placenamesBreaghwy
Bréachmhaigh
Breaghwy in north Sligo preserves traces of an older landscape in both its Irish name and its archaeological record.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- Bréachmhaigh · Irish · main form · validated name
- Breaghwy · English · main form
Place & story
The wolf in the placename
A study by placename scholars Conchubhar Ó Crualaoich and Aindí Mac Giolla Chomhghaill identifies Breaghwy in County Sligo among the places named Bréachmhaigh. They explain this old compound as a combination of words for wolf and plain. Their analysis places the name within a family of related forms spread across Ireland. It is linguistic evidence for an inherited landscape name, rather than a dated account of a particular wolf hunt in Breaghwy. [2]
A mound and enclosure sites
The National Monuments Service’s Sligo register records a bowl-barrow at Breaghwy, numbered SL005-069, together with an enclosure and an enclosure site nearby. These entries establish archaeological features in the locality without identifying the people who made them. The register’s classifications distinguish the burial mound from the other enclosed sites; they do not justify assigning all three monuments to one settlement or one period. [3]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Breaghwy. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Wolves, to be sure! 5 May 2025 · Conchubhar Ó Crualaoich and Aindí Mac Giolla Chomhghaill, Placenames Database of Ireland
- Sligo Record of Monuments and Places manual (1995), sheet005 page4, SL005-069–071 · National Monuments Service
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.