When Gaelicisation works, and when it doesn't

dpe

Hmm, just noticed this thread, and it made me think maybe someone here has the answer to a question that I've been wondering about for a while. Why is Dublin called Baile Átha Cliath? As a Brit who's only lived here for a couple of years I've often wondered. After all Dublin is a derivation of an Irish name in the first place isn't it? So why give it a completely different Irish name when its Gaelicised? Shouldn't it be Dubh Linn?

Johnmb

dpe wrote: »

Hmm, just noticed this thread, and it made me think maybe someone here has the answer to a question that I've been wondering about for a while. Why is Dublin called Baile Átha Cliath? As a Brit who's only lived here for a couple of years I've often wondered. After all Dublin is a derivation of an Irish name in the first place isn't it? So why give it a completely different Irish name when its Gaelicised? Shouldn't it be Dubh Linn?

The black pool (Dubh Linn) was a pool of water that is in the area of Dublin Castle. The ford of the hurdles (Atha Cliath) was a crossing on the Liffey that linked two settlements north and south. They Anglecised the Irish name for the area at the castle rather than the name of the settlement, we didn't Gaelicise the name (at least not from English).

MarchDub

dpe wrote: »

Hmm, just noticed this thread, and it made me think maybe someone here has the answer to a question that I've been wondering about for a while. Why is Dublin called Baile Átha Cliath? As a Brit who's only lived here for a couple of years I've often wondered. After all Dublin is a derivation of an Irish name in the first place isn't it? So why give it a completely different Irish name when its Gaelicised? Shouldn't it be Dubh Linn?

Baile Atha Cliath and Dubh Linn were actually two different small Irish settlements along the River Liffey - but close to each other. The Vikings came and settled in and around both but referred to their widening settlement as 'Dyflin' hearing the Irish Dubh Linn. The Irish annalists however refer to the Vikings as being at Ath Cliath - so the Irish language name for the whole area stayed that way. The English 'Dublin' came from what the Vikings had used - does that make sense?

mathepac

dpe wrote: »

... After all Dublin is a derivation of an Irish name in the first place isn't it? ... Shouldn't it be Dubh Linn?

I'm in general agreement with johnmb and MarchDub above, but I don't agree that Dubh Linn was ever the Irish version of Dyflin (nor do I agree with the apparent back-to-front "Irish" names for places like Fingal, Baldoyle, etc. for the same reason.)

In Irish the adjectival qualifier for a noun is always placed after the noun in question, hence 'Black Pool' in Irish would be 'Linn Dubh', pronounced Linn Doo or Linn Dove, depending on your local dialect. (not to be confused with the Irish name for the blackbird which is 'lionndubh')

dpe wrote: »

...So why give it a completely different Irish name when its Gaelicised? ...

Again as I pointed out previously, your understanding of Irish place-names is back-to-front; a place may have had an Anglo (or Norse / Norman) name with one segment of the population and a completely different and maybe unrelated name with another; the Irish name is not a 'Gaelacisation' of an Anglo name but may be the name the place has had back into the mists of time. Anglo names had more to do with administrative convenience (electoral area, census area, garrison-town, developer, planter family, or barracks-naming conventions, etc.) rather than the more descriptive, poetic, druidic Irish names.*

*pantheistic

Johnmb

mathepac wrote: »

I'm in general agreement with johnmb and MarchDub above, but I don't agree that Dubh Linn was ever the Irish version of Dyflin (nor do I agree with the apparent back-to-front "Irish" names for places like Fingal, Baldoyle, etc. for the same reason.)

In Irish the adjectival qualifier for a noun is always placed after the noun in question, hence 'Black Pool' in Irish would be 'Linn Dubh', pronounced Linn Doo or Linn Dove, depending on your local dialect. (not to be confused with the Irish name for the blackbird which is 'lionndubh')

I would imagine that it was called (the Old Irish equivalent of) Linn Dubh, but given that it was mainly a Viking settlement in its formative years, their naming conventions were adopted. i.e. Lindyf didn't make sense to the Vikings, so they reversed it to Dyflin, and the Anglo-Normans Anglecised that name rather than Dubh Linn, which as you say was not likely to be how the name was phrased originally in Irish. Other than as an attempt to explain where "Dublin" came from, I wouldn't have though Dubh Linn would be used even today in Modern Irish.

