placenamesDonabate
Domhnach Bat
Surviving household records and the estate’s farm buildings reveal the choices and practical arrangements behind Newbridge’s Georgian interiors.
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
- Domhnach Bat · Irish · main form · validated name
- Donabate · English · main form
Place & story
Lady Betty and the surviving accounts
Writing about his family’s house, Alec Cobbe distinguishes tradition from documentary survival. Family tradition credited Lady Betty Cobbe with shaping Newbridge’s decoration, but little of her handwriting survives. Thomas Cobbe’s detailed accounts for 1756–65 and 1783–1810 offer fuller evidence of the couple’s purchases. Their picture collecting was assisted by Matthew Pilkington, the archbishop’s secretary and vicar of Donabate, who published a dictionary of painters in 1770. [2]
A room for curiosities
In 1761 a room at Newbridge was furnished as a cabinet of curiosities, with Chinese painted paper and cut bamboo decoration. Alec Cobbe connects its beginnings with Lady Betty’s shell purchases. His account distinguishes those documented objects and payments from speculation about which partner directed particular artistic commissions. [2]
The estate’s working courtyard
The farm courtyard belongs to a later building campaign. The architectural inventory dates Robert Mack’s quadrangle to about 1790, with two-storey stable buildings, lower stone ranges and an adjoining aviary. Slate roofs, brick details and granite window sills combined different materials around the enclosure. The inventory recorded the complex’s subsequent use as a museum of rural life. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Dublin
- Barony
- Nethercross
- Coordinates
- 53.47686, -6.14855
- Mapped area
- 12.4 km²
- Logainm ID
- 842 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Donabate. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Newbridge House: Restrained Elegance, Irish Georgian Society Review2017, republished2April2020 · Alec Cobbe, Irish Georgian Society
- Newbridge House farmyard quadrangle, NIAH11329002 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2024-06-28. How this page was prepared.