Baile Mhistéala The town of Mistéil Mistéil – from the surname AN Mitchel/Michel The substantivized adjective (as seen in An Mistéalach < AN Mitchel/Michel) was an extremely common way of dealing with Anglo-Norman surnames in gaelicized placenames during the medieval period. Take for instance Ballyvisteale/Baile an Mhistéalaigh (#9276 in Co. Cork, which uses the substantivized adjectival form An Mistéalach ‘the person surnamed Mistéil’ (< AN Mitchel/Michel). Exactly this method of gaelicization is reflected in ‘Baile an Bhisdéaluidh’, an Irish form from the late 16th century of the well-known town of Mitchelstown in County Cork (#12869; #1414051. Another popular method of gaelicization was to use a basic gaelicized form of the surname as in Baile Mhistéil the town(land) of Mistéil’, and it is this version that is reflected in ‘idir Bhaile Mhisdéadhail’, a second attested Irish form of Mitchelstown. It is a variation of this second form that was adopted as the standardized Irish version of this placename by the Placenames Commission in 1969, namely Baile Mhistéala. This was subsequently given legal recognition in a statutory instrument in 1975. This form of the name is also attested in Irish sources, e.g. ‘a mBaile Mhistéala’ (anno 1808), and it, along with versions of the longer name, Baile an Mhistéalaigh, was collected from Irish speakers in the Cork Gaeltacht in the 1960s and 1970s. The evidence for the name of the town of Mitchelstown is therefore quite informative as it provides us with examples of three different ways that Anglo-Norman placenames were gaelicized, namely Baile an Mhistéalaigh, Baile Mhistéil and Baile Mhistéala, although the last two might be considered variants rather than examples of different methods of gaelicization. A third quite distinct method of gaelicization would be a complete phonetic approximation as in unattested *Mistéalastún, but there is no evidence of such gaelicization here, and it was doubtless more common the east of the country (see Gaulstown/Gallastún; #38399). Notably, the evidence for Mitcheltownsdown/Baile Mhistéala na dTamhan (#30946) in Co. Limerick also reflects underlying gaelicized Baile Mhistéala and possibly Baile an Mhistéalaigh too (see logainmneacha na hÉireann, Imleabhar 1: Contae Luimnigh). In regard to the origin of this placename, the earliest example of Mitchelstown may be in reference to ‘Geoffrey Michel’ who held ‘2 carucates in the vill of Michel’ in 1288 (Calendar of documents relating to Ireland: 1285-1292: see CDI 1285-1292). Although it is not certain that this a reference to the Mitchelstown in question here, as it may refer to the nearby Mitchelstown in Co. Limerick, it still provides a good example of the surname Michel/Mitchel among the Anglo-Normans in Munster. Indeed, the derivation of Mitchelstown from the AN surname Michel + tūn is typical of the general structure of Anglo-Norman townland names, and the attested Irish forms of the name are also typical of subsequent patterns of gaelicization.

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