Oireachtas na Gaeilge, the largest annual Irish language arts festival, returns to Belfast at the end of October for the first time since 1997. This will doubtless bring about a spike in interest as to the meaning of the Irish name from which anglicized Belfast derives, Béal Feirste (logainm.ie #1166557). The structure of the name is straightforward but, as we will see presently, there have been slightly varying explanations of its meaning over the years. It is also particularly interesting to note that there is more than one Béal Feirste in Ireland, one of which refers to the deceptively pleasantly-named Fearsaid na Fionntrá “the tidal ford of/at the white strand”, which in fact led the traveller to the site of numerous bloody battles, both real and legendary, recorded in early Irish annals and literature.
Belfast / Béal Feirste in Co. Antrim is extremely well-attested in Irish sources, with many references provided in the Historical Dictionary of Gaelic Placenames (Fascicle 2 s.n. Béal Feirsde). The name is explained there as meaning “Approach to *Fearsad”. Béal ‘mouth’ frequently refers to an ‘approach’ when found in placenames, and the editors have taken Fearsad to be a pre-existing placename, most likely based on a historical reference to ‘Cath Feirste’ “the battle of Fearsad” (see Onomasticon Goedelicum, DIAS). Ireland’s most famous toponymist, John O’Donovan (once Professor of Celtic Languages at Queen’s University Belfast), gave another take on the meaning of Béal Feirste. In his explanation of the reference to ‘caislén beoil feirste’ in the Annals of the Four Masters he wrote “Bel-feirste, i.e., the mouth of the river Fersat, which falls into the River Lagan, where this castle stood” (see The Annals of the Four Masters IV, p. 1100).
Our colleagues at the Northern Ireland Place-Name Project have a slightly different understanding of its meaning, explaining Béal Feirste as “mouth of the sand-bank ford’’, adding that “The sand-bank ford was across the mouth of the river Lagan. The little river Farset which flows below High Street and enters the Lagan near this point has also been named from the ford (fearsaid, genitive feirste)” (see placenamesNI.org; see also McKay, P. (1999): A Dictionary of Ulster Place-Names, p. 21). This word fearsaid has a number of different meanings including “ridge of sand in tidal waters, tidal ford” (Ó Dónaill, FGB s.v. fearsaid). To the explanations of Béal Feirste just mentioned we may add another simplified variation, “approach of/to (the) tidal ford”.
The Modern Irish word fearsaid (gen. sg. feirste) is a development from Old Irish fertas due to a phenomenon called metathesis. (‘Old Irish’ refers to the period of the language from roughly c. 700 to c. 950 AD.) This fertas has been explained as meaning, among other things, ‘a raised bank or ridge of earth or sand, gen[erally] of a bar or shallow near the sea-shore or a ford in a river’ (eDIL s.v. 2 fertas), which is still the sense of Modern Irish fearsaid “ridge of sand in tidal waters, tidal ford”. This meaning seems to be a secondary development from an original ‘shaft … axle … spindle’, evidently referring to the raised nature of a sand ridge at low tide (eDIL s.v. 1 fertas). Dinneen’s early 20th-century dictionary explains the word as meaning both a ‘spindle’ (fearsaid) and ‘a passage across the strand at low water’ (fearsad), and he even specifically used ‘Béal Feirste, Belfast’ as an example of the latter (see Dinneen, s.vv. fearsad, fearsaid). Other meanings he provides for fearsad include ‘a deep narrow channel in the strand when the tide is at low ebb … a pit or pool of water’, indicating that the meaning of the word had extended to mean the very opposite of ‘a passage across the strand at low water’.
In any case, most references to the placename Béal Feirste in earlier Irish-language texts refer to it in conjunction with the caisleán ‘castle’ (see Historical Dictionary of Gaelic Placenames). This clearly reflects the settlement’s strategic location next to the River Lagan, most likely at the fearsaid ‘tidal ford’ where the estuary could be traversed. As it is likely that the fearsaid mentioned in the account of the early Cath Feirste ‘(the) battle of Fearsaid’ referred specifically to the tidal ford itself, the name Béal Feirste must refer to the site of the castle at the ‘approach of/to (the) tidal ford’.
It is not widely known that a second Béal Feirste ‘approach of/to (the) tidal ford’ is found as the name of a townland in the Gaeltacht of Co. Mayo (logainm.ie #37016). This had the variant Irish form Béal Fearsaide, reflected in the formerly official anglicized spelling Belfarsad found on Ordnance Survey maps. (When the Placenames (Ceantair Ghaeltachta) Order 2004 was made under the Official Languages Act 2003, this anglicized name ceased to have any legal status.) This townland is situated in northwest Mayo between the peninsula of An Corrán and the island of Acaill, directly opposite a place called Gob na Feirste ‘the point of the tidal ford’. According to the late Dr. Fiachra Mac Gabhann, Gob na Feirste is the headland that lies east of the village of Na Sraithíní on Acaill, just below a place called Gob Phatsy ‘Patsy’s point’. Fiachra’s research showed that Gob Phatsy had been erroneously marked ‘Gubnafarsda’ on the Ordnance Survey 6ʺ map, and Gob na Feirste is actually the next promontory to the south of this (‘Acaill le Mapaí; A collection of minor names from Acaill’ collated by Dr. Fiachra Mac Gabhann in the archive of An Brainse Logainmneacha). In any case Béal Feirste lies directly opposite Gob na Feirste, so we can assume that the tidal ford traversed Gob an Choire (Achill Sound) between these two points.
