Browse Items · Digital Derg: A Deep Map

Historical Traditions

A folklore account of St. Patrick and the salmon of Lough Derg

Tags: Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar), County Donegal, Cullion, Folklore, Gortnessy, Oral History, Salmon, St. Patrick

St. Patrick's well at Tullaghan

"St. Patrick’s Well at Tullaghan has a legend. St Patrick stopped the night in a house near a mountain. The woman told him not to look at the light on the mountain, but he went up and saw a serpent and when he struck it, St. Patrick’s Well sprang up.…

Tags: blood, Bundoran, County Donegal, etymology, Folklore, holy well, mountains, St. Patrick, Tullaghan

Rathnacross Fairy Fort

"There is a circular fence of earth on top of a hill in the school district. It is known as Rathnacross and is situated in the townland of Drumawark.

There is a hole in the middle of it where a Celtic cross stood but it is broken now and the…

Tags: Drumawark Townland, fairy fort, Folklore, High Cross, hills, marker, pilgrim road, pilgrimage, Rathnacross

Sliabh Dubh Holy Well

"About eight miles from the Four Masters’ School in Byrne’s mountain on the old foot-road across Croney to Lough Derg is a Holy Well called [Sliab Dub ?]. ( ½ ml. from the Donegal-Tyrone border)

Local tradition says that as Saint Patrick was going…

Tags: Annals of the Four Masters, Folklore, headache, healing, holy well, mountains, offering, pilgrim road, sore joints, St. Patrick, toothache

Interrogating the curse of St. Patrick

"…The story is told that in ancient times Lough Derg abounded in salmon and salmon-trout, just the same as its next neighbour, Lough Erne..."

Tags: Arctic Char (Salvelinus alpinus), Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar), Daniel O'Connor, eels, fishing, Folklore, John O'Donovan, mountains, Salmon, scientism, St. Patrick, trout, wildlife

The origin of Lough Derg's name

"There are two different opinions to account for the meaning of the denomination, Lough Derg..."

Tags: Annals of the Four Masters, blood, bogland, colour, Daniel O'Connor, etymology, Fionn mac Cumhaill, Folklore, John O'Donovan, pilgrimage, place names, Royal Irish Academy, St. Patrick, water, wine

Fionn mac Cumhaill escapes the monster's belly

"…Fin M’Coul stood before the monster; but instead of innocently submitting to be sucked in like a common man, Fin, famed as he was above all the Fions for feats of agility, took a hop, step, and leap, and fairly and clearly jumped down its…

Tags: blood, Caesar Otway, colour, dryness, evacuation, Fionn mac Cumhaill, Folklore, hills, lake, monster, mountains, nineteenth century, St. Patrick, superstition

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

"The water, the water of the seas and of lakes and of mist and rain, has all but made the Irish after its image"

Yeats' reflection on the affinity for bodies of water within the Irish poetic imagination and psyche

Tags: Folklore, Irish identity, mythology, religion, W. B. Yeats, water

Browse Items (35 total)