Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/233

 Collectanea. 2 1 1

the Round Tower on Iniscaltra in Lougli Deig. There was some trace of a tale like his legend in Si/7'a Gadelica, the king wanting the church filled with soldiers, and the saint preferring it full of books.3- There is also a story to account for the " unfinished " round tower, and similar to that about Scattery {supra).^^ He drowned a gentleman and his assistant who tried to carry off a girl from his pattern on Holy Island over a century ago.^*

The founders of Kilialoe, SS. Molua and Fiannan, and the patroness of Kilnaboy, St. Findchu, daughter of Baoth {i/ii:;/iean baorth) belong to this century. All are remembered, but I heard only that St. Molua blessed the beautifully variegated ivy on Kilialoe cathedral, and that St. Fiannan lies buried in the stone-roofed oratory. The Life of St. Fiannan is e.xtant. He preached also in the Scotch islands, and the Fiannan Isles and their boat-shaped early oratory recall his labours. ^^ St. "Inghine Baoith " used to sit on a natural seat in a ridge of rocks on Roughan Hill near her church, and her name (Ennewee) was given to women in her parish as late as 1839. Her "seat" cures back-aches. (Plate IV.)

Eighth Century. — St. Tola, son of Donchad, died in 734 or 737. He founded Disert Tola, now Dysert O'Dea. The cross near his church is called Cros banola. O'Donovan regards this name as meaning "the white cross of Tola," but the people suppose it to mean " Cross of Banola " (or Manawla), a female saint whose crozier was preserved locally until secured for the collection of the Royal Irish Academy. People told in 1839 how St. Blawfugh of Rath, (Blathmac, son of Onchu), built that church and two round towers on the ridge not far from Dysert. St. Manawla coveted one of his towers for her own monastery. Under cover of night she stole up to Rath, uprooted a tower, slung it in her veil, and ran down the hill. Despite all her care, she woke St. Blawfugh, and he ran after her at full speed. The " poor weak woman," hampered by her unwieldy burden, was on the point of being overtaken

^^ Silva Gadelica, vol. ii., p. 436. Cf. a later tale at Dysert infra.

" In Michael O'Brannan's poem on the Shannon {1794), Caimin is stated to have built the tower. See Ordnance Survey Letters (Co. Clare), vol. ii., p. 158.

"Vol. xxii.,p. 334.

^Tht fournal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, vol. xxix. (l899)» P- 32S.