The term welfare had, and still has, negative connotations betimes. Welfare Island in the East River of New York City is stated to have been the site of "a penitentiary, asylums, etc.". This had previously been known as Blackwell's Island. Blackwell (blackspring/ stream) is a surname based on a number of places so named in England, and Irish telephone directories list it 10 times north of the Border, and 55 times to its south, the latter mainly in counties Limerick and Clare.
Five of the names were among the Cromwellian "adventurers" receiving grants of land in the Co Tipperary baronies of Clanwilliam, Ileagh, and Ikerrin. In the latter, John Blackwell snr got 666 acres, and John jnr 2,914. However, the name was in Co Clare earlier than that, as shown by the will of James Blackwell, gentleman, of that county, which was proved in 1641. Col Henry Blackwell is listed in the 1659 census of Ireland among the tituladoes of Gore Island, in the Clare barony of Moyferty. Other Blackwells were listed tituladoes in Youghal, Co Cork; St Michael's parish, Dublin City, and Crumlin Parish, Co Dublin.
Clearly outsiders were no more welcome by some in the early 18th century than they are among some today. Corporation Book of Ennis (edited by Brian O Dalaigh: Academic Press 1990), notes in 1700 that "there are several disorders daily arising in the said borough, by admitting foreigners and scamperers [idle mischievous persons; scoundrels] to work and to set up a trade and art in the said borough, by names of cordwinders, butchers, skinners, smiths, tailors, masons, tylers, carpenters, joiners, feltmakers, tobacco spinners and weavers, for which we present that the undernamed persons shall be masters of said tradesmen and artificers, and that no alien or stranger shall be admitted to work or set up open shop in the said borough, without the said masters' or their successors' consent . . ."
Thomas Blackwell was to be master of the joiners and carpenters. That same year it was decided that a pew would be erected for the provost in the church and it was decided that Thomas Blackwell, joiner, "shall make up the same and give security for doing the said work". One of the "markers" in the outline of Ennis parish in 1752 was George Blackwell's well at Ballylicky.
Richard Robert Maddan's The United Irishmen, their Lives and Times contained essays on a number of persons, one of whom was James B. Blackwell. This was James Bartholomew Blackwell (1764-1822), who was sent from home in Ennis to France to be educated, where he became a distinguished officer in Napoleon's army.
By 1876, when Owners of Land of One Acre and Upwards was published, persons of this surname had scant acres - George Blackwell, Ennistimon, had 418 Co Clare acres, and Henry Blackwell had 71 acres on Greenish Island, Askeaton, Co Limerick.
We have failed to locate Gore Island, but Gower North and Gower South name townlands in the parish of Kilmacduane in the same barony of Moyarta, and we presume that it is the same. The only similar names in this barony listed in the Co Clare Book of Survey and Distribution (1636-1703) are Gowerhass (theas? or south) and Gowrednillane, which is in the parish of Kilmacduane. It looks as if -nillane gave rise to island.
P. W. Joyce, in his The Surnames of Ireland, says Gower derives from gabhar, a goat, explaining that betimes in placenames a single animal stood for animals, and representing this as "a place of goats". Apart from explaining gabhar as goat, Ua Duinnin's Focloir Gaeilge agus Bearla additionally defines it as "a horse [early]; a scad or rock-herring, a bundle; misappropriated or smuggled goods".
The Irish word geamhar would not be easy to represent phonetically with any accuracy in English, and might well be rendered "gower". Geamhar means "corn on the blade, green grass, material, of a person or thing; ni maith an geamhar an leanbh, the child does not promise well".