Mr. DowNEs on the Norse Geography of Ancient Ireland. 93 



its Norse aspect — star being cognate with the word starost, meaning "magistrate," 

 or, literally, " elder" (which has been adopted into English by British travellers 

 in Russia), and gard being equivalent to the Russian gorod, or " town," as in the 

 name of the celebrated city of Novogorod, the Holmgard of the Northmen. In 

 Ireland (to omit the other British Islands,) the Northmen never obtained a footing 

 in the interior ; but as, in addition to planting a few commercial establishments 

 on its shores, they also, during a long period, carried the trade of war to the very 

 centre of the country, it seems likely that they would leave some topographical traces 

 of their presence, and that such would be in some way commemorative of military 

 enterprise, such, for example, as the fording of a river in the face of the enemy : 

 and here it may be well to observe, that the meaning of the ievmfwd — a fre- 

 quent termination of Irish local names — is ambiguous, being equivalent to the 

 Norse vfoxAfjbr^r, " firth," when applied to a maritime locality, and to the Norse 

 word y^r^a, or " ford," when applied to an inland one. Examples of the former 

 application of the term are found in Carlingford and Strangford, names of 

 undoubted Northern origin, — of the latter, in Odin's Ford, the name of a 

 locality on the Barrow, near Carlow, which (like Odin's Fields, in the county of 

 Dublin) appears to owe its name to the great deity of the North, and, perhaps, in 

 Urlingford, a town in the county of Kilkenny. 



While the generality of our local names, terminating mford, are either trans- 

 lations from the Irish, or originally English, the vernacular name of Urlingford 

 — Qc Uplann, or "Urlann'sFord" — seems to be an exception. Respecting the 

 existence of any Irish individual of this name both history and tradition are silent; 

 but, on turning to the records of the North, the name is found to bear a strong 

 affinity to one of very frequent occurrence in the annals of Scandinavian warfare. 

 To what Frling the town in question may be indebted for its name there 

 are no means of ascertaining, but it may be allowable to offer a conjecture. The 

 name Urlingford may date from the celebrated expedition of the Norwegian 

 king, Magnus Barefoot, to Ireland, who, confederated with the Irish king Myr- 

 jartak, or Murkertach, subjugated in 1103 the greater part of Ulster, and also 

 Dublin, and Dublinshire already mentioned, from which they may have extended 

 their conquests into the northern part of the present county of Kilkenny. 

 Among the chieftains in Magnus's army was a son of Erlend, earl of Orkney, 

 named Erling, who was slain with the Norwegian king on his second visit to 



