School: Na Mullaigh (Smithboro') (roll number 10104)
- Location:
- Smithborough, Co. Monaghan
- Teacher: Mrs Walsh
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0951, Page 328
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- XML School: Na Mullaigh (Smithboro')
- XML Page 328
- XML “Lone Bush”
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- Irish people in this district always refused to cut down lone bush or break branch off it. By a lone bush is meant a large bush almost as large as a chestnut tree of the whitethorn variety standing alone far away from a hedge. It is said that it does not possess them.
About 40 years ago there was a lone bush in a large garden owned by an old man called John M KELLAN, in the townland of Maplerarney - 1/2 mile from Smithboro. It was so old that it was rotten. M Kellan when cultivating his garden always left a circle about a perch in diameter at the roots of the bush, which he would not touch with the spade lest he should cut a root of the haunted bush. One day when he was away from home a neighbour man who used to play tricks on him to hear his bad language gave the bush a shake an it broke off near the ground and fell. When M. Kellan came home he cursed the person who interfered with his bush. The m[?] heard him predict that the bush would have its revenge. Some time after the man who knocked down the bush was cutting his own hedge when he was struck by a branch of a whitethorn bush and lost the sight of the eye
- Informant
- John Thomas Rooney
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 63
- Address
- Smithborough, Co. Monaghan