MarchDub

mathepac wrote: »

I'm in general agreement with johnmb and MarchDub above, but I don't agree that Dubh Linn was ever the Irish version of Dyflin (nor do I agree with the apparent back-to-front "Irish" names for places like Fingal, Baldoyle, etc. for the same reason.)

In Irish the adjectival qualifier for a noun is always placed after the noun in question, hence 'Black Pool' in Irish would be 'Linn Dubh', pronounced Linn Doo or Linn Dove, depending on your local dialect. (not to be confused with the Irish name for the blackbird which is 'lionndubh')
Again as I pointed out previously, your understanding of Irish place-names is back-to-front; a place may have had an Anglo (or Norse / Norman) name with one segment of the population and a completely different and maybe unrelated name with another; the Irish name is not a 'Gaelacisation' of an Anglo name but may be the name the place has had back into the mists of time. Anglo names had more to do with administrative convenience (electoral area, census area, garrison-town, developer, planter family, or barracks-naming conventions, etc.) rather than the more descriptive, poetic, druidic Irish names.*

*pantheistic

I remember this point coming up before on the forum - and I remember reading somewhere - maybe Donnchadh O Corrain's work - that in the case of proper names that got written as a whole the adjective sometimes comes first.

I just looked at a book on Irish language origins of surnames and see that as the origin for Delaney SURNAME - O'Dubhshláine, from 'dubh' meaning black.

Maybe this is why dubhlinn is written the way it is?

mathepac

MarchDub wrote: »

... I just looked at a book on Irish language origins of surnames and see that as the origin for Delaney SURNAME - O'Dubhshláine, from 'dubh' meaning black. ...

Possibly, given that the Irish at the time assimilated many Norse words into the language, but Delaney may be a poor example. There is an argument that that particular name is Norman in origin (same name as Cleo Laine, Denny Laine, DeLane-Lea Studios) and is connected with an Old French / Norman word for a wood or a grove.

CDfm

mathepac wrote: »

Denny Laine, DeLane-Lea Studios) and is connected with an Old French / Norman word for a wood or a grove.

I hate to say this but Denny Laine is a made up nameand his real name was Brian Frederick Arthur Hines & BAC also sounds like a made up name.

It would be great if it was Old French for groove.

EDIT - JUst a thought . Douglas Isle of Man another Viking stronghold comes from the Dubh (Black) Glas (Green) . So could it be that the BAC was picked to avoid confusion between similar sounding names.

mathepac

CDfm wrote: »

I hate to say this but Denny Laine is a made up nameand his real name was Brian Frederick Arthur Hines & BAC also sounds like a made up name. ...

Yeah man, like I dig the stage names bit for Denny and for Mrs (Lady?) Dankworth but the name Laine / Delaney itself is a real one, but not of Irish origin as far as I can establish, although the groove should be.

As for Douglas IOM, I always thought that was named by a bunch of Cork hurling supporters who got locked at an ancient all-ireland final and took the wrong boat home.

With regards BAC I think the earlier posters got it right with the Irish settlement name and the later Viking one (who fled the IOM in terror after the Cork lads arrived)

CDfm

I find this thread facinating and with the peers thread I am getting a real picture of Ireland way back in Brian Boru's day.

MarchDub

mathepac wrote: »

Delaney itself is a real one, but not of Irish origin as far as I can establish,

OK did some more digging through my books – in O Corrain’s Irish Names Delaney is listed as a Gaelic name and also the same in Edward MacLysaght's The Surnames of Ireland [former Chief Herald] – and in the fancy colour map he published in the 1970s Delaney is colour coded as Gaelic. In another entry he has O’Delgary as O Duibhlearga – a Mayo sept who migrated to Antrim.


