Ireland's Heritage of Geographical Names
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Wiener Schriften zur Geographie und Kartographie, Vol. 18, Wien 2009, pp. 79–85 79 MAC GIOLLA EASPAI G , Dónall (Dublin/Baile Átha Cliath, Ireland)* Ireland’s heritage of geographical names Contents Summary 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................79 2 The historical corpus of Ireland’s place names .......................................................................................80 3 Non-Irish influence on place names ........................................................................................................81 4 The anglicisation of Ireland’s place names ..............................................................................................82 5 The restoration of Irish place-name forms ..............................................................................................82 6 The work of the Place Names Branch .....................................................................................................82 7 Place Names Database of Ireland ..........................................................................................................83 8 References .............................................................................................................................................84 Summary Geographical names have been central to Irish tradition from the dawn of history. The medieval Irish created a separate literary genre, the Dindshenchas, meaning ‘the lore of notable places’, devoted to explaining the origins of the names of geographical features of renown such as Temair, Tara, and Boand, the River Boyne, to mention two. Most of the explanations are highly fanciful and in a large number of cases several explanations for the same name are given, one more absurd than the next. The vast majority of Ireland’s geographical names are of Irish language in origin; others derive from English, while a small but significant number derive from Old Norse. Most Irish-origin place names occur in English written forms only. The process of anglicisation, which culminated in the Ordnance Survey’s work of name- standardisation in the 19th century, resulted in rendering the names unintelligible. As a consequence, a great deal of scholarly effort is required to establish the correct original forms of the names. It is national policy that the geographical names of the country have official standardised Irish-language versions in addition to the existing English versions. In fulfilling this policy, the Place Names Office of the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs is engaged in the systematic research of the geographical names of the country and to date has established correct, standardised Irish spellings for thousands of names. In the process, many more thousands of historical forms of the names have been recorded, along with other impor- tant related material, very little of which has been published. The Place Names Office is at present working to make this extensive archive available in a new online database, which is being developed in conjunction with Dublin City University. The Place Names Database of Ireland will enhance public appreciation of Ireland’s rich heritage of geographical names. 1 Introduction 1991–1993). The current consensus among scholars, however, appears to hold that only about a quarter of The earliest record of geographical names in Ireland PTOLEMY ’s names are identifiable with certainty (TONER is found in the Geography composed by Claudius 2000, pp. 79-80). The first reliable place-name forms PTOLEMAEUS of Alexandria in about the year 150 AD. are those found in the earliest native sources, writ- PTOLEMY mentions 47 names in the country, including ten in Latin and Irish, which date from the 6th and 7th toponyms and ethnonyms, but the corrupt nature of centuries. The wealth of documents in Irish from the the manuscript forms makes identification problem- following centuries contain thousands of references to atic. Several attempts have been made to connect place names, most of which survive to the present. PTOLEMY ’s names to names occurring in later sources the most recent, and most ambitious, of which seeks Geographical names occupy a central position in to provide identifications for all of them (MAC AN B HAIRD native tradition from the earliest records down to the * Dónall MAC G IOLLA E AS P AI G , Convenor of the UNGEGN Working Group on Pronunciation, Place Names Branch, Depart- ment of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, 43/49, Mespil Road, Dublin 4, Ireland; email: [email protected] 80 MAC GIOLLA EAS P AI G , D.: Ireland‘s heritage of geographical names present day. The early Irish had an abiding interest in of Lugaid son of Ith, wife of Erimon son of Mil. It is the names in their landscape and even created a sepa- there that she was buried. As the poet has sung: rate literary genre devoted to them. The Dindshenchas, The first woman who went into a cold grave of the ‘the lore of notable places’, a body of work in prose host from the Tower of white Bregan, Tea of Brega, and poetry which was composed in the 10th and 11th the king’s wife from whom Temair is named’. centuries, seeks to explain the origins of the names of famous geographical features (Ó CUÍV 1989–90). It is As with most of the etymologies found in the Dindsh- interesting to note that three of the names mentioned enchas the above explanation is absolutely far-fetched by PTOLEMY are the subject of separate Dindshenchas and is lacking any linguistic basis. From the toponymic poems, namely Boand, the River Boyne, Sinann, the viewpoint, a compound form such as Tea-múr, ‘the River Shannon, and Benn Étair, Howth (GWYNN 1913, rampart of Tea’, is wholly improbable in Irish place pp. 26, 104, 286). names. The implausibility of the explanation was recognised by one medieval commentator, who sug- The country’s most renowned place name in medieval gested an alternative origin for the name. This proposal times was undoubtedly that of Tara in County Meath. holds that Temair is a common appellative meaning ‘a The Hill of Tara is a low-lying ridge situated in rolling height’, which was a borrowing of a Greek word denot- fertile land about 30 km north-west of Dublin. The ing a place with a view. Unfortunately, this explanation site contains a significant number of archaeological of the name is almost of equal implausibility. monuments from the prehistoric period associated with the ancient high kingship of Ireland. The king of The name Temair is the subject of two recent in-depth Tara was regarded, symbolically at least, as king of the studies as part of an overall reassessment of the whole country (BHREATHNACH 1996, p. 87). Even after significance of the historical site of Tara. The first the demise of its political importance about the 11th study shows that far from being an uniquely attested century, Tara remained a place of symbolic national name, Temair is the basis of over 20 other extant place importance into modern times. names in the country (Ó MURAÍLE 2005). In the second contribution, the present writer demonstrates that The Irish name for Tara is Teamhair, or Temair in me- most of the places named Temair had mythological dieval orthography; the English form of the name is a or pre-Christian religious significance similar to that reflex of the Irish genitive, Teamhra. The Dindshenchas associated with Tara in County Meath. It is argued that contains four poetical and several prose items on Tara, the name Temair refers to a sacred enclosure and a fact that testifies to the status and renown of the site that, linguistically, the name derives from the Indo- (MAC GIOLLA EAS P AI G 2005, p. 423). Two explanations European root *tem-‘to cut’, a root that is found in are given for the name; the first holds that the place is the general lexicon of Irish in the appellatives taman, named from a woman buried there, while the second ‘a trunk’, and tamhnach, ‘a clearing’. The Irish place explains the name as a common appellative signifying name, Temair, is thus related to both Greek temenos, ‘a height, a place with a view’. ‘a sacred precinct’, and Latin templum, ‘a temple’, in its etymology and signification, that is, it refers to a The better known explanation derives Temair from sacred space that has been cut off from the profane the name of a mythological woman called Tea, who world (MAC GIOLLA EAS P AI G 2005, pp. 446–448). is buried on the summit of the hill. According to this proposition, Temair is a reflex of an earlier form, Tea- As noted in the case of Tara, the explanations of place mur, which is explained as a compound of a woman’s names found in the Dindshenchas are mostly far- name Tea, and a common noun, múr, a borrowing of fetched and at times downright absurd. This body of Latin murus, meaning ‘a wall or rampart’ and by ex- work of literature is of undisputed importance from the tension ‘a burial mound’. The name would translate literary perspective in that it contains mythological and as ‘the rampart or burial mound of Tea’. According to pseudo-historical lore not found elsewhere. For those the story, Tea was the daughter of the mythological with an interest in toponymy, the Dindshenchas offers deity Lugaid and the wife of the equally mythological a fascinating insight into the high regard in which the Erimon who died and was buried at Tara. A quotation medieval literati and their audiences held their herit- from one of the texts will give a flavour