Towns. _The City of Londonderry is included within this parish. 
N ame ._ Derry, in Irish t)oipe—the popular name of the place— means literally a place 
of oaks,” but is also used to express a “ thick wood.” It is so explained by Colgan (164o)—an 
Irish topographer of the highest authority—in his Acta Sanctorum, V 56b [recte bbzj ims 
word, however, was not topographically used by the ancient Irish without the addition of some 
distinctive epithet, as int>o,pe &popca,t>, Doipe Lopain, &c. Thus the original Pa an appellation 
of this place was t)oipe Cal^cuc, or Derry Calgach—the “oak wood of Calgach, Cal ach 
which signifies “a fierce warrior,” being the proper name of a man m pagan times, and rendered 
illustrious as Galgacus in the pages of Tacitus. In support of this etymology may be adduced 
the high authority of Adamnan— abbot of Iona, in the 7th century—who, in the Lite o is 
predecessor, St. Columbkille, invariably calls this place Roboretum Calgagi, his custom being'to 
give the Latin equivalents for Irish topographical names. For a long period subsequent to the 
6th century, in which a monastery was erected here by St. Columbkille, the name Derry Calgach 
prevailed;'but, towards the latter end of the 10 th century, this appellation seems to have yielded 
to that of Derry-Columbkille—no other appearing in the Irish annals after that P®™ ’ . 
subsequent ages, when the place had risen in importance above every other Derry, the distinctive 
epithet Columbkille was dropped as no longer necessary; and such is the effect of long established 
usage that the English prefix— London— which was imperatively imposed by the original charter oi 
James I., and preserved with pride by the colonists for a long time after has likewise fallen into 
popular disuse. Indeed this mode of abbreviation is usual in Ireland, whenever the name ot a 
place is compounded of two distinct and easily separable words : thus, in the counties of Antrim and 
Down, Carrickfergus is shortened into Carrick, Downpatrick into Down, Iniscourcy into Inch &c. 
The name Londonderry, although a hybrid compound, is, even in its modern part, tiace- 
able to a Celtic origin; and, it will be seen that by a curious coincidence, the word London is as 
graphically descriptive of the modern locality, as Derry was of its ancient. Lluyd ana 
other British etymologists, it is interpreted “ the town of ships, from long in British, and in 
Irish, “ ship,”—and dinas in British, or Dim in Irish, “ fortress, —(the dunum of the Romans) 
which is the root of the word “town.” This derivation is, however, merely conjectural, and 
the Celtic compound Lonn-oun, signifying a “ strong fortress,” is as likely to have been the 
original signification of London. Either explanation is, however, curiously applicable to Lon- 
