Bawnboy and Templeport
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| Local History from the Writings of Frank Maguire, Derryconnessy and Tullybrack |
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Maguire's Chair is the name given to a great rock formation along the road which leads from Bawnboy to Glangevlin. It is in the townland of Altachullion about four perch from where the road from Swanlinbar joins the main road. There's an old tradition about how it got its name. This is the story.
Once when there was a war on between the Magauran and Maguire Clans, Maguire marched with his men along the mountains and called a halt at this place. The army had lunch there, the clansmen sitting on the rocks all around while the Maguire Chief sat on the large rock. Hence the name Maguire's Chair.
Maguire's Chair, Altachullion. Fidelma and son Aengus.
THE STRAY SOD - AN FÓIDÍN MEARBHAILL
It is believed everywhere around here that there are stray sods. When a person is out at night and stands on such a sod, he goes astray and loses all idea of direction, so that he wanders hopelessly around, generally until morning. Sometimes in his wanderings he may reach a road or house and then he is all right. It is helpful if such a thing happens to you to take off your coat and turn it inside out and wear it thus. That is the only hope of undoing the charm. Tom Dolan of Altateskin stood on a stray sod one evening when he was searching for his cattle. The next evening he was wandering around Florencecourt some 14 miles away. The story and explanation is generally accepted. It is only fair to add that in a very short time afterwards he was taken to Monaghan Mental Hospital. This happened in the late nineteen twenties.
Old Mary Pat told me this story one day: About ninety to a hundred years ago an old travelling red-haired woman came their way. They gave her a good charity and when she was leaving, as a repayment, she told them that to one end of their house they might build a castle but at the other it would be unlucky. They gave her little heed and soon after built a cró (little shed) to the end forbidden. Night lights and queer cries started around the house immediately and they had the worst of luck with the animals in the cró.
Then they remembered the old woman's advice and changed the cró to the other end of the house. At once everything was all right and all their stock flourished and the best of luck came on everything. Mary was over 80 years old when she died and all the time she had vivid memories of the two sheds (cró) and of the strange old travelling woman who came the way when she was a child.
There are stories of the Banshee everywhere around. She cries for the McGoldricks always. Ned McGoldrick used to be in our house often. He saw and heard her. He and Francie Michael were coming from rambling one night and they were coming down the glen. Suddenly they heard the cries. They knew immediately it was the Banshee. They looked up the glen and she was coming on towards them - a small wee woman all in white and every cry out of her that would make your hair stand on end. Panic seized them and they ran as fast as they could and still the cries were behind them. On getting home they heard no more. An old member of the McGoldricks was dying at the time.
I have met a great many of the old men who were quite sure of having heard the Banshee and just a few who said all the stories were much the same as the above. None of the men had talked with the fairy nor had any of them waited to get a close view of her. This seems a pity but it can't be helped. The belief in the Banshee still persists. Just two more accounts of her:
This account of the Banshee is from my brother Rev. J.J.
Maguire, Pittsburg. He did his studies in America at Ferndale. There was
another girl student there and the student's mother was ill away at home
in Ireland. They were walking round the grounds one winter's evening and
the student suddenly asked my brother: 'Did you hear it?'. But my brother
had heard nothing.
'It was the Banshee' said the student, 'and that means my mother has just
died'.
When the news came from Ireland, it was just so.
The second story is only of yesterday. Around Christmas 1936 John Francis heard the Banshee in Derryvella. It was late at night. Joe Pat and Tommy Owen were coming home late the next night and they heard her, too. This is their description.
They heard the cries and were afraid it was a small child that had got lost. They knew all the fields and went towards the cries. When they reached the place, the cries were in another place. They went there, and then the cries were back to where they heard them first. Again they went to make a good search and on reaching the place, the cries started in the place where the boys had been on first hearing the cries. Then they connected it with the Banshee and went home. Next day one of the family died, a family for whom the Banshee cries.
