Note 981 — Chapter X · LEARNING AND LANGUAGE. (continued 2)

Wood. Daire. The orig. name of Derry (or Londonderry) was daire Calgaig, the ‘wood of Calgach,’ or the ‘oak-wood of Calgach.’ Adamnan Latinises daire by ‘roboretum’ (Reeves’s ed., pp. 19, 160), and the contemporary glosses quoted by Zeuss (Gram. Celt. 8) gives it the same meaning; in later times the word was used to express any kind of wood. In the Book of Fermoy, for instance, we find itir daire ocus maigi ocus atha ocus line, ‘between woods and plains, and fords and pools’ (fol. 24, a 1).