placenamesSraheens
Na Sraithíní
School records and a family butter-making enterprise illuminate the history of this Bohola parish community near Balla.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- Na Sraithíní · Irish · main form · validated name
- Sraheens · English · main form
Place & story
The first national school
Shraheens School began in a single room, with enrolments recorded late in 1881 before formal classes started in March 1882. The published Bohola school history records an initial 120 pupils and names Canon John O’Grady as its first manager. Establishing a school locally reduced the distances children had previously travelled. By 1900 attendance was about 100, declining to 78 some twenty years later. [2]
Replacement and amalgamation
A replacement school opened in 1937 at a reported cost of £1,800. It began with 60 children, half the number associated with the older school’s opening. Falling enrolment continued through the following decades: the local history records 55 pupils in 1954 and only 20 by closure in 1972. Those remaining children transferred to the prefabricated school in Bohola, ending the village’s separate national school. [2]
A farmhouse butter business
Tom and Sheila Butler established Cuinneog at Shraheens in 1990, developing household butter-making into a commercial enterprise. Their daughter Breda described the beginnings in a family kitchen, using fermented cream and a small wooden churn. Butter and buttermilk were packaged by hand and delivered to nearby shops. As orders increased, production moved into an adapted garage. The business carried an established farmhouse practice into a wider retail market. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Mayo
- Barony
- Gallen
- Civil parish
- Bohola
- Within
- Toocananagh
- Coordinates
- 53.86342, -9.09451 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1414674 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Sraheens. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Schools in Bohola: Shraheens School · Mayo Ireland
- Butter is back: interview with Breda Butler · Caroline Allen, Agriland
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.