placenamesLucan
Leamhcán
Lewis’s 1837 description records water-powered industry and communal practices within the wider Lucan district.
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
- Leamhcán · Irish · main form · validated name
- Lucan · English · main form
Place & story
Grinding at the salmon leap
At Weston Park, Lewis describes flour mills operated by Reid and Company beside the Liffey’s salmon leap. A waterwheel twenty-eight feet across drove five pairs of millstones, with reported weekly capacity of seven hundred to eight hundred barrels. During foundation work, builders uncovered masonry interpreted as part of an earlier canal lock. That identification belongs to the contemporary account; Lewis did not establish its date. [2]
Schools and practical assistance
Two public schools taught about 250 children in the district described by Lewis, with another seventy attending three private schools. His account identifies a subscription-supported parochial school with an infant department, a national school, a lending library, a loan fund and a dispensary serving poor residents. These records add education and mutual assistance to the parish’s industrial history. [2]
Circling the old cross
Lewis also records a funeral custom at the site of an ancient cross opposite the entrance to the Vesey demesne: Catholic mourners carried the deceased around the site before burial. His notice attests a practice reported in 1837. It does not establish when that custom began or how long it continued. [2]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Lucan. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Lucan — A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland1837 · Samuel Lewis
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2024-06-28. How this page was prepared.