[From A Manx Scrapbook]

CHAPTER IV

THE PARISH OF ANDREAS.

Two factors, the lack of channels in the shoal water of her low, unbroken coast and her broad belt of curragh land, have combined to isolate Andreas. Without an industry save the basic one of agriculture, her dwellings are farm-houses and their attendant cottages, and the modest cluster of buildings round her church is her only attempt at a village. After the Curragh was partly drained and crossed by causeways the railway negatived the advantage by ignoring the parish, along with Jurby and Bride. Motor-buses have lately approximated the country-side to its metropolis Ramsey ; but the three parishes comprised in the Northern Plain should still be richer in immaterial relics of the past than the rest of the Island. I have not endeavoured to forestall the intrepid explorer of these remote regions.

Cashtal Ree Gorry (O.S. map), " King Orry's Castle," is a spot on the cliff-edge at Balladuggan. The original Blue Point here is no longer a saliency, the name having receded Eastward with the eroded coast-line, and the earthwork has fallen before the same attack. It had a trifle more of legendary right to its title than its namesake in Maughold, since it is near the Lhane, the fabled landing-place of King Orry. Indeed, the soundings here show that at some former period the Lhane Mooar met the sea farther North than it does to-day, and opposite this point, which itself is sometimes said to have been the King's actual landing-place. From this it may be concluded that the sea now covers the spot to which was first attached the legend of his disembarkation.

The Buggane (probably for Brooghane, " Little Bank ") is an old ring-fort on the Lagagh Mooar, concerning which the O.S. Name Books state that the wall, then (in 1869) much dilapidated, formed a circle of about ninety feet in diameter and averaged three feet in height. There is another hillock of the same name on Ballanayre, German.

Keeill Tushtagh, perhaps " Silent Church," Gaelic tosdach, is South of Smeale. " In cultivating the ground a few years ago the remains of a small building of earth and stones was removed. The site is still traceable and the track of the fence strongly marked. Graves have been found within this fence."-(O.S. Name Books, 1869.) Near here is a well-known " Fairy-hole " similar to that at the Butt Wooar, Lonan, q.v.

Knocketholl, otherwise Knock-y-tholt, " Hill of the Barn," is on the treen of Ballasteen, otherwise Ballahestine.

Gilcaugh (O.S. map) probably means " Reedy Place," from giolc, reed. But the adjectival postfix augh can mean both " a place of " and " a thing like." In the latter sense the word gilcagh was applied to Irish Round Towers and derivatively to their sites and localities. Hence, e.g., the parish of Guilcaugh in Co. Waterford, and a hill called Cuilcach in Cavan, which was the Inauguration Mount of the Maguires.-(Joyce.)

Lag ny Funáney or Fundáney is a seamen's name for a sandy-bottomed anchorage off the coast between Gob y Gurrum (Blue Point) and The Rue (ruadh, headland), the Rue Point of the maps. Fundáney is perhaps a corruption of fundalyn, folds, and refers to a landmark ; lag, a hollow, is commonly understood to mean an anchorage also. A place of the same name is described in a detached fragment of 17th-century manuscript as being " a vale near the shore " in Kirk Bride.

Lag ny Farrane, " Hollow, or Anchorage, of the Spring," lying off the junction of the Andreas and Jurby coasts, is of a similar character to Lag ny Fundáney.

Lough Rushinagh, occurring among the names of Andreas intacks in the first Manorial Roll, is interesting as embodying the word rushen, meaning wood, brushwood.

Thalloo Curragh, " Curragh Land," was the former name of land now comprised in Ballachurrey, which latter name is said to be a comparatively modern coinage.

Among the Field-names on Braust are Cronk Vet, " Bet's Hill " ; Bull ny Baar, " Place of the Road ; " Cronk Bedn, " Light-coloured Hill." On Ballaghaue are Booilley Vedn and Booilley Vooay. Though not of interest in themselves, they are examples of the type of name which here and on many other farms has been replaced by English names.