Monday, October 07, 2002

LexiLine Journal #34 - 2002 : Aughnacliffe County Longford Ireland Ursa Minor

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I have uploaded
aughnacliff.gif and
aughnacliff.tif
to the files on Ancient Ireland in the LexiLine Files
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LexiLine/files

Aughnacliffe in County Longford, Ireland represents Ursa Minor as a hammer-headed type of axe. That AUGH-NA meant "axe" is supported by MacBain's Dictionary where Gaelic EIGH is AXE.

See http://www.ceantar.org/Dicts/MB2/mb16.html where it is written:"eigha file, Irish oighe: *agiâ; root ag of English axe, Gothic aqizi"and where cliffe may be"clipa hook, clip, Irish clipe, a gaff; from the English clip. See cleibe"i.e. "a hooked axe, a crooked axe".

[Update 2006]

The cliffe in Aughnacliffe is conceivably related to Gaelic calbh meaning "head", so that Aughnacliffe would simply have meant "axe head".

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