by Eoghan Ó Mhartaín
I've always regarded the Irish language as only being of cultural and historical value. However, having recently stumbled across the old Irish meaning for the very common place name "The Derries", I now realise that by not speaking Gaelic we have lost a valuable connection with our land. The Derries was the name given to a group (or islands) of oak tree stumps found in bogs. This comes from a reprint of a book originally printed in 1844 which itself refers to an earlier work by surveyor David Aher from 1814. It is not known whether the name was expressive of the existing condition of the bog or a traditional remembrance passed down through the generations from when there once was an oak wood that flourished in the bog.
This brings me to Derrybrien. The official Irish name for Derrybrien is Daraidh Braoin which could mean the wet oak wood or the leaking oak wood or perhaps the last part refers to the surname Braoin or O'Brian. However, if Derry refers to the usage popular in early 1800s Ireland, then Derrybrien might actually mean the wet bog or the dripping bog. Braonach means dripping or wet.
In light of this interpretation, it would have come to no surprise to anyone in a Gaelic speaking Ireland, that building a large industrial sized wind farm in the hilly and peaty regions of Derrybrien or "Wet Bog" would have ended up in disaster as the destructive 2003 landslide proved to be.
More recently, the landslide that occurred in Meenbog would have been equally as foreseeable as the name means "soft mountain pasture".
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