Gaelic place names in the Parish of Glenaray and Inveraray

‘Jimmy’ is well known to many local residents, as he grew up on his parents’ farm in Glen Shira, where Gaelic was very much in evidence and led him to pursue the language and Celtic studies at university. 

He was a founding member and archivist of the Neil Munro Society and a talented piper from boyhood, serving later as librarian at Glasgow’s National Piping Centre.

The meaning of the plethora of Gaelic names Jimmy has discovered in years of research gave a real insight into how the land has been used over the centuries and how inhabitants lived. 

Place names were important to the identification of their location and would have been the only means of travel directions.

The geographical area covered in Jimmy’s talk is the historical parish formed from the parish of Kilmalieu in 1650 and the invaluable source of names from Timothy Pont’s Map (late 16th century), much of which is available online.

Many topics were covered including river names, particularly the major rivers Aray, Shira, Douglas and Leacann. 

Churches, chapels and burial grounds were often signified by names beginning with Kil- and came to Scotland from Ireland as part of the Christianisation process in the 5th and 6th centuries. 

Many farms and settlement names reflected the use of the land, the shape of the landscape or vegetation, eg Auchindrain, ‘Achadh an droighinn’ the thorn field, first mentioned in possession of MacCorquodale of Phantelans in 1509.