Derry Folk Tales

FOLK TALES OF DERRY

1

COLUMCILLE: DOVE OF THE CHURCH AND FOUNDER OF DERRY

It would be difficult to begin to write anything on the myths and legends of this city, without mentioning its founder Columba – Columcille. He is beloved by all and the people of Derry are rightly proud of him. His presence is remembered everywhere – in the street names, St Columb’s Wells, Columba Terrace and Columcille Court; in the church names St Columb’s Cathedral, St Columba’s church, St Columb’s church; in the naming of one of our most beautiful parks, St Columb’s Park; and, endearingly, in the children’s names, Colm and Columba. So it is fitting that this should be the first story in this book of the folktales of our city and county.

The city itself has been known variously as Daire Calgach, Doire Cholmcille, Derry/Londonderry and even recently as Legenderry.

Tradition suggests that Columcille was the founder of Derry (Anglicised from the Irish Doire, meaning Oak Grove) in August AD 546. Indeed there is a plaque on the wall of the side entrance of St Columba’s church, Long Tower, in Derry that states this fact and inside on the main aisle a white marble stone is embedded which says:

+

SITE OF ALTAR

IN

ST. COLUMCILLE’S

DUBH-REGLES

546-1585

But there is one sure thing about Irish people and that is that they will always find something about which to disagree. And why not disagree about the site of Columba’s monastery? There is a counter claim that his original church was founded where St Augustine’s now stands, beside the Walls of Derry. All I can say is that people will believe what they want to believe and in Derry there is a saying, ‘Why let the truth get in the way of a good story?’

To get back to Columcille, legend has it that he was born in Gartan in Donegal, then he became a student in the monastery at Glasnevin (now in Dublin) and when a terrible plague broke out, the abbot, fearful that his students might contract the Yellow Plague, sent them all back to their homes. It is said that Bishop Etchen of Clonfad ordained Columcille a priest and he made his way to Doire. There, the king offered him some land on which to build his monastery. Columcille refused it at first because he considered it heathen land but accepted it on the condition that he could set fire to it in order to exorcise the pagan ground.

Fire being fire and no respecter of boundaries, it began to creep towards the lovely forest of oaks that Columcille so loved, and the saint fell to his knees to pray that the oaks would be saved. He composed a prayer and, translated from the Latin, it is now known to be the beginning of the superstition that no man, woman or child in Derry would ever be killed by lightning:

Father,

Keep under the tempest and thunder,

Lest we should be shattered by

Thy lightning’s shafts scattered.

Foolhardy young men have been known to run out into a lightning storm, shouting and challenging the lightning to strike. If it ever did, it has not been recorded.

There were also many superstitions about the destruction of oak trees. It was said that an important person who gave orders to have a tree chopped down for firewood died a horrible death and it was called ‘A miracle of Columcille’.

Those who followed him attributed many miraculous cures to Columba, as he was also known, and legends and stories of a Guardian Angel were woven around him.

From Derry, Columba’s light radiated to the far corners of the island, and tradition tells us that he was a great father of the church in Ireland, and that he ranks in importance with Patrick and Brigid. He was a man of learning, a scholar and a scribe, but he was more than that. Legend tells us that he was a son of the soil, born in the country and knowledgeable about country ways, a brother to ordinary men and women. He could cut turf, foot it and stack it, he sowed and harvested crops, fished in rivers, lakes and on the sea, gathered and dried seaweed. When he made mistakes he was open about them and used them to counsel the young.

One of the stories told about him was that as he was dressing he put on one sock and then a shoe, leaving one of his feet naked. Sure, wasn’t that the very time that his enemies crept up on him and he had to run at a great disadvantage with one foot covered and one not? After that it was said that his curse would fall on anyone who dressed in that way. I have my doubts about that one, I must say.

Another curse attributed to him was that if you cut the last sod of turf, danger would follow you. And the origin of this story was that one day he was out at the turf bank, cutting away the sods with the slane and he had just cut the last sod when his enemies (it appears he had a lot of enemies) crept up from behind to attack him. He was unable to escape because, foolishly, he hadn’t left a step up for himself. He’d cut the last step away like the others and he was stuck at the bottom of the bank at their mercy. Luckily, none decided to descend into the trench where Columba stood and they could not reach deep enough to wound him.

