Every county's name in the language it was named in, what it means, and how to say it. Most of the English names are a clerk's attempt at an Irish sound — Tír Eoghain became Tyrone, Maigh Eo became Mayo. Three of them are not Irish at all: Waterford, Wexford and Wicklow are Norse, and their Irish names are completely different words.
| County | In Irish | Say it | Meaning | Province |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antrim | Aontroim | “AYN-trim” | lone ridge | Cúige Uladh |
| Armagh | Ard Mhacha | “ard WAH-kha” | Macha's height | Cúige Uladh |
| Carlow | Ceatharlach | “CAH-har-lakh” | four lakes | Cúige Laighean |
| Cavan | An Cabhán | “un ka-VAWN” | the hollow | Cúige Uladh |
| Clare | An Clár | “un KLAWR” | the plain, or the board | Cúige Mumhan |
| Cork | Corcaigh | “KUR-kig” | marsh | Cúige Mumhan |
| Donegal | Dún na nGall | “doon na NGAL” | fort of the foreigners | Cúige Uladh |
| Down | An Dún | “un DOON” | the fort | Cúige Uladh |
| Dublin | Baile Átha Cliath | “BAL-ya AW-ha KLEE-a” | town of the hurdled ford | Cúige Laighean |
| Fermanagh | Fear Manach | “far MAN-akh” | men of Manach | Cúige Uladh |
| Galway | Gaillimh | “GAL-yiv” | stony — the river Gaillimh | Cúige Chonnacht |
| Kerry | Ciarraí | “KEER-ee” | the people of Ciar | Cúige Mumhan |
| Kildare | Cill Dara | “kill DAR-a” | church of the oak | Cúige Laighean |
| Kilkenny | Cill Chainnigh | “kill KHAN-ee” | church of Cainneach | Cúige Laighean |
| Laois | Laois | “LEESH” | the Loígis people | Cúige Laighean |
| Leitrim | Liatroim | “LEE-a-trim” | grey ridge | Cúige Chonnacht |
| Limerick | Luimneach | “LIM-nakh” | bare spot, or bare marsh | Cúige Mumhan |
| Derry / Londonderry | Doire | “DIRR-a” | oak grove | Cúige Uladh |
| Longford | An Longfort | “un LONG-fort” | the fortress | Cúige Laighean |
| Louth | Lú | “LOO” | traditionally linked to the god Lugh | Cúige Laighean |
| Mayo | Maigh Eo | “my OH” | plain of the yew trees | Cúige Chonnacht |
| Meath | An Mhí | “un VEE” | the middle | Cúige Laighean |
| Monaghan | Muineachán | “MWIN-a-khawn” | place of little thickets | Cúige Uladh |
| Offaly | Uíbh Fhailí | “eev AL-ee” | the people of Failghe | Cúige Laighean |
| Roscommon | Ros Comáin | “ross ku-MAWN” | St Comán's wood | Cúige Chonnacht |
| Sligo | Sligeach | “SLIG-akh” | shelly place | Cúige Chonnacht |
| Tipperary | Tiobraid Árann | “TIB-rid AW-run” | well of the Ara | Cúige Mumhan |
| Tyrone | Tír Eoghain | “teer OWN” | land of Eoghan | Cúige Uladh |
| Waterford | Port Láirge | “port LAWR-ga” | Lárag's landing place | Cúige Mumhan |
| Westmeath | An Iarmhí | “un EER-vee” | the west of Meath | Cúige Laighean |
| Wexford | Loch Garman | “lokh GAR-man” | Garman's lake | Cúige Laighean |
| Wicklow | Cill Mhantáin | “kill WAN-tawn” | church of the toothless one | Cúige Laighean |
Tap a county for where its name came from. The Irish forms are those of Logainm ↗; the Say it buttons play synthesised speech from ABAIR, not a recording of a speaker. Waterford, Wexford and Wicklow are Norse names, which is why their Irish names look nothing like them.
Hover or tap a county for its Irish name; tap through for its history.
Alphabetical by the English name. Where a reading is traditional rather than settled — Ceatharlach, Lú — it says so rather than choosing.
Ten counties, picked at random. Pick the Irish name for each. Nothing is recorded or sent anywhere.
Antrim is Aontroim, Armagh is Ard Mhacha, Cork is Corcaigh, Dublin is Baile Átha Cliath, Galway is Gaillimh, Mayo is Maigh Eo, Tyrone is Tír Eoghain, and so on — the full list, with the meaning and a pronunciation for each, is on this page. Most are the older name; the English versions are mostly clerks' attempts at the sound.
Two of the best-known English county names are Norse, not Irish: Waterford is Veðrafjǫrðr, the ram or windy fjord, and Wexford is Veisafjǫrðr, the fjord of the mudflats. Wicklow is Old Norse too — Víkingaló, the Vikings' meadow. In each case the Irish name is completely different: Port Láirge, Loch Garman and Cill Mhantáin.
