Information about Caherlissakill

The Ordnance Survey Letters are letters between John O'Donovan and his supervisor, Thomas Larcom, regarding the work of compiling the Field Books. These letters provide further discussion on many of the places listed in the Field Books.

References to this place can be found in the following letter.

• Volume 1 page 261

Caherlissakill in Galway ; Cathair-lis-a-chuill, the caher of the lis (old fort) of hazel (coll, hazel). Here the caher either stood near an ordinary lis or was the lis itself. MacNeill's observation applies here. See p. 14 [see below].

Professor John MacNeill, in his paper on "Place-Names and Family Names" of Clare Island (p. 16) makes a very important remark, to the effect that a little group of words is sometimes taken as one combined noun, in which case the individual words, coalescing into the single compound term, cease to be regarded as in separate use, and consequently (some or all) escape inflection. This remark applies to many names, and I shall often have occasion to refer to it. A good example is Brackaghlislea, in Derry, of which the accepted Irish form is Breacach-Lis-Léith, the speckled spot (Breacach) of Lislea, where Lislea (grey lis) is the little "group". Independent of the group influence, Lis (nom. Form) would be Leasa (gen.); but it here escapes this inflection. But lea or líath is inflected to léith (gen. sing. masc.). Sometimes, as here, only one word of the group escapes inflection; sometimes more.

Ireland was first mapped in the 1840s. These original maps are available online.
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Caherlissakill

This link is not a link to the townland that you are currently researching; however, if you follow this link, you will see a search box near the top of the page which you can use to search for your townland.

Having followed this link, you will see several expandable links - each link has a plus sign on its left - on the top left of the page. Expand 'Base Information and Mapping'. Now it is possible to select the maps that you wish to view by clicking on the checkbox that is on the left of each map; this list includes the original Ordnance Survey maps.

You can select more than one map and you can use a slider to make one map more transparent than another. This allows you to view what features were present or absent at different points in time.
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Caherlissakill

The Down Survey website will tell you who owned this townland in 1641 (pre Cromwell) and in 1671 (post Cromwell).

Down Survey Website
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You can use this link to find this townland on Google Maps.

Google Maps
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You can use this link to view a map of archaelogical features.
This link brings you to a website wherein you will have to search for your townland.

Archaeological map from the National Monuments Service

This is a list of townlands that share a border with this townland.

• Ballyskeagh
• Corrafaireen
• Crooroe
• Farravaun
• Garraunard
• Knockauncarragh
• Peak

You can retrieve a list of people who lived in this townland from 1827 to 1911. This list is compiled from the following resources.

• The Tithe Applotment Books
• Griffith's Valuation
• 1901 Census
• 1911 Census

List of nineteenth century and early twentieth century inhabitants of this townland.

Church records of births, deaths and marriages are available online at http://www.rootsireland.ie. To search these records you will need to know the 'church parish' rather than the 'civil parish'. (The civil parish is the pre-reformation parish and was frequently used as a unit of administration in the past.)

Caherlissakill is in the civil parish of Monivea.

This civil parish corresponds with the following Roman Catholic parish or parishes.

• Abbeyknockmoy
• Athenry

This civil parish corresponds with the following Church of Ireland parish.

• Monivea

In general, the civil parish and the Church of Ireland parish are the same, but, this is not always the case.