Knockananna
Irish: Cnoc an Eanaigh
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Village
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Centre of Knockananna
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  Knockananna Location in Ireland | |
| Coordinates: 52°52′26″N 6°29′35″W / 52.874000°N 6.493000°W / 52.874000; -6.493000 | |
| Country | Ireland |
| Province | Leinster |
| County | County Wicklow |
| Elevation | 205 m (673 ft) |
| Population | 143 |
| Irish Grid Reference | T010814 |
Knockananna (Irish: Cnoc an Eanaigh, meaning 'hill of the marsh')[2] is a village in County Wicklow, Ireland. After Roundwood, it is the second-highest village in Ireland.[3]
InLiam 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.[4]Angrave accent has been added in the 1989 Gazetteer of Ireland making Knockànanna to provide a guide to proper stressing in pronouncing the name correctly.[5] 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.[4]
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.[6]
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.[3] He was interred in the old church in Knockananna.[7] The old church was renamed the Blanchelle Centre in his honour.[8][9] The village is served by the Church of the Immaculate Conception which was built in 1978.[3]
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.[10] 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.[11]
Irish singer and songwriter Órla Fallon was born in Knockananna in 1974.[12]
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.[13]
There is a grocery shop and a pub in the village.[6] The village has a GAA team and the club colours are red and white.[14]
The village was served by a post office from at least 1927, under Ballinglen[15] until its closure on 5 March 2010.[16] The Knockananna post office came under the auspices of Arklow from 1964 until it was closed.[17]
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