Talk:Baltimore, County Cork

History
Location, topography and weather all played their part in ensuring Baltimore largely escaped from recorded history until the 1600s. Evidence of early settlement consists of stone circles on nearby hills, a scattering of artefacts such as pottery and axes, and a Druids cromlech (alter) - dated to over 2000 years old - in nearby Oldcourt. Early settlers of Ireland - such as the Gaels and the Celts - were an inland-based people, with defensive settlements at places such as the Hill of Tara and the Rock of Cashel. Baltimore came under the influence of the Kingdom of Desmond, the McCarthy clan based in Killarney, and their underlords the O'Driscolls, still two of the most popular surnames in the area. However, given the difficult terrain, Baltimore would have been on the periphery of a peripheral land. With few natural resources, poor agricultural land and difficult inland travel, this area of Ireland offered little to prospective settlers, primarily subsistence living from the sea. Although they never settled there, the Romans knew Ireland, indeed they gave it its name. They called the people they encountered the 'Iberni', as their features were similar to the people of Iberia (Spain) and recent genetic studies have confirmed deep forgotten links exist to the people now found in the Basque country. The first regular sea travellers would have been the early Christians in the 5th century, on their way to Skellig Michael escaping the chaos of fallen Rome. We know they visited the Baltimore area because nearby Cape Clear Island is reputed to be the birthplace of St Ciarán the Elder, who proceeded St Patrick and was the first notable Christian to be born in Ireland. The Christian monks would move into settlements throughout Ireland, and establish new settlements at strategic trading points such as Clonmacnoise. Major changes came to Ireland with the arrival of the Vikings, who established most of modern Ireland's major cities and turned it from an inland to a sea-ward-looking island. The ports of Cork to the east and Limerick to the west were large Vikings settlements, but again very little attracted them to the coast in-between, and Baltimore at most would have been a resting point in the hard row against the prevailing south-westerlies.

Baltimore Harbour
Baltimore Harbour is one of the most sheltered natural harbours in Ireland and affords safe usage to a large selection of small boat sailing, yachting, fishing vessels, ferries and other boating activities. Its primary entrance to the sea is between two cliffs, in the southwest corner between the lighthouse of Sherkin island and a whitewashed stone beacon on the mainland. The other primary route to the harbour is in the northwest corner where it meets the Ilen River. This entrance leads to Roaring Water Bay and Carbury's hundred isles. Due to this unique geography, in medieval times Baltimore was the centre of operations for pirates, whose local knowledge not only allowed them to find the harbour from the sea - which was not so easy before the cliff markers were built - but also gave them an emergency exit through a minefield of rocks should they ever be followed. The peak of this activity was in the early 1600s when Finneen O'Driscoll...

Also could expand on The Fishary School; The Fishing Industry during the 1890's; Druid findings & Baltimore 2000; Spain Tower, Charlie Haughey being saved by lifeboat; drugs smuggling; connections with the Pride of Baltimore; ship building;  —Preceding unsigned comment added by TangoRuffian (talk • contribs) 21:19, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation help
This passage is from the intro section:
 * "The town's name is properly pronounced differently than Baltimore in the USA. (Bal-timore rather than Ball-timore)." (sic)

Unfortunately, this isn't much help for anyone who doesn't already know how the two variations are pronounced; sticking an extra "L" at the end of the first syllable doesn't actually change the pronunciation. In America, the "A" is pronounced au, and sounds much like "bawl-timore"; spelling it "bawll-timore" doesn't change that. Can we get an IPA pronunciation, or at least a "layman's" attempt to characterize the pronunciation of the "A" in the first syllable? It's the "A" that is key, not the "L". I could suggest "'bahl-timore' rather than 'bawl-timore'", but I do not claim to be an expert. 71.204.204.249 14:22, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Etymology of Baltimore
I have seen the following variants of the Irish origin of Baltimore:

'Baile an Tí Mór' 'Baile an Tí Mhóir' 'Baile na Tighe Mor' 'Baile na Tighe Mor'

I am not concerned about the 3rd and 4th word variants as they are likely different spellings over time, but the 2nd word, "an" vs. "na", seems like an unlikely variant. Which is it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.149.253.69 (talk) 12:40, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * my irish is spotty, but 'na' would seem correct to me.of course, are we talking about modern irish?my knowledge of older tongues is non-existent.Toyokuni3 (talk) 15:08, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Baal Tine Mor - the Celtic god of fire and fulfilment. The area was a sanctuary for Druids who worshipped Baal way before any big houses. (TangoRuffian) —Preceding unsigned comment added by TangoRuffian (talk • contribs) 21:00, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Pictorial contrasts
Hmmmm. So we have two good photos here; and a dispute. The bottom one claims to be better because the pillar is clearer - but is that the deciding factor; perhaps the top one captures that overall location better? Do aesthetics count? If so some might consider the top one has the edge. Well folks, the rule here is that the original photo should stay unless the replacement is obviously better. As both here are rather good - whichever was first should stay. Sarah777 (talk) 20:56, 31 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I should say here that neither of these is mine.....Sarah777 (talk) 20:56, 1 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Current score: Top....1 Bottom....1. Sarah777 (talk) 20:57, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Play called off and Bottom declared the winner....Sarah777 (talk) 02:25, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Would a different crop of the panorama be better? What about this image, which also shows the beacon in more detail despite its being much smaller in the frame? I agree that the current picture is prettier. I'd choose it for a motivational poster. But it's also heavily JPEG artifacted and shows very little of the structure of the beacon except its outline. The world has more pictures of things silhouetted against the setting sun than anyone could view in a lifetime, and I don't think it is or should be the point of Wikipedia to show images that convey little more than "look how pretty it is here, you should visit". I don't think my photo is that great either artistically or technically, but I did think it was so obviously superior in information content to anything previously on the commons (viz., that single image) that it qualified for replacement without discussion. I guess it ended up looking like self-promotion, but it really wasn't. I still think that my image is a far better choice for an encyclopedia article, though I'm not sure the article needs an image of the beacon at all. -- BenRG (talk) 22:00, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * No need to get defensive; "pretty things suck" is pure POV. I'd also question your statistics; I reckon there are vastly more photos of things not silhouetted against the setting sun than there are of  things silhouetted against the setting sun. That's probably why people find them "pretty". However, as I can attest, we are not really the best judges of our own work. I've removed  blurred  underexposed  images and then been told they were artistic and soulful. We argue either way depending what our own snap is vis a vis the competition. (BTW, in my view BOTH these pics would come into the "eye-candy" category). However if you see a massive superiority in your own pretty pic - change it! (As I said, the other one isn't mine; I just thought it was on a par with the replacement. Regards Sarah777 (talk) 02:15, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Heck, I've checked the original snapper and he appears to have stopped editing - so nobody is likely to start edit-warring. I'll change them myself and leave these here because they're....well....pretty.Sarah777 (talk) 02:20, 2 August 2008 (UTC)