250 Place Names in Kirkpatrick-Durham. 



for I would not admit that the Doon of Urr is, in its name, an 

 indication of the Roman occupation. Dun or Doon is of Gaelic, 

 not Roman, origin, and would indicate Keltic possession. 



Vestiges of the Norse dwellers are also very faint. The 

 parish is fourteen miles from the shore at its nearest point. The 

 Norsemen might never be in it in any number nor for any con- 

 siderable time. Some of their place names were appropriated, 

 and handed on by the Gaelic-speaking residents, such as mar 

 for moor. If local pronunciation may be accepted as a guide, 

 Gilmartin should point to the gill or ravine where jViartin had his 

 abode. Whether Martin was saint or sinner cannot in this case 

 be ascertained. A part of the ancient property of Marwhirn was 

 known as the " one mark land of Marwhirn." i.e., the portion of 

 Marwhirn from which an annual payment of one mark was due to 

 the superior. This was a designation of land which belonged to 

 Scandinavian customs, and was in use in Shetland till compara- 

 tively recent times. 



The earliest race of which we have clear evidence in the 

 place names was a Gaelic-speaking people, and as they overran 

 and occupied this corner of Scotland for at least 1200 years, we 

 cannot be surprised to find marks of their occupation in hills and 

 streams and fields and houses and lands. Besides, we have 

 sufficient evidence^ that Gaelic was spoken in the remote parts 

 of Galloway as late as 1670. Over the whole of Galloway it 

 would probably be more or less spoken 300 years ago. Those 

 Gaelic people not only designated the hills with names which 

 have descended to the present time, but with manifest discrimi- 

 nation marked the character of the hills by the names which they 

 gave to them. In various parts of the Stewartry they gave the 

 prefix Mill or Mull to the highest hills, such as Millfire and 

 Mill\ea. One only of these names survives in Kirkpatrick- 

 Dorand, viz., Milharay, which rises only to the height of 973 feet 

 above the level of the sea. 



Distinguished from the Mills or Mulls were the Bars, of 

 which we have five. Three only of these present the pointed top 

 which the name is supposed to denote, viz., the Bar Hill, as it is 

 now called — a mixture of Gaelic and modern speech ; Barderroch, 

 the hill of the oak trees ; and Barmoffaty, which seems to mean 

 Moffat's Hill, but I confess that it is a sort of puzzle. The two- 



1. E.g., Riddell's MSS., vol. 7. Appendix. 



