What’s in a name?
We’ve been working with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) recently on a vernacular geography project, collecting up the names (or nicknames) that people use locally. Our Research department created a new system, FINTAN, to collect the information which can be used to help improve emergency responses.
If you picture someone on the coast calling in an emergency, they won’t often know their exact location, and there won’t be road names or postcodes around to help them out either. They may know the nickname for the beach they’re on rather than the official name, or there may be nicknames for rocks off the coast – but they wouldn’t be marked on a standard map.
FINTAN has been successfully trialled at the MCA’s Maritime Rescue Coordination Centres (MRCCs) at Clyde, Solent, Holyhead and Stornoway and is going to be rolled out across all MRCCs over the coming months. Staff add local names for beaches, rocks, waterways and other features onto the existing mapping data through FINTAN, something which is of interest and benefit to both organisations and the public. FINTAN includes 1:50 000 Scale Gazetteer, 1:25 000 Scale Colour Raster and OS MasterMap Address Layer 2 to form a search facility for the Agency to use.
FINTAN could provide the answer to a common challenge for both us and the MCA in collecting information on the names people use to describe places that aren’t commonly shown on mapping data or exist within gazetteers. As the Coastguard moves towards a national maritime operations centre, there’s also a greater emphasis on capturing local knowledge to support emergency response and coordination functions.
For us, our Research department have long recognised the strength of local knowledge and have been investigating the building of an “alternative gazetteer” through crowd-sourcing that references local nicknames and could include, for example, a popular name for a road junction or bridge. You might also have ready about our collaboration with The English Project, through Location Lingo.
The next phase is to test and check the added names in FINTAN and to work with local organisations such as sailing clubs to see if more coastal knowledge can be gleaned.
This story was also featured in The Times last weekend – you can view it here if you are a subscriber to their site. Or you can find out more in our recent press release too.
Images produced courtesy of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency
Themocracy
How did they come up with the name FINTAN, pray tell ?- May we assume it’s an acronym, and if so, standing for what ?- Anciently, Fintan was a name borne by two Irish saints.
Well, whatever the origin of “FINTAN” in the O.S. nomenclature, it can at least be seen as a remarkable coїncidence that Irish legend tells of a seer named Fintan mac Bóchra. This survivor of the Great Flood himself practised a rather mystical form of land surveying and topographical mapping. As it is recounted in ‘Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales’ by Alwyn Rees and Brinley Rees, we learn that -
the nobles of Ireland protested against the extent of the royal domain, and that Fintan son of Bóchra was summoned to Tara, from his abode in Munster, to define its limits. Seated in the judge’s seat at Tara, Fintan reviewed the history of Ireland from Cessair to the Sons of Mil, and told of a strange personage called Trefuilngid Tre-eochair who suddenly appeared at a gathering of the men of Ireland on the day when Christ was crucified. This stranger was fair and of gigantic stature, and it was he who controlled the rising and the setting of the sun. In his left hand he carried stone tablets and in his right a branch with three fruits, nuts, apples, and acorns. He inquired about the chronicles of the men of Ireland, and they replied that they had no old historians. ‘Ye will have that from me,’ said he. ‘I will establish for you the progression of the stories and chronicles of the hearth of Tara itself with the four quarters of Ireland round about; for I am the truly learned witness who explains to all everything unknown.’ And he continued: ‘Bring to me then seven from every quarter of Ireland, who are the wisest, the most prudent and most cunning also, and the shanachies of the king himself who are of the hearth of Tara; for it is right that the four quarters (should be present) at the partition of Tara and its chronicles, that each may take its due share of the chronicles of Tara.’
It will be observed that the basic idea here is that Ireland consists of four quarters and a centre — the provinces of Connacht, Ulster, Leinster, Munster, and Meath. This arrangement was confirmed by Trefuilngid, and in leaving that ordinance with the men of Ireland he gave Fintan some berries from his branch. Fintan planted them where he thought they would grow, and from them are the five trees: the Ash of Tortu, the Bole of Ross (a comely yew), the Oak of Mugna, the Bough of Dathi (an ash), and the Ash of populous Uisnech. Though the location of most of these five places is uncertain, there can be no doubt that the underlying idea is that the trees symbolize the four quarters around the centre.
The confirmation of this pattern by Fintan on Trefuilngid’s authority at Tara was not, however, the end of the matter. ‘Then the nobles of Ireland came . . . to accompany Fintan to Uisnech, and they took leave of one another on the top of Uisnech. And he set up in their presence a pillar-stone of five ridges on the summit of Uisnech. And he assigned a ridge of it to every province in Ireland, for thus are Tara and Uisnech in Ireland, as its two kidneys are in a beast. And he marked out a forrach there, that is, the portion of each province in Uisnech, and Fintan made this lay after arranging the pillar-stone.’
- from Chapter V, “A Hierarchy of Provinces”, of CELTIC HERITAGE: ANCIENT TRADITION IN IRELAND AND WALES by Alwyn Rees and Brinley Rees (Thames and Hudson, 1961)
I did wonder if the name would raise any questions! FINTAN was the name chosen by my colleague who put the system together. I believe he was thinking of Fintan, the salmon of knowledge, as opposed to Fintan the Wise – although I think both would suit the purpose.
Thanks, Gemma
I love the idea of this alternative gazeteer. There is so much history and culture stored up in our geography and the way that we refer to it locally that recording it would be a fascinating project. It reminds me a little of “The Flora Britannica” where the writers sought out the local names, stories and uses for plants from all over the UK.
Just wondering whether this will be opened up to include input from the “up close” local knowledge of the Coastguard Rescue Officers in their own locations?
Hi Paul
Good question, but not one we can answer at Ordnance Survey I’m afraid. As you can read in the press relase (http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/news/2012/06/collecting-names-from-coast-to-coast.html) it is MCA staff who were inputting information in the trial areas, but while we’ve worked with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) to produce the system, how it is rolled out is an MCA decision.
Many thanks, Gemma