1

No. III.

PARISH OF

SAINT PETER, ATHLONE,

(Diocese of Elphin and County of Roscommon,)

BY THE REV. ANNESLEY STREAN, INCUMBEnt.

Town.

I. The Name of the Parish, Situation, Extent, &c, Situation. THE parish of St. Peter, Athlone, is situated in the county of Roscommon, sixty miles from Dublin, on the western side of the river Shannon, containing about one half of the town, a place of considerable note, on account of the siege it sustained, and the passing of the river by king William's army in the year 1691. The part of the town which is in this parish consists of ten streets, with the name of each at its entrance, painted on a board; beside fifteen lanes, of inferior consideration. In the town, and near the bank of the river, stood the ancient abbey dedicated to St. Peter, from which the parish derives its name, founded, as Sir James Ware informs us, in 1214. On part of the site of this abbey the parish church, which was built in the year 1804, now stands: scarcely a vestige of the old abbey remains. "This abbey," says Sir James Ware, "is called The Mo

Name.

nastery de Innocentia' in the table of procurations of the church of Elphin, and was of the order of Benedictines or Cistercians." In the name of the parish, it thus appears, there is little to be remarked, except so far as it makes a part of the town of Athlone, originally written in correct Celtic orthography Athluain, the English of which is the Ford of the Moon, the word Ath in that language signifying a ford, (vadum,) and Luain, the genitive of Luan, (Luna,) the moon The town is at the present day called in the common Irish, still spoken by the inhabitants of the town and the neighbouring counties, BLAHLUIN, an evidently corrupted contraction of the three words, Baile, Ath, Lain; Baile signifying a town, (villa,) the letters B and V being commutable in that and other ancient languages; Ath, pronounced Ah, a ford, (vadum;) and Luain (Luna) the genitive of LUAN, (the moon,) in English, the Town of the Ford of the Moon. But it may be observed, that this last appears to be a more modern name in the Irish language, for, before the town was built, it was called simply ATHLUAIN, the Ford of the Moon, a name descriptive of the part of the river which was, and is, fordable here; but, when the town was built on this ford, the place then got the name of BAILE, ATH, LUAIN, contracted BLAHLUIN, (i. e. the Town of the Ford of the Moon, or Moonford Town,) which it invariably retains in common, Irish conversation. This town is also known among some of the oldest inhabitants of the adjoining country, by the name of BAILE 'TUS NA SEACHT MEINA, corruptedly Balladusnashaghtina, in English, the Town of the beginning of the Week; Baile (villa) signifying a town, tus (initium) the beginning, na (de) of, seacht (septem) seven, and maine (mane) morning, the two

Boundaries

last words forming the word (septimana) a week, still maintaining the same ultimate object of reference to the moon, Monday (originally written Moonday) being the first day of the week, as Sunday, a day of rest, is a dies non, so that Monday is the day beginning their weekly labour. From these circumstances, it seems probable (though the local histories of those early dates are lost) that this place has been sacred to the moon, by dedication to that planet, in the ages before Christianity, and that pagan worship has been paid to that deity in a place where the name is so evidently traced, and from which there can be no doubt that the town derived its name; and were any additional reasons for such inference necessary, it might, in some degree, be confirmed by the circumstance of several lunettes, or crescents of gold, being found in a bog not far distant from the town, which, with some other articles of the same metal, were sold, as I have been informed, within these few years to a jeweller in Dublin for the sum of 8587. and for want of a purchaser of antiquarian taste, melted down for more common uses.*

There are no lakes in this parish, which is bounded on the east and north by the river Shannon, separat

• The place, thus denominated from the deity there worshipped, serves to confirm the etymology of many places in Ireland which are called Clogher, from the Celtic words cloch or clogh, a stone, and or, gold, a large spherical stone having been painted a yellowish or golden colour, to represent the sun, or Baal, which was worshipped in those places so named, (and the first day of May dedicated to him, which is thence called Lavalteena, that is, the day of Baal's fire,) among which is the see of Clogher, a place of pre-eminence among such sacred dedieations of this denomination, and perhaps for that reason carrying its name into the Christian hierarchy, from its celebrity in the Gentile worship.

ing it from the parish of St. Mary in the diocese of Boundaries Meath, in which is situated the eastern part of the town of Athlone; on the south, by the parish of Drum, in the diocese of Tuam; and on the west, by the parish of Kiltoom, in the diocese of Elphin.— The river just named produces pike, trout, bream, a few salmon in the season, perch in abundance, and eels, with the latter of which the town and neighbourhood are not only supplied, but large quantities are constantly sent to the metropolis.

Beside the church, which occupies the site of St. Ruins. Peter's Abbey, and a large Roman Catholic chapel, there are two ecclesiastical ruins, one at Cloonakilla, which seems to have been no more than a small chapel of little note; and another at Cloonowen, about three miles below the town of Athlone, on the banks of the Shannon; this is a more considerable ruin, with a cemetery of some extent, the history of which has not been well ascertained.

House.

There is, in that part of the town which is in this Sessions parish, a sessions-house, where the quarter sessions are periodically held,

II. Mines, Minerals, &c.

The mineralogy of this parish presents nothing to attract attention, except that it abounds with iron ore in every townland, producing innumerable cha- Chalybeate lybeate springs of various degrees of strength, some, Springs. little, if any thing, inferior to other chalybeate waters of Ireland which are held in high estimation, as ex