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Hill of Down.....origin of the name

  • 21-03-2015 10:54pm
    #1
    highdef
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,384 ✭✭✭


    Quick question....Hill of Down, I would assume there is a hill in the area but there is nothing of note however I came across a photo recently and in the photo, there is a hill near the site of the old railway station - is this where the name came from? I'm assuming it was a quarry or something as it's gone now. http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000308248


Comments

  • #2
    kyote00
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,604 ✭✭✭kyote00


    That bridge, railway and post office are still there --- hasnt changed much either


  • #3
    gaiscioch
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,534 ✭✭✭gaiscioch


    highdef wrote: »
    Quick question....Hill of Down, I would assume there is a hill in the area but there is nothing of note however I came across a photo recently and in the photo, there is a hill near the site of the old railway station - is this where the name came from? I'm assuming it was a quarry or something as it's gone now. http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000308248

    Interesting photo. I assume the hill is actually the dún of the original name, Cnoc an Dúin, hill of the fort. The usually fantastic Placenames Database of Ireland website www.logainm.ie hasn't got much except from the Down Survey in 1655-56 'it has a good bridge known as the Hill of Down bridge', although interestingly the same survey seems to record the name "Molerick pronounced Moolerick" in the area. In modern spelling, the townland is Maolchnoic/Molerick according to Logainm, which is helpful information as we'll see. Maol = Bare/bald? The bare hill?

    If you zoom in on this page it does look like a quarry of some sort that was there. The 2011 register of quarries in Meath records 5 quarries in "Hill of Down". Two of those quarries - Qy 124 & Qy 125 - were in Molerick, which we now know is the actual townland that Hill of Down is in, and to be precise where the aforesaid hill was. Finally, a google results in the pdf Section 261A Examination of Quarries (November 2011). It tells us that in 2011 Qy 124 was registered in the name of Frank Hevey, while Qy 125 was registered in the name of Louis Quirke/Midland Ctrs.

    I surmise they were both limestone quarries as the bridge and canal nearby were built with limestone - and this Geological Survey of Ireland source from 1871 says about a quarry at Hill of Down that "wide trough-shaped excavations have been cut by denudation across the beds of limestone...' (p. 19)


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