Hi All,

I have an unusual request for all you Irish experts

I want to name a boat Roane.
Roane was/is what Selkies (mostly Scottish) legendary beings were known as in Ireland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selkie

But as they could be male or female, I would like to indicate that the boat is female.
"An Roane" in this case would seem unsuitable.
So is there any way of doing this please?

The word "roane" looks like an English version of rón which means "seal" in Irish Gaelic. I've read quite a bit about Selkies and I've never run across an Irish word for a selkie. That's probably because of the old belief that ANY seal might actually be a person, so a seal and a selkie are both referred to as rón. If you want to be specific, I recommend calling your boat The Selkie.

Actually, there is an Irish word for it...it's just that they're not called selkies in Ireland, they're called "merrows." "Selkie" is a Scots term.


The older Irish term for "merrow" is Muruach, so "The Merrow" would be "An Mhuruach."

If you want to make it very clear that your merrow is a female, you'd use the term An Mhaighdean Mhara (literally "The Sea Maiden")

WFM is correct that "Roane" is simply an Anglicization of the Irish word for "seal: "rón" (and WFM is also correct in that that's just the term for a seal...any seal. It doesn't necessarily imply that the seal is anything BUT a seal). There is nothing in the word that would indicate that the seal is male or female (the word is grammatically masculine, but grammatical gender has nothing to do with the actual sex of the creature). If you want to emphasize the fact that the seal is a female, perhaps you could say An Banrón, but I'd want to have others weigh in on whether a compound such as this is workable (also, if you use it, be prepared for Irish speakers to assume you mean "Banríon": "Queen")

Wait for more.

Redwolf

It is my understanding that merrows refer to mermen and mermaids, not specifically selkies – and it's the same with murúch (or muruach) as far as I've ever seen. I'll check into it.

* edit – Here's the scoop from Wikipedia on merrows:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrow

Muruach or An Muruach would be fine, even if the implication of the seal turning into a female human form, and back again, is not there.
áAn Mhaighdean Mhara would be better, but I have to watch the length of the name (boring practical stuff because the transom board is not all that wide - it's a Drascombe Lugger)

Yes, not quite sure about An Banrón

For now, I'll go with áAn Mhaighdean Mhara unless anyone says otherwise.

Thanks for all the help - so far

Ron

An Mhaighdean Mhara – The Sea Maiden (literally "The Maiden of the Sea")
As far as I know, this usually refers to a mermaid.

The only concept the Irish had for what we call "mermen" and "mermaids" were seals that turned into humans. The human with a fish's tail is a foreign concept that came along later.

The woman in the song "An Mhaighdean Mhara" is a merrow...or a "selkie" if you prefer the more familiar Scots term. One of the seal-people.

I have all this from a friend who did a masters degree in Irish fairy lore at the University of Limerick, and who is also well-steeped in the Donegal sean-nós tradition. Her thesis was actually on the merrow/selkie legends. I'd give her more credence than anything from Wikipedia.

As an aside, the merrow/selkie legends are almost certainly why sailors once thought that manatees were "mermaids"...they figured that they were a North American type of seal, and if they could only get them out of the water, they'd turn into beautiful women!

Redwolf

In the Donegal song "An Mhaighdean Mhara," the woman is a merrow/selkie who changes (permanently) back into her seal form at the touch of salt water. The back story for the song (which is pretty well-established) is that she jumped into the water to save her little girl from drowning, and thus was forced to go back to the sea.

The concept of "a mermaid" as a woman with the tail of a fish is a foreign one to Ireland. When Irish legends and songs speak of merrows, it's the seal people to whom they are referring.

Redwolf

There's a typo in there, Ron, that I made when I accidentally hit the á key instead of the "bold" key (I've fixed it in my original post). It's "An Mhaighdean Mhara" That extra á needs to come off.

It's pronounced "un WY-jun WAH-ruh," by the way (always nice to know how to pronounce the name of your boat!)

Redwolf

Going back to murúch/muruach as an option, FGB (a big Irish dictionary) gives murúch (modern spelling) as meaning "mermaid" (in the Irish sense as Redwolf has explained above), i.e., the female kind, and fir is added to specify "a merman", i.e., murúch fir is "a merman".

So an Mhurúch would be a "female selkie/merrow".

Dinneen (an older big Irish dictionary) gives the old spelling of murúch as murḋuaċ (with variants murḃaċ and muirḋiúċ and others).

So, if space is at a premium, you might like to try:

An Ṁurḋuaċ
"The Mermaid/Selkie/Merrow"
uh(n) WOO-rookh
/ə(N) wuru:x/


Incidentally, "a female seal", aka "a seal cow", is a bainirseach or bainirseach róin in Irish. (And no, I didn't know that before, I just came across it while browsing Dinneen. )

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