School: Cross (roll number 13141)
- Location:
- Cross South, Co. Roscommon
- Teacher: Mártan Ó Colmáin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0241, Page 127
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: Cross
- XML Page 127
- XML “A Widow's Son”
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
- Once upon a time there lived in Ireland a poor boy, the only son of his widowed mother. He decided to go to America to seek his fortune. He had only sixpence in his pocket when leaving home. He walked to Queenstown and stole on to a ship that was anchored there. After a while it set sail for America.
A few hours before landing he jumped into the sea. The watchman shouted "A man overboard." They lowered a boat in haste and took him in. He said, "What's up? I wish you let me swim the rest of the way, as I did from Queenstown."
All were amazed. The captain brought him to his home. He gave him plenty to eat and drink for a few weeks and money besides. Then he bet five thousand pounds that there was not another man in America could swim as far as this boy. A great swimmer opposed him.
On the day of the contest thousands of people were gathered at the harbour. On their way there was a(continues on next page)
- Collector
- John Mulligan
- Gender
- Female
- Age
- c. 13
- Address
- Largan, Co. Roscommon
- Informant
- Pat Towey
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- Over 70
- Address
- Largan, Co. Roscommon
