Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/536

 498 Collectanea.

been swept away. The Barclay family of Ballyartney had in Graham's time (1S16) a definite legend of the war. Their ancestor, a clergyman, was expelled from his living, and his successor, a priest, was very strict in exacting security from Barclay for the payment of his tithe. In the summer of 1691 the priest objected to the securities offered, and Barclay left for home in low spirits. On his way he heard from Captain O'Brien of Ennistymon that the Irish army had been defeated at Aughrim. So he returned to the priest and offered as his security " the great King William," and threatened that if his tithe books were not returned in ten minutes he would have the intruder hanged on the high road of Kilmurry. Lord Clare's dragoons galloped through the village in confusion, confirming the news, and Barclay was reinstated.-''

A ferryman at Kilquane named Macadam helped the Williamite "Dutch" army over the Shannon in 1691. He was richly rewarded, but, when he died, people cut on his tomb " Here lies Philip who lived a fisherman and died a deceiver." Down to about 1850 pious old people, when visiting Kilquane graveyard, used to pray at the Macadam tomb for the soul of the man "who sold the pass." An old poem on the stone exists, — " If all that were killed, O stone ! by the dead man under thee were alive !"-^ There is no other documentary or epigraphical evidence to support the popular tradition. The place where William's army crossed the river, and shut off the city from Clare, is well-known. A great stone called Carrigatloura {carraic an t slabhra, the rock of the chain) is shown to which the pontoon bridge was fastened on the Clare shore.

William of Orange is in popular memory identified with the ^' violated treaty " of Limerick. The table on which that document was actually signed was long preserved, but ultimately the present treaty stone (an old mounting-block by the roadside),^^ became the subject of bogus tradition and undeserved tourist interest.

^W. S. Mason, op. cit., pp. 461-2.

-8 Mss. Royal Irish Academy, 24, M 37. In fact the family of Macadam now in Clare was of good birth and fortune at the time.

^' Capt. Ralph Westropp often used it when riding out of Limerick, and he and others often told me of their amazement when the treaty myth grew up.