

As people of various linguistic background have lived in Ireland, so the names have evolved. Gaelic names being Anglicised The most common evolution in Ireland occurred when English began to take over from the Gaelic languages as Ireland's dominant language. This usually resulted in the names staying the same, but their spellings changing. For example, Beal-fierste became Belfast, Tir Eoghain became Tyrone, Doire became Derry. There were very few towns in existance in Ireland before the Normans took control in the 1100s. Thus, many of the new town names were anglicised spellings of Gaelic region names, rather than the names of actual towns. Viking names being Anglicised Many places in Ireland had been named by the Vikings, and these also evolved into English spellings. For example, Strangford [Strang Fjord] (county Down), Dublin [Dubh Linn] and Wexford [Weis Fjord]. Sometimes the Vikings and the Gaels had different names for the same thing, but only one ever survived. For example, the Gaelic name for the area of Dublin was Baile Atha Cliath, but this name was never used to refer to the town (although it has been appearing as such on roadsigns in the past few decades). New English names appearing As new towns were founed after English had become the main language, they naturally had English names. For example, Newtownabbey (county Antrim), Waterside (county Londonderry), Celbridge (county Kildare) or Lucan (county Dublin). English names being Gaelicised After the Republic of Ireland became independant, the government re-named some English name towns into Gaelic equivalents. For example, the county Kildare town of Newbridge, founded in 1816, was Gaelicised literally as Droichead Nua. Some other towns had their names totally changed. For example, Kingstown (county Dublin) became Dun Laoghaire, a re-Gaelicised version of the name (Dunleery) by which it had been known until 1821. Dunleery, in turn, had been an Anglicised version of a Gaelic name for the area. In fact, in the late Norman period many Norman (early English) names of towns were Gaelicised by the residents once the influence from across the Irish Sea waned. Modern changes Names are still changing today. In 1837, the town of Newtownards (county Down) was spelt Newtown-Ardes. The county Londonderry town of Limavady was then known as Newtown-Limavady. There are likely to be further changes in the future. The town of Craigavon (county Armagh) was built (rather unsuccessfully) from scratch in the mid 20th century and named after a former Northern Ireland Prime Minister. The town of Shannon (county Clare) was born shortly after the opening of Shannon airport. It now has 7000 residents. People have still not settled on a single universally accepted name for towns such as Toome/Toomebridge, Londonderry/Derry and Carrickmore/Termon Rock. For an interesting recent story of place name evolution in Ireland, check out this Irish Times news article on the town of Newtownsandes, county Kerry. You now have to pay to read this web site.