St. Patrick’s Day is still a week away, but I’m already seeing a lot of folks wearing the green. With spring-like temperatures today, it feels right to start thinking about ways to celebrate my Irish heritage. For those of you who will be celebrating by researching your Irish roots, here is a neat chart of Gaelic Words Commonly Used in Place Names that I found in Finding Your Irish Ancestors, by Dave Ouimette.
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I know I have some relatives from Ireland. My ggg was from Ballydribeen. I have been unable to locate that town on a map of Ireland that I purchased. What does Ballydribeen mean in Gaelic? I believe it was in the Killarney, Kilkenny area of Ireland. Thanks
Just GOOGLE Ballydribeen and you’ll come up with over 100 hits. Real estate listings, newspaper clippings,sports news, all in and around Killarney. The “bally” part of the word means “townland”, a very common word in community names, spelled a variety of ways (as in Baile above). The “dribeen” part doesn’t ring a bell at all. No doubt an Anglicized corruption of some Irish word I don’t recognize.
Have relatives from Ireland with last name of Vilas, get no responses to searches in any records, including message boards, only get town names.