Interest in collecting field names has been growing across Westmeath since the recording project featured in AgriLand in July, with some fascinating results uncovered.
Several community groups have been working on the project with approximately 1,400 field names collected from eight parishes around the county. All of the field names collected are being uploaded to: meitheal.logainm.ie/westmeath-field-names.
This website maps and shares data about minor placenames in Ireland.
Irish language origin
Project coordinator Aengus Finnegan said that the results made for interesting reading. A higher percentage (10–15%) of names of Irish language origin are recorded in the north-east of the county, indicating that Irish survived in use longer there than in other parts of Westmeath.
Interestingly, many of the Irish names collected in 2018-2019, 80 years on, were not recorded in the 1937/1938 schools’ folklore collection. This suggests that a great many Irish language field names went unrecorded in 1937/1938 and underlines the importance of the living tradition in 2019, and the pressing need to record these names now.
“An Irish name recorded in several places in Westmeath is ‘móinín’ or ‘a little moor’. Many of these wetlands have been drained since they lent their names to the fields.
“‘Móinín’ also occurs as the name of a stream, which flows through the townland of Clondalever, and into Lough Derravarragh. The stream is unnamed on ordinance survey maps but is known locally as ‘The Móinín River’,” said Aengus.
“In almost all cases, the word ‘cnoc’ or ‘hill’, which also occurred as ‘cnoicín’ and ‘cnocán’ – both meaning ‘little hill’ – was pronounced ‘kruk’ which suggests the Irish spoken in Westmeath had similarities to that spoken in Connacht and Ulster.
“Several English dialect words were also recorded. Two examples of ‘slang’ occurred in this year’s collection – one in The Downs, and the other in Ballymacallen, Ballymore.”
‘Slang’ refers to a long strip of land. ‘Furze’ is the usual word used for ‘Ulex’ in Co. Westmeath and this is reflected in names such as ‘The Furry Hill’, Robinstown, said Aengus, who is from Glassan with a PhD in placenames.
“Another common name for small fields adjacent to old farmsteads is ‘The Haggard’, an enclosure where hay was kept for the winter. This word, which the Oxford English dictionary states is mainly used in Irish and Manx English, is rapidly falling out of use as hay sheds, and subsequently baled silage, have replaced the hayrick since the 1960s.
“A few examples of fields called ‘The Stray Field’ were also collected. This tradition, where a person entering a field, becomes disorientated and struggles to find their way out is found all over Ireland and is known variously as ‘The Stray Sod’ or the ‘Fóidín Mearaí’ in Irish,” said Aengus.
Intriguing results
The project, which has come up with a whole array of intriguing results, is supported by the Heritage Council, Creative Ireland and Westmeath County Council.
For more information, check out: [email protected]; or follow the project on Twitter; or contact Westmeath heritage officer Melanie McQuade on email at: [email protected]; or phone on: 044-9332098.