Given the month that was in it, the featured ‘Themes of the Week’ on logainm.ie in November 2023 and 2024 concerned the occurrence of various ghostly or otherworldly elements in Irish placenames (Irish Mí na Samhna ‘the month of Samhain, Halloween’). These included words such as púca ‘sprite; ghost; bogey-man’, piast (var. biast) ‘worm, beast’, fuath ‘monster’, sióg ‘fairy’ and sián ‘fairy mound’. On other occasions the ‘Theme of the Week’ also noted occurrences of deamhan ‘demon, devil, evil spirit’ (Dinneen s.v.) in placenames such as Magairlí an Deamhain ‘the devil’s testicles’, the name of a mountain in Co. Galway oddly called the Devilsmother in English (#1166434), along with the Scottish Gaelic placename Bod an Deamhain ‘the devil’s penis’ in the Cairngorm Mountains, which is euphemistically called The Devil’s Point in English (see Ainmean-Áite na h-Alba s.n.). Interestingly, Bod an Deamhain ‘the devil’s penis’ (logainm.ie #1395417), is also found as the name of a prominent rock off the coast of Árainn Mhór in the Gaeltacht of Co. Donegal, which appears on older Ordnance Survey maps in the anglicized form Budadoon. Faill an Deamhain ‘the cliff, precipice of the devil’, anglicized as Foiladaun (logainm.ie #10553) and Foiladuane (logainm.ie #23393), in Cos. Cork and Kerry, respectively, doubtless refers to the steep slopes present in both townlands, although the reason for the reference to deamhan ‘demon, devil’ is unknown. Should one devil not be enough, we also have Oileán na nDiabhal (logainm.ie #101149) situated in Muckross Lake near Killarney in Co. Kerry, which in spite of its official English spelling Devil’s Island would more accurately be translated as ‘the island of the devils (plural)’.
Continuing on the same theme, the townland name Pouladown (logainm.ie #9642) in Co. Cork might at first sight be taken to derive from *Poll an Dúin ‘the hole, pond, pool of the fort’, but the evidence shows it actually to be from Poll an Deamhain ‘the hole, pond, pool of the devil’. (As we often note, English orthography is not well suited to expressing the slender/broad contrast in Irish consonants.) According to information obtained by Patrick Power in the early 20th century, the name originally referred to ‘a bog-hole now drained and filled in’ (see ‘Place-Names and Antiquities of S.E. County Cork. Barony of Barrymore. Part III’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 35 C 11 [1921], p. 205). It is particularly noteworthy that this placename, combining the elements poll ‘hole, pond, pool’ and deamhan ‘demon, devil’, mirrors the collocation of poll and púca ‘sprite, a ghost, bogey-man’ in the commonly repeated townland name Poll an Phúca ‘the hole, pool of the sprite, ghost, bogey-man’, examples of which are found in Cos. Louth, Wicklow, Waterford, Clare and Galway. As there was a tendency to associate the topographic feature poll ‘hole, pond, pool’ with creatures of the underworld, we should not be surprised to find Poll Ifrinn ‘(the) pool, pond of hell; hole of (into) hell’ (logainm.ie #1165218) itself, in reference to a well-known steep-sided mountain corrie-lake situated on Mangerton Mountain / An Mhangarta (logainm.ie #23087) in Co. Kerry. (This name has been pseudo-translated as the Devil’s Punch Bowl, more of which next month.) A second Poll Ifrinn is located in the townland of Windfield Demesne / Diméin Thóin le Gaoith (logainm.ie #20439) in Co. Galway, which according to one account in the Schools’ Folklore Collection (dúchas.ie) was the bottomless source of a clear spring producing water ‘at the rate of a million gallons a minute’. Nearby was ‘another pit called Poll Deamhail [‘(the) devil’s hole, pool’] and another for the damned’ (ibid.) These features are clearly visible on the Ordnance Survey 25ʺ map, but only Poll Ifrinn is named (Polliffrin).
