Magical place names of an ancient peninsula: From Carricknadreecuskeim to Strahack

Has anyone ever wondered about the following unusual places we find tucked away in the corners of familiar-sounding townlands? Pennsylvania (in Carrickmaquigley); Carolina (in Tullyarvan); Gibraltar (in Magheradrumman); Condum Hill (in Tullyally)?

Well, Pennsylvania is American in origin and must have some connection with the thousands who sailed to Pennsylvania from Moville in the bad old days.

Carolina is not actually American but Irish: Cora Léanna – Stepping Stones of the Water-Meadow. Nor is Gibraltar named after its name-sake, that Mediterranean island, but is Irish: Giob-Altóir, meaning Ragged Altar Stone.

Condum Hill is a mystery. It might well be the name of some now obscure indigenous plant that translates as “Dog Bush” and spelt in Irish Contom, but nobody is really sure. And you’ll be disappointed to know as well that it’s definitely not the place were the first Inishowen family-planning clinics were held!

There are some other Condum rivals in the same district of Moville: Condum Rocks and Condum Little. But in the far west of Clonmany, we have even better versions called Wee Contum and Big Contum! They are both in Dunaff. But that shouldn’t surprise us because there is a spectacular rock in the sea there called Bothanvarra which many locals believe to mean Boidín Mhara (look it up in your own Irish dictionaries, please!).

I’ll leave you with just a handful of relatively straightforward places - two from each parish:

BURT: Ballyderowen - Baile Idir Dhá Abhainn (The Homestead Between Two Rivers); Castlecooley - Caiseal Cabhlaigh (Stone Enclosure of the Fleet)

CLONCHA: Altnadarrow- Alt na dTarbh (The Hillock of the Bulls); Knockergrane - Cnocair Gréine (Sunny Hill-Tops)

CLONMANY: Gortnahunshion - Gort na hÓinsín (The Tilled Field of the Silly Girl); Rinn an Chrochaire (The Headland of the Hangman) Do you know where?

CULDAFF: Cashlananeeve - Caisleán na Naomh (The Castle of the Saints); Carricknadreecuskeim - Carraig na dTrí Coiscéim (The Rock of the Three Footsteps)

DESERTEGNEY: Gortyarrigan - Gort Uí Argáin (O’Harrigan’s Tilled Field); Asnabindaragh - Eas na Binne Darach (The Waterfall of the Cliff of the Oak)

DONAGH: Meenagasson - Mín na gCosán (The Mountain Pasture of the Footpaths); Carrowblagh - Ceathrú Bhláthach (Flowery Quarterland)

FAHAN LOWER: Lennyarnan - Léanaí Áirneáin (The Water-Meadows of the Sloes); Magherintoore - Machaire an Tuair (The Plain of the Bleaching-Green)

FAHAN UPPER: Crislaghmore - Crioslach Mór (Big Bosom, ie The Bosom of Fahan); Annybrack - Eanaigh Breaca (Speckled Marshes)

INCH: Carrickanee - Carraig an Fhia (The Rock of the Deer); Strahack – Srathach (Low-Lying Marshy Land)

MINTIAGHS: The Barr of Inch - Barr na hInse (Top of the Island, ie. Inishowen); Drumaneigh - Droim an Fhéich (The Ridge of the Raven)

MOVILLE LOWER: Crockaulin - Cnoc Álainn (Beautiful Hill); Peanagh – Péanach (Abounding in Magpies)

MOVILLE UPPER: Crockavishane - Cnoc Aibhise Éin (Hill of the Lush Grassy Place of the Birds); Ballyrattan - Baile Ráithín (Homestead of the Little Fort)

MUFF: Crocknacraddy - Cnoc na gCreadair (The Hill of Relics); Rinerore - Rinn Iara Óir (The Promontory of the Golden Hares)

The Isle of Burt and boundary issues

The fact that Inishowen is surrounded by sea in the east, west and north, makes the outline of the peninsula, in its upper limits, a very easy shape to see on a map. Not so, its southern limits. Ask almost anyone today around Burt where Inishowen ends and you will get a different answer each time! But in earlier times this information was widely known and very specific.

