Now, during the day, when trading was at its most ferocious, Skelton would watch to see how well it was all going. He would figure out who the wealthy merchants and buyers were and he would also figure out who was from distant parts of the country and then he would determine who was wealthy and from far away – now, they were the clients that he was interested in. For when they would come to his inn in the evening, after they had made all the bargains, he would talk to the wealthiest one and offer them his best room, with the finest bed, for the night.
Well, after a long day at the fair and with their skinfull of drink, the merchants would always agree rather than having to face a long and treacherous journey home at night on unlit country roads.
So, during the night, when the unwary wayfarer was sleeping in his big comfortable bed, the bed itself would tip up, a mechanism that was, no doubt, made possible by some sinister lever operated by Skelton himself. The occupant of the bed would be tipped out and dropped into a cellar below the inn, where Skelton kept a great and ferocious hound that would attack and kill the unfortunate guest. Skelton would then relieve the dead man of his wealth and earnings from his day at the fair and this is how he came to be so very wealthy.
Now, this went on for many years until it all came to a head when a wealthy merchant from Co. Meath was persuaded to stay the night at Skelton’s Inn.
Well, this merchant had a dog that he loved very much and would bring everywhere with him and he would often choose the dog’s comfort and well-being over his own. It was this unconditional love for his dog that was to save the man’s life. For, on the fateful night that he spent in Skelton’s Inn, he allowed his dog to sleep on the bed and he himself slept on the floor. So when the bed was tipped up, the dog slid down into the cellar and its owner was awoken by all the commotion and barking below him. Well, he raised the alarm and the authorities were called and Mr Skelton was hanged for his diabolical activities.
Now, one would think that this was the end of the story, but it has been said that on dark, windy nights around the old graveyard in Tydavnet, a great hound with eyes that burn like red coals can be seen galloping through the night, howling and snarling like a demon, with a great chain around its neck. It is believed that this is Skelton’s hound.
5 told me that he once asked his own father if he had ever seen a ghost and his father related this story to him …
His father said that he had never seen the hound, but that Francie’s grandfather had. It all began when there was a wake taking place in the locality. Francie’s grandfather and his friend and neighbour Patrick Falamie went to Tydavnet to get beer for the wake. It was getting dark and so they were following the Mass path to the pub, which led them through the graveyard.
They went inside the graveyard and Francie’s grandfather sat on the wall at the back of the graveyard while the neighbour, Patrick Falamie, went over to the pub to get the beer for the wake. Now, the strange thing about the old Tydavnet graveyard is the fact that on the outside there is an 8-foot drop from the wall, but inside the churchyard at the back, it is only a foot from the top of the wall to the ground. Apparently this is due to the overcrowding in the graveyard.
Now, Patrick went into the pub and while Francie’s grandfather was sitting on the wall, he heard the great rattle of a chain and out of nowhere a great hound ran up through the centre of the graveyard and through the gate at the front of the cemetery.
Well, he thought nothing of it, for it was not uncommon to see large dogs about the place. But he said that Patrick Falamie came out of the pub carrying a crate of beer with both hands and came over to the gate of the graveyard and shouted, ‘Mick, will ya open the gate there now!’ So Mick hopped down and opened the gate for Patrick and they both walked back through the cemetery to the wake.
Well, Mick thought no more of it until the next day, when he was at the funeral in the cemetery and he looked at the gate that he had seen the dog run through. The bars of the gate were very close together so a large dog could not have gotten through them. The wall either side of the gate was 8-foot high, so the beast could not have jumped over that. And, of course, the gate was shut as Patrick had asked him to open it for him.
Well, Francie’s grandfather reckoned that he had seen the ghost of Skelton’s terrible hound in the old cemetery and was slow to go in there after dusk again, and certainly wouldn’t venture in again during the night.
