Tape 133  Mikeen McCarthy 11.6.78.

Contents

Man stole priest's eggs (story).

Ghost of Lady in White.  (Story); family forced to emigrate9 ghost can't follow them because it is unable to cross water.

Haunted house in Cork city.

Haunted caravan site in Mallow, (story about himself and his brother-in-law)

The Banshee, no harm in her except if you have an 0 in your name.

Ghost of old man in Caherciveen.

Ground in Cork City (The Fair Field) cursed because of fight between travelling families.

England "too noisy for the Banshee".

Horse refused to go into haunted field (Churchfield).

Ghost of woman who died after operation to remove leg returns to look after family.

Old man goes to "his own leg's funeral".

How the goat came to Puck (story).

Nicknames for travelling families, The Sue Reillys, The Bold Boy Reillys, etc.

Bold Boy Reillys ash plant fighters.

Tinsmiths fight with soldering iron, chimney sweeps with machine cane, the dealer man with the ash plant (some used hammers).

Doherty's renowned as knife fighters.

Art of cutler at fighting with razors.

Kick fighting.

Fighting on horseback with ash plant (description of fight).

Whip fighting (London Learner whip, ash plant whip, Peterborough whip, different names for ash plant whip, whalebone whip, steel lined whip

Long Johnny Delaney known as plant fighter.

"They were like gunslingers, they'd come looking for each other".

Tongue of boot used in ash plant fighting, skill of fighting. Damage done through fighting.

Jimmy Driscoll of Killarney "don't have a sound bone in his body through fighting."

Paddy O'Brien, man with one kidney, beats professional fighter.

J C       Ok Mikey?

M Mc  Yeah.

J C       Go on, when you’re ready.

M Mc  The one about the priest’s eggs is it?

J C       Yeah, it is, yeah.

M Mc  There was this feller and he was stealing eggs from the priest for months and months and months like, d’you know.  So he give it up in the end anyway because he thought himself he was getting honest or something.  So he made up all the eggs that he stole anyway and he goes away and he collects whatever money that was the value of the eggs like and he went into the priest anyway, to confession.

“Well father”, he said, “I’m stealing eggs”, he said, “from a man”, he said, “this past few months, and now”, he said, “I want to pay back my debt, so I’ll give the money to you father”.

“Oh no”, said the priest, he says, “I won’t take it”.

“So what am I going to do?”

“Give it back to the man”, he said, “that you owe it to”.

“But”, he said, “I’ve given it to him father, and he wouldn’t take it”, says he.

So that was the priest like (Laughter).

J C       There’s one Mikey about the lady in white, I don’t remember what that was.

M Mc  Oh yeah.  Well that was….. my mother used to be telling me that one, about this woman, that she died and she’d two kids.  So her husband, he got married again and when he got married, his wife, every time she go out after dark, she could see the lady in white all the time around the house.  So they sold that house and they got another one and the same thing again, the lady in white never left all around the house, kind of a house ghost.  And they moved to three or four places and ‘twas still no good, she’d show up there again.  So they had to emigrate to England in the wind up anyway, that was the only way they got rid of her, ‘cause they claim the ghosts can’t cross water, d’you know.

J C       Did you ever hear of anything else like that, a place being haunted like that Mikeen?

M Mc  Oh sure, there was several places being haunted, I remember plenty of them.  New houses back around Kerry, no people ever lived in them.

J C       What kind of things happened?

M Mc  All noises, and thunder, you imagine the house‘d be falling like, and all that, you know.  I sees the world of them, I see dozens of new houses, nobody could live in them.  I know where there’s one now at the moment after being built there about ten years ago, near a graveyard in Cork City there, I forget the name of the graveyard now, Kilcully, and that’s a two storey house and nobody ever lived in it since.

J C       You say there are caravan sites as well that are…..?

M Mc  Oh, there used to be old caravans long ago, haunted, yeah.  Oh yeah, there’s several of them in Ireland too that we can’t ever stop in.

