Beverley at [email protected] writes: << Could anyone tell me if there is/was such a place as Sallemboough in Donegal in the early 1800's. >> Beverley, I think I'm going to have to take this in a different direction. I don't see any townlands (or towns) with names similar to Sallemboough, and there is no sound in the Irish alphabet similar to "S". So I'm going to guess that the elaborate script capital letters of the 1800's has yielded another victim <gr>. Perhaps you should be searching for another initial letter for the placename. Also, the "oo" looks bogus when preceding a "u". Further, I think the "b" was misread, and it should be an "l". Oh yeah......the "e" is undoubtedly a schwa, and could be as easily sounded like an "i" in that position in the word. So, with all of those caveats, here are my feeble proposals: Ballinlough townland is a bit more than 5 miles NNE of Buncrana town, out on the Inishmore peninsula. Tullinlough townland is 4 miles or so a little east of due north of Inver town, and 5 1/2 miles a little east of due south of Glenties town. Those are my best guesses (if we can ever make an S look like a B or a T - the B seems a better bet). I don't think you want to know my worst ones. Pete Schermerhorn, in the glorious Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts
>I think I'm going to have to take this in a different direction. I don't see >any townlands (or towns) with names similar to Sallemboough, and there is no >sound in the Irish alphabet similar to "S". On the contrary, there is. The 'S' in Irish sounds just like it does in English, when the next vowel after it is an a, o or u. If the next vowel is an e or i, it has a 'sh' sound. It's not as strange as it seems if you think of words like cat vs. ceiling, or get vs. gin! So in Irish we have "siad" (shayd - they ) vs. slán (slahn - bye) >So, with all of those caveats, here are my feeble proposals: Ballinlough >townland is a bit more than 5 miles NNE of Buncrana town, out on the >Inishmore >peninsula. Our "Ireland in miniature" peninsula is actually called Inishowen :) Ballinlough is in the Mintiaghs parish, and is easily locatable on a map - look for Mintiagh Lough. Well used to it, as it's half way between my house and Buncrana on the Clonmany side of Drumfries. Michael