Fene

Finis, in Latin, designated both the physical limit —⁠the boundary between two territories⁠— and the temporal end of something. In Galician medieval documentation, the word was frequently applied to frontier places between councils, parishes or jurisdictional preserves. The hamlet of Fene sits historically on the border between the Ferrol alfoz and the seigneurial domains of the Eume valley, which gives weight to the Latin reading. The alternative anthroponymic reading appeals to a medieval personal name not attested in firm epigraphy. The council of Fene sits on the south bank of the Ferrol estuary, facing the capital, in an industrial zone where the 20th-century shipyards absorbed a large part of the active population. The parish church of San Salvador, 12th-century Romanesque reformed in the 16th, preserves a well-preserved chancel. The Inglés pilgrim, leaving Ferrol and crossing the bridge over the estuary, enters Fene in the first half hour of Camino.