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Where did Mahon get its name?

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  • 17-10-2012 3:02pm
    #1
    Boulevardier
    Registered Users Posts: 1,375 ✭✭✭


    Does anyone know where Mahon/Mahon Point got its name?

    I am wondering if it was named after Mahon (Minorca) which was a major British naval base back in Nelson's time, or whether the name is of purely local origin.

    Any answers gratefully received.


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    #2
    Chucken
    Registered Users Posts: 9,459 ✭✭✭Chucken


    Mahon gets its name from Lough Mahon, a wide stretch of the upper section of Cork Harbour.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahon,_Cork


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    #3
    Boulevardier
    Registered Users Posts: 1,375 ✭✭✭Boulevardier


    Interesting but does not rule out my theory!

    Mahon (Minorca) was a naval base becasue precisely because it contained a wide stretch of sheltered, deep water which made it valuable in the Western Mediterranean.

    Cork's Lough Mahon could have been named after it in the 1700s when Minorca's Mahon became well known as a valuable anchorage. I suppose that there is also a faint chance that it happened the other way round.

    In any case, if Cork's Mahon is not of that derivation, then where does its name come from?


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    #4
    Balmed Out
    Registered Users Posts: 4,714 ✭✭✭Balmed Out


    mahon rinn machon-mahons headland
    it derives its name from mahon son of cian who died in 1028


    Was in the library and i noticed a book on the origins of place names in county cork and remebering this thread i looked up mahon and above is what i found.

    a quick google throws this up
    http://www.tommahony.com/genealogy/mahonyhx1c.htm
    which seems to coroborate it.


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