placenamesInishbofin
Inis Bó Finne
The Galway civil parish includes Inishbofin and Inishark, whose histories connect fishing communities, island departures and the preservation of local records.
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
- Inis Bó Finne · Irish · main form · non-validated name
- Inishbofin · English · main form
Place & story
The harbour and its fisheries
Writing in 1837, Samuel Lewis described Inishbofin’s sheltered harbour as central to the surrounding fisheries, with room for more than a hundred vessels of 150 tons. His account also recorded about eighty children attending two private schools. This is a nineteenth-century description of an inhabited working island, rather than a measure of present harbour capacity. [2]
Inishark’s departure remembered
Inishark, also recorded as Inishshark, belongs to the civil parish. Its community was evacuated in October 1960. RTÉ’s catalogue for Proinsias Ó Conluain’s documentary The Men of Inishark, first broadcast on 26 May 1968, identifies contributions from Patrick O’Toole, Tom Lacey and Mike Walsh. The programme addressed island life, customs and adaptation after that departure. [3] [4]
Island history kept locally
A local-studies collection at Inishbofin’s library holds copies of valuation records beginning in 1842, census returns, parish records and two early twentieth-century boat registries. Meredith Chesson and fellow researchers assembled material relating to Inishbofin, Inishark and Inishturk. Their work made records previously scattered among mainland repositories available together within the island community. [5]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Galway
- Barony
- Ballynahinch
- Coordinates
- 53.62081, -10.21811 (approximate)
- Mapped area
- 14.2 km²
- Logainm ID
- 935 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Inishbofin. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Innisboffin — Topographical Dictionary of Ireland1837 · Samuel Lewis
- Inishbofin civil parish935:townland subunits · Placenames Branch, Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht
- The Men of Inishark:first broadcast26May1968 · Proinsias Ó Conluain, RTÉ Documentary on One
- Irish Island Memories:The Inishbofin Library Local Studies Collection · Nanovic Institute, University of Notre Dame
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.