First Article.
It has for a long time appeared to me a desirable object, as regards the history of Ireland and the information of the Irish people, to communicate to the public a correct account of the origin and signification of the proper names, tribe names, and surnames of the people of Ireland; more especially as some of the popular writers of the last century have misled them generally into the most erroneous notions with regard to these classes of names. The errors of these writers have not only been adopted by the usually shallow compilers of county surveys, county histories, and other topographical works down to the present time, but also to some extent by writers of a higher order and greater learning and research, as Lanigan and Moore. Indeed, strange as the fact may seem, it is nevertheless unquestionable that there are very few in the country whose ideas upon this subject are consonant with the truth; and hence, upon most occasions on which an Irishman adopts an anglicised form of his Christian name and surname, the effect of the alteration is such as completely to conceal, and not unfrequently to misrepresent, their original orthography and meaning. On this account it becomes unavoidably necessary for me, before I enter upon the series of articles which I propose furnishing on this subject, to exhibit and expose the ignorance of those writers to whom I have alluded, and whose theories have produced so erroneous an impression upon the minds of the Irish people; and to this object I purpose to devote the present introductory paper.
The fallacies which I have to expose were unknown to the Irish people until towards the close of the last century; the writers of an earlier period having been too well informed to lead their readers into error. But their works being for the most part in a dead language, and very rarely to be met with, they ceased to have an influence on the public mind, and left the way open for a new race of writers, very ignorant of the ancient language and history of Ireland, to impose their crude theories upon the uninstructed reader. A society of such persons, of whom General Vallancey, Mr Beauford,[2] and Dr Ledwich, were the most active, was formed for the purpose of giving to the public a series of essays on the antiquities, ancient literature, and topography of Ireland; and the result of their joint labours made its appearance in a work published periodically under the title of “Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis,” and since popularly called Vallancey’s Collectanea. These gentlemen, however, after a time found that their systems had nothing in common, each considering the other as insufficiently informed on the subjects treated of, and I think, with justice; for, as I trust I shall be able to show on a future occasion, all were alike ignorant of the matters they professed perfectly to understand. But though the labours of these gentlemen contributed generally to the propagation of erroneous theories on the subject, it was a work of Mr Beauford’s, published in No. II of the Collectanea, which, treating more immediately of this subject, has had the greatest influence on the popular mind; an influence less owing to any celebrity attached to his own name than to that of Vallancey, whose sanction and approbation this work is generally supposed to have received. With this writer originated the novel theory that the names of tribes and families in Ireland, as usual among the Saxons and Normans, were derived from earlier appellations of the territories and localities which they occupied. To establish this hypothesis he adopts a process of etymological investigation unparalleled in the annals of antiquarian research. In the first place, he takes the liberty of dividing the words into as many parts as he thinks proper; secondly, he makes such changes in the vocables thus obtained as he finds convenient to his purpose; thirdly, he gives each of these words new meanings of his own; and lastly, he places the tribes whose names he thus explains in localities which many of them never occupied.
As the errors of this writer, though so long before the public, have never been sufficiently exposed, I shall here undertake the task, by the exhibition of a few examples of his process of investigation, taken without selection, and given as a fair specimen of the whole. It will be necessary for me, however, in fairness, to quote in the first instance the author’s own account of the theory which he has put forward to account, in his novel manner, for the origin of the names of men and tribes in Ireland.
“On the increase of population and the introduction of agriculture, these wandering tribes were under the necessity of confining themselves to certain permanent districts; which districts were generally denominated either from their situation or quality of the soil, and from which also the inhabitants obtained their collective appellation; whence, in the most ancient Irish poems and histories, we frequently find clan and slioght added to the name of the country, to signify the inhabitants; as clan Cuilean, slioght Breoghain, and slioght Gae; wherefore the children and race of any division were the invariable names by which the ancient Hibernian septs were distinguished from the remotest antiquity, and not, as frequently asserted, the children and descendants of their respective leaders.”
