School: Baile an Chnuich (Hilltown)
- Location:
- Hilltown, Co. Wexford
- Teacher: Simon Murphy
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0882, Page 195
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- There is a story of a man who tilled a rath. This man had a wife and large family and he had no land and no means to support them only his wages. This rath was never used or broken. It contained about one acre.
The man asked the owner of the rath if he would give it to him to sow potatoes in it.
The owner told him to ask the priest and if he told him to till it he would let him have it. The man went to the priest and he told him to leave it alone, but the man said he had a large family and no place to sow potatoes and his children were hungry. At length the priest told him to do as he liked but he would advise him to leave it alone. The man came home and on his way home he thought he saw some small men hurling in the rath. He got a pair of horses to plough it and on the night he finished it one of the horses was found dead in the stable. Next morning one of his children got sick and died. Before the potatoes were fit to dig his wife died and after he got in the potatoes another child died. He went to America with the rest of the children and the rath was left there and the potatoes were never(continues on next page)
