Irish Folk Tales

by Henry Glassie

  When Shan Bernagh heard her song he let a roar out of him and they all bounced to their feet and catched up their belts and blunderbusses and went out with their guns cocked and met the Yeomen at the door. They walked safely out and the Yeomen daren’t touch them and so to their horses and away.

  The Browns knew they had turned everyone against them by their falsity so they started that night and never were seen in the country since.

  The servant girl was afeared to show her face so she crept into a sheuch behind a ditch, and lay there all night. Next morning she was found by a Tory and brought before Shan Bernagh, who gave her as much money as she could carry and bade her change her name and go into a strange country. Troth, she would be apt to get a severe punishment for defeating the Government.

  There were hundreds of pounds offered in them days for the head of a Tory. It was Conegrah meadow thonder, right fornenst this house just, that Shan Bernagh came by his death.

  The weather was hot and he went with his brother to bathe in Lough More. They put off them, and left their clothes in a heap on the broo of the lough. But a corbie lit on the clothes and joined to squally.

  Said Shan’s brother, “I’ll not go to lodge at the widow woman’s house at Conegrah the night,” says he, “for there’s a trap,” says he, “and thon’s a sure token of death, the corbie lighting on our clothes.”

  “Phut!” says Shan, “be sure you may trust her,” says he, “for didn’t I stand gossip for her child?”

  So when night come Shan went his lone to the house in Conegrah meadow. The widow had lashings of whiskey in it and she made him drunk and he lay down before the fire. With that she opened the door and in came a man named McGregor. He had a hatchet in his hand and he hit Shan a great bat on the forehead—and him hearty at the time. After getting the bat Shan riz up and the two men wrastled through the house.

  The great Tory would have prevailed only for the woman. She was lying on a whop of straw in the corner and while the men were fighting rings round them she jooked out of her bed and whipped the blanket about Shan’s legs, the way he couldn’t move at all. Then McGregor gave him another bat which knocked him senseless and he dragged him out of the house to a stone by the water below. He cut the head off him there and put it in a bag and headed off to get a big lump of money for a reward from Government.

  The stead of the house in Conegrah is standing yet and ye can see the track of the hatchet in the stone thonder, where Shan Bernagh’s head was cut off him.

  WILLIE BRENNAN

  THOMAS O’RIORDAN CORK

  SEAN O’SULLIVAN 1934

  Brennan was born in Kilmurry, near Kilworth. He listed in the army and then he deserted out of it. They were hunting him around the country day and night.

  One day outside at Leary’s Bridge, Brennan met the Pedlar Bawn. I never heard him called by any other name. The Pedlar was traveling for a firm in Cork, going about the country selling different kinds of things. Brennan put the blunderbuss up to him and made him hand out what he had, watch and chain and all. Then the Pedlar asked him to give him some token to show to the people of the firm in Cork that he had met him.

  “Tell them that you met Brennan the Highwayman.”

  “Give me some token that you met me, or I’ll be put to jail,” said the Pedlar.

  “What have I to do for you?” asked Brennan.

  “Fire a shot through this side of my old coat,” said the Pedlar.

  He did.

  “Fire another through this side now,” said the Pedlar.

  So he did.

  “Here!” said the Pedlar. “Fire another through my old hat.”

  Brennan did.

  “Come!” said the Pedlar. “Fire another through my old cravat.”

  “I have no more ammunition,” said Brennan.

  The Pedlar then drew a pistol, whenever he had it hid.

  “Come!” said he. “Deliver!”

  Brennan had to deliver, quick and lively too!

  “You’re a smarter man than me,” said he. “All I ever went through, I robbed army, men and lords, and you beat me. Will you make a comrade for me?”

  The Pedlar only flung his pack over the ditch.

  “I will,” said he. “I’ll stand a loyal comrade until my dying day.”

  And so he was, a loyal comrade.

  “We’ll go along to County Tipperary,” said Brennan. “ ’Tis a wealthy county. There’s agents and landlords there going around the country gathering the rent in the houses, and we’ll whip them going back in the evening.”

