Cotter na Gruaige

I heard about Cotter na Gruaige from Paddy ‘Moulcore’ O’Sullivan in my early days of teaching fiddle in South Kerry. At the time I was teaching three of his Grandchildren in his son’s house a few hundred yards from his own. Paddy was a fine fiddler in his time and also an accomplished accordion player. Paddy and his cousin Eugene ‘Eugie’ O’Shea were in big demand to play music at local gatherings. Paddy and Eugie were both Grandsons of the great local fiddle player Eugene O’Sullivan. Paddy told me of a man known as Cotter na Gruaige who used to visit the family home behind his own house in the time of his Grandfather. He said he would arrive on a piebald pony, sometimes accompanied by goats. He said he was a great piper and fiddler and would stay for a few days at a time. A story tells that he kept goats up the mountains behind the house and that he would travel up the mountain to near Coomasaharn lake and play his pipes to draw the goats to him. He was a wild looking man with red hair. Liam Danachair in ‘Memories of my youth’ claims Cotter died around 1885.

The description Paddy painted of Cotter, with his wild red hair and eccentric idiosyncrasies jogged my memory to a story I had read many years before. This was prior to my moving to Kerry and making a home here. A couple of years ago I found the account that had been written by Breandán Breathnach. What a small interconnected world we live in! It transpires that the story I read has a direct connection to my wife’s maternal family.

NB: Cotter na Gruaige was known by numerous names including The Piobaire Rua / Piobaire na dTrilseán / Here is that account.

‘The Piobaire Rua was around somewhat before this.His hair grew down to his waist. Piobaire na dTrilseán (of the tresses) and Cotter na Gruaige are similarly described about this time. Neither had had their hair cut since birth. The Piobaire Rua one night knocked on the door of a cabin in Muing Ui Dhúda in Ballinskelligs looking for a night's lodging.

The woman of the house mistaking him in the dark for a woman put him in bed beside her daughter and in due time she became a grandmother of twins. She tried to have the piper put in jail. The police arrested him but had to let him go and the woman failed to get any satisfaction. Seán a Chasúir knew the twins. He had a very high opinion of the father as a piper.’

Cotter na Gruaige

A Pied Piper story from Rathea in the School’s Folklore collection

About 74 years ago a most unwelcomed visitor occasionally went past the village of Duagh, as it was the main road from Listowel town to Cork City for carting all farm produce. The name of this visitor was Cotter na Gruaige, he used to set charms, and also curse people for little cause and everybody was afraid to meet him. He was conspicious looking. He wore his hair hanging to his waist at his back and his beard hung to his waist in front. His mode of travelling was a pony about 20 years old and spotted like a magpie. 

He often went without causing any trouble but on one occasion while passing through Duagh the school children were at play in the school grounds and when Cotter na Gruaige came on they threw puddle on him and his pony. He immediately drove his pony into the school yard to accuse the teacher named (Mr James Dore) who met Cotter in the  yard and ordered him out on the road. When on the road Cotter said to the teacher “I am going now but I am leaving you my army.”

 Master Dore lived 100 yards from the school, in a nice thatched residence which stands to this day. When school was over Dore walked up home, but to his amazement the thatch of his house was torn and thrown down by an immense crowd of rats. He entered the house but could not eat his dinner as the rats came up on the table. He was half frightened and did not know what to do. He went to the Parish Priest Father O Regan and told him his story. The priest went to see the rats and when he saw them he told the teacher, he should find Cotter na Gruaige and pay him to withdraw his charm. 

Next day the teacher set out on search of Cotter and found him in the evening at the house of a man named Nolan of Brosna. The teacher apologised and asked Cotter to come next day and take away the rats which he promised to do. The teacher came home that night and told his story to everybody including Father O Regan. 

Next day about noon Cotter na Gruaige was coming to the village and crowds flocked round him to see what would occur. Cotter rode his pony to the yard in front of the teachers house, put his hand in his pocket and drew out a bugle which he sounded and out came all the rats on the road. Cotter kept playing his bugle and riding slowly on his pony until he came to a small river South of Duagh named Glashamore. When he came to the river bank all the rats were around him, except one which he asked for, and the teacher said one rat remained in the yard. 

Cotter na Gruaige ordered two rats to go for the missing one and they went immediately and brought the largest rat of all which was blind. He walked between his two Guards led by a cord which he held in his mouth. When the blind rat landed on the river bank Cotter ordered all rats to disappear and all the rats jumped into the river below the bridge and were out of sight in a second and from that day to this no rat was seen at Dore’s house.

Through research conducted by Seán Mac an tSíthigh, it has become clear that Cotter travelled widely and accounts of him have been collected throughout Kerry and in Limerick and Cork. He was a skilled musician, dance master and poet. It was believed that he had the power of enchantment and be able to bring a plague of rats on some unfortunate sole who scorned him in some way as in the account below