Kellymount, the townland which makes up one third of the village of Paulstown, is named after Joseph Keally/Kelly (1673-1713). Previous to this it was known as Ballimcloghlin[1], Baile Mhic Lachna in Irish[2]. The earliest instance of a name for the area comes from the Calendar of Deeds of the 1220s with Balimaclacth given.[3]
Joseph Keally, was a descendant of Maurice O’Kelly, who had fled from county Offaly after the massacre of Irish chieftains at Mullaghmast about 1578.[4] O’Kelly settled in the Gowran area and over the following decades the family name changed to Keally. Joseph Keally was born in 1673 to John Keally and Elizabeth Cuffe, daughter of Captain Joseph Cuffe of Castle Inch, Kilkenny.[5] Keally married Elizabeth Monke in 1707.[6]
[1] Like most Irish place names before standardization there are many spellings. This version comes from ‘Pender’s Census’ of 1659
[2] ‘Placenames Database of Ireland’, database, logainm.ie http://logainm.ie/Viewer.aspx?text=kellymount&streets=no : accessed 4 November 2011, entry for Kellymount
[3] Ibid.
[4] Lynch, Kathleen. 1938. Congreve’s Irish Friend Joseph Keally in Publications of the Modern Language Association of America (PMLA). Vol 53, No, 4, p. 1077
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid., p.1081
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