According to Hore ‘St. Dulogues’ is a corruption of ‘St. Olave’s’, the name of a ‘Danish Church’ that was located at the present-day junction of King Street and Barrack Street, which together with St. Patrick’s was appurtenant to Selskar (Hore v p.76). Culleton takes St. Doologe’s to be a corruption of the name St Olaf, a saint-king who ruled Norway from 1015 to 1028. He died in 1030 and his cult spread quickly; by 1050 churches were being dedicated to him. Churches were dedicated to him at Dublin and Waterford as well as Wexford. The name was also spelled Tullock’s and Tullogue’s, which has led to suggestions that the dedication was to St Ellóc, as at Kerloge (Culleton, 1999 p.215).

It is of particular interest to note that a church dedicated to St. Olaf in Dublin is also found as ‘S. Tullock’s’ (see Haworth, 1988 p.181; Colfer, 2002 pp. 16‒7), and so derivation of St. Doologe’s from a form of the name Óláfr is not at all improbable. Doologe is clearly unlikely to be a direct English reflex of Norse Óláfr, and in fact its shape strongly suggests that it is from an Irish form of the name. Óláfr was gaelicised as Amhlaoibh (< Mid.Ir. Amlaíb: see Ó Corráin & Maguire, 1981 p.22), and it is conceivable that a hypocoristic form of this name, e.g. *Damhlóg (< do + Amhl(aoibh) + -óg) (cf. ‘Tultóc’ < ‘Ultán’, CGSH 707.946), would have generated Doologe. Alternatively, the later addition of the English prefix Saint to an anglicised form of another hypocoristic *Amhlóg (< Amhl(aoibh) + -óg) could also have generated Toologe/Doologe through metanalysis; two comparable examples of this process are ‘[Saint] Tivories’ = ST. IBERIUS (par.) (#2614), and ‘[St.] Tullan’ = ST. HELEN’S (par.) (#2612).

On the other hand, it has been seen above that the native saint Eallóg was associated with Wexford Harbour (see KERLOGE, par. (#2553)), and it has been suggested that the early attestation ‘Cilli Moellóc ic Loch Garman’ may actually refer to this location (see FSÁG iv Ceall Meallóg). If this identification is correct, St. Doologe’s may derive from Cill Deallóg, an alternative hypocoristic form of Eallóg (cf. Colfer 1999, loc. cit.).

The origin of this place-name remains unclear; it could derive from a Norse name via gaelicisation, or it could be of native Irish origin. In light of the uncertainty the Irish form of the name proposed here is the phonetic approximation Dúlóg, which contains the long /uː/ reflected in forms such as ‘Toolog’ (14).

[Excerpt from Logainmneacha na hÉireann IV: Townland Names of County Wexford, 2016]