Some cool Shannon Lee images:
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Image by e7onions23
Camera work: Lee
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Image by e7onions23
Why so serious?
Camera work: Lee
CLOONAMEEHAN – The Owenmore River
Image by Fergal Claddagh
The Owenmore river runs near the ancient ruins of the Dominican Priory at Cloonameehan. The priory at Toombeola was also built on the banks of a river Owenmore – though not the same one.
Owenmore is an approximation of the Irish words Abhann Mór and means, simply, Big River.
Abhann is of course a common enough word in Irish; the Sean Abhann or Shannon in English means Old River and the Donn Abhann is approximated as Donau into German or Danube in English. It means Brown River
Abhann is also to be found in the English placenames such as Starford-on-Avon. Another word for a river is Lea and refers to a river flowing slowly through a meadow (as above). This word is also to be found in Irish as Laoi – the name of Cork’s river is of course the River Lee – or the River River! Placemanes lose their charm when they get translated sometimes. It’s a bit like a Scot threatening to strike you with his fierce sounding Claymore. Claymore is approximation of Claimh Mór and loses its awsomeness when a Scot shouts ; "watch out or I’ll strike you with my Big Sword!"
Now back to rivers ; Laoi in Irish is also used as a word for a soft song. The Celtic origin of the word might well be the stem of the German Leid for a song and also the (obsolete) word lay in English for a song.