Some years ago, while discussing the commercialization of Christmas, one of the current writers’ sons – whose first language is Irish – commented unequivocally that the advertisement of Christmas wares and hanging of decorations prior to December was in all circumstances wrong. As it turned out, this strongly held opinion was not derived from a deep objection to the desecration of religious festivals or any such philosophical argument; rather, the underlying reason was simply that the Irish for December is Mí na Nollag ‘the month of Christmas’, whereas November is called Mí na Samhna ‘the month of Halloween’, and therefore Christmas decorations in Mí na Samhna ‘the month of Halloween’ did not make any sense. We might wonder whether Irish society would be as open to the premature celebration of Christmas in November (‘the month of Halloween’), now firmly established, if Irish were still the vernacular language of the majority of the country.
The question of how bilingualism influences a person’s worldview is one for another day, although matters concerning Christmas also raise other intriguing linguistic questions. For example, it is likely that the famous English-language Christmas carol Away in a Manger sounded most peculiar to people in Ireland when they first heard it, as the word manger is not at all common in Hiberno-English. Curiously, however, a related form of the same word was in fact in use for hundreds of years in the Irish language. English manger is a borrowing from French, and its French forerunner was first brought to Ireland by French-speaking Anglo-Normans, who themselves began speaking Irish within a few generations; the French word was directly gaelicized as mainséar. (See Henry Risk’s seminal ‘French loanwords’ in Études Celtiques 14 (1974) p. 83: ‘mainnsér < AN manger (OF mangeūre)’; the Irish word is described as a ‘Romance loan-word’ in the Dictionary of the Irish Language (eDIL) s.v. mainnsér). From there, mainséar appears to have become quite productive in Irish: it is found in townland names and other placenames in all four provinces, from Donegal to Cork and from Mayo to Wicklow. Thus we have Cúige na Mainséar / Quignamanger ‘the fifth of the mangers’ (logainm.ie #34135) – in which cúige ‘fifth’ refers to a portion of land – at Ballina in Co. Mayo (in an area which was actually part of Co. Sligo until the redrawing of the boundaries under the Local Government Act 1898); Doire na Mainséar / Derrynamansher ‘the (oak-)wood, grove of the mangers’ (logainm.ie #14506) in Co. Donegal; Log an Mhainséir / Logavinshire ‘the hollow of (at) the manger’ (logainm.ie #30622) in Co. Limerick; and Móin an Mhainséir / Monavanshere ‘the bog of (at) the manger’ (logainm.ie #11397) in Co. Cork. The historical references to An Mainséar / Manger (logainm.ie #54939) in Co. Wicklow such as ‘Mangerterelegh … Maunger, Tirlegh’ (c. 1540) Ir. Mon. Poss., ‘Mangertorlaght’ (1541) Fiants (Hen.) §211, ‘Manger Treleghe (1551) Fiants (Ed.) §775, and ‘Manger Tereleighe’ (1559) Fiants (Eliz.) §1367, suggest an earlier Mainséar Thoirealaigh ‘the manger of Toirealach’, although the identity of this Toirealach is unknown.
The townland name An Mainséar / Manger (logainm.ie #28184) in Co. Laois may be a recent English coinage, as we have found no references prior to the 19th century. We don’t have enough information on the name Manger in Co. Fermanagh to draw any certain conclusions about its origin, but the existence of the minor name ‘Manger Beg’ in the townland, probably from An Mainséar Beag ‘the small manger’ (placenamesni.org), certainly suggests Irish origin. The evidence for the name of the townland An Mainséar / Mountelliott (logainm.ie #53494), next to New Ross in Co. Wexford, is somewhat problematic. The original name is most certainly of Irish origin and the generic element appears to have been mainséar (‘Mangers’ 1713, etc.) while its English-language replacement, Mountelliott (1786), apparently derives from the big house and its later New English residents (see Logainmneacha na hÉireann IV: Townland names in Co. Wexford (2016) for discussion). A more transparent example from Co. Wexford is found in the defunct ‘Manshearinneagh’ (1654) Civil Survey, p. 55, near Blackwater on the boundary of the civil parishes of Castle Ellis and Skreen. This ‘Manshearinneagh’ points to an underlying Mainséar an Eich ‘the manger of the horse’ or …na nEach ‘…of the horses’.
That last placename brings us closer to the imagery of the donkey in the manger frequently found in the Christian tradition. We find a reference to the birth of Jesus in an Irish-language poem from 1814: ‘Nuair rugadh É go dearbh / A mainséar fuar an asail / Go bocht úiríseal dealbh gan ionmhas gan aer’ (corpas.ria.ie: Dánta Dé, dar tús ‘Céad glóire leis an Athair…’, line 1087). (Note that a here is an older spelling of the preposition i ‘in’; leg. ‘I mainséar fuar an asail’.) Similar references are found in various pre-20th-century Irish poems (see corpasria.ie s.v. mainséar), indicating that the asal ‘donkey’, itself a loanword from Latin asellus (dil.ie s.v. asal), had a well-established place in Gaelic Christian tradition. So while lifelong exposure to Irish might cause one to baulk at the erection of Christmas decorations in November rather than ‘the month of Christmas’ itself, the asal is certainly welcome in any nativity scene involving the mainséar.
(Conchubhar Ó Crualaoich & Aindí Mac Giolla Chomhghaill)