County name meanings
What Irish county names mean
Cork is a marsh, Derry an oak grove, Mayo a plain of yew trees. Here is the meaning behind all 32.
Most county names are Irish, a few are Norse, and several are named after people rather than places. Irish forms follow Logainm, the State placenames database.
Connacht
Galway
Gaillimh — named after the river
Gaillimh is the old name of the short river at the city’s mouth, read either as stony or as a princess said to have drowned in it. Only Cork is a larger county.
Leitrim
Liatroim — the grey ridge
Liatroim joins liath, grey, to droim, a ridge — the same element as in Dromore and Drumcondra.
Mayo
Maigh Eo — the plain of the yew trees
Maigh Eo was a monastery founded for English monks who followed Colmán from Northumbria — Mayo of the Saxons.
Roscommon
Ros Comáin — Comán’s wood
Ros is a wood or wooded height, as in Roscrea and Rosscarbery; Comán is the saint who founded the monastery there.
Sligo
Sligeach — the shelly place
Sligeach was the old name of the river now called the Garavogue, once thick with shellfish.
Leinster
Carlow
Ceatharlach — four lakes
Ceatharlach is usually explained as four lakes, though none are there now. Only Louth is a smaller county.
Dublin
Baile Átha Cliath — black pool
Dublin comes from Dubh Linn, a dark tidal pool beside the Norse trading base. The Irish name, Baile Átha Cliath, is the town of the hurdled ford upstream.
Kildare
Cill Dara — church of the oak
Cill Dara is the church by the oak, where Brigid founded her monastery.
Kilkenny
Cill Chainnigh — church of Cainneach
Cill Chainnigh honours Saint Canice, whose cathedral and round tower still stand in the city.
Laois
Laois — the Loígis people
Named after a people granted land for driving out invaders. Called Queen’s County from 1556 until the older name was restored in 1922.
Longford
An Longfort — the stronghold
An Longfort is a fortress — the same word Vikings used for a fortified ship camp. The county was shired in 1586 out of Annaly, the O’Farrells’ territory.
Louth
Lú — named for the god Lugh
The county takes its name from the small village of Lú, named in turn for Lugh, who also gives his name to the harvest festival Lughnasa.
Meath
An Mhí — the middle
An Mhí was the middle kingdom of Ireland’s ancient five. Its western half was later split off and named for the side of it that it sat on.
Offaly
Uíbh Fhailí — the descendants of Failghe
Uíbh Fhailí names a dynasty. Called King’s County from 1556 until the older name was restored in 1922.
Westmeath
An Iarmhí — west of Meath
An Iarmhí is the western part of the old kingdom of Mide, split off as a county of its own in 1543.
Wexford
Loch Garman — inlet of the mud flats
The Norse Veisafjǫrðr names the harbour’s mud flats. Loch Garman remembers a man said to have drowned in the water there.
Wicklow
Cill Mhantáin — the Vikings’ meadow
The Norse Víkingaló is a Viking meadow. Cill Mhantáin is the church of Mantán, the toothless one, a follower of Patrick.
Munster
Clare
An Clár — the level board
An Clár is said to come from a plank bridge over the Fergus. Clare was counted as part of Connacht for centuries before it was placed in Munster.
Cork
Corcaigh — marsh
Corcaigh is simply a marsh: the city centre stands on reclaimed ground between two channels of the River Lee.
Kerry
Ciarraí — the people of Ciar
Ciarraí is the people of Ciar, a son of Fergus mac Róich. The name first applied only to the land north of the River Maine.
Limerick
Luimneach — the bare spot
Luimneach is usually read as bare or marshy ground beside the Shannon. The five-line comic verse took the name in the nineteenth century, for reasons nobody has settled.
Tipperary
Tiobraid Árann — the well of the Ara
Tiobraid Árann is a spring beside the river Ara. A music-hall song of 1912 carried the name around the world.
Waterford
Port Láirge — ram fjord
The Norse Veðrafjǫrðr is usually read as ram fjord; the “ford” is a sheltered inlet, not a river crossing. Port Láirge is Lárag’s landing place.
Ulster
Antrim
Aontroim — lone ridge
Aontroim is usually read as a lone ridge or single farmstead. The county is named after the town on Lough Neagh’s north-east shore, not after Belfast.
Armagh
Ard Mhacha — Macha’s height
Ard Mhacha is the height of Macha, a queen of Irish legend. Patrick chose the hill for his principal church, and the city named the county.
Cavan
An Cabhán — the hollow
An Cabhán is a hollow in the drumlin country. The county was shired out of Breifne in 1584 and named for the market town at its centre.
Derry
Doire — oak grove
Doire is an oak grove, where Colmcille founded his monastery. A seventeenth-century charter added the Londonderry prefix.
Donegal
Dún na nGall — fort of the foreigners
Dún na nGall is the fort of the Vikings. In Irish the county is more often Tír Chonaill, the land of Conall Gulban, son of Niall of the Nine Hostages.
Down
An Dún — the fort
An Dún is simply the fort. The county town is Dún Pádraig, Patrick’s fort, where tradition places the saint’s grave.
Fermanagh
Fear Manach — the men of the Monaigh
Fear Manach names a people rather than a place. The county town, Enniskillen, is Inis Ceithleann — Ceithleann’s island.
Monaghan
Muineachán — the place of little thickets
Muineachán describes small, scrubby hills. The county was shired in 1585, when the MacMahon lands were divided into baronies.
Tyrone
Tír Eoghain — the land of Eoghan
Tír Eoghain is the territory of the descendants of Eoghan, a son of Niall of the Nine Hostages.
Which Irish county names are not Irish?
Waterford, Wexford and Wicklow are Norse. Their Irish names — Port Láirge, Loch Garman and Cill Mhantáin — are unrelated to the English ones.
Which counties are named after people?
Kerry after Ciar, Tyrone after Eoghan, Roscommon after Saint Comán, Kilkenny after Saint Canice, Louth after the god Lugh, and Offaly and Laois after whole dynasties.
Why were Laois and Offaly renamed?
They were Queen’s County and King’s County from 1556, after Mary I and Philip of Spain. The older Irish names were restored in 1922.
Sources
Every meaning here was checked against that county’s own record in Logainm, the State’s Placenames Database. In the game, the answer card links the exact record the clue was checked against.