Tag: Currane History

There was big grave in Kildownet, the biggest one in it. You’ll see it with the iron railin’s around it. That’s where the people that were drowned at the quay at Westport are buried, to Scotland they were going ‘the craythurs, they left Achill in two hookers on a fine morning about the middle of June to go to Westport to meet the Glasgors ship there, when they were comin’ in drawin on the quay they saw the ship anchored out a bit waitin’for the tide. When the hookers were near the ship one of them was closer then the nearest one and ather people in her went across to the side of the hooker to have a good view of the ship. It was calm morning’ but at that minute a little sharp squall came the other side and the sail struck against the mast and because the weight was all on that side and the force of the wind too, the hooker capsized and out goes everyone that was on deck. When the sail struck the water and got wet the hooker couldn’t right hersel’ and the sail kept the people that were under it down. They had no chance at all but some others that weren’t under the sail were saved. All the bodies were found because there was plenty of boats and it wasn’t very deep. The bodies were brought into Westport quay and laid out in a shed for the night. I believe if they were rightly attended to that some of them would be saved, because when they came the next day with the coffins some of the bodies were in a different position. They must have stirred or moved durin’ the night, thirty two altogether that was drownded and they are all buried in the one grave in Kildownet, I saw the hookers goin’up in the morning and I was with the funeral and indeed it was a poor sight, no wan else was buried inside railin’s since, although relation’s of the people that are buried in it but the priest wouldn’t allow them, and he was right too. The Healy man that owned the hooker was from Belfarsad below the near the Sound. Some of his people are there yet.

I seen mesel’ with me own two eyes, thanks be to God, a man coming over from Dooega (a village in the South coast of Achill Island about halfway between Allcaca Mionán and Béal na gCliait ) and a corpse on his back. He had “eirif dá lám” (straps or ropes crossing his shoulders and bound to a load carried on the back of a person) on the corpse. The corpse was without a coffin but the clothes that he died in, when he was passing our house , mesel’ and me mother and me sister were looking out, my mother send my sister to help the man to keep the feet of the corpse up, they were sweeping the road. He was going up to Kildownet graveyard to bury the man, my sister Lord have mercy on them on them all, went out and helped him with the corpse. She was about 8 years older then me. I was about 10 or 11 years at the time. He carried that corpse 5 Irish miles and he had a bad road to come, he came over through Aisléim (a village between Kildownet and Dooega) and down here on road to the graveyard. The road he came is called “Bealac na hAisléim go Dub Éige”. I was in the “bad times” they made that road and I was a gasúr working on it for a penny a day and some days we usednt’t get anything and other times we’d get a máimín o’yellow meal.
I saw another man from Dooega with a corpse, (his father’s corpse ) strapped on a ladder and the ladder tied on the man’s back on his way to Kildownet graveyard.
There’s a lot o’people from Dooega buried at the bridge at Hughey Iudóige’s house , down at the shore(H Iudóige’s house is about 80 or 100 yards on the Achill Sound side of Kildownet chapel on the right hand side of the road. The bridge is at the house and a little stream flows down to the sea, beside the mouth of this river the graves are .s.m.) There usedn’t to be any funerals that time except the people that was carrying the corpse. They were bringing them to Kildownet to bury them, but they weren’t able to bring them any father and they had no help so they buried them at the bridge  I was telling you about.

My father had a hooker and he went down to Rathfram (a townland near Killala in Mayo) for a cargo of potatoes. He drank the money he had with him to pay for the cargo, he fell in (became acquainted) with an office of the coastguards in Rathfarm be the name Lyons. My father waited in Lyons’ and he sent home more money to pay for the potatoes when he got the money he paid for the cargo and came home around Erris Head. When he was in Rathfarm there was no turf in the place but cipíns (cipíní ádmaid). The following year my father went down for another cargo of potatoes and he brought another hooker and his own and had two cargoes of turf down with them, he got the two cargoes of potatoes for the two cargoes of turf and I’m sure he gave a good supply to Lyons. Sometime after that Lyons was sent to Achill Beg where there was a station (Coast Guard’s Station) then, when he met my father he kissed him, he was so fond of him. They were great friends surely till he died (my father).

