The Names and Places of 'My Mother and Other Strangers'
Daniel Hautzinger
July 14, 2017
My Mother and Other Strangers, which airs its finale this Sunday, July 16, at 7:00 pm, takes place in Northern Ireland in the fictional town of Moybeg. While the remote community may be made up, some of the places and names it references are grounded in reality. Take a mini tour of the windswept landscape of Northern Ireland and explore the legends and origins of the locations and names of My Mother and Other Strangers. (Recap the most recent episode here.)
Lough Neagh
Moybeg is situated on Lough Neagh, the British Isles’ largest lake by area and the source of the locals’ beloved (and contested) eels. Its name derives from the Irish Loch nEachach, which translates to Eachaidh’s lake. According to legend, it was formed when Eachaidh, the son of a king, eloped with his stepmother Ébhlinne. After their horses are killed, they are given a colossal horse that later creates a spring when it stops to relieve itself. Eachaidh builds a house there, capping the powerful spring every evening. One night, he forgets to replace the capstone, and the spring floods the area, drowning Eachaidh and creating Lough Neagh.
One other story claims the lake was formed when the Irish giant Finn McCool hurled a chunk of earth at a Scottish giant. The crater left by the missing boulder of earth filled with water, becoming Lough Neagh, while the hurled chunk landed in the Irish Sea and became the Isle of Man.
Moybeg
While the town in My Mother and Other Strangers is fictional, there is a townland – the smallest official division of land – in Northern Ireland called Moybeg Kirley. The name roughly means “prominent townland on the little plain.” Unlike the Moybeg of the show, it is not on Lough Neagh, though it is relatively near it.
Kearney
The show was filmed in the historic village of Kearney, a remote hamlet conserved by the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, an organization similar to the United States’ National Parks. Kearney was a thriving fishing community in the nineteenth century, given its location on the Ards Peninsula on the east coast of Northern Ireland, but it has been in the care of the National Trust since 1965. Legend has it that Kearney was home to a “she-cruiser” – a fishing boat crewed entirely by women.
Ards Peninsula
Not a location in the show, but the setting of Kearney, where it was filmed, its name means “peninsula of the Ulstermen” (Ulster is the province in which it is located). During World War II it did contain some military airfields. Unlike in the show, these were Royal Air Force bases, not American ones.
Coyne
The last name of Michael, Rose, Emma, and Francis is an anglicized version of the Gaelic Ó Cadhain, which means “descendant of Cadhan.”