Talk:Conmaicne

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Why a long I (í)?

They say that curiosity killed the cat…I was curious about why these articles use a long I in the name. The corresponding Irish language article does not and it doesn’t seem to fit with the etymology given on the page. Is there any good reason for this? At first I thought I had seen this somewhere, but maybe it was here! I’ve looked at quite a few of the cited sources now and none of them have a long I, e.g. Annals of the Four Masters, Foras Feasa ar Éirinn, O’Donovan’s The Topographical Poems of John O’Dubhagain and Giolla na Naomh O’Huidhrin, Knox’s The History of the County of Mayo, to the close of the sixteenth century and A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. Somehow this seems to have become the accepted form (& a lot of page renaming happened in 2019/20 to align with it) so I’ve tried to create a timeline of edits to figure out how we got here. It’s a bit long-winded, but I think it’s good to know people’s reasoning in choosing these names.

  • 1 July 2005 — Mac Duach moved Conmaicne Mara to Conmhaicne Mara
  • 8 July 2005 — Bastique moved Conmhaicne Mara back to Conmaicne Mara
  • 17 Aug 2009‎ — Fergananim moved Conmaicne Mara to Conmhaícne Mara (summary: add fada)
  • 17 Aug 2009 — Fergananim moved Conmaicne to Conmhaícne (summary: add fada)
  • 11 Sep 2009 — Fergananim moved page to Máenmaige (summary: correct name)
  • 25 Aug 2019 — Nmclough moved page Máenmaige to Conmaicne Máenmaige (summary: The Máenmaige were a branch of Conmaicne in descent and this is most common name form)
  • 25 Aug 2019 — Nmclough moved page Conmaicne Máenmaige to Conmhaícne Máenmaige (summary: Align spelling with Conmhaícne Mara (Connamara) article)
  • 26 Aug 2019 — Nmclough moved page Conmhaícne Máenmaige to Conmhaícne Mheáin (summary: The irish spelling is corrupted in Irish Annals; This spelling is consistent with related territories (i.e. Conmhaicne Mara, Connamara).)
  • 26 Aug 2019 — Nmclough moved page Conmhaícne Mheáin to Conmhaícne Mheáin Maigh (summary: All names should resolve to this accurate irish place name)
This last, in particular, seems like it might be ‘original research’. We shouldn’t be deciding what is “corrupt” in the annals. It’s unlikely that the element written maen/maon in the annals is related in any way to the modern word meán (Old Irish medón). Speculative and folk etymology is abundant in this area and we should be cautious about including them without very rigorous citations. Taken at face value, the word means ‘dumb’ not ‘middle’. A quick series of searches shows that M(h)eáin Maigh leads ultimately only back here; Maenmag/Maenmaige/Maenmhaighe leads to a small number of academic articles.
  • 26 Aug 2019 — Nmclough moved page Conmaicne Annaly to Conmhaícne Angaile (summary: Align spelling with other Conmaicne articles and Irish spelling, i.e. Conmhaícne Mara (Connamara) article)
  • 26 Aug 2019 — Nmclough moved page Cluain Conmaicne to Cluain Conmhaícne (summary: Redirect to correct irish spelling)
  • 26 Aug 2019 Cenel Luachán created by Nmclough (still linked on this page as Conmhaícne Cenel Luacháin)
  • 26 Aug 2019 — Nmclough moved page Cenel Luachán to Conmaicne Luchan (summary: Align article spelling with all Conmhaícne articles, i.e. the Conmaice Mara (Connamara) article)
  • 26 Aug 2019 — Nmclough moved page Conmaicne Luchan to Conmhaícne Luacháin (summary: Align spelling with other Conmaicne articles .. i.e. Conmhaícne Mara (Connamara) spelling)
  • 26 Aug 2019 — Nmclough moved page Conmhaícne Luacháin to Conmhaícne Cenel Luacháin (summary: Expand the name irish spelling)
  • 23 Mar 2020 — Nmclough moved page Conmhaícne Cenel Luacháin to Cenel Luacháin (summary: Another name for these peoples)
  • 8 Sep 2019 — Nmclough moved page Conmaicne Cuile Tolad to Conmhaícne Cúile Tuired (summary: redirect english to gaelic spelling)
  • 8 Sep 2019 — Nmclough moved page Conmhaícne Cúile Tuired to Conmhaícne Cúile Tolad (summary: Tolad is more a common (but heavily corrupted) spelling)
  • 8 Sep 2019 — Nmclough moved page Conmhaícne Cúile Tolad to Conmhaícne Cúile Tuireadh (summary: Finally, for main page, align spelling with Cath Maige Tuired)
  • 9 Sep 2019 — Nmclough moved page Conmhaícne Cúile Tuireadh to Conmhaícne Cúile Tolad (summary: over redirect: Align spelling with MacNeill)
  • 9 Sep 2019 — Nmclough moved page Conmhaícne Cúile Tolad to Conmhaícne Cúile Tuireadh (summary: over redirect: Stokes says "Magh Tuireadh"; O'Cuiv say "Muigh Tuiredh" - so Tuireadh)
  • 9 Sep 2019 — Nmclough moved page Conmhaícne Cúile Tuireadh to Conmhaícne Cúile Tuiredh (summary: Tuiredh is defined by http://edil.qub.ac.uk/42381 not Tuireadh)
  • 1 Apr 2020 — Nmclough moved page Conmhaícne Cúile Tuiredh to Conmhaícne Cúile (summary: Correct simplified name)
  • 1 Apr 2020 — Nmclough moved page Conmhaícne Cúile to Conmhaícne Cuile (summary: Final form)
  • 1 Apr 2020 — Nmclough moved page Conmhaícne Cuile to Conmaicne Cuile (summary: Final English form.)
  • 10 Sep 2019 — Multiple moves by Nmclough → Cenéoil Dubáin → Conmhaícne Cenél Dubáin → Conmaicne Cenel Dubain → Conmaicne Cenéoil Dubáin → Conmhaícne Cenéoil Dubáin → Conmaicne Dúna Móir → Conmhaícne Dúna Móir (edit summary: final true spelling)
More original research? Dúna is fairly obscure; a rare genitive of dún (more commonly dúin in Old Irish). The Dictionary of the Irish Language cites three occurrences: Laws V 302 LVI, Silva Gadelica p. 269 l. 12 & Trans. of the Ossianic Society IV p. 198 l. 27.
The use with the Conmaicne might have originated with O’Donovan’s The Tribes and Customs of Hy-Many where there’s a brief mention of Conmaicne Duna Moir. This is then quoted in Royal Inauguration in Gaelic Ireland C. 1100-1600: A Cultural Landscape Study in a ‘corrected’ form: Conmhaicne Dúna Móir.
O’Donovan’s The Topographical Poems of John O’Dubhagain and Giolla na Naomh O’Huidhrin contains a reference to Conmaicne of Dunmor in a note (#320, pg. xlii). The (Irish language) poem the note refers to uses Conṁaicne Duine móir (another variant genitive).

