dabhach

-aich, pl. dabhcha & -aichean, sf Vat, mashing vat. 2 Large tub. 3 District of a country, lot, portion of land or farm to carry 60 cows or head of cattle, davoch. MacBain gives “either one or four ploughgates, according to locality and land.” [A ploughgate contains 100 Scots acres]. Watson in The Place Names of Ross & Cromarty, says “usually four ploughgates.” Skene in Celtic Scotland, says, “In the eastern district there is a uniform system of land denomination consisting of dabhachs, ploughgates and oxgangs, each dabhach consisting of four ploughgates and each ploughgate containing eight oxgangs. As soon as we cross the great chain of mountains separating the eastern from the western waters, we find a different system equally uniform. The ploughgates and oxgangs disappear and in their place we find dabhachs and pennylands. The portion of land termed a dabhach, is here also called a tirung, or ounce-land and each dabhach contains 20 pennylands.” Prof. MacKinnon in Place and Personal Names of Argyll, says “In Pictland the unit of land measure was the dabhach, a word which properly denotes a liquid measure. An old farmer in Western Gaeldom frequently speaks of his fields, not as containing so many acres of land, but as “the sowing of so many bolls of oats,” “the bed of so many barrels of potatoes,” &c. Accordingly, from a measure of capacity, dabhach came early to be used as a measure of land surface. In Gaeldom, where the arable land is scant and scattered, the variations in the acreage of particular dabhachs or ounces must have been very great, still the extent of land represented by thesee terms seems to have been, as a rule, about 104 Scots acres, or 120 English acres. 4* Huge woman. A legend says that “An Dabhach” was the name of Ossian's wife. She was big, burly and fat (mór, màsach agus mèith). When he was old and blind they fell out, he threw a deer's shin-bone at her and missed her, hence the saying, urchar an doill mun dabhaich, a throw or blow at a venture; dabhach fìona, a winepress.

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