History

The story goes that Hanraí Kane was born in the little village of Duvillaun near Clogher in the parish of Kilmore, Erris, sometime towards the end of the eighteenth century. As a young boy, he soon became noted for his strength and size and in his early teenage years he had outgrown nearly every man in the locality. At the end of his growing years he had reached almost eight feet in height. By this time Hanraí had grown as big and as strong as he was going to be and because of his enormous feats of strength, his reputation of a strong man had spread throughout Erris. One of his pastimes or hobbies was challenging other strong men lifting and throwing boulders or rocks and one such boulder which weighs nearly 2cwt lies near St. Deirbhile’s Church in Fallmore. Finally he settled in a place known as Taobh mór (big side) just west of Eachleim. He became known as Hanraí Crossach. He often walked to Belfast carrying loads of flax and yarn and it is believed he walked those distances with eight stone weight on his back not alone that but carried other provisions on his way back from Ulster to Kilmore. He encountered many other giants on his travels and often told of wrestling matches and stick fights. Stories are told that the stick that Hanraí carried was heavy enough and long enough to make a mast for a small sail boat. Another part of his life was spent working on farms around Crossmolina; he would go away for a few weeks return home for a few days and go back again to work. On one such occasion, he left his home in Taobh mór one autumn evening and walked the usual route through Kilmore along the ancient trail known as Gambles path. When he reached a place known as Béaldorach which lies just west of Binghamstown, he thought he heard something walking behind him and on turning round, there was a big cat following him. He walked on for many miles and each time he looked back the cat was still behind him. By nightfall he reached a place known as the Glen, he decided to rest for the night in a little house where he had often stopped and slept many nights on his travels. After supper, he went to the room which he always slept in and sometime during the night he was attacked by the cat. He took his knife out from underneath his pillow and killed it. In the morning when the woman of the house brought him his usual plate of stirabout he said to her I thought your cat wasn’t cross and she looked at him and said ‘my cat isn’t cross what makes you say that? And he said well your cat attacked me during the night and you will find him lying in the room by the bed. She went to the room door and opened it and looking in she saw a dead cat by the bed and it was as big as a donkey! Hanraí was a man who was always up and about very early in the morning and one fine summer’s morning he arose and went outside, far away over the hills to the east; the sun was rising and, on looking northwards towards the sand dunes he spied a huge man walking towards him, Hanraí stood his ground and waited until the stranger came closer. Hanraí roared at the giant and asked him who he was and what was he doing here. The stranger roared back and said he was ‘Fathach Shligí’ meaning giant of Sligo. He informed Hanraí he had fought many giants on his way to Kilmore and that he had stayed at Bingham’s castle the previous night. I see said Hanraí you haven’t bought your fighting stick, no, replied the stranger but I would rather fight and beat you using one of your own sticks, very well said Hanraí we will soon see about that. He went inside and took down a bundle of fighting sticks from the loft, took them outside and threw them on the ground. The bundle was so heavy that the ground shook all around, each stick was over eight feet long and three inches thick and when the stranger saw this he shook his head and he said I’ve seen enough, turned on his heel and ran back in the direction he came from. And that’s the legend of Hanraí Crossach. This story I heard as a young boy growing up in the early sixties by my grandfather and grand uncles on long winter nights by the fireside. None of this has ever been written or published anywhere. All this is in my own words just as I heard it being told all those years ago.

