NORTHERN IRELAND PLACE-NAME NEWS
The Place-Name Project at Queen's University - a cultural initiative documenting the history and origins of place-names in Northern Ireland - has won funding of more than £400,000.
The grant, from the Arts and Humanities Research Board, is the second major boost for the Project. It follows the award of a £100,000 grant from the same body earlier this year.
The new funding, allocated over a five-year period, will be used to produce a publicly available interactive electronic database on North Ireland Place-Names, as well as two more books in the Place-Name series.
The original Northern Ireland Place-name Project was established in 1987 within the Department of Celtic at Queen's University, Belfast and funded mainly through the Central Community Relations Unit. Funding ceased 2 years ago, and, until this new award, its future looked bleak. During this first phase the Project produced 7 superb volumes, each of which is an in-depth study of place-names from well-defined areas of Northern Ireland. 4 deal with different areas in Co. Down, 2 in Co. Antrim, and 1 in Co. Derry. A projected 8th volume will be on Armagh City, Co. Armagh. All are available in paperback, excellent value at £8.50 each (£20 hardback), obtainable from the Project secretary (address below). Continuity between the first Project and the new one is assured by the fact that the new Director (Dr Nollaig Ó Muraile, Department of Celtic, Queen's University, Belfast) and Project Manager (Dr Kay Muhr) had similar roles in the first one.
"Celebrating Ulster's Townlands" Exhibition: The Ulster Place-Name Society has been funded by the Heritage Lottery to mark the Millennium by a travelling exhibition called "Celebrating Ulster's Townlands", which will be visiting Scotland in Spring 2000. An accompanying full-colour booklet will include more names than appear in the 12 panels themselves, as well as a list of books for further reading. The themes are place-name connections with landscape (inland and coastal), natural history (plants, birds, animals), geography, archaeology, mythology, history, maps, Irish, Norse, English and Scots languages, families, local customs and folklore.
It will be at Glasgow University in March 2000, followed by Girvan in April. More details will be given in the next issue of Scottish Place-Name News (Spring 2000). If any SPNSoc. Member would be interested in helping with the exhibition while it is in Scotland, or even staging it in their own area (some time in 2001), please contact Project Secretary, Mary Conway, Northern Ireland Place-Name Project, c/o Celtic Studies, 7 University Square, Belfast BT7 1NN Tel. 01232 273689; Fax 01232 324549; e-mail:towns@clio.art.qub.ac.uk
Please note that there is no hire cost for the exhibition, but whoever takes it is responsible either for collection or for delivery to the next taker.
THE NORTHERN IRELAND PLACE-NAME PROJECT
This Project was established 1987 to study the place-names of Northern Ireland appearing on the Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 scale map with a view to elucidating their origins, history and meaning. This is a subject which arouses a good deal of popular interest right across the community. While most of the names are of Irish Gaelic language origin, some derive from Norse, Norman French, Ulster Scots and English. To date the Project's highly skilled staff of five full-time researchers have produced seven substantial volumes on the place-names of Cos. Antrim, Derry and Down, and an invaluable archive of historical forms of Ulster place-names has been built up. The Project, based at the Department of Celtic, Queen's University, Belfast, was funded initially by the Department of Environment for Northern Ireland, and more recently (from March 1990) its funding came through the Central Committee Relations Unit. Sadly this funding ceased in March 1997. Various other sources are being pursued, including the Lottery Heritage Fund, whose rules changed this year to include applications relating to 'nontangible assets' such as oral history and place-names. In the meantime one project member, Dr Pat McKay, is being funded for a year by the Cultural Traditions Group of the Community Relations Council amongst others, to produce a popular book on the best known place-names of old Ulster, that is the six counties of Northern Ireland as well as Cos. Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan. Fortunately the Project's office, with its extensive archive and library, is being kept on at Queen's University for the foreseeable future.
Dr Kay Muhr, former Senior Research Fellow.