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 Scilli6s off Cape Belerium in Cornwall, and the 

 Sceligs off Cape Bolus in Kerry, stand in the same track of Phoeni- 

 cian navigation with Cape Belerium near Corunna in Spain.' 

 Scylla is derived by Greek writers from <txuXXcu, 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 Irish Names of Places (vol. 1, 

 p. 420), states that Sceilig (skellig), according to O'lleilly, means a 

 rock. The form Scillic 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 

 sgaoil, 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, hre hraigh, brae ; Mr shior, long. 



Tean, tiadhan, a little hill. 



Pool, poll, a hole, mud. 



Cam Morval, carn, a heap ; mar, large ; haile, town. 



Peninnis Head, ceann, head ; innis, island. 



Carraigstarne, carraig, a rock ; stairn, noise. 



Carnlea, earn, heap ; Hath, hoary. 



Tolnien Poiyit, toll, a hole. 



Forth 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, druini, 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 R^hich have come down to our own day, and 

 which still reveal their own Gaelic lineage. 