Other names used in the article

  • Conmaicne na Gaillimhe, Conmaicne Mhaigh Eo, Conmaicne Ros Comáin.
While these are fine titles in Irish, do they convey useful information to the average English speaker? I think Conmaicne Galway, Conmaicne Mayo and Conmaicne Roscommon would be more appropriate.
  • Conmaicne Meic Oirbsen Máir, Conmhaícne Conmaicne Sléibe Formaile, Conmhaícne Conmaicne Maigh Rein, Conmaicne Maigh Nissi.
Need checking for widespread usage, but these look like old forms which is often how these groups are named.

General principles

Wikipedia policy is to use the commonly used English name, but that’s not always very clear in this subject area. For ancient tuatha it’s common to use the name as it appears in the annals, usually an Old Irish form where lenition is not marked on several letters, including M (Conmaicne rather than Conmhaicne or Conṁaicne), but when referring to later divisions often the qualifier is the anglicised word (e.g. Dunmore rather than an (?) old genitive Dúna Móir or a modern genitive Dhún Mór).

A further complication is that many of the easily available sources are from the 17th–19th centuries and their choices of nomenclature can sometimes be very idiosyncratic, prescriptive and antiquarian. There are also usually several variant forms to choose from.

Conmhaícne

It seems clear to me that this form is plain wrong and should be removed. It doesn’t fit with the word’s etymology and I can’t find it in any source apart from those derived from Wikipedia.

On the other hand, here is the entry for maicne in RIA’s Dictionary of the Irish Language and the form conmaicne appears under a number of headwords. The modern form conmhaicne appears in Ó Dónaill’s Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla, but with a more general meaning (Hist: Kindred, tribe, people.), though I don’t think this word is in common use apart from references to the peoples so called. There are only 4 occurrences in Nua-Chorpas na Gaeilge and none have that meaning.

