There's been blogosphere discussion recently about how "Irishising" your name, or putting "as Gaeilge" what is essentially an English-rooted moniker, can be a symptom of hiding your more abhorrent tendencies behind something the relevant authorities can't translate. Like people who sign names "as Gaeilge" to overly nationalistic letters to the Irish Times. Or headmasters of primary schools who need to hide their true Bruce-Wayneies behind lots of fadas and O's and Nic's, for fear their students would discover their dwellings and feck silly string at them. In general, I'm against the shamrocking-up of proper nouns, because it's a very bad idea to translate something into English and then back into Irish a couple of hundred years later. You know the hours of fun you can have with Google translator, asking it to put a paragraph into Spanish and then back into English and then coughing your funny bone up as a result? Now, you can see that applying that principle to real life may not be the smartest move, can't you?
Which is why, I imagine, we have such stupid placenames in this country. You can't drive a byway without coming across a ludicrous signpost, and the most interesting thing is that we tend to ignore these daft locales because we're so used to them. What local has even thought about how utterly scrambled their town's name sounds, like an unintentional anagram? We're blinded by the shite, we are.
Like, have you ever thought about how fucking stupid Ballsbridge sounds? Balls. Bridge. Where are the balls? Ooh, and on that note, what part does the bridge play in this ballsism? Sure you might as well just call the place Cockshaft and be done with it! Or...
Ringaskiddy. Yer ring, in Ireland, being yer hole. Skiddy referring to what happens to your Dunnes Stones 3-pack of elasticated Y-fronts when you don't wipe it. Shitestain! The fucking place is called Shitestain! No wonder carloads of those venturing from further afield are in danger of ending up in the ditches around the southside of Cork!
Newtwopothouse: This suggests that there's a place somewhere around Mallow (which is a pretty gloopy placename on its own merit) called Twopothouse, which wasn't good enough so they had to build a better one.
Hospital: "Why howarye Mickey-Joe and Mary! Where are ye headed to?"
"Hospital"
"Hospital? Ah Jaysus ye're not sick are ye?"
"Ah fer feck's sake no, you raving alcoholic! Our daughter lives there with her husband and kids."
"Ah, shite. Rabies, is it?"
Not to mention the healthy scatterings of settlements called Kilmichael, Kilkenny, Kilbrittain... we love a bit of smiting in Ireland. We love a bit of lofty placenaming on our hopes for the suffering of people we don't like, be it Kenny or Michael or the Brits. We even have a place called Kilmacow, for people who can't stand being dairy farmers for a minute longer.
There are plenty more, as any ten minute romp with Google Maps would illustrate. Vaguely funny to we-the-populace, but a potentially great source of amusement to the rest of the English-speaking world. Fuck it. Any saucy pinch to the arse of our tourist industry couldn't be a bad thing. Sure outside of ridiculous proper nouns, all we have is the weather and a great big recession to match. That wouldn't even attract Ronan O'Gara pumped up on viagra and gin!
Can you think of any more? It's a matter of national importance!
Friday, January 30, 2009
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34 comments:
How the hell could the lad who named Muff know some tit would use it in the context of the female. And anyway We had/have a perfectly good list of names in Gaeilge for all body parts. Some very beautiful, some blunt and very to the point. While the chaps naming Kilkenny and the rest were not to know we would hand over to another lingo.
As to the surnames, I find the people who change mostly amusing. A certain Adams, and that green Senator Deedee De Burca, who is she codding. But the ones that get to me are the Joyces, for there is no conceivable way you would arrive at Seoige.
Isn't that the case, though? There's no direct translation, so we'll string some letters together in a vaguely Irish sense and make a surname out of it!
If I had a choice I'd be Laoise An Gneaseach.
are you bored, Sweary?
There's always Nobber! Spiddal is derived from Ospideal or hospital, but in Spiddal's case it was probably some form of rehab centre.
Do you ever leave comments when you approve of the post? Gawd you're a taskmaster!
I found this one to be particularly gruesone...
Hackballscross It sounds awful and it was. This was the location where a group of men variously described as rebels or thieves were hung and gibbeted following an attack on a local landowners house. That this happened is not disputed, but the name may in fact derive from someone’s name.
Hat Tip - Do Chara
Ah Galwaywegian, sorry, didn't see you there! Spiddal as a rehab centre? I suppose it's sufficiently wind-swept and rugged. Can't see how you'd dry out though...
