TOWNLAND TALES: John O’Callaghan visits a selection of Mayo’s 176 ‘Knocks’

KNOCK, or Cnoc, meaning ‘hill’, comes in at fifth place in the ‘top ten’ of prefix root-words in townland placenames in Co Mayo.
With a grand total of 176, the ‘Cnocs’ are exceeded only by Baile (townland), Ceathrú (quarter), Cluain (meadow), and Doire (Derry, meaning oak or thicket). There are more ‘Knocks’ than ‘Kills’, with Coill meaning ‘wood’ listed sixth on the list.

Fionn’s tomb?
ONE of the simplest names, Knockfin, Cnoc Finn, or ‘Finn’s Hill’, is in Oughaval parish, very close to Aghavale Cemetery, on the coastal West Road, between Westport and Louisburgh.
‘Finmacool’s Grave’ is shown there on the six-inch map. The adjective finn or fionn means ‘white, bright, lustrous’ and Fin or Finn is quite common in placenames. Without a pronounced form of Irish from the mouth of a local native speaker, it cannot be determined whether the hill’s name refers to the folkloric character Fionn Mac Cumhaill in this case.
Finmacool’s Grave is also mentioned in the 1838 Ordnance Survey Namebooks, and is described as follows: “Situated near the centre of Knockfinn townland. This grave is in a fort, and is nearly in its centre. It is covered with loose stones, at one end of which is a standing-stone, about 3 feet high and 8 inches broad, which is loose in the ground. The fort is almost of oval shape, is formed by loose stones, and is situated on the top of a cultivated hill.”
Knock Finn is also shown on Bald’s ‘Bogs of Mayo’ map of 1812 and also on his 1830 map of Mayo.
The surveyors and early placename specialists translated it as ‘Fair Hill’, and O’Donovan wrote: ‘It contains 96acres, and is situated in the north-east of the parish. There is in this townland an ancient fort, in which, it is said, Fionn Mac Cumhail is buried.’
In more recent times, in the excellent 2001 publication ‘Croagh Patrick, Co Mayo – archaeology, landscape and people’, a survey directed and edited by Leo Morahan, the structure in Knockfin is ‘possibly’ a megalithic tomb. In 2001 it was described as follows: ‘Located just to NE of the centre of a sub-circular univallate enclosure. The enclosure has all the appearances of a ringfort.’
The 2001 account continues with details of the dimensions of the site and concludes, somewhat disappointingly: “The Megalithic Survey (of Ireland) does not accept this site as a megalithic tomb. It suggests that the two rows of low upright stones form part of inner and outer facings of the south wall of a rectangular house site or small enclosure that measures about 8 metres squared.”
Further west of Knockfin, closer to Belclare, lie the twin townlands of Knockaraha East and Knockaraha West (Cnoc an Rátha Thoir/Thiar, ‘Hill of the Fort East/West’. There are small hills of no more than 32 and 34 metres in height in each of these two townlands. No official records of forts associated with either of them.
Due east of Westport town lies the townland of Knockranny, Cnoc Raithní, ‘Hill of the Ferns’. Coillte has developed a wonderful amenity of forest trails, riverside and woodland walks in Colonel’s Wood, up and around the ferny hill. This area, was formerly part of the Browne family estate and takes its name from a Colonel Browne.

Rock or log?
FARTHER afield, the poetic townland name of Knockavanloman, in Kilmeena, caught my attention.
The centre syllable of ‘van’ may mislead one into thinking of the word bean, ‘woman’, from the genitive form ‘bhean’, pronounced ‘van’. However, the accepted translation is Cnoc an Bheannlomáin, ‘Hill of the Branching Log,’ where ‘beannlomán’ is ‘branching log’. The word can be broken into beann meaning ‘prong, point (of various forked and pointed objects)’ and lomán ‘tree/branch stripped of its bark/leaves’. It lies in a small, (forked) cul-de-sac beside Cloonkeen (An Chluain Caoin, ‘The Quiet Meadow’) in Kilmeena parish.
I went there last week and the Coynes of Cloonkeen directed me to Reillys in Knockavanloman. Carlene Gildea, from Knocknarea in Sligo, lives there now with John Reilly, who introduced me to his mother, Irene, who lived there for most of her life and often pondered on the meaning of the townland name.
Situated between the dried-up Cross Lough and Coolbarreen Lough, Irene favours another translation of lomán – ‘a rock of which only the summit is exposed’, and having spent many years studying the local topography, the full description of ‘a low hill/summit with an exposed hilltop’ is her best translation.