DETAILS OF about 2,300 County Wexford townland names are highlighted in the fourth instalment of a book launched recently by Minister of State Seán Kyne at the National Library in Dublin.

‘Logainmneacha na hÉireann IV: Townland Names of Co. Wexford / Ainmneacha na mBailte Fearainn, Co. Loch Garman’ presents the results of comprehensive research conducted by the Placenames Branch of the Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs.

The primary remit of the Branch is to establish the official Irish forms of the placenames of Ireland.

The first instalment of the Logainmneacha na hÉireann series, published in 1990, presented brief explanations of the placenames of County Limerick.

The second and third instalments, published in 2007 and 2010 respectively, provided detailed scholarly discussion on a selection of the placenames of County Tipperary.

Analysis on the placenames of County Wexford has now been presented and recorded for posterity thanks to researchers including Wexford town man Conor Crowley, who worked on this newly-launched book.

The work reveals the wealth of historical information which can be gleaned from placenames when carefully and systematically researched.

It presents, for example, an insight into how the Irish language became the vernacular among Norse and Anglo-Norman settlers throughout most of the county.

Many apparently Yola placename elements, as the research revealed, are not unique to south Wexford as they have been identified in other Anglo-Norman placenames in other parts of ‘the Pale.’

The two parts of the research are priced at €25 each and are available from Government Publications, from bookshops in Wexford and Dublin or directly from the Placenames Branch at [email protected].

Read more in the Wexford Echo.