Knockananna

Knockananna (Irish: Cnoc an Eanaigh, meaning 'hill of the marsh')[2] is a village in County Wicklow, Ireland. After Roundwood, it is the second-highest village in Ireland.[3]

Knockananna
Irish: Cnoc an Eanaigh
Village
Centre of Knockananna
Centre of Knockananna
Knockananna is located in Ireland
Knockananna
Knockananna
Location in Ireland
Coordinates: 52°52′26″N 6°29′35″W
CountryIreland
ProvinceLeinster
CountyCounty Wicklow
Elevation
205 m (673 ft)
Population
 (2016)[1]
143
Irish Grid ReferenceT010814

Toponymy

In Liam Price's extensive survey of place names of County Wicklow his earliest record of Knockananna is dated 1714 using the current spelling. A 1715 record uses Knockannana. The Straughan family deeds use a different spelling; Knockinana in 1717. Finally the village name shown in A.R. Neville's Map of County Wicklow from circa 1810 is Knockanana.[4] An grave accent has been added in the 1989 Gazetteer of Ireland making Knockànanna to provide a guide to proper stressing in pronouncing the name correctly.[5] Price mentions two local names: Boorawn being derived from baudrán a basket covered in cow-hide and Kish, from ceis the name of part of the bog.[4]

Geography

Knockananna lies close to the border between County Wicklow and County Carlow. The village is the centre of a dispersed farming area, 2 km to the north-west of Moyne and the Wicklow Way.[6]

People

During the late 18th century and early 19th century a priest by the name of Fr. John Blanchfield (Blanchvelle) was active in Knockananna and Hacketstown.[3] He was interred in the old church in Knockananna.[7] The old church was renamed the Blanchelle Centre in his honour.[8][9] The village is served by the Church of the Immaculate Conception which was built in 1978.[3]

Colonel Commandant Tom Kehoe (Free State Forces) was born in the area in 1899. He was a member of Michael Collins's assassination Squad, which killed a number of British agents on 21 November 1920.[10] Kehoe himself died from severe wounds he received while attempting to remove a booby trapped land mine during the civil war in Macroom in September 1922.[11]

Irish singer and songwriter Órla Fallon was born in Knockananna in 1974.[12]

In early 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic until 2022 after her son Shane had committed suicide, the singer Sinéad O'Connor lived in Knockananna.[13]

Services
Decorated car of a GAA fan at the annual Knockananna festival

There is a grocery shop and a pub in the village.[6] The village has a GAA team and the club colours are red and white.[14]

The village was served by a post office from at least 1927, under Ballinglen[15] until its closure on 5 March 2010.[16] The Knockananna post office came under the auspices of Arklow from 1964 until it was closed.[17]

References
  1. "Sapmap Area: Settlements Knockananna". Census 2016. Central Statistics Office. Retrieved 21 October 2021.
  2. "Cnoc an Eanaigh/Knockananna". Placenames Database of Ireland (logainm.ie). Retrieved 20 October 2021.
  3. "Church of the Immaculate Conception, Knockananna". Hacketstown Parish. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
  4. Price, Liam (1946). The Place-names of Co. Wicklow: The Barony of Ballinacor South, Volume 2. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. p. 99. ISBN 0901282359.
  5. Gazetteer of Ireland. Dublin: Placenames Branch of the Ordnance Survey. 1989. p. 241. ISBN 0-7076-0076-6.
  6. "Knockananna (village)". Trailhead Ireland. wicklowway.com. 2023. Retrieved 8 August 2023.
  7. Kirwan, John (1997). "The Walsh family of Lower Grange, Goresbridge, County Kilkenny" (PDF). The Old Kilkenny Review. Kilkenny Archaeological Society: 89–106.
  8. "A Story". dúchas.ie. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  9. "Blanchelle Centre, KNOCKANANNA, Knockananna, WICKLOW". National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
  10. Coutney, Shay (14 December 2020). "Tom Keogh of Knockananna: His role in Bloody Sunday 1920". Our Wicklow Heritage. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
  11. MacRaghnaill, Eoin (19 October 2022). "Knockananna community celebrates centenary of Colonel Tom Kehoe". The Irish Indepdendent. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
  12. Farragher, Mike (1 April 2011). "Knockananna's Celtic Woman Orla is Proud of Her Roots". Irish Central. Retrieved 9 August 2023.
  13. Specia, Megan (27 July 2023). "The Tiny Irish Village Where Sinéad O'Connor Escaped the World". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 July 2023.
  14. "Knockananna GAA". Wicklow GAA. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
  15. Frank, Harald; Stange, Klaus (29 September 1990). Irish Post Offices and their postmarks 1600-1990. Munich: Forchumgs- und Arbeitsgemeinschaft Irland e.V. p. 298.
  16. Schollmayer, Manfred (Summer 2016). "Post Office Closures 1990–214". Die Harfe. Munich: Forchumgs- und Arbeitsgemeinschaft Irland e.V. 34 (135): 49. ISSN 0948-2172.
  17. Eolaí an Phoist - Post Office Guide: Vol 1. Dublin: Government Publications Office. 1964. p. 218.


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