| Knockananna | |
| Native Name Lang: | ga |
| Settlement Type: | Village |
| Pushpin Map: | Ireland |
| Pushpin Label Position: | right |
| Pushpin Map Caption: | Location in Ireland |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Name: | Ireland |
| Subdivision Type1: | Province |
| Subdivision Name1: | Leinster |
| Subdivision Type3: | County |
| Subdivision Name3: | County Wicklow |
| Unit Pref: | Metric |
| Population As Of: | 2016 |
| Population Footnotes: | [1] |
| Population: | 143 |
| Population Density Km2: | auto |
| Coordinates: | 52.874°N -6.493°W |
| Elevation M: | 205 |
| Blank Name: | Irish Grid Reference |
Knockananna [2] is a village in County Wicklow, Ireland. After Roundwood, it is the second-highest village in Ireland.
In Liam 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.[3] An grave accent has been added in the 1989 Gazetteer of Ireland making Knockànanna to provide a guide to proper stressing in pronouncing the name correctly.[4] 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.[3]
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.[5]
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. He was interred in the old church in Knockananna.[6] The old church was renamed the Blanchelle Centre in his honour.[7] [8] The village is served by the Church of the Immaculate Conception which was built in 1978.[9]
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.[5] 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]