Knockananna
Village
CountryIreland
ProvinceLeinster
CountyCounty Wicklow
Unit prefMetric
Population as of2016
Population total143
Coordinates52.874°N 6.493°W
Elevation205 m

Knockananna ()[1] is a village in County Wicklow, Ireland. After Roundwood, it is the second-highest village in Ireland.[2]

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.[3] A 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.[4] 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.[3]

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.[5]

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.[2] He was interred in the old church in Knockananna.[6] The old church was renamed the Blanchelle Centre in his honour.[7][8] The village is served by the Church of the Immaculate Conception which was built in 1978.[2]

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.[9] 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.[10]

Irish singer and songwriter Órla Fallon was born in Knockananna in 1974.[11]

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.[12]

Services

There is a grocery shop and a pub in the village.[5] The village has a GAA team and the club colours are red and white.[13]

The village was served by a post office from at least 1927, under Ballinglen[14] until its closure on 5 March 2010.[15] The Knockananna post office came under the auspices of Arklow from 1964 until it was closed.[16]

References

  1. ^ "Cnoc an Eanaigh/Knockananna". Placenames Database of Ireland (logainm.ie). Retrieved 20 October 2021.
  2. ^ "Church of the Immaculate Conception, Knockananna". Hacketstown Parish. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
  3. ^ 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.
  4. ^ Gazetteer of Ireland. Dublin: Placenames Branch of the Ordnance Survey. 1989. p. 241. ISBN 0-7076-0076-6.
  5. ^ "Knockananna (village)". Trailhead Ireland. wicklowway.com. 2023. Retrieved 8 August 2023.
  6. ^ Kirwan, John (1997). "The Walsh family of Lower Grange, Goresbridge, County Kilkenny". The Old Kilkenny Review. Kilkenny Archaeological Society.
  7. ^ "A Story". dúchas.ie. Retrieved 2023-03-24.
  8. ^ "Blanchelle Centre, KNOCKANANNA, Knockananna, WICKLOW". National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
  9. ^ Coutney, Shay (14 December 2020). "Tom Keogh of Knockananna: His role in Bloody Sunday 1920". Our Wicklow Heritage. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
  10. ^ MacRaghnaill, Eoin (19 October 2022). "Knockananna community celebrates centenary of Colonel Tom Kehoe". Wicklow People. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
  11. ^ Farragher, Mike (1 April 2011). "Knockananna's Celtic Woman Orla is Proud of Her Roots". Irish Central. Retrieved 9 August 2023.
  12. ^ Specia, Megan (27 July 2023). "The Tiny Irish Village Where Sinéad O'Connor Escaped the World". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 July 2023.
  13. ^ "Knockananna GAA". Wicklow GAA. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
  14. ^ Frank, Harald & Stange, Klaus (1990-09-29). Irish Post Offices and their postmarks 1600-1990. Munich: Forchumgs- und Arbeitsgemeinschaft Irland e.V. p. 298. Archived from the original on 19 July 2011. Retrieved 8 August 2023.
  15. ^ Schollmayer, Manfred (Summer 2016). "Post Office Closures 1990–214". Die Harfe. 34 (135): 49. Munich: Forchumgs- und Arbeitsgemeinschaft Irland e.V. ISSN 0948-2172
  16. ^ Eolaí an Phoist - Post Office Guide: Vol 1. Dublin: Government Publications Office. 1964. p. 218.