School: Castlemaine (C.)
- Location:
- Castlemaine, Co. Kerry
- Teacher: Máire, Bean an Chaomhánaigh
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0433, Page 036
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: Castlemaine (C.)
- XML Page 036
- XML “Poll an Aifrinn”
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
- Carrig an Aifrinn or (Stony Church) is situated south of Castlemaine and east of Milltown. Many tales, some tragic are told concerning this ancient Mass rock. Records tell us that on the 7th June 1651 two priests, one Father Cornelius Mc Carthy and the other Fr. Thaddeus Moriarty were captured while holding there a general station. Both were taken under escort to Fair Hill, now known as Martyrs Hill and were executed there. Those were the only arrests, as the people and the other priests escaped safely. This place is also known as Poll an Aifrinn, because of the many holes which are shaped like birds' nests surrounding it. Those hollows were capable of holding hundreds of people secretly from view even from a person standing ten yards away. The Mass rock is a beautiful rock shape of a heart and stands on the brink of two holes. It affords a nice hiding place as it is surrounded by a large wood, which at that time was densely planted with larch and oak. In(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Kitty Horgan
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Rusheen, Co. Kerry
- Informant
- Timothy Mc Carty
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 42
- Address
- Ardmeelode, Co. Kerry
