Year: 2011

I remember when the oul’ school (old N school) was made. You can see the walls of the oul’ school yet behind at the Schoolhouse (The present N.S in Corrán). Before any schoolhouse was made in Corrán there was a master from Newport be the name of Flynn goin’around to some of the house in Corrán teaching their children. Twas this Flynn that was teaching my uncle, Father Mick, only a few families that used to go to school to him. The Gallagher’s the Ó Máille’s and the Pattens mostly (that used to attend). Indeed he had no school only goin’ from house to house or anywhere he would get a barn to bring his scholars into. This was not the Flynn I was tellin’you about before that was in the soup school but a namesake of his.
I didn’t know much about the schools or the masters on this side of the channel because it was on the other side (west side of channel) in Kildownet I went to school. A man named Donnellan was our teacher but I don’t know where he came from, when he left Kildownet he went to Ballycroy we used to have states and oul“weathered” shells from the shore were the pencils we used to have sometimes. Everyone of us hadn’t a state. The master used to have a big slate hangin’ on the wall. Pike the landlord, was the manager of the school and he used be putting masters in and out as he liked himsel’ I couldn’t remember anyone of them but Donnellan because they usedn’t we left long in it, women mostly that used to come. Some of them used to get eleven shillings a week and some more and I believe some less. I don,t know who used to pay them. The school I went to in Kildown’et was where the school is now. (Derreen N S) We never learned any Irish at school, but the master used to speak Irish and he never stopped anyone from speaking it. It was Irish we used to speak always besides. I never heard of the “bata scóir or anything like it, we were learning reading writin’ and sums at the school.

About sixty years ago the people from Corrán used to go up to the “Coire” ( a glen on Corrán hill to the east side of Corrán) booleyin.” They had little boiógs there and one night all the women left the Coire and came down home with the milk and the butter except one woman.
The people used to go up with cattle early in June, up to the Coire. The woman and young girls that used to go up, but men used to go up as well if there was no women in the house to go. There used to be good wholesome grass in the Coire in June and July and the cattle used to thrive well whilst they’d be above and they’d be the better of it again for the year after.

I remember when there was up to sixty houses in Ailte but Pike evicted them. Pike was the Landlord, William Pike was his name. He wanted the land for grazin’ and he put the people out of it. It was a big village and streets in it like a town. Every five or six, or more of the houses were stuck together, like you’d see in a town. They were only small houses.

There was two “soup schools” here in Corrán, one of them was two stripes back from this house where the “pound” is now. The pound is just where the oul’schoolhouse was. Twas only a small thatched house . Oul’Pat Sweeney was the teacher. Pat Sweeney at the Sound is his son . Oul’Pat, the teacher, turned a Catholic and got married to a girl named Mary Mc Cann. There never was many scholars goin’to the school and it didn’t last very long. Oul’ Pat Sweeney left and it went over to Kildownet and he was teaching there for a while. Then another teacher named Cafferkey from Ballycroy came here to the school here, but he didn’t stay long. The people didn’t like him and anyhow they didn’t go to the school very much Cafferky left and went to Meelin (a townland north of Dooega in the southern part Achill Island) Cafferkey was teaching after that for a long time in Meelin. Some of his people ( his descendants)are there yet and they are jumpers’ yet.
There was another “soup school” behind at Gallagher’s house is near where the road that’s going over to Poll a ‘Cric meets this road that’s goin’from her to the Sound ((Gob a ‘Coire) twas in the corner where thee two roads are meetin’ the oul’ school was. You can see the track of the schoolhouse yet on your right hand side when you turn over from road (rd to sound). That school didn’t last very long at all. There was only one teacher ever in it. He was a man of the Flynn’s (s m) Newport that was the master in it , but he wasn’t long in it when a man Ryan from Newport got a least of the land wher the school was and of the first things he done when he got the land was to knock the school and Flynn, the master had to go. The road that’s goin’over to Poll a Cric from this road (rd to Achill Sound from Corrán) is called “Bóitrín Ryan”yet after that Ryan that had the land and knocked the school.
The “Soupers” never got much of a hold here in Corrán. All the landlords here at the time were catholics and they wouldn’t let any school on their land unless it was made on commons or someplace like that. But down the Island (Achill Island) the “soupers”were very strong and had schools and churches and ministers and bible readers. Nangle was their headman, and they had a college in Meelin called “Trinity College.” Twas in that college they used to train their own ministers and bible readers. The best and cleverest lads that were going to the soup schools were sent to “Trinity College” in Meelin where they made ministers and bible readers of them. Some of them then went to England and never came back and some more waited at home in Achill preaching for the “jumpers”. Nangle had a paper, a newspaper called the “Achill Herald.” It was printed in the “Colony”(a village at the foot of Sliab Mór on north east side. The village got its name when a colony of settlers (protestants) were planted there in Nangle’s time about 1836 or so S.M).
It was only a small paper I heard, I never seen it, but I heard it was a man named Daly that used to print it. They had a machine for printing it like any paper. Once a month I think it used to come out.
“Trinity College” in Meelin was a big place and there was a big church along with the college in it and houses where the students used to sleep in. They had a big farm in it too and the students used to work the farm. You could see the ruins in it yet I believe.

That was the time they were makin the railway from Westport to Achill and if the people could wait a little longer they could go on the train, but they couldn’t wait. There was only a small piece to be finished before the train would come to Achill. When they were bringin’the coffins home to Achill they finished the little piece someways to carry the train and that was the first train that came to Achill and it had a load of dead with her. That was in the Prophecy and it was in the Prophecy too that the last train that would come would have a load of dead too. That happened too when the 10 men from Achill burned in Scotland (in Kirkintilloch,Sept,1937) in a bothy. That’s the time they were liftin, the railway from Achill to Westport and when the ten coffins were comin’ home, they sent a special train from Dublin with them, and that was the last train that came to Sound (Achill Sound ) Now isn’t it hard to go beyond the Prophecy .(The train that took the coffins to the Sound was the last train Special train. The usual trains ran for a week or so afterwards.

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.