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Featured themes 12/07/2025

Confusion reigns! (Part II)
The strange derivation of English Johnstown from Baile Eoin, Baile Sheáin, Baile Sheoin, Baile Sheonac, Baile Sheonóid and Baile an tSeánaigh!

Date: 12/07/2025

Continuing on last week’s theme of the names Eoin, Seán and Seon in townland names, all of which in some way have a loose, though not always direct, connection with the English name John, we can continue our discussion with diminutive forms of that name as they appear in townland names.

One such diminutive is Johnin, which is found in the English name of the townland Johninstown (logainm.ie #25464) in Co. Kildare. (We will come to the Irish name of the townland presently.) Johnin was generally gaelicized as Seoinín but unlike Seán, from Anglo-Norman Jehan, neither Seoinín nor indeed Seon itself appear to have become popular among the Gaelic Irish. On the other hand, the gaelicized Anglo-Normans (or ‘Old English’) continued to use both Seon and Seoinín in Irish, as is clear, for example, from Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh’s 17th-century compilation of Irish genealogies (see Ó Muraíle (ed.) Leabhar Mór na nGenealach vol. 5, index). Thus, evidence for Seon and its diminutive Seoinín in townland names is generally found in areas where there was substantial Anglo-Norman settlement followed by gaelicization when the descendants of the settlers adopted the Irish language: examples include Ruthstown / Baile Sheoin Rua ‘the townland of Seon Rua’ (logainm.ie #26975) in Co. Kilkenny (in which Rua is the local Irish form of the Anglo-Norman surname Ruth: cf. ‘Johnroothston’ 1613); and Farranshone / Fearann Seoin ‘the land of Seon’ (logainm.ie #30471; #30587) in Co. Limerick. Johnstown in Co. Louth (logainm.ie #33579) was recorded locally as ‘Baile seón’ [Baile Sheoin] during the course of the Ordnance Survey, and the historical evidence for Johnstown (#52633) near Bunclody in Co. Wexford also reflects derivation from Baile Sheoin (see Logainmneacha na hÉireann IV, p. 1078).

Further examples of the diminutive Seoinín (< Eng. Johnin) include Baile Mhic Sheoinín ‘the town(land) of the son of Seoinín’ anglicized as Ballymacshoneen in Cos. Wexford (logainm.ie #54110) and Cork (logainm.ie #8939), while Baile Sheoinín ‘the town(land) of Seoinín’ is the forerunner to Ballyshoneen in Cos. Cork (logainm.ie #9206; #9436), Limerick (logainm.ie #32413) and Waterford (logainm.ie #50402), as well as Ballyjennings in Co. Mayo (logainm.ie #35038). Seoinín is also found in Clonmacshane / Cloch Mhic Sheoinín ‘the stone (structure) of the son of Seoinín’ (logainm.ie #3534) in Co. Carlow; Graigueshoneen / Gráig Sheoinín ‘the hamlet of Seoinín’ (logainm.ie #49783) and Farranshoneen / Fearann tSeoinín ‘the land of Seoinín’ (logainm.ie #50301) in Co. Waterford; along with Lackenshoneen / Leacain tSeoinín ‘the hillside of Seoinín’ (logainm.ie #9357) in Co. Cork.

It is interesting to note that the name Seoinín later became a derogatory term both in Irish and in Hiberno-English (Shoneen) for a person who tended to mimic English culture (“a shoneen, a jackeen or johnnie, an aper of foreign ways…” Dinneen s.v. Seoinín). This pejorative usage is further evidence that Seoinín, unlike the name Seán, never actually became popular among the Gaelic Irish of native descent.

A different diminutive of John is found in the underlying form of the English townland name Jonastown (logainm.ie #54013) in south Co. Wexford, earlier attested as ‘Ionokeston’ (1540–1), ‘Jonickstown’ (1577), ‘Johnnockstown’ (1622), and so on. These earlier forms of the name clearly reflect an underlying Johnock+’s+town. In fact the name Johnock seems to have been very common in Ireland and its gaelicized forms Seonac or Seonag are found in quite a few placenames: see for example Ballyshonickbane / Baile Sheoinic Bháin ‘the town(land) of white(-haired) Seonac’ (logainm.ie #32243) in Co. Limerick; Farran / Fearann Mhic Sheoinic ‘the land of the son of Seoineac’ (logainm.ie #8891) in Co. Cork (in which Seoineac is a variant of Seonac with palatalized/slender -n-); Sapperton / Baile Mhic Sheonaic ‘the town(land) of the son of Seonac’ (logainm.ie #50160) in Co. Waterford (‘Sappertown alias BallimcShonick’ (1735)); Ballyshonock / Baile Sheonaic ‘the town(land) of Seonac’ (logainm.ie #49829; #52627) in Cos. Waterford and Wexford. The Irish forerunner to Ballyshonock (logainm.ie #12793) and Ballyhonock (logainm.ie #13666) in Co. Cork appears to be Baile Sheonac, with an uninflected genitive Sheonac.

