Of all the anglicisations, few can have deceived as much with one letter as Rhode in Offaly

Of all the misleading anglicisations in Ireland, few can have deceived as much with one letter as Rhode in Co Offaly.

By inserting a “h” where it has no business, the English version of the name implies some relationship with a certain Greek island, recently on fire.

Or worse, it evokes a British mining magnate and imperialist, whose statues are now the subject of controversy in Oxford and elsewhere.

At the very least, it seems to claim affinity with the smallest state in the US, and perhaps by extension with red hens.

Blowing a Gaskin – Frank McNally on gasconades, gasúns, and Ireland’s Bay of Naples

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In the long run – Alison Healy on the bizarre Olympic marathon of 1904

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Valour invalidated – Frank McNally on a mysterious Irish anti-hero: the “Great Gaiscí”

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Frank McNally on royal typos, Tennyson’s Tories, and the mystery of ‘Operation Sonnet’

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Whereas none of these bears scrutiny.

In its original Irish, Ród meant simply “road”, a sense that hardly needed covering up, except with tarmac.

It may be that Ród suffers from an inherent credibility problem, in that it looks like one of those makey-up Irish words, copied from the English and accessorised with a fada.

Little could be farther from the truth. Ród is an ancient term, appearing in literature as long ago as The Book of the Dun Cow, in the year 1100.

Speaking of cows, that animal is of course implicated in the now more common Irish word for road, bóthar. But the old ród also meant “a road, route, line, or way”, as well as an “anchorage or mooring place for boats”.

And just as there are boreens in Hiberno-English, there were rodeens too.

Townlands of that name survive in Cork, Waterford, Tipperary, and Roscommon.

If not in name, there are plenty of rodeens in Offaly too, as I know from recent experience. On the road to Rhode last weekend, I was grateful for my iPhone’s GPS.

Rhode signs, or indeed road ones, were scarce. At ambiguous junctions, when even the iphone suffered doubts, I also had to trust my sense of direction, and whatever logic the topography offered.

Flann O’Brien, who spent formative years in Offaly and used its countryside as a model for his bucolic version of hell in The Third Policeman, believed that some such roads were naturally one-way.

Or at least his mad scientist De Selby – footnotes on whose theories gradually take over the novel – did. Hence one of the narrator’s diversions:

“. . . de Selby makes the point that a good road will have character and a certain air of destiny, an indefinable intimation that it is going somewhere, be it east or west, and not coming back from there. If you go with such a road he thinks, it will give you pleasant travelling, fine sights at every corner and a gentle ease of peregrination that will persuade you that you are walking forever on falling ground.

“But if you go east on a road that is on its way west, you will marvel at the unfailing bleakness of every prospect and the great number of sore-footed inclines that confront you and make you feel tired.”

I must have been travelling in the naturally-approved direction at the weekend. Mind you, I met a temporary traffic light at one point of the narrow road to Rhode, and it being red, stopped as instructed.

Then time passed slowly, while no traffic came from the other direction. So growing impatient, I drove cautiously ahead anyway. And although I met no cars on the way, the light at the other end was red too. Maybe de Selby could explain.

The English “road” is, I believe, of different origin from the Irish. Having Germanic roots, it is related to the word “ride”, as in journey.

Thus, the Rhode Inn, for example – an actual bar in the Offaly town – is an even more complex pun than it first appears, having a leg planted on two different etymological horses.

I wondered in passing if there might be a market for a rival pub at the opposite end of the village, called the Rhode Out. And yet there, I suppose, is the other problem with the village’s Irish name: its implied transience.

Could a place called “Road” ever be an event in itself, rather than part of a journey to somewhere else? And would anglicising it as “Rode” be, if anything, worse? Then the implied journey would always be behind you.

For some reason, this reminds me of the past glories of Offaly GAA, which were rooted (or even routed) in the bog and the related employment created here and elsewhere in the county by Bord na Móna and the ESB.

Maybe instead of simplifying it, the village should double down on the anglicisation’s redundant “h” by erecting a giant statue, just as its near namesake in Greece once did.

Local footballer Seamus Darby, scorer of the most famous goal in GAA history, could deputise for the sun-god Helios. Then, in time, maybe even Greek tourists might flock to see the Colossus of Rhode.