 km²
- Logainm ID
- 65764 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Bright. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Bright: A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837 · Samuel Lewis; reproduction by Vision of Ireland
- Saint Patrick’s Primary School, Legamaddy: About Us · Saint Patrick’s Primary School, Legamaddy
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2019-10-08. How this page was prepared.