placenamesTallaght
Tamhlacht
The wider parish’s history reaches from mountain watercourses to mills at Old Bawn and classrooms supported by local patrons.
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
- Tamhlacht · Irish · main form · validated name
- Tallaght · English · main form
Place & story
Beyond the village
Tallaght’s parish embraced a much larger landscape than its village. Lewis’s 1837 description follows low ground and ridges in the north, with hills rising to the south and east. He traced the Dodder from near Castlekelly through the parish towards Templeogue and also located the source of the Brittas River within it. Paper, flour and woollen mills formed part of this rural landscape, alongside the village’s dispensary and fortnightly petty sessions. [2]
Haarlem’s changing mills
South Dublin Libraries traces Haarlem Mills at Old Bawn to calico printers established around 1776. By 1836 the site contained four mills, including flour and woollen operations. The McCracken family operated one flour mill until 1863, when Thomas and John Neill took over. Other mills passed from Manus Neill to the same successors. The history records changing products and ownership within one industrial site, rather than a single unchanged business. [3]
Stone and subscriptions for schools
A schoolhouse for boys and girls was built near Tallaght village in 1834. Lewis recorded a contribution from the Board of National Education and a site provided by John Lentaigne. W. D. Trant supplied building stone from his quarries as well as a subscription; he also maintained a schoolhouse at Ballynascorney. Elsewhere in the parish, religious communities taught boys and girls, while a school near Firhouse provided instruction for deaf pupils. [2]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Dublin
- Barony
- Uppercross
- Coordinates
- 53.26918, -6.37380
- Mapped area
- 88.13 km²
- Logainm ID
- 896 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Tallaght. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Tallaght, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland 1837 · Samuel Lewis
- South Dublin’s Mills, 23 April 2012 · South Dublin Libraries Local Studies
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2024-06-28. How this page was prepared.