30 Proeeedings of the Royal Irish Academy'. 



detail exhibited which would challenge more than momentary attention. 

 From Darraugh rath, on an inclement evening of December, 1919, 1 surveyed 

 scrutinisingly the country on every side — a country strewn with monumental 

 symbols of long-vanished races ; and before I had gazed for many minutes 

 the conviction flashed on me that, if the story of Crom Cruaich were not a 

 myth, I was standing on the ground where his worship had been celebrated. 

 Here was Magh Sleacht ; there in front lay Magh Eein ; water rolled between, 

 but was it " the water named Guth-Ard " ? 



The lake system I have described seems, at first sight, to stop at 

 Ballymagauran; but, on closer examination, it is seen to penetrate thence into 

 the County Leitrim, well on towards Ballinamore. The largest and loveliest 

 of its branches, bending into many sinuous folds, and bordered by sylvan 

 headlands, shelters beyond Woodford demesne. This is Lake Garadice, a 

 water-sheet which, though a member of the same lake series, does not touch 

 Magh Sleacht, being enfolded all round by Magh Eein ; but it comes close up 

 towards Magh Sleacht, and ends in a bay within quite easy view of Darraugh. 

 Looking out from the hill-top, I could see the pale light of a dying winter's 

 day reflected from different coils of its surface. 



In the Ordnance maps the name of this lake is printed " Garadice." As 

 to the phonetic correspondence of Garad and Guth-Ard, nobody will be likely 

 long to doubt; for in the native pronunciation of Guth-Ard the aspirated dental 

 was ignored, while a short vowel sound was interpolated between the final 

 consonants.' Guth-Ard was thus pronounced Gu(th)-Ar(a)d, or Gorad.' 

 Samuel Lewis wrote the lake-name in the form Gorradise,^ a spelling which 

 closely reproduces the Irish original as it was heard in local speech. James 

 M'Parlan, at an earlier date, wrote " Garradise,"* an exactly identical form if 

 the first vowel be given its Irish, as distinguished from the English, sound. 

 Elsewhere Lewis mentions " Garradise Lough, a considerable sheet of water, 

 on the shore of which is Garradice, the seat of W. C. Percy, Esq." f and in 

 doing so he shows, I think, that the " Garadice " of our Ordnance maps was 

 borrowed from the name-form chosen by the Percy family for their delightfully 

 situated residence on the lake's western shore. 



1 The Irish peasantry retain this practice when pronouncing words like barn [bar(u)n], 

 Cork [Cor(u)k]. Compare Lickerrig (from leac-dherg), Scullabogue (from Sc.olb-og), etc. 



^ The phonological equivalence of Gorad and Gu-Arad is shown by the inherited 

 pronunciation of such names as Ua-Ruairc (O'Rorke), Ua-Nuallain (O'Nolan). The 

 Latinized form Ororicus (see Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio Hiberniite) is an exact 

 parallel for Gorad. 



^ "Topographical Dictionary," p. 520. 



^ "Stat. Survey of Co. Leitrim" (1802), p. 111. The variant "Paradise," which 

 appears at pp. 22 and 53 of this work, is obviously a typographical error. 



5 Op. cit., p. 109. 



