placenamesClonkeen
Cluain Caoin
Lewis connected Clonkeen’s medieval church with a religious foundation confirmed by Pope Eugene IV.
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 Caoin · Irish · main form · non-validated name
- Clonkeen · English · main form
Place & story
A Third Order foundation
In his 1837 account of Clonkeen parish in Galway’s Tyaquin barony, Samuel Lewis described a transformation of the parish church into a Franciscan house. He attributed it to Thomas O’Kelly, bishop of Clonfert and later archbishop of Tuam, around 1435, at the request of David and John Mull-Kerrill. Lewis identified the community with the Third Penitential Order and dated Pope Eugene IV’s confirmation of the donation to 1441. [2]
Later possession and parish connections
Lewis recorded the monastery’s possessions in the hands of Conor Duffe O’Naghten and Conor Oge O’Naghten, both of Galway, in 1618. His nineteenth-century parish description placed Clonkeen on the Kilconnell–Tuam road. It belonged to the Ballymacward union in the established church and to the Catholic district of Ballymacward or Gurteen, whose chapel stood at Gurteen. [2]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Clonkeen. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Clonkeen or Cloonkeen, Tyaquin — A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.