An t ‘atair Ó Máille was the parish priest that was in Achill before Father Michael. An tAtair Ó Maille had a curate named Fr Malachy Monaghan and it was Fr Malachy that baptised me . An tAtair Ó Máille was from Baile an Tobair or Pártrí (two townlands about 8 or 9 miles south of Castlebar). He was shifted out of Achill before Father Mick came. I think it was because he was old, I don’t know where he was shifted to. Fr Malacly Monaghan was in Achill a good while after An tAtair Ó Máille when he left Fr Henry came and he was Fr Mick’s curate. The next parish priest that came after Fr Mick was Fr Pat O’Conner, Fr Colleran was the parish priest and then Fr Campbell, the present parish priest. That’s five parish priests in my time and An tAtair Ó Máille, but I don’t remember him. I couldn’t be sure about the curates because they usedn’t stay long
Fr Mick is buried in Kildownet with all his people and mine and sure twon’t be long till mesel’be with them now as long as it’ll be. He died in 1867(2th Sept,1867) and he was 20 years a parish priest before he came to Achill. There was only one cutate in Achill that time and now there’s no less than three and a parish priest. It was hard for two priests to attend to a big parish like Achill , there was only two chapels in the parish at that times, the one in Kildownet and the one in River.(a village east of Keel in Achill Island) now there is six chapels in the parish and four priests, and they have to have mass in some of the schools too in the villages that are too far from a chapel.

Father Mick Gallagher was my uncle as I said before and I was only three weeks old when he came to Achill as a parish priest. He came in 1847, he spent a while in Turoc (a place about 4 miles from Castlebar on the road to Ballyvary) and a while in Islandeady (a place between Castlebar and Westport) It was from Islandeady he came to Achill ,when he came he was living in a small house in Cashel l(a village in centre of Achill Island) He got the house repaired and he had a fine comportable thatched house then. When the jumpers got the land in Cashel the priest had to leave it. He came up to Bréan-Asgaill(a village about 3 miles south of Achill Sound on west side of the Sound). Bréan- Asgaill was in Pike’s estate (Pike was a landlord and grandfather of the present Mr Pike who lives about half a mile west of Achill Sound). Pike was a great friend of the priest also Pike was a Protestant. He put a man out of his house in Bréan- Asgaill and gave the house to Father Mick, but he build a house for the man he put out, indeed Pike was very good to my uncle(Fr Mick) . He gave him eight acres of land at Kildownet chapel and fenced it in for him, you can see it today, it is on the south side of the chapel and it is now divided into eight stripes, if you count eight stripes up(southwards) from the chapel you will come to an aitnn ditch. All them eight stipes was land that Pike gave to my uncle. Fr Mick was a great horse-man and he used to have a good horse always. He had one grey horse once and indeed he was a fine horse. There’s a likeness of the priest riding on the grey horse, in Pikes below yet (in Mr Pike’s residence, half a mile west of Achill Sound). You can see the house in Bréan Asgaill where my uncle was living, it is down at the shore. It is a two storeyed slated house now but it was only a thatched house in my uncle’s time. There is a man named Scanlon living in it now.

This Michael Gallagher was my father’s father and Fr Michael Gallagher was his son and a brother of my father’s. My father’s name was Tommy Gallagher. My grandfather was very well off. He had a hooker and used to be whale fishing. He used to go to Donegal and buy stockings and selling the stockings first he hadn’t much to spare, one day here in Corrán where he was living a young man, a stranger to the place came in and that he wanted a few pairs of stockings but that he had no money my grandfather said to him: “Ní artnigim tú, bfuil bannaide a bit agat;” “Mac dé”arfa an strainféar, uad sin amac bí an t-airgead á cárnú ifteac ‘uige aguf ní faca sé lá boct ‘na déid sin gur caillead é.
When his so Fr Micheal was in collage in Maynooth there used to be a day every year that the father’s used to go to see their sons in the collage. They used to have big feast and its how the fathers of the students used to collect among themselves and pay for the dinner. Once my Grandfather was at the dinner, when they began to collect the money my Grandfather stood up and said,”Ná bacaigid leif, glanfaid mife an sgór indui”

