What's In A Name?
Placenames
are a vital part of our heritage. They preserve Folklore,
Geography, History and Tradition. The vast majority of the
placenames of our parish are gaelic in origin and were given
to the various localities by our ancestors in the dim and
distant past. Each placename had a special meaning and their
roots often go deep in history. It is an absorbing and
rewarding task to study and explain them and even the name
of the smallest patch of ground or boreen or hill or stream
is worth preserving and recording not alone for ourselves
but for the benefit and enlightenment of generations to
come. Some of the words in gaeilge have become grossly
corrupted in the course of time by Anglicisation, by
erroneous spelling and by faulty pronunciation while many of
them were never written down but passed from mouth to ear
down the generations.
The old townlands were often divided into quarters which
were generally distinguished from one another by adjectives
describing size, position, shape or quality of the land or
by adding the names of the occupiers (PW Joyce Irish names
of Places, Vol 1 Page 244 published Dublin 1869). There is
evidence of this in our parish where there are 36 townlands
in all - 34 distinct townlands with Clonee divided into
Clonee East and West while Ullard is divided into Ullard
More and Ullard Beg.
The reader will also notice from the table provided how the
occupiers of various portions of land may have given the
townland its name e.g. 'Cappawater' - 'Walton's plot of
land' or 'Clonee' - 'Hugh's meadow'. Depending on the date
and circumstances in some cases the landowners had
sufficient influence with Government officials to have their
own names substituted for the ancient ones. Some townlands
have been submerged into adjoining townlands and examples of
these in our parish are Tinnmogney (House of Mogney) which
has been absorbed into Myshall itself and Killeavy (Church
of the Mountain View) which is situated in Shangarry though
that name is still attached to a field and sometimes the
crossroads otherwise known as 'Doyle's Cross'. The meanings
and Irish translations given in this article are all taken
from a book called 'Place Names of County Carlow' written by
Edward O’Toole 1937.
The extra meanings denoted by an asterisk are ones that have
been used by locals and have come to the attention of the
Magazine committee. Edward O’Toole was from Rathvilly and in
the course of historical research he studied 'Name Books'
which were preserved in the Ordnance Survey Department in
the Phoenix Park. This list is not exhaustible and
inevitably there has to be a measure of conjecture but
everyone interested has a right to be heard. Hopefully this
article will lead to discussion and perhaps the recording
not only of the townlands but also of the various field
names, bridges, gaps, hillocks, streams etc. before they are
lost forever. The study of ancient maps also provide a
wealth of knowledge on the names of places and how they have
changed over the years. Myshall village itself does not
exist on the map prepared in the year 1570 for Sir Peter
Carew though Drumphea that is now part of the parish is
marked spelled 'Drumffey'.
Myshall
is clearly marked on the map of Sir William Petty of 1685 as
are many other of the townslands as we know them today
though the spelling is somewhat corrupt e.g. Turtane is
spelled Thorton, Kilmaglush -Killengglis, Clonee - Clony,
Bealalaw - Ballilah, Rathnageeragh - Rangeragh, etc. Taking
everything into consideration it is remarkable the amount of
information that has been preserved but if you have any
further information on the townslands or their meanings or
if you can add to this information please contact any member
of the committee or email myshallmag@eircom.net We would be
delighted to hear from you.
Source: Myshall Parish Magazine 2006 p. 16
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