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. Nuala is its everyday short form. 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.
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