Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/399

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equally vague tale-^ at Mortyclough has been referred to the decisive battle of Corconiroe in 13 17, which, however, was certainly fought on the ridge close to the Abbey, between it and Ijealaclugga creek, and not at Mortyclough. It is probable that the name Mothar tighe cloice (" fort of the stone house," and in its phonetic form Mortyclough), suggested to someone the meaning Mortough's tombstone, and was explained by the slaying of " Mortough Garbh O'Brien " in the battle. He was a rather obscure adherent of Prince Donchad, and seems unlikely to have remained in popular remembrance.

In 1695 Hugh Brigdall records the local tradition near Dysert O'Dea that De Clare fell at Dromcavan.-* At the stream bound- ing that townland and Dysert, old folk told in 1839 a tale, iiot found in the histories but evidently old, that when Claraghmore was coming to Dysert ^^ a certain Conor more Hiomhair (locally " Howard ") advised O'Dea to lay a trap. He loosened the timber side beam of a wicker bridge over the stream, and hid in a recess on the bank under it, armed with his axe. As Claraghmore rode across, Hiomhair pushed out a prop and the structure collapsed, and as De Clare and his horse were struggling in the stream the Irishman split his skull.-' The history makes it clear that De Clare had crossed the stream and fell in an ambuscade of the O'Deas in a wood towards Dysert. There was actually a con- temporary Conchobhar na Hiomhair, who fought on the Irish side at the battle of Corcomroe Abbey in the year preceding (131 7), but was too obscure to render his intrusion into local tradition probable, and hence may have been the real slayer of the Norman. The night before Claraghmore died, says tradition at Scool, about a mile and a half from Dysert, twenty-five banshees washed blood- stained clothes in the lake. This was told to Prof. Brian O'Looney before 1870, and Dr. G. U. MacXamara found it still extant some

-^ First given in Dublin Penny Journal, loc. (it., and the Ordnance Survey Letters.

-"' Commonplace Book, p. 224.

^*As the Castle was far later, O'Dea's residence may well have been the fort not far from Dromcavan in the intervening townland now called Uallycullinan. The old townlands have been greatly subdivided, even since 1655.

-' Ordnance Sui-vey Letters (Co. Clare), vol. i., p. 156.