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SIXTH ORDINARY MEETING. 55 
sacred sea cliffs. He further states that “ Scylla or Scylleum, the 
names of promontories in Greece and Italy, and the British and 
Irish seas; the Scilliés off Cape Belerium in Cornwall, and the 
Sceligs off Cape Bolus in Kerry, stand in the same track of Pheeni- 
cian navigation with Cape Belerium near Corunna in Spain.” 
Scylla is derived by Greek writers from ox)Adw, to skin, to mangle. 
Scilly in Cornish means to cut off. Hence it has been’ eld that the 
Scilly Isles received that appellation because they “are cut off from 
the insular Continent.” Joyce, in his Zrish Names of Places (vol. 1, 
p. 420), states that Sceilig (skellig), according to O’Reilly, means a 
rock. The form Scilic occurs in Cormac’s Glossary in the sense of 
splinter of stone, and O’Donovan, in the Four Masters, translates 
Sceillic sea-rock.” I am disposed to believe that the Gaelic word 
sgaou, to spread or scatter, enters into Scilly, and that the Scilly 
Isles were so designated in consequence of their scattered appearance. 
It is true that Scilly is likewise regarded as equivalent to Sulley, 
and that thus construed the term means flat’rocks of the sun (lehau 
- sul). 
Gaelic roots appear in the Topography of the Scilly Isles, e. g. :— 
Bryher, bre braigh, brae ; hir shior, long. 
Tean, tiadhan, a little hill. 
Pool, poll, a hole, mud. 
Carn Morval, carn, a heap ; mor, large ; baile, town. 
Peninnis Head, ceann, head ; innis, island. 
Carraigstarne, carraig, a rock ; stawn, noise. 
Carnlea, carn, heap ; liath, hoary. 
Tolmen Point, toll, a hole. 
Porth Minick, port, a harbour ; manach, monk. 
Port Hellick (the bay in which the body of Sir Cloudesley Shovel 
was washed ashore) is derived from port, a harbour, and sheilich, 
seileach, a willow tree. 
Drumrock, druim, a ridge. 
Sufficient evidence has, I trust, been adduced to prove, that the 
Topography of Damnonia is fundamentally Gaelic; and that before 
the arrival or the distinctive existence of the Cymry, Celts who 
spoke Gaelic inhabited the south-west of England in such numbers 
and for such a length of time, as to give to the streams and hills and 
headlands those names which have come down to our own day, and 
which still reveal their own Gaelic lineage. 