Inishowen’s boundary began at Castle Hill, followed the river down to Portlough, headed up through Bogay Hill and across to Holywell Hill. And some of you are probably saying “But that’s County Derry!” And you would be right, because in ancient times the boundary of Inishowen went east of Holywell Hill, right through Creggan until it reached the Foyle. At some early stage in its history, of course, Doire Cholm Cille – where the city now stands – was an island and an important religious centre for Inishowen. There was no such thing as County Derry or County Donegal in those times.

Going back through the mists of time it would appear that Inishowen was and is a virtual archipelago of islands: Inch, Doagh, Inishtrahull and, in former times, several others in Lough Foyle, including the island upon which Derry City is built. Furthermore, four townlands in the parish of Burt – Carrowen, Ballymoney, Mulenny and Grange – were at one time completely surrounded by water, and, as a group, were referred to as “The Isle of Burt”. Malin too was an island. No small wonder then that in ancient times the peninsula was referred to as Tír Eoghain na hInse – The Island Territory of Eoghan.

READ NEXT: There are just two Movilles in the world, but do you know where the 'other one' is?

Without going into the complex history of the peninsula, I would like to outline some basic facts about the place-names of Inishowen. Before 1600, not a single English name existed here. Inishowen was totally Irish-speaking. The population would have had no use for an English name or an Anglicized name. All that changed when Sir Arthur Chichester took over from our last Gaelic chieftain Cathaoir Rua Ó Dochartaigh in 1609. As the land was being divided up and leased to English and Scottish settlers, maps were drawn up on which all the Gaelic townlands were written in a form that would help the newcomers identify places. Thus for example, Ballie Ichaneightra on the 1609 map is evidently Baile Fhiocháin Íochtarach (Balleelaghan Lower, in Culdaff Parish). This means Fiochán’s Homestead. The native Irish would have understood its meaning immediately but it was just mumbo-jumbo to the settlers, unless they were from the Gàidhlig-speaking parts of Western Scotland.

The situation in the early 1600s would have been similar to that of the pioneers of America when they first encountered Native American place-names like Minnesota and Milwaukee – places that had very specific meanings to the natives but were totally lost on the new-comers. By exploring their origins we are rescuing Inishowen place-names from a similar loss of true identity.

Tipsy friar with talent for verse

A poem/song in Irish composed about 1750 by a rakish friar from the Isle of Doagh, has been a popular recitation piece all over Inishowen. It was first collected in Urris in the 1920s and later in 1938, young Máire Ní Dhochartaigh from Cloch Fionn wrote it down from her father, Seosamh.

A longer version then appeared in Charles McGlinchey’s The Last of the Name. Charles, who was born in 1861, had memorised it from childhood. It contains 33 references to Gaelic place-names from all over the peninsula. Parental Advisory: The friar isn’t exactly a good role model for the present youth of Inishowen! But the first two verses begin harmlessly enough:

Mullach os cionn Ardaigh

‘gus aoibhinn córach Barr na mBeann

Tífeá Iorras uait is Málainn

Cnoc na Darach gach uile ann.

Cnoc na Manach, Log is Caonach,

Glac na Bráide, sin is Drong,

Log an Churraigh, Coill is Clárach,

Agus ar Eanach a d’ól mé dream

The Town of Mullagh above Ardagh,

Fair and pleasant are the lofty Bens,

You’ll see Urris and the meadows of Malin,

Cruckakillydara and the hills beyond.

Knockamany, Lagg and Keenagh

Glacknabrade and from there to Drung

Legacurry, Kill and Clara,

And back to Anagh where I drank a dram.

And who exactly was this tipsy “Friar Tuck” with a talent for verse-making? Well, he was one of four sons of Ruairí Óg Ó Dochartaigh, three of whom became clergymen. One was hanged in the Diamond of Derry in 1740 and another went to Louvain to study. The poet himself remained on in the Isle of Doagh although he ministered for a time in the parish of Cloncha. He is only known as Bráthair na Dumhcha – The Friar from Doagh – and died in 1784. He is buried somewhere in Lagg cemetery.

It seems he wrote the poem one day as he sat at Carrickabraghy looking all around him on the hills of Inishowen. He names each place in turn and then recalls all the shenanigans he got up to - presumably in his wayward youth. Has he now repented? Impossible to say. Here’s my own prose translation of the rest of the poem:

Carraig a’ Bhrachaí was my favourite drinking ground, down by the sandhills or by An Caisleán, singing sweetly to Oileán Glas-Éadaigh. I went fishing at Tráigh Bréige, made music at Ráth Sionnaigh and swam the sea to An Bréidín. Thousands thought that I had drowned!

