Browse Items · Digital Derg: A Deep Map

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

"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

Davog was a woman?

"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

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

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

Water-Horses

"Long ago the people used to send their horses to the mountain for the summer months.

One day a man was going to the mountain for his horse as he required him to do some work at home.

When he went up to the mountain he saw all the horses…

Tags: Croaghbrack townland, fairies, Folklore, horse, lake, Lough Kilraway, mountains, Oral History, supernatural, water, water horse

St Peter's Island and St Peter's Well

"St. Peter's Island and St. Peter's well are situated about a half a mile due North of the village of Mountcharles. They are in the townland of Turras Hill. The little Island is in the centre of the lake, but since the erection of the waterworks in…

Tags: Augustinians, Catholicism, exile, Folklore, hills, holy well, island, lake, Mountcharles, seventeenth century, St. Peter's Island, Turras Hill, vanished island

Templecarne Graveyard, County Donegal

Graveyard on irregular-plan, laid out c. 1600. Now out of use. Contains a collection of multidenominational cut stone gravemarkers (upstanding, recumbent, and table-type memorials) mainly dating from c. 1750 to c. 1900. Two ashlar limestone…

Tags: 1795 disaster, building survey, built heritage, burial, Folklore, Parish of Templecarne, Templecarne, Templecarne Graveyard

Keeronagh, the Devil's mother

"They here shew a bass relief of Keeronagh, the devil's mother, rudely done on a coinstone of one of the chapels, a figure somewhat resembling that of a wolf, with a monstrous long tail and a forked tongue..."

Tags: blood, Caoranach, Clogher, Dabheoc's seat, etymology, Fionn mac Cumhaill, Folklore, Keeronagh, monster, mountains, mythology, Philip Skelton, pilgrimage, Protestant critique, stonework

The comedy of fantastical myth

"Whether this narrative should have been given in a tragic or comic style; or should excite tears or laughter, is wholly submitted to the state of spirits your lordship shall happen to be in when it shall arrive from."

Tags: amusement, Clogher, derision, Folklore, mythology, Philip Skelton, pilgrimage, Protestant critique

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