Leitrim of the Legends
“You’d think it was lovely if you didn’t know it” Said John Carty to John Carty one day… Though he loved the …
She Stood Alone At The Altar
The Ms Dopping-Hepenstal stood up by her groom who had eloped to India with another woman without her knowing is still spoken of today. Her sister was involved with one of the Edgeworths, but in the end neither girl married. Some versions of the story have Edgeworth as the cad, but most do not.
There Wont Be A Word About Us
Mam and Dad had a wistful saying: “Forty years from now, there wont be a word about us…” rueing the passing of life and death… We always think it wont be so, but maybe it is truer than we care to admit and is true of us all…
Last of the Faithful at St Augustine’s Holy Well
I saw a couple with their children go to the Holy Well on Lough Atalia today. The child appeared to have a bad cough, not a condition the well was known for as far as I know. The only time Ive seen actual pilgrims come to it in all my years in the city. I hope it works for them.
Good Food, Good Meat
My mother worked in the 1925 F Street Club in Washington, where she met Fidel Castro who left little positive impression on …
Whats in a Name
By Mac and O the rhyme does go An Irishman can be known Through this rhyme and a little time The truth …
The Web of Linen
Based on a folk take of the Carty (as Carthy should be spelled!!!) family, told to the Irish Folklore Commission, Eileen’s great …
When They Stood There For That Photo
When they stood there, for that photo Before my father was even born then Who is now but in a picture a …
Let Death Not Sneak In Our Door
In the days gone by during the War On the family farm in old Lislea My mother but a child she was …
Once Upon A Time in Ballinasloe
Once upon a time in Ballinasloe Bollick naked our hero was seen Lying in a mess of his own making Bawling relentless …
Some Man
“Your some man” ~ Joe “Your some man!”, that was his phrase A catch all that could mean anything: Be it that …
Longford during the “Emergency”
Im of Longford extraction and am a Longford man to be when my cottage in Ballinamuck is restored and I move up …
Ghost at the Gate at Willie Carty’s
This is a story I heard as a child about a gate at Willie Cartys in Aughagreagh. My own father often could …
Fidel Castro Meets a Country Girl
The dust was only settling The blood bare dry on the Cuban streets America gauging the new regime Brought him over their …
Blaggards and Blackguards, Slavery, Civil Rights, the Irish and the Longford Connection
When I was a child, I collected stamps. Sad, I know, but I loved it. One of the counties I got stamps …
Wake at Birr
The true and humorous tale, though shocking at the time, of the fiasco of my mothers coffin, at her wake in Birr… …
Sleuthing for the German Reillys
ne of the tragic and most interesting things to come out of the Great War and the Second World War was the …
Barbados Chest in a Molly Cottage
* Molly is a townland in North Longford, Ireland, where my great grandmother Margaret Drake (who married Michael O Reilly, she herself …
Basket Across the Boyne
Smoke had cleared, blood clotted, breaths gone Flies feasted on the dead Victories armies raged the land Men fled to hills and …
Saved by the Buttonhole
“They are buttonhole relations, when the buttonhole breaks, they are nothing” ~ North Longford saying The flames of war streaked the sky …