Irish Folk Tales (59 page)

And the lady was his companion: Souple Corrigan.

So anyway they were executed anyway, and Souple Corrigan made his way to America.

S
HAN BERNAGH

The Tories robbed the rich to give to the poor, and if they found that a body like ourselves had six bags of meal and McKeown’s out beyond there with all them childer had none—and they crying for meat—the Tories would take from us and give them plenty, and we daren’t say nothing at all.

Shan Bernagh—he was a notable Tory in this country, and ’twas said that he came of the best of quality—were ye ever at Shan’s Stables? They’re away far out at the back of the mountain and sure ye’d lost yourself entirely if ye went to seek them your lone, and never find them at all maybe. He would steal horses and cattle from the farmers going to the fair at Monaghan and ’twas in the Stables he kept his horses and he bid to make many a dublicate to save them from being tracked. He had his horses shod with the back of the shoe to the front of the foot so that no one would know which direction they had gone. The Stables are a deep dark hole like that that goes in under the mountain and many’s the cattle that does be lost in it, falling into the Tory Holes, as some people calls them, but thanks be to God I never lost none there yet.

One Christmas Eve—it was in the bad old penal days, when the Government was hunting the priests like mad dogs—the people all gathered secretly to a midnight Mass in Barney Faddya Vhic’s Glen. It is a quare lonesome place right in the heart of the mountain, but the Yeomanry—the police of them days—heard about it and they came from Clogher to stop it. The priest was standing in front of the big stone just, that was used for the altar, and it having two candles upon it. When the priest’s head came before the light on the altar and darkened it they took aim and shot him dead. The priest’s name was Father Milligan; he was buried a piece behind the stone with a big hob of earth to mark the grave.

Shan Bernagh swore that he would have a Yeoman’s life for this and sure didn’t he catch them up before they got the length of Lough More and he killed one of them and threw him in the lough.

The Browns lived away beyond at Lough Anoyd that time and they laid a trap with the Yeomen to catch Shan Bernagh. They made a great dinner and with every sort of meat and drink in it and they invited the Tories to come to it in order to betray them. Shan Bernagh and his men sat down to eat and drink their fill, with their guns and swords and belts all off them.

The servant girl that was hired at Brown’s looked out over the half-door and, lo and behold ye, there was the Yeomen from Clogher marching up the street. She was afeared the Browns would kill her if she gave a sign to the Tories so she snapped up the can like as if she was going to the well and jooked out of the house. As she went past the window she looked in at the Tories and she riz the chime of a song in Irish: “God love the herring that never was catched on a bait.” (By the same token, these were the very words that the servant used when he warned Saint Patrick not to eat the poisoned fish that he was offering to him.)

When Shan Bernagh heard her song he let a roar out of him and they all bounced to their feet and catched up their belts and blunderbusses and went out with their guns cocked and met the Yeomen at the door. They walked safely out and the Yeomen daren’t touch them and so to their horses and away.

The Browns knew they had turned everyone against them by their falsity so they started that night and never were seen in the country since.

The servant girl was afeared to show her face so she crept into a sheuch behind a ditch, and lay there all night. Next morning she was found by a Tory and brought before Shan Bernagh, who gave her as much money as she could carry and bade her change her name and go into a strange country. Troth, she would be apt to get a severe punishment for defeating the Government.

There were hundreds of pounds offered in them days for the head of a Tory. It was Conegrah meadow thonder, right fornenst this house just, that Shan Bernagh came by his death.

The weather was hot and he went with his brother to bathe in Lough More. They put off them, and left their clothes in a heap on the broo of the lough. But a corbie lit on the clothes and joined to squally.

Said Shan’s brother, “I’ll not go to lodge at the widow woman’s house at Conegrah the night,” says he, “for there’s a trap,” says he, “and thon’s a sure token of death, the corbie lighting on our clothes.”

“Phut!” says Shan, “be sure you may trust her,” says he, “for didn’t I stand gossip for her child?”

So when night come Shan went his lone to the house in Conegrah meadow. The widow had lashings of whiskey in it and she made him drunk and he lay down before the fire. With that she opened the door and in came a man named McGregor. He had a hatchet in his hand and he hit Shan a great bat on the forehead—and him hearty at the time. After getting the bat Shan riz up and the two men wrastled through the house.

The great Tory would have prevailed only for the woman. She was lying on a whop of straw in the corner and while the men were fighting rings round them she jooked out of her bed and whipped the blanket about Shan’s legs, the way he couldn’t move at all. Then McGregor gave him another bat which knocked him senseless and he dragged him out of the house to a stone by the water below. He cut the head off him there and put it in a bag and headed off to get a big lump of money for a reward from Government.

The stead of the house in Conegrah is standing yet and ye can see the track of the hatchet in the stone thonder, where Shan Bernagh’s head was cut off him.

W
ILLIE BRENNAN

Brennan was born in Kilmurry, near Kilworth. He listed in the army and then he deserted out of it. They were hunting him around the country day and night.

One day outside at Leary’s Bridge, Brennan met the Pedlar Bawn. I never heard him called by any other name. The Pedlar was traveling for a firm in Cork, going about the country selling different kinds of things. Brennan put the blunderbuss up to him and made him hand out what he had, watch and chain and all. Then the Pedlar asked him to give him some token to show to the people of the firm in Cork that he had met him.

“Tell them that you met Brennan the Highwayman.”

“Give me some token that you met me, or I’ll be put to jail,” said the Pedlar.

“What have I to do for you?” asked Brennan.

“Fire a shot through this side of my old coat,” said the Pedlar.

He did.

“Fire another through this side now,” said the Pedlar.

So he did.

“Here!” said the Pedlar. “Fire another through my old hat.”

Brennan did.

“Come!” said the Pedlar. “Fire another through my old cravat.”

“I have no more ammunition,” said Brennan.

The Pedlar then drew a pistol, whenever he had it hid.

“Come!” said he. “Deliver!”

Brennan had to deliver, quick and lively too!

“You’re a smarter man than me,” said he. “All I ever went through, I robbed army, men and lords, and you beat me. Will you make a comrade for me?”

The Pedlar only flung his pack over the ditch.

“I will,” said he. “I’ll stand a loyal comrade until my dying day.”

And so he was, a loyal comrade.

“We’ll go along to County Tipperary,” said Brennan. “ ’Tis a wealthy county. There’s agents and landlords there going around the country gathering the rent in the houses, and we’ll whip them going back in the evening.”

So the two of them went along to the County Tipperary. Brennan went in to a widow there one morning. The poor woman was crying and lamenting. He asked her what was the matter with her.

“What good is it for me to tell you, my good man?” said she.

She didn’t know but he was a tramp.

“How do you know?” said he.

“The agent is coming here by and by, and I haven’t a halfpenny to give him for the rent,” said she.

“Well, what would you say to the man who’d give it to you?” said Brennan.

He asked her how much it was, and she told him—five or six pounds, I suppose. He counted it out to her.

“Tell me now,” said he, “the road he goes home in the evening.”

She told him the road he’d take after giving the day gathering around. He made her go down on her knees then and swear to God and to him that she would never tell anyone that she saw him, or mention that anyone gave her the money. Himself and the Pedlar met the agent going home with the money and whipped the whole lot that he had gathered that day.

Brennan is buried over in Kilcrumper near the old church wall.

W
ICKLOW IN THE RISING OF 1798