Gambling and Gaelic Irish society
Lisburn/Lios na gCearrbhach ‘the ring-fort of the gamblers’
(see logainm.ie #135807)
Date: 03/01/2025
It light of the previous theme of horse racing and the famous Leopardstown race-meeting during Christmas week, it may now be appropriate to address references to gambling in townland names and other placenames of Irish origin.
Many race-goers have often ended their Leopardstown experience greatly out of pocket, but for most race-goers the pursuit remains enjoyable: winning a little here, losing a little there. Gambling has been a feature of life in Ireland over many centuries, and is certainly no recent introduction: it was well-established long prior to the destruction of Gaelic Irish society in the 17th century. Gamblers feature in a number of townland names and other placenames, no more so than the well-known (and reasonably well-attested) original Irish name of the town of Lisburn in Co. Antrim, namely Lios na gCearrbhach ‘the ring-fort of the gamblers’ (#135807) (see also placenamesni.org s.n. Lisburn). We also have townland names such as Stranagarvagh/Srath na gCearrbhach ‘the river meadow of the gamblers’ (#40284) and Kilnaharvey/Coill Chearrbhaigh ‘wood of (the) gambler’ (#39921) in Co. Monaghan; Knockacarracoosh/Cnoc an Chearrbhachais ‘the hill of gambling’ (#12753) in Co. Cork; and Meenacharvy/Mín an Chearrbhaigh ‘the smooth grassy patch, flat mountain tract of the gambler’ (#14835) in Co. Donegal.
Placenames such as these suffice to demonstrate that gambling was indeed a feature of Gaelic Irish life. It can be presumed that, as is the case today, it became a serious problem for some. The anti-Irish bias of the historian Richard Stanihurst is well known. We should therefore take the following account of gambling addiction with some qualification:
There is among them a brotherhood of karrowes [cearrbhach ‘gambler’] that proffer to plaie at cards all the yéare long, and make it their onelie occupation. They plaie awaie mantle and all to the bare skin, and then trusse themselues in straw or leaues, they wait for passengers in the high waie, inuite them to game vpon the gréene, and aske no more but companions to make them sport. For default of other stuffe, they pawne their glibs, the nailes of their fingers and toes, their dimissaries, which they léese or redéeme at the courtesie of the winner.
Holinshed’s Chronicles (1587 [1st ed. 1577]) Vol. 3, p.44.
This rather vivid account – insofar as it can be relied on– alleges a serious gambling problem among elements of Gaelic society to the extent that some addicts were prepared to gamble away their hair (Ó Dónaill s.v. glib), valuable letters of ordination written by bishops (OED s.v. dimissaries), and even the nails on their fingers and toes. Note that Morrin, in reprinting this extract in Calendar of Patent and Close Rolls of Chancery in Ireland, Vol. 1 (Dublin, 1861) (p.298 note a), deletes the reference to ‘nails’ to make it seem as if the digits themselves were being offered as bets! However, that detail lessens little the degree of problem gamblings in native Irish society portrayed here.
(Conchubhar Ó Crualaoich & Aindí Mac Giolla Chomhghaill)