I remember one night we were in a place called Mallow and me and my brother-in-law now, Johnny Dooley, and we’d only a couple of that time and all night long we had to get up, we had to pull our own because we couldn’t find the horses, we had to pull our own caravans in the middle of the night and pull them on to about half a mile past the crossroads.  We got up the following morning and our three dogs was gone, an Alsatian and two Jack Russell’s, they were trying to fight off the thing all night it was.  And oh, we could hear the sounds of it and all, much like a bull like, the same sounds as a bull around the caravan.  We had to get up in the middle of the night and move, and glad to get moving, nobody ever stopped there ever since.

J C       Did you ever hear of anybody camping on a fairy fort at all Mikey.

M Mc  No, no, no, they wouldn’t stop there.  But I heard of Travellers getting drunk and didn’t know where they go like, and they sleeping in graveyards.  Heard of several of them sleeping inside in graveyards, never nothing happened.

J C       You told us the Banshee was, you know, around.

M Mc  Well, she was a kind of a regular everywhere, everybody knew the Banshee, d’you know, there was no real harm at all in the Banshee.  But people found her unlucky, people always with O to their name like, O’Brien, O’Sullivan, O’Connor, things like that, they were the mostly people she used to be after.

But oh, there’s various places for the Banshee, you know, where we lived she was there, but she was just like a neighbour, d’you know, they knew her dad very well, at the end of a wall again, she used to be there always.

J C       That’s the one at the end of the town, the haunted lane?

M Mc  Yeah, yeah.  But there was more than her seen around there.  There was supposed to be an old man seen again above at the well, and all that, you know, in the old….. well, they were all very old towns and there had to be something in them.  But I’d reckon the Banshee‘d be there yet.

J C       Did you ever hear of a place being haunted because of a battle took place there Mikey, at all?

M Mc  There was a fight one time in Cork City, in the Fair Field they call it, and ‘twas a desperate row with Travelling people, the Driscolls and the McCarthys and the Caseys, but ‘twas desperate, it went on for three or four days.  But I believe the priest said, he said, that this ground ‘ll never again, he said, be lucky, and ‘twasn’t.  Travelling people found it very unlucky; something happened every Traveller stopping the same place, although we stopped there for years.  But they blamed that for it, d’you know, there was a desperate row there, that was going on for two or three days, lot of them in hospital and all that.  Because that time they’d in mobs, you know, with weapons and every whole thing like, and there was a lot of people example out of it, broken arms, broken legs and shoulders and everything.  But that’s years ago, we got a kind of civilised since that.

J C       Sometimes.  (Laughter).  Did you ever hear tell of things like the banshee over here Mikey, or haunted places over here?

M Mc  No, but they’re here, but I don’t know, maybe there’s too much noise here.  (Laughter), The traffic.

J C       But you’ve never heard of them?

M Mc  No.

J C       How about in the cities itself, over there?  But you said in Cork City there’s a place, is that in Cork City itself?

M Mc  There’s a place called Churchfield up there now, before the houses was built there.  But ‘twas a very lonesome place.  Me myself was trying to get a horse into a field one day, and ‘twas only just about five o’clock, he nearly killed me, I couldn’t get him in over the head, you know.   And I’d a mare and foal inside with him, he used to be mad to get back in to the mare and foal and I couldn’t get him in, I had to bring him away home.  I got a bit of a fright myself.  

J C       You can tell us that one anyway Mikey.  That’s as good as any to start with.

M Mc  On jay yeah, the one that died with the one like?

J C       Yeah.

M Mc  Oh yeah, yeah. 

Well, there was a man back in Kerry and his wife, she’d a big operation in her leg like, you know, so, to take it off, and bejay, ‘twas gangrene she got anyway.  And then they held another operation and the poison was still travelling like and they had to hold a third one anyway, she failed and she died.  Well the old man told us, he wasn’t an old man, he was a man about forty five, he told us out of his own lips anyway that he came back one night and he came into the house and he’d a candle lighting at the end of the table and his two kids was down the room asleep and that she walked in with her two natural legs he said, and he said he didn’t even let on to notice her, and that she walked down the room and covered the kids and came back up and opened the door and looked at him above in the table and he just keep eating away his supper and she walked out the door. 

