How often have you heard the expression the area known locally as on news reports?
Every stretch on my road between the village and home has a name. Sadly, I’m one of the few to remember them. Last of it’s kind not in captivity - that’s me.
The Mill Bridge - No mill has been there in 150 years. Road works 50 years ago means that the once hump-backed bridge is now level and most road users aren’t even aware they’ve crossed a stream.
Cullen’s Corner - The Cullens are long, long gone and the ruins of their house have disappeared.
The Long Road - A stretch of less than 60 metres. Not a great distance you say? Well any straight is torture when you’re walking a long distance and carrying a load. Bends break such a journey.
Carter’s Lodge - I barely remember the man. I remember his voice, not his face. No one has lived there since.
The Ladys’ Walk - If you are tall enough to see over the high stone wall, you can make out what used be a pathway through the woods. The women folk at the Big House would have strolled along it in their billowing gowns. Bitching about the men folk I’m sure.
Cahills’ Orchard - Not a tree to be seen. There is the ruin of Cahills’ house. Along side it through the field is a strip where the the crops never thrive. When ploughed the stones that once were a road are visible. Keep your eyes open for similar signs and you can get to the village across the fields along a road abandoned almost a century ago - The Old Road.
Addition: I nearly forgot one of my favourites: Snailbox Hill was a steep incline that got its name in the 1940s when the sandpit opened. To get a loaded lorry up that hill you had to be in the lowest gear available.
As children, we knew all these names. You’re home early. Did you get a lift? Yeah, Mrs. Mongan picked me up on the middle of The Long Road.
But as children, the distances between each spot seemed enormous, so we named more. There was Money Corner where one of us once found a ha’penny. Primrose Country was the part of the woods along side the road that would be a cream carpet of wild flowers in early Spring. The Hanging Branch. The Big Oak. The Chestnuts. The Fox Run. The Mossy Trees.
Some of these folk-names found their way into official use over the years. I imagine that to have been the case with Cutbush, Blacktrench, Two Mile House, Turf Bog Lane and Bundle of Sticks - all to be found in County Kildare.
For generations the high, wide gates into the big farm nearby were painted blue. Twenty years ago, the new owner replaced them with silvery galvanised ones. Such was the uproar that he was forced to take them down and erect wooden ones - painted blue of course, as The Blue Door always had been.
The techie in me loves the precision of GPS co-ordinates. The amateur historian in me laments the fact I’m one of only a handful who know where The Horseman’s Gate is. But I can console myself that some names will survive a little longer. The area known locally as The Blue Door may even someday have a signpost and a place on the map.
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This is a lovely post, Sneezy. It brings back memories of a few places “locally known as…” at home too. We had a Cuddy Point, an Alder’s Hill, a Sober Island, a Creed Walk, a Craggan’s Corner, an area called the Battery, the Cearns, a Moss End, the Cob and an area of post-war housing named Manor Park after the elephants that used to roam wild there. No, ‘course not - after the long-gone manor park. I hadn’t though about some of these places for years - nice memories - ta!
You can help to preserve the names by getting yourself a GPS and taking a plot of the roads. You can then log them to http://openstreetmap.org/ and enter the local names for all the world to share.
Those names were the GPS of today.
My husband had names for every corner and you should have heard the ones he had for people!
I used to love doing ordnance survey maps in secondary school because you could spend ages finding weird place names. Clowntown and Crazy Corner are two that stuck with me.
There’s a place in my home town called the Wheely Pump Corner. There was a wooden bench with the name carved on it but a couple of years ago all the benches in town were replaced with these metal ones with ads plastered all over them. It’s rubbish.
Ah ha, I’ve been trying to find the time this last month to write a very similar post about my area of Dublin. I might switch its emphasis now.
Conversations need reference points in the form of names - you can’t quote grid references at people. Well you can, but the day that makes sense to both parties is a day both parties need to go for a decent walk. And a serious dose of age regression.
Scríobh síos iad!
See a database here - but it will only have the big ones
Dinnseanchas, place name lore, is the oldest branch of knowledge in this country, and ought to be cherished.
I like the suggestion of mapping them.
Great feedback, folks! I’ll respond in depth later. But now, I’m about to go on a course. For four days probably.
