(the) town(land) of —?

The evidence for this place-name is compatible with derivation from ‘Baile Traint’ as suggested by O’Donovan (19) (see also BPP p.33). However, earlier historical examples in -trent suggest a palatal tr- as in Baile Threaint.

The specific element appears to have been monosyllabic, and the anglicised forms contain no reflex of the article an or na, as is usual in anglicised Irish place-names in Forth and Bargy (see BALLYBOHER (#54494), par. Ishartmon; cf. BALLYTRA (#54187), par. Carn). The consistent spelling of the ending in -nt would indicate that this element was a borrowing into Irish: the consonant cluster -nt had disappeared in the prehistory of Irish (cf. Welsh cant versus Ir. céad “hundred”), and although it re-emerged in the sixth century it occurred only internally, due to syncope in multisyllabic words (see McCone, 1996 pp.74–5, 127–30). This suggests that the final element here is derived from a foreign name similar to O’Donovan’s ‘Trant’ (19), an English surname which is recorded by Cottle (1978, p.387). Woulfe (SGG p.280) states further that the name de Treant means ‘of Trent, a parish in Somerset, also a place in Dorset’ and mentions the family of that name based in An Daingean, Co. Kerry. If the final element here is identical, Ballytrent would be one of the very few Irish names in South Wexford to contain a borrowing from the Anglo-Normans (see BALLYSAMPSON (#54182), par. Ballymore).

MacLysaght (MIF p.233) gives an alternative tradition that the Trants of Kerry were Ostmen (Danes) who arrived in one of the pre-Norman Shannon settlements. However, it should be noted that in fourteenth-century documents the surname occurs in Kerry as (le) Trewent and Trawent (see CJI Edw.I ii pp.411, 610; see also CJI Edw.I i, p.564), spellings which look not only distinctly un-Norse in form, but remarkably similar to the Pembrokeshire place-name Trewent. This evidence suffices to raise serious doubts about MacLysaght’s suggestion that Trant predated the Anglo-Normans in Ireland, and as a result one must be circumspect about any theory that the eponym of the present place-name Ballytrent was of Hiberno-Norse origin. Indeed, it is possible that the -u- in ‘Ballytrounte’ (1) is a reflex of the -w- in the surname Trewent/Trawent as found in the Kerry examples just mentioned.

The Irish form of Caheratrant (#22795) in the Kerry Gaeltacht of Corca Dhuibhne is Cathair an Treantaigh “the circular stone fort, dwelling place of An Treantach (Trent)”, which contains the substantive adjectival form of the surname discussed by Woulfe (see SGG p.280). However, as the sizeable evidence for Ballytrent shows no unambiguous reflex of final -aigh, it is felt appropriate to adhere to a form similar to O’Donovan’s suggested ‘Baile Traint’ (19), Baile Threaint.
[Excerpt from Logainmneacha na hÉireann IV: Townland Names of County Wexford, 2016]