The Townland

jonniebgood1

Townlands seem to be an Irish peculiarity. I hope to look into what they came from and why they were needed. As far as I know there is not an natural equivalent in England, Scotland or Wales (open to correction on that).
Can anyone point me in the right direction regarding how townlands emerged in Ireland as such an important identification of location?

enfield

In ancient Ireland a single plough was supposed to turn up 120 Irish acres in the year and this was called a ploughland. There were twelve ploughlands in a Townland, and thirty Townlands were equal to a Tuatha, There were 184 tuatha in Ireland. This has changed through the ages and nowadays the smallest Townland in Ireland consists of just over one acre and the largest over 7000 acres.
However around the 1830’s the English politicians who ruled this land decided that poor ould Ireland was in dire need of a proper Ordinance survey map of all its counties. A problem of Irish Townlands and placenames arose. How could map reader who could neither speak or read Irish pronounce or understand the name of any place here?. It was decided that a new Anglacised (Englishified) versions of the original Irish name would be adopted so that an Englishman could (a) read the new placename (b) Pronounce what he read and, within reason (c) the new name would sound similar to the old Irish name. If this was not possible then it could be changed to something else entirely. This task was given to a top Irish scholar, John O'Donovan. Six versions of the townland name was sought from people of some education and literacy and usually included the local landowner and Parish Priest. The original Irish name and the translation were noted. O.Donovan then chose phonetic English spellings of the old Irish placenames so that they would sound as near as possible to the original when carefully pronounced rather than when in slurred rapid speech and that is how we have the placenames as they are today. The original documents used to decide the final names are still available in all County Libraries as the ‘Index to the Ordnance Survey’.

dubhthach

the concept of Barony in Ireland is often mapped onto what were previous Tuatha. Of course on another level Catholic dioceses provide some idea of political boundaries during the 12th century.

jonniebgood1

Thanks for the pointers. There is a piece from Galwaylibrary online which I found using John O'Donovans name and it explains the role which O'Donovan was given as follows

In 1834, Colby agreed to show demesnes as 'matters of topographical information'. A topographical department was established which had the task of extracting a vast number of place-names from the Inquisitions, the Down Survey, the Books of Survey and Distribution, and other Irish historical documents and to enter them in Name-Books alongside the modern authorities. The first field worker was the lexicographer, Edward O'Reilly, who died shortly after his appointment. http://places.galwaylibrary.ie/odonovan.html

John O'Donovan then carried out this role. His method seems to have formed the names that we regularly use nowadays

The method of proceeding with the naming of townlands was for O'Donovan, usually, to enter in the name-book firstly the Irish version of each name, and secondly the spelling recommended for the published maps. Where every current spelling seemed incorrect, it seemed logical to find a new one that brought out the true meaning of the word. He regularised the spelling of 'knock' for cnoc and 'drum' for druim. He considered that spelling should be related to pronounciation: he preferred Tir to Tyr. As a result, the anglicised form might differ from place to place; 'cluain' and 'clon' are used, for example.

dubhthach

Regarding Cnoc there's an important isogloss in Irish that divides the island in two. South of it (Munster) Cnoc is pronunced as it's spelt. North of it however it's pronunced as Croc. If you listen to TG4 presenters from Connemara they say "Croc Mhuire" for Knock even though it's spelt "Cnoc Mhuire" (Likewise "Mra" for Mna)

As a result this can be see in the anglisciation as: Crock




In Donegal for example Crocknagapple (Cnoc na gCapall). This sound shift is also the reason why there is an R in Limerick in english. As oppose to Luimneach in written Irish. The Soundshift had extended that far by at least the 12/13th century. It's present also in Scottish Gàidhlig and Manx Gaelg.

slowburner

There are 60,000 townlands in Ireland!
If the townland has its roots in our pagan past, is the parish an entirely Christian concept?

Peregrinus

The English (very rough) equivalent is the hide, which was either the amount of land that a single plough could plough in a year, or the amount of land which would support a family for a year. (A different meaning applied in different parts of the country.) Either way, the amount of land actually represented by a hide varied according to how productive the land was. A hide of pasture would be a lot smaller than a hide of forest, which in turn would be smaller than a hide of heath.

Unlike the townland, however, the hide wasn't a specific territorial location, just a measure of land, like and acre (except that it wasn't a measure of area, but a measure of productive capacity). The smallest territorial unit was the hundred, which (in theory, though rarely in practice, contained a hundred hides). At one stage hundreds in English counties used to have their own courts, and they were a basis for assessing taxes.

pedroeibar1

dubhthach wrote: »

Regarding Cnoc there's an important isogloss in Irish that divides the island in two. South of it (Munster) Cnoc is pronunced as it's spelt. North of it however it's pronunced as Croc. If you listen to TG4 presenters from Connemara they say "Croc Mhuire" for Knock even though it's spelt "Cnoc Mhuire" (Likewise "Mra" for Mna)
........... It's present also in Scottish Gàidhlig and Manx Gaelg.

Wondering about that.... Could there be an influence from Cruach, a hill?

Peregrinus wrote: »

...............Unlike the townland, however, the hide wasn't a specific territorial location, just a measure of land, like and acre (except that it wasn't a measure of area, but a measure of productive capacity).

I agree that it was a measure of productivity (designed for tax levying), but surely a ‘hide’ had a territorial location?

South East England also has the ‘yoke’ – the land ploughed by a pair of oxen. The ‘caracute’ was the area ploughed by a team of eight oxen in a day.
In Ireland there are many placenames associated with land measure including ploughlands – eg a gneeve is a fraction of a ploughland, and Gneevegullia in Kerry is Gniomh go Leith, a gneeve and a half.
Rs
P.

dubhthach

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Wondering about that.... Could there be an influence from Cruach, a hill?

