Celtic Place-Name Explainer
See what Irish, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Cornish, Breton and Manx place names mean, how to say them, and where they are.
111 place names
“hollow”
from muine “thicket”
“place of herds”
apparently from Old Irish násad, “gathering, assembly”: “the assembly place”
“the grey stones”
“white valley”
“tribe of the Norsemen”
“town of the abbey”
“stone (castle) of the woods”
“clear stream”, from fionn “fair, clear” and glas “stream”
“yew wood”
“fort of Garbhán”, a personal name
“weir of the marshy ridge”
“church of the old ringfort”
originally Baile Breacain, “Brecan’s town”
“promontory”
“church of the bridge”
“ford of the oak”
“town of the ford of Ae”, a chieftain said to have been killed at the crossing; Í may instead mean “yew tree”
“people of Benn”
“marsh”
“abbey of the men of the plain”
“cairn of the church”
“middle island”
“Conn’s plot”, from ceapach “tillage plot”
“hollow of the wood”
“Fiach’s pass”
“ringfort of Maonas”, a personal name
“valley of Saint Columba”
“the fort”
often explained as “high place”, from Old Irish Temair; other derivations have been proposed
“Ó Leighin’s rock”
“boar’s head”
“church of the headland”
“the glens”
“fort of the foreigners”
“land of Eoghan”
“plain of yew trees”
“abbey of the (River) Feale”
“gap”
“Faithlinn’s island”
from sean “old” and treibh “tribe”
“the fortress”
“riverside meadow of An Treoch”
named after Cairpre Músc, son of the High King Conaire Cóem
“a green or grassy place”
“well of the (River) Ara”
from clochán, which can mean a beehive hut, stepping stones, a causeway or an old stone structure
Common place-name elements
Many names are built from a few common words. Pick one to see every place that uses it.
- cill · church (8)
- baile · town, settlement (7)
- dún · fort (6)
- áth · ford (5)
- droichead · bridge (4)
- inis · island (4)
- ros · wood; headland (4)
- ceann · head, headland (3)
- cúige · province (3)
- mainistir · monastery, abbey (3)
- ard · height (2)
- carraig · rock (2)
- daingean · fortress (2)
- gleann · glen, valley (2)
- leitir · hillside (2)
- nua · new (2)
- port · landing place, harbour; bank; fortified place, stronghold (2)
- ráth · ringfort (2)
- trá · strand, beach (2)
- beag · small, little (1)
- béal · mouth (1)
- bealach · way, pass (1)
- bearna · gap (1)
- caiseal · stone fort (1)
Go deeper than the map
blas. teaches the language behind the places: vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. Free to start.
Meanings and glosses are adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0) and the other sources cited on each page. Map and area data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).