I got drunk on Cnoc na Gaoithe and stayed up there all the night. From there I went to Gleann na Mínteach where treachery was done on me. I asked for a tankard and they filled it up but the landlord told me I’d better pay. When the moon arose I was ready to go but hadn’t a penny in my purse. I found my coat and my cloak all torn, lying in bits on the tavern floor. A woman followed me, stole my boots and disappeared into the yellow bog. The town rose up and tried to catch me but I steamed ahead like a boat on the wind.

I went to Rúscaí to visit Gráinne but she wouldn’t give me a beer on strap. All I had was a mouldy wig, an empty pocket and an ugly hat. I put them down and hit the counter but she sent me off with a scolding shout. But I drank a bottle when I got to An tSráid and more than my fill at Machaire Mór.

I learned Latin and Greek so long ago, but time is moving on, my friend! I donned a cravat and a fine silk shirt at Toigh Sheárlais in Ard a’ Chrainn. I was in Ardach playing cards and I drank a health to Owen Roe O’Neill. On my way to Machaire Ard, I spent some time at the races with Máire Nic a’ Bhaird.

From Baile Challáin to Cnoc Each-Dhroma I was famous for making poit.

I never stopped and never got tired making music all night in Inis Eoghain. Big towns, small towns from Doire upwards, but two of the places I never set foot: Ceathrú Trasna and Íochtar Fanaid - so now I’ve told you all my rant!

There’s a Point but it’s not Quigley’s

A district in Inishowen, known many years ago as The Meedians, will no doubt be recognisable by some of our senior citizens around Muff or in parts of Upper Moville. However, the youth of today would look at you blankly if you said you were heading up to see somebody in The Meedians. “Where in God’s name is that?” I’ll tell you now and take you out of your misery. The Meedians are in the rather exotic-sounding Three Trees townland in the parish of Muff.

According to Dinneen’s Irish Dictonary míodún is not just any old meadow but one “especially ready for cutting”. And Inishowen has a few others thus described: one near Malin Head called Meedan More (Míodún Mór); and in the south east we have one in Tullyally called Meedanbeg (Míodún Beag) and another in Tromaty called Meedanboy (Míodún Buí). Ah, the sunny long ago! Do you see what you are missing now, young people of Inishowen?

The autumn days are here again and the night winds chilly blow,

The woodlands turn to golden hue and the harvest moon’s a-glow,

To hear again of days long past to come no more, I know,

When I mowed Pat Murphy’s meadow in the sunny long ago!

Three Trees has a rather bizarre etymology. The “official” Irish version is Ard an Chrainn, translating as The Height of the Tree. Ancient sources refer to it as Ard an Chró (The Height of the Shelter or Hut) but the Three Trees name itself has baffled many.

It seems probable though that the transcriber - whoever he was - thought he was hearing something like three trees in the name as spoken by some local resident but in actuality this was Na Trí dTrian, The Three Thirds. It refers to land divisions, not trees.

Ard an Chrainn / Ard an Chró appear to be older names for the principal mountain in Three Trees now called Cruckglass (Cnoc Glas, Green Hill). The plot thickens. As Oscar Wilde said “The truth is rarely plain and never simple”. How right he was.

Staying in that region, we come to another vexed problem which I call the “Quigley Factor” of place-names. There might be hundreds of Quigley residents in the south east but Carrickmacquigley has nothing to do with that surname. It is a mistranslation of Carraig Mhic Uidhilín, meaning McQuillan’s Rock. (It can be pronounced Carrickmakilleen). Futhermore, there is no Quigley’s Point! There is a point there alright – a headland - but 17th century documents suggest that the original name should have been Carrowkeel Point.

There are two fleeting references to it in the Plantation Papers after which it disappears completely from the records. It had been anglicised to Rinecaroughkilly and Rynecarronikilly which means The Point of Carrowkeel, and evidently this was known in Gaelic Ireland as Rinn Cheathrún Caoile. The end word “Caoile” [pronounced keel-ya] was wrongly interpreted as “Quigley” in more recent times by virtue of the fact that there was a family of that surname living in the immediate area! I hope I don’t get lynched by an angry mob of Quigleys for stealing their thunder.

