It has been said that almost everything connected with Irish history and
topography is peculiar. The truth of this can hardly be doubted. If the
ancient Irish were a non-Aryan race, the strange phases of their history
and the abundance of Irish place names might not strike us as so curious.
But it is well known that the Irish are Aryans, and that they are
substantially the same people as the ancient Britons were; yet nothing in
the history of England or of Great Britain will satisfactorily account for
the fewness of place names in the latter country as compared with Ireland.
British, but especially English, place names are, in a vast majority of
cases, either of Saxon, Norse, or Celtic origin. Their fewness as compared
with Irish place names is what strikes a native of Ireland with
astonishment. There are probably as many place names in a single Irish
province as there are in the whole of England. The townland nomenclature
of Ireland is almost unknown in England. The names of all the townlands in
Ireland can be seen in the Government Survey of 1871. They number,
exclusive of the names of cities, towns, and villages, about 37,000. But
it is only the place names that mean human habitations, places erected by
men, and where men dwelt, that shall be mentioned here. Let five
denominations of place names suffice to show their immensity--namely,
_ballys_, _kills_, _raths_, _duns_ and _lises_. The first means towns or
steads; the second, churches or cells; and the three last mean fortified
habitations of some kind. Of _ballys_ there are 6700, of _kills_ 3420, of
_lises_ 1420, of _raths_ 1300, and of _duns_ 760, making altogether 13,600
place names meaning habitations of some kind. But this is not the half of
them! The place names in the subdivisions of townlands are not mentioned
at all. There is a parish in Westmeath in which there are three place
names beginning with _rath_, and three with _kill_, none of which is
mentioned in the printed list of townlands. Multitudes of names in which
some one of the five words mentioned is included have been translated or
changed; just as Ballyboher has been made Booterstown, and Dunleary made
Kingstown. Many place names in which _bally_, _kill_, _dun_, _rath_, and
_liss_ occur are not included in the numbers given, for very often the
adjective goes before the noun, as in such names as Shanbally, Shankill,
Shanlis, Shandun, &c. Taking everything into consideration, it would seem
fair to estimate that not more than half the place names formed from the
five words that have been mentioned appear in the printed list of Irish
townlands; then we have the astounding total of over _twenty-seven
thousand_ place names in Ireland formed from five words that mean human
habitations.
The only explanation of the astonishing number of ancient place names
found in Ireland, as compared with England, seems to be the dense rural
population that must have existed in the former country in ancient times.
That an enormous percentage of ancient place names have totally faded away
owing to the disuse of the Gaelic language, the consolidation of farms,
and the decline of population, there cannot be any doubt at all. The
puzzle about Irish place names is, if their extraordinary numbers were
caused by a more dense population in Ireland than in England--why was
Ireland more densely peopled than England in ancient times? The soil of
Ireland is hardly more fertile than the soil of England, and the climate
of Ireland is not as good, for it is much wetter than that of the larger
island. England is nearer to the Continent, and therefore was more easy of
access to continental traders. The situation as well as the soil and
climate of England were rather more favourable to the growth of a large
population than were those of Ireland. It is now generally conceded that
the ancient Britons and Irish were of the same race, and spoke a language
that was substantially the same. But why should there seem to have been
such a difference in the political and social condition of the Irish and
the ancient Britons who were their contemporaries? Why are there so
comparatively few ancient place names in Great Britain and such an
overwhelming number of them in Ireland? Why should Ireland have a history
that goes so far back into the dim twilight of the past, and England have
no history beyond the time of Caesar? These are most interesting and
important questions, but how can they be answered? It is to be hoped that
some future savant will succeed in solving them.