Landscape of the Body

We live near the largest of the Irish speaking areas called An Gaeltacht. You might hear people speaking ceremonial Irish at events where people are welcomed in both Irish and English, but living in an gaeltacht I hear it at the post office and the market. 

You will see Irish on any official notification from the government or utility bills because Irish is the official language of the country. And everywhere the Irish name for a place occurs first on any roadside. As Irish pronunciation rules are fairly regular, I'm learning to pronounce this roadside Irish. But then I need to check with locals on how to actually say it, because of regional accents.

Fifty Irish place names by Foil, Arms, and Hog

Irish words often have many meanings in English, giving it a poetical depth, and my introduction to those meanings have been place names. A book from the 1980s, Irish Place Names, by Deirdre Flanagan and Laurence Flanagan recently came available again, and I devoured it.
Most place names refer to the natural features: bogs, mountains, pools, wells; ancient human things like forts, fields; Christian features like burial grounds, churches. Some are named after people, but many after trees and plants. 

Lots of places are named after human anatomy. So many places in Ireland have reminded people of our bodies. 

The photo at the top of this post was taken in 2012 when I visited that mountain behind me. You can't see its most interesting feature behind my head. 



This one is a bit better, but no photo captures Keshcorran as it is in life: a woman, pregnant, her breasts full, her mouth open in labor. The mountain looks different in every light, every season. On the other side of that mountain are the Caves of Kesh. 

There is a story concerning a small cave in Co. Roscommon that is supposed to have a other-worldly connection with the Caves of Kesh. The Cave of the Cat, also known as “the Hell-Mouth Door of Ireland,” is part of the Rathcroghan Royal Site. In a 1779 diary entry, an antiquarian reported that the local people believed a woman was dragged by a roped calf into the cave. She ran after him there, but the calf kept dragging her further until the next morning she found herself emerging back into the light of day at the Caves of Kesh, 38 kilometers (24 miles) from where she began. In the virtual-reality environment (top left) you can click on a hotspot inside the cave to be transported into the Cave of the Cats. (Voices from the Dawn)

When driving the highway from Cork to Kerry, you can't miss the Paps of Anu.

“Whoever they were, whatever they called her, she is beautiful. Photographs do not do justice to her loveliness: the way the Paps rise from the Derrynasaggarts, slightly separated from the ridge that curves up to them like a belly; those breasts pointing skyward, the breasts of a woman in her prime, not the tender buds of youth or the soft breasts of age, but full and firm, sensual and motherly at once. The breasts separate slightly, so you know the woman is languidly stretched out. There is no head, nor arms nor legs, only breasts and a belly, but it is enough. Enough to suggest that somewhere there is a head we might cradle, somewhere arms that might embrace us, somewhere a womb from which we might emerge, children of earth.”Monaghan, Patricia. The Red-haired Girl from the Bog: The Landscape of Celtic Myth and Spirit. Novato, CA: New World Library, 2003. 209. Voices of the Dawn

There's a place in Donegal called Maas (Más) and two places called Mace in Galway and Mayo which means thigh, buttock and a long low hill. Mausrevagh (Más Riabhach) in Galway means "striped thigh" like a tabby cat. Mausrower (Más Rawher) in Kerry means fat thigh. 

The word for "shin" and "slope" is used in Largybrack (Leargaigh Breac), "speckled slope" which is the name of the beautiful grassy dunes near our village.

Leacca or Leacan "means any flat slopping surface, like a cheek, and is generally construed as "hillside."

Ladhar "is another word meaning "fork" and as well as its anatomical expression and refers especially to the land between two converging rivers or hill-ridges. ... [I]n Co. Cork is Lyrenageeha, Ladhar na Gaoithe, "Fork of the Wind." As if in compensation there is, in Co. Limerick a place called Lyrenagrena, Ladhar na Gréine, "Fork of the Sun." 

Finally, there's a place in Co. Antrim I hope to visit, Ballypitmave (Baile Phite Méabha): Queen Maeve's Vulva. I'll take photos for sure.