Both conmaicne and conmhaicne are found multiple times in RIA’s Historical Irish Corpus/Corpas Stairiúil na Gaeilge but conmhaícne never appears.

Entries in O’Donovan’s edition of the Annals tend to use conmaicne in earlier entries and conmhaicne in later ones.

We probably should be using one of these two forms, but it might take a bit more work to figure out which is in current usage. ⚜ Moilleadóir ✍ 14:37, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

As I was tagged here for something I did decades ago, I might as well mention that there is a guide to style for Irish names and topics, particularly with regard to English and Irish language spellings. Something that, if it doesn't clear this particular matter up, should at least include participants and watchers of that page. (See WP:IRISH) Bastique ☎ call me! 03:00, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
Apologies, I rarely login to wikipedia. Your research is convincing. I'm in favor of simplification and maicne looks authoritative. I may have followed prior pattern. I believe this was corrected in June 2023. ~nmclough Nmclough (talk) 22:31, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 14 March 2026

– The reasoning behind these moves is explained at talk:conmaicne#Why a long I (í)?, there has never been an accent on the i (í) in Old Irish, Modern Irish or in literature. An edit by a user in 2009 (anecdotally I have seen linguistic inaccuracies in different Irish history pages originally added by that user over the years) has lead to these misspellings across Wikipedia (though correct spellings are more common by insource searches) and copy cat sites.

The current articles and redirects should be moved and I strongly believe that the resulting redirects should be deleted to avoid editors linking to them and furthering the misinformation. Personally I think a lot of the redirects should skip being moved and just be deleted (some articles have up to 6, 7, and 8 redirects most not addressed here)

There are only 38 articles with 'ícne' (which accounts for Conmhaícne and Conmaícne) according to this insource search and only one template so I plan on completely replacing any links to the current misspelled titles and instances of Conm(h)aicne in the articles myself after they are moved.

For some of them I have removed the h after the m in the new title so that the title is in a consistent orthography (Conmaicne Cenéoil Dubáin and Conmhaicne Cenéoil Dubháin work but Conmhaicne Cenéoil Dubáin mixes periods).

Besides the plethora of sources in support of the unaccented spelling being the only historical and correct form (e.g. the eDIL, corpuses, annals, literature), the accented spelling don’t make sense morphology or chronologically.

  • Conm(h)aicne is formed from the name Conm(h)ac + a suffix denoting a tribe that palatised the -c, this wouldn’t result in a diphthong and shows that the editor did not have much historical linguistic knowledge.
  • An Old Irish "*Conmhaícne" */ˈkonˌβ̃aːikʲnʲe/ would become modern Conmhaoicne definitely not Conmhaicne and wouldn’t be spelt Conmhaícne while Conmhaicne /ˈkonˌβ̃akʲnʲe/ explains the modern form and further supports that the editor hadn’t knowledge in historical linguistics.

