Queen Méabh, the cairn, ‘Madge’s butter’ Meskan Meva/ Meascán Mhéabha “the lump (of rock) of Méabh” (see logainm.ie #1396738)
Date: 12/01/2026
Although women are mentioned reasonably frequently in Irish townland names, female figures from native Irish mythology rarely feature. The Cailleach Bhéarra “the hag of Beara”, as has been noted, features in the historical version of the townland name Downs/An Dún “the fort” (#55524) in Wicklow, namely Dún Chaillí Béarra “fort of the Hag of Beara”. The mythological female character most commonly featuring in placenames is Méabh, Queen of Connaught, opponent of Cú Chulainn and King Conchúr Mac Neasa in the Ulster Cycle of early Irish tales. Méabh gave her name to the parish and townland of Bovevagh/Boith Mhéabha “the (religious) hut of Méabh” (#1413310) in Derry, but otherwise she tends to be evoked in reference to geographical or manmade features such as mounds, forts and cairns. These features range in scale from Cnocán Mhéabha “Méabh’s hillock”, a small natural mound which formerly stood on the county border between Glenasmole in Dublin and Glencree in Wicklow, to the breathtaking Miosgan Meva/Meascán Mhéabha “Méabh’s lump (of rock)” (#112076) on the summit of Knocknarea in Sligo, a massive monument of stones now more commonly known as Queen Maeve’s Cairn in English.
Exactly the same name, Meascán Mhéabha, is behind the anglicized names of the cairns Meskanmave in Donegal (#1396738) and Misgaun Meve in Roscommon (#1410345). (There are two further examples in Donegal: see logainm.ie). The fact that mountain-top cairns in three different counties in the northwest should share the same name is striking. The precise reason for this phenomenon is now obscure, other than the fact that it clearly highlights Méabh’s importance in native Irish culture. In 1835, during the course of the first Ordnance Survey, a local tale with a wonderfully odd twist was noted in the Parish Namebook which purported to explain the name Meascán Mhéabha (#1396738) on Muckish Mountain in Donegal:
Maskon Mave is a large mound of stones. The English of it is Madge’s butter [meascán ime = a lump of butter]. A woman of the name of Madge was ordered as a punishment to carry these stones to the top of Muckish and there to build them in a heap together and after this exploit was performed she was to go to Connaught and there she was to get a lump of butter (or a Maskon) as large as her mound of stones. So the mound of stones is called Mascon Mave or Madge’s butter.
Descr.Rem.:AL
While it might appear on the face of it that this story merely shows once-sublime mythology reduced over centuries of retelling to a mundane folk-tale, it’s important to note that it preserves the fundamental Connaught element of the early sagas in which Méabh features. It also provides a good example of how even such a celebrated Gaelic personal name as Méabh could be discarded during the traumatic language shift, in this case having being spuriously identified with an entirely unrelated English name. (Madge is a diminutive of Margaret.) As regards the figurative correlation of a massive stone cairn with a lump of butter, a meascán (ime) would have been very familiar in the sense “a lump or pat (of butter)” in Gaelic Ireland (see eDIL s.v. mescán).
The fact that this story was noted in the Ordnance Survey Parish Namebook raises an important final point. If we were to rely on the gross distortion of the methodology of the Ordnance Survey presented in the famous play Translations, we would presume that in this case the clumsy local anglicization ‘Madge’s Butter’ would have been engraved on the official maps without question. But in truth, the Irish scholars employed in the Topographical Department of the Survey were steeped in native literature and culture and they operated with a remarkable level of support from the enlightened English officer who supervised the enterprise. As almost always happened, they ensured that the traditional Irish name of this feature was recorded on the Ordnance map for posterity — albeit in a spelling derived from English orthography — as Meskanmave.
(Conchubhar Ó Crualaoich & Aindí Mac Giolla Chomhghaill)