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line of road that must have led to the ancient ford over the Boyne, he- 

 fore the erection of the first bridge. That such a ford existed there is 

 proved by the name Drogheda, Dpoiceac-aca, the bridge of the ford. 



"While the majority of names have been modernized in accordance 

 with the principles j ust laid down, great numbers, on the other hand, 

 have been contracted and corrupted in a variety of ways. Some of these 

 corruptions took place in the Irish language ; but far the greatest num- 

 ber were introduced by the English-speaking people in transferring the 

 words from the Irish to the English language. These corruptions are 

 sometimes so extremely irregular and unexpected, that it is impossible 

 to reduce them to rule, or to assign them to any general or uniform in- 

 fluence except mere ignorance, or the universal tendency to contraction. 

 In most cases, however, they are the result of certain laws or prin- 

 ciples, some of which are merely provincial, or attributable to particular 

 races of people, while the influence of others may be traced throughout 

 the whole of Ireland. Some of these laws of corruption have been no- 

 ticed by Dr. O'Donovan and Dr. Eeeves j* and I have myself given ex- 

 pression to some others. I have here brought them all, or the most 

 important of them, under one view, and illustrated each by a number 

 of examples. 



I. Effects of the Article.— .The first series of changes I shall 

 notice, are those produced under the influence of the article. "When 

 the Irish article an (the) is placed before a word beginning with a 

 vowel, it is frequently contracted to n alone, and this n was often incor- 

 porated with its noun, losing ultimately its force as an article, and 

 forming permanently a part of the word. The attraction of the article 

 is common in other languages also, as for instance in Erench : in this 

 manner have been formed the Erench words lhierre, lendemain, luette, 

 Lisle, Lami, and many others. 



A considerable number of Irish names have incorporated the article 

 in this manner ; among others, the following : Naul, the name of a 

 village near Balbriggan. The Irish name is an dill, i. e. the rock or 

 cliff, which was originally applied to the perpendicular rock on which 

 the castle stands — rising over the little river Delvin near the village. 

 The word was shortened to n'aill, and it has descended to us in the 

 present form Naul, which very nearly represents the pronunciation. 

 Nenagh in Tipperary was anciently called Gonac Chece, and in later 

 times Qonac-Upmuitian, the fair or fair green of Ormond. n'Aonach 

 with the article prefixed, was, in accordance with the principle of pre- 

 serving the pronunciation, changed to Nenagh. 



NeAvry (in Down) is called in Irish lubap-cirm-qnacca, i. e. the 

 "yew tree at the head of the strand and the following extract from 

 " The Eour Masters," at A. D. 1162, will explain the meaning of the 

 name The monastery of the monks at lubhar-chinntrechta was 



* This is the proper place to remark that I have followed the authority of Dr. 

 O'Donovan and Dr. Reeves, in translating many of the names in this paper. 



