CLOG (Univ. of Glasgow)

Editors

Prelims

King, Jacob

The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 15 (2021), 196–199 
 
 
REVIEWS 
 
Iain Taylor, Place-names of Scotland (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2011). 214 pp. £7.99. 
ISBN: 978-1-78027-005-0 [e-book £6.99. ISBN: 9781788853866] 
 
This book is the culmination of decades of work by the author Dr Iain Taylor (or 
Dr Iain Mac an Tàilleir as he is known in Gaelic). Taylor first published a version 
of this material as the spiral-bound Ainmean-àiteachan in 1981, the first book 
from the publisher Clò Ostaig (based at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig on Skye). This was 
simply a list of English names with their Gaelic equivalent in the next column; 
at the time this was by far the longest work of this kind in existence. This 
material evolved into a series of PDFs published on the Scottish Parliamentary 
website (parliament.scot) in 2003, which comprise a list of Scottish place-
names, a Gaelic form or derivation, a translation and sometimes a short 
discussion. The book reviewed here is essentially the same material appearing 
in these PDFs, updated, reorganised and with extra contextual material added. 
The book starts with an informative preface, introduction, a chapter on 
Gaelic pronunciation and a discussion of common generic elements (from 
Norse, Brythonic and English/Scots) with reference to how these elements are 
spelled in their English and Gaelic forms. Next comes the main body of the 
book, which comprises alphabetical lists of Scottish place-names divided 
thematically into: Settlements and Areas; Lochs and Seas Areas; Rivers; 
Mountain Passes; Hills and Mountains and then Council names. These are 
discussed below. 
Finally, there are thirteen maps. Some of these maps show regional place-
names that were known throughout history. For example, Map 1 shows the 
names of peoples as listed by Ptolemy, Tacitus and other Classical writers, 
though this is not made explicit, it is simply called ‘Tribes known to the 
Romans’. Other maps (3-11) show distributions of place-name elements. These 
are taken from W. F. H. Nicolaisen’s Scottish Place-Names (1976, 74-5, 88-9, 93, 
137, 140, 142, 153, 161, 163) although, again, this work is not specifically credited 
except in the Bibliography.  
The Bibliography contains the most reliable works published about Gaelic 
place-names up to 2011, and on the whole avoids the substandard works whose 
influence still blights some modern publications (e.g. Rev. J. B. Johnston, The 
Place-names of Scotland (1934) and John Milne, Gaelic Place Names of the 
Reviews 197 
Lothians (1912).) The only exception to this was the inclusion of J. B. Johnston’s 
The Place-names of the Stirling District (1987, originally published 1904), which 
is a poor work. Fortunately, the reviewer was unable to find any place-names 
for which this work was a source.  
The ‘meat’ of this work then is the lists of place-names. A typical place-name 
entry gives the map form, a Gaelic form and perhaps a brief, informative 
discussion of the language of origin. The material presented here is gleaned 
from the contemporary scholarship of 2011, meaning that (apart from one 
exception mentioned below) this book contains no primary research as such. 
From time to time a piece of Gaelic oral culture is referred to, perhaps from 
a proverb or piece of poetry, which is illustrative of place-names. This should be 
much praised and raises an important point. As a fluent Gaelic speaker and 
lecturer in Gaelic for several years at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Taylor deals with all 
these names from a Gaelic perspective, regardless of the origin of any given 
name. This viewpoint – from within Gaelic itself – is refreshing and is unlike 
many older or popular guides to place-names which tend to implicitly treat 
Gaelic as a dead or a purely reconstructable language. Likewise, the Gaelic 
forms offered, are, where possible, those actually used by Gaelic speakers. This 
is far more useful than a simple deconstruction of the place-name elements 
appearing in any given name. For instance, Corry in Ross is given as it is used by 
Gaelic speakers: An Coire ‘The Corry’ with the nominative article. It is worth 
noting, however, that neither the title nor the blurb on the book itself makes 
any reference to this Gaelic viewpoint.  
A typical entry reads: 
 
Holm (Inverness), An Tuilm; (Lewis), Tolm. The Inverness name refers 
to a river meadow, from English, while the Lewis name is "islet", from 
Norse. Facing the Lewis village of Holm are the rocks known as Biastan 
Thuilm, "Beasts of Holm", on which the Iolair troopship sank after World 
War I. 
 
