placenamesClonsilla
Cluain Saileach
Lewis recorded an operating flour mill and a story attached to its predecessor.
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
- Cluain Saileach · Irish · main form · validated name
- Clonsilla · English · main form
Place & story
The Devil’s Mill tradition
Samuel Lewis’s 1837 description of Clonsilla records an extensive flour mill on the Liffey, built on the site of a much older mill known as the Devil’s Mill. He explicitly presents its supposed construction in a single night as tradition. The story belongs to the older mill: it does not date the flour mill operating when Lewis wrote. His account also notes limestone quarries and the Royal Canal passing through the parish, placing the remembered milling site within a working rural landscape. [2]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Dublin
- Barony
- Castleknock
- Coordinates
- 53.38305, -6.41290
- Mapped area
- 13.36 km²
- Logainm ID
- 839 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Clonsilla. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Clonsillagh: A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2024-06-28. How this page was prepared.