What’s in a place name?
QUESTION How exactly did Irish place names get anglicised? Were some changes merely a gradual series of conveniences for the British authorities, or was there an actual policy in place?
THE anglicisation of Irish place names began in the Middle Ages, but was accelerated by the policies of the British government when the first Ordnance Survey maps of Ireland were being produced in the early 19th century.
For centuries, the anglicisation of Irish place names proceeded at local level, and the emphasis was on translating Irish place names as they were spoken, not as they were written.
The aim was to preserve the original pronunciation as much as possible, consistent with translating them into English letters.
But many Irish words were substantially corrupted by being translated into English and the new English place names often bore little resemblance to the original Irish ones. As just one example of how places names got corrupted, Drumgonnelly in Co. Louth should have been anglicised to Drumdonnelly, as the original Irish version is Druim-Dhonghaile. The letter ‘g’ was substituted for the letter ‘d’, and this was just one of the many corrupt changes that were made in the switch from Irish to English.
However, it wasn’t until the Ordnance Survey began its work of mapping Ireland in 1825 that a definite policy was adopted of anglicising all Irish place names. Teams of surveyors produced maps of the whole of Ireland on the scale of six inches per mile.
These maps were very accurate, helping the British governments of the time to map Ireland in intricate detail for tax purposes and to determine who owned what land.
All the teams of surveyors were led by officers from the Royal Engineers.
Irish people had more minor roles in the production of these Ordnance Survey maps. But at the same time that the actual mapping was being done, the topographical department of the Ordnance Survey was busy translating all the Irish place names into English; some leading Irish scholars, such as John O’Donovan and Eugene O’Curry, were engaged on this work.
But in many cases, this translation of Irish place names into EngNew lish was inaccurate, as often, English spellings were forced onto Irish place names, meaning that the English versions were distorted.
By the time that all these Ordnance Survey maps were published for the first time in 1846 – the first time in the world that a country had been so extensively mapped – these English translations had been set in stone and have remained in use ever since.
Over the years, many scholars have argued that we should go back to the original Irish versions and use those, but at this stage, that’s a lost cause.
The often-distorted English versions of place names have become standardised, and are now the ones that everyone uses.
However, there is one way in which English place names can be compared with Irish equivalents: the official place names database of Ireland, at www.logainm.ie.
This lists every place name in Ireland, including 61,167 townlands, 2,320 population centres, 24,435 streets and 3,482 electoral districts. P. Heaney, Dublin 8.
QUESTION Why are soap operas so called? And what is considered to be the first?
THE first soap operas were US radio serials from the early Thirties, so-called ‘washboard weepies’ – short entertainments that housewives could enjoy.
Among the first major sponsors of these serials were Procter & Gamble (P&G), Colgate-Palmolive and Lever Brothers. Because so many of these sponsors were soap manufacturers, they earned the nickname ‘soap operas’.
In 1923, Ivory Soap created, in comic strip format, a ‘selling drama’ about the Jollyco family, composed of Mr and Mrs Jollyco and their three children, whose lives revolved around soap.
In the late Twenties, Procter & Gamble invited a young woman named Irna Phillips to reproduce the Ivory success on radio. She accordingly created a serial narrative called Painted Dreams, a daily 15-minute episodic show that aired in 1930. Phillips not only wrote the series, but also played the lead character, the elderly, widowed Mother Moynihan, coping with the realities of the Depression era living in Chicago.
In 1933 Ma Perkins became the first real Queen of the Soaps and truly launched the genre.
Ma Perkins was sponsored by Oxydol and P&G soap and first aired on Cincinatti’s WLW, soon going national on the NBC network. The 15-minute show ran five days a week and mentioned Oxydol’s name 20 times each episode.
Initially, this overexposure caused a raft of complaints, but eventually listeners warmed to the format and Ma Perkins, played by 23-year-old Virginia Payne, became America’s beloved ‘mother of the air’. The series was produced by Frank and Anne Hummert, with other successful shows including The Romance Of Helen Trent (1933-60) and Backstage Wife (1935-59).
In 1944, Lever Brothers sponsored TV versions of two radio soaps, Big Sister and Aunt Jenny’s True Life Stories, on Dumont’s York station. Two years later, Faraway Hill – also on Dumont – became the first networked TV soap opera. Jayne Barron, Lincoln.
QUESTION During the World Wars, were battlefield ambulances and medics respected by all the combatants?
AS SUGGESTED in the previous answer, the Japanese had no respect whatsoever for medics and nurses. This was highlighted in the St Stephen’s hospital massacre in Hong Kong and the Alexandra Hospital massacre in Singapore.
In Hong Kong on Christmas Day, 1941, Japanese soldiers slaughtered 170 recuperating soldiers and a few hospital staff.
The eyes, ears, noses, tongues, or limbs were cut off many victims. Seventy of the soldiers were killed with swords while they were lying in bed, and the hospital’s seven nurses were raped.
In Singapore on February 14/15, 1942, around 250 victims of various nationalities, mainly British, were murdered in the Alexandra Hospital. Patients were stabbed in their beds, and one was even murdered on the operating table, along with several of the surgeons. The red cross was certainly never respected by the Japanese. Cecil Lowry, Author of ‘No Mercy from the Japanese’, Stockport.
IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Irish Daily Mail, Embassy House, Herbert Park Lane, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. You can also fax them to 0044 1952 510906 or you can email them to charles.legge@dailymail.ie. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.