School: Drom Bhaoghalláin (roll number 7981)

Location:
Ardcarn, Co. Roscommon
Teacher:
M. Pagnam
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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0231, Page 299

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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0231, Page 299

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  1. XML School: Drom Bhaoghalláin
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  3. XML “The Night of the Wisps”

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  1. In the time of Daniel O'Connell there were no telegraphs or telephones and the mail-coach which travelled from Dublin to Sligo was very slow as the horses which drew the coach had to be changed on the journey.
    When O'Connell was at the height of his power in Dublin it happened that he wanted to send a message to a man in Sligo. The mail-coach was too slow to deliver it in time and he had no other means of communicating with him. At last he thought of a plan by which he could send it quickly.
    This was the plan :-
    He got a wisp of straw and put the note inside and put the address on the outside to show where it had to go. He went to the first house on the road with the message and told the owner to pass it on to his next neighbour and so on.
    The result was that the message reached its destination long before the mail-coach arrived in Sligo.
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Topics
    1. agents (~1)
      1. historical persons (~5,068)
        1. Daniel O'Connell (~175)
    Language
    English
    Collector
    Bridie Mc Cormick
    Gender
    Female
    Address
    Drumbrisny, Co. Roscommon
    Informant
    Charles Breen
    Gender
    Male
    Age
    44
    Address
    Crossna, Co. Roscommon