From the year 1835 onwards to the mid 1890’s there was a route plotted by great engineers like Bald and Knight to extend a railway line right through Erris from Ballina to Blacksod, at the time this became ‘The Red Route’ and great things were envisaged for Erris. Blacksod being one of the deepest ports in Ireland was to become the main trading port out of Erris. However, all this fell by the wayside, the railway line never materialised. It was plotted to run mostly through the sandbanks from Carne to Aughleam where you could say hugging the coast on the western side most of this is naturally flat anyway and any sandbanks could be more easily moved with no other obstacles. Where if it was planned to run along the eastern side of the mullet, it would hardly be possible because of houses and farmland etc. and any earth moving would be difficult because of its gravel and stone nature. Early in the 1900’s the rabbit trade was a lucrative pastime for the local men to snare and hunt rabbits with powerful carbide lamps and good hunting dogs on dark stormy nights, on one such occasion three men from Cartron and two from Clogher set out after midnight with lamps and dogs to hunt and catch rabbits in Aughleam and Newtown banks (rabbit warren). Deep into the night sometime between 2 – 3a.m., there were lamping the flat plains near the shore when suddenly they noticed what seemed like a train speeding towards them from the north, they all stood and watched it whilst it sped closer when they realised it was for real they had to run and jump out of the way and watch it speed past, they all gave the same description that it was 9/10 carriages long, all lit up with the noise of a normal train and the rattling of the railway tracks and sleepers as it speedily headed towards Caislean in the distance at the southern end of Aughleam banks. After it had gone passed, they were still watching it disappear into the distance; they could actually hear and sense the creaking and smell of the railway track. The dogs ran away in fear and fright of the noise, some of them lost bags of rabbits; some others dropped their lamps and couldn’t find them and one of the men who had a bad leg and who could hardly run at all, actually killed a rabbit in his hurry to run off up the bank through the long bent all but one of these men had been to Scotland several times and had travelled on and seen trains on numerous occasions. This train was actually reported travelling through Glencastle that same night. Those men often told and re-told this frightening event they witnessed on that dark and windy night. I heard my own grandfather and grand uncles who were three of those young men on that night; tell this story over and over again. Previous to this in the earlier years when the route was being plotted, Several small landowners started planning ahead and built temporary little houses or bothans in different places on their land so they might be in a position to claim for compensation if the route was to go through there because it was widely reported at the time that any houses or buildings coming in the way of the plotted route would be demolished and the owner compensated. This went on for many years and by the time this phantom train made its run through Erris, the red route was fast becoming a dream from the distant past.

Around the year 1900, Henry Kane from Cartron, a well known sea trader and merchant ran a family shop and store in the village. He had to make the treacherous journey once every few weeks from Cartron Harbour to Westport Quay to pick up a boat load of provisions and sail back home with his twelve ton sail boat laden down with flour, maize, tea and sugar and any other merchandize they sold in the shop. He had four sons, Pat, Jim, Stephen and Harry. On any of those occasions at least three of his sons would accompany him on the journey and help load the stuff at Westport Quay. In order to make the journey to Westport faster, he would be relying on going with the tide and the current would assist him, this was also very important in passing through Achill Sound and under the bridge from Blacksod Bay into Clew Bay and again to get as close as possible to the landings at Westport Quay and the same applied on the return journey he would have to be mindful of the flowing tide to get in as close as possible to his own private landing pier at Cartron. Sometimes this didn’t work out according to plan because of the changing wind and depending on how many times the boat would have to tack in order to get into the bay. Often the tide could be on the way out again when the boat landed in Cartron Bay. He would have to drop anchor and wait for the tide to go out so the boat would lie on the strand then horses and carts as well as donkeys and creels and some men and women carried bags of flour and meal on their backs for anything up to half a mile. If the boat hadn’t been completely unloaded, currachs were used on the return tide to take off the rest of the cargo. On spring tides, the boat was able to dock alongside his own pier which was situated close to his own house in a spot known to the villagers as the landing. That pier which had survived for well over one hundred years was in regular use up until the year 2000, but is no longer there. It was desecrated by council workers during repairs to the storm wall a few years ago. The orders to do this, were given by a local and on nobody’s authority but his own. Sometimes Henry and his sons sailed out of Cartron Bay as early as two or three o’clock in the morning in order to catch the tide at Achill Sound and Westport. However, on one such occasion the forecast wasn’t good they set out in the usual way, the wind was south easterly and after several tacks they were on their way into Bull’s Mouth when Henry spotted another boat sailing close up beside him. The captain of the other boat shouted across to Henry “What sort of boat have you got”? Henry shouted back to him “A boat of iron and timber”, and then Henry asked him the same question to which he replied “A boat of storm and water. Immediately Henry knew that this wasn’t a real life boat or captain. Then he angrily shouted back to Henry “For God’s sake turn back immediately”. He obeyed his command and sailed as quickly as ever he could back to Cartron Harbour and just as they were dropping the anchor, a ferocious storm struck, they hurriedly got into the currach and with a great struggle made the short distance to the shore. The morning turned out so bad that it ripped the thatch off some of the roofs of the houses in the village. Phantom boats and currachs as well as mysterious lights were often encountered with seafarers along this coast. These sightings were accepted as warning signs against imminent danger.

