School: Mín na Cille, Mainistir na Féile (roll number 16239)
- Location:
- Meenkilly, Co. Limerick
- Teacher: Aindrias Ó Dúnadhuighe
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0494, Page 155
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- John Byrne lived in Abbeyfeale about seventy years ago. He was the strongest man in Munster. Once when a horse failed to pull a load in a garden, he pulled it. There was an A.M. in Abbeyfeale at the time called Mr Massey. He was a very jolly man and knew Byrne well. One day he said to Byrne there was a new man in the barrack who had boasted he would arrest any two men here around. "I want you to teach him a lesson, but not hurt him" he said, and gave him some money and told him take a few pints. Byrne staggered across to the barracks and Massey called the new man to arrest him, and said "You had better take another man with you, he might be cross" The stranger said "I could bring in two like him" and very vexed he left and Massey cried after him "Don't hurt him". The stranger walked up to Byrne and said "I must arrest you". "Indeed you need not" said Byrne "for I only had seven or eight pints to-day". "And do you mean to tell me that four pints wouldn't make you drunk" ? Byrne came to the front of the barracks with him and said "Do you mean to arrest me" ? "Yes" said the other man. Byrne said "You will not; and he took him with both hands and laid him down in the channel of water and pulled him up and down three times.
- Collector
- Tadhg Mac Cárthaigh
- Gender
- Male
