User:Jnestorius/Irish placenames

Irish name source language	Irish name type	English name source language	English name type	Examples
Irish	Natural feature	Irish	Anglicisation of current Irish name	Corcaigh "marsh"/→Cork
Irish		Irish	Folk-etymology anglicisation of current Irish name	Páirc an Fhionnuisce "Park of the Clear water"/Phoenix Park Cnoc Fhiodh na gCaor "Hill of the Berry Tree" /Vinegar Hill [1] Bláth Gall/Blackhall by Punchestown Racecourse [2]
Irish	Natural feature	Irish	Anglicisation of other Irish name	Baile Átha Cliath "town of the ford of hurdles"/dubh linn "black pool"→ Dublin Árainn/Inis Mór "big island"→Inishmore (Inis Mór is an invented name never used in Irish.) Neidín "little nest"/Ceann Mara "head of the sea"→Kenmare
Irish	Natural feature	Norse	Natural feature	Loch Garmáin "Lake"/vex fjord "harbour"→Wexford
Norse	Natural	Norse	Natural	Fota, Blasket
Irish	Natural feature	English	Natural feature	Abhann Mór "great river"/Blackwater (cf. Avonmore)
Irish	Unknown	Irish	Anglicisation of current Irish name	Dúlrac/Dooroc "The meaning of the name seems to be irretrievably lost"
Irish	Natural feature	English	Calque of the Irish	Bun na hAbhann "bottom of the river"/→Burnfoot
Irish	Natural/artificial feature	English	Eponym	Sliabh Chorr na Muclach "Cornamucklagh mountain"/Anglesey Mountain — in townland of Corr na Muclach/Cornamucklagh "hill of the piggery", which in 1830s was owned by Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey
Irish	Natural feature	English	Artificial feature	Bréantrá "Foul strand"/Union Hall (house named after Act of Union 1800)
Irish	Calque of the English	English	Artificial feature	Droichead Nua "new bridge"←/Newbridge
English	Untranslated from English	English	Clause	Pass-If-You-Can [3]
English	Gaelicisation of same English name	English	Townland	Giolaspar←Giltspur [4]
English	Gaelicisation of other English name	English	Natural feature	Little Sugarloaf / Giolaspar←Giltspur, from the townland to the north rented for a pair of gilt spurs per annum
English	translation	English		site:logainm.ie aistriúchán

Complex

• Eng Cloneety < Ir Cluan an Fhaotigh "White's Meadow" which includes Ir Faotigh < Eng White [surname]
• Baile na Lathach > Duckstown lathach unusual genitive of "mud" mistranslated based on lacha / "duck"
• Móinín na gCloigeann Thuaidh/Moneennagliggin North or Boston village is officially Boston but townland has either name

