Cloon, Pollaghrevagh, Rockwood and Clooncauneen townland minor placenames

The minor placenames of the townlands of Cloon, Pollaghrevagh, Rockwood and Clooncauneen, in the parish of Claregalway, Co. Galway

The townlands of Cloon, Pollaghrevagh, Rockwood, and Cloonacauneen are located southwest of the village of Claregalway. Cloon and Pollaghrevagh cover an area of approximately 440 acres and 417 acres respectively. Although they are two distinct townlands located to the east and west of Cloon Road, the area is generally referred to as Cloon, and the name Pollaghrevagh is seldom used by anyone in the locality. The bordering townland of Cloonacauneen measures just 29 acres in area, and mostly comprises undulating ground interspersed by a turlough floodplain. It borders another townland of the same name to the southwest that belongs to the Parish of Castlegar today, but which was part of the Parish of Oranmore in the 19^th century. The boundary between the two comprises a well-built double-width stone wall, following a straight line from Rockwood House through earlier field systems. This wall also represents the boundary between the baronies of Dunkellin and Galway. It is unclear when this boundary wall was established though it supersedes earlier settlement patterns. The townland of Rockwood measures just 41 acres in area, and in 1838, was formed entirely by the Rockwood Estate. As we shall see, many of the linear townland boundaries and administrative divisions that are evident in this area of the parish today are likely to be relatively recent.

The topography in this part of the parish includes a noticeable dip in the ground level from the top of Holmes’ Hill, before rising again at Cregboy, and the floor of this dip includes several small turloughs in the townland of Cloon. At the time of the compilation of the Ordnance Survey Name Books in the 1830s, the townlands are recorded as follows:

• ‘Pollaghrevagh is the property of Lord Clanmorris, half under tillage the remainder bog and rocky pasture. There stands a Trigl. Station on its east side 67 feet above the sea and near… …a mansion the residence of Browne Esqr. called Rockland House. A portion of the south end of the townland is bounded by the road from Galway to Tuam’
• ‘Cloon is the property of Mr. French of Cloonacauneen. It is all under tillage and is bounded on the south by the road from Galway to Tuam. There is a small lake in its centre which is subject to flood in Winter’
• Rockwood: ‘it is the property of Mr. Galway. It is laid out as a Demesne and is bounded on the West by the road from Galway to Tuam in its centre is a mansion the residence of the proprietor.’
• Cloonacauneen: ‘it is the property of Mr. French of Cloonacauneen. It is all under tillage and is bounded on the South by the road from Galway to Tuam. There is a small lake in its centre which is subject to flood in Winter.’

At the time of this survey Cloon is recorded locally as An Clúain meaning ‘meadow‘ and Pollaghrevagh is recorded as An Pollach Riabhach meaning ‘grey holes or pits’, or perhaps more accurately, brindled holes. Clúain most likely refers to the nature of the land in the area, comprising relatively good quality grazing lands or meadow in the southeastern portion of the townland which is higher and drier than the bogland to the north. Pollach Riabhach likely refers to areas to the north of the townland of Pollaghrevagh that includes distinctive lumpy deposits of glacial sand on the edge of the bog.

Like the townland itself, the placename ‘Rockwood’ is a product of the demesne lands that were established there in the second decade of the 19^th century. Whereas the placename Clúain Mhic Cáinín is known in written sources from at least 1582[1], though the precise meaning of Mhic Cáinín is still debated. It is possibly a familial name.

Like the neighbouring townland of Cahergowan, these townlands comprise areas of higher ground to the south (let’s call this Upper Cloon), and generally lower-lying ground to the north (Lower Cloon). Taking these townlands collectively, an examination of the landscape and settlement characteristics of this area suggests settlement patterns here as we know them today, were probably established between 1814 and 1838.

The established townland boundary between Cloon and Pollaghrevagh is likely to be a relatively recent one, and follows the line of Cloon Road. The lower part of this boundary is laid out perfectly straight, and precisely aligns with the doorway to Rockwood House which overlooks the two townlands. This would suggest that lower Cloon Road was set out by survey at the time that Rockwood House was built. Rockwood House appears to date to between 1814 and 1819, being absent from the earlier Bog Commissioners maps (1814), but marked on the later Grand Jury County Map by Larkin (1819). Architecturally, the Georgian house certainly dates to the late 18^th/early 19^th century.

Cloon Road is lined with fine, rough-cut stone walls that are characteristic of demesne landscapes, and were probably constructed at the time of the establishment Rockwood Estate. Sometime after 1819, but before the First Edition 6-inch Ordnance Survey in 1838, a second estate house was established in Pollaghrevagh and named Rocklawn. Surrounded by woodland, the two estate houses were not intervisible.

The new Cloon Road allowed direct access to the resources of the low-lying boglands and the marginal lands which would soon be the subject of arterial drainage programmes. Striping of land is evident on the Ordnance Survey Map in 1838, suggesting some degree of land reorganisation and subdivision, likely also associated with the establishment of the new estates and resultant tenancies. The likely goal here, was to increase the productivity and profitability of the newly established estates, as the bog and striped lands of Cloon and Pollaghrevagh were the property of James French of Rocklawn House.

Settlement in Lower Cloon before the second decade of the 19^th century was probably sufficiently sparse so as not to be marked on any mapping. Small, irregular field pattens characteristic of the unplanned clachán settlement, along with a scattering of small buildings and bótharíns around Tobar buidhe and Teach Duchas may represent settlement which predates the Rockwood and Rocklawn estates. The placename An Gort Treasna and the associated footpath suggests that a direct route in and out of this area was long established. However, people have been living in Cloon and Pollaghrevagh for much longer than this: in the late-90s a fragmentary rattle pendant was discovered at the base of a drystone wall during minor topsoil clearance in Lower Cloon. The artefact was a heavy piece of crudely cast bronze, disc shaped or sub-circular in outline, tarnished but with evidence of polishing and patination, and tentatively dated Late Bronze Age, i.e. the 9th to 8th century BC.

At the eastern end of Pollaghrevagh townland there is a ringfort marked on the First Edition Ordnance Survey sheet – these ringforts typically date to the Early or High Medieval period (4th -11th century AD).

Our work in the townlands identified 42 minor placenames and places of interest known locally. These placenames were collected by Seoirse Morris and Pat Coen from Sonny Moran, Noel Moran, Evelyn Duggan, Brian Moran and John Kelly. The placenames collected are almost entirely as Gaeilge (with considered translations offered), and refer to fields, turloughs, wells, houses, hills, bogs, gardens, and other elements of the local landscape.

[1] The Irish Fiants of the Tudor Sovereigns during the Reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Philip and Mary and Elizabeth I, Vol. 2, 1558-1586, Dublin, Edmund Burke Publisher, 1994, pp.568-9. Nos., 4079.