  So the two of them went along to the County Tipperary. Brennan went in to a widow there one morning. The poor woman was crying and lamenting. He asked her what was the matter with her.

  “What good is it for me to tell you, my good man?” said she.

  She didn’t know but he was a tramp.

  “How do you know?” said he.

  “The agent is coming here by and by, and I haven’t a halfpenny to give him for the rent,” said she.

  “Well, what would you say to the man who’d give it to you?” said Brennan.

  He asked her how much it was, and she told him—five or six pounds, I suppose. He counted it out to her.

  “Tell me now,” said he, “the road he goes home in the evening.”

  She told him the road he’d take after giving the day gathering around. He made her go down on her knees then and swear to God and to him that she would never tell anyone that she saw him, or mention that anyone gave her the money. Himself and the Pedlar met the agent going home with the money and whipped the whole lot that he had gathered that day.

  Brennan is buried over in Kilcrumper near the old church wall.

  WICKLOW IN THE RISING OF 1798

  MRS. O’TOOLE WICKLOW

  PÁDRAIG Ó TUATHAIL 1934

  The swearing in of my grandfather Larry Byrne took place at the wedding of a friend before the rebellion of Ninety-Eight broke out. Michael Dwyer swore him in, and told him to unite all the boys that might think well of it. He started in at Blackrock and Aughavanagh, Glenmalure and the Seven Churches, and united all the boys that were in Ninety-Eight from that quarter; and Michael Dwyer on the other hand through Imaal his native place and all round, and against Ninety-Eight broke out they had every man and boy in the Wicklow Mountains that was worth his salt ready for the fight.

  The fourteenth night of May the rebellion broke out in the lower part of Wexford by the chapel in Boolavogue being set on fire. The priest was in bed, and he dreamed the chapel was on fire, and he jumped up, and it was really on fire, passed being quenched or put out. Then he got up and dressed himself, and he saddled his horse. He started up through Wexford, and he gathered up three farming men on horseback, and they came on through the whole County Wexford and gathered up all the help that would join them until they came to Carnew, and they was in Carnew by breakfast time in the morning, and they started from that on through the mountains to Aughavanagh and they was in Aughavanagh by evening time. When they came to Aughavanagh the news spread and the boys came in their dozens and joined them in a large army at Aughavanagh.

  Then later on there did a regiment of British soldiers land called the Durham Fencibles, and they was encamped on the lands of Kiladuff joining Ballymanus, and they had a general over them, a General Skerrett, one of the best men that ever landed in Ireland, a noble gentleman, and done the most good for the opposite people—that is the Irish.

  And there did another regiment come over called the Hessians and they were volunteers from England, farmer’s sons, big soft fellows well-kept, well-dressed and had fine horses, a whole regiment of them. And they went up and down through the country and shot some parties, and said they would go up to Aughavanagh to clean up the rebels that were annoying the Crown.

  They went on until they came to a level plain about forty or fifty acres, but it was rocks and bogs a good deal of it, so they eyed out this place and allowed they’d go up there and hunt out the rebels and shoot them down
.

  So Dwyer and the boys were waiting for them—they had got word of them coming on to them, and they were waiting for them. And Dwyer was the cleverest man and there was never a duck hardier on the pond than he. He planted his men at each side of this plain in hiding and told some to go out in front out of gunshot and to tempt the soldiers on; when he’d give the signal they could fire; and he had a sea-whistle that could be heard eleven miles away.

  The soldiers dashed into what seemed to be a level place I told you about, but it was rocks and bogs and sloughs, and the horses stumbled and fell, and they got them up again, and they started on foot, but they wasn’t as well up as the mountain fellows.

  So Dwyer gave the signal for the side parties to pour in on them and to fire on them, and they did so, and they shot them to a man.