Townland name uniqueness

• Griffith ensured two townlands in the same civil parish never had the same name, if necessary adding parenthetical disambiguators.
  • He answered an EPPI question to this effect
• Where a townland was split by a cp boundary, Griffith split into two tlds with the same name
• What if these two ended up in the same DED? Did their names change?
• When were islands erected into tlds?
  • This has resulted in at least one pair of same-named townlands Illaunroe in cp Killannin bar Moycullen, though different Irish names and in Gaeltacht: Oileán an Rosa/Illaunroe OSi "An t-Oileán Rua" and Na Rua-oileáin/Illaunroe OSi Na Rua-oileáin
    • S.I. 2004/872 has "Illaunroe Island [ED: Lettermore] (OS 77)" and "Illaunroe Island [ED: Lettermore] (OS 89)" with legend "The electoral division [ED] is given, and the county district [CD] when necessary, to distinguish placenames with the same spelling" although it's the OS 25-inch mapsheet that's given rather than the CD, which would be larger than the ED in any case.
  • I see that, whereas the SI lists Illaunroe under "townland", logainm now has a "townland, island or archipelago" label for them, whereas e.g. Castle Island, Skull is logainm "townland" and OS townland; maybe this is a recognition that the previous "townland" designation was incorrect?
• Some townlands have two alternative names, e.g. Furnace or Bleankillew
  • Often one is derived from Irish (and provides the single official Irish name) while the other is of English origin [Bléan Choilleadh]
    • Counterexample: "Greenfield or Shanbally" → An Bhuaile Ghlas
    • Sometimes both are from Irish and
      • Sometimes both are translated "Dooncarton or Glengad" → "Dún Ceartáin nó Gleann an Ghad"
      • Sometimes only one is "Mulmosog or Altnagapple" → "Maol Mosóg"
  • In the townland indexes, one alias is cross-referenced to the other
  • In the townland indexes and OS maps, the "or" is typeset differently from the two aliases it separates: OS "or" is smaller, Index "or" is in italics
• A question over interaction of alias and uniqueness:
  • I had thought that, if there were townlands "Foo" and "Foo or Bar", Griffith would make them "Foo (X)" and "Foo (Y) or Bar", not relying on the alias "Bar" to disambiguate. I though I saw some such.
  • But there is a counterexample: cp Cong, Co Galway has tlds "Cappacorcoge" Ceapach Chorcóige Thiar and "Ashford or Cappacorcoge" Ceapach Chorcóige Thoir: see OS 6-inch

Variant English spellings

"Inscribing Ireland : Place-names and the author/ity of the Ordnance Survey (1824-1846)" pp.108-114:

• original guide was to enshrine the most commonly-used spelling; but
  • sources biased towards the élite, educated, well-connected, literate rather than the demotic, local, popular, oral
  • Larcom and O'Donovan favoured national standardisation of Irish etymological elements, which meant
    • might override local Irish pronunciation variant
    • folk-etymologies and other corruptions
• Valuation Office and census accepted, but "failing to win the favour of government departments and institutions such as the Post Office"

https://amp.irishexaminer.com/ireland/vote-needed-to-change-nra-spelling-of-towns-in-clare-386752.html 2016 N67 Ballyvaughan, Ennistymon, and Lahinch being changed to read Ballyvaghan, Ennistimon and Lehinch.

Tables

See also: User:Jnestorius/Renamed Irish places

Places with variant spellings or names

Local spelling	OS spelling	County	Notes
Ballinacurra	Ballynacorra	Cork
Cahir	Caher	Tipperary
Monasterevin	Monasterevan	Kildare
Schull	Skull	Cork
Enniscrone	Inishcrone	Sligo	2018 calls for a plebiscite as Wild Atlantic Way tourism affected. Approved by county council but postponed pending bill to improve the renaming process.
Palmerstown	Palmerston	Dublin	2009 plebiscite failed to reach 50% turnout. 2014 plebiscite restricted to Palmerstown Village succeeded.
Lahinch	Lehinch	Clare	2018 plebiscite planned, spurred by change to roadsigns in 2013.
Ballyvaughan	Ballyvaghan	Clare
Miltown Malbay	Milltown Malbay	Clare

Miscellaneous

Act of Explanation [17 & 18 Chas. II. c. 2.] which followed the Act of Settlement, has this [s. ccxxxiv.]

His Majestie taking notice of the barbarous and uncouth names, by which most of the towns and places in his kingdom of Ireland are called, which hath occasioned much damages to diverse of his good subjects, and are very troublesome in the use thereof, and much retards the reformation of that kingdom, for remedy thereof is pleased that it be enacted, and be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that the lord lieutenant and council shall and may advise of, settle and direct in the passing of all letters patents in that kingdom for the future, how new and proper names more suitable to the English tongue may be inserted with an alias for all towns, lands and places in that kingdom, that shall be granted by letters patents; which new names shall thenceforth be the only names to be used, any law, statute, custom, or usage to the contrary notwithstanding.

