here are two objections to this. In the
first place, the name is never spelt in Irish _Armagh_, nor even
_Ardmagh_, but always ARDMACHA. _Ardmagh_ or _Armagh_ is only the
anglicised spelling, adapted to English tongues and ears. It is
therefore clearly absurd to take this corrupt form of the word as
our _datum_, in the attempt to search for its etymology. Secondly,
the Irish names of places which are derived from, or compounded of,
_magh_, a plain, are always anglicised, _moy, moi, mow_, or _mo_,
to represent the pronunciation: as Fermoy, Athmoy, Knockmoy, Moira,
Moyagher, Moyaliffe (or Me-aliffe, as it is now commonly spelt),
Moville, Moyarta, and thousands of other cases. And those who are
acquainted with the Irish language will at once tell, by the ear, that
_Armagh_, as the word is pronounced by the native peasantry, even by
those who have lost that language (as most of them in that district
now have), could not be a compound of _magh_, a plain.

The work of M. Bullet, quoted by your correspondent "HERMES," is full
of ignorant blunders similar to that which he commits, when he tells
us that Armagh in compounded of "_Ar_, article, and _mag_, ville."
The article, in Irish, is _An_, not _ar_; and _mag_ does not signify
a town. He adopts, your readers will perceive, the modern English
spelling, which could not lead to a correct result, even if M. Bullet
had been acquainted with the Celtic languages. The same remark applies
to the explanation given by the author of _Circles of Gomer_. _Ard_,
not _Ar_, is the word to be explained; and therefore, even though _Ar_
and _Ararat_ meant, as he tells us, "earth, country, or upon and on
the earth," this would throw no light on the etymology of ARD_macha_.

"HIBERNICUS" (No. 14. p. 217.) is partly right and partly wrong; he
adopts the anglicised spelling of the second syllable, although he
seems aware that the first syllable ought to be _Ard_; and he admits
also that this word is a substantive, signifying a _height_, not the
adjective _high_. "A high plain," in Irish, would be, not Ardmagh,
or Ardmoy (as it would have been anglicised), but _Magh-ard_ (Anglice
_Moyard_). Great light will be thrown on the whole subject of the
etymology of Irish typographical names, when the Index to my friend
Mr. O'Donovan's edition of the _Annals of the Four Masters_ makes its
appearance.

I may add too, in conclusion, that Camden is wrong in suggesting that
_Armach_ (as he spells it, retaining,