Folklore

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County Clare Folk-Tales and Myths, IV. (Concluded).

Thos. J. Westropp

To cite this article: Thos. J. Westropp (1913) Folk-Tales and Myths, IV. (Concluded)., Folklore, 24:4, 490-504, DOI: 10.1080/0015587X.1913.9719585

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0015587X.1913.9719585

Published online: 06 Feb 2012.

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Download by: [La Trobe University] Date: 16 June 2016, At: 16:32 490 Collectanea.

of fish, and shall starve. Without hands, without feet I shall roam. (Oh, my sorrow !)" The old woman finished her dirge-like song, and became deeply thoughtful. The rest were deeply moved, and the silence which had fallen remained unbroken. Suddenly, from afar, a faint cry was heard, probably that of a bird. I heard one of the boys whisper:—" Hark ! It is the cry of the woman !"

BRONISLAW PILSUDSKI.

COUNTY CLARE FOLK-TALES AND MYTHS, IV. 'Concluded).

9. The Sixteenth Century. THE great religious changes of this period, although ever since constantly before the people in religious teaching and polemical literature, have left no clear independent tradition. It is usually " Cromwell," not Henry the Eighth, " who destroyed the Abbeys," just as in the Cromwellian war has obliterated the remembrance of the far more cruel Desmond wars. The stories of Henry and Luther were usually comic, pretending to no historic character and of no wide acceptance. The only curious, and probably native, tale is that already told about "Anne Bulling " winning and keeping the love of Henry by means of the pennywort.1 Her enemies put her in prison where she could not get it, and Henry turned against her and hanged her, "as she

Downloaded by [La Trobe University] at 16:32 16 June 2016 deserved." This I heard both near Sixmilebridge about 1877, and some five years later near Carrigogunnell in County Limerick, but the penalties incurred by me for inadvised introduction of anti- Protestant stories and rebel songs (gathered from my kind friends among the peasantry) into my very Protestant and loyal family circle have obliterated the little I heard before my juvenile researches were nipped in the bud. Queen Mary had no place in Clare story, but Queen Elizabeth was widely remembered as the Cailleach or "Hag," and as "The Red Hag," but I can recall no 'Vol. xxii., p. 456. Collectanea. 491

definite story about her. The tale of a battle at Dysert Castle is almost certainly about that of 1562 ; Professor O'Looney thought it to relate to De Clare, but could not be certain that " Claragh­ more " was actually named by his informant. The " flagstoneo f the breaking of bones," near , as I have noted,8 was, if not a modern "book legend," perhaps a reminiscence of the horrible execution of Domnall beg O'Brien by Sir John Perrot in 1582; I never heard the name near Quin myself, and the incident has no similarity to the stabbing of the earlier Domnall O'Brien. The only tangible stories relate to the Armada late in Elizabeth's reign (1588). The fishermena t told my people in 1868-72 of the screams and wailing of the Spaniards lost in the "Big Ships" in the mist, or by night, at sea off the coast. In 1878 I heard round Doolin, to the north of the , tales of the Big Ships and the Spaniards wrecked at Doolin, and how at the mound of Knock na croghery (cnocdn na crocaire, " Gallows Hill"), at St. Catherine's, somewhat inland, " Bceoshius O'Clanshy hung the Spanish grandee." In later years I heard further that a Spanish nobleman got leave to fetch away the body of his only son, but it was indistinguishable from the others " in one red burial blent," whose bones are often found at the hillock. Near Miltown, Kilfarboy church was said to be the burial-place of the yellow men (fear buidhe) from the Big Ships. Kilfarboy is, however, really the church of Febrath," the Beal an febrath or Belfarboy pass running to the upland behind it, so that the false interpretation has evidently given rise to the story, just as Killaspluglonane has become Killsprunane (" Gooseberry Church "), and Cnoc uar coill ("Cold Wood Hill") Cnocfuarchoill or Spansel Hill. There were graves called Teampul na Spanigg at two places, one near Downloaded by [La Trobe University] at 16:32 16 June 2016 Doolin and one near Miltown Malbay. I heard the name last near Miltown in 1887, when the graves were almost obliterated, but could find no trace of it by diligent search in 1908. From the eighteenth century to the present day Spanish Point has been connected with the wreck of a Spanish ship (or ships)*. A carving

