BarneyT
2014-05-14 00:02:23 |
Faughil
For what it’s worth as a local in this part of the world, I have to admit that I find this debate over Jonesborough Hill and Faughil mountain comical in the extreme,but also sadly very understandable.
Brian Friels “Translations” and for anyone with a passing interest in placenames,,,Man Of War and An Long Cogaidh.Enough of that, this one is a lot more straightforward..I Think!
We all are only passing through this world for a short while and for some strange reason feel the need to “bag” spot heights,hills,mountains and of course label them as we go along for the record. I’m as guilty as anyone here !!
Of course drawing no comparison between the un-doubted beauty of South Armagh and Nepal or Tibet,strangely Chomolungma(Sagarmatha) v’s Everest springs to mind.To try and put this one to bed,we have hill-tops here in this small part of Ireland as I’m sure is the case throughout the Island which are hotly debated as far as names are concerned invariably depending on what side of the hill we live on and from which small ancient tribal division ie. townland we feel part of.Locally for example ,we have Croslieve ,as it is known I think to your readers but also locally known as Shean mountain and Carrive mountain ( townlands on either side).
However in this case I’m afraid Bleck Cra is as correct as anyone can be,Joensborough Hill or Jonesborough Mountain means absolutely nothing here except perhaps the hill on the public road leading from the Dublin/Belfast Motorway up into Jonesborough village.Its talked about a lot by locals in the winter because of the lack of salt and problems arising!!
The clue is on the map that Jackill points out,in this case, unusually the townlands on both sides of the mountain are both Faughil (Etra and Otra) so we have agreement ..... The name that all locals in the area know this mountain by is Faughil and nothing different as far as I know.
For the record,in the not so distant past ,a certain mister Jones ,a Dublin Barrister, decided to rename a few houses in the townland of Edenappa (I stand to be corrected on this one ) in his own honour hence, Jonesborough so maybe explaining the reluctance by locals to extend the honour onto the mountain top also in the 1700’s.
More recently,we had a few visitors who resided on the same mountain for about 20 years and sought to re-name it also,( along with all the hill-tops locally) in some obscure military jumble of letters and numbers ,which escape me for the moment and I have no doubt that maps exist naming it as XYT567 or whatever but eventually they left us to our own devises as did Mr.Jones..... Faughil Mountain can be googled to explain all; Jonesborough Hill can’t...The wonders of modern technology.
I don't know how we name any mountain "officially" but I did read only this week were the powers that be tried to re-name a country road in South Down because it was upsetting the postal services,emergency services etc.- it was blocked at council level because lo and behold the people who lived on the road were asked their opinion!
Maybe we should throw a re-christening party in the local...any excuse.
Faughil mountain is good enough for the locals so maybe we should leave it there because to me it rolls off the tongue sweeter. |