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names, both personal and local, viz., the frequent recurrence of the 

 number Two. 



I never saw it stated that the number Two was in Ireland con- 

 sidered more remarkable than any other ; but from whatever cause it 

 may have arisen, certain it is, that there existed in the minds of the 

 Irish people a distinctly marked predilection to designate persons or 

 places, where circumstances permitted it, by epithets expressive of the 

 idea of duality, the epithet being founded on some circumstance connected 

 with the object named; and such circumstances were often seized upon 

 to form a name in preference to others equally or more conspicuous. 



We have, of course, as they have in all countries, names with com- 

 binations of other numbers, and those containing the number Three 

 are pretty numerous ; but these do not occur oftener than we might 

 naturally expect beforehand, while the number Two is met with many 

 times more frequently than all the others put together. 



The Irish word for Two that occurs in names, is da, or dha, both forms 

 being used ; da is pronounced daw ; but in the other form, dh, which 

 has a peculiar and rather faint guttural sound, is altogether suppressed 

 in modern names ; the word dha being generally represented by the 

 vowel a, while in many cases modern contraction has obliterated every 

 trace of a representative letter. It is necessary to bear in mind that da 

 or dha generally aspirates the consonant before which it is placed, and 

 that in a few cases it eclipses consonants and prefixes n to vowels. 



We find names involving the number Two recorded in Irish history, 

 from the most ancient authorities down to the 11SS. of the 17th cen- 

 tury, and they occur in proportion quite as numerously as at the pre- 

 sent day ; showing that this curious tendency is not of modern origin, 

 but that it has descended silent and unnoticed, from ages of the most 

 remote antiquity. 



There is a village and parish in the W. of Tipperary, on the shore 

 of Lough Derg, now called Terry glass ; its Irish name, as used in many 

 Irish authorities, is Tir-da-ghlas, the territory of the two streams ; and 

 the identity of this with the modern Terryglass is placed beyond all 

 doubt by a passage in the " Life of St. Fintan of Clonenagh," which 

 describes Tir-da-glas as "in terra Mumonias juxta fluvium Sinna." 

 The great antiquity of this name is proved by the fact that it is men- 

 tioned by Adamnan in his "Life of St. Columba " (Lib. n., cap. 

 xxxvi.), written in the end of the seventh century; but according to his 

 usual custom, instead of the Irish name he gives the Latin equivalent : 

 in the heading of this chapter it is called Ager duorum rivorum ("De 

 ecclesise Duorum agri rivorum simili reclusione"), and in the text, Bus 

 duum rivulorum (" — in monasterio Duum ruris rivulorum"), either 

 of which is a correct translation of Tir-da-ghlas.* There is a sub- 

 division of the townland of Clogher, in the parish of Kilnoe, Clare, 



* For the identification of Tir-da-ghlas with the Ager duorum rivorum of Adamnan 

 we are indebted to the Rev. Dr. Reeves. 



