Index of Names in Irish Annals: Descriptive Bynames: na Trí Tor
by Mari Elspeth nic Bryan (Kathleen M. O'Brien)
© 2000-2007 by Kathleen M. O'Brien. All rights reserved.
Version 2.1, updated 29 September 2007
Descriptive Bynames: na Trí Tor
Meaning:
"[of] the Three Towers"
(NOTE: see also an Tuir '[of] the Tower'.
Both that byname and this one are used alternately for the same persion.)
Spellings:
What we know as a set of Irish Annals are manuscripts that were each compiled during a
particular time period, usually using older material as sources. For example, when
the Annals of the Four Masters were written from 1632 to 1636, they covered events
that occurred centuries and millenia before (including legendary history). So, when
an entry in this set of annals refers to a person who lived in the year 738, the
spelling used for that person's name is very likely not using the spelling that
would have been used in 738.
Standard forms of this name (based on spelling systems of different periods) would be:
| Middle Irish Gaelic (c900-c1200) genitive form: | na Trí Tor |
Frequency & Dates:
| Number of men found in the annals with this name: | 1 |
| Found in Years: | 954, 956 |
Research Notes:
[Answering a question about a standardized form of this byname:]
The DIL gives the number with a long vowel: . The
genitive plural article does cause nasalization, which turns
a following initial /t/ into /d/, but Thurneysen says that
in OIr nasalization of /t/ was hardly ever indicated. When
it was, it seems from his examples that the initial t was
simply replaced by d. Unfortunately, he says nothing
about MIr. A quick look at a couple of CELT texts
classified as MIr suggests showed mostly the same pattern,
so this ought to be okay at least for early MIr. That would
make it na Trí Tor.
The classical convention would make it na dTrí Tor; for
all I know such spellings can be found at least by the end
of the MIr period, but for now at least I'd go with the OIr
version, though you might want to mention that it was
actually pronounced roughly \nah DREE TOR\. [email from Talan Gwynek - 12 Jun 2006]
Sources:
Further information about the byname na Trí Tor, may be found in:
The Sources page lists the Annals referenced below.
Information about secondary sources is included on that page as well.
Raw Data
In the table below, I have separated individuals with a blank line. That is, when there are multiple
entries in the annals that refer to a single person, those entries are grouped together.
Within the list of entries refering to a single person, I have sorted the entries
primarily by orthography when it is obvious that what I am seeing is the same entry
showing up in multiple annals. The entries that tend to use older spellings are listed first.
NOTE: The Annals referenced below under the code letters A, B, C, E, & F tend to use
later spellings than the other Annals. In some cases, the spellings listed in these Annals
may not be appropriate for the year referenced in the Annal entry.
In some Gaelic scripts, there is a character that looks approximately like a lowercase f,
but without the crossbar. This character (represented by an underscored , e, in
the entries below) sometimes represents e and sometimes ea depending upon the
context of the text.
| [Standardized form of this man's name] |
| Annals | Entry | Context | Citation (formatting preserved) |
| |
| [Tadc na Trí Tor mac Cathail] (d. 954-956) |
| U | U956.2 | | Tadhc m. Cathail, rí Connacht |
| I | I956.2 | | Taidg m. Cathail, ríg Connacht |
| B | M954.6 | | Tadhg na t-Tri t-Tor, mac Cathail rí Connacht ["Tadhg of the Three Towers, son of Cathal, King of Connaught"] |
| B | M971.8 | | Conchobhar, mac Taidhg an Tuir, rí Connacht ["Conchobhar, son of Tadhg of the Tower, King of Connaught"] |
| B | M991.8 | | Mór, inghen Taidhg an Tuir, mic Cathail, bainríoghan Ereann ["Mor, daughter of Tadhg of the Tower, son of Cathal, Queen of Ireland"] |
| B | M1009.9 | | mac mic Taidhcc an Tuir ["grandson of Tadhg of the Tower"] |
Medieval Scotland | Medieval Names Archive | Index of Names in Irish Annals
Feminine Given Names | Feminine Descriptive Bynames | Masculine Given Names | Masculine Descriptive Bynames
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(Jan 2006)
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