KILTANE PARISH is situated in southeast Erris, which itself is located in the north-western part of County Mayo. It derives its name from Cill tSeadha or the Church of Seadhna which was situated on the banks of the Owenmore River.

Robert Lloyd Praeger, in his Book "The Way That I Went" (1937) writes about Erris thus: "From North to East of Achill lies the Barony of Erris, the wildest, loneliest stretch of country to be found in Ireland. From Mullranny you may walk for thirty miles to the great cliffs of North Mayo, and your feet never leave the heather, save that twice you cross a road, fenceless, winding, like a narrow white ribbon through the endless brown bog. And if your course lies east of Bangor you will hardly ever see a house."

"If you keep to the highway up by Carrowmore Lake to the Belmullet peninsula, an occasional human habitation, and even a church will appear to lessen the monotony. The great blanket of bog, which covers Erris is broken by Carrowmore Lough, a large and bare sheet of water; to the south, the ground rises to the Nephin range. Indeed the Nephin range of mountains is, I think, the very loneliest place in the country, for the hills themselves are encircled by this vast area of trackless bog. Where else in Ireland will you find 200 square miles which is houseless and roadless - nothing but brown heather spreading as far as you can see, and rising along a kind of central back-bone into high bare hills breaking down here and there in rocky scarps, with the Atlantic winds singing along their slopes."

Of course many changes have taken place in the years since this was written, but far fewer in Kiltane than in most other parts of the country.

Indeed, its remoteness from large centres of population has saved it from the ravages / advantages of much of the economic boom that desecrated other little corners of Ireland during the Celtic Tiger era.