  They went up to Aughavanagh, and they was set upon by the boys at Aughavanagh, the United Irishmen—the “rebels” as they called them—they set upon them and they was cleaned up to a man—there wasn’t as much as one of them left to tell the tale. The horses went round the roads and the bogs and the hills, with the bridle reins dragging beside them and the saddles on them, but no rider. The people let the horses wander over the hills and never as much as took the reins or saddles off of them, but a big snow the year after killed them all.

  So after two or three days the inhabitants became very uneasy to see the dead bodies of the big fat Englishmen lying there and no one to bury them, and they said to each other: “What are we going to do?” They wouldn’t lay hands on them nor they wouldn’t bury them. One of them came down to the corps to Kiladuff, and he made it known to the general—General Skerrett—to see if he would send up his men to bury his brother Englishmen that had been lying on the plains shot for so many days; they would give them some assistance.

  So they dug a big trench, and they dragged the dead bodies into it with the horses, and covered them up, and then they expected that they would annoy them by night, but they never did. They never saw one of them.

  On one occasion Dwyer and my grandfather and Hugh Byrne of Monaseed and poor McAllister—I am troubled to the heart when I think of poor McAllister; he was a true man—well, the four of them were in a cave on Lugnaquilla when the daylight came.

  By and by the sun shone in through the heather which hung over the hole they crept in. They were as comfortable as the day is long lying in a big bundle of clean straw and good bedclothes that was brought from a farmer’s house; and the farmer’s house was my great-grandfather’s. They were brought from a farmer’s house near to the mountain and placed there designedly for the boys.

  So the four awoke, and they began to talk, and they got up and struck their flints and steel because there was no matches. Then they lit their pipe, each of them, and they commenced to smoke and to talk as happy as the day is long, when a robin came in—and a robin is unusual so high up in the mountain, you know—a robin flew in, and she jumped around the quilt over them, and one grabbed at her, and another, and she flew out from the whole of them, and it wasn’t two minutes till she came in again, and when she came in she bustled and set herself just as if she was going to jump at them, and she got wicked-looking and: “Oh!” says they, “there is something in this.”

  The four jumped to their feet, and one of them put his head through the hole and he pulled back excited. “Oh!” he says, “the hillsides is red with soldiers.”

  “Which will we lie in,” says another, “or will we get out? If they have bloodhounds we’re found out.”

  “That’s right,” says they, and they all jumped to their feet, and the bloodhounds came in to the bed, but they dragged on their breeches and put their hat on them, and out they went with their guns. Dwyer whipped his sea-whistle and he whistled, and he could be heard, I suppose, in Arklow, and they fired off their three shots, and the soldiers turned around and they ran for their lives, and they never got time to look back till they fell over Lugnaquilla, and they told when they got below that the hills was full of rebels.

  There was a woman who used to deal in carrying bread around to the farmers herself and selling it to the women and children and otherwise, and when Ninety-Eight broke out she was a valiant heroine woman and should be good, should have been of good blood or she wouldn’t have been so sound as she was, for she never divulged it, and she carried scores and maybe hundreds of back-loads of powder to the boys and a dozen of penny buns put in over the pack, and no one ever detected it that she carried back-loads of powder to the boys during the whole year of Ninety-Eight and was never detected. Her name was never made known afraid they might find out what she was at, and she would have got a horrid death, but, thanks be to God! she didn’t—she was never known by anything but the “Walking Magazine.”

  One Sunday morning Dwyer and McAllister were at Mass in Knockananna Chapel, and they brought their guns with them and left them by the wall. The priest remonstrated with them and said that the House of God was no place to bring guns, but McAllister who was a Presbyterian but used to go to Mass with Dwyer said: “It is not always we have a rebellion, Father. Go on with the Mass!” And the priest did so.

  During the Mass a neighbor came to Dwyer and said that he had been at the window and that the chapel-yard was full of soldiers, and Dwyer picked out two clever young fellows and he told them for to go away to a field a distance from the chapel-yard but in sight of it, and says he: “Take off your coats.”

