Polharrow Burn is a small watercourse in
Dumfries and Galloway
Dumfries and Galloway ( sco, Dumfries an Gallowa; gd, Dùn Phrìs is Gall-Ghaidhealaibh) is one of 32 unitary council areas of Scotland and is located in the western Southern Uplands. It covers the counties of Scotland, historic counties of ...
,
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
, in the historic county of
Kirkcudbrightshire
Kirkcudbrightshire ( ), or the County of Kirkcudbright or the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright is one of the historic counties of Scotland, covering an area in the south-west of the country. Until 1975, Kirkcudbrightshire was an administrative county ...
. It rises in
Loch Harrow
''Loch'' () is the Scottish Gaelic, Scots and Irish word for a lake or sea inlet. It is cognate with the Manx lough, Cornish logh, and one of the Welsh words for lake, llwch.
In English English and Hiberno-English, the anglicised spelling ...
and flows towards
St John's Town of Dalry
St John's Town of Dalry ( gd, Clachan Eòin), usually referred to simply as Dalry ( / 'dal-RYE'), is a village in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, in the historic county of Kirkcudbrightshire.
Location
St Johns Town is located close to the ...
before joining the
Water of Ken
The Water of Ken is a river in the historical county of Kirkcudbrightshire in Galloway, south-west Scotland. It rises on Blacklorg Hill, north-east of Cairnsmore of Carsphairn in the Carsphairn hills, and flows south-westward into The Glenkens, p ...
.
Etymology
Polharrow is a
Gaelic
Gaelic is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". As a noun it refers to the group of languages spoken by the Gaels, or to any one of the languages individually. Gaelic languages are spoken in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Ca ...
name formed from the words ''poll'' 'stream' and ''airbhe'' 'wall, fence'. The
Scots word ''burn'' has been added later, when the meaning of ''poll'' in the name became opaque. The word ''airbhe'' is also found in Loch Harrow. It is not clear if the loch gave rise to the name of the burn or vice versa.
Maxwell proposed a derivation meaning 'the bull's burn', taking the second element to be ''thairbh'' 'of a bull'.
This derivation is considered to be 'unlikely'.
Dance
It gives its name to a
Scottish country dance
Scottish country dance (SCD) is the distinctively Scottish form of country dance, itself a form of social dance involving groups of couples of dancers tracing progressive patterns. A dance consists of a sequence of figures. These dances are ...
by the cryptographer and Scottish country dance deviser
Hugh Foss
Hugh Rose Foss (13 May 1902 – 23 December 1971) was a British cryptanalyst. At Bletchley Park during World War II he made significant contributions both to the breaking of the German Enigma code and headed the section tasked with breaking Japan ...
, which appeared in his ''Glendarroch Scottish Country Dance Collection'' in 1966. He published several volumes of these from his own impress, Glendarroch Press. He lived in his retirement at Glendarroch in
St John's Town of Dalry
St John's Town of Dalry ( gd, Clachan Eòin), usually referred to simply as Dalry ( / 'dal-RYE'), is a village in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, in the historic county of Kirkcudbrightshire.
Location
St Johns Town is located close to the ...
and died in 1971.
References
External links
Foss, Hugh
Rivers of Dumfries and Galloway
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