A man of the Gallagher’s from Tieraur (Tír an Áir) a townland between Malranny and Newport) who was a parish priest in America and whilst he was there he was among most of his relations from Ballycroy and Achill and they gathered a lot of money for him. His mother’s name was Campbell, a relation of the money to be spent to educate the Gallaghers of Achill, Ballycroy Tiernur or their offspring. For the priesthood and if there was any money left over they were to go to Donegal to the offspring of the Gallaghers there. A good many Gallaghers got the scholarship but there was never a priest of the Gallaghers ordained but they were not Gallaghers -their mothers were some of the Gallaghers- and the first to be ordained from the scholarship fund was a policemans son from Newport, but he was not a Gallagher. He (the parish priest who left the money) came home to Tieraur on a visit and he walked to Achill though Corrán and back again to Tiernaur on foot. He was so gortac that he wouldn’t spend a penny and no wonder he’d have money. This Fr Gallagher was ordained sometime after my uncle (Fr Michael Gallagher ) and it was though Fr Michael recommendation he got the place in America whilst he was at home on his visit he never gave a penny to any of his friends or left them any in his will. There was a good many of the Gallaghers from Achill here who got the scholar ship, but something happened everyone of them before they were ordained, so none of them ever was a priest from it. There must be some mallait or mí-ád on it.

I remember when the monks came to Bun a Corraig (a village in central Achill) and ‘twas near a great flight when they were gathering stories for the monastery. Taws in Gallagher’s land (owners of the Public house is now rented by Mr Michael Lyon) above the road at the little bridge, when the stones were gathered ready for bringing down to Bun a Corraig were they were goin’ to build the monastery the Cashel people and the Bun a Corraig people came to stop the monks from bringing the stones down. When the Corrán people heard it they went down with their horses and carts and asses to bring down the stones for the monks. ‘Twas a woman from Clocmór side (named Grace Gallagher) that got hold of the first stone and then a man named Patten a man named Nolan, she (Grace Gallagher) belonged to FR Gallagher’s people (note on Fr Gallagher later s. m.) when the people below, Cashel and Bun a Corraig people saw that the Corrán people meant business they went home and the monastery was built. The monastery was built a year or two after my uncle (Fr Michael Gallagher) came to Achill. Fr Gallagher came to Achill in 1847.
Most of the Bun a Corraig and Cashel people were “soupers”at that time and that’s why they didn’t want the monastery in Bun a Corraig. But the Corrán people, the most of them anyway were good Catholic’s and they went down to help the monks. The Bishop ordered them that for ever as long as the monastery would be there that a Corrán man would always have Céad Míle Fáilte in the monastery , and plenty to ate and a bed for the night if he wanted it. I don’t know is it so now, any how times are different now and people don’t be travelling long journey on foot like long ‘go.

Both of them were near the chapel to the south of it where the rivers are going down to the shore. They were owned by a family of the Heverins who came from Erris ( probably from Doolough s.m.). Some of their family are living in Belfarsad yet one of the men was married to Patchaco’s daughter. One of the mills was for grinding corn and the other one was only a small one for the thickening flannin. The one for the corn was the nearest to the chapel. Its about 55 years since the big one stopped but the thickening mill was working between 20 or 25 years ago.

A daughter of Patchacó’s was married to one of the Heverins that owned this mill. (the mill was in Belfarsad near where the church is today, Belfarsad is near Achill Sound). Patchacó’s name was Pat Mc Neela he was a native of Tóin ré Gaoit,or Claggan(in South Ballycroy). He used to be with Caiptín Ó Máille, he was a better seaman than the Caiptín but he hadn’t the “navigation” like the Caipín, seldom the Caiptín used to go out without him.