Killaghaduff

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Killaghaduff is a small townland in the civil parish of Kinawley, County Cavan, Ireland. It covers 96 acres and is bordered by several other townlands: Gortacashel to the north, Tircahan to the south, Furnaceland and Gorteen to the west, and Drumod Glebe, Gortlaunaght, Gortnaderrylea and Tonyquin to the east. The landscape includes a hill, the Blackwater river (which joins the Cladagh), streams, woods, a quarry, rocky outcrops, spring wells, and a holy well. A few minor roads run through it.

The names Killaghaduff has been known by over the centuries include Templedowa (The Black Church) and Crodragh (The Hill of the Oakwood). In medieval times the land belonged to the church rather than to the local clan, so its history is tied to the ecclesiastical history of the parish.

What happened to Killaghaduff in the Reformation is a big part of its story. The church lands were taken from monastic owners and eventually given to Protestant holders. The land was associated with two different rights: the church lands themselves and the rectorial tithes, which were a tenth of the parish’s produce. The tithes were split between the parish priest and the religious community at Kells Abbey, and both were seized during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Over the years, the church lands and the tithes passed through many hands. Leases and grants in the early 1600s linked Killaghaduff to figures such as Garret Moore, the Lambart family, and later the Flemings. The rectorial tithes moved between local clergy and Kells Abbey, and then into the hands of the Crown and other landowners as the old ecclesiastical rights changed after the Reformation.

Maps from 1609 show Killaghaduff’s church with a round tower in Naclone. The 1658 Down Survey marks Killaghadough as church lands. In the 18th and 19th centuries the name appears in several spellings, including Killaghdow, Killaugaduff, and Killaduff. The 1836 Ordnance Survey notes mention ruins of an old church and graveyard, with a Danish fort at the graveyard’s south corner and lime being dug for manure. The 1838–1840 valuation field books and later Griffith’s Valuation show a small number of landholders and tenants. In the 1850s the landlord was Nicholas Ellis. Census records from 1821, 1901 and 1911 show only a few households or families living there, reflecting Killaghaduff’s small, rural population.