Addressing this misspelling is only part of the solution some of these titles will likely need to be discussed further (e.g. 'C. Dúna Móir' doesn’t seem plausible it should be 'C. Dúna Mhóir'/'C. Dúin Mhóir' and the 'M(h)eá(i)n (Maigh)' spellings (if their not completely made up) being conflated with an older 'Máenmaige' (which would yield 'Maonmhaí' in modern Irish).) Saighneánach (talk) 19:06, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Ping @Moilleadóir, @Nmclough, @Marcas.oduinn, @Silmethule, @Mahagaja, @Linguoboy, @DomhanIlteangach who were in the discussion above or I recognised from the page history and talk:Old Irish. Saighneánach (talk) 19:14, 14 March 2026 (UTC)
Certainly the spurious fada over the i needs to be removed. I'm not thrilled that some use Old Irish spelling and others use Modern Irish spelling, but as long as there are always redirects from whichever spelling the page name isn't, I suppose it's not a huge deal. —Mahāgaja · talk 19:46, 14 March 2026 (UTC)
Obviously, I’m in favour of removing the spurious í so my vote if for these moves. The question of the form without the accented letter should be considered separately. Wikipedia standards would call for a literature survey of each name, but it’s maybe unlikely that someone will do that. My guess is that the Old/Middle Irish forms, i.e. the ones in the annals, are the ones used, but I’m no expert here & as Mahāgaja pointed out, redirects are needed. —⚜ Moilleadóir ✍ 04:51, 15 March 2026 (UTC)
@Mahagaja, @Moilleadóir I think consistency between articles is ideal too. I also agree that eradicating the inaccurate fada and determining the ideal form for each of the groups are separate issues.
However, I think this is a good opportunity to kill two birds with one stone so I just edited the move destinations for all non-redirect articles (and some redirects), already currently being moved, to use the Old Irish (Conmaicne) forms as they are the easiest to find attentions for in general.
  • (Assuming that these moves all go ahead,) The only non-redirect using 'Conmhaicne' will be 'Conmhaicne Mheáin Maigh' which needs to discussed further anyway. I have changed the proposed new title for this aswell so there will be no more articles starting with Conmhaic.
  • I changed the destination for 'Conmhaícne Dúna Móir' to 'Conmaicne Dúin Móir' since 1) period consistency and 2) it’s the only actual string of 'Conmaicne + [form of Dunmore]' I can find (see at the logainm historical forms section for Dunmore).
  • I also changed 'C. Ceara' and 'C. Anghaile' 'C. Mheáin Maigh' to 'Conmaicne Cera and Angaile and Máenmaige' respectively.
I will tidy up the redirects after this wave of moves goes through: I’ll create some, though, most of the proposed Conmaicne forms have Conmhaicne redirects already; I’ll request deletion for others; and from what I can find it seems several of these groups/territories are never referred to as 'Conm(h)aicne + [name]' but I’ll address this in another section on this talk page. Saighneánach (talk) 14:12, 15 March 2026 (UTC)
I welcome this review. On gawiki, all Conmhaicne pages were translated from enwiki. Within the text, Old Irish versions are spelt with aí, which I can change. All page titles are in (Early) Modern Irish, listed here for overall review:
Marcas.oduinn (talk) 08:32, 16 March 2026 (UTC)
I do not know a lot about these topics but from what I can gather:
  1. The original revision of the now Conmhaícne Mheáin Maigh article described Trícha Máenmaige (a trícha cét of the Uí Máine), all sources I can find support this,(link) it seems a single editor is responsible for connecting it to the Conmaicne and restructuring the article. I have changed the proposed title here to Máenmag as this is definitely an accurate territory name.
    • The Modern Irish term is Maonmhagh (link, link (page 161), link, link); the second link says it’s interchangeable with Magh Maoin with 'maoin' treasure. It’s definite not Meáin Maigh, the first element is 100% not meán (which historically was medon) and máen could only really give modern maon
  2. Definitely correct form
  3. Looks sound grammatically but I don’t think this term is actually used, I’m 99% that this is original research and not worth an article and that the current enwiki article should be merged into Annaly or deleted (I'm going to bring up this in a new section after these moves), gawiki should do the same.
  4. Again sound grammatically but I don’t think this term is actually used, I’m 99% that this is not worth an article and the current enwiki article should be merged into Carra (barony) or deleted, gawiki should do the same. The Carra form is definitely an anglicisation.
  5. I’d say no lenition per C. Mara, C. Cúile, etc.
  6. Seems like there is no standard for lenition with a lack of lenition being more common at least historically,(5) but since it’s a proper noun lenition makes sense.
  7. I'd say Cúile is more likely since the fadas in half of the reference I can find. I feel fairly certain that Coille is wrong (I can find absolutely no evidence for it), Patrick Woulfe gives Conmhaicne Cuile (note no lenition; but fadas are omitted in all entries so it doesn’t help in that regard). Cúile is probably a better fit see these eDIL entries for potential meanings. Here’s the Logainm historical logs but they’re so inconsistent. The extra Tolad element seems to tend to be omitted and even when it’s included it is vary variable in form so I think it’s best to leave it as something mentioned briefly in the text.
  8. It seems that Conmaicne should be removed from this title as I can only find attentions of Cenél Luacháin and Patrick Woulfe calls them 'Cineal Luachain' (but all entries are missing fadas) so it should be just Cineál Luacháin without Conmhaicne.
I hope this info and the links are helpful. Saighneánach (talk) 18:55, 16 March 2026 (UTC)
That's great work, thank you, I'll go through them one-by-one myself for gawiki... but not to forget about enwiki, I know the same question was being asked by... oh! 'twas yourself! Marcas.oduinn (talk) 12:05, 25 March 2026 (UTC)
A note on máen -> mao(i)n. In FGB, [ maoin is indeed 'gift' or 'wealth', but maon is 'dumb' (can't speak). But the weight of your references must mean that 'maon' is correct. Marcas.oduinn (talk) 16:52, 25 March 2026 (UTC)
The page ga:Trícha Máenmaige already exists. I propose then to rename "ga:Conmhaicne Mheánmhaigh" to "Tríocha Maonmhaighe" ('Tríocha' of Maonmhagh), how does that sound? Marcas.oduinn (talk) 17:09, 25 March 2026 (UTC)
Regarding the first element, (I feel like there was another link but) this associates it with being derived from a given name (which would probably come from the sense mute).

