A number of place-names in South Wexford contain elements which clearly derive from the English dialect formerly spoken in that area and elsewhere within the English Pale (see Introduction) (cf. Dolan & Ó Muirithe, 1996), e.g. MUCHKNOCK (par. Killinick), ROUGHMEAD (par. Drinagh) and YOLETOWN (par. Ballymore). This place-name is another example, containing the element nether “lower”.

The element also occurs in the barony name Nethercross in Dublin, which dates to Middle English, and the townland name Maymore Lower or Nethertown in Donegal, coined by the seventeenth-century planters or their descendants (see logainm.ie).

The minor name mentioned in ‘le Upperhoalt de la Nethertowne’ (1a), contains another Middle English word, holt “wood” (see EDD), which like nether has long fallen out of general use in the local dialect. A further possible example of this word may occur in the evidence for WHITEHOUSE (par. Rosslare).

The Irish form of Nethertown is a translation.

[It has been stated elsewhere that this ‘can either be an English or Norse place-name’ ([details to be added]). However, as English has been the dominant language in south Wexford over the past 800 years — since the early days of the Anglo-Norman colony — the presence in this place-name of the element, nether, which is actually attested in the dialect of English formerly spoken here (see Dolan & Ó Muirithe 1996, 59), cannot be used as an indicator of Norse settlement.]

[Excerpt from Logainmneacha na hÉireann IV: Townland Names of County Wexford, 2016, with additional commentary in square brackets [ ].]