DEBATE ON IRISH PLACE-NAMES

IGNATIUS FENNESSEY, OFM,

Madam, - Would you kindly consider an addition to my letter of January 24th, concerning the name Navan? I wrote about it as a silly anglicisation for the official name, An Uaimh. However, in the current issue of Ríocht na Midhe (xiv, 2003, p.143) Tomás O Domhnalláin puts forward the idea that the original name referred to the confluence there on the rivers Boyne and Blackwater, and might have taken the form of Cumar na nAbhann.

This, in turn, could have given rise to the English approximation Navan from na nAbhann; nothing silly about that. - Yours, etc.,

IGNATIUS FENNESSEY, OFM,

Seafield Road,

Killiney,

Co Dublin.