During the 1940’s and into the late 1950’s, a British coal ship used to come into Blacksod Bay once a year to supply coal to the three lighthouses around the Mullet Peninsula. Blacksod lighthouse on the south eastern tip of the Mullet, Eagle Island near Annach Head on the north west corner of the Mullet a few hundred yards off shore and Blackrock lighthouse about six miles west of the Inishkea Islands. A local boatman by the name of Pat Walsh, Glosh, Blacksod but a native of Inishkea took on the delivery of the coal from the ship to all three lighthouses. On one of these occasions my uncle Michael and Pat’s son stayed overnight on Eagle. During the day they were moving the coal bags from the landing up to the lighthouse and stacking the bags four or five bags high. Near the end of the day they were coming from the landing with some bags on a trolley and they were nearing this pile of stacked bags when all of a sudden one of the bags seemed to be taken from the top of the pile and thrown towards them. Now there was no way that this bag could have fallen. Both men actually saw the bag being lifted straight from the top and then thrown towards them. The other man immediately turned to my uncle and said ‘We will have a visitor tonight’ and my uncle immediately turned to the other man and said “What sort of visitor”?, to which he said to him “Come with me and I will show you something”. He brought him around the back of the lighthouse and pointed out to him where blood had been spilt on the rocks as a result of a fall of one of the previous light keepers many years before that and he said his ghost still haunts the lighthouse, I think this could be one of the nights he visits. They worked on late into the night until they had all the coal shifted from the landing and then they returned to the lighthouse to have something to eat and retired for the night. There was only one bedroom and two beds and they lay awake talking for some time after going to bed and sometime after midnight they heard slow footsteps coming up the wooden stairs towards the room and the other man said to my uncle “I think our visitor is here”. The door was open and the bedroom was in total darkness and before long the footsteps were at the door and walking into the room. Michael Walsh was the name of the man who was there that night with my uncle Michael and he shouted at the ghost to go away or he would shift him to somewhere he wouldn’t be too happy about and with that the footsteps stopped. On the third time he ordered the ghost to leave, they heard the footsteps walking back towards the door and down the stairs fading into the distance. By now my uncle Michael had broken out into a cold sweat and was very frightened but Michael Walsh had no fear whatsoever because he possessed what was known locally asCEIST AN TAIBHSE meaning ‘A QUESTION ASKED OF THE GHOST’. Now this actually contained ten personal questions that would be asked of the ghost by any one person possessing this power. After that they went back to sleep and the next day Michael Walsh said to my uncle, “Don’t be afraid anytime you stay here” he has often come here when I have been here on my own. My uncle Michael never slept on Eagle Island again.

