Skeheenarinky is actually my favourite placename.I just love the sound of it.Sceach is the hawthorn of course.So ‘Little Hawthorn Bush of the Dances’.
Presumably the said dances took place in May,when, in times gone by,girls would carry flowering branches of mayflower through the villages.This seems to be what is described in the song ‘Thugamar Fein an Samradh Linn’.All very magical,which is why Cromwell outllawed Maypole dancing in England.
But I’m only guessing,maybe I have it all wrong?
The song is special to me also;my grandad liked to sing and this is the only song he knew in Irish.
