A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
Crochta na Gréine· Irish · main form · validated name
Suncroft· English · main form
Place & story
A parish drawn from four districts
In his 1883 history, Michael Comerford described Suncroft parish as embracing the older ecclesiastical districts of Ballyshannon, Kilrush, Ballysax and Carna. He transcribed memorials in the Suncroft chapel, including that of John Lynch, a native of the parish who served as parish priest for twenty-eight years before his death in February 1805. The inscriptions preserve individual names within the parish's longer institutional history.[2]
People & connections
Jack Jones and the measurement of opinion
Born in 1921, Suncroft native Jack Jones founded the Market Research Bureau of Ireland in 1962 after an army career. His father was principal of the village primary school and his aunt ran its post office. Jones later wrote about political and social change in In Your Opinion, published in 2001. At his death in 2013 he had also completed two chapters of a memoir about Suncroft. Edited by his former colleague Áine O'Donoghue, these appeared in 2022 as Suncroft: A Rural Reverie, covering his childhood landscape and military life.[4]
The parochial house
The parochial house dates from around 1880. Its central entrance combines a timber doorcase, sidelights and a decorative fanlight, with early sash windows surviving elsewhere in the building when it was surveyed in 2002. The cast-iron entrance gates belong to the same period. The house acquired a later community role: the local development group arranged to use the vacant building as an interim centre while pursuing replacement facilities for the village.[3][5]
The community field
In 1975, parish priest Tom O'Donnell placed nine acres in trust for the community. A hall built with ANCO assistance opened in 1981, but structural problems eventually made it unusable. A fire followed in November 2006. Public meetings in 2010 began a new effort to provide facilities, leading to the establishment of a community development company in April 2011. The group's own account records residents organising, seeking funding and planning around the field's continuing community purpose.[5]
Both counts use the 2016 settlement boundary, allowing like-for-like comparison. CSO supplies the 2022 count on this older boundary for comparison only. The official 2022 Built Up Area has different boundaries.
View population figures
Suncroft — Census 2016 settlement footprint — census population
These are the historical areas published in the 2006 census report. Boundaries may differ between censuses and from modern settlements. Legal towns, environs and suburbs are shown separately; none has been combined into a modern settlement total.
View population figures
Suncroft, Kildare — Census town, CSO 2006 report — census population
These are the historical areas published in the 1996 census report. Boundaries may differ between censuses and from modern settlements. Legal towns, environs and suburbs are shown separately; none has been combined into a modern settlement total.
View population figures
Suncroft, Kildare — Census town, CSO 1996 report — census population
Figures cover the historical town area printed in the 1986 report. Boundaries may have changed between censuses. Legal town, environs and suburb totals remain separate and differ from modern settlement boundaries.
View population figures
Suncroft, Kildare — Census town, CSO 1986 report — census population
These figures use different area definitions. Read the boundary note before comparing them.
Suncroft, Kildare
Published census settlement populations
746people · 2016
Settlement boundaries changed during this period. Differences may reflect boundary changes as well as population change. Where a 2011 legal-town-and-environs count is shown, it has not been recalculated onto the 2016 settlement boundary.
Sheep grazing on the Curragh plains, north of Suncroft illustration: based on a SheepGrazingCurragh.JPG by Eoghan888. AI-assisted watercolour and ink adaptation; cream paper margins added, incidental clutter omitted and fine details simplified. Licence: Public domain, released by the photographer Eoghan888.
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