TOWNLAND TALES: All about the Mace

The English word ‘mace’ has several meanings – with and without a capital ‘M’. Mace with a capital M is a form of tear gas or a chain of supermarkets. Without the capital it can mean to attack, disable or spray with Mace.
A mace is also a heavy, usually ornamented, staff carried as a mark of authority. The one that springs to mind is that often carried by the honorary chieftain of, say, the O’Malley Clan. Mace-bearers are commonly seen in formal processions, ceremonies, or law courts.
Mace can also mean a metal-headed war-club, often spiked; a billiard cue; or a mallet used by a currier in dressing leather.
Yet another definition of mace is ‘a spice which is ground from the dried layer immediately within a nutmeg drupe and outside shell and kernel’.
The Irish word for mace is más, but the Irish-English dictionary does not define it in any way that corresponds with the English meanings outlined above, except for the tear-gas, Mace. According to my dictionary más means a ‘buttock; ham, thigh.’
One wonders what the meaning could be in a topographical sense, i.e., in placenames. If you believe Irish historian PW Joyce, más means ‘the thigh, a long hill’. Joyce expands his definition thus: “The word más (mauce), the thigh, is locally applied to a long low hill. It gives name to several places in the western counties, now called Mace.”
He goes on to list four places in Sligo (Masreagh), Donegal (Massreagh), Galway (Mausrevagh, grey hill) and Mausrower in Kerry, meaning ‘fat or thick hill’. Also, Mace Head, on the Galway coast.

Mayo’s Maces
In Mayo, we have at least eight separate townlands with the root word ‘mace’ in the name.
Close to Westport, there are the two townlands Mace North and Mace South in Aghagower Parish, in the barony of Burrishoole, lying either side of the Westport-Ballinrobe road, the R330. We have visited here previously in this column.
The terrain in both townlands could possibly be described as hilly, in a ‘long, low’ sense, with twin ‘high’ points of 62 metres and 64 metres in Mace North and a ‘high’ point of 97 metres in Mace South. However, there is nothing particularly ‘hill-like’ to catch the eye or constitute a hill in the general sense of this term.
Moving to the barony of Clanmorris, to the west of Knock in the parish of Kilcolman, there are three more Mace townlands, Mace Lower, Mace Middle and Mace Upper. Once again, this is quite flat countryside, though it rises to above 120 metres at Barnacarroll National School and the nearby Church of Our Lady, Barnacarroll, in Mace Upper.
Another few townlands, located near Belmullet in Erris, have the word ‘mace’ included in their placenames.
The first one, known in Irish as An Más, has the full name Macecrump in English. According to the Ordnance Survey Namebooks of 1838, Macecrump “contains 144a. 3r. 33p., of which 76a. are cultivated; the remainder is sandhills. [Situated] nearly 2½ miles west-north west of Belmullet. Bounded on the north and north west by Thoneamace and Cuclough, east and south by Curclough and Ardone and south west by the Atlantic Ocean. The property of W.H. Carter Esqr. Its boundaries are nearly parallel, straight lines running north east and south west for about 1½ miles.”
Tonamace, Tóin an Mháis, ‘the bottomland of An Más’, “contains 216a. 3r. 12p., of which 98a. are arable, 30 acres [are] pasture overflown by spring tides, and the remainder [comprises] sandhills. [Situated] 2½ miles north west of Belmullet. Bounded on the north by the north east extremity of Portnafrankagh and the townland of Curclough, east and south by Mace Crump, south west and west by the Atlantic Ocean. The property of W.H. Carter Esqr. and Miss Nash.”
In addition, there are two more townlands in the same area, called Tonamace Common and Macecrump Common. This is all flat countryside and does not exceed 34 metres in elevation.
I cannot conclude this look at ‘Mace’ townlands in Mayo without mentioning Masatiompan, Más an Tiompáin, a 762m mountain, located to the north of Mount Brandon on Kerry’s Dingle Peninsula. Translated as the ‘rump of the drum, hump or hollow’, this formidable conical peak is a challenge to access and climb, but the views on the coastal approach from Sauce Creek (from ‘sás’, a ‘trap or snare’) to the summit are spectacular. I mention it to highlight how it differs in shape from the Mayo ‘thighs’.

Dr John O’Callaghan is a mountain walk leader who has organised and led expeditions both at home and abroad. He has served on the board of Mountaineering Ireland and is currently on the Irish Uplands Forum board.