English / Map Form: Dalmahoy
Gaelic Form: Dail MoThutha
Post Town: KIRKNEWTON
Postcode area: EH27
County: Midlothian
Local Authority: West Lothian
English / Map Form: Dalmahoy
Gaelic Form: Dail MoThutha
Sources
“The form of Dalmahoy, near Edinburgh, indicates that it contains a saint’s name, and the name must be Tua, gen. Tuae. It means ‘the silent one,’ from an early Tovios, and there were four saints of that name, (32) one of whom, also called Ultan of Tech Tuae, is commemorated in the Calendars of Oengus and Gorman at December 22. The earlier form of Tua in Irish would be Tóe, which, according to the practice of Scottish Gaelic, wouId become with us Tatha. Tua is the form in Oengus’s Félire, composed in the ninth century, and it is probably this, rather than the older Tóe, which appears in Dalmahoy, for Dail mo Thuae, ‘my Tua’s meadow.’ In the north, however, the saint’s name must have been introduced in the earlier stage, for we have it on Loch Awe side in Cill Mo-Thatha, ‘ Kilmaha ‘; near Callander in Perthshire is Loch Mo-Thatháig, ‘Loch Mahaick,’ with the affectionate diminutive form Tathág; Abergairn Church, in Aberdeenshire, is in Gaelic Cill mo Thatha, and Féill mo Thatha, ‘ St. Tua’s fair,’ used to be [153] held there. (33) In Tatha the th is used merely to divide the syllables.” Watson 1926, 152