Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/238

 2o6 Collectanea.

his youth on Inisglora told tlie parish priest, Rev. P. O'Reilly, and Dr. Charles Browne/ about 1894 or 95, that he had three times seen this occur after a woman touched it, but a little while after he had cleared it out it filled again with pure water. The people I questioned either could not or would not tell anything about this belief, but it is known that if a man or even a male infant draws a cupful a woman can drink the water, which remains clean. Rats and mice cannot live on the island, and earth from Inisglora drives them from a house. I know at least one lady in Belmullet who attests this miracle, and it has been used in other houses (as far south as Co. Limerick) with, it is said, complete success.^ I will only note that at Tober Brennail, near Dunfeny Church and pillar in Tirawley, not far from Ballycastle, the saintly navigator is reverenced. Large stations^ were held there and are named in 1839 in the Ordnance Survey Letters, but have been practically disused, though individual devotees frequent the well.

The " Neevoge " or " Knaveen."' — -St. Columba is reverenced on South Iniskea, but I cannot learn that the wonder-working image formerly on that island represented him. Any enquiry as to this image needs great tactfulness, as certain controver- sialists of the Achiil " Mission " and in Dublin used more zeal than charity in denouncing the image. It was called the Neevoge (" naomh 6g "), or little saint, and the " Knaveen," I only heard of it under the former name. It was said to have been brought to Iniskea by a holy priest who said that as. long as it was reverenced it would save the island from ship- wrecks. Otway* heard that it was stolen by smugglers, but they were so pursued by storms and chased by a revenue cutter that they lost heart and restored it ; but this tale (as we saw) is told of the saint's stone on Cahir Island and of St. Leo's Bell on Inishark, and I do not know if Otway confused the former tale with Iniskea. . He was told that the image was of wood. I heard both in Achiil and the Mullet that it was of

^ Proc. Koy. Ir. Acad. vol. iii. ser. iii. p. 634.

-So Mrs. Studdert, 191 1 ; see also Proc. R. Ir. Acad. vol. iii. ser. iii. p. 631.

'^Journal Roy. Soc. Aiitt. Ir. vol. xlii. pp. 1 13, U4.

4 Tour in Connau:^ht (1S39), p. 382 ; Erris and Tyrazvly, p. 107.