Again, “The chiefs of every district were elected from the elder branches of the dynasts; and the kings of the principalities from the senior chief of the subordinate districts, who on their advancement to the dignity obtained the name of the district or clan over which they presided; it being an universal custom amongst all the Celtic tribes to denominate the noblesse, with their other appellations, from the place of their residence; a custom in some measure yet retained in the Highlands of Scotland. The variety of names used by the ancient Irish have occasioned great confusion in their history; for before the tenth century surnames were not hereditary, and prior to the establishment of the Christian religion in this country no person was distinguished by one permanent nomination. It is true, during their pagan state every child at his birth received a name generally from some imaginary divinity under whose protection he was supposed to be; but this name was seldom retained longer than the state of infancy, from which period it was generally changed for others arising from some perfection or imperfection of the body, the disposition and qualities of the mind, achievements in war or the chace, the place of birth, residence, &c. so that it frequently happened that the same person was distinguished by several appellations. Our ancient historians, not properly attending to this, have committed great errors in relating the transactions of early periods, by asserting the same action to be performed by several different people, which in reality was performed by one only, thereby throwing their history and antiquities into too distant a period. A similar error has also been committed by not considering the dignitary names of the chiefs, who on their election to the government constantly obtained the name appertaining to the clan over whom they presided, or rather that of the district. These dignitary names becoming in the tenth century hereditary and family distinctions, created new difficulties to genealogists of latter ages.”—Collectanea, vol. iii, p. 257.
Now, it will be very easy to prove that these assertions are wholly erroneous, and are mere conjectures, unsupported either by history or etymology. In the first place, the three instances above given to show that the words clan and slioght were prefixed to the names of territories among the Irish, instead of supporting the author’s assumption, go to prove the very contrary, for in the first two instances the names adduced are not names of territories, but of men; and with regard to the third instance, there was no such name among the ancient Irish, and it is a pure fabrication of Beauford’s own imagination! As for his assertion that in the time of paganism every child at his birth received a name generally from some imaginary divinity under whose protection he was supposed to be, it is another pure fabrication; there is no authority in any of our ancient documents that men were called after their pagan deities, except in three instances, in the darkest period of Irish history; and even from these it does not appear that such names were given immediately after the birth of the individuals referred to, but that they assumed them after having arrived at the age of maturity. These instances are to be met with in ancient Irish MSS. concerning the history of the Tuatha De Dananns, a colony said to have preceded the Scoti in Ireland, at a period now generally believed to be beyond the reach of authentic history; but granting that what has been handed down to us concerning this colony is authentic, it does not follow from any thing stated that even among them every child at his birth received a name from a divinity under whose protection he was placed; for the sum of what has been handed down to us on this subject is, that on the arrival of the Scotic or Milesian colony in Ireland the Tuatha De Dananns were governed by three kings, who were distinguished by surnames derived from the names of the gods whom they worshipped. Thus, one of those kings, whose real name was Eochy, was, it is said, usually styled Mac Greine, because he worshipped the sun; the second, whose proper name was Eathur, was called Mac Cuill, because he worshipped the hazel tree, for I suppose men generally lived on nuts in his time; and the third, whose proper name was Teathur, was called Mac Ceachta, i.e. son of the plough, for he worshipped that useful implement as his god! We have no instance of men having been named after pagan deities but these three, and I venture to say that they are not sufficient to establish Beauford’s hypothesis. But a stronger argument than this can be urged against his theory, namely, that among all the pagan names of men which have been preserved by our authentic annalists, not one appears to be called after a pagan deity; and if it had been a general custom to call children after such deities, it might be expected that at least a few of them would have been transmitted. Since, then, they have not been transmitted, how, I would ask, did Mr Beauford discover that such a custom had ever existed? It is true that after the establishment of Christianity in the fifth century, the descendants of the pagan Irish who entered into holy orders, or into the monastic state, had their pagan names sometimes changed, as we learn from the lives of the saints of the primitive Irish church, but no documents now remain to prove, or even suggest, that such a change had been made previous to the introduction of Christianity. It is undeniable that cognomens, epithets, or sobriquets, were frequently added to the first name from some warlike exploit, or from some perfection or imperfection of body, colour of hair, or disposition of mind; but this continued to be the custom in Christian times, and still continues so, but no authority has been discovered even to suggest that any change of the original pagan name had occurred previous to the introduction of Christianity; and we find that even long after that period many distinguished Irish bishops, abbots, and other ecclesiastics, bore the names of their pagan ancestors.
It is also a groundless assumption that the chief changed his name for that of the territory after his election to the government, or that the names of either the clan or district became surnames or family names in the tenth century. Can any one believe that Brian was the name of the territory of the O’Briens before the establishment of the name O’Brien? Was Donnell the name of the territory of the O’Donnells previous to the tenth century? Was Niall the name of the principality of the O’Neills?
So much then for Mr Beauford’s general theory as put forward in the introduction to his work. I shall now proceed to show the equal fallacy of the etymological processes by which he attempts to sustain his theoretical assumptions in the work itself; namely, that the names of Irish tribes and families were derived from the situations and natural features of the territories they inhabited.
1. “Clann Cuilean, or the race or children of the corner of the water; called also Hy na mor, or the district of the sea; the chiefs of which were denominated Mac na mor aois, the sons of the elders of the sea, by contraction Macnamara,” &c.