2 Supra, p. 375. 3 There was actually no wreck there, but to this day wreckage and drowned bodies are swept up there by the prevailing current from Mutton Island, near which one of the Armada was really wrecked. 492 Collectanea.

of a cornucopia, flowers,an d bales (Plate VII),4 long preserved by the Morony family as a relic of the Armada, is considered by Count Lorenzo Salazar, the Italian consul in Dublin, as very probably of the proper period and comparable to other Spanish work.5 In 1887 I was told of another Spanish wreck near Mutton Island, and " its guns " were shown faintly blue through the clear water in a rock pool. The wreck was, however, that of a " coast­ guard vessel" in or soon after the Napoleonic wars, which had. attracted to itself the older tale. There were faint traditions of the wreck of the Big Ships from Dunbeg to Killard in 1894, and of the ghosts of the crews at Kilkee. A remarkable ancient table at Dromoland, figured by Count Salazar,6 was according to tradition given to the then O'Brien of Lemaneagh by his brother-in-law, Bcethius Clancy. It is certainly Spanish, and the tradition may probably be true. I heard no tale in Moyarta of the Big Ship really lost there, but found similar tales along the Kerry coast beyond, as I did in Mayo and on the Ulster coast. In 1878 the Calendar of State Papers was un­ known, and no local history told the true story, so that the mention of " Bceoshius O'Clanshy " seems like genuine tradition. No wreck is recorded at Doolin, but, when the Zuniga took shelter in Liscannor Bay, not far to the south, wreckage and an oil jar floated in,7 so a wreck is not impossible. A ship was wrecked opposite Tromra Castle in the Sound, near Mutton Island, and another at Dunbeg; a third was set on fire by its crew and allowed to drift on shore in Moyarta Parish on the Shannon. The letters of Bcethius MacClanchy, the sheriff of Clare, and others give very full details.

Downloaded by [La Trobe University] at 16:32 16 June 2016 A second tale, evidently old but less authentic, is told of Dun- licka and Castles in nearly identical forms. The older is given by the Rev. John Graham of Kilrush in i8r6.a Teig MacMahon of Carrigaholt being implicated in the Desmond rising and absent in Kerry, his followers committed outrages on

• Supra, p. 368. • The fournal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of , vol. xii., p. 65. • Ibid., vol. xxx., p. 93. 7 Calendar of the State Papers relating to Ireland (1588-92), pp. 29.30, 38. • W. S. Mason, A Statistical Account etc., vol. ii., pp. 443 et seq. Collectanea. 493

some collectors of the chief rents. The Earl of sent his brother, Henry O'Brien of Trummera Castle, to complain to MacMahon. While waiting for MacMahon's return, Henry fell in love with the chief's beautiful daughter, and the lovers agreed that, if MacMahon on his return showed hostility to Henry, the lady should hoist a black handkerchief on the west side of the Castle. O'Brien, returning from hunting, forgot to look for the signal, and was attacked on entering the courtyard, the gate being shut behind him. He rode his horse into the river, and swam across the creek, but was again attacked and wounded, his servant being killed. He laid a complaint before the Queen in person, and she outlawed MacMahon, and granted all his estate to O'Brien. Meantime MacMahon had fled to Dunboy, where he was accidentally shot by his own son.9 So O'Brien on his return found all opposition at an end, and married the lady of his choice. This tale differs too much from history to be " book legend." It is true that MacMahon got into trouble for capturing Daniel O'Brien (brother of the ), and that the estates were eventually granted to his prisoner, but the anger of the Crown against MacMahon arose from his capture of an English ship, and his relations with the rebel James "Sugan Earl" of Desmond. Teig MacMahon died in 1601. In 1875 I heard a similar story about Dunlicka Castle from some of my brother's tenants at Moveen, near Kilkee. O'Brien of Carrigaholt fell in love with the daughter of MacMahon of Dunlicka. She used to hoist a flag on the Castle when her father was away, but the chief heard of it and himself gave the signal. O'Brien rode into the Castle and was attacked, but leaped his horse over the chasm of Poulnagat to the north of the Castle and Downloaded by [La Trobe University] at 16:32 16 June 2016 escaped unhurt. 10. The Seventeenth Century. The only tale referring to the early years of this century is a bald one of Knockalough Castle on an islet in the lake of the same name near Kilmilie. "Torlough Roe MacMahon of Knockalough killed his wife and child with one blow."10 The "hero" was living in 1611. •This is probably an explanatory remark by Graham, and not local tradition. 10 Ordnance Survey Letters (Co. Clare), vol. ii., p. 45. 494 Collectanea.

