Drumcharry
Drumcharry # BMO S NO3624 2
Drumhary 1574 x 1603 Campbell 1899, 616–17
(a third of) Drumharie 1602 RMS vi no. 1323 [see Bottomcraig BMO]
Drumharrie 1603 RMS vi no. 1411
Drwmharrie 1614 RMS vii no. 1115
Drumhary 1636 RMS ix no. 565
Over Drumhary-fauld 1636 RMS ix no. 565
Drumheres 1653 RMS x no. 106
Drumcharry 1899 Campbell 1899, 642
G druim + G ?
While the first element is clearly G druim ‘ridge’, the second element is problematic, especially as medieval forms are lacking. Campbell (1899, 644) suggests G carrach ‘stony, rocky, rugged’, an interpretation which seems to have influenced his spelling of the name, since all other forms have the second element beginning with h. But we have good evidence that G druim carrach developed elsewhere in east Fife into Drumcarro (CMN, PNF 3). It is possible that h represents lenited c, so we may have an underlying druim charraigh, the second element being from G carragh (f.) ‘pillar stone’; however, in Fife place-names this occurs more frequently in its earlier form coirthe, as in Pitcorthie (thrice). A further possibility is that it derives from G àirigh (f.) ‘shieling, vaccary’. Much depends on the original length of the first syllable (carr- short, àirigh long), but the early forms are ambivalent in this regard, and there is no modern pronunciation to guide us.
Campbell (1899, 642) locates the place ‘south-west of Bottomcraig, on the north slope of the hill’, hence the above NGR.
This place-name appeared in printed volume 4