Township: Gott

Map Reference: Gott f

Name Type: loch

Meaning: Gott | This name was mapped by Blaeu onto an island in the loch here. After partial drainage to expose peat banks in the nineteenth century, this is now a peninsula jutting into the north side of the loch. A turfed shelf above the beach west of the Kirkapol chapels has been recognised as an archaic shoreline in modern times, but in all probability not as such in the medieval period. The loch was mapped by Blaeu (1654) as Loch Kirkabol, by Turnbull (1768) as Loch Kirkapoll, and by the Ordnance Survey (1878) as Loch Riaghain (see Riadhain below).

With only one sixteenth-century documentary form, any derivation is skating on thin ice. Cameron proposed Hyring and Eirneal had a common root (MacDougall 1937, 80), but it has not been possible to reconstruct this. Hyring appears to be a Gaelic construction with the unusual word ScG aoireann: 'This is not found in the dictionaries of Dwelly, MacLennan or Watson, but is in common use among Gaelic speakers [particularly in Argyll] to mean raised beach.' (Márkus 2012, 521; Cox 2002, 277) From the form of the definite article, na h-, it was used here as a feminine noun.
There is an Errin Butt on Bute (Márkus 2012, 460), a Suil Earan in Uig, and a Port na h-Aoirinn on Jura (SP); Peighinn nan Aoireann, South Uist (Canmore ID 126042); Taigh na h-aoireann in Bute (Márkus 2012, 460) and Row na Heren on Arran (Márkus 2012, 461).
However, the name Loch Riaghain has been reconstructed from ON hrygginn 'the ridge' (see Riadhain), and it is possible that Hyring is derived from Heið-hrygginn 'the heath ridge', which is more topographically appropriate here than 'raised shoreline'. Heiðriksnes is a settlement in the Faroe Islands (KO).

Other Forms:

Related Places:

Information:
Marked on the map as relating to an island in Loch Kirkabol, now known as Loch a’ Riadhain. Note the settlement name Hyring marked on the same map as Hyring.

Local Form:

Languages : Gaelic, Obscure

Informants: The map MVLA INSVLA in the Atlas of Scotland, Atlas Novus, by Joan Blaeu, 1654. These mapswere largely based on work by Timothy Pont who mapped Scotland between 1583 and 1596. NLS, 123.