Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/232

 2 1 o Collectanea.

oratory, the altar with its votive offerings and round stones, the well, and the saint's cave, under a huge boulder below the Eagle's Cliff, are still to be seen.^s

St. Mochuille, Mochulleiis, or Mochulla came into Clare about the same time, 620. His father was Dicuil, or Dicaldus according to the Life of 1141, which tells how Mochulleus struck the hillside and three streams broke out and ran down to the lake (stagnum), north of Tulla. He made a church with levelled-up platform and earthworks, with the aid of seven soldiers of King Quaire (Guaraeus), who had killed his tame bull when sent to arrest the saint, and were converted. The Life was recently found in Austria,^^ Colgan having sought for it vainly in Ireland in 1637, so the local tale is an actual tradition. It was told to me in 1892, long before the Life was published, by some road-menders near Carrahan and Clooney, and is attached to the pillars on Classagh Hill called " Knocknafearbrioga " {sic), the hill of ^Xxt farbreaga or false men.^*^ "The saint, who was building Tulla church, was too busy to cook the bit he ate. So he used to send his blessed bull to the monks of Ennis Abbey for food. Now there were seven thieves kept about this place in old ancient times, and they went to rob the bull, and he roared so loud the saint heard him over in Tulla. And he stopped building and knelt down, and he -prayed and cursed at the one that was hurting his bull all he could. And the thieves were struck, and became farbreags or sham men." The hi'O springs forming St. MochuUa's well are on the eastern shore of Loch Graney, and the earthworks are still traceable round the church of Tulla (Tulach nan easpuig, rendered " CoUis Epis- coporum " in the Life). The saint is also commemorated by Temple-mochuUa in south-east Clare, and by no less than fifteen holy wells near Tulla. He avenged an injury to the well at Fortane late in the eighteenth century. ^^

St. Caimeen of Iniscaltra was half-brother to King Guaire the Hospitable, and died about 653. He is remembered as building

-^ Vol. xxii., plate iv.

^^ Analecta Bollandiaiia, vol. xvii., p. 135.

^^ Proceedings of the Koyal Irish Academy, vol. xxiv. (Sec. C), plate v. ^^ Vol. xxii., p. 211. See also The fournal of the Koyal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, vol. xli., pp. 5- 19.