School: Murrintown (roll number 13707)

Location:
Murntown, Co. Wexford
Teacher:
Máire, Bean Uí Chléirigh
Browse
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0879, Page 182

Archival Reference

The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0879, Page 182

Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.

See copyright details.

Download

Open data

Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

  1. XML School: Murrintown
  2. XML Page 182
  3. XML “Another Story”

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

  1. Years ago an old man worked at Clanceys of Kates Cross not far from Murrintown.
    He slept on a stable loft. The children of the house often climbed up and played about this loft. They often wondered at black strokes both long and short on the white washed wall. Occasionally these were cleaned off.
    Once they asked him what did the strokes mean, he did not tell them, but they found out. When the wall was rubbed clean of the strokes it remained so for some time. Then they began to appear on it again by (degrees?), sometimes a long stroke, sometimes a short one, made by a blackened stick.
    One day the children cleaned the wall themselves. When the old man found out what they had done the was in terrible grief.
    Then it transpired that these strokes represented his sins. Long strokes mortal sins, and short ones venial sins.
    When he went to Confession he started off (?) with a clean conscience and a clean (?)
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Language
    English
    Collector
    Peggie Breen
    Gender
    Female
    Address
    Murntown Upper, Co. Wexford