Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/237

 Collectanea. 205

landed after each spring were blighted for ever. Brennan has a number of holy wells dedicated to him, but the centre of his CTiltus in Connacht is certainly Inisglora. Of it wonderful stories were told which came down to Giraldus Cambrensis and even got transferred to Aran and confused and forgotten — how the bodies in the holy isle never decayed, and so forth. The peasantry of the other isles (for Inisglora is uninhabited) deny that the soil prevents putrefaction, and point to the decayed bones in evidence for their denial. The curiously rude wooden figure of St. Brennan is in the larger oratory on Inisglora and may be seen through the doorway in Lord Dunraven's photo- graph.^ It was said to have been painted, but retains no trace. It was fibrous and weather-worn even when Otway saw it, and is now strangely crackled. Like the others of St. Molash on Inishmurray, and the lost ones of Kilcarroll, Co. Clare,- Templedahalin on Kerry Head, and that on St. MacDaras Island, it was held in high esteem and accredited with curative powers. Giraldus tells the same of other images of the Irish saints in his day. Any man who thrice lifted the image at Inisglora w^ith true faith could benefit women in childbirth. Ships used to dip their sails in reverence of the saint when passing Inisglora. I could not learn in the Mullet if the practice is maintained to our times. Before leaving the subject I may state briefly ^ that the island has another oratory, the Church of the Women, three " thorrows " or domed huts, a well, and seven leachts or stations. The most venerated of the " thurrows " is the Leachta relig MJmrragh, or " station of the relics of the Blessed Virgin Mary," to whom it is dedicated. Another kiln-like hut is called the  Aigh or "Oigh,'' " the pure place." It is cus- tomary to break bread between two people in the " thurrow- more." No woman could approach tlie holy well, and if they touched it the water became blood-stained and full of worms and corruption. One old man at Belmullet who had lived in

^ Notes on Irish AirkiUrturc, vol. i. plate xxxiii. p. 40.

'" Erris and Tyraxvly, p. 102.

^ For fuller accounts of this most interesting holy isle, see Otway's Tour in Connaught ; Handbook VI. Roy. Soc. Antt. Ir. p. 26, and Dr. C. Browne, Froc. A'. Ir. Acad. vol. iii. ser. iii. p. 643.