Some interesting notes from the County Louth Archaeological Journal from 1944:
Names of Horses & Dogs
My curiosity has been aroused by the fact that dogs and horses in Ireland seem always to have purely English names. In the case of dogs - Jack, Rover, Prince, Nellie, Spot etc, and of horses - Nelly , Daisy, etc. I imagined that cows, where named , follow the horse fashion.
Since Co. Louth has been so long part of the Pale, I enquired from Mr. O'Sullivan of the Irish Folklore Commission as to other and Irish-speaking parts of the country.
He replied that so far as his experience goes, this fashion is very widespread and especially so with regard to dogs. "Even in Irish-speaking areas, dogs are given English names. Horses are not given names of any kind for the most part, except ponies or pets. Where they are named at all, it is in English (Nellie, Purty, Jenny, etc). Animals are generally spoken to or called in English also...Cows were always given Irish names (generally referring to their colour or horns) in districts where Irish was known, every cow got a name. It is curious that this should be so, when horses follow a different rule of nomenclature."
One might suggest that in this country animals were not supposed to be fit for any name but one in Beurla (sic), but this theory would be disproved by the case of the cows. Could it have come about because special breeds of dogs and horses were imported from England bringing their names with them, which have spread not only to their progeny but to dogs and horses generally.
It would be interesting to hear what the practise is in other parts of Louth and the surrounding counties. I have known of one "Bran" in Dundalk within the last 5 or 6 years, but he was far from being like his great namesake.
H.G.T.
Irish Racing Calender, 1800.
Rules & Orders for Cocking
"If any man lay more money than he hath to pay, or can not satisfy the party with who he hath laid, either by his credit or some friend's word, the which if he cannot do, than he is to be put into a basket. to be provided for that purpose, and to be hanged in that basket in some convenient place in the cockpit, that all men may know him, during the time of play that day; and also, that the party so offending, never to be admitted to come into the pit, until he hath made satisfaction."
