Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland, First Series
History
Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland, First Series
Atlantic Coast (Ireland) -- Social life and customs; Folklore -- Ireland; Ireland -- Social life and customs
There was a friar in Esker could do cures. Many I've seen brought to
him tied in a cart, and able to walk home after. Father Callaghan he
was. There was one man brought to him, wrong in his head he was, and
he cured him and he gave him some sort of a Gospel rolled up, and bid
him to put it about his neck, and never to take it off. Well, he went
to America after that and was as well as another and got work, and sent
home £10 one time to Father Callaghan he was that grateful to him.
But one day in America he was shaving, and whether he cut the string
or that he took it off I don't know, but he laid the charm down on a
table. And when he looked for it again, if he was to burn the house
down he couldn't find it. And it all came back on him again, and he
was as bad as he was before.
So the wife wrote home to Father Callaghan, and he sent out another
thing of the same sort; and bid him wear it, and from the time he put
it on, he got well again. A priest has the power to do cures, but if
he does he can keep nothing, one thing will die after another.
Biddy Early could do the same thing, she had to cast the sickness on
some other thing--it might be a dog or a goat or a bird.
* * * * *
Priests can do cures if they will, but they are afraid to do them
because their stock will die, and because they are afraid of loss
in the other world as well as in this. There's a neighbour of your
own lost his milch cow the other day for a small one he did,--Father
Mulhall that is.
* * * * *
There was Father Rivers was called in to a woman that was bad,
between Roxborough and Dunsandle. And he said to the father, "Which
would you sooner keep, the wife or the child?" And he said, "Sure
I'd sooner have the wife than all the children of the world." So
Father Rivers went in and cured her so that she got well, but he put
whatever she had on the son, so that he grew up an idiot. Harmless he
used to be, not doing much. Well, when he came to twenty years, the
mother said, "Come outside into the field, and cut the eyes of a few
stone of potatoes for me." But he took up the graip that was at the
door and made at her to kill her. And she ran in and shut the door,
and then he made for the window and broke it. And at that time Mr.
Singleton from Ceramina was passing by, and he stopped and called
some men and they took him and took the graip from him, and he was
brought away to Ballinasloe Asylum, but he didn't live more than six
months after. Waiting all that time he was to do his revenge, but
hadn't the power to do it till the twenty years were up.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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