Maura Rhue.—The most interesting group of tales is attached to Lemaneagh Castle, a fine, but bare, old mansion, with curious gardens, courtyards, fishpond, and outbuildings, between Inchi­ quin and .11 An inscription over a gateway kept the remembrance green of Conor O'Brien and his wife Mary Mac- Mahon, but the gateway has recently been carried off and rebuilt in a modern garden at Dromoland. The garden near the fishpond has a sort of summerhouse in one wall, with a niche on each side of the door, and tradition says that Maura Rhue (Mary O'Brien) built it for a famous blind stallion, so fierce that, when his grooms let him out, they had to spring up into the niches for safety.12 Conor O'Brien built the gates to shut in the people of , (for a road through the enclosures leads into that extraordinary- mountain wilderness), and would let no one through who did not ask leave of him and of his wife; but one of gentry- gathered a band of the inhabitants, broke the gates, and forced O'Brien to promise free right of way for ever.13 "Maura,"—or, as she is known in East Clare, " Maureen" Rhue (Little Mary), or, by some English-speakers, " Moll Roo,"—used to hang her maids by their hair from the corbels on the old peel tower,14 (the nucleus of the building). Others said that she cut off the breasts of her maids. I was told in 1878-81 that she married 25 husbands, all the later ones for a year and a day, after which either of the pair could divorce the other. She used to put her servants into all the houses of her temporary husband, and then suddenly divorce him and exclude him from his property.15 She was a MacMahon and had red hair (whence her name), and she and Conor O'Brien used to ride at the head of their troops in the wars.16

Downloaded by [La Trobe University] at 16:32 16 June 2016 Her descendants at Dromoland and elsewhere told, in 1839 and later, a curious story of her and Conor. General Ireton was

11 The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, vol. xxx., pp. 403-7. "Collected by Dr. G. U. MacNamara. 11 Ordnance Survey Letters (Co. Clare), vol. i., p. 55. 14 At Lemaneagh in 1884, and also told by the Stacpooles. u So Dr. VV. H. Stacpoole Westropp in 1878, and Rev. Philip Dwyer in 1881. 11 At Lemaneagh in 1884. Collectanea. 495

attacked by Conor O'Brien, who fell mortally wounded but would not surrender. His servants brought him back, nearly dead, to his wife at Lemaneagh. "She neither spoke nor wept," but shouted to them from the top of the tower,—"What do I want with dead men here?" Hearing that he was still alive, she nursed him tenderly till he died. Then she put on a magnificent dress, called her coach, and set off at once to Limerick, which was besieged by Ireton. At the outposts she was stopped by a sentinel, and roared, and shouted, and cursed at him until Ireton and his officers, who were at dinner, heard the noise and came out. On their asking who was the woman, she replied,— " I was Conor O'Brien's wife yesterday, and his widow to-day." "He fought us yesterday. How can you prove he is dead?" " I'll marry any of your officers that asks me." Captain Cooper, a brave man, at once took her at her word, and they were married, so that she saved the O'Brien property for her son, Sir Donat.17 Lady Chatterton's account in 183918 tallies with that above. She says that Ireton sent five of his best men, disguised as sportsmen, to shoot Conor O'Brien, and one of them succeeded in wounding him. Mary captured and hanged the man, called her sons and advised them to surrender to the Parliament, and set off in her coach and six as described above, the rest of the tale being -closely like the Carnelly version. At Lemaneagh it is added that one morning, after her marriage to Cooper, they quarrelled while he was shaving, and he spoke slightingly of Conor O'Brien. The affectionate relict, unable to bear any slur on the one husband she had loved, jumped out of 19

