School: Cill Chuimín, Durlas Éile (roll number 12538)
- Location:
- Kilcommon, Co. Tipperary
- Teacher: Donnchadh Ó Cuinnéain
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0542, Page 372
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- XML “Spirits”
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- Most people have a strong belief that the spirits of their dead are very near.
There are few who haven’t heard or seen something. So near are they with some that one wonders how they have courage to sleep at all.
I know a house - and I believe there are several others - where chairs are left by the fire at night for their beloved dead. They will actually tell you that they have heard these chairs being drawn nearer to the fire after having retired to bed, that they heard the fire being poked with the tongs and so on.
By what extraordinary psychological process they persuade themselves to these extraordinary occurrences it is hard to say.
Others - numbers of families - leave a bucket of water on the table at night with a cup beside it presumably for the spirits of the dead, while others and they are not a few leave Bread. A man told me that he forgot to leave water once and when he had retired he heard the bucket being kicked around the house.(continues on next page)