Roughly “eev AL-ee”. It is the Irish name of County Offaly, from the Gaelic kingdom of Uí Failghe, the descendants of Failghe, which survived until 1550.
Both are named for the Gaelic peoples and kingdoms that held the land: the Loígis and the Uí Failghe. Under English administration they were renamed Queen's County and King's County, for Mary I and Philip II, and they took the old names back in 1922.
A fifth. Ireland has four provinces called fifths because there were once five: Meath (Mide, the middle) was a province in its own right, with Tara in it, before being absorbed into Leinster.
Because they are not always the same name. Most English county names are respellings of the Irish (Tír Eoghain became Tyrone, Maigh Eo became Mayo), so the meaning is shared. But Waterford, Wexford and Wicklow come from Norse names, and Dublin comes from a different Irish name, Duibhlinn, the black pool, while the Irish name Baile Átha Cliath means the town of the hurdled ford. In those cases the two names say different things about the same place.
The Irish name is Doire, an oak grove — Doire Cholm Cille, Colmcille's oak grove. London was prefixed in the royal charter of 1613 when the city was granted to the London livery companies. Both English forms are in official use; the Irish name never changed.
At the 2022 census, 1,873,997 people in the Republic said they could speak Irish, and 71,968 of them speak it every day outside the education system. Ordered by daily speakers:
| County | Can speak Irish | Speak it daily, outside school | Weekly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dublin | 467,679 | 16,440 | 29,624 |
| Galway | 121,930 | 13,507 | 9,182 |
| Donegal | 59,130 | 7,750 | 4,533 |
| Cork | 238,226 | 6,906 | 14,424 |
| Kerry | 62,877 | 3,763 | 4,302 |
| Kildare | 95,484 | 2,699 | 5,857 |
| Meath | 80,822 | 2,594 | 4,725 |
| Mayo | 56,346 | 2,049 | 3,831 |
| Limerick | 78,172 | 1,853 | 4,319 |
| Waterford | 48,106 | 1,800 | 2,865 |
| Wicklow | 56,012 | 1,580 | 3,216 |
| Clare | 54,437 | 1,415 | 3,142 |
| Tipperary | 66,003 | 1,258 | 3,540 |
| Wexford | 55,198 | 1,123 | 2,895 |
| Louth | 44,078 | 1,048 | 2,576 |
| Kilkenny | 41,037 | 919 | 2,314 |
| Monaghan | 23,571 | 724 | 1,358 |
| Laois | 33,538 | 678 | 1,933 |
| Westmeath | 33,598 | 632 | 1,786 |
| Offaly | 28,231 | 586 | 1,536 |
| Sligo | 26,506 | 578 | 1,488 |
| Roscommon | 26,853 | 523 | 1,455 |
| Cavan | 26,591 | 479 | 1,415 |
| Carlow | 21,426 | 464 | 1,179 |
| Leitrim | 13,153 | 309 | 788 |
| Longford | 14,993 | 291 | 782 |
CSO, Census 2022, table SAP2022T3T2CTY ↗, city and county council areas combined. The Gaeltacht in numbers → Northern Ireland's census asks about knowledge of Irish in a different way, so its counties are shown separately below.
| County | Can speak Irish | Speak, read, write and understand | Speak it daily | Main language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antrim | 40,936 | 23,732 | 16,585 | 3,011 |
| Down | 23,518 | 12,978 | 6,358 | 723 |
| Derry / Londonderry | 20,044 | 11,653 | 6,833 | 827 |
| Tyrone | 19,216 | 11,002 | 6,822 | 707 |
| Armagh | 17,008 | 9,803 | 5,743 | 564 |
| Fermanagh | 6,020 | 2,703 | 1,216 | 138 |
People aged 3 and over. NISRA, Census 2021, Flexible Table Builder, county geography (NISRA's approximation built from Data Zones, with Belfast split between Antrim and Down). Figures are lightly adjusted by NISRA for confidentiality, so they can differ by a few from its published tables.
Pronunciations give the everyday Irish-English form, in the same style as the first-name pages; Ulster, Connacht and Munster Irish differ, sometimes a lot. Logainm, the State's placenames database, is the authority for any name here.
Spoken audio is synthesised by ABAIR, the Irish speech project of the Phonetics & Speech Laboratory at Trinity College Dublin — a machine reading the word, not a recording of a speaker. For native speakers in three dialects, Teanglann has recordings.
The 32 counties, county by county · Surnames in Irish · The placename decoder · Towns & cities and what their names mean · How to pronounce Irish · The 12 cities and their Irish names · The funny ones, and what they mean