Schull
| Schull Irish: Scoil Mhuire | |
| County Cork | |
|---|---|
 Main Street | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | V924317 |
| Location: | 51°31’36"N, 9°32’53"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 700 (2016) |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | West Cork |
| Website: | www.schull.ie |
Schull or Skull is a town in County Cork, on the peninsula leading to Mizen Head in the west of the county. The name is pronounced 'Skull', but is not anatomical – it is from the Irish Scoil Mhuire, meaning 'Mary's School'.[1]
The village is a sailing and a holidaying centre. It stands on the coast, its outlook ominated by Mount Gabriel (1,335 feet). It has a sheltered harbour, used for recreational boating.
There are numerous holiday homes along the adjoining coast. Schull had a population of 700 in 2016.
The town's secondary school, Schull Community College, houses one of the only planetariums in Ireland,[2] along with a sailing school.
Name
Its grimly pronounced name is from the Irish language – believed to be from Scoil Mhuire, meaning 'Mary's School', and in the latter language it is known as An Scoil ('the school'),[1] a name now imposed by law.
The first recorded place name for this area is "scol", from a Decretal Letter of Pope Innocent III in 1199 to the bishop of Cork confirming the rights of the bishop of Cork.
Both 'Skull' and 'Skul' are used in the Down Survey of 1656–58. The spelling 'Skull' is also used in the Grand Jury Map surveyed in the 1790s and published 1811.
The name is attributed by some to a school which was ostensibly located in the area.[3][4]
However, others question this derivation, and Gary Dempsey's thesis ("Whispered in the Landscape/Written on the Street, A Study of Placename Policy and Conflict in Ireland from 1946 to 2010") suggests that the "Scoil Mhuire" form dates to 1893 when the parish priest of Schull at the time, Very Rev. John O’Connor (P.P. Schull 1888–1911), who "fancied himself as a historian, misread a Latin sentence as referring to a 'College of St. Mary' in Skull; in fact, the text referred to a collegiate church in Waterford but the PP had set the ball rolling".
Transport
Schull once had its own railway station, which was the western terminus of the Schull and Skibbereen Railway, a steam-operated narrow gauge railway. Schull railway station opened on 6 September 1886, closed for passenger and goods traffic on 27 January 1947, and finally closed altogether on 1 June 1953.
There is a ferry service between Schull and Cape Clear Island.[5][6]
Events
Each year Schull harbour hosts the Fastnet International Schools Regatta.
In literature
- Silver River by Daisy Goodwin (2007) includes a section on the efforts of her 3x great-grandfather, Robert Traill, Rector of Skull, to help the populace during the Great Famine.
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Schull) |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 An Scoil / Skull: Placenames Database of Ireland
- ↑ "Welcome To Schull Planetarium". http://www.westcorkweb.ie/planetarium/.
- ↑ Kieran McCarthy, Daniel Breen (2013). West Cork Through Time. Amberley Publishing. ISBN 9781445620794. https://books.google.com/books?id=-YCoAwAAQBAJ&q=schull.
- ↑ Con O'Leary (1936). Con O'Leary. p. 173. https://books.google.com/books?id=dX5HAAAAIAAJ&q=schull+%22Scoil+Mhuire%22.
- ↑ "Archived copy". https://birdwatchireland.ie/our-work/cape-clear-bird-observatory/other-information/.
- ↑ "Archived copy". https://www.capeclearferries.com/schull-ferry/.