Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/442

 434

NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. I. MAY 28, '98,

with his grief added, " I hear you have also lost some money " ; to which Conroy replied,

" O, Mr., I wouldn't care about my

forty pounds if he 'd only have let me have back my poor little Eily." Scanlan having been found guilty, the gentry of the county of Limerick petitioned for a reprieve, which was refused. They next requested that Scan- Ian might be hanged with a silken cord, though whether for its greater dignity or because it offered a possibility of more rapid strangulation in short-drop days I do not know. The Lord Lieutenant thought hemp would serve. My grandfather used also to tell how he saw Scanlan get out of the cart at the old bridge over the Abbey river, owing to the horses refusing to go further ; but he was unable to decide whether this was due to their repugnance to draw a murderer over running water or because they were merely frightened by the crowd, whose execrations followed Scanlan all the way to Gallows Green. There is no reason to think the "Lily" was ever in Killarney, and she cer- tainly was not saved by Myles-na-Coppaleen, either in the " Cave in the Devil's Island " of the opera, or in the " Cave by the Shannon " of the play. The murder took place at a point opposite Carrickafoyle, in that part of the estuary of the Shannon known as Tarbert Race. Scanlan waited on the shore while his henchman O'Sullivan beat his wife's brains out and flung her body, with a weight tied round the neck, into the water. The mutilated remains of Mrs. Scanlan were washed ashore several weeks later at Moyne, a few miles lower down on the Clare side, and were buried in the little cemetery that overhangs the Shannon at Knock. Though the world is acquainted with the story of the " Colleen Bawn," and though thousands have been, and continue to be, made by the publishers and producers of the novel, the play, and the opera, it has occurred to none to raise a memorial to Ireland's humble, but most cele- brated heroine.

The spot is marked only by a nameless and fragmentary flagstone and a shred of storm- bent hawthorn, in whose shrivelled branches the wild western winds raise a caoin for the Bride of Garryowen. BREASAIL.

On referring to Haydn's 'Dictionary of Dates ' (s.vv> ' Trials ' and ' Executions ') I find that for the murder of Ellen Hanley John Scanlan was tried and convicted at the Limerick Assizes on 14 March, 1820, and hanged at Limerick on the 16th, "the day next but one after sentence passed," as the law then in force directed. F. ADAMS.

106A, Albany Road, Camberwell.

The * Life ' of Gerald Griffin, by his brother Dr. Dan. Griffin, of Limerick, would probably give particulars. An extract from the New Monthly Magazine giving an account of the murder is printed at the end of a copy of 'The Collegians ' published in 1847, but it does not give the date of the crime.

ALFRED MOLONY.

24, Grey Coat Gardens, Westminster.

"DARGLE" (9 th S. i. 327). This Scottish word, as used by Sir Walter Scott, is not a ghost-word, as MR. MAYHEW is inclined to think, but equivalent to the Irish Dargle, which is the name of a well-known wooded glen which lies between Bray and Powers- court, in the county Wicklow. It is the Irish deargail, " the red little spot," so called with reference to the prevailing tint of its rocks. Scott visited the Dargle in 1825 (see Lockhart. ' Life,' chap. Ixiii.), and probably understood the word as applicable per se to any glen, which it is not. ' Redgauntlet ' was written seven years later. A. SMYTHE PALMER.

South Woodford.

Surely this cannot be either a ghost, or even a very rare, word. It exists as a dis- tinctive name for a beautiful spot near Dublin, a narrow glen through which tumbles a fine waterfall. It is in Lord Powerscourt's park or estate. The stream bears the same name. The Dargle is a favourite resort of tourists, and is, I should have imagined, very generally known. JULIAN MARSHALL.

"MARIFER" (9 th S. i. 267, 333, 395). The word marifer will be found on p. 44 of ' The Returns of the Poll Tax for the West Riding,' 1379, published by the Yorkshire Archaeo- logical Association in 1882. It is a book of the greatest value to the student of onoma- tology. An analysis, on which I have spent several months, is nearly ready for publica- tion. Many of the results I have already used in the* article on 'Names' in 'Chambers's Encyclopaedia.' ISAAC TAYLOR.

SLAUGHTER (8 th S. xii. 267, 455). Chauncy, ' Herts,' vol. i. p. 287, mentions the marriage of William Newport and a daughter of Mr. Slaughter, of Westmill, clerk, as the lord of the manor of Furneux Pelham ; and in vol. ii. p. 13, under the ' Manor of Punsborne, Hat- field,' mention is made of " Paris Slaughter, citizen and factor, of Blackwell Hall, in London, who repaired and beautified the house, and died seized hereof, 1693, leaving issue Paris, who is his son and heir and the present lord hereof." Chauncy died in 1700.

M.A.OXON.