Monaghan 5.95

Monaghan is the county town of County Monaghan, Ireland. It also provides the name of its civil parish and barony.The population of the Town at the 2011 census was 8,012 including suburbs and environs. The town is on the N2 road from Dublin to Derry and Letterkenny.EtymologyThe Irish name Muineachán derives from a diminutive plural form of the Irish word muine meaning "brake" or sometimes "hillock". Patrick Weston Joyce interpreted this as "a place full of little hills or brakes". Monaghan County Council's preferred interpretation is "land of the little hills", a reference to the numerous drumlins in the area.HistoryEarly HistoryThe Menapii are the only known Celtic tribe specifically named on Ptolemy’s 150 AD map of Ireland, where they located their first colony- Menapia – on the Leinster coast circa 216 BC. They later settled around Lough Erne, becoming known as the Fir Manach, and giving their name to Fermanagh and Monaghan. Mongan mac Fiachna, a 7th century King of Ulster, is the protagonist of several legends linking him with Manannan mac Lir. They spread across Ireland, evolving into historic Irish (also Scottish and Manx) clans.The Battle of Clontibret between the forces of Earl Hugh Ó Néill of Tír Eoghain, The Ó Néill, and the English Crown was fought in northern Monaghan in May 1595. The territory of Monaghan had earlier been wrested from the control of the MacMahon sept in 1591, when the leader of the MacMahons was hanged by authority of the Dublin government; this was one of the events that led to the Nine Years War and the Tudor conquest of Ireland.