Pubs were the GPS system in cities and still are - ok, so you go up this street here till ye get to O’Neills and you make a left until you get to Conways then you turn right until you get to Madigans and then you’ll see The Spinners Arms on your left but just ignore that and keep going straight until you get to the Railway Inn. The train station is across the road!
good luck with the horsies, i can’t go this year (see whingeing about study over at mine). and i had always wondered about blue door, cheers for clearing that up. do as 5h4mr0(k said and map them. that’s just the kind of nerdery i love!
Sam ~ That’s what I do - lovely posts. In fact I specialise in them. I might enter a lovely posts competition sometime.
Go on, tell us more about Sober Island - that scares me! Was it a penal colony? And The Cearns had some sort of man-made rock formation? Like the cairns in Ireland.
The post-(Kuwaiti)-war housing development here that was built where elephants used roam is called Wyndham Park. Must have been a flatulent bacon-eating herd. Funny thing is, we always called it Lawlors’ Field.
Guy-with-numbers-in-his-name ~ Now there’s a great idea and one I will definitely look into further. The map is missing quite a few minor roads, and I don’t mean laneways. Is that normal or am I using it incorrectly.
Grannymar ~ Now you have me intrigued. You have to tell us the names Jack had for people. Go on, you will, you will, you will.
E.M. Esq ~ Where are Clowntown and Crazy Corner?
Ads on benches? That’s pushing it. Bad enough you can’t take a leak in a pub these days but you’re bombarded with ads and now you can’t sit and throw breadcrumbs to the buses without the bench selling you condoms or life assurance.
Eolaí ~ Switch emphasis, but write it anyway. I’m looking forward to it.
I quote grid references at couriers. But I never go walking with them. I think that’s okay though.
Aonghus ~ Yep, Guy-with-numbers-in-his-name made a great suggestion about mapping.
An Coimisiún Logainmneacha is a bit high level in this case as I’m talking about places within townlands.
The Dinnseanchas site has a fantastic set of references links. They’ll keep me busy for ages.
Quickie ~ And pubs still are the GPS in towns and cities. Not much help in the sticks where I am though.
Rosie ~ Stick with the study. It’ll all be over soon. The grammar exams will fly - exams always seem shorter than the 2 hours.
So now you know about The Blue Door. Good. We’ll make a semi-Kildare woman out of you yet. Have you worked out where Bundle of Sticks is yet? Hint: Near Newhall retail park.
Oh, the races were great. Didn’t have a bet at all, but met folks I haven’t seen for yonks.
Bundle of Sticks? no, but i do have a friend who lives in Stickins, which i always thought sounded lovely.
Crazy Corner is in or around Westmeath. Clowntown… I’m not rightly sure. I seem to remember it being on the same map, in which case it’d have to be close enough.
There’s a promontory near Inverness called The Black Isle where some of my forebears once lived. As a child whizzing by in the car on our holidays this place was darkly attractive. I had pictures of witches and magic and bloodied earth and little folk. As I grew older these mental images were replaced with cows. But sinister cows…
Sober Island is across the harbour from the pier so if you fell in one night on the ran-dan you’d wash up sober there, some thinking goes. Not a true island when the tide’s out, it’s a wee jut-out from the Castle Grounds, an enormous park and a beautiful place for a summer swallie session. Walking back to town round the harbour would be a good 45 minute walk so passing out on the beach on Sober Island is much easier. That’s my preferred view anyway.
The Cearns is like our “projects” It’s a grim rectangle of council houses on a steep hill, organised into courts or “cearns” with small grassy squares, tough wee children, old drunks and dog-poo in the middle.
Photo of Sober Island here.
Rosie ~ Stickins is lovely - the name, I mean - I can’t vouch for the area. As for Bundle of Sticks you’ll probably have to befriend some of the older townies next time you’re down with the folks to find out.
E.M. Esq. ~ Come to think of it, Crazy Corner and Clowntown sound perfect for Westmeath.
Sam II ~ Oh my deity, but it’s BBBBeeeeaaauuutIIIIIIIful! Book me a ticket NOW! (It’s only a name, right? I wouldn’t have to actually … No, it’s okay - I’ve just read the first comment)
Sam I ~ I thought there were only three bears, but there you go - live and learn. Anyway, how sinister were the cows? Were they like cows with guns?
Now hold on there a couple of half hours, missis - are ya trying to wreck me buzz with yer ran-dan and summer swallie session?
Cearns sounds like our cairns - pile of rock built up high … needless/pointless/troublesome.