All of the evidence suggests that the population centre called Man of War in North County Dublin got its name from a public house of the same name in the location. The name is marked Man of War (P.H.) on the Ordnance Survey 25 inch maps (c1900), P.H being the initials for “Public House”. It is also remarked in the Ordnance Survey Parish Namebooks that there was an Inn on the site of the village. “The Man of War” is also mentioned as a stop along the Dublin to Drogheda stage coach route in an article in The Dublin Penny Journal (1833). Many of the other stops mentioned are also public houses and it seems likely that “The Man of War” at this period refers to a public house, rather than the village.

It is worth noting that there is also a townland named Man-of-War in County Wicklow. In the case of that name, John O’Donovan of the Ordnance Survey’s Topographical Unit noted the following: “'Man of war': name of a public house sign.”

A Man of War is a type of ship defined as “A vessel equipped for warfare; a commissioned warship belonging to the recognized navy of a country” in the Oxford English Dictionary. It is likely that the signage on the public house contained a picture of such a ship. In former times, the signage used on public houses often contained a picture portraying a person, animal, thing or scene, as noted by Jonathan Swift, in relation to tavern and inn signs in Dublin in 1732:

I have not observed the wit and fancy of this town so much employed in any one article as that of contriving variety of signs to hang over houses where punch is to be sold. The bowl is represented full of punch, the ladle stands erect in the middle, supported sometimes by one, and sometimes by two animals, whose feet rest upon the edge of the bowl. The animals are sometimes one black lion, and sometimes a couple; sometimes a single eagle and sometimes a spread one ; and we often meet a crow, a swan, a bear, or a cock, in the same position

The above is quoted from an article entitled 'House and Shop Signs in Dublin in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries' (Berry, H. F. (1910) The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Fifth Series, XX (2), 81–98.). It is worth noting that in this article, Berry records a number of premises from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Dublin which were simply entitled “Ship” which implies that their signs consisted of the image of a ship.

It is important to mention here that there are numerous places in the country which are named after public houses: Blacklion in Cavan; Horse and Jockey in Tipperary; Fox and Geese in Dublin; and Blue Ball in Offaly, to name but a few.

There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that the name derives from an Irish precursor. (JÓG, 06 Samhain 2024)