So he started telling the neighbours, but the neighbours thought it was imagination or something, you know.  But she came another night and he was telling us that he was coming home in his horse and car and that he looked behind and he coming down the bohereen and she was walking behind the horse and car.  And when he landed in home the kids was fast asleep.  But he claimed he could stop out till four o’clock in the morning if he wanted, he knew that the kids was safe the whole time.

So his cow was calfing one night anyway and he didn’t know and she came in and she told him about the cow being calfing and to go and get help quick.  And out he goes to the neighbours and that’s how they believed him, he told them, because the house the house was straight across the road. 

He said, “She’s after telling me the cow’s calfing”, he said, “and to go and get help”.   And him and the neighbours went up and they couldn’t save the cow without the vet, so one of them had to go away for the vet and bring on the vet and they saved the cow anyway and the calf as well.  But they believed him then like.  But he said, “I imagine”, he said, “any night I sit here at the table”, he said, “she walk in the door there”, he said, “like the first day I met her”.

J C       Did you ever hear a story Mikey of anybody who, say, lost a hand or lost a leg or an arm or something and came back for it from the dead, to get the….. did you ever hear a story about that?

M Mc  no, but there was an old man used to be telling us that he went to his own leg’s funeral (Laughter).

J C       How was that, d’you know?

M Mc  (??????????????)  But his leg was cut off in Tralee and he ordered it to be put in a fridge or something, freezing that time, and he said he’d go to his own leg’s funeral (Laughter).  Then he came out and he did (Laughter).  He buried his own leg.

J C       You never heard a story like that, about an old man who come back for his leg, “Give me my golden arm”, or “give me my golden leg)?

M Mc  No, no mind you.

J C       Will you tell us the story of how the goat came to Puck Mikey?

M Mc  Oh yeah.  ‘Twas an old man and it used be always a fair day in Puck that time like, but only just one day like, they used sell all goats and everything.  So bejay, this old feller brought in a puck anyway, from Glencar, and he brought in… there was a big stump of a tree right in the middle of the town that time, because there was no tar or anything that time, and ‘twas there like, where it was cut off and a junk of a tree as we call it, a stump of a tree.  So bejakers, he went in to get a pint anyway, and he tied the puck goat, the old puck goat to the stump of a tree.  And ‘twas a rather broad stump like.  So bejay, he never came out of the pub anyway and the old goat got up on the stump in the wind up and stood up on it.  And that’s where the old goat was for three nights and three days anyway, and the old man never went home for three nights and three days.  So that’s how Puck started.

J C       It’s on for three nights and three days?

M Mc  Three nights and three days now, and that’s how they built him up high then, he went higher and higher and higher.

J C       Did you ever hear any stories about animals Mikey, like how a rabbit’s got no tail or anything like that?

M Mc  No then, not much Jimmy; no, not much.

J C       No; ok.  You were talking the other week about….. we were talking if you remember about the Reillys, do you remember we were talking about the Reillys.

M Mc  Mary Reilly’s people?

J C       Well, you were saying that different families have different names, nicknames, can you tell us some of them, what they are Mikey?

M Mc  Oh yea.  Well, you have the Sues like, that’s Mary’s father now, well they christened them the Sue Reillys because they came from….. that man shifted on to Thurles well say, and Cahir and places now, in County Tipperary.  So he was an outcast then because he shift away from the rest of the Reillys I believe.  So they called him the Sue Reillys.

Then you’ve The Bold Boy Reillys, they’re all the one like.  You’ve the Willies; there was so many of them there like, there was so many Martin Reillys now.   You’d Willie Reilly, you’d Willie’s Martin and you’d John’s Martin, you’d Paddy’s Martin.

J C       They’re named after the father are they, after the old man?

M Mc  That’s the way they christen them out like, because the old man was their father, Paddy, Martin Reilly now, and then John of Martin Reilly, and Willie.  So that’s the way they used to distinguish them.  But you’ve the Dublin Reillys, that’s old Ned now below, although he was nearly reared in Limerick.  You’d the Limerick Reillys, you’d Tipperary Reillys.  So there’s an awful lot of Reillys in it.

 J C      You were talking about the Ash Plant Reillys, what are they?

M Mc  Yeah, they were The Bold Boys.

J C       They were The Bold Boy Reillys?

M Mc  Yeah, they used have an ash plant inside in their cap, d’you know.