Points from Nash 1999:

• Dublin Corporation c.1900 faced with '24 names of kings, queens and their families, 56 Lord Lieutenants, 96 nobles and other owners of property, various officials and celebrated persons' (Mac Mathuina 1992, 63)
• Northern Ireland, the erection of bilingual signs was officially banned in 1947 was still legally prohibited until 1995
• PW Joyce 1910 described as 'purely Celtic' placenames 'with the exception of about a thirteenth part, which are English and mostly of recent introduction'.
• While arguing that the Ordnance Survey 'did little to repair the damage done by centuries of anglicisation' (Andrews 1997, 22), J H Andrews challenges popular simplified versions ... Placenames, he argues, were altered by English speakers through direct renaming and translation, but mostly by a process of Anglicization ... Andrews (1992) outlines five sources of toponymic change - substitution, translation, transcription from Irish-language documents, dictation and restoration - and argues that, despite recently becoming 'a metaphor symbolising all the cultural mischief done by Englishmen in Ireland' (1992, 11), translation was relatively rare. ... Irish names, Andrews argues, were not simply translated. New English names were introduced, but mostly for market towns, country houses, villages and farms newly established through plantation (Muhr 1992a, xii). ... While Andrews blames Friel for promulgating this version of placename history, it is possible to read Translations against the grain of its popular interpretation to reveal a more subtle approach than Andrews suspects. Instead, the play offers a more complex post-colonial cul- tural politics of language and location.
• government issued circulars [1977 and 1986] and guidelines [1992] to local authorities ... development names are historically linked to the area being developed and that traditional local names are used wherever possible ... as Liam Mac Mathuina, an Irish language scholar, put it 'where cohorts of Hadleighs, Hamptons, Westburys and Westminsters team up with squads of Closes, Copses, Downes and Mewses'

Legal Irish names:

• Act 1973/24 two orders:
  • SI 1975/133 all "post towns"
  • SI 2001/221 "An Cnoc" > "Cnoc Mhuire"

Ó Broin, Tomás (1999). "Inis Thiar: Naming and Misnaming". Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society. 51: 109–119. ISSN 0332-415X. JSTOR 25535701.

Inisheer is locally Inis Thiar but officially Inis Oirthir or Inis Oírr, which Ó Broin contends is due to a mistake by Roderic O'Flaherty in 1684.

Sources

irishtimes 2023/05/27 The Irish used on Dublin street signs is confused. Does it matter?

• de hÓir, Éamonn (1972–1973). "The Anglicisation of Irish Placenames" (PDF). Onoma. XVII: 192–204.
• Duffy, Patrick J. (2004). "Unwritten Landscapes: Reflections on Minor Place-names and Sense of Place in the Irish Countryside". Surveying Ireland's past: multidisciplinary essays in honour of Angret Simms. Geography Publications. pp. 689–712. ISBN 978-0-906602-42-3. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  • this gives types like the first table; interestingly Irish Deliginis > translated Norse Dalkey > retained English Dalkey.
  • Also post-transliteration divergence, as with cnoc > knock /krɒk/ > /nɒk/
• Hindley, Reg (1990). "Appendix 2: Some problems in the rendering and identification of Irish place-names in the Gaeltachtai". The death of the Irish language : a qualified obituary. London ; New York: Routledge. pp. 261–265. ISBN 978-0-415-04339-7 – via Internet Archive.
• Mac Giolla Easpaig, Dónall (2008). "Placenames Policy and its Implementation" (PDF). In Nic Phaidin, Caoilfhionn (ed.). A New View of the Irish Language. Cois Life. pp. 164–177. ISBN 978-1-908057-78-5. Retrieved 8 July 2020.
• Nash, Catherine (1999). "Irish Placenames: Post-Colonial Locations". Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 24 (4): 457–480. doi:10.1111/j.0020-2754.1999.00457.x. ISSN 0020-2754. JSTOR 623235.
• Ó CEARBHAILL, PÁDRAIG (14 February 2013). "Dublin's street names". History Ireland. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
• Ó Muraíle, Nollaig (2001). "Some Thoughts on Matters Onomastic". Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society. 53: 23–46. ISSN 0332-415X. JSTOR 25535719.