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

"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

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

"Tradition, when jealously guarded and carefully handed down is a reliable source of information"

"With the destruction of the buildings in Lough Derg and the expulsion of the Franciscans in 1632, all the records of its glorious part were also destroyed..."

An omen of disaster prior to the 1795 accident

"As a boat was being loaded with passengers at eleven o'clock, an elderly man arrived at the shore and urgently signalled to his son to come away with him..."

Tags: 1795 disaster, Alice Curtayne, boating, disaster, dream, drowning, eighteenth century, Folklore, omen, Oral History, pilgrim, pilgrim crossing, pilgrimage, supernatural, survivor, twentieth century

"There were boats at hand, and presence of mind, even among the onlookers, could have averted the tragedy"

"Ninety-three people were then crowded into an old and leaky boat, despite their protests. The fact that the boatmen were drunk made the passengers still more uneasy..."

Tags: 1795 disaster, accusation, Alice Curtayne, drinking, drowning, Friars' Island, inaction, incompetence, malfeasance, onlookers, Oral History, panic, pilgrim crossing, Station Island, twentieth century

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

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