Swampoodle

[Sean Fitzpatrick]

My high school was in a neighborhood of Washington, D.C. called since ancient times "Swampoodle".  My Philadelphia wife just mentioned to me that there is a section of Philadelphia with the same name.  Both were Irish neighborhoods--"shanty-towns", say some accounts--subject to flooding.  (Another coincidental similarity is that both were home to early professional baseball teams and Cornelius McGillicuddy--later known as Connie Mack--played in both the Swampoodle Grounds for the Washington Nationals (late 1880s) and Shibe Park for the Philadelphia Athletics. ) 

Web searches found Swampoodle Creek in Texarkana, TX; Brownsville (aka Swampoodle), Loudon Co., VA  ("low swampy area"); and Swampoodle Park, in Harmony, PA.  Geologists have designated a kind of soil as Swampoodle.

Does anyone know the origin of the term?  

Seán Fitzpatrick
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