Downloaded by [La Trobe University] at 16:32 16 June 2016 bed and gave Cooper a kick in the stomach from which he died. At Carnelly, in 1873 and later, it was told that Maureen Rhue was taken by her enemies, after killing the last of her 25 husbands, and was fastened up in a hollow tree, of which the site and, I think, the alleged roots were still shown. Her red-haired

17 So Mrs. Stamer of Carnelly and others down to 1883. The tale was generally known to the various O'Briens and MacNamaras, and was kept alive by Maura's portrait still at Ennistymon, and a copy of it at Dromoland. MRamblei in the South 0/Ireland, vol. ii., p. 183. "So Dr. G. U. MacNamara. 496 Collectanea.

ghost was reputed to haunt the long front avenue, near the- " Druids' altar " already noted,20 when I was a child. Cromwell (who was never nearer to Clare than the extreme- southern border of County Limerick, fifty miles away) is said to. have marched to attack Limerick along " Crummil's Road,"—not. the road so named on the Ordnance Survey maps, but an old, hollow lane, evidently of great antiquity, a little above it and on. the top of the long ridge from Ardnataggle House to Ahareinagh Castle, to the west of Clonlara and to the north-east of Limerick. City. He is reputed to have destroyed most of the ruined castles, in south-east Clare, and to have knocked down Kilnaboy round tower with his guns. His men cut down the trees and killed the deer in the Deer Park of Lemaneagh. General Irayton (Ireton). was remembered for many acts of cruelty and violence in eastern Clare. Cromwell, or " an army of Cromwell," attacked the very curious stone fort called " the Doon" at Ballydonohan between, Bodyke and Broadford; the army destroyed it, and went on to. Galway. by way of Scariff, and a sword was found there- (Ballydonohan).21 I believe I gave offence locally by saying that. Cromwell had never been in Clare. In 1877 Mrs. Stamer, who was then 77, told me that, when a girl, she had heard how the wife of Col. George Stamer, about 1650, was standing on the battlements of Clare Castle when her- baby sprang from her arms into the river and was swept away. Ever since on dark and stormy nights the mother's ghost could be seen frantically searching along the bank. There is no basis for this story in the family records and pedigree. Charles the Second has no place in Clare folk-tales, but the-

22 Downloaded by [La Trobe University] at 16:32 16 June 2016 story I have already told about the Westropp ring may be placed about 1670. I^ady Wilde tells a legend of Querin2a (which I have myself never heard in Moyarta parish), dated in 1670, but, if genuine, evidently of far earlier origin. On November

20 Vol. xxif., p. 51. 81 So Messrs. Denis Boulton and Daniel O'Callaghan at Ballydonohan. See also Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. xxvii. (c), p. 395. aVoL xxiL, p. 52. B Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland (1888),, pp. 27-9. Collectanea. 497

Eve a kern went to shoot wild fowl on the shore, and saw four men carrying a bier on which lay a body wrapped in white. He fired and the bearers ran away, and he found a beautiful girl apparently asleep. She neither spoke nor took food or drink for a year, and on the following November Eve her preserver overheard the fairies talking in Lisnafallainge fort, and learned that she was daughter of O'Conor Kerry and could not recover till she ate off her bier covering, which was her father's tablecloth. The kern broke the spell accordingly, and ultimately won her for his bride. Sir Donat O'Brien of Lemaneagh looms large in the popular memory. He made the old straggling lane-way, traceable in fragments sometimes a mile apart, from Lemaneagh over Roughan hill and north-eastward through the barony of Inchiquin, and it is known as "Sir Donat's road." He bought Moghane Hill near his property at Dromoland for threescore cows and twenty bullocks.24 His mother, Maureen Rhue, apprenticed him to a London goldsmith. When the later Civil War broke out, Sir Donat and his (apparently elder) brother, Teigie O'Brien, doubted sorely which side to support. At last Donat suggested that the brothers should take opposite sides, so that, whichever won, the family would have a friend at Court.55 The unfortunate James the Second was the object to the peasantry of contempt and dislike far stronger in story than aversion to his triumphant son-in-law. In Moyarta the loyal Lord Clare and his yellow dragoons (Dragon buidh) were remembered, and in 1816 a proverb ran,—"Stop! Stop! Yellow Dragoon,—not till we come to the Bridge of Clare, not till we come to the pass

