Place Names of Abernethy

There has come into my possession a long list of Gaelic place names, mainly hills, burns and farms, from this area, compiled by my uncle, Bill Macaulay, who farmed at Laggan of Clachaig before emigrating to Australia in 1965, where he died in 1987.  His love of all things Scottish, and his interest in his home area, never left him and he spent much of the later years of his life researching and writing down whatever he recalled from his younger days and particularly what he had learned from older people in the community, many of them native Gaelic speakers.  In his notes he mentions a previous list compiled by Nethy schoolmaster John Mathieson but makes the point that, while this was helpful, John was a Skye man so that the Gaelic with which he was familiar differed from that spoken in Strathspey.

Photo by Niven Photography

Bill sent the list to Pat Mclean, another native Nethy man, who lived at Croftallan until his death in 2008, and Pat returned it with his own suggestions and some very pertinent comments, for example: 

“In our young days there was a folk memory which linked us to the past and we could use words and make allusions to people and events even if they had happened before our day.  Now, particularly in the last twenty years or so, the links have almost wholly gone and the new residents have, very many of them, no local connection at all, and the old names are forgotten, discarded or mispronounced…

“When I was a boy there were perhaps about twenty households in Tulloch, on the edge of which we lived, and my father spoke Gaelic in nearly all if not all of them.  Today there are less than half the number and Gaelic is known to none…

“The old Gaelic speakers were themselves, I have found, often a questionable source of the meanings of the names.  They had no formal teaching in the subject, which was of course discouraged throughout the Highlands, and so could not be expected to explain inflection and declension and stress.  Some would give an explanation which did not accord with the pronunciation.   Like the rest of us, they might have theories which they would stick to in the face of obvious improbability…”

My uncle’s list and Pat McLean’s corrections are both very long, so I shall quote some of the more familiar places:

• Craigmore:  Big Hill

• Carn na Loinne:  Hill of Beauty

• (Pat says the spelling should be Carn na Lainne and the meaning ‘Hill of the Enclosure’ – He claims there are the outlines of dykes on the side of the hill)

• Sgor Gaoithe (pronounced Scor Cooie): Ridge of the Wind

• Geal Charn (pronounced Ghee-all harn):  white hill

• Carn Bheadhair (pronounced Carn Vee-our):  Hill of the Adder

• Bynack Mhor and Bynack Beg (Bill says the big and small hill of the notch, but Pat believes the correct spelling is ‘Binneach’ and it means a woman’s kerchief, coming to a point at the top)

• Ben Macdhuie:  Bill says ‘Hill of the Black Pig’, but Pat says ‘Macduff’s Hill’, suggesting it belonged to the Earls of Fife, who owned the land east of the Grampians

• Carn Toul:  Barn-like Hill

• Coire Cas: steep corrie

• Coire an Lochan:  corrie of the small loch

• Coire an-t Sneachda:  corrie of the snow

• Cairngorm: Blue Mountain

• Meal a’ Bhuachaille (pronounced Mell Voochal):  the herds’ hill

• Craigowrie: the Goats’ Hill

• Carn Cnuich (pronounced Chruich):  the round hill, or knoll

• Nethy:  probably from a Pictish river god

• Dorback:  abounding in small trout

• Duack: little dark one

• Bridge of Brown (Pat gets very angry about the Anglicised spelling of this, which should be pronounced Broon, coming from the Gaelic word ‘bruthainn’ meaning hot or sultry)

• Loch Garten:  loch by the little enclosed field

• Loch Mallachaidh: loch of the Curse

• Loch Pityoulish: loch of the bright homestead

• Dirdhu: the black copse

• Lynebeg: small meadow

• Dell:  field

• Ballintuim:  homestead on the hill

• Muckerach: swine field

• Drum: ridge

• Toberaie:  the hind’s well

• Lainchoil: broad wood

• Laintachan: a place of small, flat fields

• Badneden: slope of the thicket

• Sleamore: big moor

• Blairgorm: blue moor

• Torniscar: hill of the fisherman (Apparently John Mathieson translated it as hill of the osprey, but both Bill and Pat are agreed that this is wrong)

• Croftallan: Meadow croft

• Balliemore: big homestead

• Culreach: speckled corner

• Balliefurth: homestead of the ferry

• Auchernack: field of ‘red water’ – a cattle disease

• Revack: little flat place

• Auchnagonalin: field of the Assembly – an old mustering ground

• Causer: causeway

• Ellanyeorn: island of the barley

• Lettoch:  a half davoch (a measure of land)

• Clachaig: stony place

• Allanroy: red meadow

• Lurg: slope or hillside

• Inshtomach: hilly field

• Coulnakyle; corner of the wood

• Balnagowan: township of the smiths

• Culvardie: corner of the meadow

• Rothiemoon:  road over the moor

• Mondhuie: dark peat moss

• Croftnagarn: rough croft

• Cullachie: at the corner of the field

• Ryvoan: calf shieling

-        Jane Macaulay