21
ST DAVNET
It has become a tradition of mine to write about a saint for each of my collections of folklore. When I wrote Down Folk Tales, I had a great time writing about St Donard, who supposedly still resides on top of Slieve Donard in the Mourne Mountains, and for Kildare Folk Tales I had the wonderful experience of writing about St Bridgid and the fantastic tales that surround her.
It was explained to me that Tydavnet gets its name from Saint Davnet, ‘the patron saint of madness’. Well, as you can imagine, I was intrigued when I heard this and now I would like to tell you her story.
In St Joseph’s Church in Carrickmacross, there is a set of magnificent original stained-glass windows by the legendary artist Harry Clarke. One of the windows depicts a terrifying yet beautiful adaption of St Davnet’s story.
Davnet (Irish: Damhnait; also known as Damnat or Dympna) was a nun who is said to have lived and died on Slieve Beagh, Co. Monaghan, at Tydavnet (from ‘Tí nDamnat’ or ‘Tigh Damhnait’, meaning ‘house of Damnat’).
There are different stories of Saint Davnet. Some say she was a virgin nun and the founder of a church or monastery. Others say she was the daughter of a pagan chieftain who lived in Clogher, Co. Tyrone, but that she herself converted to Christianity.
She is also considered to be the same person as St Dympna, the patron saint of Geel in Flanders. This was stated by John Colgan in the mid-seventeenth century, who claimed that they were the same person. However, this was challenged by George Petrie and John O’Donovan of the antiquities division of the Ordnance Survey (c. 1830/40s) who stated that they were two very different people.
A tenth-century ornamental pilgrim’s staff, the bachall Damhnait, said to have belonged to her has been preserved. In the past, it was used to see if someone was telling the truth; it was, in other words, a lie detector. It can now be found on display in the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin.
The feast day of St Davnet is 14 June. Although the feast day of St. Dympna is 15 May.
Well, that is what I like about Irish saints: they are claimed by so many people and there are always arguments about their origins and where they found their end, if at all. There is still an ongoing debate about whether St Bridgid hails from Co. Kildare or Co. Louth.
Well, this is the story that I heard about St Davnet and I feel that it is definitely worthy of inclusion in a collection of folk tales …
Davnet was the beautiful daughter of Damon, a petty King of Oriel (Airgíalla, which was a medieval Irish over-kingdom: Oriel was the collective name for the confederation of tribes that formed the over-kingdom). Damon’s kingdom was in Clogher in the county of Tyrone, but the burial ground for many of the royalty of the time was in Tydavnet and that is where the ‘Tydavnet Discs’ were found. They are two beautiful and ornate gold discs, which are now kept at the National Museum in Dublin and are considered to be amongst Ireland’s greatest treasures.
Davnet’s mother died when she was a young woman in the prime of her life. Davnet was heartbroken, as was her father Damon, who was an obsessive and uncompromising man. He would not accept his wife’s death at all and it did not take long for his grief to turn to anger and resentment. He commanded his Druids to bring her back to life and when they could not, he had some of them executed. There was a lot of fear in the kingdom for the people knew that their king would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.
Davnet was appalled by her father’s behaviour for she had recently converted to Christianity and was greatly opposed to his pagan beliefs. As a last resort, the king ordered his men to travel the le
ngth and breadth of the country and find him a woman who looked exactly like the wife he had lost, for he wished to re-marry and would only do so with a virgin who resembled his deceased wife.
Well, as you can imagine, women from all over the country jumped at the opportunity to marry a rich and powerful king. It was like an ancient Irish version of Cinderella, with all these maidens flocking to the king, offering themselves up for marriage.
But none of them could fit the bill and the king was furious. He was determined to marry a woman who looked like his dead wife and that was that.
Now, his Druids were starting to panic and they were looking at each other as if to say, ‘Who will be the next one to lose his head over this?’
So they came up with a cunning plan to save their necks and take themselves out of the picture. They muttered and mumbled amongst themselves, as Druids always did, and then, eureka, they came up with a brilliant plan altogether. They decided that the king should marry his daughter Davnet, for she was the spitting image of her dear, departed mother.