The townland name Johnstown (logainm.ie #55501) near Arklow, Co. Wicklow, also turns out to derive not from *Baile Sheáin or *Baile Sheoin, but from Baile Sheonac. The earliest historical evidence, e.g. ‘Bally[s]onicke’ (1620) and ‘Ballyshanoge’ (1715), indicate that the qualifying personal name was still understood in the English tradition to have been connected with John (‘Johnstown’ 1668, 1724, etc.).

Townland names containing the name Seonac also seem confined to areas colonized by the Anglo-Normans and then later gaelicized, which might on the face of it imply that the name never became very popular among those of native Gaelic Irish stock. However, some examples of the name do occur among that group in Irish genealogical tracts, and it would appear, therefore, that unlike Seoinín the name Seonac was not solely confined to the gaelicized Anglo-Normans or ‘Old English’.

Hopefully the above information has gone some way to explaining why, in Irish placenames, the English name John is equated not only with Eoin but also with the separate but not entirely unrelated names Seán, Seon, Seoinín and Seonac. We can now to turn our sights on another curious subset of placenames which contain John(’s)- in their English forms but have no connection to any of the aforementioned Irish personal names: these are Johnstown in the civil parish of Kilmichael in Co. Cork, Saint Johnstown in Co. Tipperary and Johnstown near Kells in Co. Meath.

In Co. Cork, the English name Johnstown (logainm.ie #9793) appears to have arisen as a result of the misinterpretation of the Irish name of the place, Cill Sheanaigh (earlier Cill tSeanaigh) ‘the church of Seanach’. The eponym was Seanach, whose name – borne by numerous clerics in the Irish church – seems to have been interpreted as being in some way related to English John. In Co. Tipperary, Baile an tSeánaigh (‘Ballentane’ 1601, ‘Baile an t-seána’ 1840), the somewhat unusual Irish name for the townland called Saint Johnstown (logainm.ie #47647) in English, does not contain a personal name at all. Baile an tSeánaigh means ‘the town(land) of An Seánach’, in which An Seánach signifies ‘the person surnamed Saint John’. That surname is attested in connection with the townland in early references, e.g. ‘John de Sancto Johanne of Scadaneston’ (*Scaddanstown being a historical alias of the place).

There is a Johnstown (#38191) near Kells in Co. Meath which the local Irish speakers called ‘Baile sheonoid’ [Baile Sheonóid] (1836). The personal name Seonó(i)d is a gaelicized form of the Middle English name Jonot — yet another diminutive of John! — now more commonly found in English as the surname and feminine personal name Janet (see P. Hanks, R. Coates, P. McClure: Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland). Again, however, it appears that to English-speakers, the underlying relationship with the name John was clearly understood — the English name of this townland is realized as Johnstown, et var., throughout the historical record. Indeed, the only evidence for the original underlying form *Jonotstown is provided by the local Irish version recorded in 1836. It is worth pointing out that this is in direct contrast to the evidence for Johninstown (logainm.ie #25464) in Co. Kildare, mentioned above. In that case, the overwhelming majority of the historical forms, as well as the modern form of the placename in English, reflect the name Johnin. Only the earliest surviving reference to the English name, ‘Johnston’ (1540), points to John. It is noteworthy, therefore, that although Johninstown had been firmly established in the English-language tradition since the beginning of the seventeenth century (‘Jeninstown’ 1621), a local Irish speaker consulted in 1837 called the place ‘baile sheoin’ [Baile Sheoin] rather than the anticipated *Baile Sheoinín. Remarkably, this seemingly anomalous form is in fact supported by the solitary surviving transliterated reference to the Irish name in the historical record, ‘Ballyshean’ 1563.)

As we won’t be widening our net to include placenames containing any of the more distant cousins of John (Jack, Jackett, Jackson, Jackman…) this just leaves us with Saint Johnstown / Baile Suingean (logainm.ie #1416625) in Co. Donegal — but the explanation of that one will have to wait for another day.

(Conchubhar Ó Crualaoich & Aindí Mac Giolla Chomhghaill)