Wasn’t he also seen as a prophet who could foretell the future? And there’s quite a few who could quote his prophesies to you to this very day. Unfortunately, with the decline in the native Irish language many of those prophecies are lost or worse, they are of no interest to the present-day Irishman.

Of the stories of his departure from Ireland the one that is most quoted is that of the Brehon Law being invoked, and this is now considered to be the first law of copyright in history. It came about when he copied, without permission, a Latin Psalter that St Finnian of Moville had brought from Rome. When Finnian brought his complaint to the attention of Diarmaid, King of Ireland, the king gave his oft-quoted judgement; ‘To every cow her calf, and to every book its copy.’

Columba, as we know from the stories, had a terrible temper, and when he heard this judgement his anger knew no bounds. He challenged Diarmaid to battle and as he made his way northwards he rallied the men of Ulster and Connacht behind him. At Cul Dreimnhe (Cooldrummon) in AD 561. Columba utterly defeated the king. But when he looked around the battlefield and saw the slain soldiers, bodies heaped upon bodies, he broke down and cried at the terrible loss of life. All told, it was about 13,000 dead, it is said.

In response, Diarmaid called the Synod of Teltown and, to Columba’s great anguish, he was excommunicated, although this decision was later reversed.

But such was Columba’s tortured spirit that he asked his friend from Glasnevin days, St Molaise, to impose a penance upon him. Molaise spoke to him and said that he must be the one to impose his own penance and it should be something very dear to his heart. Only that would bring him peace. Columba pondered on what might be his worst punishment and realised that it would be a fitting penance to leave his beloved Derry of the Oak Groves. So, although he was a stubborn and fiery man by nature, he was also an honourable one and so subjected himself to an exile where he would never again see his beautiful Ireland or step upon her soil.

Were all the tribute of Alba mine,

From its centre to its border,

I would prefer the site of one house

In the middle of fair Derry.

Columba sailed to Iona in a small currach in May AD 563. Before he left he stopped at a rock (now just below the Mercy Convent near Culmore) and took his last look at his beloved Derry. On that rock there are the deep marks of two footprints and one can see the city in the distance. At Shrove Head, the exit from Lough Foyle, he sang his farewell song;

A grey eye looks back to Erin

A grey eye full of tears.

Meanwhile, back in Ireland, the bards were gaining power, much to the concern of the chieftains, so in AD 575, Aedh, the High King of Ireland, called nobles, clerics, poets, storytellers and historians to a convention at the Hill of Mullagh. There he wanted to discuss and clarify and hopefully settle the matter of the power of the Irish bards in the Irish territory of Dalriada and the Scottish Kingdom of Dalriada.

St Columcille was invited to speak on behalf of the bards. It is easy to see how it was a dilemma for him because he had sworn never to see nor set foot on the soil of Ireland again. But legend tells us he found it difficult to refuse the bards. He solved the problem and salved his conscience by being blindfolded and by tying sods of Alba to his feet as he was led into the gathering. That very act made his word honourable and the Drumcait Convention, as it was later called, went down in history as a success.

An old story tells how Viking raiders desecrated Columcille’s grave on Iona. They plundered all of the graves in the cemetery, searching for valuables, since it was the custom to bury items valued in life by the owner with them when they died. Columcille’s coffin was made of fine oak and Mandan the Viking hoped that it would be lined with silver. Not being able to open it there and then, he brought it on board his ship, and when they were far out at sea he opened it. To his great disappointment there was no booty, only the beautifully preserved body of Columcille. In a fit of temper, Mandan closed the coffin and cast it into the sea, where a huge wave carried it away. Eventually, it was washed up on the Irish shore and the peasants who found it brought it to the Abbot of Down. The abbot ordered it to be opened and to his wonder and delight he found that the treasure buried with Colmcille was, in fact, his writings. The abbot was in no doubt that this was the body of Columcille and he ordered it to be buried in the same tomb with St Patrick and St Brigid. This was done with the greatest fervour and reverence by the monks.

One of the clearest examples of the love of Columba for Derry, and the people of Derry’s love for him, is the way he is remembered. On 9 June, his feast day, a congregation gathers at the Long Tower church and the bishop leads a service in the saint’s honour, then a procession of men and women dressed in white robes walk to St Columb’s Well where the water is blessed and ceremonially drunk. The people of Derry traditionally wear an oak leaf in their buttonholes in Columba’s memory.