Downloaded by [La Trobe University] at 16:32 16 June 2016 of Moyarta!" It was believed that the ghost of Lord Clare nightly drilled his phantom army before Carrigaholt, and the belief was not forgotten round Kilkee in 1875. Graham26 heard that the ghostly dragoons were seen "to traverse "The West" in the winter nights, and plunge at the dawning of the day into the surge that foams round the ruins of Carrigaholt." The drill field was said to have been to the east of the Castle, where the harbour lies and the great river breaks against the low banks, all having now

MProf. Brian O'Looney, 1891. ^Chatterton, op. cit., vol. ii., p. 184. "W. S. Mason, op. cit., vol. ii., p. 430. 498 Collectanea.

been swept away. The Barclay family of Ballyartney had in Graham's time (1816) a definite legend of the war. Their ancestor, a clergyman, was expelled from his living, and his successor, a priest, was very strict in exacting security from Barclay for the payment of his tithe. In the summer of 1691 the priest objected to the securities offered, and Barclay left for home in low spirits. On his' way he heard from Captain O'Brien of Ennistymon that the Irish army had been defeated at Aughrim. So he returned to the priest and offered as his security " the great King William," and threatened that if his tithe books were not returned in ten minutes he would have the intruder hanged on the high road of Kilmurry. Lord Clare's dragoons galloped through the village in confusion, confirming the news, and Barclay was reinstated.27 A ferryman at Kilquane named Macadam helped the Williamite Dutch" army over the Shannon in 1691. He was richly rewarded, but, when he died, people cut on his tomb " Here lies Philip who lived a fisherman and died a deceiver." Down to about 1850 pious old people, when visiting Kilquane graveyard, used to pray at the Macadam tomb for the soul of the man "who sold the pass." An old poem on the stone exists,—" If all that were killed, O stone ! by the dead man under thee were alive 1" 23 There is no other documentary or epigraphical evidence to support the popular tradition. The place where William's army crossed the river, and shut off the city from Clare, is well-known. A great stone called Carrigatloura (carraic an t slabhra, the rock •of the chain) is shown to which the pontoon bridge was fastened on the Clare shore.

Downloaded by [La Trobe University] at 16:32 16 June 2016 William of Orange is in popular memory identified with the *' violated treaty " of Limerick. The table on which that document was actually signed was long preserved, but ultimately the present treaty stone (an old mounting-block by the roadside),29 became the subject of bogus tradition and undeserved tourist interest.

^W. S. Mason, op. cit., pp. 461-2. M Mss. Royal Irish Academy, 24, M 37. In fact the family of Macadam now in Clare was of good birth and fortune at the time. " Capt. Ralph Westropp often used it when riding out of Limerick, and he •and others often told me of their amazement when the treaty myth grew up. Collectanea. 499

