Witter Parish, County Down

Background

O'Donovan's suggestion, in the OSNB, that Witter derived from an original Irish Íochtar “lowest extremity, part” cannot be sustained, as the 17th-century forms clearly indicate an earlier Gráinseach Uachtair.  Reeves EA (25 n. v) states: “The modern name [Witter] is a corruption of Irish uachtair ‘of  the upper part’; and is an abbreviation of the compound ‘Grange-oughter’, by which the parish was generally called”.  The qualifying element Uachtair refers not to an “upper grange”, but rather to the “grange of (the area known as) Uachtar”.  This probably helped to distinguish the grange at Witter from the many other granges in the corn-wealthy Ards peninsula.  

The name Uachtar, meaning “upper or higher region” was in existence long before there was an Anglo-Norman grange in this area, and it goes back to an Old Irish form Óchtar.  The “upper” meaning for Uachtar may possibly refer to the “upper part of the Ards”, or even to the relatively high land in the Witter area.  In early Irish genealogical material we have references to an Óchtar (form 1 above) which occurs as Óchtar Uillne, “the height of the elbow”.  This Óchtar, or Uachtar, is certainly to be identified as modern Witter, as its occupier is described (Descendants of Ír 46) as having been “in the Ards in the time of Conchobar mac Nessa” (isin Aird i n-aimsir Chonchoba[i]r maic Nessa), a pre-historic king of the first century AD.

References

Additional Information

subsumed into Ballyphilip Parish by 1871

Historical name form

Barony

Ards Upper

Parish

Ballyphilip

Parish in 1851

Witter

Townland

None

Place name ID

17351

Place name type

P