While thy hasty bees come hiding
Honey thro’ thy mould.
Thro’ and thro’ thy restless rushes
Run a thousand rills,
Lisping long-forgotten little
Songs of Ireland’s ills.
For thy mingled chaplet, oak and
Beechwood thou dost bind
Green in summer, and in the winter
Musical with wind.
Fairy Ballad
Where did you dream that snowy dress,
Oh fairy maid, with golden bars?
I snatched it from an Angel’s loveliness
And left him naked in the stars
And how did you pick that pearly chain,
Oh fairy maid, around your neck?
I made my lovers weep and weep again
A thousand tears to make each speck.
And why did you get those ruby shoon,
O fairy maid, to trip the mud?
I stole them from the baby in the Moon,
To dip them, dearest, in your blood!
The Fairies of Emy
The Fairies of Emy were out on the fort,
Just once in the year is their right,
For music and dancing and sport
The half of a mad summer’s night.
Old tunes they were playing, old measures they brought,
And hushed them again before light.
The scolags and farmers they spoiled of their silk
And heaped all the bran on the floor:
They left all the salt in the ale,
The butter they slid through the door:
Then laughing they lapped up the milk,
And shouted in Irish for more.
The priest’s foreign hen’s got no sleep in the night
With fairies that climbed on the sill,
And hammered and battered the eggs for a bite
To give their wee bodies a fill:
They climbed in the shells, and God save us the sight,
They sailed round the pool of the mill.
A poor little child at the foot of the glen
Lay dead and unsigned of the cross:
They kissed him and carried him out of the ken
Of parents who wept of his loss:
They gave him the shoon of the fairy men
And set him to dance on the moss.
Bluebeard
He still could hear the embers from his sleep,
Creak through the night to long and late;
Till all the dust of day was gathered deep
On cloth and goblet and on plate.
From chapel floor his first beloved rose up;
‘Is yon dish sweeter than any I gave?’
The second cried, ‘Doth fairer hand fill up your cup?’
But the third, ‘I keep thy sheet in my grave’.
His first love hissed, ‘Ere dawn your marrow and sap
Shall be made to meet for the eaters in red.’
The second, ‘A white-eyed slug to your heart shall lap.’
The third, ‘I shall bind up the wounds of thee dead.’
His first love said, ‘By your pain be I fatted and filled!’
The second cried, ‘I will drink of your hell!’
And the third one said; whom to he had wedded and killed;
‘Alas, and alas! But I love thee well.’
He never heard the ashes in his sleep
Stir dying till the sun rose late;
For all the dust of the night gathered deep
On cloth and goblet and on plate.
3
THE GHOST TRAIN
I found the bones of this haunting tale in a wee book called Irish Ghosts (2002) by J. Aeneas Corcoran. The version I found was very short but I have heard so much about the old defunct train lines in Monaghan that I decided to make it a bit more elaborate and give it the attention that it deserved.
Hear that phantom whistle blow … All aboard!
It was the summer of 1924, and two men were waiting on a train from Clones to Armagh. That line is gone now and no trains have run on it since 1957. But in the summer of 1924, the trains were up and running and there were plenty of folk happy to use the service.
Well, it was a quiet evening at Clones railway station in Co. Monaghan and the two men sat on a bench outside the waiting room. Both of them had passed through the waiting room and noticed that there was no one there. It was such it a lovely evening that they decided that it would make a lot more sense to wait outside.
As they sat there, they could hear a low moaning sound coming from the waiting room behind them. They were sure they could hear a man’s voice calling out for help. Well, they got up from the bench and had a look inside the waiting room, but there was nothing there apart from two long benches and the long narrow table placed between them.
This was very strange indeed. They went back to sitting outside again. As they did, they could hear a train coming. At this stage, they were both quite relieved to hear their train coming as they had been quite spooked by the sounds coming from the eerie waiting room. The noise of the approaching train grew louder and they could hear the whistle blow, but they could see no smoke in the distance. The sound of the train grew louder and louder. They jumped to their feet for it was as if the train was almost upon them. They felt a ferocious breeze as the train rushed passed them. One of the men had his cap blown off by the force of the breeze. They stood there bemused, for there was no train, and as the phantom locomotive whizzed passed them, they heard a terrible scream coming from the waiting room behind them.
The poor men were terrified. They were frozen to the spot. As the sound of the invisible train began to fade, the terrible cries and moans behind them began to subside. When all was silent again, the men saw the signalman come out of his office, looking for the train that he had heard but not seen. The men were relieved that at least they were not losing their minds as the signalman had experienced the same thing they had. They told him that they had heard, felt and even smelt the train as it passed by them. And they told him about the terrible sounds they heard coming from the waiting room.
The signalman stared at both of them with a strange look in his eye. He took a deep breath and told them that some poor man had jumped in front of a train from the station the year previous. His mangled body had been brought into the waiting room, where he died an agonising death on that narrow long table that stands between the two benches.