Mrs. Stamer, of Stamer Park and Carnelly, heard from her husband's aunts, granddaughters of William Stamer, that the latter and his brother Henry Stamer of Lattoon, with a few soldiers, swooped down on Quin Abbey, surprising the monks and the people at vespers. The laity fled, but the priest continued the service till Henry Stamer dragged him away. The old man clung to the altar for a moment, praying that Henry might have no family and that William's name might die out in three generations of one male each. The Stamers then expelled the monks and burned the Abbey. The prophecy was not made ex post facto, as Mrs. Stamer assured me, but her only son predeceased her husband, who was William's grandson. The monks survived at Drim, in the neighbourhood of the Abbey, until 1828, when the last, Father John Hogan, died. I knew two persons who remembered him; he was buried in the cloister, where a long epitaph records his life, ending with the pathetic text, " Quiseminat in lachrymis exultatione metet." There was a tradition in the Ross Lewin family of Fortfergus and Ross Hill that the French landed at the former place, took all the butter out of the dairy, wrapped it in sheets, and burnt it and other things on the lawn. This agrees with an early deed of Du Guai Trouin, who, when a mere lad of twenty in 1692, entered the Shannon, sacked a chateau in Clare, and did not retire until a detachment of the Limerick garrison was sent against him.30

11. The Eighteenth Century. In 1839 it was told in Querin that, after King William had prevailed, MacMahon, one of Lord Clare's kerns, used to make Downloaded by [La Trobe University] at 16:32 16 June 2016 plundering excursions to harry the English settlers. After many years spent thus, he robbed a retired soldier named John Meade, who gathered his neighbours and tracked the plunderers to a house in the woods. The pursuers tore off the thatch and leaped in, and a fierce fight ensued in the narrow interior. Meade was engaged with one of the bandits when MacMahon stabbed him in the side with a long spear, and he fell. The wounded man, however, in

Memoirs of Du Guai Trouin, p. 6. Fortfergus (or Liskilloge) is a low picturesque ivied house near the Fergus. Collectanea.

his agony sprang up thrice as high as the cross beam of the roof before he fell dead. The other English were slain, and their bodies, buried near the bank of the Shannon at Temple Meegh or Mead (Teampul MeadhacK) near Querin, which since that time has only been used for the burial of strangers and unbaptized children. Jack Cusack, " the priest taker," lived about the same time. He was High Sheriff in 1708, and became that most hated of persons, a " protestant discoverer " under the penal laws in his own interests. Eut his only daughter married a Studdert and died childless, and all the lands Cusack had acquired passed then out of the hands of his family. When Cusack was buried at Clonlea near Kilkishen, according to tradition an enemy cut on his tomb,—

" God is pleased when man does cease to sin. Satan is pleased when he a soul doth win. Mankind are pleased when e'er a villain dies. Now all are pleased, for here Jack Cusack lies." 81 The stone is said to have been broken or thrown into the lake near the church. Tradition preserved the recollection of good as well as of ill, for I remember old people blessing the various families who had acted as friendly " protestant discoverers " and trustees, thus saving the lands of the O'Briens and of the MacNamaras. The tradition was true, for I have unearthed amongst long-forgotten papers3 2 an account how Marcus Paterson befriended the Barretts, and F. Drew of Drewsborough and J. Westropp of Lismehan the O'Briens.33 I have not been able to verify the saving of certain MacNamara

,l M. Lenihan, Limerick (1866), p. 308. This verse has other attributions. "At Edenvale and Coolreagh. It is only from private papers that the true Downloaded by [La Trobe University] at 16:32 16 June 2016 character of a " protestant discovery " can be ascertained. The Law and, its records, of course, regarded the trustee as the actual owner, and it depended entirely upon the personal integrity of him and of his successors whether the Roman Catholic owners enjoyed the benefits. However, such a trust was rarely broken, and its breach was never forgotten nor forgiven. ** Drew and Westropp took counsel's opinion, got a Dublin wigmaker to act as discoverer, bought up his rights, and then each leased the lands to the family for which he acted. When the Penal Laws were repealed, the trustees sold, their rights to the true owners for small sums. The Barretts then repudiated sales made in their interest by Paterson, and so caused litigation lasting even as late as the beginning of the nineteenth century. Collectanea. 50i

