School: Ballinacree (B.) (roll number 13965)

Location:
Ballynacree, Co. Meath
Teacher:
Pádraic Ó Connachtáin
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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0717, Page 133

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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0717, Page 133

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  1. XML School: Ballinacree (B.)
  2. XML Page 133
  3. XML “The Caldra Bush”

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  1. Not far from Mt. Nugent on the Dungimmon road grows this lonely bush bent with age and affords but very little shelter. No one ever ventured to cut it on account of its awful tradition. This bush was the home of a montsrous dog or Caldra as he was called that used to roam the roads every night from Laurel Hill beside Mt. Nugent straight on by Olivers cross to Purnell's Comer on the Meath border.
    This Caldra was as big as a three year old bullock with a tail seven feet long and his two eyes shone like the two lamps of a motar car. The people dreaded useing this road from eleven o'clock until midnight as this was the time he used to make his haunting journey. Several strangers coming into Mt. Nugent on the nights before the monthly fairs got shocked with him with the result that they stopped coming and the famous fairs of Daly's Bridge fell through with the
    (continues on next page)
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Language
    English
    Collector
    Seán Ó Faodagáin
    Gender
    Male
    Age
    12
    Address
    Crossdrum Lower, Co. Meath
    Informant
    Michael Lynch
    Gender
    Male
    Age
    46
    Address
    Crossdrum Lower, Co. Meath