The concept of 'townlands' in Ireland is confusing to many people. They are sub-divisions of parishes and have a very ancient origin, probably denoting land ascribed to a family or sept by the clan chief. They still have a great importance in rural areas as part of a person's mailing address. Inchigeelagh parish has around 118 townlands varying enormously in size.

There is often difficulty in finding a particular townland mentioned in a document as the spelling can, and does, vary wildly. Illiteracy and the insistance of the British authorities upon English spelling, and worse still, the often erroneous translation of townland names into English has made it difficult at times to identify names mentioned in old books and records. As an example, even today, there are three totally different spellings in use daily for the townland that I live in: Eachros, Aharas and Augeris. Add to this that there are slight variations in spelling used at times for each of these and I guess that someone unfamiliar with the country could be totally defeated when trying to find me. Recently there has been an effort made in Gaeltachts to standardise spelling a little, which may eventually help.

The listing offers some typical English & Irish spellings of our townlands, many slight variations will be found. .

The map below only serves to give an overall view of the parish, please click on it for a full page view. Click on image again for a full size view. If you want then you can right click and download from the full page view.