placenamesMuff
Magh
Muff’s wider parish history includes an early nineteenth-century ecclesiastical reorganisation and the Presbyterian buildings at Knowhead.
The name
These Irish name elements are associated with this record in the Logainm glossary.
An element’s translation is a clue, rather than a complete explanation of the name. Its form and meaning depend on local history and the full Irish name.
Recorded forms
- Magh · Irish · main form · non-validated name
- Muff · English · main form
Place & story
Thirteen townlands separated
Samuel Lewis dates the establishment of Muff’s perpetual curacy to 1809, when thirteen townlands were separated from Templemore. His 1837 account describes a district bordering Lough Foyle, with cultivated land below a mountainous hinterland. It also records schools supported by the dean and the Hart family, alongside private and Sunday schools. These institutions served a district extending beyond Muff village. [2]
Knowhead’s classical frontage
Knowhead Presbyterian Church in Derryvane carries an 1865 rebuilding inscription. The inventory records an earlier T-shaped church on the same site in the first Ordnance Survey map of 1837. The later building’s entrance combines a triangular pediment, Tuscan pilasters and rounded openings, giving a formal front to a plain meeting-house hall. A former Sunday school, another hall and a nearby manse form an associated group. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Donegal
- Barony
- Inishowen West
- Coordinates
- 55.10380, -7.28400
- Mapped area
- 61.13 km²
- Logainm ID
- 809 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Muff. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Muff,Donegal — Topographical Dictionary of Ireland1837 · Samuel Lewis
- Knowhead Presbyterian Church,NIAH40821002 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2023-09-18. How this page was prepared.