Oh Jesus, Swe.Ge. I thought you were joking!
Then of course there's always Muckanaghederdauhaulia said to be some where in deepest Co. Galway, though that however, is debatable...
A Welsh mate of mine collapsed in laughter a few years ago when I told him I lived in Ringsend. He turned purple when I explained it was just down the road from Ballsbridge and Sandymount.
These days I commute into de Shmoke from n00bridge where, just after the ball of Naas (and what the fuck sort of a name/pronuncuation is that?), I start seeing signs telling me over and over: "Kill".
Welsh? Pfft. He can't talk.
Honestly, he can't! Have you heard Welsh people trying to talk?
Kill is pretty vague, so I wouldn't worry about it. But Kilmichael? That's just subversive. And illegal.
Muiceanach idir Dhá Sháile = pig-marsh between two seas. Muckanaghederdauhaulia.
ha ha...
no.
(i have an irish name, and PMS)
I kind of agreed with you on this once upon a time, I think. Except maybe I said the opposite.
Portnoo! Hawhawhaw!
I could have sworn that you were raised in 'Effin' once upon a time Missus Sweary.
Carnalway
Meanus
and other places not yet used by that telcom broadband advertiser that thinks Irish placenames are just hilarious.
As in "Hey, Paddy, you live in a place called ...... and we can say that word on the radio in our ad and raise a snigger(!) throughout the land."
Muff, which they have used, is the homeplace of Brian Friel, author of Translations, which is, like, ironic.
I'm going to kill.
It's near Goff's in Kildare.
In fairness Ballsbridge is just due to poor grammar. The original is Ball's Bridge, because a landowner called Ball built a bridge over the Dodder.
The name Borris-In-Ossory forbids scrutiny. Terrible place.
and over on the other side of the Irish Sea - Mold, Login, Shwt, Splott, Plwmp, Penisarwaen, Sling (full of hippys)
BTW its amazing how less silly Welsh sounds when you are obliged to speak it every day, no honest...
Nad. Somewhere in Cork. And why just one?? What happened to the other one?
I always thought Glasthule - or as we used to call it, Mickey gloine (sp?) - was a hoot. Nearly as funny as Pons Testiculorum.
@Govstooge somebody said Gonads, and one of them left. The one that stayed was obviously a rebel.
I just found one in the course of my day's work (building projects upcoming in Tipperary) called Blueball.
Twinned with Nad, and perhaps an explanation for same?
Dunno of any places other than what has been mentioned, but I always write- as a matter of habit- Éire on letters and postcards I send back when I'm outside the country. This apparently is the height of culchiedom. Who knew? Oh god, everyone probably knew.
I have skirted around the perimeter of Nobber, and I have scaled the delights of the Paps..
Paps. Sniggerific!
I didn't know that, fmc! I swear I would have told you if I did! Having said that, the reason I didn't know that is that I am, let's face it, a culchie. Anyway, what is the correct term? Rep. of Ireland? Ireland? Eireann Go hAilainn Ar Fad? That There Where Bono's From?
In America there is a place called 'Intercourse' I suppose that is where you go to have....conversations.
A few years back this guy from NI who was involved in the very public killing of two off duty soldiers was threatened with deportation for having a criminal record from LA where he had an Irish pub of course.
Suddenly his name was made all Irish by his lawyers because they were arguing that it was political so therefore ok.
I think he got away with it as the Yanks love the Irish.
Oddly enough the Paps are named for what they look like. They are a bit like coming with your name, born 25 dec, and named Kristine sort of thing. They really do look like breasts and the iron-age mounds perched atop both do nothing to knock the notion.
What about Stillorgan? Or as we used call it Mickey Marbh...
Y'see, this is exactly what I mean. I've heard the name Stillorgan so many times Mickey Marbh would never even have occured to me. It's marvellous. Well done you!
Just south of here, in Lancaster county Pennsylvania are the thre infamous towns of Intercourse, Blueball and Bird-in-Hand.
Out in Western Pa are Paradise, Desire and Panic.
Ooh, Ireland's got a Blueball, like I mentioned up there in the comments somewhere, and a Paradise, in Waterford or Wexford I think. We have Golden somewhere too, if I haven't already mentioned that.
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