Irish names, as I’ve said in another blog, tend to be from 2 sources. Since it was a very traditional Catholic country for a long time, children were named after saints, given traditional Catholic names.
When I was younger, Mary was given to almost all girls, and even to some boys. The late TV presenter Gay Byrne had the name Gabriel Mary... Because Mary was so common there were a lot of variations of the name that were used. Girls were called Marie, Maria, Maureen (an Irish diminutive of Maire), Maura, Marian, or Anne-Marie or Mary with another Christian name such as Mary Jo, or Mary Kate.
Other saints’ names that were quite popular were Gerald/Geraldine… Margaret, Angela, Theresa, Gemma. For boys there were names like Bernard, Michael, Raphael, Paul, Peter, Philip and Nicolas.
In the 1960s there were “Irish” names but they were usually Irish translations of common English names. Sean and Seamus were Irish versions of John and James. Liam was a version of William.. and Garret or Gearoid was the Irish for Gerald.
From about the 1960s onwards, Irish society became more secularised and the older Catholic names were beginning to be seen as old fashioned. So parents gave their children modern names, similar to England and America….and if they chose Irish derived name they tended to be from Irish mythology and literature.
Dermot and Grainne are quite popular, and are from the story of Fionn MacCumhaill, a sort of “King Arthur” figure in Irish mythology. FIonn was the High King of Ireland, and as an old man he marries Grainne, a much younger woman. Like Guenevere, Grainne then falls in love with another man, one of her husband’s warriors. She runs away with him and Fionn hunts after them. Eventually, they both die, Grainne killing herself. The name Grainne is probably based on the Gaelic Gra which means love...and Dermot, or Diarmuid means free from Envy.
Another girl’s name which has been well used is Maeve, the name of a legendary warrior queen of Connaught. The name means “She who makes drunk”. The character may be related to the “Fairies midwife” Queen Mab... which is mentioned in Shakespeare.
More will follow….
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