School: An Cillín (roll number 16603)

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1. The Púca of Killian

   

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   The following is the story which I have heard about the Púca of Killian.
   Once upon a time a farmer went out one evening on business, and didn't return or was never heard of afterwards. There was a search made that night, and the people had out bloodhounds sent by the police to trace the lostman. But no trace of him could be found. So it was the public opinion of the people that he was murdered by a society known as "The Mollies Men". It was on the top of the Killian Hills that he was supposed to have been murdered.
   In after years an old man said that when he was coming from Ardara in the early hours of the morning after the man was murdered, he met a party of "The Mollies Men" carrying the dead body of a man on a door, and they let him off with his life on the conditions that he would never mention that he met them, by putting him on his knees to swear. So he never told about it for years after, when he told it as a secret but the secret like all secrets passed from one to another.
   The men went across the Killian Hills in the direction of Boyle's Lough, and some say that his body was thrown into it, and others say that it was burned in a lime kiln.

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Annie Teresa Boyle

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Drumlaghtafin, Co. Donegal

   Informant

   Anne Meehan

   Gender

   Female

   Age

   77

   Address

   Drumlaghtafin, Co. Donegal