Lires

A Coruña · La CoruñaGalicia

Pre-Roman hydronym of disputed etymology. Bascuas's hypothesis derives it from a paleo-European base *lir- or *ler- of the Indo-European family *lei- ('to flow, spring, pour water'), present in Atlantic hydronyms like Welsh Llŷr (sea), Irish Lir (sea god) or Portuguese Lis. The plural suffix -es is the Latinised mark of the Galician locative generic. The hamlet gives its name to the small ría where the homonymous river flows.

The root *lei- and its variants *lir-, *ler- belong to the oldest stratum of Atlantic Indo-European hydronymy, what Hans Krahe called Alteuropäisch and Bascuas extended to Galicia. It appears in late Celtic mythologies personified as a sea divinity —⁠Lir in the Irish cycle of the Tuatha Dé Danann, Llŷr in the Welsh mythology of the Mabinogion⁠—⁠. The geographical distribution of hydronyms in lir- and ler- draws an Atlantic arc going from Ireland to northern Portugal passing through Brittany, Cornwall and Galicia. At Lires, the toponym names at once the coastal hamlet, the river that crosses it and the ría where the river flows —⁠three successive references of the same name, proper to Galician toponymy where the original hydronym fixes the whole micro-region⁠—⁠. The first documentary mention of Lires dates from the year 1133, in the cartulary of the Toxosoutos monastery. The hamlet was for centuries an obligatory stop on the Camino between Fisterra and Muxía, a function it preserves.

Evolution of the name

*lir- / *ler- pre-Roman Indo-European before the 3rd century BC
Lires medieval Galician from the 12th century

Reflections, to the letter

Lires is the piece that joins the two capes. The pilgrim who has reached Fisterra and wants to continue to Muxía necessarily passes through here, eight kilometres before reaching the sanctuary. The hamlet, thirty inhabitants, sits on the small protected ría of the homonymous river, with two medieval bridges over the watercourse and a Romanesque 12th-century parish church of square plan. The beach of Lires, accessible by going down one kilometre north of the village, is one of the cleanest and most deserted sandy beaches of the Costa da Morte: eight hundred metres of fine sand between two rocky points, without urbanisation behind. In the dunes, two Iron Age hill forts —⁠the castros of Lires and Toxos⁠— attest to the pre-Roman occupation of the place, contemporary with the hydrological toponyms that survive.

Glossary

Attested: A form or word documented in writing in historical sources; opposed to "reconstructed" (forms proposed by comparative inference but not actually documented).
Castro: Fortified settlement of the Iron Age and the transition to the Roman period (c. 800 BC–100 AD) characteristic of the peninsular northwest. They are generally raised on defensive heights and consist of circular or oval stone dwellings surrounded by one or more lines of walls. The Galician castro culture is the ethnic and archaeological formation that directly precedes the Romanisation of the territory; on the Costa da Morte more than two hundred castros have been catalogued, many on the coast with a view of the ocean.
Etymology: The origin and history of a word and the phonetic and semantic changes it has undergone. An etymology may be confirmed, probable or disputed depending on documentary attestations and linguistic parallels.
Hydronym: A place name derived from the name of a river, lake or watercourse (Carrión, Eo, Sella, Deba, Cueza).
Pre-Roman: Prior to the Romanisation of the Iberian peninsula (3rd century BC); applied to toponyms, linguistic roots and populations.

Sources

Bascuas, E. — Estudios de hidronimia paleoeuropea gallega
Cartulario de Toxosoutos, doc. 24 (año 1133)

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Camino de Finisterre y Muxía

Evolution of the name

Reflections, to the letter

Languages of origin

Themes

Origin status

Glossary

Sources