Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland, Second Series
General
Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland, Second Series
Atlantic Coast (Ireland) -- Social life and customs; Folklore -- Ireland; Ireland -- Social life and customs
There was a girl brought from Clare one time, that had lost her wits,
and she tied on a cart with ropes. And she was brought to Father
Callaghan and he began reading over her, and then he made a second
reading, and at the end of that, he bid them unloose the ropes,
and when they did she got up quite quiet, but very shy looking and
ashamed, and would not wait for the cart but walked away.
* * * * *
Father Callaghan was with a man near this one time, one Tully, and
they were talking about the faeries and the man said he didn't
believe in them at all. And Father Callaghan called him to the door
and put up his fingers and bade him look out through them, and there
he saw hundreds and hundreds of the smallest little men he ever saw
and they hurling and killing one another.
* * * * *
The friars are gone and there are missioners come in their place and
all they would do for you is to bless holy water, and as long as you
would keep it, it would never get bad.
* * * * *
My daughter, Mrs. Meehan, that lives there below, was very bad after
her first baby being born, and she wasted away and the doctors could
do nothing for her. My husband went to Biddy Early for her, but she
said, "Mother for daughter, father for son" and she could do nothing
for her because I didn't go. But I had promised God and the priest I
would never go to her, and so I kept to my word. But Mrs. Meehan was so
bad she kept to the bed, and one day one of the neighbours said I had a
right to bring her to the friars at Esker. And he said, "It's today you
should be in it, Monday, for a Monday gospel is the best, the gospel
of the Holy Ghost." So I got the cart after and put her in it, and she
lying down, and we had to rest and to take out the horse at Lenane, and
we got to Craughwell for the night. And the man of the house where we
got lodging for the night said the priest that was doing cures now was
Father Blake and he showed us the way to Esker. And when we got there
he was in the chapel, and my daughter was brought in and laid on a
form, and I went out and waited with the cart, and within half an hour
the chapel door opened, and my daughter walked out that was carried
in. And she got up on the cart herself. It was a gospel had been read
over her. And I said, "I wish you had asked a gospel to bring with you
home." And after that we saw a priest on the other side of a dry stone
wall, and he learning three children. And she asked a gospel of him,
and he said, "What you had today will do you, and I haven't one made up
at this time." So she came home well. She went another time there, when
she had something and asked for a gospel, and Father Blake said, "We're
out of doing it now, but as you were with us before, I'll do it for
you." And she wanted to give him £1 but he said, "If I took it I would
do nothing for you." So she said, "I'll give it to the other man," and
so she did.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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