Castleiney


Castleiney, officially Castleleiny, is a village in County Tipperary, Ireland. It is one half of the Roman Catholic parish of Loughmore-Castleiney. It lies within the barony of Eliogarty and is approximately 5 km from Templemore and 7 km from Loughmore. The village is connected to Templemore via the R433, R502 and L3205 roads.

History and name

The village and townland of Castleiney, officially Castleleiny and historically "Castlelyny", derives from the Irish Caisleán Laighnigh or "castle of Laighnigh". In Irish Names of Places, Patrick Weston Joyce suggests that this refers to the "castle of the Lynagh or Leinsterman".
Evidence of ancient settlement in the area includes a number of ringfort and enclosure sites in the townlands of Castleleiny, Ballinroe, Gorteendangan and Gorteenmagher. The "castle" at Castleleiny townland is described in the Record of Monuments and Places as a "late sixteenth/early seventeenth-century fortified house fortified with a bawn wall". The village's Catholic church is dedicated to Saint John the Baptist and was completed.
A section of the River Iney, which passes through the village, is sometimes known locally as "the washpen". According to an adjacent stone sign, the name derives from a former practice in which farmers would construct a pen in the area to wash their sheep prior to shearing.
Replacing an earlier school, Castleiney's current national school building dates from the 1940s and was renovated and extended in 2008.

Sport

The local Gaelic Athletic Association club is Loughmore–Castleiney GAA. The club has won a number of county titles in hurling and Gaelic football, winning both the Tipperary Senior Hurling Championship and Senior Football Championship "double" in 2021.

Notable people