Clonard ()A. D. Mills, 2003, ''A Dictionary of British Place-Names'', Oxford University Press is a small village in

County Meath County Meath ( ; or simply , ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in the Eastern and Midland Region of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster. It is bordered by County Dublin to the southeast, County ...

, Ireland. It lies on the R148 regional road between the towns of Kinnegad and Enfield. This road was the main road between

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

and

Galway Galway ( ; , ) is a City status in Ireland, city in (and the county town of) County Galway. It lies on the River Corrib between Lough Corrib and Galway Bay. It is the most populous settlement in the province of Connacht, the List of settleme ...

until the construction of the

M4 motorway The M4, originally the London-South Wales Motorway, is the third longest motorway in the United Kingdom, running from west London to southwest Wales. The English section to the Severn Bridge was constructed between 1961 and 1971; the Welsh ele ...

. It is still used by traffic avoiding the toll on the M4. Clonard Motte Hugh de Lacy 2007 08 26

Clonard is notable for being one of the earliest Christian sites in Ireland, being linked with the first Irish bishop Palladius c. 450 and as the location of a major early medieval monastery Clonard Abbey, founded in the 6th century by St. Finnian. The village is in a

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

of the same name. Around

1177 Year 1177 (Roman numerals, MCLXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. Events January–December * January – Eystein Meyla, leader of the Birkebeiner in Norway, is killed. Sverre Sigurdson (Later, Kin ...

Hugh de Lacy, Lord of Meath Hugh de Lacy, Lord of Meath, 4th Baron Lacy (; before 1135 – 25 July 1186), was an Anglo-Normans, Anglo-Norman landowner and royal office-holder. He had substantial land holdings in Herefordshire and Shropshire. Following his participation in ...

, built a motte-and-bailey fortification at Clonard. During the 1798 Rebellion on 11 July 1798 the Battle of Clonard took place at the Tyrrell fortified house (now in ruins) beside Leinster Bridge between around 2,000

United Irishmen The Society of United Irishmen was a sworn association, formed in the wake of the French Revolution, to secure Representative democracy, representative government in Ireland. Despairing of constitutional reform, and in defiance both of British ...

and 27 British loyalists, the battle ended in a decisive British victory. The village contains a Catholic church, a graveyard and a primary school. It is served by Bus Éireann services to Dublin and West of Ireland.

References

External links

Official Meath Tourism website

Unofficial village site
{{Authority control Towns and villages in County Meath Civil parishes of County Meath

See also

References

External links