Talk:Sruth in Aghaidh an Aird

Waterfall Name
I see you reverted the edit. So, “sruth in aghaidh an aird” is the name of the waterfall. The Devils Chimney has never been the name of the waterfall. It has popped up recently on marketing material, presumably invented by someone dissatisfied with the Irish name.

We are trying to correct a problem created by the very sources you are using to verify it. Sligowalks is a tourism website, not a reliable source, and it is the probable source of the misinformation in the first place. An etymology section can be included to discuss the translation of the name. There are not going to be any sources though as its a local feature, and because there cannot be any discussion of something that was made up out of the blue only in the past year or so.

I have not tracked down what exactly is the source of this erroneous attribution as it will take an investigation. I am willing to include a section saying that the Devils chimney has been used recently. However, i believe its important the wikipedia reflects the unfolding confusion started by a marketing campaign rather than just adds to it.

Kodai (talk) 21:31, 3 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Hello Kodai and thanks for taking this issue to the Talk page. Although Sligo Walks is a tourism/trails website, if you check their About page, they say that they are an initiative of Sligo County Council, Sligo Tourism and others with support from Fáilte Ireland etc. So I take them to be a reliable non-commercial source. Devil's Chimney is also given as a name in the referenced Sligo Champion article and another Champion article here. Such news articles make for reliable sources. TripAdvisor, although not a usable source, also uses this nomenclature. So the use of this alternative name, even if a recent development, is now present across a number of sources. If there is controversy surrounding the alternative name, then that could be mentioned but, importantly, only with a reliable source. I agree that there are limited sources available about the waterfall, but I believe the article makes use of the few reliable ones available. Declangi (talk) 05:52, 4 January 2019 (UTC)


 * A further note that I changed the Infobox fields to how I entered them originally: with Sruth as the proper name and Devil's Chimney an alternative name. A more recent edit swapped them. Declangi (talk) 05:59, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi, you would think the council were a reliable source, but in this instance I dont believe they are. Anyway, i am going to hold off on this until I get confirmation of the source. The name Devils Chimney in relation to this waterfall first appears on 4th May 2016 in a video uploaded to Youtube. It then appears on the 31st August 2016 in the Irish Times shortly after the opening of a new walk to the waterfall opened by the council. It appears then on the 28th June 2017 on the Sligo Walks site. At first, this is the only name used. Later, the actual Irish name appears. I have requested Sligowalks to point me to their source for this name. If there isnt one, or if the Youtube video is the source, then they themselves appear to have promoted this name change. This is causing considerable confusion to locals.

I understand that this as an alternative name can be noted by us here, but i think it should be treated as an example of ongoing renaming or masking of features that already have names, either through ignorance, or through a commercially driven desire to invent a more exciting name in English for what is a long and difficult to pronounce Irish name. The truth is, this waterfall had no other name, except “Sruth in Aghaidh an Aird” until the 2016 council marketing campaign, as far as I can ascertain. If this is the case, the council is breaching its own remit in relation to local heritage. . Anyway, i will not edit until i recieve, further information from the council and Sligo walks. However, if they are the source of this supposed alternative name then I expect this article to change to make this clear. Kodai (talk) 09:21, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Origin of “Devils Chimney” nickname
So far, the source appears to be a Youtube video uploaded by DYGMphotography on the 8th of December 2015. The video is entitled “The Devils Chimney (near Glencar Waterfall) Fail, Wind refusing to let water flow down, only upwards”. This was then uploaded to Newsflare on the 10th of December 2015 under a similar title and then reposted by Newsflare to Youtube. This, so far, appears to be the source of this modern nickname, as all other videos and article with this name are later than this.

Kodai (talk) 09:57, 4 January 2019 (UTC)