Dailly News

A day ago , by Richard Lutz

What’s in a name, asks RICHARD LUTZ.

Now, I want to make something very clear in these muddled times. Up in the green Ayrshire hills, south of Glasgow, is the village of Dailly.

Not Old Daily. But New Dailly. On its outskirts, above, is the New Dalquarren Castle which, of course, is not to be confused with the equally derelict Old Dalquarren Castle. Both lie roofless, their windows no more than sightless eyes overlooking the river below.

Nearby is old Kilkerran Castle which is but a scone’s throw from the new Kilkerran Tower which is a mere 300 years old. Way south of here is the village of New Galloway. But darned if I can find an Old Galloway. And then there’s the historic trick of mixing up Dalry with St John’s Town of Dalry which are separated by 30 twisting miles of Ayrshire roads.

To make a slow exit from Dailly’s confusions, we head east up Barony Hill. But things are still a bit up in the air. The 1000 foot peak is not to be confused with Barony A which is a monument 24 miles north dedicated to the miners of East Ayrshire. It’s near Old Cumnock, (not New Cumnock). And nearby is the elegant Dumfries House, nowhere near the redoubtable Scottish town at all but close to the equally redoubtable county town of Ayr.

Go figure, as the wise guys say. Ayrshire, it seems, knows a trick or two about names and I head for the top of Barony Hill. It is a bit of a plod. But I’m helped by this path:

It’s a farm track alright. But not as we know it, Jim. It’s surfaced with recycled astroturf. As we walk, I just make out the pitch’s penalty spot, the side lines, the centre circle as we head upwards to survey Ayrshire’s green summer world. The air is summer warm, the horizon stretches, the sky and meadows envelop those who roam the upland fields.

Barony Hill is rich with an industrial past. Among the sheep fields and cattle pastures, there are pits, quarries, mines, shafts and what was once a thriving lime kiln

They all gave Dailly its economy and, of course, enriched the landowners. It’s now history. All now shut. All is gone.

Below Barony Hill, the green warming earth fosters red clover by the riverside

There’s ragged robin along woodland paths

Accompanied by spotted orchid

Above the meadows, skylarks zip up and down. Or so they say. We hear them but never see ‘em. And in Poundland Wood (a place to raise a British smile as it intriguingly shares its name with an infamously el cheapo superstore) thrush and wrens sing. My bird app can’t identify a light airy song behind me until I turn to hear a friend whistling as he takes in the hardwood trail.

But it’s the tangle of names that gets me as we return to New Dailly (Old Dailly is further down the valley) and view across the river both the 16thc bumpy remains of Drummochreen and a kilometre north the new Drummochreen.

It’s that old timeless profusion and confusion of names.

For some, I guess, it makes sense. ‘We like it like that’ an elderly Ayrshireman explains in a whispery voice and a thin smile as if revealing a state secret, ‘You see, It confuses the enemy.’

pic credits: Mary Hogg and Gwynne Anderson/ Geograph