Note 155 — LAKE DWELLINGS. PART I. (continued 3)
Reading edition
W. F. Wakeman offers a suggestion in connection with the name Balhu; he states that Joyce in his Irish Names of Places translates the name of the Fermanagh town of Lisbellaw, Lis-bel-atha, the lis of the ford mouth. Now, there was no river ever there, consequently there could be no “ford mouth.” There is certainly a lis or ford in the neighbourhood, but the little stream which now drives the woollen mill of Lisbellaw flows through a deep cutting communicating with Loch Eyes, and which was made only in recent times. The natural outlet from the loch ran, and still runs, in a northerly direction, and cannot have influenced the naming of Lisbellaw, as its course commences at a distance of some miles from the village. “The name Lisbellaw seems to invite investigation. Could it be translated ‘the fort or lis of Balhu,’ even as Dunleary is ‘the fort or dun of Laighaire’”?