Part I. Topography of Thomond Chapter 4. Ui Caisin

Clooney Parish

St. Ricín, according to tradition, is the patron of this parish. The word Clooney is not a word of ecclesiastical origin. It simply signifies a plain or meadow, and the church is called in Irish the church of the meadow. The building is in good preservation and presents no characteristic requiring description here. Two other burial grounds are found in the parish, the one named Killoghan, concerning the patron of which no information has come down to us; the second has no name, and is used as a place of sepulture. Besides these, there is a graveyard in which unbaptised children only are interred. Three holy wells are in the parish, viz.: Tober-cill near Killoghan church, Tober-buran, and St. Patrick’s well. The wholly ruined castle of Toonagh is situate in Clooney. It belonged in 1580 to a MacNamara. Castletown castle is also in the parish. In the same year it was the property of Bryan O’Brien, while the castle of Corbally belonged to Shane son of Mahone MacNamara, and that of Clooney to Donogh O’Grady. In this parish is the townland of Ballyhickey, so called from the O’Hickeys, hereditary physicians of the O’Briens. The name in Irish is O’h Icidhe, which signifies the Descendant of the Healer from the root ic to heal. ^[16]