The biggest criticism of the book is that the sources for individual entries are 
not given, so they are impossible or very difficult to verify. In a handful of other 
cases a single source has been given too much weight, which is not immediately 
obvious to the casual reader. These issues underpin the following examples: 
Tullybardine is given as Tulach Bhàirdne (p. 154) in Gaelic. The far more 
common form however is Tulaich Bhàrdainn. The form offered is presumably 
Jacob King 198 
taken from Raibard Stiubhard, Orain Ghaelach agus Bheurla-Ghaelach (1802) p. 
76 which offers the idiosyncratic Tulich-bhardni as the form.1 
Likewise, Bellsgrove is given as Doire nan Clag (p. 27), ostensibly meaning 
the same thing in Gaelic and Scots/English. This Gaelic form however is a 
modern back-translation that appears on a Highland Council bilingual Gaelic-
English road sign. Bellsgrove is actually named after a Joseph Bell who was 
employed as a groove-master, a groove being the term for opencast working of 
a mineral vein, and reinterpreted here as grove (Kirby 2014, 244 and 245). 
Kilbowie in Dunbarton is offered as Cill Bhuidhe ‘yellow church’ (p. 96), but 
this is a reinterpretation of the first element as seen in the early form Cuiltebut 
1182 x 1199 Paisley Register, 157. The first element is in fact Gaelic cùilt 'nook, 
corner'. 
In at least one other case, this book is itself a primary source, because some 
Gaelic forms were gathered by Taylor himself, directly from native Gaelic 
speakers. For example, Port Dundas (p. 130) is known by Glasgow Gaels simply 
as Am Port ‘the port’ (pers. comm.). This is extremely valuable information, and 
an indication of the source for this name form would have added to the value of 
this book. 
Being now a decade old, there are of course a number of now-outdated 
derivations offered here. For example, Dalmellington (pp. xii and 54) is now 
more accurately explained by Michael Ansell (2008). The maps at the end too, 
taken from Nicolaisen, are now somewhat outdated. See for example the 
discussion of the elements cair and pett in Simon Taylor (2011) which came out 
the same year as the book in review. It should be stressed though these 
comments are in no sense a criticism of the work as it stands. 
The reviewer is the researcher for Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba (AÀA), the 
national advisory partnership for Gaelic place-names in Scotland. As part of its 
remit, local knowledge, historical expertise and established principles are used 
to recommend appropriate forms of Gaelic place-names for uses such as 
signage, maps and other published materials. As such, the work of this book 
overlaps with, and to a certain extent is the precursor of, the work of AÀA; 
Taylor was on the committee for some time, as a representative of Sabhal Mòr 
Ostaig. At an earlier stage of the database, Taylor’s forms were used, until more 
 
1. See the Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba database under Tullibardine: 
https://www.ainmean-aite.scot/gaelic-place-names-database/  
Reviews 199 
detail and research were able to be added. In the vast majority of cases, Taylor’s 
forms were kept in the database. 
This reviewer has approached this book from the point of view of a 
toponymic researcher. There is no doubt that the vast majority of readers of this 
book, whether Gaelic learners, fluent speakers, professional translators, or those 
simply interested in the subject of Scottish toponymy, will find this book a 
fascinating and satisfactory resource. 
 
REFERENCES 
Ansell, Michael 2008, ‘Carsphairn and Dalmellington revisited’ The Journal of 
Scottish Name Studies 2, 1–10 
Kirby, J. E., 2014, The Lost Place-names of Ardgour, Kingairloch and Sunart. The 
Garbh Chrìochan a Deas Lost Place-Names Survey vol. 1 (Inverness: For the 
Right Reasons, 2014). 
Nicolaisen, W. F. H., 1976, Scottish Place-Names, their Study and Significance 
(London: Batsford). 
Paisley Register. = Registrum Monasterii de Passelet, ed. C. Innes (Edinburgh: 
Maitland Club, 1832). 
Taylor, Simon, 2011, ‘Pictish place-names revisited’, in Pictish Progress: New 
Studies on Northern Britain in the Early Middle Ages, ed. S. T. Driscoll, J. 
Geddes and M. A. Hall (Leiden and Boston MA: Brill), 67–118. 
 