While the form is theoretically sound, I can only find a single attestation for "Trícha Máenmaige" that is not a dodgy online site which is fairly evidently based on Wikipedia (the reference I can find is the enwiki article’s only reference which apparently features Trícha Máenmaige twice but also Máenmag four times). So, the only title that'd make sense to me is Maonmhagh. Though, if you prefer "Trícha Máenmaige" then "Tríocha Maonmhaighe" would obviously work, though I imagine there would be lenition in this case, i.e. "Tríocha Mhaonmhaighe"? (Also would this pre-reform spelling or "… M(h)aonmaí" be more appropriate?) Saighneánach (talk) 19:21, 25 March 2026 (UTC)
I haven’t participated in many moves before so IDK how well moves and deletions can be addressed in one but ideally, for whoever administrates this:
  • please delete the resulting redirects from these moves they are all misspellings that are not in use and keeping them will do more damage than whatever links they break (if any since many were never used) in revision histories.
  • all pages that have unspecified new names should just be deleted, they are misspellings that will not be used and them being kept will do more damage than whatever links they break (if any since many were never used) in revision histories.
  • two pages need to be merged, I will likely have carried this out already and I’ll reply to this comment when I have.
Saighneánach (talk) 14:12, 15 March 2026 (UTC)
In terms of whether an article is notable enough, it’s probably worth ga:wiki following en:wiki, but for names I don’t think it’s that simple. en:wiki has to follow the most common form used in sources, but I think ga:wiki is free to follow Modern Irish rules and give the older form in the article. Some of these no doubt do have lenition, it’s just not marked. ⚜ Moilleadóir ✍ 04:40, 17 March 2026 (UTC)
Sorry I’m not confidently sure what this comment is in reference to (my fault bc I keep adding and changing stuff):
  • Any redirects I have down for deletion are misspellings (specifically the ones with í, I’m going to clean up the others next) and genuinely made up names which don’t relate to lenition so I am pretty sure it’s not those?
  • This probably isn't about using the Old Irish forms being proposed as the base forms on en wiki?
  • I completely agree that ga wiki should follow modern Irish rules, I hope I haven’t implied otherwise, all of my replies to Marcas Ó Dúinn above where in relation to the modern forms (with lenition).
    • Ah, is this referring to grammatical lenition in the term following Conmhaicne (e.g. Conmhaicne Dúin Mhóir vs Conmaicne Dhúin Mhór, Conmhaicne Mara vs Conmhaicne Mhara) on ga wiki? I agree that it feels like they should be lenited as proper nouns. However, there are only 4 groups/places (with have an article already) that actually use/are ever referred to with Conmhaicne in there name and:
      • Conmhaicne Mara: is never lenited even in modern sources using modern orthography (and there is evidence for the lack of lenition historically since its Connemara not Connevara?).
      • Conmhaicne Cúile: has variable lenition but it gets more consistent over time
      • Conmhaicne Dúin Móir / Conmhaicne Cinéal Dubháin: I can’t find any good evidence for this having a coherent modern forms so the lenition is up for interpretation
      • Cluain Chonmhaicne: this does often have lenition marked so I guess it works
      • (There’s also Conmhaicne Réin which can’t be lenited.)
  • Personally, I’d lean in favour of no lenition on ga wiki by analogy with Conmhaicne Mara (by far the most commonly mentioned), but I do think it’s up for interpretation.
Saighneánach (talk) 13:42, 17 March 2026 (UTC)
[ ahaaahaha, in the context, this is gently ironic: Ó Duinn, not Ó *Dúinn :) ] Marcas.oduinn (talk) 12:36, 25 March 2026 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn’t even notice. It think it must have been bc I was typing Dúin Mhóir, etc., so much. I remember that I wasn’t sure whether it would be appropriate to alter the username or not, I guess I should have played it safe. Saighneánach (talk) 13:19, 25 March 2026 (UTC)
All distinctive info has been merged into the Barony articles. Saighneánach (talk) 15:24, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

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