Blair Collection > Celtic gleanings, or, Notices of the history and literature of the Scottish Gael

LECTURE II. 61
another nothing was more common than carry-
ing the names of their former villages and town-
ships along with them, and applying them to
localities in their more recent locale. The
Grants, upon removing from Loch Ness-side to
the valley of the Spey, transferred many of
their former names, and applied them to the
townships there. And this practice is common
to all nations. America is studded with Euro-
pean names. There is hardly a place in the old
country whose name is not applied by some
ardent admirer to some settlement in the New
World ; so that one finds himself among Lon-
dons, Edinburghs, Dublins, Parises, Yorks, in-
numerable. How can it be accounted for that
no such thing took place in connection with
the Irish colonization of Scotland ? Even in
Kintyre and the Island of Islay — both of them
portions of the country of the Scottish Gael,
within sight of the Irish coast — we discover no
appearance of mere Irish topography. "Sliabh,"
in Ireland, is " Beinn" in Scotland ; both sig-
nifying a *' hill." The name " Uisge," or " Esk"
(water), so frequently applied to a stream in
Scotland, very rarely, if ever, occurs in Ireland.
We have but comparatively few " Ballys" as
compared with Ireland. There is hardly an
" Inver " in all Ireland : one, it is said. In