Undercover Irish

Support the podcast:
If you enjoy Undercover Irish, you can support the show on Patreon. Patreon helps keep the podcast going and supports the research, writing and production behind each episode.
What Irish Surnames Remember — Part 1: Ó, Mac, Ní & Nic
Irish surnames are not just family labels. In this episode of Undercover Irish, we look underneath familiar names like O'Brien, Sullivan, McCarthy, Maguire, O'Neill and McBride to explore the older Irish naming system hidden inside them.
Before we cross the water into the upcoming Ireland–Scotland series, we pause to ask why names mattered so much: to families, to communities, and to colonial power.
We explore how Ó and Mac carry ideas of descent, sonship, clann and lineage — and how women's forms like Ní, Nic, Uí and Mhic reveal a richer grammar of relationship than English surnames usually show.
The episode also looks at the pressure of anglicisation: how Irish names were translated, shortened, misspelled, legally challenged, and pushed through English-speaking systems of law, schooling, census-taking and administration.
From Edmund Spenser's hostility to the Ós and Macs, to the symbolic court cases around Irish names and lettering, this episode asks what happens when a naming system is treated as something to be controlled.
Core idea:
If placenames are memory on the map, surnames are memory in motion.
In this episode:
Why O'Brien is really Ó Briain
What Ó / Ua means
How Mac and Mag work
Why Ní and Nic are not just "female versions" of surnames
What Bean Uí, Bean Mhic, Uí and Mhic reveal
How Irish names carry clann, kinship and memory
How colonialism and anglicisation fogged, but did not erase, the Irish naming system
Why this episode sets up the coming Ireland–Scotland series

When Ireland Speaks in a Woman's Voice: From Ériu to Elmes
Ireland was named after a woman.
Most of us know that Ireland is called Éire in Irish, but far fewer know about Ériu, the mythological figure whose name survives in the very name of the country itself.
In this episode of Undercover Irish, we follow the women hidden in Ireland's landscape. From Ériu, Banba and Fódla, to Boann and Sinann, from the holy wells of Brigid and Gobnait to the modern commemorations of Mary Elmes and the women of Cumann na mBan, we explore how women have been remembered on Ireland's map for centuries.
Along the way we delve into the Dindshenchas, Ireland's medieval "Lore of Places", uncover the stories behind some of our most famous rivers and placenames, and ask an important question:
If women are everywhere in Ireland's oldest landscape, why do they seem so much less visible in the streets and public spaces of modern Ireland?
This is a story about memory, mythology, language, landscape and the changing ways Ireland remembers its past.
In this episode:
Ériu, Banba and Fódla
The Dindshenchas – Ireland's Lore of Places
Boann and the River Boyne
Sinann and the River Shannon
Macha, Tailtiu and Carman
Brigid and the female sacred landscape
Holy wells
Victorian commemorative culture
The Ladies' Land League
Cumann na mBan
Mary Elmes, Rosie Hackett and modern public commemoration
Support Undercover Irish
If you'd like to support the podcast and gain access to bonus episodes, early releases, behind-the-scenes research and exclusive content, you can join us on Patreon:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/why-some-irish-160221927?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link
This week's Patreon-exclusive episode:
Why Some Irish People Don't Say "The Famine"
A look at the language of memory, An Gorta Mór, and what the words we choose reveal about Irish history.
Follow Undercover Irish
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and follow along on social media for updates, bonus content and upcoming episodes.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh as éisteacht.
Ní saoirse go saoirse na mban.

