Placenames are great indicators of Irish history. Anne Lucey reports on a remarkable survey in progress in Cork and Kerry which is filling gaps from the past
The Cork and Kerry Placenames Survey, presently half-way through its work, is the biggest collection of previously unrecorded placenames in the State.
The names are being collected to preserve the heritage stored in them and "before they are lost forever", according to Dr Eamon Lankford, director of the survey.
A teacher at Mount Mercy, Bishopstown, Cork, with a PhD from the National University of Maynooth, Dr Lankford established the survey in 1996, with backing from FÁS and Cork County Council.
The survey is independent of the Placenames Commission, which is currently being restructured. It is independent too of the Placenames Branch, the Government body researching and providing authoritative Irish names.
Much of the work done in the offices at An tÁras, in the Mardyke, Cork, is meticulously hand-written and checked by the 16 graduates working on the survey. Paid by FÁS with support from the county councils, some 200 graduates have worked on the survey since 1996, gaining valuable experience in research methods.
The field maps on a townland by townland basis are hand drawn and printed off before being distributed to primary school teachers. Children ask their parents, grandparents and neighbours to fill up the maps, numbering each "site" that has a place name. Surveyors also go out, especially during the summer. The painstaking survey has yielded some 38 weighty volumes in print.
At the end, practically every field, stone, road, and scenic view in Cork and Kerry will be "named" and cross-referenced to literary sources. Variations of spellings from the first written examples, many from grants of land during Elizabethan and Cromwellian times, are recorded, as are mentions in the folklore archives including the schools' folklore collections from the 1930s. Names are written down as they are pronounced locally and recorded when possible. This avoids the confusion which sometimes occurred in the original Ordnance Survey (familiar to those who have seen the Brian Friel play Translations), Dr Lankford explained.
Many of those who were consulted then were "blow-ins", priests and the Protestant clergy and such who would not have local knowledge, Dr Lankford noted, after consulting the original field books of the 1830s and 40s.
"In the 1840s just three names were collected by the OS in the survey of Currahys in the Muskerry Gaeltacht. In the Lankford survey 160 years later, 260 names have been collected," he said.
"The OS was hit and miss. It did a phenomenal job nonetheless and Ireland is better mapped than most countries," he said.
An tÁras is itself a placename at this stage, Dr Lankford said. Bought by his father in 1953 for the promotion of the Irish language, it has been a landmark for lovers of Irish in the city, hosting poetry and prose in the popular bar.
The minute collection of placenames is not confined to what is ancient, or what is Irish. The survey has thrown up names such as "the chip van". On Cape Clear, in west Clare, where Dr Lankford began his survey, there is a place called "Baghdad". He explains that the former Irish Times columnist from the island, the late Donnacha Ó Drisceoil, lived at the foot of the hill overlooking Baghdad - the name of a sea view. It was so called because the view was considered one of mystery and magic and the locals must have thought Baghdad captured this sense of the exotic.
He has also surveyed Hare and Sherkin Islands. "In its widest sense a place name is taken to mean any old or recently composed as well as present day names given to all natural or man-made features of the landscape."
All field names for hills, wells, steams, rocks, heights, slopes, hollows, coves, inlets, submerged rocks, piers, channels, boundaries, house ruins, roads and so on, as well as buildings of all types, are being collected.
Most of the names carry a burden of history.
"They offer a snapshot of time and are providing an invaluable source for archaeologists.
"Placenames identify us as a people, they give a sense of history, culture, heritage, religion, way of life.
"They tell the way we viewed and used the landscape over the centuries and at this moment in time. They are hugely important," he said. Some of the most difficult areas to survey are Irish-speaking communities where there is a wealth of placenames and the oral tradition is still strong. "The Gaeltacht people can't comprehend their language is dying. They take it for granted it will remain."
The completed work will be available through the Cork and Kerry library network.
Further information may be obtained by ringing the Cork survey office at 021 4274110. The e-mail address is www.logainmneacha@yahoo.com