Information about Cloonoran

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 232

Cloonoran in Galway ; Cluain-Uarain, meadow of the cold spring: see vol. i. p. 453. Cloonoran-oughter, Upper Cloonoran.

Uaran or fuaran is explained by Colgan, "a living fountain of fresh or cold water springing from the earth". It is not easy to say whether the initial f is radical or not; if it be, the word is obviously derived from fuar, cold; if not, it comes from ur, fresh; and Colgan's explanation leaves the question undecided. This word gives name to Oranmore in Galway, which the Four Masters call Uaran mór, great spring. Oran in Roscommon was once a place of great consequence, and is frequently mentioned in the annals; it contains the ruins of a church and round tower; and the original uaran or spring is a holy well, which to this day is much frequented by pilgrims. Oran occurs pretty often in names, such as Knockanoran (knock, a hill), in Queen's County and Cork; Ballinoran and Ballynoran (Bally, a town), the names of many townlands through the four provinces; Tinoran in Wicklow, Tigh-an-uarain, the house of the spring: Carrickanoran in Kilkenny and Monaghan (Carrick, a rock); and Lickoran, the name of a parish in Waterford, the flag-stone of the cold spring.

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

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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Cloonoran

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.

• Ballingatta
• Ballymageraghty
• Castlebellew
• Clooncallaga
• Moyloughmore
• Patch

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.)

Cloonoran is in the civil parish of Moylough.

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

• Moylough & Mountbellew

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

• Moylough

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