4
THE TALE OF CRICKET
MCKENNA
This is a great wee Monaghan story that was passed on to me by my friend and fellow storyteller, Francis McCarron.
Once there was a man called Patrick McKenna who lived in the parish of Errigal Truagh in north County Monaghan. But if you went to find him, you would have your work cut out for you because there are lots and lots of McKennas in north Monaghan. As a matter of fact, there are so many McKennas that they all have nicknames. There are the Barneys, the Big Frankies, the Deleavys, the Hughies, the Myleses, the Pat Arts, the Red Oineys, the Roes, the Rosses, the Toals, the Yellow Willies and many more.
But the man in our story was called Cricket McKenna. This might have been because he had spindly legs like a cricket or it may have been because he was light on his feet or it may even have been because his mind hopped about like a cricket’s. Whatever the reason, Cricket was the name he was given and it stuck.
He was the sort of a man that would chance his luck at anything, even things he knew nothing about. His mother often warned him that, ‘Long runs the fox, but he’s caught at last!’, but that never sank in with Cricket.
During the famine, things were very hard for the people in Cricket’s part of the country, so he decided to leave home in search of work to earn money to buy food or even to work for food as wages so he wouldn’t starve.
As he walked the road from Truagh, he passed through the village of Tydavnet on his way towards Monaghan town. All along the roadside, the crickets sang in the hedg
es. But if the crickets were plentiful, food was scarce and he was soon ready to drop with the hunger. He came to the townland of Cornacassa, where a local landlord, D’Acre Hamilton, had his estate. A sign at the entrance read, ‘Trespassers will be hanged’.
Oh well, thought Cricket, if I’m going to die, it might as well be while trying to live, and so he went up the avenue to Hamilton’s big house to see if he could get some food. He hadn’t got very far when the owner himself came roaring up towards him.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he bellowed. ‘Can you not read? I’ll have no trespassers on my land.’
‘I’m no trespasser,’ said Cricket, ‘just an honest man in search of work.’
‘What work can you do?’ enquired Hamilton.
‘I’m a spayman. I can see things, I can know things, I can find things out and say how they are.’
‘Indeed,’ said the landlord. ‘Well, an emerald ring has gone missing in this house. If you can say where it is, you will be given a bag of gold coins, but if you can’t, I’ll have you hanged for the trespasser you are!’
‘Finding a ring is a difficult piece of work,’ said Cricket. ‘It will take me three days and during those three days I must be given my food and lodgings and then I will be able to get the ring.’
‘See to it that you do,’ warned Hamilton. He bellowed for a servant to show Cricket to a room.
Now, there were three serving girls in the house and they had stolen the ring. When they heard of Cricket’s arrival, they discussed their situation. On the first morning of his stay, the eldest girl brought him breakfast. Cricket blessed himself and said out loud, ‘Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost,’ and then he was silent as he ate the food. At least I have two more breakfasts before I die, he thought, as he had no idea how he would find the ring.
The eldest girl returned to her two companions.
‘He is bluffing,’ she said. ‘He hasn’t got a clue.’
On the next day, the second girl brought him his breakfast. Cricket blessed himself and said out loud, ‘Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost,’ and then he was silent as he ate the food. A day left, he thought, and I’m no further forward.
The second girl returned to her two companions.
‘We are as safe as houses,’ she said. ‘He is no more a spayman than I am.’
On the third morning, the youngest girl brought him breakfast. She was much more nervous and afraid than the other two. Cricket blessed himself and said out loud, ‘Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost,’ and then he was silent as he ate the food. I know I am going to hang today, he thought, but at least I’ll not die of the hunger.
‘Do you know?’ asked the young girl.
‘Oh,’ said Cricket, thinking she meant the fate in store for him, ‘I know all indeed.’
At these words, the young girl began to cry.
‘Oh please don’t tell we took the ring,’ she wailed, ‘or we’ll all be hanged.’
‘Give me the ring and tell me what happened,’ said the quickthinking Cricket, ‘and everything will be all right.’
The girls told all and gave Cricket the ring. He wrapped it in a potato skin and threw it out into the yard, where a flock of ducks were standing. It landed in front of a green drake that was waddling by. The drake gobbled the skin up and waddled on.
Cricket’s heart soared like a bird and he wandered out into the yard whistling a tune. Before long, D’Acre Hamilton came charging up.
‘Well,’ he roared, ‘you’ve had your three days. Where is my emerald ring and what happened to it?’
‘That’s easily told,’ said Cricket. ‘The ring got thrown out by accident with the potato skins.’ He pointed to the green drake in the middle of the flock of ducks. ‘Right now, it’s inside that large green drake.’
‘Not a word about it,’ roared Hamilton, with disbelief written all over his large face.
He ordered a farmhand to kill the drake. But when the farmhand did and they looked inside, there was the ring.
Well, D’Acre Hamilton could not get over it. He thought Cricket was the greatest man alive and did not want to let him leave his service. But Cricket was anxious to get away and requested his payment. Hamilton gave him his bag of gold, but begged him to stay until he could at least show him to the other landlords. He sent word for them to come at once and meet the great spayman and he told them of his powers.
