![]() Word borrowed from the Latin uncia, although an older native name was mann. The term "townland" is still used to designate very small named areas in the countryside.Ī hen's eggshell was used as a standard unit, roughly 55 ml. Ireland in total covered about 870,000 tir-cumaile. It is sometimes erroneously interpreted as the area needed to graze three cows, but it is far too large for that in modern Ireland, a cow grazes on about 0.4 ha, so twenty or more could graze a tir-cumaile. The basic unit of area was the tir-cumaile, "land of three cows", as it was an area of land that was at some point worth three cows. Stair Ercuil ocus a bás: the life and death of Hercules mentions ceim curadh (warrior's paces). "Catalogue of the Irish manuscripts in the British Museum v.1" gives ceithri gráine an t-órdlach (4 grains in the thumb-length). Other units such as inntrit and lait appear in documents their value is uncertain, perhaps being equivalent to 1 and 2 fertachs respectively.Īncient Laws of Ireland reads ceithri orlaighi i mbais, teora basa i troighid (4 thumb-lengths in a palm, 3 palms in a foot). These figures assume a man's foot to measure 25 cm (9.8 in).Ī magh-space was a unit set at the distance from which a cock-crow or bell could be heard. These were used from Early Christian Ireland (Middle Ages) or perhaps earlier, before being displaced by Irish measure from the 16th century onward.Ī troighid ("foot") was the length of a man's foot, divided into twelve ordlach, "thumb-lengths". Early Irish law texts record a wide variety of units of measurement, organised into various systems.
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