Ireland's county names are more than simple labels on a map.
They are records of invasion, settlement, religion, trade, conquest, resistance, and survival.
In Part 2 of What Irish County Names Really Mean, we explore how saints, Vikings, colonists, and mapmakers left their mark on Ireland's counties — and how older Irish identities survived beneath those layers.
Along the way we discover:
Why Dublin's Irish and English names describe two completely different places.
How Viking settlements helped create Ireland's first true cities.
The story behind Waterford, Ireland's oldest city.
Why Wexford, Wicklow, and Donegal preserve both Irish and Norse identities.
How Saint Brigid, Saint Cainneach, Saint Comán, and Saint Columba became immortalised in county names.
The connection between Derry's oak groves and Kildare's sacred oak.
Why Edmund Spenser believed language was key to conquering Ireland.
How the Ordnance Survey transformed Ireland's placenames.
Why Irish placenames are some of the most important historical records we possess.
Counties featured in this episode:
County Dublin — Baile Átha Cliath / Dubh Linn
County Waterford — Port Láirge
County Wexford — Loch Garman
County Wicklow — Cill Mhantáin
County Donegal — Dún na nGall / Tír Chonaill
County Kildare — Cill Dara
County Kilkenny — Cill Chainnigh
County Roscommon — Ros Comáin
County Down — An Dún
County Longford — An Longfort
County Derry — Doire / Doire Cholmcille
This episode also explores:
Viking Ireland
Early Christian Ireland
Monastic learning
The Plantation period
Anglicisation of Irish placenames
The Ordnance Survey
Language, identity, and power
If you enjoyed this episode, check out Part 1:
What Irish County Names Really Mean – Gods, Tribes and Landscapes Before Ireland Had Counties
Follow Undercover Irish wherever you get your podcasts, and if you know someone who's fiercely proud of their county, send them this episode.
Because every county name tells a story — and some of those stories are over a thousand years old.

Ireland's counties feel ancient — but the county system itself is surprisingly modern.
In this episode of Undercover Irish, we go back before the maps, before English colonisation , and even before Christianity to uncover the real meanings behind Irish county names.
From pagan gods and forgotten tribes to marshes, forests, ridges, and sacred landscapes, many Irish counties preserve fragments of a much older Ireland hidden in plain sight.
In Part 1, we explore the counties whose names come from:
mythology,
tribal dynasties,
landscape and geography,
and ancient meanings now partly lost to history.
Along the way we uncover:
why County Armagh is named after a goddess,
how County Tyrone preserves the legacy of the O'Neills,
why County Cork is literally named after a swamp,
how County Mayo may preserve a sacred yew landscape,
and why nobody fully agrees on what County Limerick originally meant.
Counties featured in Part 1:
County Armagh
County Louth
County Kerry
County Fermanagh
County Tyrone
County Offaly
County Laois
County Cavan
County Clare
County Cork
County Galway
County Leitrim
County Mayo
County Monaghan
County Sligo
County Meath
County Westmeath
County Antrim
County Tipperary
County Carlow
County Limerick
Part 2 will explore:
saints, Vikings, colonial renaming, and the counties with layered Irish and Norse identities.
If you enjoyed the episode, follow Undercover Irish wherever you get your podcasts — and send the episode to someone who's obsessed with their county.

Ireland has always faced the water.
For thousands of years, the sea shaped life along the Irish coast — feeding communities, destroying harbours, carrying storms inland, and connecting the island to the wider world. But it also left something behind in the language itself.
In this episode of Undercover Irish, we explore Ireland's long relationship with the sea through the stories hidden in coastal placenames:
from Port na Marbh — "the harbour of the dead" — to An Poll Báite, "the drowned pool," and Carraig na Loinge, "the rock of the ship."
These names preserve memories of danger, survival, shipwrecks, crossings, invasion, emigration and loss.
We travel from Atlantic fishing communities and the Night of the Big Wind… to Viking longships, Norman arrivals, Armada wrecks, the French landings of 1798, and the harbours that became departure points during An Gorta Mór.
Because the Irish coastline was never simply the edge of the country.
It was a meeting place between:
land and sea,
Ireland and the wider world,
departure and return,
memory and survival.
This episode explores how the sea shaped Irish history, mythology and identity — and how the old coastal names still carry echoes of that conversation today.
Featured Places & Names
Port na Marbh — "Harbour of the Dead" (Donegal)
Scoilt na Loinge — "Split/Cleft of the Ship" (Donegal)
Scoilt na Máirnealach — possibly "Sailors' Cleft" (Donegal)
An Poll Báite — "The Drowned Pool"
Carraig na Loinge — "Rock of the Ship"
Carraig an Ancaire — "Rock of the Anchor"
Trá na mBád / Boatstrand (Waterford)
Mannin Bay / Cuan Mhanainn (Galway)
Tory Island / Toraigh (Donegal)
Cobh & Dún Laoghaire
Themes
Irish placenames • maritime folklore • Atlantic history • Vikings in Ireland • Irish mythology • emigration • An Gorta Mór • coastal memory • shipwrecks • Irish language • Irish history • Atlantic Ireland • Manannán mac Lir • Irish folklore • the Night of the Big Wind