Date: 02/12/2024

The language shift from Irish to English has been so complete in most parts of Ireland that it is no surprise to find even the most straightforward Irish placenames misinterpreted as if they contain English-language lexemes. A number of years ago, while conducting fieldwork in Co. Wexford, one of the present writers met a local informant who was steadfast in the opinion that the townland of Kilpatrick got its name from a man called Patrick having been killed there. The informant thought it ludicrous to suggest that placename might have something to do with an Irish-language precursor such as Cill Phádraig ‘the church of Saint Patrick’!

As can be imagined, the anglicized form of the townland name Ballyhorsey/Baile an Hórsaígh (logainm.ie #55518) in Co. Wicklow is ripe for reinterpretation as having some connection with horses. In fact the placename contains a gaelicized version of the locative surname de Horseye introduced by the Anglo-Normans (see Liam Price, Placenames of Co. Wicklow, p.367; cf. Ox. Dict. Family Names s.n. Horsey). However, if you look in the right places, you will find that horses do feature very frequently in Irish townland names.

The standard Modern Irish term capall ‘horse’ is not the only form in which these references occur (e.g. Crocknagapple/Cnoc na gCapall (logainm.ie #14977), Co. Donegal). Quite a few townland names preserve the word each ‘steed, horse’, which has mostly fallen out of use in Modern Irish – though it remains very much alive in Scottish Gaelic (see Faclair s.v. each) – e.g. Coolnaneagh/Cúil na nEach ‘the corner, recess of the horses, steeds’ (logainm.ie #49983) in Co. Waterford, Lissaneagh/Lios an Eich ‘the ring-fort of the horse’ (logainm.ie #45722) in Co. Sligo. The word gearrán ‘gelding; small horse; pack-horse’ also occurs with some frequency, e.g. Cashelgarran/Caiseal an Ghearráin ‘the stone fort of the gelding, etc.’ (logainm.ie #45499) in Co. Sligo and Cappaghnagarrane/Ceapach na nGearrán ‘the plot of the geldings, etc.’ (logainm.ie #48412) in Co. Tipperary.

Another term found in many townland names is láir ‘mare’. One interesting example is Cornalara/ Corr na Lárach ‘the round hill of the mare(s)’ (logainm.ie #3847) in the parish of Shercock, Co. Cavan. As in most of the later dialects of Irish spoken north of a line roughly from Dublin to Westport, the Irish word láir ‘mare’ had fallen out of general use in southeast Cavan by the 19th century. The contrast found in standard Modern Irish as capall ‘(male) horse’ : láir ‘mare’ was instead expressed by the pair gearrán ‘(male) horse’ : capall ‘mare’ (sometimes beithíoch/each for gearrán; see Wagner, Linguistic atlas and survey of Irish dialects I (1958) p.52). (‘Fan beo, a ghearráin, is gheobhaidh tú féar!’ was the Co. Armagh version of the proverb ‘Mair, a chapaill…!’. Note also ‘capall—láir i Laighnibh’ [“capall means a mare in [North] Leinster”] in Tadhg Ó Neachtain’s manuscript dictionary (c 1738); his father was from the Connaught side of Athlone.)

In any event, when the Irish scholars of the Ordnance Survey visited this part of Co. Cavan in 1836, they found that local native speakers had reinterpreted the second element of the placename Corr na Lárach “the round hill of the mares” as “threshing place” (as if láthair (bhuailte) ‘threshing-floor’, gen. sg. láithreach). It is just possible that the original meaning of the placename lingered on in a local legend still repeated in the 1920s, a couple of generations after the language shift to English in this area: “enchanted mares” were said to bring their foals up from Cornalara Lough at night, to the safety of the hilltop. However, similar tales were told about many of the lakes in the drumlin belt of South Ulster!

(Conchubhar Ó Crualaoich & Aindí Mac Giolla Chomhghaill)

• Corr na Lárach/Cornalara
• Cnoc na gCapall/Crocknagapple
• Caiseal an Ghearráin/Cashelgarran
• Lios an Eich/Lissaneagh
• Ceapach na nGearrán/Cappaghnagarrane
• Cúil na nEach/Coolnaneagh
• Baile an Hórsaígh/Ballyhorsey

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