Irish Place Name Usage

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Contents 1 Irish Place Names 2 The Emerald Isle and Other Country Names 3 The 4 Historical Irish Provinces 4 The 32 Irish Counties 4.1 Consistent Place Name Usage 4.1.1 Irish County Names 4.1.2 Other Irish Administrative Divisions 4.1.3 Write Out Complete Names 4.1.4 Avoid Abbreviations of Place Names 4.2 Country Name Conventions 5 Timeline of Control of Ireland

Irish Place Names

In order to assure consistency, the McAdoo ONS shall utilize a set protocol for Irish place names associated with WT profiles created as a party of this study. These protocols are outlined and explain in the following discussion.

The Emerald Isle and Other Country Names

The name Ireland appears to have evolved from a conjunction of the old Irish: Ériu, modern Irish: Éire, Ulster-Scots dialect: Airlann, and old Norse/English land and has been applied to the entire island for millenia. Even earlier the Greco-Roman geographers referred to it as Hibernia.

Ireland only became known as the "Emerald Isle" upon the 1795 publication of the poem "When Erin First Rose" by William Drennan, a Belfast Ulster Scot, Presbyterian, doctor, poet, and nationalist. The stanza which introduces what is widely believed to be the first publication of the term "Emerald Isle" reads:

Alas! for poor Erin that some are still seen, Who would dye the grass red from their hatred to green; Yet, oh! when you’re up, and they’re down, let them live, Then yield them that mercy which they would not give. Arm of Erin, be strong! but be gentle as brave; And uplifted to strike, be still ready to save; Let no feeling of vengeance presume to defile The cause of, or men of, the Emerald Isle.

The 4 Historical Irish Provinces

Beginning in the 4th and 5th centuries CE, and over time, the lands were controlled by many competing tribal and clan chieftains all wanting to be King. Eventually, five distinct regions became prominent and were divided into five Kingdoms or Provinces originally known as the five-fifths.

These five Provinces were named Connacht (the NW), Leinster (the SE), Munster (the SW), Ulster (the NE and the smaller Meath (in the middle) which was absorbed by Leinster in 1610 CE when King James I of England and Ireland fixes the number and delimitation of Irish Provinces at four: Connacht, Leinster, Munster, and Ulster.

The provinces of Ireland no longer serve administrative or political purposes but function as much loved historical and cultural identities for people today in both Northtern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

1. Leinster Province (Cúige Laighean) is made up of twelve southeastern counties: Carlow, Dublin, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Longford, Louth, Meath, Offaly, Westmeath, Wexford and Wicklow. Its coat of arms includes a golden harp on a dark green field.
2. Connacht Province (Cúige Chonnacht) is made up of five northwestern counties: Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon, and Sligo. Its coat of arms includes a black dextral half eagle on a split field of white and a sinistral arm holding sword on a split field of dark blue.
3. Ulster Province is made up of nine northeastern counties, six in Northern Ireland: Londonderry (aka Derry), Antrim, Down, Tyrone, Armagh, Fermanagh and three in the Republic of Ireland: Cavan, Monaghan, and Donegal. Its coat of arms includes the Red Hand of Ulster and red cross on a field of yellow.
4. Munster Province (Cúige Mumhan) is made up of six southwestern counties: Clare, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary, and Waterford. Its coat of arms includes three golden crowns set on a field of navy blue.

The 32 Irish Counties

In 1210 CE, King John of England formed the first twelve of what will become the 32 canonical counties of Ireland: Dublin, Kildare, Meath, Uriel (or Louth), Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and Tipperary and decreed that they be established and administered in accordance with English Law.

Over time more counties were created and their boundaries were established until 1605 CE when Wicklow was formed as the last of a total of 32 counties. The same 32 counties with the same boundary delineations exist today and make up the four Provinces of Ireland and the six counties of Northern Ireland and the 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland.

Consistent Place Name Usage

Irish County Names

By convention Irish county names do not follow the same practice as United States counties. The word county always precedes the county's name for Irish counties. For example, Ft. Wayne, Allen County, Indiana, United States would be proper for the city of Ft. Wayne but Letterkenny, County Donegal, Ulster, Ireland would be correct for the city of Letterkenny, and Belfast, County Antrim, Ulster, Northern Ireland would be the correct identifying nomenclature for the city of Belfast.

Other Irish Administrative Divisions

In addition to municipalities such as towns and cities as they are constituted within counties in the United States, Ireland has additional divisions which although not necessarily used today, may have been in use, and therefore important, in search of an ancestor living in 1725. In addition to the four Irish Provinces and 32 Counties discussed above these additional land divisions, each with its own place names are, in descending order of hierarchy from County:

