Craughwell

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Craughwell
Creachmhaoil

Location

WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates:
53.2261° N 8.7331° W

Irish Grid Reference
M510197

Statistics

62 m

Population (2002)
- Town:
- Rural:

358
1,169

Craughwell (Irish: Creachmhaoil) is a village in County Galway, Ireland. Also used as a surname, properly Ó Creachmhaoil, though often Anglicised as Craughwell, and Crockwell. The surname was largely unknown outside of the South-East of County Galway until the end of the 19th Century when emigres established families which still thrive in Newfoundland, Bermuda, Cornwall, Ohio and Berkshire County, Massachusetts, among other places. Notable bearers of the name include American painter Douglass Crockwell.

The name is composed of two Gaelic words. Creach, is related to craig, and creag, and the English word crag, and refers to rock (with which word it rhymes), or the bare rock crest of a hill. A maol is a round-shaped hill or mountain, bare of trees. It is Anglicised as 'mull', and is common in Irish and Scottish place names such as the Mull of Kintyre. Gaelic spelling rules reuire that maol, following creach, be lenited; that is, an h is inserted after the first letter, if the first letter is a consonant (and not an l, n, or r). This h makes the preceding consonant silent, or changes its sound (mh, or bh, for instance, are silent or sound like an English v). Gaelic spelling rules also require that, with the first letter lenited, the last vowel should be slender (an i, or an e). As both vowels in maol are broad, an i is inserted after. These two changes alter the sound of maol (rhymes with mull) to mhaoil (rhymes with uell, or well). The sound of the two word together, therefore, sounds to an English ear like Crockwell, or Craughwell, and it is Anglicised thus (the Gaelic personal names Seán (John) and Seamus (James) became Iain and Hamish in Scotland by similar means).

The village of Creachmhaoil celebrates its connection with the Gaelic poet Anthony Raferty.

Craughwell has a thriving athletics club, with over 200 juvenile and senior athletes participaring at local, regional and national level and some outstanding athletes such as Ann Loughnane and Cathriona Farrell representing Ireland at international events.