Now, in my copy of “Irish Place Names’ by Deirdre and Laurence Flanagan there are another few example of the dubh being placed first. Diffreen is listed as DubhThrian and Dinis as Duibhinis.

Are we building a case here?

dpe

MarchDub wrote: »

Baile Atha Cliath and Dubh Linn were actually two different small Irish settlements along the River Liffey - but close to each other. The Vikings came and settled in and around both but referred to their widening settlement as 'Dyflin' hearing the Irish Dubh Linn. The Irish annalists however refer to the Vikings as being at Ath Cliath - so the Irish language name for the whole area stayed that way. The English 'Dublin' came from what the Vikings had used - does that make sense?

Sort of, thanks. Doesn't it mean that Dublin should really be called "Hurdleford" then?

MarchDub

dpe wrote: »

Sort of, thanks. Doesn't it mean that Dublin should really be called "Hurdleford" then?

No.

grenache

I always thought Delaney was originally a Norman name? Similar to de Courcy and de Lacy? I am friends with an Erasmus student from Normandy and her surname is 'Delaunay', surely the fore-bearer of 'Delaney'? The name might have been Gaelicized but it was definitely a Norman name to begin with.

CDfm

MarchDub wrote: »

No.

OK then Dubhlinn or BAC - how say you ??

mathepac

dpe wrote: »

... Doesn't it mean that Dublin should really be called "Hurdleford" then?

Well maybe if we also transliterate new Anglo names for other places directly from the old Irish names and dispense with the commonly used Anglo ones. For example :

• Donegal to Foreigner's Fort
• Nenagh to North Munster Fair
• Derry to Colmcille's Oak Plantation
• etc.

This, if adopted as a nation-wide initiative combined with the introduction of post-codes could keep a fair few people off the dole (sign-makers, directory compilers, An Post staff, cartographers, statistics compilers and so on)

Rabble Rabble

Johnmb wrote: »

I would imagine that it was called (the Old Irish equivalent of) Linn Dubh, but given that it was mainly a Viking settlement in its formative years, their naming conventions were adopted. i.e. Lindyf didn't make sense to the Vikings, so they reversed it to Dyflin, and the Anglo-Normans Anglecised that name rather than Dubh Linn, which as you say was not likely to be how the name was phrased originally in Irish. Other than as an attempt to explain where "Dublin" came from, I wouldn't have though Dubh Linn would be used even today in Modern Irish.

That seems unlikely. The vikings probably transliterated a sound into their language, rather than bother working out it's real meaning and then turning things around to be correct. Mississippi is from misi-ziibi, which as it happens is in the correct adjective-noun order for English ( ziibi = river) but if it were the other way round it wouldn't matter. The place would never be called zippimissi, regardless.

It is much more likely that the adjective can precede the noun in old Irish, or the Dublin area dialect. Another example is Phoenix park, from ( apparently) Fionn Uisce, not uisce fionn.

Rabble Rabble

I have taken to translating English placenames to Irish and back to English via transliteration, based on the English Town's meaning.

Swindon is from Swine and Down ( Old English for Hill) or Pig's Hill, which I call Cnoic Na mMuc, or KnocknaMuck. Got some abuse on twitter from a Swindonian for that one.

( Actually I could probably use Dun for the hill, since the English "down" is possibly related to the Irish/ Celtic dun, or fort - which would be on high ground)

Enkidu

Rabble Rabble wrote: »

It is much more likely that the adjective can precede the noun in old Irish, or the Dublin area dialect. Another example is Phoenix park, from ( apparently) Fionn Uisce, not uisce fionn.

In Old Irish the order was noun-adjective just like it is in Modern Irish.

However, the Old Irish word for dark "dobur" is often linked to the word for water and they often appear as a single compound word meaning a dark pool. Similarly for a bright pool, Fionn Uisce, for Pheonix park.