Of course, poll is found in many other contexts, notably with animals. For example, this year Oireachtas na Samhna returned to the Gleneagle Hotel, which lies just south of the Flesk River from the town of Killarney, in the townland of Poulnamuck / Poll na Muc ‘the hole, pool of the pigs’ (logainm.ie #23533). But we have yet another association of the word poll ‘hole, pond, pool’ and the underworld, in the Irish phrase poll tí liabáin, explained in Ó Dónaill’s dictionary (FGB) as ‘the lower world’. The phrase is further illustrated with the proverbial saying chomh dubh le Poll Tí Liabáin, for which Ó Dónaill gives the idiomatic English translation ‘as black as Erebus’, which refers to to the gloomy afterlife of Greek mythology. The Irish phrase itself has also been explained as a synonym for hell:
Poll Tighe Liabáin … Hell or a place of great depth … commonplace in proverbial sayings recorded widespreadly where Irish was spoken. Seósamh Laoide [1865–1939] first heard it in a song sung for him by a Meath Irish speaker he met casually while walking by the Boyne, and this sparked his curiosity about it … Poll Tighe Liabáin was the name of specific places known to people who lived in certain districts, but it was also widely known as an entrance to the underworld or an abyss of unfathomable depth by people who had no notion of its whereabouts.
(Béaloideas, Vol. 39/41 (1971–1973))
Seosamh Laoide’s interest led him to address the subject of Poll Tí Liabáin in some depth in an article in the Gaelic Journal in 1902 (see Irisleabhar na Gaedhilge XII, Bealtaine 1902, pp. 66–74: Sgríbhinní Úr-Nua). Laoide often found that his informants did not know where ‘Poll Tighe Léabáin’ [Poll Tí Liabáin] was situated, but believed it to be the same as hell (mheas sé gur bh’ionann é agus ifreann). But Laoide also discovered that Poll Tí Liabáin could also refer to real places. One of his informants, Seaghán Mac a’ Bhaird of the townland of Faiafannan near Killybegs, informed him that Poll Tí Liabáin (logainm.ie #1396892) was the name of a place in Málainn Bhig, southwest Co. Donegal, and that the referent was ‘a hole in the rock through which the sea-water often comes, especially during a storm’ (Poll mór ins an charraig atá ann a dtig uisge na fairrge thríd go minic, go háirigthe i n-am doinnin). Laoide collected a number of sayings showing that Poll Tí Liabán was commonly used as a synonym for hell in Irish: ‘Gabh go Poll Tighe Léabáin’ ‘go to hell!’; ‘Cuirfe mé go Poll Tighe Léabáin thú, mar’ bhfága tú m’amharc’ ‘I’ll send you to hell if you don’t leave my sight’; ‘Truagh nach bhfuil tú thíos i bPoll Tighe Léabáin anois’ ‘it’s a pity that you’re not in hell now’. The intermixing of Poll Tí Liabáin, sometimes as a real placename and sometimes as a metaphor for the underworld, facilitated its use in literature. Thus, in Keating’s version of the Pursuit of Diarmaid and Gráinne (Foras Feasa ar Éirinn vol. II, p. 325) the two lovers, being chased by Fionn Mac Cumhaill and his warrior band, find themselves at ‘Poll Tighe Liabháin i nUíbh Fiachrach Eidhne’ [Poll Tí Liabáin in Uí Fhiachrach Aidhne (now southwest Galway)], where the use of the placename was almost certainly a literary metaphor conveying a sense of peril. However, this very place also features in the late 12th-century Song of Dermot and the Earl, an account of the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland written in Old French: ‘all at once Ó Conchúir the proud King of Connaught led with him … Ó Seachnasaigh of Poll Tí Liabáin …’ (Ochonchor tut a estrus, De connoth li reis orgulus, Od sei menad … Osathnessy de poltilethban …) (see UCC CELT: Song of Dermot and the Earl). This particular Poll Tí Liabáin has yet to be identified, although it was probably in the environs of Laghtyshaughnessy / Leacht Uí Sheachnasaigh ‘the grave, memorial cairn of Ó Seachnasaigh’ (logainm.ie #19230) just south of Gort in south Co. Galway (cf. heritagedata.maps GA128-057001: Well), in the ancient territory of Uí Fhiachrach Aidhne. In Stair Éamuinn Uí Chleire, written by Seán Ó Neachtain around 1700, we have a further example of the use of Poll Tí Liabáin in a literary context. (Ó Neachtain was born and reared in south Co. Roscommon, near Athlone.) The protagonist promises that ‘he would throw him [the giant], after the top of his head, into Poll Tí Liabáin, a place where he might not turn his back or face to the side until doomsday and the end of eternity’ (Go dteilge i ndiaidh mhulluigh a chinn i bPoll Tighe Léabáin é áit as nach gcasa i dtaobh a chúil nó a aghaidh go bruinne an bhrátha agus go fuinne na síoruidheachta).
