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<\/p>\nI was beguiled by words from an early age, especially the words that name places. My dad would regale us with stories of our grandfather, who hailed from Spellickanee, and of meeting up with his friends down Annabolica Lane, places that hardly sound real. <\/p>\n
Growing up on the Cooley Peninsula, home to the saga of the Brown Bull, I was fascinated by the mythology remembered in local names, like Queen Maeve\u2019s Gap, Dundalk (D\u00fan Dealgan) and Ardee (Ath Fhirdia). This fascination followed me when I fell into a career in book publishing, and found myself editing a series of Irish walking guides. Who wouldn\u2019t pause for thought when faced with Lough Eekenohoolikeaghaun?<\/p>\n
Much as a hot summer can reveal the outline of millennia old ring forts, place names can hold the secrets of our past. There\u2019s endless entertainment to be found in peeling back the layers of a name and digging into the histories and the myths behind it.<\/p>\n
Every field in the country can tell a story; every place name has memories woven into it. Sometimes it\u2019s a practical, does-exactly-what-it-says-on the-tin kind of name \u2013 \u2018the sea lake\u2019, Lough Atalia\/Loch an tS\u00e1ile \u2013 and sometimes it denotes possession \u2013 Tory, T\u00far R\u00ed, \u2018the tower of the king\u2019 \u2013 while some names commemorate an event from centuries ago: Priest\u2019s Leap\/L\u00e9im an tSagairt, which remembers the heroic escape of a priest from his pursuers. <\/p>\n
Some took a bit of effort to track down, like the aforementioned Annabolica, which resides primarily now in folklore. It appears as Anabologe on the 1820s six-inch Ordnance Survey map of Ireland. If I were to hazard a guess at its origin, I\u2019d say \u00c1th na Bol\u00f3g, \u2018the ford of the bullock\u2019. It is in Cooley, after all.<\/p>\n
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Place Names of Ireland: From Inishbiggle To New Twopothouse is editor Paula Elmore\u2019s debut book as an author.<\/p>\n
You can\u2019t help but be struck by the sheer peculiarity of some of our place names. Some sound cosy and welcoming, some vaguely threatening and some you just have to smile at. Many are anglicisations \u2013 in other words, the original Irish names written in English roughly following the pronunciation. Cill Ciar\u00e1n becomes Kilkieran, for example, and Tr\u00e1 B\u00e1n becomes Trabane. But the actual meanings \u2013 \u2018the church of Ciaran\u2019, \u2018white strand\u2019 \u2013 become garbled along the way. Others are an English name superimposed on a place, where the original Irish name bears little to no resemblance but has, thankfully, been retained. (Who outside of \u2018the nook of the tanner\u2019 \u2013 C\u00fail an tS\u00fadaire \u2013 would recognise Portarlington?)<\/p>\n
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Place Names of Ireland – From Inishbiggle to New Twopothouse by Paula Elmore. Published by The O\u2019Brien Press, \u20ac11.99.<\/p>\n
The Celtic gods and goddesses are remembered in the names of rivers and lakes, and in the name of the country itself (\u2018\u00c9ire\u2019 is named after a goddess of the Tuatha D\u00e9 Danann). There\u2019s ambiguity about the origins of many place names but, as a nation, we\u2019re well used to a bit of opacity: look no farther than GAA scoring and proportional representation.<\/p>\n
Names and places<\/p>\n
Ballynana, Co Kerry: This one sounds like a warm hug. The original Irish name for this county Kerry townland may have been Baile na nAchadh, \u2018the townland of the field\u2019, or Baile na n\u00c1ith, \u2018the townland of the kilns\u2019.<\/p>\n
Brickeens, Co Mayo: It may sound like a pile of little bricks, but Na Broic\u00edn\u00ed means \u2018badger warren\u2019.<\/p>\n
Bunnyconnellan, Co Mayo: From the Irish Muine Chonall\u00e1in, which means \u2018Conlon\u2019s thicket\u2019. There may or may not be rabbits hereabouts.<\/p>\n
Eden, Co Leitrim: Who\u2019d have thought we\u2019d find paradise in Co Leitrim? And yet there is it, bordered by the upper reaches of the River Shannon before it enters Lough Allen. In Irish, it\u2019s An t\u00c9adan, meaning \u2018brow\u2019 or \u2018forehead\u2019, so there\u2019s a hill. You\u2019ll find other Edens in counties Antrim, Derry, Donegal, Mayo, Meath, Roscommon and Tyrone, and an Eden Island in Monaghan.<\/p>\n
New Twopothouse, Co Cork: Tigh Nua an D\u00e1 Phota. Back in the 1700s, there was a coaching inn between Mallow and Buttevant called the Two-Pot House Inn (named for the two beer kegs, or pots, kept by the front door). In the 1800s, a new road was built between Cork and Limerick \u2013 now the N20 \u2013 and it had need of a coaching stop, too, of course. To differentiate it from the original one, it was called New Twopothouse.<\/p>\n
Kilfeakle, Co Tipperary: This has to be one of the oddest! Cill Fhiacal is \u2018the church of the tooth\u2019. One possible origin story is that no less a luminary than St Patrick himself lost a tooth here. The tooth was kept as a relic in the altar stone of the church, now ruined.<\/p>\n
Ballymacquiff North, Co Galway: From Baile Mhic Dhuibh Thuaidh, this is \u2018the northern townland of MacDuff\u2019. Who was, no doubt, fantastically well-coiffed.<\/p>\n
Cummeenanimma, Co Kerry: Sounds like how you\u2019d say \u2018come in a minute\u2019 after getting local anaesthetic at the dentist\u2019s, but it\u2019s actually from coim\u00edn an ime \u2013 coim\u00edn means the \u2018little glen\u2019 but the rest is uncertain, possibly \u2018the little glen of the butter\u2019.<\/p>\n
Clash: In Irish An Chlais means \u2018a ravine or trench\u2019. Not a place you\u2019d like to clash with an enemy. You\u2019ll find a Clash in Cork, Laois, Tipperary and Kerry.<\/p>\n
Spellickanee, Co Louth: This sounds like the sort of fiddledy idledy name old Hollywood might have conjured up for the atrocious Finian\u2019s Rainbow. However, unlike Glocca Morra, Spellickanee is a real place and can be found on the map. <\/p>\n
Nestled in the Cooley Mountains, you\u2019ll find Speilg an Fhiaigh, \u2018the raven\u2019s rock\u2019. Given the area\u2019s connection with C\u00fachulainn, it\u2019s not a stretch to imagine that the particular raven was an incarnation of the Morrigan. There\u2019s birdlife aplenty in the hills, and the glens echo with their caws.<\/p>\n
This extract is from Place Names of Ireland – From Inishbiggle to New Twopothouse by Paula Elmore. Published by The O\u2019Brien Press, \u20ac11.99.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I was beguiled by words from an early age, especially the words that name places. My dad would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[288,158270,93,61,60,43,285966],"class_list":["post-675188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-books","tag-contributor","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-place-names"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}