estates by the Westropps of Fortanne, as told in 1877, but the family papers there were burned. To close my chronological series of tales I will tell, less fully than I have often heard it, a very horrible story of the period after 1700. A replica of Maura Rhue in the east of Clare used to dress as a man and rob and murder travellers on lonely roads through the woods and hills, sometimes shooting them from trees and throwing their bodies into a lake which was still pointed out by the peasantry some forty years ago. Her niece was suspected •of admiring a handsome young Englishman who was their servant, and the family, fearing a love affair, consulted and, at the instiga­ tion of the virago '(who had had a personal experience in her youth), determined to send away the young man. The fiendish woman advocated stronger measures, and at last carried her point. All the other servants and retainers were allowed to go to the great " pattern " at Holy Island, and the stranger was set to pull down the middle of a turf rick. As he was stooping to remove the last few sods, the aunt shot him with a pistol, and he fell senseless. The conspirators proceeded to cover him with the peats, but he made a feeble struggle and thrust out his hand. His murderess, on seeking to cover the hand, saw upon it a ring which she had given long before to her own lover to place on their son's hand when he grew up. She knew then that she had killed her own son, and dropped unconscious upon his body. Her brain gave way, and she remained imbecile until upon her deathbed, when she cursed her abettors. A terrible destiny, with many an untimely death, has followed down to our own time the family, which has long since left its old abode. Local tradition said that the skeleton of the son was found "some generations after, a Downloaded by [La Trobe University] at 16:32 16 June 2016 hundred years ago" (from 1870), when peat was scarce and the rick was used up.84 Round Tulla, however, it was said that the family burned the rick to get rid of the corpse, but that a storm arose and blew away the white ashes, so that the unconsumed skull and the ring carved with the family shield were exposed.

" See vol. xxi., p. 348. Ricks often remained for a long time, the upper part being replaced each season. 502 Collectanea.

12. Undated Tales. There are, of course, a number of tales that cannot be located in time, although sometimes attached to definite places, and other tales of a vague description. Lisheencroneen, a splendid earthern fort with a deep fosse and high rings, lying near Doonaha in south-west Clare,35 bore in 1815 the names of Dun Athairrc (Doon Aheirc) and Lt'os na fuadh. Despite a very definite letter of Eugene O'Curry in 1835, the Ordnance Survey saw fit to give the name Lisfuadnaheirka to another ring fort, for which the peasantry knew no name, but I heard a vague tale of " a horned ghost" at the former.3* Knockaun Mountain, to the north-west of Lisdoonvarna, was called Sliabh oighehAirim (or Slievyharrim, O'Harrim's mountain), say the Ordnance Survey Letters, after "Arim," a supposed son of Finn mac Cumhail, otherwise unknown. The Matal (wild boar) and Faracat (a huge wild cat with a moon mark of white hair), already mentioned as appearing in a tale by Comyn in 17 so,87 possibly founded on folk-tales, have na place in present-day local story. The lady Gillagreine38 was the daughter of a mortal father and a sunbeam, and, when told of her ill-matched parents, sprang into Lough Graney, floated down the river Graney to Derrygraney, and was buried at Tomgraney (i.e. Loch Greine, Doire Greine, and Tuam Greine). Near Sixmilebridge the tale ran that, in early days, Meihan mac Enerheny, a famous warrior, made the huge fort, or rather hill town, of Moghane39 as a "fighting-ring" for himself. He

n Downloaded by [La Trobe University] at 16:32 16 June 2016 The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, vol. xxxix., p. 121; foumal of the North Munster Archaeological Society, vol. i., p. 225. The original papers belong to Col. O'Callaghan Westropp of Lisme- hane.

38 Vol. xxi., p. 343; Ordnance Survey Letters (Co. Clare), vol. i., pp. 371 et seq. (Aug. 21st, 1835). Fuad is a personal name in the Dind Senchas (Sliabh Fuad, Revue Cellique, vol. xvi., p. 51); but St. Moling was once pursued by a fuat or spectre (Martyrology of Donegal, s. June 17). "Vol. xxi., pp. 183, 479. ••Vol. xxii., p. 186 ; Ordnance Survey Letters (Co. Clare), vol. ii., p. 341. *• Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. xxvii. Collectanea.

