Township: Barrapol,Barrapol

Map Reference: Barrapol 46

Name Type: sub-township

Meaning: See Goirtean in Longships on the Sand.

Other Forms: Gortendoal - The Turnbull Map of Tiree 1768 and accompanying survey text.

Gortandonuil - Typed List of Inhabitants of Tyree and their Age in September 1779.
Taken from an unknown publication, 1998.201.1

Goirtean Dhòmhnaill - Donald MacNeill

Goirtean Dòmhnaill - Hector Campbell

It was always refreshing how the Gaelic names were preserved so beautifully intact by the local Gaelic speakers, and of how some archaic forms were sometimes unknowingly preserved, as in, for example, Goirtean Dòmhnaill instead of more modern Goirtean Dhòmhnaill - Ailean Boyd, Balephuil, 3/2015

Related Places: See Barrapol

Information:Extracts from 'The Gaelic Otherworld' by John Gregorson Campbell, Edited with commentary by Ronald Black, (Edinburgh; Birlinn, 2005), p 260:

A fishing boat or skiff belonging to the people of Gortendonald, in the west end of Tiree, was sold because ‘things’ were said to have been seen about it till no one belonging to the village would venture to sea in it. It waqs brought by some persons in Scarinish (in the east end of the island) who professed not to believe in taibhsearachd, or second sight. They gave the loan of it to people in Vaul, on the north side of the island. Here sights began again to be seen about it, and it was even said that at a time when it was hauled up on dry land, six men were seen rowing in it and one steering.
At last no one at all would venture to sea in the boat, and it was sent back to Scarinish. So strong was the feeling that the Vaul men would not venture with it through the Black Water (am Bun Dubh), as the sound between Coll and Tiree is called, but drew it across the land to Gott Loch, whence the Scarinish people took it home. After this its odour in the east end of Tiree became so bad that it was sold again to villagers in the west end, at some distance from the place it originally came from. Here it terminated its career in Tiree by drowning six men. (Footnote 873)
Footnote 873: Gortendonald, Goirtean Dòmhnaill (‘Donald’s Field’) is the Gaelic name for Barrapol (Norse bara ‘burial-ground’, bol ‘town’) in the south-western part of Tiree. Vaul is in Gaelic Bhalla, from Norse fiall ‘hill’. ‘Gott Loch’, Loch Ghot, is Gott Bay. See p. 262.

" 'S an air' air Goirtein-Domhuill." - Na Baird Thirisdeach, ed. Rev Hector Cameron, An Comunn Thirisdeach, 1932, p191.

Around the houses of Hector Campbell and Miss MacGillveray - Hector Kennedy, SA 1976/129. See also 1974/142/B3 for location.

Local Form:

Languages : Gaelic

Informants: multiple