There used to be a great many changelings around here, according to the old stories. The fairies brought the child away and left an infant 'shape' in its place. This 'shape' never grew or developed and after a few years it 'died'. The changeling was generally weak and somewhat deformed and always there had been a perfect baby before the child was taken. I haven't heard of any case of a baby being taken away, for the last thirty years.
People didn't seem to know any effective way of getting the real child back. Stories of getting the real child back came from stories that were read. It was regarded as risky leaving a baby asleep by itself out of doors, especially near a fort. It was old people who told us the stories of the changelings. They told it in a matter of fact way and to us it was a plain narration of fact and it needed no evidence. This would be Mary Pat's story. She's dead long ago.
It was as fine a child as you would ever see and one day when they were winning the hay the mother left the child lying in the meadow. After a time she went to see the child and it was asleep. She went back to work. Later, when the work was done she went for the child. There was a queer look off the child and she hurried home. Then on getting into the house the child cried and cried. It couldn't be pacified. From that day out there was no peace in the house. The child was either crying or making horrid faces at the people or doing some queer things. It never grew up but got stranger and uglier day by day and more troublesome as well. Then after a few years it died and they were done with the bother of it.
Only one man I have met claimed meeting fairies often. He was James Maguire of Altinure and died about 1922 at the age of 85 years. This was one of his stories. One night there was a great commotion outside. He got up out of bed and went to the door. The fairies were coming down the road in countless numbers. They were small and marched in ranks. All the time they were talking. Their talk passed along from rank to rank like the warriors of the sea. He could see they were talking quite plainly but could not hear any sound. He just knew it was talk. He could not understand it. They made no sign of having seen him but just went on their way.
Another night he saw a fairy woman sitting at the Black Rocks, sitting in a little bush. She was very beautiful and dressed in bright and beautiful colours. 'Twas late at night but he wasn't afraid and continued his way, but before he reached the bush the fairy had disappeared. He often met ghosts and was always emphatic that none of them would injure a person. Yet he believed all these and he was truthful. Always, though he qualified his accounts of his experiences by saying - maybe it was only imagination or some strange conditions or air and sky drew on the place where he was, a picture of things happening. As an example he always affirmed that one of O'Connell's Monster Meetings held in the south of Ireland, was quite plainly seen by many people as a picture in the valley of the Cuilcagh Mountains.
At intervals of about ten years there goes a ghost train by this part of the country. It comes from North Fermanagh, and goes along by the slopes of the Cuilcagh Mountains and on by the Leitrim Mountains till it disappears from view. It looks like an ordinary well-lighted railway train and goes at about the same rate just right through the fields and rivers and always in silence. It was last seen about 7-8 years ago (1929) but has been going for a very long time. Pat McGoldrick, Uragh, Swanlinbar is one of those who saw it last time.
The Valley of the Black Pig lies along here, according to the old people who have passed away. When we were small we learned about the Black Pig very often and it was a kind of terror. Nothing would stop its race. War and death would follow in its tracks and always Ireland would win her freedom at the end of the race of the Black Pig.
A LIVING WITNESS OF THE FAIRIES
James Dolan lives in Derrynacreeve at the New Mill Bridge, on the road between Bawnboy and Swanlinbar. He is a pretty old man, about 72 years. He says it was quite common to see fairies when he was young. There is a great gathering hole or cave in the Commas Mountain and at dusk in the summer evenings the fairies used to come out in crowds. When outside, horses appeared and the fairies made away and away. We often saw them.
This is rare, where the natural meets the supernatural, where the known merges into the unknown. The pieces or pages in this book are the base of our local beliefs and traditions. I know they're interesting for often and often people have listened to me telling these old tales. Maybe they're not the kind you want and maybe it has been a waste of your time reading them. Be that as it may they surely are interesting and we still tell them on and on, around the fires here in the winter nights.
Frank Maguire, Tullybrack. 1938.