Cnoc na Góla · Co. Longford
A quiet crossroads in the south-east corner of Longford, a Georgian house, a Nugent monument, and the Royal Canal a few fields away.
Colehill sits in the south-east corner of County Longford, on the R399 where the county runs out and Westmeath begins. It is a townland and a scattered village rather than a place with a square, in the civil parish of Taghshinny, a couple of kilometres north-west of Abbeyshrule and a short run east of Ballymahon. Most people who pass through are on their way somewhere else.
The name is argued over. The official Irish form is Cnoc na Góla, read as the hill of the pit, with the older anglicisations Knocknagoal and Knocknagole behind it; the local placename records prefer Coll-Choill, the hazel wood. Both readings have their backers, and the village has never settled the matter. What is certain is that by the mid-19th century Colehill was a post-town on the road from Dublin to Ballymahon, which is more than it looks like now.
There is no pub in the village and no shop to speak of - the life of the place runs through Abbeyshrule three kilometres south-east, where the Cistercian abbey, the Rustic Inn and the Royal Canal Greenway are. Come to Colehill for the Georgian house and the Nugent stone, and treat the abbey and the canal as the day around it. It is a place to arrive at on purpose, not one you stumble into.