A stained-glass window on the left side of St Columba’s church, Long Tower, bears the inscription of Columcille’s own words,

Crowded full of heaven’s angels

Is every leaf of the oaks of Derry.

The reason I love Derry is,

For its quietness, for its purity,

And for its crowds of white angels

From the one end to the other.

My Derry, my little oak grove,

My dwelling and my little cell;

O eternal God, in heaven above

Woe be to him who violates it.

2

DERRY’S COAT OF ARMS: THE STORY BEHIND THE SKELETON

The first question that visitors to Derry-Londonderry ask when they see the coat of arms is, ‘Why is there a skeleton on it?’ and that is usually followed by a second question, ‘Who is it?’

Heraldry is history in symbol form and the past history of the area is emblazoned in the coat of arms of the city that joins the St George Cross and the sword of St Paul on the top half. The skeleton and the castle have been variously explained away and many stories have grown up around them.

Some say that the skeleton represents Sir Cahir O’Doherty who held the rank of chieftain of Inishowen from the age of ten all the way down to the reign of James I. He was slain at Doon, near Kilmacrennan, in Tír Chonnail on Holy Thursday in 1607. Others think that the skeleton refers to the starvation experienced during the famous siege of 1688 to 1689.

In fact, the skeleton and the castle quartered on the coat of arms refer to a much earlier date than either of these incidents. In 1305, Richard de Burgo, Earl of Ulster, sometimes referred to as the Red Earl, built Greencastle, which was at that time called Caisleannua, or the New Castle, near Mobyle, Moville. It was later called North Burgh by the Anglo-Normans. North Burgh was a very large building, and Edward Bruce held his court in it in 1316 when he acted as King of Ireland.

From 1310 to 1311, Edward II of England granted Derry-Columcille, Bothmean, Mobyle, (Moville) Fahanmure and portions of Inch to the Red Earl. He occupied this area until his death, when his son, the Dun Earl of Ulster, as he was called, then occupied it. But this Dun Earl had a bitter argument with his cousin Sir Walter de Burgo; it is thought that the argument was over a woman. The Dun Earl seized Walter in a skirmish at Iskeheen, and then imprisoned him in the dungeon where he starved him to death in 1332.

A mark or ring on one of the dungeon’s pillars was supposed to have been made by the ring and chains that fettered him.

The daughter of the Red Earl, having been saved from drowning by this Walter de Burgo, attempted to carry food to him but, being detected, was hurled by her father from the castle walls and dashed to pieces.

The sister of Sir Walter de Burgo greatly resented what the Dun Earl had done to her brother, and encouraged her husband, De Maudeville, who owned extensive territory about Carrickfergus, to avenge her brother’s death. De Maudeville with his men found their opportunity to kill the earl when he was crossing the ford at Belfast, returning from a hunting expedition in Ards in 1333, so his cruelty was avenged.

The death of the Earl of Ulster was the destruction of the Anglo-Norman power in the north of Ireland. The entire estate of the Earl of Ulster was returned to the King of England and remained with him until James I ‘planted’ Derry in 1607 and it was then that the new coat of arms was granted.

THE LEGENDS OF

LOUGH FOYLE

3

THE BORROWED LAKE

Long, long ago through the curtain of mist we call Time, there lived two sisters on the western edge of the island of Ireland. There was great jealousy in the oldest sister – some even claim that she was a witch but who is to know? The younger sister was sweet of temper and beautiful of face and loved her older sister. She could refuse her nothing and the witch played upon that loving nature.

Now, the land in the north around the older sister’s abode became dried up and barren and nothing would grow for the sun had parched the land. An unusual happening in the island for this place knew much rain and wind that blew from the great ocean to the west.

The witch connived to get the beautiful lake that her young sister owned near the western shores. Oh, but she was a covetous one and no doubt.

She went to her sister and flattered her about her loveliness and how generous she was and how all the west looked up to her for her sweet nature. The young sister was so delighted that at last her sister seemed to show her affection that she blossomed. She grew even more lovely but didn’t the older witch-like sister’s heart grow darker and blacker and when she’d done enough of the flattery to ask for the lake she sidled up to the young girl one