Last month’s Monthly Morsel focused on placename elements and their possible use, along with other tools, in assisting planners to predict sites that may be, or have historically been, liable to flood. As an adjunct to this it is also particularly noteworthy that placenames, when the underlying Irish form has been correctly determined, might sometimes be of enormous value to those engaged in rewetting as a method of nature restoration and/or as flood alleviation.
For example, the townland names Lagore Big (logainm.ie #37986) and Lagore Little (logainm.ie #37987) next to Dunshaughlin in County Meath appear innocuous at first sight, particularly since they appear in Irish as the essentially near meaningless ‘Lagór mór’ and ‘Lagór beag’ in the Ordnance Survey Name Book, which indicates that the last local Irish speakers of the area understood no connection with the word loch “lake” in that placename. However, loch is exactly what is reflected in early anglicised historical forms of the name such as ‘Laghgower’ (1415) and ‘loghgowre’ (1481), a fact confirmed by the many early Irish attestations of this name such as ‘Loch Gabhor’ ‘lake of (the white) horses’ (e.g. Annals of Ulster s.a. 785) or ‘Loch Gabhair’ ‘lake of (the white) horse’ (Annals of the Four Masters, compiled 17th century), or similar — whence today’s standardized Irish form Loch Gabhar, which has been in official use since the 1980s Notably, the earlier presence of a lake situated both in Lagore Big and Lagore Little is confirmed by soil maps which show a significant area of lacustrine soil (lake-bed) to the east of Dunshaughlin. In addition, a second reasonably large area of lacustrine soil, which must represent the site of a second lake, is found in the southeastern corner of Lagore Big (see soil maps below).
(Subsoil map at Lagore Big and Lagore Little, County Meath. Area of lacustrine soil marked with + https://gis.epa.ie/EPAMaps/)
(Subsoil map at Lagore Big and Lagore Little, County Meath. Second area of lacustrine soil marked with +: https://gis.epa.ie/EPAMaps/)
Both of these zones of lake-bed soil drain into the Broadmeadow River which is particularly notable given the acknowledged danger of flooding from this river downstream in nearby Ratoath (see Meath County Development Plan 2021-2026. (Interestingly, the original Irish name of the Broadmeadow River, may be Abhainn Ghabhra ‘river of (the white) horse’, which, if correct, would be clearly linked to that of Loch Gabhar ‘lake of (the white) horses’, in turn suggesting a symbiotic relationship between both features.) Therefore, given that both of these large areas of lacustrine soil drain into the Broadmeadow River, it seems probable, even to the lay person with no expertise in hydraulic geography or engineering, that flooding caused by the river at Ratoath could be alleviated, should the area of Loch Gabhar, from which the Broadmeadow River flows, be rewetted and used as a retention lake during periods of excessive rainfall. Certainly, both the original Irish name and soil maps of the area suggest the cost-effective appropriateness of such an approach. The only hindrance to this suggestion, should landowners be prepared to sell their holdings or part thereof, is that a small part of the area in question has been encroached on by a recent housing development in Dunshaughlin. In this instance, the planners may not have recognised the red flags raised by both the placename and soil maps, or if so, perhaps they felt that building on lake-bed soil did not pose an insurmountable problem of flooding.
The example of Lagore / Loch Gabhar ‘lake of (the white) horses’ is just one of many that suggest the potential of Irish names of places to be used to earmark areas that might be suitable for rewetting with the least amount of expense to the country’s citizens, i.e. the placename itself combined with information from soil maps could be used to determine earlier wetlands with a potential to be restored without the need for expensive engineering works, given that they were originally wetlands in their natural state. With this in mind, it may be of interest to know that even Irish placenames only found in literary creations may also sometimes highlight areas liable to flooding or suitable for rewetting. For example, in a recent article on the placenames Screggan / An Screagán ‘the rough, rocky, stony ground’ and Lynally / Lainn Eala ‘church of (the) swan’ near Tullamore in County Offaly (see logainm.ie Featured Theme 124), it was noted that the final element of Lainn Eala is from the name of the founding saint of the parish church, namely Colmán Eala. The Life of Colmán Eala tells us that the saint reputedly derived his epithet, Eala, from Loch Eala ‘lake of (the) swan’, supposedly an enchanted lake then situated next to the site of his new foundation at Lynally. It was written that neither man nor animal would dare approach Loch Eala because it was guarded by a wicked beast (pēist urc[h]ōidech), but after Colmán summoned the aid of various famous saints and clerics the beast was decapitated and its remains buried in the newly consecrated graveyard. (For further references to this place in Irish sources see E-Onomasticon s.n. lann elo.) As often happens with early Irish literature, we are left wondering whether Loch Eala was a real place or whether it was merely a literary creation of the type which placename researchers often refer to as a ghost name. (We also use this term to refer to errors and other false names which appear on maps or in other historical sources, much to the confusion of researchers.) With this in mind, a sceptic might surely look at the present-day townland of Lynally Glebe / Lainn Eala (#42263) – where there is no lake – and with some justification consider Loch Eala to indeed be a literary fabrication.
(Subsoil map of Lynally Glebe and surrounding townlands, County Offaly. Extensive area of alluvial soil (floodplain) marked with +: https://gis.epa.ie/EPAMaps/)
However, scientific analysis reflected in the EPA soil map seen above shows that this townland contains an enormous area of alluvial soil stretching far into the surrounding townlands, between the modern courses of the Tullamore River, the Clodiagh River, and beyond. Indeed, the land just north of the ruins in Lynally are described as Flooded Bottoms on the Ordnance Survey 6ʺ map (first edition), while the alluvial soil here also, markedly, extends into part of the townland of Killiskea / Coill Uisce ‘wood of water’ (logainm.ie #42305). This area of alluvial soil, then, quite plausibly corresponds to the site of Loch Eala, but if so, the lake appears to have been gradually drained over many years. Be that as it may, the soil maps certainly confirm that there is an enormous floodplain here, and the placename Loch Eala suggests that the area in question must have remained under water for periods long enough to generate the element loch “lake” in the placename. Therefore, it seems that we can indeed sometimes use placenames only found in literary creations (they are not all ghost-names) in combination with soil maps in the determination of areas liable to flooding and possibly very well-suited to rewetting at the minimum of financial cost.
Overall, examples such as those described above and in last month’s Monthly Morsel suggest that an interdisciplinary approach between toponymists, planners, geographers and engineers may prove particularly useful in any future attempts at using natural features to alleviate flooding possibly be means of rewetting. At least there is surely food for thought in considering such an approach.
(For further reading concerning the use of placenames in the determination of flood histories see: ‘Early Medieval Place-Names and Riverine Flood Histories: A New Approach and New Chronostratigraphic Records for Three English Rivers’, p. 381-405, Pears, B., Brown, A.G., Carroll, J., Toms, Phillip, Wood, J.C. and Jones, R (2020): European Journal of Archaeology.)
(Conchubhar Ó Crualaoich \& Justin Ó Gliasáin)