1. BARONY: In the 17th century, counties were given smaller administrative subdivisions called Baronies. For expediency, many Baronies were based on existing baile biataigh (Anglicised as “ballybetagh”), which was a Gaelic Irish land division. Baronies continue to exist in most Counties but no longer have the government administrative role they once did. For example, County Donegal is divided into eight baronies and there are a total of 331 baronies in the Republic of Ireland.
2. CIVIL PARISH: Each County and maybe each Barony was further subdivided into “Civil Parishes“. Some counties contained as few as 18 Civil parishes and others contained well over 100. For example, there are 53 Civil Parishes in County Donegal.
3. TOWNLAND: Each Civil Parish may be further divided into “Townlands“. The name “Townland” has nothing to do with towns but was adopted in Norman times for administration and based on earlier Gaelic kingdom subdivisions. Townlands vary in size from less than one acre to thousands of acres. A minority of townlands may be subdivided into sub-townlands. For example, there are 2,712 Townlands in County Donegal.
4. POOR LAW UNION (PLU): I mention these as they are similar in boundary to the later “Registrar’s Districts” (which were used in Civil Registration of Births Marriages and Deaths) and were created with the advent of the Workhouse in 1838 until their abolishment in the early 1920s. PLUs were centered in the market town where a workhouse was built. They vary in size depending on their population – smaller-sized Poor Law Unions were established within higher population density areas. For example, there were eight PLUs in County Donegal.
5. DISTRICT ELECTORAL DIVISIONS: These are used for electoral purposes in census records. Each County was divided into District Electoral Divisions (DEDs) which were further divided into Townlands (rural) or streets (urban).
6. CITIES, TOWNS, and VILLAGES: These are urban areas – some have grown over time while others have shrunk. Each town or village can be spread across several townlands or be contained within a single townland.

Write Out Complete Names

It is best to write out the capitalized word County in any place name and avoid the Ancestry.Com convention of omitting the word as in Ft. Wayne, Allen, Indiana.

Avoid Abbreviations of Place Names

Some gedcom-producing genealogical computer programs adopted the use of abbreviations such as USA or US for the United States. Avoid both of these and write out the United States. If space is an issue then use the worldwide ISO 2-character standard: US as the abbreviation. Always avoid using the UK for the United Kingdom. The ISO 2-character standard for the United Kingdom is GB for Great Britain. Worse yet, many digital readers interpret the UK in an address as the ISO code for Ukraine, which puts your place way out of bounds.

Country Name Conventions

Strictly for consistency of description of place names and not for any political reasons, the McAdoo ONS will follow the place name usage in accordance with the official dates of formation of the political entities they represent and will apply as follows for the place of any event of birth, marriage, residence, death, or another date of genealogical significance:

1. For events occurring on dates PRIOR to the establishment of Northern Ireland on 3 May 1921 in any one of the nine original counties of the Province of Ulster, including the six counties of today's Northern Ireland plus the three Ulster counties of Donegal, Fermanagh, and Cavan should be recorded on McAdoo ONS Wikitree profiles as place names that include at least the: county name, the province name Ulster, and the official English country name of Ireland and the official Irish name is Éire. In order to avoid possible conflict with computers and browsers mishandling the diacritics of the Irish name, the McAdoo ONS should stick to the standard English form of "Ireland" as the country name.

1. For events occurring on dates AFTER the establishment of Northern Ireland on 3 May 1921 in any one of the six counties of today's Northern Ireland should be recorded on McAdoo ONS Wikitree profiles as place names that include at least: county name and country name of United Kingdom.

Timeline of Control of Ireland

1535-1542 CE - Laws in Wales Acts - The Parliament of England passes laws which essentially annex Wales to the Kingdom of England, at the request of, and under the rule of, King Henry VIII.

1542 CE - United Crown of England and Ireland - The Irish Parliament passed the Crown of Ireland Act 1542, proclaiming King Henry VIII of England to also be King of Ireland.

1603 CE - The Union of the Crowns - On the death of Elizabeth I of England, unmarried and childless with no heir, the English crown passed to the next available heir, her cousin James VI the then sitting King of Scotland. England and Scotland now shared the same monarch under what was known as a union of the crowns. James VI continued to rule Scotland and simultaneously ruled and styled as "James I King of England and Ireland" from 1603 to his death in 1625. He attempted but failed to gain parliamentary support to unite the Kingdoms of Scotland, England, and Ireland under one crown. During his reign, the Plantation of Ulster and colonization of the Americas began.

1610 CE - King James I of England Ireland fixes the number and delimitation of Irish Provinces at four: Connacht, Leinster, Munster, and Ulster. The provinces of Ireland no longer serve administrative or political purposes but function as historical and cultural identities.

1707 CE - Union of England and Scotland - The Acts of Union were two Acts of Parliament: the Union with Scotland Act 1706 passed by the Parliament of England, and the Union with England Act 1707 passed by the Parliament of Scotland. The two Acts, the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland—which at the time were separate states with separate legislatures, but with the same monarch—were, in the words of the Treaty, united into one Kingdom by the Name of Kingdom of Great Britain.

1801 CE - Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland - The Acts of Union 1800 were parallel acts of the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of Ireland which united the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland with effect on 1 January 1801.

1921 CE - The Partition and Northern Ireland - The Government Of Ireland Act of 1920 passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom created the country of Northern Ireland from six (6) historical northeastern counties, all taken from the Province of Ulster, effective on the 3rd of May 1921. Those six counties Antrim Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, and Tyrone became a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

1922 CE - The Irish Free State - The three other northeastern counties that made up the original Ulster Province, namely counties Donegal, Monaghan, and Cavan voted to NOT join Northern Ireland in becoming a part of the United Kingdom and instead elected to remain with the other 23 historical Irish counties of the so-called south. On the 6th day of December 1922 the remaining 26 counties became known as the Irish Free State in accordance with the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty and became a self-governing dominion of the British Empire, a commonwealth status then shared by Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa.

1949 CE - The Republic of Ireland - On 21 December 1948 the Irish Oireachtas signed into law The Republic of Ireland Act which came into force effective on 18 April 1949. The Act created changed the name from Irish Free State to the Republic of Ireland and terminated the Commonwealth relationship with the British Empire.

2022 CE - On the death of his mother on 8 September 2022, Charles became Charlies III King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

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