A confusion of Johns (Part I)
Eng. Johnstown from Ir. Baile Eoin, Baile Sheáin, Baile Sheoin, Baile Sheonac, Baile Sheonóid or Baile an tSeánaigh!
(see logainm.ie)
Date: 01/07/2025
As we saw last week, Eoin (Baiste), the Irish name for Saint John (the Baptist), is a pre–Anglo-Norman borrowing from Latin Joannes (see Gaelic Personal Names, D. Ó Corráin & Fidelma Maguire (1981) s.n. Eoin; see also D. Greene, Ériu 35 (1984)). It would be tempting to consider the possibility, therefore, that an Irish-language placename such as Ballyowen / Baile Eoin ‘the town(land) of (Saint) John’ (logainm.ie #53384), near Wellingtonbridge in Co. Wexford, must predate the Anglo-Norman invasion. The eponym is certainly Eoin ‘(Saint) John’, rather than the similar sounding native Irish name Eoghan: the townland contains a holy well named Saint John’s Well, and Saint John was also the patron of the church of the parish, in the adjacent townland of Ballylannan (see Logainmneacha na hÉireann IV: Townland Names of Co. Wexford, p.387). Typologically, however, it would be extremely unusual to find the structure ‘baile + saint’s name’ in a townland name of Irish origin, in contrast to the corresponding formation ‘saint’s name + -town’ in English coinages. One such English example is Johnstown near Naas in Co. Kildare (logainm.ie #1181). The earliest references, such as ‘Joneston’ (c 1280), do not tell us much; however, this placename in fact derives from a church dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, as is clear from 17th-century references to ‘Ecclesia S. Joannis Baptistae’, ‘Ville Sancti Joannis’ on a list of Co. Kildare churches. Note also, in passing, that the generic element baile ‘town(land)’ itself only really began to flourish in the 12th century (see Toner, ‘Baile: settlement and landholding in medieval Ireland’, Éigse 34 (2004)).
With all this in mind, it is far more likely that anglicized Ballyowen in Co. Wexford represents an Irish placename of an early Anglo-Norman coinage *(Saint) Johnstown ‘the town(land) of (the church of) Saint John’. This part of Co. Wexford was heavily colonized after the invasion but, as happened throughout the country, Irish remained the vernacular of the natives and was soon adopted by the descendants of the early settlers themselves (see C. Ó Crualaoich & K. Whelan, Gaelic Wexford 1550 – 1650, forthcoming; see also C. Ó Crualaoich, ‘Some evidence in Tudor Fiants, Calendar of Patent Rolls and Inquisitions for Irish among families of Anglo-Norman descent in county Wexford between 1540 and 1640’, Studia Hibernica 34 (2006–2007), pp.85–110). The recommended official Irish version of the townland name is therefore Baile Eoin ‘the town(land) of Saint John’, in recognition of its association with the church of Saint John the Baptist (see Placenames (Co. Wexford) Order – Draft 2016).
Why, then, is it more usual to find Baile Sheáin ‘the town(land) of Seán’ as the Irish version of Johnstown elsewhere in the draft placenames order for Co. Wexford, and in the placenames orders for other counties? Furthermore, why is the Irish form of Johnstown (logainm.ie #55501) near Arklow in Co. Wicklow Baile Sheonac ‘the town(land) of Seonac’, while Johnstown (logainm.ie #33579) in Co. Louth is Baile Sheoin ‘the town(land) of Seon’? And there are further ‘inconsistencies’: the Irish name of Johnstown (logainm.ie #9793) in the civil parish of Kilmichael in Co. Cork is Cill Sheanaigh; Saint Johnstown (logainm.ie #47647) in Co. Tipperary is Baile an tSeánaigh; and Johnstown (logainm.ie #38191) southeast of Kells in Co. Meath is Baile Sheonóid.
Of course, as is often the case, the Irish forms only seem problematic when viewed from the point of view of their English names! To begin with, Eoin (as found in Eoin Baiste, ‘Saint John the Baptist’) is not the only possible Irish-language equivalent to the English name John. In fact, the Biblical origins of Eoin (< Lat. Joannes) are probably not very well known to Irish-speakers, such is the strength of the equivalence of Irish Seán and English John in modern usage. But even that equivalence is not straightforward: Irish Seán does not derive directly from the English name John at all, but from its Anglo-Norman equivalent Jehan (see Ó Corráin & Maguire, s.n. Seán). Like many other Anglo-Norman names adopted by the Gaelic Irish, Seán became so popular that the townland names in which it occurs are simply too numerous to list here. Seán (< AN Jehan) was subsequently anglicized (or, at a push, ‘re-anglicized’) as John, as is clear from late medieval and early modern English documents (e.g. ‘John alias Shane O’Doeran’ [Seán Ó Deoráin], Inq. Lag. Car. I 66), further cementing the equivalence Seán = John in modern Irish-language usage. For this reason, when no evidence happens to survive for the local Irish form of a placename containing John, the official name uses the standard Seán, as in Johnstown → Baile Sheáin (logainm.ie #16671) in Co. Dublin.
However, in a number of cases, some very interesting evidence for the local Irish form of the placename does happen to come down to us. We will discuss some of this evidence next week, but not before making a brief mention of one of the more commonly occurring examples, Baile Sheoin ‘the town(land) of Seon’. Although listed as a variant of Seán (< AN Jehan) in some sources (e.g. Ó Corráin & Maguire, s.n. Seán), Seon – pronounced [ʃoːn] with a long o-vowel – is a direct Irish borrowing of Middle English John. For the most part, the two borrowings Seán and Seon were treated as very distinct names in Irish. (To be continued next week.)
(Conchubhar Ó Crualaoich & Aindí Mac Giolla Chomhghaill)