Cricket shared some of his good fortune with the serving girls and was preparing to leave as the neighbouring landlords arrived. Rossmore, Lesley and Woodwright looked Cricket up and down and listened to D’Acre Hamilton’s tale with wonder and some incredulity. Now, as I said before, crickets were very plentiful that year and one was singing in the hedge beside Mr Woodwright. The landlord reached out and caught it in his fist and held his closed hand out towards Cricket McKenna. ‘If you are such a good man at your job,’ he said, ‘I will give you the same again in gold as Mr Hamilton if you can tell me what I am holding in my hand.’
Poor Cricket hadn’t a notion. He knew the game was up. He turned to Woodwright and said, ‘My mother was right in what she used to say, “Long runs poor cricket, but he is caught at last!”’
He was right again! And with Hamilton’s gold and Woodwright’s gold safely in his pocket, he lived as happy as any man with gold can live until the day he died.
5
THE BALLAD OF SEAN
BEARNA (SHANE
BEARNACH)
This is a piece I found in the Tydavnet Journal of 1995. Its author is unknown but it is a fascinating piece and tells the tale of the legendary highwayman Sean Bearna.
The rising moon was wading round the shoulder of the hill
And the heath bell bent before the breeze to kiss the mountain rill;
A white mist veiled the rushy glen and fringed the dark lough shore
With trailing wisps around the base of lofty Carnmore.
No reaper’s song among the sheaves nor happy laugh is heard
No shouting school boy in the lane no lilt of homing bird
For bright and clear the lights appear on yonder darkened scar
And the robber Saxon trembles in the lowland plains afar.
What the beacon fires that limn the dark and light the mountain side,
What sign to blanch the Saxon wolves that in the vales abide,
You lurid banner of the night from moor and lonesome glen
To hasty meeting place calls forth Sean Bearna and his men.
Ay’ well may yonder cravens crouch and well may fear the blade,
They drove the hapless peasant from the sheltered lowland glade
And condemned him on the rock and heath and floe of Wild Slieve Beagh
To skull and starve while down below the bodach lord holds sway.
And now the moon is clear at last, the veiling clouds are fled,
But thicker hangs the shrouding mist like winding sheet of dead;
A startled grouse resounds the night a dreaming curlew calls
And soft as lowing herd at eve, the flow of Cuskers falls.
But fling the faggot to the flame, bear out the brand anew,
Unfurl the flag of fire and paint the sky a bloody hue,
For yonder from this deep recess, the border king is come
To wreak revenge upon the spawn that drove us from our home.
Sean Bearna rode within the light his steed a dappled grey;
His tail and mane were streaming like the first pale shoots of day;
Nor cleaner limb nor fleeter ever fought the surging flood
Or left the foeman far behind in deep Drumfurrer wood
While Sean, as straight as mountain ash as tall as mountaineer,
His curling jet black hair hangs down to shade his bandoleer,
A broad sword and a musket were the only arms he knew,
As marshalled he his men the robber Saxon to subdue.
‘To horse!’
the swift command is e’en more speedily obeyed
And three score fleet curvetting steeds are mounted for the raid
And three score gallant rapparees with ready hand on rein
Repress the prancing steeds as bold Sean Bearna speaks again.
‘They drove us from our happy homes, a price upon our heads,
The changing sky to be our roof and the heather for our bed;
Bold outlawed men we only wait for vengeance swift and sure
But then we’ll take the grabbers wealth and give it to the poor.’
He swings the dappled charger round, he draws the naked steel;
One flaming flourish in the moon, one stroke of armoured hail,
Then swift as mountain flood they ride by ford and rushy glen
To seek revenge on those who wronged Sean Berna and his men.
The sleeping peasant hearkens that wild drumming on the night
And through frosted pane beholds like shadow in the light
As speeding troop across the hill then silent as before,
Save where the startled watch dog lifts a cry beside the door.
And speeding still the border land is far upon the road,
With flag of flame unfurled again and fanned in Ballinode.
‘God save ye, Wright and Mitchell, ere this bloody night is o’er,
We’ll raze your feudal piles and make a fire of Mullaghmore.’
‘Pass round the herd, lead out the steeds, no time for delay;
On Eshnagloch we’ll bed then at the dawning of the day,
Let scarlet soldier follow on with pitch cap, lash and blade,
Sean Bearna and his trusty men will meet him unafraid.’
’Tis morning on the grey hills’ crest, gold splashed the eastern sky,
The meadows bathing in the dew with sailing clouds on high,
His song the waking moor-hen holds the crouches in the grass
As troopers’ steed and tyrant blade in swift procession passed.
They rein the mettled charges ere the mountain they begin,
Then reckless ride the steep ascent of health bound Eshacrin,
But safe within the gloomy caves of lone Meenamen Glen
On couch of sedge and heather rest Sean Berna and his men.
Monaghan Folk Tales Page 4