Unusual old names in Ireland from 1920s

[Weligama]

Thinking of old family and friends names from this era not always Gaelic in origin - possibly church related - my list includes the following - anyone else have any other suggestions:

Malachy,
Jarlath,
Cornelius
Aloysius
Jeremiah

Can’t recall many unusual female names except maybe Philomena, Immaculata, Attracta,

@honeyrider
Lovely names, but I’m very sorry to hear so many of your dad’s siblings died as babies or young children.
It must have been so hard on your grandparents and the other children.

My granaunt had a similar experIence unfortunately. She lost several of her very young children, and both my grandmothers lost a child in infancy too, one at a home birth, one because antibiotics weren’t available then.
I think we’re sometimes guilty of forgetting now what a complete gamechanger antibiotics were. And also of how dangerous childbirth can sometimes be when medical assistance isn’t available. (There’s another thread running on that particular topic at the moment.)

Antibiotics and vaccination and access to healthcare. Women had heartbreakingly tough lives.

Redmond is a variant of Raymond according to Fr Woulfe, introduced by the Normans, and only slightly the more common of the two forms in 1911.

My Dad's 3 sisters died from cot death, well that's what my grandparents were told and his brother died at 3 years old from croup.

And there was the rhesus incompatibility. That causes stillbirth.

Both my grandmothers took 13 pregnancies to term, and raised 8 children to adulthood. It was not talked about much, but with both of them there was an awareness of a deep sadness waiting just round the corner from the everyday.

I'd like antivaxxers (the ones opposed to any childhood immunisations) to be made to sit down for an hour and read a couple of death registers from the turn of the last century. My great grandparents lost two toddler sons in the same whooping cough outbreak in the 1890s.

I know a couple who used to travel round the country during covid protesting against the covid vaccines, they were very active encouraging others not to get vaccinated yet they got vaccinated themselves and didn't tell anyone.

My maternal grandfather had an unusual surname in Ireland, the surname has died out in Ireland now, my mother being the last to have it. I googled my grandad one night and nearly keeled over when I found his name and family tree going back to 1700 but it was compiled in Australia.

Turns out an ancestor was sent on a convict ship to Australia and on to the infamous Hobart convict prison in Tasmania which I visited in January this year. The amount of detail in this family tree plus photos and had all sorts of information not just the names. It had copies of the ship's logs, photos from both Australia and Kildare and so much more.

There's a person in Australia who has done the family tree for a lot of people who were sent to Australia from Ireland and the UK. Here's a link in case anyone is interested to see if they have any family that were sent to Australia.
https://roots-boots.net/ft/names.html

Would you and your family start to use the “died out” surname @honeyrider- if it was your maternal grandfather’s name, it was your dm’s maiden name.
I would.
It is such a shame to see it die out.

I don't know about that though it's a shame to see it die out. My own sons are adults and like their own surname so I'm not sure how it would work at this stage.

Some people keep surnames on as a middle names for their children.

If I have a grandson one of my sons may do that. The surname is more known for being a first name but with a slightly different spelling anyway.

You and I could have a grand oul' chat about this, it's fascinating, isn't it?

I agree about the broad/slender consonants - 'caol le caol agus leathan le leathan' which throws up weirdnesses like 'teileafón'! Pragmatism ruled and they put 'telefón' on the old phone boxes, and using 'guthán' avoids the whole dilemma!

When I say 'pronounce every vowel, however fleetingly', I realise it's not 100% right, and as DeanElderberry pointed out, 's' followed by a slender vowel is pronounced 'sh' instead of 's' and so on and so on...

But at least it stops people saying 'Coimisiún na mBan' instead of '..na Meán' and* *you can pronounce 'Inis Meáin' like a local: mee-YAWN

There's a really interesting thing going on with the pronunciation of the other Aran island, Inis Oírr - it is anglicised as 'Inisheer' but in Irish, because the 'S' in Inis is followed by 'O', a broad vowel, the 'S' stays as 'S' not 'Sh' and the local pronunciation is more 'Inis Eer' than Inish Eer......

.........Will we order a fresh pot of tea there, Dontpresstoohard, I don't think we've even got near to the end of this discussion yet😁

I find Coimisiún na Meàn difficult to pronounce- to me it sounds like Coimisiún na mBan.
So how is it correctly pronounced ?

I would join in! I’m a Munster speaker, but used Irish most in my life when lecturing in Galway, so developed some Connemara tweaks, and it’s left me fascinated by differences in pronunciation and idiom.

I'm useless at Irish but learnt Connemara/Galway Irish. Living in Munster my lads learnt Munster Irish and the few bits I remember are considered wrong down here.

One thing that my sons and their classmates thought was wrong when doing their irish aural exams was that they had to listen to Ulster irish which they found very difficult to make out, it's difficult enough to understand some speaking english let alone irish.

A pot of tea sounds perfect@MarieDeGournay! 😁

Meán is a tricky one I think, as it seems perhaps to vary depending on dialect and speaker, and sometimes even on the expression it’s used in?

Á is pronounced differently in Ulster and doesn’t give that aw sound. Á is usually said as ‘aw’ in Munster as well as in Connacht, but the word meán is still often said as maan (as well as myawn or mee-yawn). It seems to vary.

https://www.teanglann.ie/en/fuaim/me%C3%A1n_

www.teanglann.ie/en/fuaim/me%c3%a1n_f%c3%b3mhair

https://www.teanglann.ie/en/fuaim/me%c3%a1n_o%c3%adche

That’s interesting too about Inis Oírr.
It’s funny, because compound words are one of the places the caol le caol rule doesn’t apply…you just know to separate out the words, as in breithlá, for example.
I know Inis Oírr isn’t a compound but you’d think the same would apply, only more so.
I just listened to a clip of an Inis Oírr man speaking and he says Inish for Inis Mór so it’s only Inis Oírr that’s different.

Apparently Inis Oírr was called Inis Thiar locally until the name was officially changed in the 60s, and the Inis Thiar usage continued well after that too. Should still be a slender s though, you’d think.

There are always variations in pronunciation depending on place though.
I know in Munster anseo is said as anso by native speakers. Seo varies depending on the word (vowel) it’s next to, but is often so too, eg an bóthar seo is pronounced an bóthar so. But then it would have been spelt so too to reflect that pronunciation before the spelling was standardised. It’s hard to standardise a spelling that is pronounced with a broad s in some areas, and a slender s in other areas I guess. A similar problem occurs with coicís, which was previously spelt differently in Munster to reflect pronunciation.

www.teanglann.ie/en/fuaim/coic%c3%ads

Thank you to my new bestie Dontpresstoohard for the link to Irish Pronunciation Database: meán
where we can hear the pronunciations by native speakers - as with any language, that's the gold standard.

The pronunciation is different according to area, but since Inis Meáin is in Connacht, the 'mee-Yawn' said quickly pronunciation seems valid.

As far as Coimisiún na Meán is concerned, I have to admit that I was only going by the Connacht pronunciation, so yeah I was a bit OTT in saying it was the correct pronunciation.
In fact I may even have been... what's that word? that one that's really hard to pronounce..... oh yes, I remember it now .....wrong😁

But I like the Connacht 'mee-YAWN'., deeahgwitch, because* *It makes it clear that it is not the 'Women's Commission'

As my granny used to say when somebody else turned up when tea was being made - or being 'wet' as she used to say - 'I'll put your name on the pot'