The commonplace assumption about the meaning of "Inchcolm" as a placename is that it simply and unproblematically derives from the Gaelic for "St. Columba's Isle", but the actuality is far more complex and intriguing, as is often the case with deceptively obvious placenames once popular myths are stripped away. Throughout its history, the island has actually had two primary names, and both have a variety of etymological associations with both of the main branches of Celtic languages - Brythonic and Goidelic. Both placenames also have, of course, various mythological, legendary and historical associations stretching back in history even to before the Christian era.
Taking the current name of the island first, inch is a common element in Scots placenames, often deriving from Gaelic innis, meaning "island" or "isle". Gaelic innis also has its equivalent in Brythonic ynys, although in the case of Inchcolm, the Gaelic derivation is the more likely. Inchcolm is in fact one of four "inches" in the Firth of Forth, the others being Inchgarvie, Inchmickery, and Inchkeith, and these placenames certainly suggest an overall Gaelic context, something which is quite rare South of the river in Lothian. The derivation of the colm element seems equally undisputed as a Gaelic personal name, which would make "Inchcolm" derive from Gaelic Innis Caluim, literally meaning "Colm's Island". In this regard, compare the name of the monastery at Inchmahome, where the colm element is aspirated according to Gaelic grammar: Innis mo Chaluim, or "Island of my Colm". Inchmahome Priory (1238) is located a few miles from the source of the River Forth, and was, like its earlier counterpart Inchcolm, Augustinian. But if "Inchcolm" means "Colm's Island", the question then becomes one of who this Colm was, and why the island might have been named after him.
The popular assumption is that the Colm in question is none other than St. Columba himself, founder of the prestigious abbey on Iona in 563. In 1654, for example, Joan Blaeu's Atlas Novus even gives the island's name specifically as "S. Columbs Inch".[1] Certainly, the abbey on Inchcolm was dedicated to Columba by its own "founder", King Alexander I around 1124, and this Columban association gave rise to the popular epithet of Inchcolm as the "Iona of the East". But all that this actually tells us is that Alexander I assumed that the Colm referred to in the placename of "Inchcolm" was St. Columba. Significantly, perhaps, Columba's name in Gaelic is Caluim-Cille, and one of Iona's Gaelic names is I Caluim-Cille, which may raise the question of why Inchcolm clearly derives from Innis Caluim, and not Innis Caluim-Cille. In fact, given that "Inchcolm" simply means "Colm's Island", it is far more likely that it refers to the rather more obscure figure of St. Colm, who was often mistaken for St. Columba during the medieval period.
However, Inchcolm is not the only name by which the island has been known - an earlier, Brythonic name also exists. According to W. J. Watson (1926)[2], one of the first names connected with the island relates to the ancient Brythonic placename element spelt variously as Manaw, Manau, Manu, or simply Mon. Even as late as the fourteenth century, we find the Scottish historian, John of Fordun using this placename element to describe the island in his Chronica Gentis Scotorum.[3] Here, Fordun refers to the Abbey as "monasterium Sancti Columbe in insula Eumonia", or "the monastery of Saint Columba on the island of Eumonia". Watson gives other medieval Latin versions of this name as Aemonia, Emonia, or Eumania, and relates it to the Latinised Welsh placename Eubonia.[4]
Significantly, another local variant of this placename element exists on the Northern shores of the River Forth. In post-Roman times, there was a region of Gododdin (Lothian) known as Manaw Gododdin. Indeed, the manaw element survives to this day in the modern, Gaelicised name of that region as Clackmannan - Clach Mannan, "Stone of Mannan", although ultimately, this probably derives from a Brythonic form in itself with the same meaning, such as Clog Manu. Furthermore, on the Southern side of the Forth, we find Slamannan in Falkirkshire, whose etymology seems to suggest Gaelic Sliabh Mannan, meaning "Moor of Mannan".
The man/mon placename element has been noted in connection with a variety of locations throughout Britain, such as the Isle of Man, which in Manx Gaelic is called Mannin. Equally, the Welsh name for the island of Anglesey is Ynys Môn. The fact that three islands across Britain have this placename element (Eumonia/Inchcolm, Mannin/Man, and Môn/Anglesey) is highly significant, and moves us directly into Celtic pagan mythology. In both branches of Celtic culture, there was a sea-god, whose name comes in various forms, but is often given in Gaelic as Manannán mac Lir and Welsh as Manawyddan fab Llyr. Indeed, in the eleventh century Welsh texts known as Y Mabinogi, there is a complete myth titled Manawyddan fab Llyr. Of course, Y Mabinogi is renowned as a problematic text. Although its tales are clearly derived from pagan mythology, it presents us with a view of that mythology filtered through folklore handed down during the Christian era and also thoroughly medievalised into the style of Arthurian chivalric discourse. Nonetheless, Manawyddan fab Llyr provides a useful source for the mythology surrounding this pagan deity, after whom it seems that Inchcolm was first named.
A local tradition persists that the meaning of Eumonia is "Isle of the Druids". This tradition may derive from the fact that the Roman writers on early Britain occasionally claim that Anglesey (Ynys Môn) was the centre of all Celtic druidry, and Tacitus gives us a specific account of druidic resistance to the Roman invasion, centred on that island. However, this interpretation of Eumonia has no etymological status, even if druidic associations are potentially apparent in the placename's association with the Celtic pagan sea-deity, Manawyddan.
[1] Joan Blaeu, "Lothian and Linlitqvo", in Atlas Novus (Amsterdam: 1654), Vol.5. [back]
[2] W. J. Watson, The Celtic Placenames of Scotland (Edinburgh: 1926; repr. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 1986), p.104. [back]
[3] Fordun's history was later continued by Walter Bower, an abbot of Inchcolm, in the 1440s, under the more famous title of The Scotichronicon. [back]
[4] Watson, op.cit., pp.104-105. [back]