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Message: <blockquote data-quote="davevikingr" data-source="post: 1304028" data-attributes="member: 69939">Great thread this - varied.On the Dublin-Clontarf thing - indeed there were Scandinavians on both sides and Irish on both sides - the Dublin side was probably more Scandinavian than Irish whilst Brian's side was more irish than Scandinavian.  Many of the Irish on the Dublin side were from the Kingdom of Leinster.  Indeed one of the most famous of the Vikings on that side, Earl (Jarl) Sigurd of Orkney was half Irish, his mother being a Leinster princess called Eithne, (allegedly also a witch!)On the Gannet thing it's good to know why the change from Sula to Morus occurred but it's a shame it wasn't the boobies who got the name change as Sula derives from Sulaire - the Gaelic name for Gannets - hence the folk name Solan goose.  (Although it may be possible that the Gaelic came from the 'latin' is suppose).Drummore is a Gaelic name meaning Big ridge (druim - ridge / mor - big,great).  Aber-prefixes in Scotland are indeed Pictish (and nothing to do with Swedish music at all) showing that Pictish and Welsh (from British) shared a common origin and were what they call p-celtic tongues (rather than q-celtic)  (Gaelic words beginning in a 'q' or 'k' sound like Ceann (head) begin with a 'p' in British tongues - penn).Esk is from both the Gaelic and British languages and means water - as in uisge in gaelic.Many river names are Celtic as well as many that are probably pre-Celtic.  The rivers Don, Esk, Derwent are Celtic.Could the Boobies be given the generic name 'mammaria' ?The origins of bird-names are interesting too - many 'Latin' being Greek in origin whilst the 'English' names come from all our languages, past and present.'Wheatear' was 'hvit-ars' i.e. white-arse.The Little Grebe in Gaelic is pog-ri-tom - meaning arse-foot!The words 'swan' and 'goose' are among the oldest words in our language and have parallels across the Indo-European language area from Ireland to India.</blockquote>

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