School: An Clochar, Neidín

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1. Tales of a Grandmother Born 1830 (continued)

   

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   three legs. Finally, it was killed. (The writer of this manuscript was born in Castlegregory in 1881, and never saw a rat there).

   Up to the nineties as soon as a funeral entered the village the Caoine could be heard a long distance off. At wakes three women from the village who were famous at the Caoine - Mrs Mary O'Callaghan aged about seventy, Mrs Johanna Hoare, wife of a tailor, and Mrs Norrie Kennedy wife of a carpenter, the two latter about forty, always performed the Caoine at a wake. One started in a high key, another joined in with a different key. Then the third. Mrs O'Callaghan said all the things about the dead person in a set form of Caoine phrases.

   Note. Fr. Morgan O Flaherty of the Maharees, Castlegregory sometime about 1894 to '98 professor at St. Brendan's Seminary Killarney, collected Caoines all over the county, he got the old people to 'chant' the Caoine, then took down the pitch in Tonic Sol-Fa, and he spent his free time playing these over on a harmonium, in the Seminary. He died sometime after 1920 and is buried outside the Catholic Chapel at Castlegregory.

   This priest it was who carried of Monteith dressed as a nun soon after his (Monteith's) arrival at Ardfert with Sir Roger Casement in a submarine from Germany. When it was known that the police were aware of the arrival of the submarine (on Easter Saturday 1916) Fr. O Flaherty motored

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Bridget Mc Loughlin

   Gender

   Female

   Age

   57

   Occupation

   Teacher

   Informant

   Mrs Johanna Crowley

   Gender

   Female

   Occupation

   Teacher