Everything about Shercock totally explained
Shercock is a small town situated in the east of
County Cavan,
Ireland. The current population of the town is around 600 people with almost triple this amount in the surrounding areas. Shercock has more pubs than any other type of business.
Shercock is located at the intersection of the
R162 and
R178 regional roads.
History
The town was founded in the early 17th century as a Plantation town to accommodate mainly Presbyterian British settlers who colonised this part of County Cavan. Usually these new settlers gave their towns English or Scottish names - near neighbours are
Kingscourt,
Cootehill, and
Bailieborough - but the existing
Irish names were maintained in Shercock. The modern Irish language name is Searcoig or Searcog; either name may be translated literally as "young love", and there's no reason to believe that the name has changed in the last 400 years. Possibly the straitlaced and God-fearing Scots of the early 1600s didn't realise the risque implications of the name they inherited from the local Gaelic population.
Equally strangely, the local townlands in this northern Protestant enclave almost all retain their ancient Gaelic names. For example, the townland of Lecks, on the Kingscourt road on the outskirts of Shercock, has been so named for a thousand years because of the flat-slabbed rocky landscape (
leac is the Irish word for a flagstone). By contrast, townlands in the predominantly Gaelic west of Ireland very often have distinctly English names.
By the mid 19th century the town and immediate area had a population of about 5,000. However, the great famines and subsequent emigration severely affected the county of Cavan, reducing the population by 50% between 1841 and 1891.
Industry
The area is "
drumlin" country, being a landscape of small hills and lakes formed as the last ice age withdrew.
The Shercock area's main industry for nearly 300 years was the growing of
flax for linen-making. The industry gradually died away with the decline of the linen industry in
Northern Ireland.
Nowadays the town is an attractive and prosperous place with some light industry and a thriving tourist business based mainly on the excellent local angling.
Lough Sillan, on the edge of the town, is a noted coarse fishing lake with thousands of metres of safe shore for free all-year angling. There are several smaller lakes within easy reach of the town.
People
- The family of playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan (The School for Scandal) had an estate in Shercock; Lewis' Topographical Dictionary of Ireland cites Shercock as Sheridan's birthplace, though most sources say Dublin.(External Link
)
Patrick Kavanagh's 1948 novel Tarry Flynn is set in the countryside around Shercock.
The great-grandfather of U.S. Rep. John Murtha, also named John Murtha, was born in Shercock c. 1858, moving to the United States in 1882. (External Link)Further Information
Get more info on 'Shercock'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://shercock.totallyexplained.com">Shercock Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
