townland
1
8.4
- noun
- Irish
- Long before recombinant DNA was dreamed of, Yeats wrote a poem with the title "The Happy Townland": PREFORMATTED TABLE
Examples
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The broad white sweep of glittering beach and Dun an Oir, the townland of gold, of death.
Fiction book (1997) -
In a townland near where I lived, Caherfinsker, Athenry, County Galway, a deadly feud had continued for generations between the families of two small farmers.
Academic text (2000) -
The neighbors had never knocked on the front door of Mossgrove or any other house in the townland.
Fiction book (1997) -
It lasts for three days only, during which you must keep Alice within the townland of Wakewood.
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I have begun some limited research in this area, but that interest also prompted me to seek and receive a NEH grant for a summer seminar for school teachers, "Famine Irish Immigrants and their Children." In this summer seminar, we will go to Ireland to trace particular families from a specific townland in Ireland to specific towns or city neighborhoods in the United States, drawing heavily on research methods in family and community history.
Academic text (2002) -
After all, when in 1709 landless settlers in Marlborough asked their betters to include them in further divisions of the townlands, their betters refused.
Academic text (1995) -
All year the flax-dam festered in the heart of the townland; green and heavy-headed flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.
Blog text (7) -
That couldn't be said about Mikeen, son of Mike, that he'd let his donkey roam the townlands like a tinker’s ass.
Fiction book (1997) -
The grey, reeking ruins of Dun an Oir, a townland transformed into a slaughterhouse as Spaniards sheltered hopelessly among its cabins.
Fiction book (1997) -
The neighbors had never knocked on the front door of Mossgrove or any other house in the townland.
Synonyms
26
1.8
A small area of land that someone owns or uses
18
4.0
A piece of land usually measured in acres and used for farming or building
12
3.0
A small piece of ground for growing plants or building on
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
The word townland comes from the two English words town ('settlement' or 'village') and land ('area of ground'). In Ireland this name was used for a small piece of countryside linked to a nearby settlement, so today a townland is a traditional small division of land with its own name.