The Town of Clane, in the County of Kildare, Ireland, got its name from the Irish root verb Claon: which means to slope, or to incline… claon, v.t. & i. 1. Incline (a) Slope, slant. Rud a chlaonadh (do leataobh, ar clé), to incline (to on side, to the left). Airm a chlaonadh, to slope arms…
The reason it was called ‘The Slope’ is because the town is built at the bottom of two hills that slope down to the River Liffey. For centuries Clane was the only place you could cross the Liffey as there was a natural ford there, and for that reason it became a place of strategic importance in ancient times. In the Book of Leinster (know as Lebor na Nuachongbála), which is a medieval Irish manuscript compiled circa 1160, Clane appears as part of the Siege of Howth, or Tallaind Etair, and it tells of how the King of Leinster, Mesgegra (Mess Gegra), was slain there by, the Ulster companion of Cú Chulainn, Conall Crenach, the date given in the book is 33AD. In the Old Irish it reads…
{MS folio 116b 10} Luid Conall Cernach a oenur i n-iarmoracht Lagen do dígail a [13480] brathar dorochratar sin chath .i. Mes Dead. & Loegaire. Iss ed luide for Áth Clíath sech Drummainech for Uib Gabla. i Forcarthain. sech Uachtur Aird. sech Nás. do Chloínud.
{Translated} Then Conall crenach, ‘the Victorious,’ went forth alone in pursuit of the Leinstermen, to avenge his brothers, Mesdeadh and Loegaire, who had fallen in the fight. And he took the road past Dublin, and Drimnagh, through Hy-Gavla into Forcarthain, by Uachtar-Ard and Naas, to Clane.
Clane is also mentioned in James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) as Joyce went to school in Clongowes Wood College, which is situated just outside the town, one passage from Chapter 5 reads…
“…they were very holy peasants. They breathed behind him on his neck and sighed as they prayed. They lived in Clane, a fellow said: there were little cottages there and he had seen a woman standing at the half-door of a cottage with a child in her arms as the cars had come past from Sallins. It would be lovely to sleep for one night in that cottage before the fire of smoking turf, in the dark lit by the fire, in the warm dark, breathing the smell of the peasants, air and rain and turf and corduroy. But O, the road there between the trees was dark! You would be lost in the dark. It made him afraid to think of how it was.”
So how did your town get its name? It your town mentioned in any Literary Works from your own country?
