452 



eruption of this river happened in the reign of Siorna Saeghlach, 

 a.m. 4169. 



Labeann [Labpcmn].— The Eiver Labparm, in the Gen. Lab- 

 painne, from which King Fiacha got the cognomen of Labpainne, is 

 supposed to be the Cashen Eiver, in the county Kerry. It signifies 

 the babbling, echoing, or noisy river, derived from Labcnp, to talk, 

 and Gbairm, a river. 



Lea [Liac]. — The Lea Eiver, in the county of Kerry, falls into 

 Tralee Bay. " Being supplied by several mountain streams, it is 

 pretty considerable in time of great floods." — Seward. The name 

 may be derived from lia, a flood, and may signify the inundating 

 river; or, from liac, grey, which, in the time of floods, would mean 

 the greyish- coloured river. 



Leanan [Lenainn]. — The Leanan Eiver rises out of a small lough, 

 called Garton, in the parish of Gartan, in the barony of Kilmacrenan, 

 county of Donegal, and, after taking a circuitous course, flows by Ballyare 

 House, the pretty seat of Lord George Hill, and falls into Lough 

 Swilly at the town of Eamelton. The Irish name is "Ucnamn, as 

 written in the Annals of the Four Masters, a. d. 1497, which may be 

 derived from Ucn, a marsh, and Gbainn, a river, and therefore would 

 signify the marshy river. The brownish colour of its water would 

 indicate that it flows through bogs or marshes. The name of the 

 Bittern, in Irish, is t>umedn-16ana, which literally means the 

 trumpeter of the marsh. 



I have been favoured by an esteemed friend with another derivation 

 of the name. There is an old tradition among the people of that country, 

 that when St. Columba was a boy he was playing one day on the bank 

 of Lough Garton ; and having come to the end of the lake, he said to it, 

 Lean m6, follow me, and forthwith a stream flowed out of the lough, 

 and followed him some distance ; and hence the origin of the name 

 Lecmdn, which in this sense would signify the Folloiver. It shows that 

 the old people believed that the parents of the saint lived near Lough 

 Garton. 



Lee [Laoi]. — The Eiver Lee issues from Guagane Barra, and flows 

 through the city of Cork. It is another of those very old rivers found 

 by Parthalon on his arrival in this country. In O'Clery's Book of 

 Conquests it is called Laoi hi TTIurhain, Laoi in Munster; but, in the 

 Book of Leacan, 273, b. a., the name is written Lae. Like that of the 

 Liffey, I believe its meaning is lost. Ptolemy calls it Luvius — what- 

 ever that means — probably intended for Fluvius. The nearest word in 

 our dictionaries to the name is laog, a calf; and, according to this, 

 it would signify the Calf Eiver, just as the Boyne means the Cow 

 Eiver. 



Liffey [Lipi]. — The Eiver Liffey, according to several writers, 

 rises in the county of Wicklow, and flows through the counties of Kil- 

 dare and Dublin. In O'Clery's Book of Conquests the name is written 

 Gbarm Lipe eicip uib neill ajup Lai£ne, the Eiver Life between 

 Hy Niall and Leinster — that is, between the province or kingdom of 



