Olden — The Number Ttco in Irish Proper Names. 639 



:great interest. It preceded the plural, and it continued to survive 

 with the plural for a long time ; so that many languages had singular, 

 dual, and plural — Semitic languages, as the Egyptian, Arabic, and 

 Hebrew ; and Aryan, as Sanscrit, Greek, and Gothic, as well as Old 

 Irish. The existence of the dual can only be accounted for by its 

 being a survival from that early period when no number beyond two 

 was known. According to Dr. "Wilson in his work on prehistoric man, 

 "it preserves to us a memorial of that stage of thought when all 

 beyond two was an idea of infinite number." Hence, he adds, tlie 

 tendency of higher intellectual culture has been to discard it as in- 

 convenient and unprofitable, and only to distinguish singular and 

 plural. The earliest use af the dual was to express things which 

 ■occur naturally in pairs, as the eyes, the ears, the hands ; or artificially 

 in pairs, as the horses of a chariot. When things are thought of in 

 pairs they are regarded as a unity, and in the classical languages they 

 may be followed by a verb in the singular. It is in this way that a 

 pair is regarded in Ireland at the present day, and this explains the 

 habit of speaking of one foot as half a foot, or a cow with one horn as 

 a cow with half a horn. These are the idioms in the Irish language, 

 the pair being regarded as a whole. 



If we apply these observations to the class of names we are dis- 

 cussing, I think we can understand how they came into existence. 

 Thus, to take the instance, of snamh da en, that is, ' the swimming- 

 place of two birds.' The place was probably frequented by flocks of 

 aquatic birds, and naturally would derive its name from that fact ; but 

 our primseval ancestors had no way of expressing a number beyond 

 unity except by the word two. Hence they called the spot the 

 ' swimming-place of two birds,' which, translated into modern language, 

 meant ' the place where flocks of waterfowl congregate.' So Droma- 

 haire, or Drum-dd-etkiar, ' the ridge of two demons,' means ' the 

 haunted ridge ' ; for the country people, far from limiting demons to 

 two, are of opinion that the whole atmosphere is swarming with them. 

 These considerations apply to personal names also ; and it may be that 

 such names as Dubh-dd-crich, ' Black haired [man] of two countries,' 

 may be a reminiscence of that earlier black haired race which occujued 

 these countries before the light haired Celt. 



As a conquered race they were in a humble position, and it was 

 unfashionable, therefore, to have dark hair as it is amongst the 

 peasantry at the present day. 



The Irish people, it thus appears, retained down almost to 

 modern times a custom which had its origin in the remotest 



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