Griffin, of men starting seaward to reach its fairy shores, and never returning.
Another magic island was Kilstuitheen, or Kilstuiffen, in Liscannor Bay. On the southern shore, in 1839, there was said to have been an ecclesiastical city swallowed up by the earthquake that split Innis Fitae into the present three islands,[1] which suggests derivation from O'Conor's then recent version of the various Irish Annals. On the northern shore the tradition was fuller. Kilstuitheen sank when its chieftain lost its golden key in battle, nor will it be restored until the key is recovered from its hiding place, some say, under the ogham-inscribed gravestone of "Conan" on Mount Callan. (When that place was dug out only bones and rusted iron were found.)[2] The island, with its golden-roofed palaces, churches, and towers, may at times be seen shining far below the waves, but once in seven years it rises above them, and those who see it then are said to die before its next appearance. The fishermen
"point how high the billows roll above lost Kilsafeen,
Its palaces and towers of pride
All buried in the rushing tide
And deep-sea waters green."[3]
Comyn, in The Adventures of the Three Sons of Thorailbh (1750), connects it with the raid of Crochaun, Dahlin, and Sal in the time of Finn and their defeat of Ruidin, Ceannir, and Stuithin. Legend near Lehinch places the battle at Bohercrochaun. A pretty legend in 1878 told how those rowing over the sunken island smell the flowers of its fields through the waters.[4]
- ↑ Annals of Ulster, Clonmacnoise, and the Four Masters; Ordnance Survey Letters, (Co. Clare), vol. i., p. 304.
- ↑ The Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, ser. ii., vol. i. (1872), pp. 269 et seq.
- ↑ Monks of Kilcrea.
- ↑ Ordnance Survey Letters, (Co. Clare), vol. i., pp. 300-4, vol. ii., pp. 74, 99; Handbook to Lisdoonvarna (1896), p. 64; The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland', vol. xxx., p. 289; Journal of the Limerick Field Club, vol. iii., p. 197, where I have collected the materials at some length. Other sunken monasteries and churches are alleged at Monaster Letteragh, off the coast of Mayo, and the Cantillons' Church in Ballyheigue Bay in Kerry. I do not regard the story in the Irish Penny Journal, vol. i., p. 362, by J. Geraghty MacTeague, as anything but a work of fiction; it is very artificial,
