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"We can prove...it's Shrove! 09.12.08
Greencastle townland
reclaims its name
VISITORS to east Inishowen could be forgiven for
thinking there are three different townlands near
Greencastle all with similar-sounding names.
But one local man is trying to put paid to the
confusion that surrounds Shrove, Shroove, or is it
Stroove?
Charlie McCann's family has lived in the townland
for three generations. He tries to explain how the
confusion about the placename arose. |
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"Everybody here calls
it Shrove but it's pronounced Shroove, so that's how
we think that spelling came into usage. My sister
and I looked into it and we found that in the
official Census of 1659 the townland was named as
Shroove," explained the 79-year old retired Foyle
Pilot.
"The next time it appeared was in the Hearth Money
Rolls of 1665 |
where people, believe
it or not, were taxed in
accordance with the number of fireplaces they had in
their house.
"In the Hearth Money Rolls, the name of the townland
was Shrove - so it would seem that six years later,
they got it right."
But then we come to the most controversial version
of the name - Stroove. Charlie explains that this
variation came about during the Ordnance Survey of
the 1830s, undertaken by British military engineers.
"It would seem that for some reason, the English
could not get their tongues around the local
pronunciation and put in the letter T to get around
it. We think the same thing happened over in
Strabane and Stranorlar. So even though nobody here
uses it, Stroove has been the official spelling
since the mid-19th Century, although things are
starting to change. |
A signpost erected
just a couple of years ago at Carnagarve in
Moville returned to the correct spelling.”
The earliest known version of the name is 'Srubh
Brain' translated as Bran's Point. |
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According to Charlie, Bran was a seafarer of old
although nobody knows whether he existed in fact
or only in legend.
Clearly, the word Srubh or its many variations
means point or headland. Other ancient written
records refer to Shrove as Shrone, i.e., sron,
the Irish word for nose. "This would fall in
with Shrove being the nose, point or headland of
an area," added Charlie. Meanwhile, it would
appear that Shrove has nothing to do with Shrove
Tuesday because this version of the word is said
to derive from the English word 'shrive' - to be
forgiven - in preparation for Lent.
Nevertheless, the people of Shrove would prefer
their townland to be called Shrove whether it's
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...or any other day of
the week! |
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