would never allow his tribe to go to war until he had himself challenged and defeated all the enemy's chiefs. He reigned in great esteem from the Fergus to the Owennagarna river. In his fighting-ring he always gave his opponents the choice of the sun and wind, in despite of which he overthrew them all. There was no king, nor soldier, nor monster that he feared to fight. His admiring tribe gave him a gold-embroidered cap, and the name of Oircheannach (Golden Head), and he died unconquered.40 I never heard this tale in the neighbourhood of the fort. It seems artificial, and based on a folk-derivation to flatter the Maclnerneys; it is perhaps genuine, though late. The tale in The Monks of Kilcrea, about the country from Inchiquin to Moher, is not found amongst the people, and is, I think, a pure invention by the anonymous author41 of that pleasing poem. One townland was transferred from Kilrush to Kilmurry parish, although embedded in the former. Tradition said that this was done because the abbot of Iniscatha, and his vicar at Kilrush, did not attend there during a pestilence to administer the last sacraments to the dying. The vicar of Kilmurry, hearing this, faithfully attended the victims, and the bishop afterwards assigned the townland to him and his successors as a reward.42 The little stone circles and little cairns on Creganenagh Hill in the Burren were, from the name, the centre of an early Aenach, (fair, or tribal assembly), but Borlase43 heard that they were memorials of a battle. Neither Dr. MacNamara nor I were told this at Castletown or Cruchwill, near the hill. The historic battles of Clare (with the exception of , Dysert,

Downloaded by [La Trobe University] at 16:32 16 June 2016 , and Kilconnell) have no legends, so the battle­ fields of Luchid, Magh Eir, Craglea, the Callow, Drumgrencha, Bunratty, Spansel Hill, Beal an chip, and Quin do not figure in this paper, nor do the sieges of Bunratty or Ballyalla. The octagonal pillar called the " Leacht" of Donoughmore O'Daly stands on the shore of Oyster Creek opposite to Muck-

40 Collected by Prof. Brian O'Looney, 1860-70. 41 Arthur Fitzgerald Geoghegan. 44 W. S. Mason, op. cit., vol. ii., p. 493. aDolmens of Ireland, vol. iii., p. 809. 504 Collectanea.

innish. Tradition in 1839 made O'Daly a brother of the sorcerer Macamh of Iniscreamha, County Galway.44 I heard that he was the head of Corcomroe Abbey, and he was probably one of the Finvarra O'Dalys of the seventeenth century. I have now set out all the quasi-historic tales of County Clare that have come within my reach, but, although I have collected them from childhood, and with careful diligence during the last thirty years, I am sure that many more might still be gathered. I have even heard of "probable people" near Carrigaholt and in the hills between Tomgraney and Killaloe who had stores of " old tales" (though I fancy stories rather than histories), but whom I have been unable to approach. To record carefully and without leading questions is very slow- work, but the result, even if bald, is of course far more valu­ able than matter polished into attractive shapes or procured through intermediaries possibly untrustworthy. There is a great temptation to "tell a good story," and I have always discounted the testimony of those who appeared to yield to it, while regarding as invaluable the old people who repeated simply and crudely what had been handed down to them. I have indicated my sources as far as possible, and, where manu­ scripts and books have been used, I have tried to help the reader to assess their value. I may add that my feeling is to distrust the form, rather than the substance, of the tales supplied by Croker and Lady Wilde, but to trust Graham. The Ordnance Survey Letters 1 believe to be most reliable. My own collected material is only employed when I consider it trustworthy. So I have now brought home the sheaves I have reaped in the hope that others

Downloaded by [La Trobe University] at 16:32 16 June 2016 may be impelled to garner what is still left standing before it perishes or is trampled down.

THOS. J. WESTROPP.

44 Ordnance Survey Letters (Co. Clare), vol. i., p. 32. The tale perhaps arose from a certain Donough O'Daly writing a poem to the shade of a sorcerer who was one of the Tuatha Di Danann. 45 Except the " soul cages," for which see Journal of the North Minister- Archaeological Society, 1914, pp. I22-3.