An even less well-known location formerly called Béal Feirste (logainm.ie #1437931) was situated in the townlands of Carrowcrin and Cartronabree on the shores of Ballysadare Bay in Co. Sligo. In the 17th century this placename is attested as ‘Belfersdy’ on the Down Survey and Hiberniae Delineatio maps (see downsurvey.tchpc.tcd.ie) and as ‘Bellfersdy’ in the related Book of Survey and Distribution, as well as ‘Bellfast’ in the unrelated Hearth Money Rolls (p. 29). We also find it as ‘Bellfirst’ in 1711 (CGn. 63.73.42718) and ‘Bellfrees als. Belferst’ in 1732 (CGn. 71.282.50749), so there can be no doubt that Béal Feirste is the original Irish form. (Note as an aside that our earliest example of the name, ‘Bealefirste’ (1614), found in a King’s grant to James Baxter, provides us with the name of its last Gaelic Irish owner, namely ‘Calloh McOwen O’Connor’ [Calbhach mac Eoghain Ó Conchúir] who was ‘slain in rebellion’ (CPR, p. 266b).)
A nineteenth-century map of tidal fords in County Sligo refers to the ford extending from Béal Feirste to Streamstown as ‘Fintragh Pass’ (T. O’Rorke, The History of Sligo: Town and County I, p. 47). This fearsaid ‘tidal ford’ actually leads not only to Streamstown, but to two further tidal fords depicted as ‘Long Strand’ and ‘Short Strand’ on the map in question. In fact, this document shows that there was once a network of tidal fords in Co. Sligo: the first went from Coolbeg and Kintogher across Drumcliff Bay; the second crossed Sligo Bay at Fearsaid Rann an Liagáin (possibly at Standalone Point); the third was the one just mentioned, crossing Ballysadare Bay from Béal Feirste to Streamstown; while the last ones, namely ‘Short Strand’ and ‘Long Strand’, led from the same place in Streamstown across the south of Ballysadare Bay to Crockacullion and Beltra, respectively. These formed part of the primary route from west Ulster into north Connaught. The longer of last-mentioned tidal fords, namely ‘Long Strand’ was identified as Fearsaid na Fionntrá at Cúil Chnámh in Edward Hogan’s Onomasticon Goedelicum: ‘f[ersat] na finntrága at Cúil Cnamh [next to Beltra] … al. Pass of Tráigh Eothuille’. This identification was recently followed by one of the present writers in an essay discussing defunct placenames in Sligo (see C. Ó Crualaoich, ‘Causeways, battles, real and imaginary: some placenames in the Sligo parish of Dromard, one of the ‘three wonders of Connaught and Ireland’ and one of the ‘three strands of Ireland’, in Sligo Field Club Journal 2023). However, in light of the identification by Sligo man Terence O’Rorke of the fearsaid from Béal Feirste to Streamstown as ‘Finntragh Pass’, there seems little reason to doubt that this was actually Fearsaid na Fionntrá ‘the tidal ford of the white strand’ as mentioned in the Annals.
Be that as it may, at roughly 4km, the fearsaid across Ballysadare Bay called ‘Long Strand’, to which the tidal ford from Sligo’s Béal Feirste ultimately led, was unquestionably one of the longest tidal fords in Connaught and possibly in the whole of Ireland. It was the site of numerous historical battles and skirmishes, so much so that its fame spread thoroughly into native Irish literature: mentioned in the Fenian Cycle, it also crops up frequently in the saga called Cath Mhaigh Tuireadh (‘The Battle of Maigh Tuireadh’), as well as in the native Triads and genealogies. Its renown also led to the literary creation of further aliases for the strand such as Ros Airgid ‘silver headland’ and Trá na Mná Mairbhe ‘the strand of the dead woman’. An optical illusion caused by a feature north of the fearsaid, namely Carraigín Eothaile, was so infamous that it too was incorporated into literature: as Carn Thrá Eothaile it was described as the burial cairn of King Eochaidh mac Eirc, also known as Carn Eachach and Luí Eothaile. Indeed, this Luí Eothaile was described in the Triads as one of the ‘Trí hignad Hérenn’ “three wonders of Ireland” (see ‘Causeways, battles, real and imaginary’). Its infamy was due to a particularly dangerous optical illusion: Carraigín Eothaile (als. Luí Eothaile) appeared at exactly the same level by low water as by high. This meant that the fearsaid at Trá Eothaile could be easily misjudged and be particularly perilous, even when armies, real or literary, weren’t clashing here. Indeed, it must be no coincidence that the point at which the fearsaid of Trá Eothaile came ashore at Beltra / Béal Trá was actually called Cúil Chnámh “(the) recess of bones” locally.
However, references to fearsaid need not always be perilous or filled with foreboding. On the occasion of this year’s Oireachtas, it is pleasing to note the coincidence that fearsaid can also refer to literary creations such as a ‘piece of poetry, verse or ditty’ (FGB s.v. fearsaid). Keeping phrases such as i mbéal eadra ‘coming on to milking-time’ in mind, can we stretch our poetic licence to translate Béal Feirste as ‘coming on to poetry-time’…? Maybe just for the duration of the Oireachtas!
(Conchubhar Ó Crualaoich \& Aindí Mac Giolla Chomhghaill)