 
JACOB KING, Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba/Gaelic Place-names of Scotland 
 


English

Iain Taylor: Place-names of Scotland

Newton, Michael

The Radical Trickster of Mull: a poem by Seumas Seadhach, Bàrd Loch nan Eala

Hough, Carole

Victor Watts, ed. Paul Cavill: The Place-Names of County Durham Part One Stockton Ward

Parker, Michael

An Eighth-century Reference to the Monastery at Hoddom

Taylor, Simon

The Medieval Parish in Scotland

McNiven, Peter

The Lake of Menteith: Why a lake amongst lochs?

Aberlady and Abersuainie

Kidd, Sheila M.

 iii 
CONTRIBUTORS 
 
Ronald Black is a native of Glasgow and a graduate of Glasgow 
University. A former lecturer in Glasgow and Edinburgh universities, 
now working as a writer and journalist, he owes a lifelong debt of 
gratitude to the city fathers for the enlightened policies on Gaelic 
education which they have pursued ever since he was at school in 
Glasgow in the 1960s. 
 
Michel Byrne was brought up in Glasgow and now works in Glasgow 
University’s Department of Celtic. His research has mainly focussed on 
20th-century Scottish Gaelic literature, but more recently he has been 
exploring aspects of 18th-century poetry. 
 
Sheila M. Kidd is a lecturer in Celtic at the University of Glasgow. Her 
research to date has focused on the nineteenth and early twentieth 
centuries. She has a particular interest in the interface between oral and 
printed literature and in the emergence of secular Gaelic prose writing. 
 
Kenneth MacDonald belongs to Applecross in Ross-shire. He was 
educated at the Universities of Glasgow and Cambridge, and from 1960 
to 1997 he taught in the University of Glasgow’s Celtic Department.  
 
Michelle Macleod, originally from the Isle of Lewis, is a lecturer in 
Gaelic at the University of Aberdeen. She previously taught in the School 
of Irish, National University of Ireland, Galway and UHI Millennium 
Institute. Current research interests include modern Gaelic literature, 
concepts of Gaelic identity and language planning. 
 
Donald E. Meek, a native of Tiree, is Professor of Scottish and Gaelic 
Studies at the University of Edinburgh, and was previously Professor of 
Celtic at the University of Aberdeen. The Gaelic evidence for the 
Highland Land Agitation is one of his many research interests. 
 
Cathair Ó Dochartaigh was Professor of Celtic at the University of 
Glasgow between 1996 and 2004. A native of Derry with north Donegal 
connections, he studied at Queens University Belfast and the University 
of Edinburgh. He lectured in the Department of Celtic, University of 
Aberdeen (1969–82) before becoming a freelance researcher, during 
which time he edited Survey of the Gaelic Dialects of Scotland (1994–
97). His main research interests were in Gaelic linguistics. 
 
 iv 
Roibeard Ó Maolalaigh, a native of Dublin, studied at University 
College Dublin and the University of Edinburgh. He is Professor of 
Gaelic at the University of Glasgow and has previously worked at the 
University of Edinburgh and the School of Celtic Studies, Dublin 
Institute for Advanced Studies. His main research interests are in the 
Gaelic languages.  
 
Simon Taylor is at present the lead researcher on the AHRC-funded 
Project ‘The Expansion and Contraction of Gaelic in Medieval Scotland: 
the onomastic evidence’ at the Department of Celtic, University of 
Glasgow. Part of this Project’s remit is to complete the 4-volume series 
The Place-Names of Fife, volume 1 of which (covering west Fife) was 
published by Shaun Tyas in 2006. He is also Convener of the Scottish 
Place-Name Society, which he helped found in 1995. 
 
Moray Watson has taught English in the National University of Ireland, 
Galway, and Gaelic in UHI Millenium Institute. He is currently a lecturer 
in Gaelic at the University of Aberdeen and is preparing a collection of 
Iain Crichton Smith’s Gaelic poems for publication. 
 
Christopher Whyte / Crìsdean MhicGhilleBhàin is a prize-winning 
Gaelic poet and the author of four novels in English. From 1990 to 2005 
he taught in the Department of Scottish Literature at Glasgow University. 
He now lives and writes full-time in Budapest. 
 
Charles W. J. Withers 
Charles Withers is Professor of Historical Geography at the University of 
Edinburgh. In addition to the geography of Gaelic Scotland, he has 
research interests in the historical geography of science and the 
Enlightenment. A fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal 
Society of Edinburgh, his most recent book is Placing the Enlightenment: 
Thinking Geographically about the Age of Reason (Chicago, 2007).  
 
 
 
 


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Clancy, Thomas

The Etymologies of Pluscarden and Stirling

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