In regard to the variant spelling of Liabán as Léabán, Laoide noted that ‘Poll Tighe Liabáin (An Liabáin) … is that chiefly heard in Co. Donegal and, it would seem also, in South Galway, but in Meath, Monaghan, South Armagh, and Omeath the form was Léabáin always’. It has been standardized here as liabán, as found in Ó Dónaill’s dictionary (FGB). (As to these variant pronunciations, note that the late 12th-century spelling ‘-lethban’, from the abovementioned Song of Dermot and the Earl, implies that the last element may have been understood at that period to represent Middle Irish ledbán, Early Modern Irish leadhbán ‘simpleton, clown’ (FGB); ‘a shred, a patch, a piece, a clod … l. bacaigh, a tattered beggarman’ (Dinn.).)
This brings us to the name of the townland Polleban / Poll Liabáin (logainm.ie #37717), near Dunboyne in Co. Meath. This placename is reasonably well attested, in anglicized form, from the early 17th century onwards: spellings such as ‘Pollebane’, ‘Polleban’, et var., are very much in keeping with the Irish name ‘Poll léabán’ recorded locally during the course of the Ordnance Survey in 1836. (A subtle difference was discernible between the pronunciation of the placename in English and Irish: the anglicized form was ‘Pull Layben (u as in bull)’, while the Irish was ‘Poll léabán … (o as in shot)’.) At the time, John O’Donovan commented that ‘Poll Libáin, ‘Liban’s hole’ … was a general name for deep caverns containing water’. He drew a comparison to another example he had recently encountered, ‘Pollteleaban in Monaghan’ (as yet unidentified). It is significant to note that none of the written sources available to O’Donovan at the time reflect any link between Polleban / Poll Liabáin and poll tí liabáin. However, our colleague Thomas Hughes, who is conducting the systematic research on the townland names of Co. Meath, has shown O’Donovan’s hunch to be correct. Thomas has uncovered a number of historical forms in 17th and 18th-century deeds, such as ‘Poltileban als Pollebane’ (1637, Lodge MSS) and ‘Poltileban ows. Polleban’ (1785, CGn. 370.23.246420) which demonstrate that Poll Liabáin was also known as Poll Tí Liabáin. That said, it is difficult to identify the physical feature to which the name originally referred. As there is no particularly distinctive hole, pool or pond in the townland, the referent may have been the large area of alluvial soil (i.e. floodplain) in the southeast. (Archaeological excavations next to this area of alluvial soil uncovered a keyhole-shaped feature in 2021, but its significance could not be determined: see excavations.ie 2021:557.) We may have to wait a little longer for a conclusive explanation for the origin of the townland name Poll Liabáin / Polleban. However, in light of its alias Poll Tí Liabáin, ‘the entrance to the underworld; Erebus; hell’, it is perhaps unlikely to be chosen as the name of any future residential development here.
Conchubhar Ó Crualaoich & Justin Ó Gliasáin