There are similar things in Modern Irish, "seanfhear" for old man, rather than "fear sean". The "sean" for old is considered intrinsic to the object.

Rabble Rabble

Enkidu wrote: »

In Old Irish the order was noun-adjective just like it is in Modern Irish.

However, the Old Irish word for dark "dobur" is often linked to the word for water and they often appear as a single compound word meaning a dark pool. Similarly for a bright pool, Fionn Uisce, for Pheonix park.

There are similar things in Modern Irish, "seanfhear" for old man, rather than "fear sean". The "sean" for old is considered intrinsic to the object.

Thanks, for the extra information but those compound words are, therefore, adjective-noun :-)

Anyway, my point still stands. The Irish called Dublin DubhLinn ( rather than Dubh Linn, or Linn Dubh)

Enkidu

Rabble Rabble wrote: »

Thanks, for the extra information but those compound words are, therefore, adjective-noun :-)

Not exactly, they are compound nouns, no more than the "New" in "Newbridge" is an adjective. The adjective is now the first syllable of a new noun.

This is even stronger in Irish where the adjective in the compound often breaks grammar associated with adjectives.

CDfm

Rabble Rabble wrote: »

Swindon is from Swine and Down ( Old English for Hill) or Pig's Hill, which I call Cnoic Na mMuc, or KnocknaMuck. Got some abuse on twitter from a Swindonian for that one.

( Actually I could probably use Dun for the hill, since the English "down" is possibly related to the Irish/ Celtic dun, or fort - which would be on high ground)

LOL - priceless -I wouldnt change a thing.

What do you do for London

Rabble Rabble

CDfm wrote: »

LOL - priceless -I wouldnt change a thing.

What do you do for London

Ballyclon.

London's etymology is in doubt am going with valley town.

Also: thinking Dublin for BlackPool - not the hardest - and Tobar for Bath.

Rebelheart

Rabble Rabble wrote: »

I have taken to translating English placenames to Irish and back to English via transliteration, based on the English Town's meaning.

Swindon is from Swine and Down ( Old English for Hill) or Pig's Hill, which I call Cnoic Na mMuc, or KnocknaMuck. Got some abuse on twitter from a Swindonian for that one.

( Actually I could probably use Dun for the hill, since the English "down" is possibly related to the Irish/ Celtic dun, or fort - which would be on high ground)

So, how do you explain Hill of Down/Cnoc an Dúin, which in its Irish means the perfectly understandable 'Hill of the fort'?

purplepanda

Interesting thread, some of the replacement Irish names stuck but many other towns kept to the older English placenames.

Bunclody was Newtownbarry & Glenmore was Alywardstown but Wellington Bridge is still in use?

Although I can't find Wellington Bridge on an old map of Wexford I have which is before the South Wexford rail line was built, it has the Macmine Junction- Rathgarouge - New Ross line so must be late 1800's ?

There's a lot of villages in South Wexford which still have English sounding names:eek: Although it's been said before that County Wexford had 4 languages a few centuries back!!:D

Johnmb

purplepanda wrote: »

There's a lot of villages in South Wexford which still have English sounding names:eek: Although it's been said before that County Wexford had 4 languages a few centuries back!!:D

It was the last place that Middle (or Old?) English was spoken as an every day, living language.

CDfm

Johnmb wrote: »

It was the last place that Middle (or Old?) English was spoken as an every day, living language.

My Aunt almost had a dialect of English as did some of her neighbours in the Wellington Bridge area

MarchDub

CDfm wrote: »

My Aunt almost had a dialect of English as did some of her neighbours in the Wellington Bridge area

That's just the Cork accent

fontanalis

Johnmb wrote: »

It was the last place that Middle (or Old?) English was spoken as an every day, living language.

That was Yola wasn't it? I've read that the word yoke (as in all round thingy) comes from Yola, anyone know if that's true.

CDfm

MarchDub wrote: »

That's just the Cork accent

Lol

Its in Wexford and is Droichead Eoin in Irish - Eoin being the Irish for wellies