V9231 : An Scoil / SkullAn Scoil / Schull / SkullThe place name is intriguing. Both the Ordnance Survey and Bartholomew's maps use the spelling Skull, though Google maps and most road signs go for Schull, as did the narrow-gauge Schull & Skibbereen Railway which operated between those two towns until 1947. Adrian Room in his
Dictionary of Irish place-names (Belfast: Appletree Press, 1986) derives it from
scolb "splinter"- or according to Ó Dónail's dictionary "indentation as in the edge of a scallop shell" (perhaps from the English pronunciation "scollop?) Scottish Gaelic
sgealb is also a chip or splinter. but
sgeilb is a shelf, from the same Norse root as the English; the Scots
skelf can mean either.
Room conjectures that the name may "perhaps refer to a place where sticks ... could be got for building ... or the like. On the other hand, the origin may lie in
scoil ... and relate to a school founded by monks here." The Irish word translates the English "school" in both senses of an establishment for pupils or a group of fish, porpoises etc. so perhaps the harbour was also noted for its abundance of marine life?