Information about Pollnamal

Information from O'Donovan's Field Name Books

Standard Name:
Pollnamal
Irish Form of Name:
Poll na Meall
Translation:
hole of the knolls or lumps
Civil Parish:
Other Forms of the Name with authority source (if provided) in italics:
Poll na meall, hole of the knolls or lumps
Pollnamal
Poulnamal By Surveyor's Sketch Map
Pulnamall County Cess Collector
Poulnamal County Map
Pulnamall Local
Poulnamaul Meresman
Polnamall Revd. Pat Cannavan
Poulnamala or Pulnamal Tithe Ledger
Description:
Proprietor, Dermott Donnellan, Esqr., of Sylaun. No agent. Rent 20 shillings per acre. Farms from 4 to 8 acres. All held under a lease of 31 years. Soil deep loose clay and not very good. Produces tolerably good crops of wheat and potatoes, but very bad oats. Antiquities 3 forts. Co. Cess 14D. paid per acre half yearly.
Situation:
In the East side of the parish. Bounded n the North by the parish of Belclare; on the West by townland Sylaun and Treenbaun; on the South by Treenbaun and the parish of Belclare, and on the East by the parish of Tuam. In the Barony of Clare and County of Galway.

Information From Joyce's Place Names

Translation according to P. W. Joyce:
Pollnamal in Galway; Poll-na-meall, of hillocks. See Maul [reproduced below].
Maul in Cork and elsewhere represents Meall, knoll or little hill : vol. i. p. 394 [reproduced below]. Mael [mwail or moyle] as an adjective signifies bald, bare, or hornless; and it is often employed as a noun to denote anything having these shapes or qualities. It is, for instance, applied to a cow without horns, which in almost every part of Ireland is called a mael or mweelleen. It is also used synonymously with giolla, to denote in a religious sense, a person having the head shorn or tonsured; it was often prefixed to the name of a saint, and the whole compound used to denote a person devoted to such saint; and as a mark of reverence this kind of name was often given to men at their baptism, which originated such surnames as Mulholland, Mulrony, Molony, Mulrenin, Malone, etc. It is applied to a church or building of any kind that is either unfinished or dilapidated - most commonly the latter; thus Templemoyle, the bald or dilapidated church, is the name of some places in Derry, Galway, and Donegal; there are five townlands in Antrim and one in Longford called Kilmoyle which have the same meaning; Kilmoyle near Ballymoney is in Latin records translated Ecclesia calva, which gives the exact sense. And Castlemoyle, bald castle, occurs in Galway, Wexford, and Tipperary. The word is used to designate a moat or mound flat on top, or dilapidated by having the materials carted away; and hence we have such names as Rathmoyle, Lismoyle, and Dunmoyle. Mael is applied to hills and promontories, and in this sense it is very often employed to form local names. Moyle, one of its usual forms, and the plural Moyles, gives names to several places in the middle and northern counties; Knockmoyle, a usual townland name, bald hill. In the south and west it often assumes the form mweel, which preserves the pronunciation more nearly than moyle: thus Mweelahorna near Ardmore in Waterford, the bald hill of the barley; and in Fermanagh, also, this form is found in Mweelbane, white hill. It sometimes takes the form of meel, as in Meelshane in Cork, John's bald hill; Meelgarrow in Wexford, rough hill (garbh, rough); Meeldrum near Kilbeggan in Westmeath, bare ridge. There are two diminutives in pretty common use, maelán and maeilín [mweelaun, mweeleen]; the former is often applied to round-backed islands in the sea, or to round bare rocks; and we find accordingly several little islands off the south and west coast, called Moylaun, Moylan, and Mweelaun. The same word is seen in Meelon near Bandon, and Milane, near Dunmanway, both in Cork; and in Mellon near where the Maigue joins the Shannon in Limerick. The second diminutive is more frequent, and it is spelled in various ways; it is found as Moyleen and Mweeleen in Galway, Kerry, and Mayo; Mweeling near Ardmore in Waterford; and Meeleen in the parish of Kilquane, Cork. Meelaghans near Geashill in King's County (little bare hills), exhibits another diminutive, Maelachán; and we have still another in Milligan in Monaghan, and Milligans in Fermanagh, little hills. Mealough is the name of a townland in the parish of Drumbo, Down, meaning either a round hill or a place abounding in hillocks. In Scotland, the word mael is often used, as for instance in the Mull of Galloway and the Mull of Cantire; in both instances the word Mull signifying a bare headland. From the Mull of Cantire, the sea between Ireland and Scotland was anciently called the "Sea-stream of Moyle"; and Moore has adopted the last name in his charming song. "Silent, O Moyle, be the roar of thy water". Mael combines with the Irish preposition for, forming the compound formael, which is used to signify a round-hill; and which, in the forms Formoyle, Fermoyle, and Formil, constitutes the names of twenty-nine townlands, scattered through the four provinces; in Meath it is made Formal, and in Galway it retains the more Irish form, Formweel. This name occurs twice in the Four Masters: first at A. D. 965, where a battle is recorded to have been fought at Formaeil of Rathbeg, which O'Donovan identifies with Formil in the parish of Lower Bodoney, Tyrone; and secondly, at 1051, where mention is made of Slieve-O'Flynn, west of Castlerea in Roscommon.

Information From Griffith's Valution

Area in Acres, Roods and Perches:
A.R.P.
487 0 20
Land value at the time in pounds, shillings and pence:
£.s.d.
83 16 4
Building value at the time in pounds, shillings and pence:
£.s.d.
0 0 0
Total value at the time in pounds, shillings and pence:
£.s.d.
83 16 4
Heads of housholds living in the townland at this time:

Townland Information

What is a townland?:
A townland is one of the smallest land divisions in Ireland. They range in size from a few acres to thousands of acres. Many are Gaelic in origin, but some came into existence after the Norman invasion of 1169
Townland:
Pollnamal is a townland.
Other placesnames in this townland:
Some other placenames in or near this townland are...

Information From Maps

Original OS map of this area.
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Ireland was first mapped in the 1840s. These original maps are available online.
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Pollnamal
Original OS maps at the Ordnance Survey of Ireland website.
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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.
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Pollnamal
Information from the Down Survey Website.
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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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Information from Google Maps.
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You can use this link to find this townland on Google Maps.
Google Maps
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Information from the National Monuments Service.
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You can use this link to view a map of archaelogical features.
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Archaeological map from the National Monuments Service

Neighbouring Townlands

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

Population and Census Information

People who lived here:
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:
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.)
Pollnamal is in the civil parish of Killower.
Roman Catholic parishes:
This civil parish corresponds with the following Roman Catholic parish or parishes.
  • Headford
Church of Ireland parishes:
This civil parish corresponds with the following Church of Ireland parish.
  • Killower
In general, the civil parish and the Church of Ireland parish are the same, but, this is not always the case.

Other Sources

Information from the Logainm database.
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