placenamesFrosses
Na Frosa
Frosses grew around its Catholic church and preserves important connections with writers and the recording of local history.
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 Frosa · Irish · main form · validated name
- Frosses · English · main form
Place & story
Saint Mary’s and its tower
Saint Mary's church developed from an early-nineteenth-century hall into a larger T-shaped building. Major work around 1892 added its tower and probably the southern nave. The tower's carefully cut stone, gabled parapets and corner finials distinguish it from the plainer earlier church. Inside, a timber-panelled reredos, an open king-post roof and Doric columns form notable parts of a building that also served Mountcharles before that town acquired its own Catholic church. [2]
Writers remembered in the graveyard
The churchyard contains the graves of Seumas McManus and his first wife Anna, the poet and publisher better known as Ethna Carbery. They married in 1901 and lived in Mountcharles; Anna died the following year. McManus, who died in 1960, was associated with storytelling and the Irish literary revival. The County Donegal Historical Society highlighted their graves during a field visit led by Helen Meehan in 2025. [3]
Helen Meehan and local history
Historian Helen Meehan grew up outside Frosses and attended its national school before training as a primary teacher. After teaching in Dublin, she returned to teach locally and later wrote Inver Parish in History and a biography of Ethna Carbery. In a 2020 oral-history interview she discussed the area's revolutionary period, drawing on research and memories heard from older relatives. Her work links the village's schools with the preservation of its past. [4]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Frosses. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- SaintMary’sCatholicChurch,40909301 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- 2025FieldDay,FrossesandMountcharles · County Donegal Historical Society
- HelenMeehan,EchoesoftheDecade,interviewreport5November2020 · Regina Fitzpatrick,Donegal County Council oral-history project
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.