346 Proceedings of the Royal Fhysical Society. 



the difficulties which surround the question of the identity of 

 numerous Gaelic names, or by what process they came to be 

 used and applied, seem almost impossible to unravel. In my 

 original manuscript, of which this is an abstract, I go more 

 fully into the subject, quoting and referring to all my authori- 

 ties, having taken the various opinions of able Gaelic scholars; 

 but, while the isolation of the use of the word con in England 

 remains a fact, we are as yet unable to account for it, though 

 we might easily advance theories founded upon our present 

 information. 



Of the presently used Gaelic woTd,fcorag, it is probably of 

 considerable antiquity, and the most probable interpretation 

 seems to be "the little questioner," from Gael, feoirich, to 

 question ; and ccg, the endearing diminutive termination ; but, 

 as has been pointed out to me by Mr James Macpherson — to 

 whom I have been greatly indebted for assistance in these 

 and similar researches — the name may have arisen from a 

 much earlier root, viz., " a root- word, feo,* now lost sight of 

 and not given in the dictionaries, meaning . strictly, or in a 

 general sense, bearded — feo, beard ; earr, a tail ; and ag, the 

 diminutive termination of feminine nouns. Earrag is one of 

 its actual Gaelic names." 



Thus also in the Erse occurs iora, but this is not found in 

 the earliest dictionaries — as O'Brien's, but only in the later 

 ones of O'Eeilly and M^Curtius, and in the works of authors 

 which are of comparatively recent date. 



In old Irish occurs the word iaronns,f which, as far as I 

 know, have not yet been satisfactorily identified. Other old 

 Irish names, as sesquirolos and crichardn, occurring in the 

 above-quoted poem, cannot be considered of value in this 

 connection, but it would occupy too much space here to 

 enter into a fuller attempt at the explanation of these. But 

 upon the correct rendering of some of these old Irish names 



* Eecurring in feosag, a beard ; feocliadan, a corn-thistle ; feocullan, a 

 polecat ; and feorag, the word under discussion ; and so perhaps feoir =. grass 

 (from feo, beard, and ar or ire, soil), gives heard of the soil. 



t "Two iaronns from the wood of Luadraidh," vide Wilde : "On Unmanu- 

 factured Animal Remains," etc., Proc. Royal Irish Academy, Vol. VII., part 

 ix., p. 188. 



