Emyvale, known before the

Plantation of Ulster The Plantation of Ulster ( gle, Plandáil Uladh; Ulster-Scots: ''Plantin o Ulstèr'') was the organised colonisation (''plantation'') of Ulstera province of Irelandby people from Great Britain during the reign of King James I. Most of the sett ...

as Scarnageeragh (), is a village and

townland A townland ( ga, baile fearainn; Ulster-Scots: ''toonlann'') is a small geographical division of land, historically and currently used in Ireland and in the Western Isles in Scotland, typically covering . The townland system is of Gaelic origi ...

in the north of

County Monaghan County Monaghan ( ; ga, Contae Mhuineacháin) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Ulster and is part of Border strategic planning area of the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town of Monaghan. Monaghan County Cou ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. It is on the main

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

Derry Derry, officially Londonderry (), is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and the fifth-largest city on the island of Ireland. The name ''Derry'' is an anglicisation of the Old Irish name (modern Irish: ) meaning 'oak grove'. The ...

and

Letterkenny Letterkenny ( ga, Leitir Ceanainn , meaning 'hillside of the O'Cannons'), nicknamed 'the Cathedral Town', is the largest and most populous town in County Donegal, a county in Ulster, the northern province in Ireland. Letterkenny lies on the R ...

road, the N2, about north of

Monaghan Monaghan ( ; ) is the county town of County Monaghan, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It also provides the name of its Civil parishes in Ireland, civil parish and Monaghan (barony), barony. The population of the town as of the 2016 census was 7 ...

and south of Aughnacloy. Its population is about 700.

History

In 1959, a

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

tomb A tomb ( grc-gre, τύμβος ''tumbos'') is a :wikt:repository, repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be ...

was discovered which proved that there was a settlement at the site of the village more than 3,000 years ago. Unfortunately for historians, the

urn An urn is a vase, often with a cover, with a typically narrowed neck above a rounded body and a footed pedestal. Describing a vessel as an "urn", as opposed to a vase or other terms, generally reflects its use rather than any particular shape or ...

and other artifacts found were inadvertently destroyed during excavation of the tomb. The name ''Scairbh na gCaorach'' (the

Irish language Irish ( Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...

name for Emyvale) means 'shallow ford of the sheep', referring to a low (and easily traversable) point in the Mountain Water river on which Emyvale is situated. The name is thought to have come from the Ui Meith tribe, the village's first inhabitants. Scairbh na gCaorach was abbreviated to "Scarna" in the early part of the 19th Century (indeed a local hostelry bears this name), although this fell out of common usage and village is now referred to by its

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

name – Emyvale. In the 8th century, the McKenna Clan arrived and, by the 12th century, they had established an independent

túath ''Túath'' (plural ''túatha'') is the Old Irish term for the basic political and jurisdictional unit of Gaelic Ireland. ''Túath'' can refer to both a geographical territory as well the people who lived in that territory. Social structure In ...

or kingdom in ''North Monaghan'' which would last for the next 450 years. In more recent times, Emyvale was immortalised by the renowned 19th-century Irish writer

William Carleton William Carleton (4 March 1794, Prolusk (often spelt as Prillisk as on his gravestone), Clogher, County Tyrone – 30 January 1869, Sandford Road, Ranelagh, Dublin) was an Irish writer and novelist. He is best known for his ''Traits and Sto ...

as part of his ''Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry'' series, which included ''The Fair of Emyvale'' (a short story based upon Carleton's experiences of the north Monaghan landscape where he was educated as a young man at a 'hedge school' situated beside St Mary's chapel, Glennan, near Glaslough).

Notable people

Tommy Bowe Thomas John Bowe (born 22 February 1984) is an Irish former rugby union player from County Monaghan, Ireland. He played on the wing for Ulster, Ireland and the British & Irish Lions. In March 2012, after four years with Ospreys in Swansea, Wa ...

, Irish rugby player *

Thomas Taggart Thomas Taggart (November 17, 1856March 6, 1929) was an Irish-American politician who was the political boss of the Democratic Party in Indiana for the first quarter of the twentieth century and remained an influential political figure in loca ...

, American politician

History

Notable people

References

See also