King Billy and Gene Autry - the film-cowboy of the 1930s and 1940s - were not the only ones who fancied themselves astride a white horse. Indeed, a white horse was a status symbol. And though the horses in the train of Prince Mani in the "Courtship of Ferb" had ears dyed red, and their long manes and tails dyed purple, they were white horses.
The proverb Fear ag lorg capaill bhain is capall ban faoina thoin means "a man looking for a white horse and he astride a white horse", i.e. seeking afar something worthy that lies close to hand. Fourteen Horse Islands lie around Ireland's coast and in its lakes, from one acre in the Co Longford parish of Ballymahon to the 154-acre Horse Island in the Co Cork parish of Skull. The two Illaunnagappuls in the Co Galway parish of Kilcummin are Oilean na gCapall, "the island of the horses".
Bernard O'Donoghue, in his Parish History and Place Names of West Cork, surmises that Horse Island in the parish of Skull must have been so-called because it was one of those islands which were favourite horse pastures. Such pastures, claimed Smith's History of Cork, "produce a wonderful sort of herbage that recovers and fattens diseased horses to admiration". "In the centre is Carriganeck - Carraig an Eich (horse rock) - while copper mines were worked at the east side."
Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) informs that extensive mines had been opened on the summit of Cappagh Hill of neighbouring Long Island, and in Horse Island, by the proprietor, Lord Audley. It was said that the copper ore in both places was very pure. Audley's Cove in that parish was the location of extensive slate quarries, opened in 1835. This surname is further commemorated in Audley Lodge in this parish, though there was no one so-named in the parish by 1837.
This English surname, however, was well established in Co Down before the mid-16th century. In 1535 Lord Audley wrote to Thomas Cromwell that the king was told there should never be peace and good order in Ireland "till the bludde of the Garroldes were wholly extinct", though it was evident that some, or all, of Silken Thomas's uncles were guiltless in his rebellion.
And in 1599, when the Earl of Essex arrived in Ireland, Lord Audley was in command of eight companies of soldiers at Kells. The appearance of Audley in Connemara suggests an Irish origin there, which Woulfe in his Sloinnte Gaed heal is Gall gives as O hAdhaigh.
Audley's Acre and Audleystown name townlands in Co Down. There are 13 Audley entries in the Northern Ireland phone directory, and the 14 in the directories south of the Border are found mainly in Connacht.
It is likely that Horse Island was part of the 2,671 acres listed in Owners of Land of One Acre and Upwards (1876) as belonging to Edward Richard Hull, Lemcon House, in the townland of that name, being in the parish of Skull. According to O Donoghue's Parish Histories, the O Mahony Caol's Leamcon Castle was taken by the English four days after the fall of Dunboy in June 1602. At the north of the townland is Leamcon Lake, wherein Sir William Hull from Devonshire built a small castle. He was Vice-Admiral for Munster in the early 17th century and held property there leased to him in 1622.
The 1659 Census of Ireland lists Captain William Hull and Boyle Hull as tituladoes of Leamcon; Lady Hull titulado of Irishtown, Ballymoodane, and Henry Hull titulado of Kilmacomoge.
At the other end of the country Anthony Hull and George Hull were tituladoes in Strangford, Co Down, and Carrickfergus, Co Antrim, respectively. The English surname Hull derives from the locative "hill", and is most numerous in north-east Ulster, there being c. 150 entries in the Northern Phone Book against a mere 14 in the Republic. Half the latter are in Co Cork.
Archbishop Alen's Register lists Maurice and H. de Hull, Ballialoghane, in a wax-rent list of the tenants of Ballymore (1256-66). This place-name was spelled Ballylokane when listing Maurice above among the feoffes of the tenement of Swerdes. In 1308 there was Geoffrey de la Hulle in Co Kildare; among the jurors at a hearing in Dublin in 1310 was Roger Fab. de la Hulle, and in 1311 Robert Hulle was among the jurors at a hearing in Waterford.
Leamcon derives from Leim Con, (leim, a leap, also a chasm, a promontory or cliff, and cu, a hound, also a hero, a champion.