Kilkenny. Kildare. Kilmainham. One little piece keeps turning up at the front of the name. It looks a bit like the English word for ending a life, but it has nothing to do with that.
Today we open those names and find what is really hiding inside.
Time to open the names. Watch the board as each town opens and the front piece peels away. Listen carefully for the Irish church words that keep appearing, then say them with the class. Be ready to choose the next town when your teacher asks. Notice what the second half of each name adds to the story.
Churches and schools once shared the same buildings and some of the same word family. Look at each pair on the board. Thumbs up if you think they are true cousins, thumbs down if you think it is a false friend or only a lookalike, then we check the short history note together.
Open your copy. Copy three Kil- names from the board. Under each, write in your own words what the second half adds (a person, a place, or something remembered). Spelling of the board model is enough: no extra words to learn off by heart.
Under your list, tick the church roots you heard today:
Kilkenny, Kildare and Kilmacthomas begin with a word for a church, not a killing. A map full of Kil- names is really a map of where communities built places of prayer and learning long ago.
Start here: Who might a place like Kilkenny have been named after, and what could that person have meant to the people who lived there?
Then try: What does it tell you about a country that so many of its towns are named after a church?
Stretch: Would a visitor who only saw English spellings notice the churches hiding inside the names?
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