  He told them to run along the field in their shirts as fast as they could, and he picked out two or three more young chaps of boys that were clever enough to understand him, and he told them to go down beside the soldiers and stand looking down at this field and to cry out each one in surprise and wonder: “There they go! There they go!”

  And they did so, and the soldiers asked them who did they mean by there they go, and they told them—all cried out: “Dwyer and McAllister! Dwyer and McAllister!”

  The soldiers started for to overtake Dwyer and McAllister, and they failed on it, for Dwyer and McAllister was hid in the chapel and when the soldiers cleared out they cleared out and went their way in peace and quietness.

  The soldiers went out across the fence and they came on the two boys that ran, and they sitting with their coats on, and they smoking their pipes, and they asked them did they see two men running through the fields, and they said “No,” that they were not long there. So Dwyer and McAllister walked off in safety and left the poor lads wandering about to look for them.

  My great-grandfather, John Byrne, was fifty years of age and a grandfather in Ninety-Eight, and he fought in the Rising. He was captured by order of Captain Hardy and brought to Hacketstown and sentenced to be hanged.

  My great-grandmother went to Captain Hardy’s wife, and asked her to get him a pardon, that she had no one to work their little mountain farm at Blackrock, only herself. My great-grandmother knew Mrs. Hardy, who was a lady and a colonel’s daughter, and she used sell her butter and eggs. The kind lady asked the captain to grant her one more favor—she was after getting off another rebel—and this would be the last favor she would ask, but the captain said that if he let off a man of fifty years of age and a grandfather that rebellion would never cease in Ireland. She threw herself on her knees and grasped him around the legs, and told him she would never stand up out of that until he would grant her request. So what could the captain do, and the good lady, the colonel’s daughter—she was higher up than him, you know—at his feet? So my great-grandfather got his reprieve.

  My grandfather, Larry Byrne, married his daughter and brought her to Rednagh. He was arrested coming home from the battle of Vinegar Hill, where he lay down on the side of Croghan Kinsella to have a sleep, along with four others of his brother-boys, only they were strangers but were brothers in the fight, don’t ye know—they lay down and fell asleep, and when the soldiers sighted them at some point or other they went on and arrested them, and they brought them to Naas Gaol, and from that to Dublin before ever the widow mother of the family got to
know of it.

  He was in Newgate Gaol when they got to hear of it, and he was kept there for a year because they got to know that his information would be very valuable. He was out two years with Dwyer organizing the parties in the mountains, and he was Dwyer’s real companion, and they knew that if they could get his information it would be very valuable, so they kept him for a year, and I may tell you that he got the height of misery—he got hunger, he got neglect, he never saw clean linen. He had, of course, nothing but the clothes on him when he was arrested; what could he have? And the shirt that he brought in he brought it out without ever seeing a drop of the world’s water—wasn’t that awful?—after a year, but he said it never gave any more trouble than the shirt he would be after putting on on a Sunday morning. It was God did it.

  So at the end of a year they come and they took him out of prison, and they had a beautiful suit of new clothes, and they made him peel off his old clothes that he had on the hills and in prison for the year. They had to lie like the beast—they got no bed there—they lay like beasts behind iron bars.

  So they made him take off these old clothes and put on their new suit, and a few men conducted him into a closed carriage and brought him to the Castle, and put him into the tower of the Castle, and they kept him there for six weeks, and he knew what that meant—they wanted information.

  So what did he meet but a rebel doctor in the castle—a rebel doctor. Would you expect that? Dr. Madden—I am not sure. He wondered at him to be so friendly to him and telling him that if he ate the kind of food he would get there hearty it would kill him. “I know,” says he, “the kind you are after being kept on for the year—the worst of the worst.”

  So at the end of the six weeks I tell you about in the Castle one morning when he was after having his breakfast—he got a beautiful time in it, he was treated to the very best and he had a bedroom and a sitting room and he was able to read in it, and he had a lovely time in it. And one morning Major Sirr—ah! he was one of the worst of them—walked into his room with another stranger that he didn’t know, and he says: