DOI: 10.7925/drs1.duchas_4922034
title: Cromadh (B.)

description: A collection of folklore and local history stories from Cromadh (B.) (school) (Croom, Co. Limerick), collected as part of the Schools' Folklore Scheme, 1937-1938 under the supervision of teacher Dáithí Ó Ceanntabhail.
description: Funeral Customs -- Tá aithne agam ar chailín áirithe a posadh le déidheannaighe - anuiridh a posadh í. -- Funeral Customs etc -- Radalach -- A Oisín, is binn liom do bhéal ag innsint scéil. -- You must never carry a spade or fork or other such implement, on your shoulder, into or out of the house. -- This day, Tim Hederman of Manisteranaonough, angler, fowler, observer of nature, voracious reader and constant supplier to me of any folklore which cine within his ken, brought me in a live specimen of the Great Peacock moth (Saturnia pyre). -- In the parish of Banoge, couth of and adjoining Croom, of which until 1861 it was a part, there is in the extreme south, a hill called Cnocán an Chroidhe (so definitely phonetically written in the Croom marriage register for 1808-1818). -- If you have a scald in your foot induced from an exceptionally long walk, you can cur it by putting on it the leaf of the cuckle-root. -- Cuckle-Root = great burdock -- There is healing in the leaf of comfrey. -- Slánlus grows in meadows ... -- Last night at 10 0 clock ("old time"), the sky-line from the southwest to northwest was wonderfully beautiful and bright, in bands of colour, scarlet, deep rose, pink, white and darkening into light green and sea-blue. -- They say that if you make a garter of eel-skin and wear it that it will banish cramp from the leg. -- Talking about weasels reminds me of a thing that happened me in Lyonses one day. -- Sconce -- A cock whose usefulness in the fowl-run has come to an end, must not be killed. -- When the fowl get a certain disease, I'm not sure is it the "piuc" or what you call the glúnach, a way to put a stop to its ravages was to bury alive one of the worst-affected fowls. -- Goat-flesh, if not a rarety was not an uncommon variety of food even as late as thirty years ago. -- Pisreoga -- Ghost Story -- How the Site of Askeaton Abbey was Discovered -- There are some people and they have luck about them. -- There are some farms and the bull that is kept on them is bound to be a rogue. -- Didn't you ever know that tisn't right to be swinging a stick through the grass in front of you and you crossing a field. -- Shee-Geeha -- Shee-Geeha -- Shee-Geeha -- My mother used to bring home the turf (from the boy under the hill) in hampers. -- Boherabassee -- There were orchards everywhere around the hill (Drom Asail). -- They tell of a man who, mowing or reaping, I don't now recall which, when the "Shee Geehe" swept past him through the hay or the wheat, drew his scythe through the "blast". -- Brackaun = ? Breacán, the name by which the long, narrow, paddle-oared boat used by the fishermen on the Abbey River in Limerick city is known. -- Bogadh ¶ Glugair. The name of a plant which occurs generally in poor meadows and indeed generally in this district. -- There is no doubt about it but the music was heard in that Fort. -- There is a man named Rourke living near the same fort and he was after building a new cow shed. -- Excavations in the Lough Laur district (Co Lim) are presently being conducted by Dr. Seán O Riordáin, Professor of Archaeology Cork Univeristy College. -- Bogadh Glugair, Biolar Glugair. From another source I get the name Bod a' Glugair for the plant referred to on these pages. -- From the same source I get Paurcacroohe as the name of a field near the graveyard of Dunaman, which church was once known or referred to in Geraldine Records as Villa Frostany. -- In a field to the south-east of the high fort of Bohernageela there are two mounds which are said to be graves. -- That field is known as the orchard. -- While surveying meadowing in the Parish of Manister, townland of Spring Lodge, I asked some questions about a sing ring fort which stood in one of the meadows I had to survey. -- Gilligín Gabhair = (? Gligín Geamhair) = Cuckoo-pint or Wild Arum = also locally "Weasel-poison" and I think it was to the scarlet berries of this plant that in my native place (Tiob. Ár) was applied the name "Whitten berries". -- Lá éigin le déidheannaighe dá raibh bean aimsire ag obair nár dtighne, bios ag féachaint uirthi ag déanamh císte aráin. -- A man lived near Tory Hill one time, and he was no length of time married, and to a fine girl of a wife, when he found out that she used to be going with the gentry. -- Somewhere near the "Well" (St. Patrick's Well Co. Limerick) there was a family of Palatines named Corneille. -- Don't have any doubt about it, but you can cure the beast with charms. -- In the village of X there is a widow named Mrs Y. -- Returning from Abbeyfeale last night, I saw under the light of the lamps, a cat travelling by the roadside. -- The Wild arum referred to on page 37 as Gilgín Gabhuir etc. is also known locally here as "Purple Pencil£ and "Fairy Pencil". / Hogan, John / Neill, William O' -- There were three men moving hay one day long ago. / Coileáin, Seán Rua O -- Whenever you see a whirlwind taking dust from the road, always turn your back to it. / Domhnaill, Risteárd O -- Once upon a time there was a boy crossing a field where there was a fort. / Tuathail, Seosamh O -- There was a man living one time on the pass between two forts. / Tuathail, Seosamh O -- One night there were people walking from a wake in Patrickswell, and when they were passing by where Matt Kelly's cottage is now (in "Tobar" thuas) they saw, inside in a field the form of a priest walking in the same direction as they were going. -- There is a place in Kerry called Causeway and it is full of ghost stories and folklore. / Gugáin, Seán O -- Big Wind / Gugáin, Seán O -- On this date Tim Hedderman brought me a gas of cowslip in full bloom. -- Tugtaí - agus tugtar fós - an ainm Cill ar an áit a adhlachtaí páisdí nár baisdeadh. -- Hidden Gold / English, Patrick -- Hidden Gold / Beaglaoich, Liam O -- Riddles -- Riddles -- From the Glen (Co. Limerick) district I learn that Whit Monday is an unlucky day for births, whether of human or animal. -- Cocks which are hatches out in June are noted for their tendency to crow at night and so are not considered desirable in the farmyard. -- There were three brothers in company passing by a graveyard. -- It was good reaping - with the hook 0 to cut a quarter of an (Irish) acre in a day. -- And when great deeds are for the telling, let there be a man from Croom to tell of the glory of cutting a seventy acre field of waving golden wheat and that in a reaper's day. -- There's a cobbler in Croom and his name is John Quinn. -- "Ould Hannon" or as I now understand him to be more generally known, "Hannon the poet" followed his occupation of poet-ballad-singer very often at the top of William St and at its junction with High St., in Limerick city. -- The weather is very "scrábach" that is, broken, drizzly, wet. -- Many stories were told about tailors who in those old times liked to travel from one district to another, and in each place do a bout of sewing, both mending and making. -- Glnógra, dead!?there were two creels of bonhams there the last fair day! -- 'Twas the King of Fairs as far back as two hundred years ago. -- Ballybrood the twelfth of June. -- Don't be telling me about Scanlon. -- Fairings -- I myself saw sixteen or seventeen tents (licenced to sell) at the fair of Glenogra. -- And you don't know the fort that's upon our land?! -- One day as St. Patrick was going about preaching, it rained very hard. -- When I was a mere lad I used to hear of a certain spirit, and I don't think it used be called a ghost, that used make attacks, and fatal attacks, on people in a certain place whose exact location I have long since forgotten. -- Breilleach = a soft slob of a woman, a danger to herself. -- On no account should you lend anything on New Year's Day. -- The first Monday of the New Year was Hansel Monday, and that morning every child in the house would get some money from his parents. -- The times have changed since I was a gorsoon! -- Further to the "great reaping" (féach leathanach 72 agus a leanas) Mrs O' Connell of Carraigín, born the year of the "Big Wind" or else the year after it, informs me via Jim Begley her neighbour, via Liam O Beaglaoich his son 14 years, dalta sgoile, that she was at that time about eight or nine years of age (that is at the year of the "great reaping£) and that not only was the "seventy" reaped in a day, but that with it was reaped the "thirty" also the same day, and that there were more than five hundred people engaged in all. / Beaglaoich, Liam O -- "Cat" story from Seoirse Mac Raghnail, dalta sgoile, 14.5 identical with that on page 46 but not so complete. -- Troublesome Teeth -- Troublesome Teeth -- Gobán Saor -- Mower's Charm -- Ainm Áite -- Eels, I learn from various sources formed a staple part of the diet of the country people in this district up to about forty years ago. -- Story / Coileáin, Seán Ruadh O -- Would you believe that I gave up fishing a rising trout today to watch what I never before saw, a king-fisher stalking its prey. -- Standing on the bridge this evening (at Croom) I saw a kingfisher buzzing in the air over the river near Harrison's window, -- Two men were hanged within the manor grounds in Adare at a point just inside the gate which opens on to these grounds opposite the Hotel. -- You could cure the dry murrain in a beast very simply but I wouldn't advise you to do so. -- Story about a Bull -- Cures -- Drought -- There is a feather in a corncrake and it is used to make a trout fly. -- Last year, a swift had its nest under the eave-shoot of the school. -- A fort in the townland of Skagh, parish of Croom is marked on the ordnance sheet of the district as "The Hovel". -- The following story of how the personal name of Begley originated has reached me through reverend channels from a very revered source. -- Old Mrs Guare told me that one Christmas morning when going to Mass to Manister, she saw the ducks of that village drunk. -- Apropos of the leipreacáin which it is alleged (and still stoutly maintained) were in evidence at Ballyknockane, some four miles west from Croom, I asked Mr T. N. how much truth was in the story. -- River -- There was this