School: St Columba's Abbey, Navan (roll number 882)
- Location:
- An Uaimh, Co. na Mí
- Teacher: Br. Abban O' Donoghue
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0700, Page 158
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- (continued from previous page)met a beggerman, who was no one but Collier in disguise. They asked him if he had seen Collier, and as a poet describes it the peelers said:
"We are in search of a robber brave,
Who, by his artful schemes, he us decieves"
Says he "At a public house not three miles away
I saw him being taken this very day."
Then for Navan his course bent on,
Dressed in the garments of a beggerman.
Collier, however, dodged the peelers and put them off his track for a while by telling them he saw him being taken.
When Collier got old he had to go the poorhouse where he spent the rest of his life. When he was dying the priest asked him what he had done with all the money he robbed. Collier answering said that he helped the farmers of Meath and Westmeath to make priests of their sons. He died in the poorhouse Drogheda and was buried there. After his death the following four lines of poetry were made:
He never robbed a poorman yet,
But always strove to pay their debts.
He robbed the rich to serve the poor,
Alas! brave Collier he is no more.
