Browse Items · Digital Derg: A Deep Map

The salmon of Lough Derg

"There is one strange fact connected with this lake - no salmon come into it, though they come up to the very point where the River Derg escapes out of it…"

Tags: Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar), empiricism, fauna, fishing, Folklore, John O'Donovan, letters, nineteenth century, ordnance survey, River Derg, Salmon, scientism, St. Patrick

The monster guards a crock of gold

"The same or a similar monster inhabits the lake yet (still) and was seen not many months ago. It guards a crock of gold which lies buried in the ancient island of the Purgatory…"

Tags: Fenian Cycle, Fionn mac Cumhaill, Folklore, gold, John O'Donovan, letters, Ludovicus Pyrrhus, monster, mythology, nineteenth century, ordnance survey

"Now let me at my old antagonist Oral tradition: The chair of Davog lies in the townland of Suidhe Dhabheog (Seeavoge) where in the living rock some impressions of elbows &c are strewn. Davog was a woman, who came to make the turas but she died…

Tags: fifth century, Folklore, gender, John O'Donovan, letters, nineteenth century, Oral History, ordnance survey, St. Dabheoc, St. Dabheoc's Seat, St. Patrick, women's history

"Though my letters are wild as the mountains in which they were written"

"Though my letters are wild as the mountains in which they were written, still do I feel myself very sober in thought, and exceedingly (excessive) in love with truth even to the prejudice of all national feelings…"

Tags: detachment, emotion, empiricism, environment, Folklore, John O'Donovan, letters, nineteenth century, Oral History, ordnance survey, region, remoteness, wildness

Oral history and facts

A debate over the reliability of oral history, in which O'Donovan cites the heterogeneity of County Donegal local stories

Tags: debate, empiricism, Folklore, John O'Donovan, letters, nineteenth century, Oral History, ordnance survey, reliability, religion, scientism, tradition

Leprechauns and Mermaids

"Very few stories are told of mermaids in this district as it is too far from the sea. The mermaid or 'maigdean mara' is very attractive. Once upon a time a glan man who made a station in Lough Derg returned home by Bundoran. He spent a few hours…

Tags: Bundoran, County Cavan, County Donegal, drowning, Folklore, Glen, mermaid, Oral History, pilgrimage, supernatural

The snake of Lough Patrick and Lough Peter

"There are no holy wells in this district but there are two holy lakes called Lough Patrick and Lough Peter. These lakes are in the townland of Drumlougher and form the boundary between County Monaghan and County Armagh. St Patrick's stone is in a…

Tags: cattle, County Donegal, County Monaghan, cure, Drumlougher, Folklore, hills, Lough Patrick, Lough Peter, miracle, Oral History, pilgrimage, snake, St. Patrick

Situating Lough Derg

A history of Lough Derg and its Antiquities.

Tags: blood, Bundoran, commentary, Derg abban, dimensions, eighteenth century, Fair Lake, Fenian Cycle, Fionn mac Cumhaill, Folklore, Gerald of Wales, James Stephens, mica, moorland, railway, red, slate, St. Dabheoc, St. Fintan, Tirconnell, water

"They told the marvellous incidents of the voyage to their listening friends"

Knox stands on the rock to demonstrate his powers of deduction, an event which results in much storytelling upon the return to shore

Tags: credulity, elitism, ferry house, Folklore, James Spencer Knox, nineteenth century, Protestant critique, scientism, sectarianism, storytelling, Travelogue

"What we saw was the great serpent or fish"

Knox describes the fear of his Irish boatmen at the appearance of a lake monster, which he sees as a rock just above the waterline

Tags: elitism, Folklore, James Spencer Knox, lake, monster, nineteenth century, Protestant critique, rock, serpent, superstition, Travelogue

Browse Items (35 total)