Omnibus

Music and Romance in place names This column was written by the late JP Burke and first published on Saturday, August 3, 1991 PLACE NAMES, their origin and very often corruption from the Gaelic form, can be a fascinating study, even in a casual non-academic fashion, which will reveal music, mystery, even romance for anyone who cares to examine old maps and records where they are available. If you read the death notices in the daily papers, you will often come across strange sounding place names, most likely in counties with which we are not familiar, and it is in their pronunciation that the stranger is prone to err. In Donegal, where accent and idiom can vary considerably from one end of the vast county to the other, and in the Northern counties where vowel emphasis is so markedly different from the rest of the country, seeking or getting direction can lead one to a very different destination from that planned. In Connemara, where the terrain can be hazardous, the first time visitor or tourist might well find that what is shown in English on the signpost will sound entirely different in local pronunciation. It may be all part of the special mystique of the West but on a day when the drizzle hangs like a grey curtain over a winding road, there isnâ€â„¢t likely to be much music in the air! And if itâ€â„¢s music youâ€â„¢re after, and youâ€â„¢ve had your fill of Galwayâ€â„¢s street festival, you could find peace and quiet in old Kinvara, enshrined in balladry by Frank Fahyâ€â„¢s gentle piece of nostalgia and where airs and graces are ever present. Or you might venture further into Clare and Ballyvaughan or Doolin, where the real musicians gather at odd times of the year. Itâ€â„¢s a great county for traditional music, and there are strong links there with the high wooded county across the border in Galway where set dancing and ceilí music hold sway. Thereâ€â„¢s music in the place names too, and along the banks of the Shannon in the Killaloe area I came across a name that aroused my curiosity. Ogennelloe, I called it, finding music in the stress on the third syllable and being brought down to earth when I heard the word spoken by a Clare man, who laid the emphasis on the second, and pronounced it â€Å“gunâ€Â, not â€Å“genâ€Â to boot. And then I came across this name, Tinnerara, and I wondered how it came to be in Ireland at all, sounded â€Å“foreign likeâ€Â in the vernacular. If you were to find yourself in Carlow, you could be forgiven for laying the wrong emphasis in pronouncing Tinryland, which rises in the middle, or in Wexford where Boulavogue and Vinegar Hill are better known than Camolin or Bunclody, and you can have the choice of the two. Itâ€â„¢s lovely country there in the Slaney Valley and I found myself making comparisons between Enniscorthy, where even the footpaths are on a slope, and Ballyshannon, which has an unusual pattern of streets, not forgetting Clones and its almighty hill. Killarney is â€Å“heavenâ€â„¢s reflexâ€Â and the Southâ€â„¢s major tourist attraction, but I found the Mourne Country north of Dundalk no less inspiring, with its strange places like the Long Womanâ€â„¢s Grave, Narrow Water Castle and the reminders of Celtic mythology, the Táin Bó Cuailnge, Fionn and Ferdia and all the heroic figures of a mystic age. Only the other night I heard Val Joyce play a record of My Lagan Love sung by Michael Oâ€â„¢Duffy, and whenever I hear Carrickfergus, I think paradoxically of Carlingford and wish I could cross over and journey north to see the Giantâ€â„¢s Causeway. SPELLING AND TRANSLATIONS Every town has its own special place names apart from the inevitable High Street, Bridge Street or Shop Street, as well as those that honour or recall great men or events of our recent history. Oâ€â„¢Connell is probably more honoured than any man other than St. Patrick, the capital city and Ennis being particular examples, and the Liberator is not overlooked in his native county. But itâ€â„¢s not national figures that claim my attention in the streets of Tuam, which has its own distinctive locations. One which has posed questions from several people is the spelling of Cloontooa, commonly rendered Cloonthue, and there is some surprise and doubt about the new sign. But this is merely the spelling of the townland as shown on old maps before the Ordnance Survey simplified it to accord with local pronunciation. There is a certain amount of confusion in translation of the word, some holding it to be from the Gaelic Cluain Tuatha or the Meadow of the Axes, but from a little research I suggest that the correct meaning is the Meadow of the Lay Brothers or Laity. The land in this area, before the building of the railway station, was open countryside vested in the Lord Archbishop and Dean of Tuam, but before the Reformation it was the land of the Vicars Choral of the Abbey of the Holy Trinity. It seems a reasonable assumption that the meadow land adjoining, probably of lower quality, was allotted to the lay brothers who looked after the goods and chattels of the Abbot and his community. Certainly there is no record of any battles in the area that would have left a legacy of battleaxes, though a novel written in the early 1900s by a Tuam bank clerk named Randal McDonnell (or McDonald), titled My Sword for Patrick Sarsfield, refers to â€Å“stout fellows from Cloontooa and Tierboyâ€Â. The Abbey of the Holy Trinity is commemorated in the new road and housing estates, but the name Tirboy seems to have been committed to the topographical dustbin, possibly because in the late 19th century and the early years of the 20th it was the quarters of the neglected poor and those who were then known as tinkers, not travellers as today. It was a slum area and therefore not a desirable address, but there is no good reason why a Gaelic name of such long standing should be dismissed from the local scene. Translated as the â€Å“Yellow landâ€Â, it probably was so named from corn fields, and it was peripheral to the Deanâ€â„¢s Meadow and shown as Tyreboy, â€Å“Temporall Landâ€Â and â€Å“Dean and Provost Landâ€Â in James Morrisâ€â„¢ map of July 1720, and from which John Bourke reproduced his map in July 1863. I donâ€â„¢t know where the original James Morris map is now, but in Bourkeâ€â„¢s time it was kept in St. Maryâ€â„¢s Cathedral, and there was an old map in the Town Clerkâ€â„¢s office in the Town Hall for many years. ECCLESIASTICAL INFLUENCE Part of the townland of Tirboy is now known as Church View, shown in Gaelic as Radharc an Teampall, which is fair enough, I suppose, as St Maryâ€â„¢s Cathedral is very much in the foreground from that angle and the Catholic Cathedral is on a more distant plane. The new signs also show Sawpit Lane, which goes back to the old map and the time when there were timber yards there, but the Ordnance Survey map accepts St. Maryâ€â„¢s Terrace, which is an appropriate title in view of its proximity to the historic medieval cathedral. On the other side of the graveyard is Church Lane, not shown in the 1720 or 1863 maps, and my guess is that â€Å“The Mallâ€Â was applied at the time when the Protestant Deans lived in that quarter, where the massive stone houses have now been transformed into offices and flats. I note with some amusement that Mall is rendered â€Å“An Mealâ€Â in the Gaelic form, which is open to many interpretations and none to the pretentious English. To be concluded next week