J C       An ash plant?

M Mc  Yeah, around, like that.

J C       Oh, tied round their hat?

M Mc  No, it’d be inside and the rim ’d be out wide, like that, d’you know

J C       I see.

M Mc  If you started a punch-up with them then, the plants ‘d be out in a second.  (Laughter).

J C       Did they fight with their hats?

M Mc  No, they take out the plant.

J C       They take out the plant from the…..?

M Mc  Yeah.  ‘Twould be like the peak of a cap more I’d say, ‘twould be inside in it.  ‘Twould be…..  the cap‘d be all round like that.

J C       All the family used to do that did they?

M Mc  The most of them..  Oh that’d be years gone by like, d’you know, but not now, you know, not now.  Oh, they still use the plant now like, but they don’t keep them in their caps.

J C       Are there any other ways like that, of fighting Mikey, you know, I’m not talking about boxing?

M Mc  No, no.  ‘Twas a kind of every man at his own trade, the trade he’d be in, that was his weapon, d’you know.

JC        Yeah. 

M Mc  Tinsmith now, he’d have a soldering iron, that was his weapon in years gone by like.

J C       He’d fight with a soldering iron?

M Mc  They would, yeah.  And you’d the chimney sweep, he’d have what they call a machine cane, that was his.

J C       Machine cane?

M Mc  Yeah, he’d use that.  They were like gunslingers, they all….. they knew one another like, you know.  You’d the dealing man then, he’d the plant, the ash plant, that was his weapon.  And there was more of them I heard used use hammers (Laughter).

M Mc  Did you ever hear of anybody fighting with knives Mikey?

M Mc  Oh yeah, yeah.

J C       Was there anybody renowned…. known for fighting with……

M Mc  There was, yeah, the Dochertys.

J C       Knife fights?

M Mc  The Dochertys, yeah, Patrick’s father now, God have mercy on him like.  Couple more of them.

J C       Yeah.

M Mc  They were supposed to be name of the knife.  And you’d the razor man.

J C       Yeah?

M Mc  In years gone by.  Well they used to use all cut-throat razors that time like.  And there was a feller….. couple of fellers, lot of them, they used top go round doing that for a living, edging razors and knives, cutler, well, but mostly razors, and they could put a razor to that much edge that they could split of a head, that was their guarantee.  And he wouldn’t mess around, he’d use it.  But they knew it like, they knew one another.  Well they wouldn’t fly off of the handle for nothing, d’you know, they were intelligent man like that.  You’d more of them with the boots, nailed boots, they were dangerous man with the nailed boot.

J C       How would they fight with the boots Mikey, would they just kick each other?

M Mc  Yeah.

J C       Just stand and kick?

M Mc  Well, a man‘d go to fight him fair like, but he’d use the boot, d’you know, because he wouldn’t be able with his hands for him.

J C       Yeah.

M Mc  We’d a man belonged to us, he’s dead with years, and he used get up on the horse’s back with a plant and that’s the way he’d fight.

J C       Yeah?

M Mc  Yeah.

J C       On horse……?

M Mc  On horseback, yeah.  They took up a fight one time, about ten of them, in Tralee Town with the Gorgies like, and that’s the way he fought, on his horses back, that’s how he got to the barrack, there was too many there d’you see.  And a half of common hames that time, and his wife had another one, and she had the horse by the bit, and he was up on the top and he’d another one, and they beat their way down into the police station for protection, you know.

J C       Did you hear of anybody fighting with whips at all Mikey?

M Mc  Oh yeah, there with the whips sure, they were the London Learner they used call them, Peterborough whips.

D T      The London (????)?

M Mc  No, London Learner.

J C       Learner?

M Mc  Yeah, that’s a whip, the name of a whip.  You’d the Peterborough whip, and you’d all different names of whips and you’d all different names of whips.

J C       Can you think of any more Mikey?

M Mc  Whalebones.

J C       Yeah?

M Mc  You’d the ash-plant whip then, you’d make out of that like.

 J C      Yeah.

M Mc  You’d names for the ash-plant; you’d the sucker, you’d the ash plant, you’d the rock plant, you’d all them you know.

J C       And all these were different whips?

