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Published 01/10/24
2bara m. [ˈb̥aɾə]
(Skye; Ross-shire) [bɑrə] (Faclan bhon t-Sluagh˄).
‘boat-cradle, stocks or stand (AFB˄), (Skye) a kind of nest made at the top of the beach to accommodate a boat, a nest built with stones on either side to accommodate a boat, (Raasay) a sort of nest for a boat on the shore, (Ross-shire) a channel made for a boat at the top of the shore for when not in use (Faclan bhon t-Sluagh˄)’. If these senses are not an extension of 1bara, they may be the result of a loan from ON bora f. ‘bore, hole’ (cf. Nn. bora ‘hole’ (Torp 1992, s.v. bor), bore ‘narrow opening’ (Ordbøkene˄, s.v. bore)), with o ~ a alternation in Gaelic, or from the Scots cognate bor, boir, bore ‘a small hole or crevice; a place used for shelter, especially by smaller animals’ (Jamieson 1808).
McDonald (≈1972) has entries for SG barra and barrach. Barra is defined as ‘offing or roads [a sheltered piece of water near the shore where vessels may lie at anchor in safety (OED˄)]’ and is compared with barraibh in Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair’s ‘Birlinn Chlann Raghnaill’ (Thomson 1996b, 153, lines 2014–15: ’S ghabh sinn deagh longphort aig barraibh Charraig Fhearghais (and we made good harbour at the barraibh of Carrickfergus)) and exemplified in a place-name on the east coast of Barra, given as Bara-làchadh and Am Barra Làchadh. Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair’s barraibh has otherwise been taken as a dative plural form of bàrr (s.v.) and translated as ‘point’ (Pattison 1890, 27; Barr n.d.˄), ‘heights’ (MacDonald and MacDonald 1924, 401) and ‘top’ (MacDiarmid 1941, 85). The place-name forms denote ‘a cove that holds a boat or two’ and are probably for SG *Am Bara Làthchadh ‘the muddy or clayey bara’, with gen. of làthach f. ‘mud, clay’. Barrach is defined as ‘a place scooped out on the shore above high water mark to receive boats when they are hauled high and dry: tha na sgothan sna barraichean rè a’ gheamhraidh (the boats are in the barraichean during the winter)’. Here, barraichean may have been taken to be the plural of a form barrach when in fact it might be the plural of bar(r)a. Whether -rr- has any phonetic reality in these two words is not known.