PLACENAMESexperiences—their texts usefully assembled by Shane
Leslie in 1932. The cave was closed in 1632, but not
before many had tried to follow in Owein’s footsteps.
Pilgrimage to the island continues today, as it does to
another Patrician site on Croagh Patrick, County
Mayo. In Lough Derg, Patrick’s cult overshadowed
that of a local saint Daveoc and, in a similar fashion,
Brendan seems to have eclipsed St. Malkedar in the
pilgrimage to Mount Brandon. This latter seems to
have been sea-based, with pilgrims probably travers-
ing the western Atlantic seaboard, as mirrored in the
Navigatio Brendani.
Medieval Irish pilgrimage must have been under-
taken for various reasons (e.g., penance, fulfilment of
vows, to cure sickness, and save one’s soul), and have
taken a variety of forms. Patterns to holy wells—still
practiced today—would have been the small-scale
manifestation. But more important were opportunities
to venerate saints at the larger monasteries they had
founded, where their relics were enshrined in metal
reliquaries, not all as large as the sarcophagi containing
the remains of SS. Brigid and Conlaed in front of the
high altar at Kildare, as described by Cogitosus. Island
sanctuaries, both sea and inland, were evidently pop-
ular pilgrimage sites (e.g., Skellig Michael, the Aran
Islands, Inishmurray, Co. Sligo, Inishcealtra, Co.
Clare, and Monaincha, Co. Tipperary).
The first of a number of pilgrim deaths in Ireland
was recorded at Clonmacnoise in 606 and, to judge by
annalistic entries, they—and pilgrimage activity in
Ireland generally—would seem to have reached their
peak in the twelfth century. But many of the pilgrimage
sites, particularly in Gaelic Ireland, continued in use
for hundreds of years, as we can see from the places
visited by Heneas Mac Nichaill in 1543 to expiate the
sin of having murdered his son.
Small boulders with man-made holes for water,
called bullauns, are often found on pilgrimage sites, and
beehive huts may have served as pilgrim shelters. Some
old pilgrim paths are known (e.g., Cosán na Naomh in
the Dingle Peninsula, St. Kevin’s Way from Hollywood
to Glendalough, Ballintubber Abbey to Croagh Patrick,
Lemonaghan, Co. Offaly and Saints Island, Lough
Derg), many of which have recently been revitalized
for walking. Figures on cross-decorated stones at
Carndonagh, County Donegal and Ballyvourney, County
Cork, may represent early medieval Irish pilgrims.
PETER HARBISON
References and Further Reading
Harbison, Peter. Pilgrimage in Ireland. The Monuments and the
People. London and Syracuse, N.Y.: 1991.
Hughes, Kathleen. “The Changing Theory and Practice of Irish
Pilgrimage.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History11, 1960,
143–51.
Leslie, Shane. Saint Patrick’s Purgatory, A Record from History
and Literature. London: 1932.
Stalley, Roger. “Maritime Pilgrimage from Ireland and its Artis-
tic Repercussions.” In Actas del II Congreso Internacional
de Estudios Jacobeos, Ferrol, Septiembre 1996, Vol. II,
255–75. Santiago: 1998.PLACENAMES
The majority of Irish placenames have their origins in
the Irish language and accordingly constitute a very
considerable body of valuable linguistic data. Most
names in an English language context are written in
an Anglicized orthography that is often a fairly thinly-
disguised version of the original Irish form. Other lan-
guages represented in the body of Irish toponymy
include Latin, Norse, Norman French, and, of course,
English, while there is a handful of names that may
arguably be of pre-Celtic origin. Placenames of such
diverse origins reflect the complexity of Ireland’s lin-
guistic history. Some names that are at least partly
Latin in origin date from the early Christian centuries,
while from the Viking era, the ninth and tenth centu-
ries, we have (in contrast to the Highlands and Islands
of northern and western Scotland) a remarkably small
number of Norse names, almost all of them on or near
the eastern and southern coasts. Comparatively few
names of indisputably Norman-French origin survive.
As one might expect, English has had a significant
impact on Irish nomenclature, although purely English
names are considerably less numerous than Anglicized
or hybrid English-Gaelic name-forms.
The body of Irish toponymy may be likened to a
pyramid. Starting at the top, there is the name of the
island (from the prehistoric form IuernethroughÉriu
in Old Irish to Éirein Modern Irish); below this are,
in turn, the early bifold division of the island into Leth
Cuinn and Leth Moga (“Conn’s half ” and “Mug’s
half,” respectively); the “fifths” or provinces whose
roots go back to prehistoric times; the counties, 32 of
which were established between the early post-Norman
period (c. A.D. 1200) and the beginning of the seven-
teenth century; the baronies, of which there are 324,
some of them representing ancient Gaelic divisions;
the civil parishes, some 2420, reflecting medieval
ecclesiastical parishes that may have been estab-
lished at the same time as the dioceses in the twelfth
century, although many have roots going back much
further; and finally, at the bottom of the pyramid, is
the smallest administrative unit, that peculiarly Irish
division, the townland, of which there are more than
60,000, ranging in area from less than one acre to more
than 7,000 acres. Below this level is a vast body of
microtoponymy, much of which has never been
recorded, let alone printed on maps, and is therefore
in imminent danger of being lost forever; such names