School: Rathfarnham (B.)
- Location:
- Rathfarnham, Co. Dublin
- Teacher: P. Ó Dubhthaigh
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0797, Page 16
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Rathfarnham (B.)
- XML Page 16
- XML “A Folk-Tale of Ballyboden Rathfarnham - The Year Following the Famine”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- (continued from previous page)sent for the priest who came and chatted her long and intimately. "Now Mary" said he. "God has surely given you a trial and accept it as such. When feeling unnaturally towards the child treat it with extreme tenderness and say "you came from God" - and go to God".
It left the poor woman comforted and a few days after the neighbours all noticed the strong manisfestations of love to the child. From this the poor child quickly coursed through all the years of youth, manhood, age and decrepidness. At the end of two months the child breathed its last - dying of old age. Full enquiries were started by the police on suspicion of murder but on evidence of doctor, priest and neighbours no more action was taken. When neighbours spoke of it old men puffed thoughtfully at their pipes. Old women put their heads closer. The doctor only "hummed" and the priest only said "such things have been".
The cottage still stands and so also does the old thorn - crabbed and wrinkled with age, and silent at the many changes of times and people which passed under its branches.
- Collector
- Proinnsias Ó Dubhthaigh
- Gender
- Male
- Occupation
- Teacher
- Informant
- Mr John Downey
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- Over 80
- Informant
- Mrs Mary Downey
- Gender
- Female
- Age
- Over 80
