Township: An Àird a Deas,Caolas

Map Reference: Ardeas 3

Name Type: watercourse

Meaning: Dwelly gives Àr as deadwood in the stern of a boat. There was a boat builder here.

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

Loch an Àir - ONB p147, with Loch na h-Aire crossed out.

Related Places:

Information:Extracts from 'The Gaelic Otherworld' by John Gregorson Campbell, Edited with commentary by Ronald Black, (Edinburgh; Birlinn, 2005), p 113:

The Water-Horse at Tiree
A man working in the fields in Caolas, in the east end of the island, saw a water-horse coming from Loch an Àir, a small marshy lake full of reeds. He ran off in terror and left his coat behind. The water-horse tore the coat into shreds and then made after the man. The dogs came out when it came near the house and drove it away.
Footnote 362; Loch an Àir is in the south-eastern tip of Tiree near Rubha Nead Geòidh, Rubha a’ Bhodaich and Port an Duin. The name suggests ‘the Loch of Slaughter’ or ‘of Ploughing’. There is nothing in oral tradition to suggest that it could have been the site of a battle, so the latter meaning is perhaps more likely, but the water-horse connection could well have given rise to either – or both. Niall M. Brownlie has drawn my attention to this verse in a song by Captain Alick MacDonald, Milton, Caolas (Brownlie 1991a, p.23):
Aig Taigh Loch an Àir thogadh iomadh deagh bhàta,
Ainmeil bhon làimh chluicheadh tàl agus tuagh;
Am beagan th’ air fhàgail den tobhta tha’n làthair,
Tha mo chridh’ ann am bàidh rith’ seach àite mun cuairt.
(“At Loch an Àir House were built many fine boats, / Made famous by the hand which would wield adze and axe;/My heart loves the little that’s left of the ruins / More than anywhere else in the district around.”)
By ‘last century’ JGC means eighteenth.


Local Form:

Languages : Gaelic

Informants: Angus MacLean, Scarinish, 2/1996

Informant 2: OS

Informant 3: The Turnbull Map of Tiree 1768