Henry Vaughan and the rebuilding of Buncrana

I always thought it very strange that a town called The Mouth of the Crana River was a relatively long way away from that river. The Crana flows into the Swilly in the north-western suburbs of the present town. The town centre itself – somewhere near the old Market House – is not the hub of an old 15th-century village, but actually the heart of a new town built in the 18th century by Henry Vaughan. The original old town – Bun Chranncha – was situated on the other side of the river, to the north of the O’Doherty Keep and directly behind Vaughan’s 1718 stately home, known locally as “The Castle”.

To build his new town, Vaughan dismantled old Bun Cranncha (Buncranah on the maps), stone by stone, and started work immediately on the expansion of a small cluster of houses just directly opposite his house – a place now called Castle Avenue, but which was known in the 1830s as William Street – presumably named after the British monarch, William IV who ruled from 1830-7.

William Street, in the 1830s, began as Castle Avenue and veered right down the Main Street - but it was still called William Street - and ended at the Market House where it met Townsend Street – now called Lower Main Street. To the left was Market Street, now Maginn Avenue.

Mabel Colhoun, the eminent archaeologist, and native of Inishowen, wrote in her invaluable book “Inishowen Heritage” that Castle Avenue, in her childhood days, was known as Gubbock Lane, which I believe comes from the Irish word giobach meaning untidy. And yes, it was probably a higgledy-piggledy cluster of thatched cottages in 1718 that in no way resembled an English town. No doubt Mr. Vaughan’s dream was to build a more orderly village, along the lines of an English village, and build he did.

I have no idea what his town looked like in the 18th Century – I was unable to find a town plan from that period – but I did find the town layout on the 1834 Ordnance Survey Map and it was more or less the same shape then that it is today except that when you walked down any side-street you were immediately in green fields of corn, swaying in the summer breeze!

I have some reason to believe that Gubbock Lane was the pathway through a little clachan called Colecorvrin. It is mentioned several times in 17th century documents linked to another clachan called Ardraman (Ardaravan) about one kilometre away at the end of the Causeway Road – or the Cassy Road, as local people call it.

Now Ardaravan – as a townland – is a large area covering the whole of Buncrana and its immediate environs, but in the 1600s it was a very rural district scattered around with little farm clusters – Colecorvrin and Ardraman were but two of these clusters. Ardravan townland is named after the cluster of Ardravan.

In 1609 Henry Vaughan (an ancestor of the Henry Vaughan who built the new town) was granted land for 51 years for the nominal fee of £50 by Arthur Chichester – almost half of the parish of Fahan Lower, consisting of 11 quarterlands and 4 half quarters – the entire western side of the parish, including all the fisheries in that half. The river bordering the eastern edge of his lease was the Owenboy River. Vaughan’s land was on its western bank and this river meets with the Crana River at Kinnego and flows out into the Swilly at Tullyarvin. The lease states that he was granted several fisheries including: Tullyarvill cum Duntarson Meaning: Fisheries from Tullyarvin to Shandrim, i.e., from the Swilly to the Owenboy River via the Crana River. (Duntarson is in Shandrim).

However, he is also granted the fisheries from Ardaravan to “Colecomer”, which I believe to be Colecorvrin as it was written in the latter form in two other unrelated documents of the time. The river in question has no name, that I am aware of, but it still flows to this day from its source in Aghilly, past Magheraban and Magherintoor; then by the north of Ardaravan, under a bridge on the Cassy Road and down under Jacob’s Bridge, just around the corner from Castle Avenue. It swerves around the back of the houses in the avenue and comes out into the Swilly. Thus we have it on the 1609 lease: Arderaman cum Colecomer.

Meaning: Ardaravan to Colecorvrin (i.e., fisheries on the river linking them.)

Colecorvrin - if it really is the name of the old cluster of houses on Castle Avenue - could be interpreted as Cúil Choirbhrín, the Nook or Angle of Coirbhrín. And Coirbhrín might also be the name of that stream.

Its source is shown in a 1609 map as the marshy area lying between aghiellie and ballimagan, i.e., somewhere near Clonglash.

And what kind of fishing would have taken place in this little stream? Well, take a look sometime at a little side-street halfway down Castle Avenue on the right. It used to be called Eel Street! And the name Gubbock could also be piscine in origin since gobóg means dog-fish!