M Mc  All different whips, yeah.  You’d by the Learning whips that time, you’d the Peterborough whip, you’d the whalebone whip, you the steel-lined whip, there’s four or five different names to them.  So there’s a history behind everything, even to the stick.  (Laughter).

J C       There is the way you tell it Mikey.  Where there….. you were talking about the machine….. fighting with the machine canes; that was the Driscolls.

M Mc  Er….  Some of them, could be anybody.

J C       There was no one family, there was no one family connected with the…..?

M Mc  No, there was Long Johnny Delaney then, he’d be Mickey’s father, well he was a well known fighting man with a plant, he’d take on a fair of man with a plant.

J C       Yeah?

M Mc  D’you know, he was like a sword fighter and he was about six foot three and he was real thin.   Mickey’d tell you, Mickey wouldn’t tell you what I’d tell you.  Well that man used take on three men there, four man with plants together, and he was that skilled with it that he’d take their plants off of them and he’d beat them away from them as well, they couldn’t even hit him because he was like a sword fighter.  He could get a dozen donkeys together now and get them in over that fence without leaving no warning, you know, kind of a Tyrone Power style.  (Laughter

J C       Was it done for a sport Mikey or was it done to settle a dispute.

M Mc  Oh, as I say, they were like gunslingers, they’d come looking for one another, d’you know.  But er…..

J C       To settle an argument, settle a wrong.

M Mc  Yeah, and maybe the beer ‘d be in, d’you know, ‘tis like fellers challenging dogs today, ‘tis gone down to dogs now and all that.  But I remember the old Travellers, they’d be going into a fair and they’d have the tongue off of a boot and ‘twould be tied around their wrist here.  So that’s when a feller draw a wallop on him, he’d put his hand up that way to shield…..

 J C      Deflect it onto his hand, yeah.

M Mc  He’d stagger about and then he’d grab it, ‘twouldn’t hurt him but it’d hit the tongue of the boot, you see.  And that was another skilled man, the man who could take one off of him.  But you’d see two men fighting with two plants maybe quarter of an hour, half an hour, and they wouldn’t even get a crack at one another, blocking and hitting and blocking and hitting the legs, and going for every place like sword fighters.  And they’d pack it up, shake hands, one‘d be as good as the other, d’you know.

J C       Yeah.  Were any of these carried on though Mikey, was there ever any bad feeling when somebody lost, you know?

M Mc  Oh, there was, there was feeling where they didn’t talk for thirty and forty years, you know, things like that.  There was several of them, silver plates in their heads.  I know a couple of them wound up in the asylum.

J C       Through the fighting?

M Mc  Through the fighting.  Well, they all had their marks; if you see any old men now today, and if you feel their head I guarantee you’ll find them, heavy wounds.  Some of them died with them.  I know several old men that you put your hand on the top of their heads and find four or five heavy wounds, I mean you could stick your fingers down them, you know, silver plates, ah, a lot of them.

J C       You point those out to us Mikey so we steer clear of them  (Laughter).

M Mc  Ah, they’re gone quiet now.  Jay, there’s a man behind in Killarney, Jimmy Driscoll they call him, I don’t think the man have a sound bone in his body.

J C       No; that’s through the fighting?

M Mc  Yeah.  Oh they say today that they’re cross young boys today, the old fellers long ago, they were the fellers.

J C       Yeah, they seem hard.

M Mc  Dangerous men, dangerous.  That’s how the Travellers got the name of fighting men over all those old fellers.  But you had the fair fighters then among them as well like, champions.

J C       They’re the boxers where they?

M Mc  Yeah

J C       That’s bare-fist and gloves is it Mikey.

M Mc  No gloves, oh, they weren’t trained or anything, they were heavy, strong men, giants of men.  I’ve seen great fights.  I’ve seen one man back in Ireland, Paddy O’Brien, he’s from Kerry, and trained boxers and everything he fought and beat them all, and he was an untrained man.  The last man he beat, he was a heavyweight champion out of the army, twenty-four years of age, and old Paddy was about fifty-five and he’d never had a glove on in his life, and he’d the heaviest operation of all time, one kidney, and your man was about six-two, heavyweight champion, after coming out of the army, and he still beat him.