Carraig Shamhna/Carrickhawna “(the) rock of Halloween”
Date: 23/10/2023
Moving toward the end of September we approach the Gaelic festival of Samhain "haloween" from which the Irish name for November is derived, Mí na Samhna "the month of haloween". Samhain is not particularly common in townland names, but one particularly interesting name is Carrickhawna/Carraig Shamhna "(the) rock of Halloween" in Sligo (see logainm.ie: #44706). A note in the Ordnance Survey Parish Name Book from 1838 concerning this location (a hill) observed that: "A little before November the old men (time out of mind) used to assemble here to settle their little affairs for the ensuing half year". This is reminiscent of the native Irish custom of holding assemblies on hillsides recounted in a late sixteenth or early seventeenth century Discourse on the mere Irish of Ireland (see: https://research.ucc.ie/celt/document/E600001-004) , the author of which was certainly not well-disposed to native Irish culture:
First for their consultacions those are onely done in their meetinges vpon some hill or other. And this hath beene soe much in vse amongst them, as euen at this daie all or most of the sheriffs of that kingdome in Imitacion thereof doe keepe their twoe (turne) courtes, and their County courts upon hilles and such open places, in the open feildes Theis meetinges and assemblies vpon hills doe often occasion manie euills and enormities for howsoeuer theis meetinges be pretended for some publique goodes, It is experienced that the opposite contrary doth commonly followe, for that the oportunitie of theis remote places doth possesse them with a conceite of Secrecy, to smother their designes the Better, soe as they may deliuer their mindes there with more libertie and freedome, and effect their purpose with less suspicion [than if] their metinges and assemblies had beene in townes, and thus all their conspiracies, coniuracions and treasons are vsually plotted, prepared and concluded for which cause, and for that theis assemblies are commonly vnlawful when they be not guided by supreme Authority. It is very necessary they should be straightly forbidden and seuerallie punished and the rather that they be but obseruacions of the meare Irishe (p.20)