So the head Druid, who was lucky to still have his head, went to see the king and passed on the fantastic solution that he and his fellow Druids had come up with. Well now, the king was delighted. He thought that this was a fantastic plan altogether and congratulated the Druid on his great thinking and sent him on his way to pass on the good news to his daughter.
Well, as you can imagine, Davnet was not impressed at all with this decision as she was both a Christian and a decent woman. She was annoyed, but she knew she had to tread carefully as her father was neither the most rational nor the most reasonable of men. She knew that to act hastily could be very dangerous, so she agreed to think about it for forty days, after which she would make her final decision. At least this would give her time to come up with some plan to get out of this compromising situation.
The initial plan was to get as far away from her insane father with her priest Bernard, or Gerebernus, and the pair of them would find safety far from the mad king.
She and Gerebernus went over the mountain of Slieve Beagh and stopped in the townland of Drumfurrer, in the parish of Truagh, Co. Monaghan. When they got there, they were weak with the thirst and Davnet asked some of the local people for a drink of water, but the people of Drumfurrer knew who she was. They were terrified of her father and refused to give her a drink for fear of the repercussions they might suffer.
Well, Davnet was furious and she put a curse on the townland of Drumfurrer, that it may never have water in it, and since then there never has never been a spring well in Drumfurrer.
So the princess and her priest headed away from the townland of Drumfurrer and on across the mountain of Slieve Beagh and came to the townland of Caldavnet, where she got a drink at a spring well there, which is now known as Saint Dympna’s Well.
After that, she went on to the village of Tydavnet. When herself and Gerebernus got there, she wanted to light a fire so that they could rest for the night. She approached the local blacksmith and asked him for some hot coals so that she could light a fire. The roguish blacksmith thought that this would be a great opportunity to play a trick on a woman, so he told her to hold out her apron like a wee hammock and he would put the hot coals into it, so that she could carry them away. This is what she did, but when he dropped the coals into her apron, he was surprised to see that they did not burn through.
He was very excited by what he saw and told everyone he met in the village of the miracle he had witnessed, and when he did word got around that she must have some great power or be one of the holy people that were going about the place, and of course it was well known that such people had the power to cure all sorts of illnesses.
So Davnet was called to a house where a sick woman was on her deathbed and she was asked to help her. Well, Davnet went to the house and laid her hands on the woman’s head and said some words. The woman was cured and Tydavnet was named after the house where Davnet performed her miracle (‘Tydavnet’ meaning ‘house of Davnet’).
Davnet then went on to Lavey in Co. Cavan, where there is a Saint Dympna’s church and at this church there is a stone, which bears the hoof prints of her horse, which were left behind when she had to jump over a river to escape her father, who was onto her by then and catching up with her.
She and Gerebernus continued on to the wes, to Achill Island in Co. Mayo, to a place called Kildavnet (Cill Damhnait), which is located on the south-eastern shore of Achill Island and overlooks the waters of Achill Sound. The place name literally means ‘the small church of Davnet’ and refers to the church that Davnet built there. However, the place is better known as the home of its most famous inhabitant, the legendary pirate queen Granuaille (Grace O’Malley, 1530–1603), but that is another story.
The two were safe on Achill Island for a while until her father found out about their whereabouts. He and his group of choice warriors were on their scent again, so poor Davnet and Gerebernus had to take a boat from the island in order to evade their pursuers. From there, they went to Belgium. They went to Antwerp first and then fled to the Flemish countryside until they reached Geel.
In Geel, they lived beside a chapel of St Martin. They stayed until Damon discovered their whereabouts once again. Apparently, he had been told by an innkeeper in a nearby village that they had passed through his inn. He had recognised the coins used by Damon from seeing Davnet use them. When Damon asked which direction they went in, the innkeeper raised his hand and as soon as he did this his arm froze. This must have been some divine punishment for his betrayal of Davnet. It was not long before the king caught up with his daughter and her priest.
