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Counties

04th May 2020

PIC: Matching the motto to the county isn’t as easy as you’d think

Sarah Finnan

An image showing a map of Ireland and each county’s motto has popped up online and we’re as puzzled now as we were when it first surfaced.

The image first appeared online back in 2018 but it’s caught our attention once again having been reshared on Twitter. We sort of forgot that county mottos were even a thing but turns out they are and some of them are quite random, to say the least.

Take Waterford for example, whose motto is “May the Déise remain with Declan forever”. Or Limerick, whose motto simply reads “remember Limerick”. Is that a statement or an order? We’re confused.

Cork, Kilkenny, Carlow, Leitrim, Armagh and North Tipperary (bizarrely enough) don’t have mottos but each of the rest of the counties do. Our favourite has to be Cavan’s though, which is “manliness and truth”.

There has been some discussion on Twitter as to whether the mottos are an accurate representation of each county – some reckon they could do with updating but they make for an entertaining rad all the same.

Today I learned that Longford’s motto is “strong and loyal” and I’ll be using it in all correspondences from hereon out.

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