County Roscommon, Ireland : Historical writing

Descriptive gazetteer entries

These other entries in our collection of descriptive gazetteers are also about County Roscommon. You may be able to find further references to County Roscommon in the descriptive gazetteers by doing a full-text search here.

Place Type of entry Source
Roscommon Inland county Bartholomew
ROSCOMMON an inland county Lewis:Ireland

Travel writing

This website includes the complete texts of books describing journeys around Britain, written between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries. Selecting one of the links below will take you to the first reference to County Roscommon within the selected text. This will not always be a description of a visit: travellers often mention places other than where they are, for example as a basis for comparison.

Traveller Section No. of Refs.
Arthur Young 21st to 31st August 1776: Roscommon, Sligo and Mayo 6
Arthur Young Section 18: Corn Trade of Ireland, Bounty on Inland Carriage 4
Arthur Young Sections 1-4: Extent of Ireland; Soil, Climate; Rental; Products 3
Arthur Young Sections 13-16: Tythes, Church Lands; Absentees; Population; Public Works 2
Arthur Young 1st to 10th July 1776: Westmeath, Carlow, King's and Queen's Counties 1
Arthur Young 21st to 30th September 1776: Cork and Kerry 1
Arthur Young 1777 Tour: October 1
Arthur Young Section 24: State of Ireland, brought down to the End of the Year 1779 1

This website includes two large libraries, of historical travel writing and of entries from nineteenth century gazetteers describing places. We have text from these sources available for these places near your location:

Place Mentioned in Travel Writing Mentioned in Historical Gazetteer
Ardclare 0 2
Kilbride 0 2
Killukin 0 1
Oran 0 1
Castleplunket 1 2
Ogulla 0 2
Tulsk 0 2
Kilcooley 0 2
Ballymoe 0 1
Cloonfinlough 0 2
Roscommon 1 2
Ballintober 0 2
Dunamon 0 2
Baslick 0 2
Fuerty 0 2
Kilgefin 0 1
Drumatemple 0 2
Elphin 6 2
Strokestown 8 2
Kilteevan 0 2

Names from historical writing

The following appear as names for County Roscommon. Follow the links for what the author actually said:

Name Author Source
ROSCOMMON John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
Samuel Lewis A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (London: S. LEWIS & Co., 1837).
Arthur Young A Tour in Ireland, made in the years 1776, 1777, and 1778 (London: T. Cadell, 1780).

NB: These variant names come from our collections of historical travel writing and descriptive gazetteers:

  • The above links take you to the first reference to this particular version of the name within a book of travel writing, or to the relevant gazetteer entry.
  • Some names may derive from research by antiquarian writers such as William Camden and Thomas Pennant into the Roman, Saxon and medieval names of places. Their claims are not always supported by modern place-name researchers.
  • References by travel writers to the place using its "normal" name are not included. Descriptive gazetteer entries are included only if the name does not appear anywhere else.