Nope it's a wider linguistic feature of Connacht/Ulster Irish as well as Scottish Gàidhlig and Manx Gaelg:

• /n/ is realized as [r] (or is replaced by /r/) after consonants other than . This happens in Ulster as well.
  

As a result a native spaker from Galway/Mayo or Donegal would say Mná as Mrá, likewise for Cnoc been pronuced as Croc. The n sound is only preserved in Munster Irish as well as among non-native speakers/school learners.

Another isogloss is that in Munster AO is pronunced as é, whereas in Connacht and Ulster it's pronunced as í

Cruach in your example is specifically used for names of mountains/Reek, thence Cruach Phádraig (Croagh Patrick)

pedroeibar1

dubhthach wrote: »

Another isogloss is that in Munster AO is pronunced as é, whereas in Connacht and Ulster it's pronunced as í

So Aodh O'Neill was a wí mon?

dubhthach wrote: »

Cruach in your example is specifically used for names of mountains/Reek, thence Cruach Phádraig (Croagh Patrick)

I was thinking about Crookhaven, originally Cruach = Hill and not a mountain in sight!
But I accept your point;)
P.

teekayd25

We've had The Field and The Guard - clearly it's now time for "The Townland"

Some parts of West Kerry seem to have townlands signposted; don't know if it's unique to there but certainly unusual.

http://maps.google.ie/maps?q=inch+kerry&hl=en&ll=52.147906,-10.068639&spn=0.029336,0.084543&sll=53.585652,-6.192203&sspn=0.014088,0.042272&vpsrc=6&hnear=Inch,+County+Kerry&t=m&z=14&layer=c&cbll=52.147906,-10.068639&panoid=_j4IOVLWIrnLGzO3YBqWmw&cbp=12,11.12,,0,0

http://maps.google.ie/maps?q=inch+kerry&hl=en&ll=52.145551,-10.10107&spn=0.029338,0.084543&sll=53.585652,-6.192203&sspn=0.014088,0.042272&vpsrc=6&hnear=Inch,+County+Kerry&t=m&z=14&layer=c&cbll=52.145565,-10.100836&panoid=YbBaJiwgb6SMTGQnti5iQg&cbp=12,53.65,,0,0

http://maps.google.ie/maps?q=dingle&hl=en&ll=52.149027,-10.12742&spn=0.029125,0.084543&sll=53.401034,-8.307638&sspn=7.24805,21.643066&vpsrc=6&hnear=Dingle,+County+Kerry&t=m&z=14&layer=c&cbll=52.148923,-10.127347&panoid=ohEQRYxUvy4cSPNGC2QHxg&cbp=12,35.52,,2,15

Peregrinus

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

I agree that it was a measure of productivity (designed for tax levying), but surely a ‘hide’ had a territorial location?

Well, it's a measure of land, and all land has a location.

But every townland in Ireland is a specific and unique place - it has defined boundaries. Whereas this is not true of every acre in Ireland - any portion of land which measures one acre can be described as an acre, regardless of where its boundaries lie.

In this sense, a hide is more like an acre than a townland. A hide of land is simply as much land as will [support a family for a year]. But it's not necessarily a specific plot which does or ever did support a family for a year.

NIMAN

Very interesting.

And to think some folk want to introduce postcodes and ruin all this.

owenc

NIMAN wrote: »

Very interesting.

And to think some folk want to introduce postcodes and ruin all this.

Erm postcodes are just numbers. We have them here and we still have townlands infact just down the road a wee bit there is a road sign saying name of my road with the name of the townland below.http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Teeshanrd.jpg Anyway, i believe that scottish people have stewards which are counties and then after that they had cival parishes (presbytery) ,and then below that they had fermlands.

ejmaztec

NIMAN wrote: »

Very interesting.

And to think some folk want to introduce postcodes and ruin all this.

There don't seem to be many (if any) roadsigns letting you know which townland you happen to be in at any one time. The local postman probably knows where they all are, but couriers probably don't, until they get used to an area.

shanew

In rural area postmen usually know the townlands very well - often it's all they get as an address. A full address for a house or farm might be :

name
townland
post town (sometimes followed by a more major town )
county


Shane

The Scientician

teekayd25 wrote: »

We've had The Field and The Guard - clearly it's now time for "The Townland"

Some parts of West Kerry seem to have townlands signposted; don't know if it's unique to there but certainly unusual.

http://maps.google.ie/maps?q=inch+kerry&hl=en&ll=52.147906,-10.068639&spn=0.029336,0.084543&sll=53.585652,-6.192203&sspn=0.014088,0.042272&vpsrc=6&hnear=Inch,+County+Kerry&t=m&z=14&layer=c&cbll=52.147906,-10.068639&panoid=_j4IOVLWIrnLGzO3YBqWmw&cbp=12,11.12,,0,0

http://maps.google.ie/maps?q=inch+kerry&hl=en&ll=52.145551,-10.10107&spn=0.029338,0.084543&sll=53.585652,-6.192203&sspn=0.014088,0.042272&vpsrc=6&hnear=Inch,+County+Kerry&t=m&z=14&layer=c&cbll=52.145565,-10.100836&panoid=YbBaJiwgb6SMTGQnti5iQg&cbp=12,53.65,,0,0

http://maps.google.ie/maps?q=dingle&hl=en&ll=52.149027,-10.12742&spn=0.029125,0.084543&sll=53.401034,-8.307638&sspn=7.24805,21.643066&vpsrc=6&hnear=Dingle,+County+Kerry&t=m&z=14&layer=c&cbll=52.148923,-10.127347&panoid=ohEQRYxUvy4cSPNGC2QHxg&cbp=12,35.52,,2,15

The townlands in rural areas of Northern Ireland are on the street signs. I think it's a fine addition.