Featured themes 15/12/2025

Foals, sickles and reefs
Clonsharragh/Cluain Searrach
‘pasture of (the) foals’
(logainm.ie # 53345)

Date: 15/12/2025

With one eye on the popular post-Christmas race-meeting of Leopardstown later this month, we will continue with last week’s theme of horses in Irish townland names. The frequency of these references is no doubt connected to the high status held by the horse in early Irish society. For proof of this one need look no further than the economic value of the horse in Gaelic Ireland, which although variable could often far exceed that of the highly-prized cow (see ‘Horse-values’ in Fergus Kelly, Early Irish Farming, pp.99–101). (One early Irish poet gossiped that a certain patron never paid for poetry in horses, only in cows: ‘Ro-cúala / ní tabair eochu ar dúana; / do-beir a n-í is dúthaig dó — / bó’; see McLaughlin, Early Irish Satire, pp.134–135 §1.) A 17th-century account of the Gaelic Irish makes clear that the horse was still of central importance in native culture, and was a much desired object during raids into neighbouring territories:

[These] horse corsers are such as steale garrens and horses in one end of the kingdome and doe send them by exchaunge to thother End, and of theis Irishrie doe mainteine and keepe soe manie, as their meanes …
(Discource on the mere Irish of Ireland, p.37)

The small sample of townland names given last week contained the elements capall ‘horse’ or ‘mare’; each ‘steed, horse’; gearrán ‘gelding, small horse; pack-horse’ or simply ‘(male) horse’ (borrowed by the Anglo-Norman colonists as garran, as in the extract above); and láir ‘mare’. There are many more, such as graí, a collective noun meaning ‘horses’ – mainly surviving in Modern Irish as the word for stud (farm) – e.g. Lios na Graí ‘the enclosure, ring-fort of the horses’ the forerunner to anglicized Lisnagry in Cos. Limerick (logainm.ie #31286) and Galway (logainm.ie #20129), as well as Lisnagree in Cos. Kerry (logainm.ie #22549), Waterford (logainm.ie #50232) and, again, Galway (logainm.ie #20321).

The element searrach ‘foal, colt’ – originally a substantivization of an adjective meaning “spirited, mettlesome, lively, unstable” (eDIL s.v. serrach) – is, perhaps fittingly, more problematic. Though far less common than capall or each, placenames containing searrach can be found in all parts of the country. When it occurs as a qualifier it can reasonably be taken to refer to the young horse: Cluain Searrach ‘pasture of (the) foals’ is the forerunner to Cloonsharragh (logainm.ie #22529) in Co. Kerry and Clonsharragh (logainm.ie #53345)in Co. Wexford. In Co. Laois there is Aghaterry/Achadh an tSearraigh ‘the field of the foal’ (logainm.ie #28889).

However, when searrach occurs as a simplex placename, it is unlikely to be the same word (cf. FGB s.v. searr ‘sickle’; eDIL s.vv. 1 serr, 2 serr). Metaphorical usage of animal names for topographical features is very common, and horses are no exception. See the many examples of Cinn Eich ‘head of (the) horse’ (see logainm.ie), and the various examples of An Gearrán Bán ‘the white horse’ as a name for a conspicuous rock: one in the Donegal Gaeltacht (logainm.ie #1395981), another anglicized Garraunbaun Rock (logainm.ie #117002) in Co. Kilkenny and another giving name to the townland Garraunbaun (logainm.ie #18034) in Co. Galway. However, searrach in the sense ‘(topographical feature comparable to a) foal’ can probably be ruled out in the case of Sharragh/Searrach (logainm.ie #45963), Co. Tipperary, the name of a thin strip of flat land protruding into a bog.

Similarly, the island name Serough Island/An Searrach (logainm.ie #8857) in Co. Cork is perhaps more likely to be a derivative of another word siorra ‘pinnacle (of rock); reef’ (pace Mac Cárthaigh, Dinnseanchas 6 (1974) 39: “colt [island]”). (Compare the islands in the Mayo Gaeltacht called Na Siorracha (#1399850) “the reefs” (Mac Gabhann, Logainmneacha Mhaigh Eo 4: 432).) Also in Munster, the island off An Blascaod Mór named Oileán na Searra (#1394519) referred to Na Searra, the cliffs overlooking it, according to Tomás Ó Criomhthain; there are another set of cliffs named Na Searra (#1394889) near An Mhin Ard. (Cf. Faill na Siorra (#1419742), a cliff on the Co. Kerry side of the Derrynasaggart Mountains, and Droichead na Siorraí/Pearson’s Bridge (#1417198), near Béal Átha Lice/Ballylicky, Co. Cork.)

We cannot be entirely certain, therefore, whether Carrigeensharragh/Carraigín Searrach (logainm.ie #48377) in Co. Tipperary originally referred to young horses or to sharp rocks!

That being said, it is striking how often references to horses feature in combination with generic elements referring to elevated ground. Further to the Co. Cavan example discussed last week, Corr na Lárach/Cornalara ‘the round hill of the mare(s)’ (logainm.ie #3847), see also:

Allt na gCapall ‘the height, cliff of the horses’ (logainm.ie #14973) in the Gaeltacht of Co. Donegal;
Mullacapple/Mullach an Chapaill ‘the summit of the horse’ (logainm.ie #33594) in Co. Louth;
Knockacappul/Cnoc an Chapaill ‘the hill of the horse’, as found twice in Co. Sligo (logainm.ie #44586; #44923);
Dromacappul/Drom an Chapaill ‘the ridge of the horse’ (logainm.ie #8358) in Co. Cork;
Knocknagapple/Cnoc na gCapall ‘the hill of the horses’ in Cos. Cork (#9958), Tipperary (#47979; #48473) and Wexford (#53230);
the Gaeltacht names Droim na Searrach ‘the ridge of the foals’ (logainm.ie #15473) in Co. Donegal and Iomaire an tSearraigh ‘the ridge of the foal’ (logainm.ie #34500) in Co. Mayo;
Burns Mountain/Cruach an tSearraigh ‘the rick, stack of the foal’ (logainm.ie #14163), Co. Donegal;
Tullynasharragh/Tulaigh na Searrach ‘the hillock, mound of the foals’ in Co. Leitrim (logainm.ie #29588; #29874);
Knockatarry/Cnoc an tSearraigh ‘the hill of the foal’ (logainm.ie #33341) in Co. Longford.

The collocation occurs so frequently that it is tempting to infer that hillsides and other elevated ground were favoured locations for the racing and/or keeping of horses. As always in this current series of notes, however, we must stress that these informal examples are given to provide a flavour of the research at the Placenames Branch; the ongoing compilation of more accurate distribution statistics is a separate process. And it must be remembered that we are not wanting for references to horses in lowlands and declivities either, such as Lognagappul/Log na gCapall ‘the hollow of the horses’ (logainm.ie #12970) in Co. Cork and Pollnagappul/Poll na gCapall ‘the hole, pool of the horses’ in Co. Leitrim (#29175). Another Pol a Gappal [Poll na gCapall] ‘the pool of the horses’ referred to a deep spot on the Glencullen River in Co. Dublin.

(Conchubhar Ó Crualaoich & Aindí Mac Giolla Chomhghaill)

Foals, sickles and reefs Clonsharragh/Cluain Searrach ‘pasture of (the) foals’ (logainm.ie # 53345)

Foals, sickles and reefs
Clonsharragh/Cluain Searrach
‘pasture of (the) foals’
(logainm.ie # 53345)