Siar in sna naoi déag cearachadí agus naoi déag caogadí thagadh soigheach an ghuail isteach go Fód Dubh leis an ngual a bhí ag teastáil le haighaidh na bliana chun na trí tithe solais a rith ar feath na. Fear áitúil de thógáil Inis Céidhe darbh ainm Pádhraic Breathnach, ba aige a bhí an congradh leis an ngual a chur amach ar na carraigeacha. Bhíodh go leór fir áitúil ag saorthú chupla punta fhad agus bhíodh obair an ghuail ar siúl bád seóil a bhí ag Pádhraic Breathnach agus bhíodh an chuid ab fhearr de na fir farraige leis sa mbád í gcónaí. Ansin, bhíodh cupla cairt bheithí ag tarraingt an ghuail aníos ón gcladach go dtí an teach solais ar an Fhód Dubh. Lá amháin bhí uncail liom fhéin agus mac le fear an bháid ag obair ar Oileán sa Tuaith, bhí siad ag iompar na málaí aníos ón landáil go dtí an stór agus dhú cgur ina seasamh í mullach a chéile agus ag déanamh cárnán árd dhíobh. An uair seo bhí siad beirt ag tíocht aníos le dhá mhála agus nuair a bhí siad í ngar den chárnán choinic siad mála dhá thógáil suas san aer agus dhá chaitheamh ina dtreaó, ní nach íonadh baineadh lán a mbunna astú go bharr go raibh fhios acu nach duine saolta a rinne sin. “Gheobhfaidh tú do théadh anocht”, arsa an Breathnach le mo uncail, “tá taibhse na carraice í ngar dhuit”. An oíche sin nuair a siad tamall ina gcoladh chuala siad torann na mbróg ag tíocht aníos an staighre, “nár dhúirt mé leat go mbeadh sé anseo”. Bhí an bheirt ina gcoladh ar aon leaba agus mo uncail a bhí le balla, faoin tráth seo bhí sé ag tabhairt na gcor agus na múnógaí allais leis le teann faitéis. Ansin labhair an Breathnach go fearragach leis an taibhse, “má thagann tú níos goire cuirfidh mise san áit thú nach bhfágfidh tú go haibéil”. Chas sé air a sháil, amach an doras agus síos an staighre aríst. Ní raibh aon fhaitéas an mBreathnach mar bhí ceist an taibhse aige. Thaispáin sé de mo uncail ar maidin ar chúl na carraice an áit a neacha duine de na fir solais le fánne chupla bliain roimhe sin, bhí a chuid fola le feiceál ar an gcarraig.

One fine evening back in the mid 1980’s, sometime during the summer my two uncles and brother were returning from an evening’s fishing trip, they were heading home into Cartron Bay in their three man curragh when they noticed something hurtling from the sky at a terrific speed and it dropped into the sea just yards behind the curragh. A few seconds earlier and this thing would have dropped right into the curragh, more than likely sinking it. Now to describe this object as something resembling a big saucepan lid, circular and very shiny. At low tide for several weeks and many times after they searched the strand exactly where it came down and found no trace of the object they saw that evening.

Sometime back in the 1930’s during the lobster fishing season my two grand – uncles and grandfather were out one morning checking their lobster pots when my grandfather hauled in one of the pots to discover a conger eel around 5-6ft long all coiled up inside in the pot. As well as being very awkward it is also very dangerous putting your hand into the pot trying to retrieve it because it has been known a fisherman to get his finger snapped off by an eel in a pot so the proper way to approach it is to stab it in the back of the neck that knocks it out because a nerve has been cut anyway after this had been done, he got hold of the conger and pulled it out of the pot then he cut its head clean off, threw the head back into the sea and left the body in the curragh. It was wriggling around like any other eel they had caught up to then but after a while one of the men at the front of the curragh heard some noise behind him in the bow of the curragh and on looking around he just caught glimpse of the eel disappearing into the sea at the very end of the bow. No eel has ever been reported to leave a boat or curragh after its head had been cut off. It had crawled between their feet at the bottom of the curragh and slowly wriggled its way to the bow. They found it amazing and hard to believe that it could sense where it was going because it totally depended on sense at this stage. I have never ever heard of anything that can live after the head had been severed from its body.

Over three hundred years ago here in the Barony of Erris, there lived a man Brian Rua Carrabine who prophesized many events and changes many of which I have witnessed in my own lifetime. One of these events he said would happen was that a grey seal would cross Termon Hill and anyone who killed it wouldn’t live to see the year out. This happened in the early 1900’s, a grey seal did come across Termon Hill from the sea near Falmore to the south, he travelled a distance between 2½ and 3 miles over land until he reached the north side of Termon Hill within a ¼ of a mile of Blacksod Bay, he was spotted by a man named Reilly, he prevented the seal in reaching the sea by killing it. In those days the oil and pelt was valuable and within a year that young man was dead. As foretold by Carrabine some 200 years previous.