old woman and one day she was working in a field between two lisses. -- There were once three brothers, all tradesmen, who fell on bad times. -- In some previous part of this collection, I think I mentioned Ballyviceorish as being the location of a hedge school. -- Com-ach-a-fay = Hartslongue fern, a spore-bearing plant, plentiful in moist damp stony places, used, when boiled to a jelly in conjunction with the inner bark of young elder, and mixed with (fresh) hog's lard, as a cure for burns. -- Again in Symington's "Survey" (vide leathanach 123) there occurs the personal name Huonine which I take to be Ua hEoghainín or its equivalent Ua hEoinín or some cognate Irish form. -- All Together Boys! / Ceanntabhail, Máire Ní -- ? Fóirdín Bhealaigh = "Fórgeen walla" locally. I do not know how much this phrase is corrupted, but apparently it is pretty much so. -- Those that use the "dead hand" are cursed, and though they succeed in taking their neighbours' crops and stock, and maybe breaking them out of house and home, and there are those who died broken-hearted because of their losses, those who do that don't have the better luck for it. -- Nearly three years ago Mr D. Quirke (41) informed me that his native townland - Fanningstown - got its name from a lady named Fanning who had a castle there. -- Upon the degree of fecundity of the farm-stock, cows, horses and sheep, depended and of course, naturally enough, still depends, the survival of the farm as a progressive concern. -- I propose to give, as detailed as possible, the various phases and activities connected with the "cutting" (that is, castration) of calves, activities that were carried through, with the greatest detail as recently as thirty five or even thirty years ago, in this area. -- Ballynockane (referred to on page 117 as the place where it is alleged leipreacáin appeared in the August of this year - 1938) is a townland in Ballingarry Parish. -- There was a woman one time and her butter was gone; she couldn't get it to "gather" in the churn if she was at it till doomsday. / Coileáin, Seán Rua O -- One May eve a farmer took a bottle of Holy water to shake on his cattle and fields and as he was going out the gate he thought he saw a stack of hay he had on fire. / Sheedy, C. -- There was once a priest and he had a servant girl and she went to the bad. / Sheedy, C. -- Here is a new version given to me of how Drom Asail was formes. / Grádaigh, Seoirse O -- The "cure" mentioned on page 124 is infallible for a burn. -- In the old days the patterns were the recognised centres and proved fixed opportunities for what, from our point of view must, I think be looked upon as meetings of scattered clans. -- The 'living van' attached to a steamroller, ... -- A somewhat similar tale is told of one of the Croker's of Ballinagarde. -- A child who is born after his father's death is able when grown to cure the chin-cough. -- You should never turn the child's face to the wall, i.e. in a cradle or pram. -- One of the last of the Crokers in Ballinagarde, being a magistrate, had occasion in one of his magisterial settings to sentence one - Kiely to a month's imprisonment. -- The dietary of the the Munster Countryman in Limerick and Tipperary at least, on the "black fast" days in Lent was, up to forty years ago, as far as my personal observation and acquired knowledge goes, of a rigorously ascetic nature. -- Lúbaire = a twister, ... -- Lúbánaidhe = fundamentally, a long thin rineálaidhe who has a facilty for twisting himself physically, but is now applied to a person who, tall and thin in stature, is equal to twisting his arguments to suit the circumstances of the moment. -- "A leibide married to a laidhb" is a saying still rather common in Croom, and signifying the acme of mis-marriages. -- Once upon a time a soldier was killed in Bruff. / Ciaráin, Micilín O -- There was this man and he had not wife nor sister so it was his servant used to make the butter for him. / Domhnaill, R. O -- There was a man at a fair one day and he made good sale of his cattle. / Domhnaill, R. O -- There was a woman from Croom gathering brosna in Conway's fort. / Domhnaill, R. O -- There was this woman and her milk was going against her altogether, she could not make any butter from it. / Coileáin, Seán Rua O -- There was this man and he used be drunk very often. / Ciaráin, Micilín O -- This is true. / Ciaráin, Micilín O -- One day as Sarsfield and his man rode out along the road, an English cavalry man came towards them. / Tuathail, Seosamh O -- There was a man who had a cow on the points of calving. / Sheedy, C. -- A dog or a horse which occurs in your dream is a sign of a friend. -- Riddle / Domhnaill, R. O -- Rough sketch, from memory, of a slab, 4.5 feet high, above a single grave enclosed within an iron railing in the graveyard at Croom. -- A cabbage leaf dried to brittle crispness and made into an ointment with unsalted butter, applied to a sore throat (woman;s) will effect a cure.
description: Supported by funding from the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht (Ireland), University College Dublin, and the National Folklore Foundation (Fondúireacht Bhéaloideas Éireann), 2014-2016.