School: Abbeytown Convent N.S. (roll number 15043)
- Location:
- Boyle, Co. Roscommon
- Teacher: Sr. M. Columbanus
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0235, Page 137
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: Abbeytown Convent N.S.
- XML Page 137
- XML “Hidden Treasure”
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
- When the Boyle Abbey was besieged by the English soldiers. Some of the monks escaped with their valuables to McDermott's castle on Key, through the tunnel which led from the Abbey to the castle.
Before the monks emerged from the tunnel they hid their treasure there. This treasure consisted of sacred vessels, mostly.
About thirty years ago a man names Armstrong who lived in Patrick's Street read about the tunnel and the unclaimed wealth which lay hidden there. Throwing caution to the wind he decided on exploring them. Taking with him a bunch of rush candles he entered the tunnel at Lough Key.
It was of course as dark as dungeon and there being many different paths he lost track of them. He wandered aimlessly around and finally it was of his own life rather than the buried treasure he was thinking. His candles soon burned out and he was lost in those eerie tunnels without a single light and nothing but rats and evil spirits for company.
After hours of tiresome walking he saw a faint ray of light before him, rushing up he found it was the exit to the tunnel, and when he emerged he was in Assylin graveyard.
Everybody soon learned of his adventures and since it almost cost him his life no other attempts(continues on next page)
- Collector
- B. Dwyer
- Address
- Boyle, Co. Roscommon
- Informant
- Mrs Monaghan
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Boyle, Co. Roscommon
