School: Niall Mór (roll number 11843)
- Location:
- Killybegs, Co. Donegal
- Teacher: B. Mac Niallghuis
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1039, Page 296
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
Download
Open data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Niall Mór
- XML Page 296
- XML “Folklore”
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
Folklore
“There are many old castles in different parts of Ireland, every one of these castles has some history attached to it.”
Folklore;- There are many old castles in different parts of Ireland, every one of these castles has some history attached to it. One of these is in Killybegs it is situated on top of a hill overlooking the village which was once described as Ireland's most beautiful village.
We do not know when the castle was built as there is no person in the locality who can recall the time when it was being occupied, but this story has been told to them by their ancestors.
There was once a bishop named Mc Gonigal living in Killybegs. He lived in the castle and only when it was a case of necessity he never left it. When he died he left the castle for a monks residence. For many years the monks lived happily in it, until at last, owing to the constant fall of stones they had to leave it before the walls fell in. It is believed that the day following their departure from the castle the roof and three walls fell in, leaving only one wall remaining. Bishop Mc Gonigal was buried in the old grave-yard which is only a short walk from the ruins.
- Collector
- Philomena Parris
- Gender
- Female
- Age
- 14
- Address
- Killybegs, Co. Donegal
- Informant
- Mrs Hannah O Boyle
- Gender
- Female
- Age
- 86
- Address
- Killybegs, Co. Donegal