Fionnuala
fionn + guala, 'white shoulder' — 'the fair-shouldered one'
The eldest of the Children of Lir: turned into a swan with her three brothers by their jealous stepmother Aoife, she sheltered them under her wings for nine hundred years, three hundred on Lough Derravaragh, three hundred on the Sea of Moyle, three hundred on the Atlantic. Its short form, Nuala, stands on its own today — Nuala O'Faolain's memoir 'Are You Somebody?' made it a byword for unsparing Irish self-examination.
- Fionnuala Sherry (born 1962) — Irish musician
- Fionnuala McCormack (born 1984) — Irish long distance and steeplechase runner
- Fionnuala Sweeney (born 1965) — Northern Irish television journalist
- Fionnuala Ní Aoláin (born 1967) — Irish legal academic
- Fionnuala Kenny (born 1956) — Irish public relations specialist
Irish people with an English Wikipedia article whose given name is recorded as Fionnuala on Wikidata; descriptions from Wikidata.
Meanings follow Ó Corráin & Maguire's Irish Names and Woulfe; pronunciations give the commonest Irish-English form. Know this name better — a dialect pronunciation, a family tradition? Tell us. · All Irish names A–Z