He claimed that he wanted to renew his offer, but seeing that all was in vain and seeing that Davnet could not be persuaded, he told his servants to kill the priest. When this did not convince her, he ordered his men to behead Davnet, but they refused, so in a fit of rage, Damon himself cut off the head of his own daughter.
The people of Geel who witnessed this atrocity decided that the king must be insane. After they buried both Davnet and Gerebernus, the people of Geel went to her grave to pray for the souls of the insane and to ask for cures for mental illnesses. It was because of this that St Davnet, or St Dympna, became the patron saint of insanity.
Over the years, a large number of pilgrims have travelled to the town of Geel to pay homage to St Davnet and ask for her cures.
As both Davnet and Gereburnus were canonised and declared saints, it was decided that their corpses should be exhumed from their graves and put in sarcophagi in a cave, where they were later found. Some say that their bodies were put in the sarcophagi by the angels themselves for they could not figure out where the stone for the tombs had come from.
Now, word had spread that the relics of the two saints were housed in Geel and there was a lot of money in holy relics, then as now, so a group of thieves and robbers from Xanten in Germany went to steal the bones of the two saints. The thieves managed to get away with the bones of Gerebernus, which are still housed in Xanten, Germany.
Luckily the bones of Saint Dympna were recovered and they are kept safely at St Dympna’s church in Geel, Belgium. Every five years, they are processed through the streets of Geel in a silver shrine and pilgrims come from all over the world to take part in the procession and the nine-day pilgrimage.
When people came for the pilgrimage, there was very little in the way of accommodation, so the local people offered to take care of many of them while they were there. This was the first example of community care for the mentally ill and it was happening centuries before it started to be practised elsewhere. A hospital for the mentally ill was built in Geel and today it contains a brilliant state-run sanatorium.
Most pilgrims to Geel are still able to board with neighbourhood farmers and families, who become like ‘foster families’ for them. They help with the household chores or whatever work needs to be done on the farm – or, at least, they do as much as they are capable of doing. This has been happening in Geel for
centuries with great success.
Now, to finish off this story, I would like to take this opportunity to tell you a wee tale about St Davnet, which was told to me by Francis McCarron.
Francis once knew a man from Tydavnet in Co. Monaghan called Leo Lord, who emigrated to America and joined the American army. He went on to fight in the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium during the Second World War.
Leo was a great believer in St Davnet and when he was in Belgium during the war, he visited St Dympna’s church in Geel and paid his respects. In fact, he claimed that it was this very saint that saw him through the war.
Leo had told Francis that when he was a young boy growing up in Tydavnet, he had served as an altar boy and after one Sunday Mass, when he was changing out of his vestments, he heard something hit the ground with a thud outside the sacristy door. So he opened the door and, to his shock and bemusement, he saw the head of a beautiful young woman on the ground. As he gazed on, it melted away before his eyes. Leo believed that he had seen the head of St Davnet, or St Dympna, and since then he kept her as his spiritual companion and guide through life.
So that is the story of St Davnet. Whether it is true or not and whether Dympna and Davnet are the same person is up for speculation. But then, how else would you explain the links between Tydavnet and Geel?
Whatever the case may be, you must always remember never to let the truth get in the way of a good story …
22
THE HOLY GHOST
This story was told to me by native Monaghan man Danny Aughey. It is set during the Irish War of Independence or the Tan War (1919–1921). This was a guerrilla war fought between the Irish Republican Army (or the Old IRA) and the British security forces in Ireland, namely the Black and Tans, hence ‘The Tan War’.
The Black and Tans, officially known as the Royal Irish Constabulary Special Reserve, were a ruthless force of violent men who relied more on brutality than skill and training.
Monaghan Folk Tales Page 10