makes old people young. The exact locality is unknown, as the people who have gone to use it have never been seen again. Lismulbreeda cave, in Dromcliff parish and near the Kilrush road, is marked all over its soft sandstone sides and roof with crosses, figures, and initials, which it is considered lucky to cut on a visit. Horses are said to have come out of the Kilcorney cave, and left descendants in the valley below.[1] The caves of the Broc-sidh and Faracat have already been mentioned.[2] There is a tale of a wild boar in a cave some miles to the north-east of Feakle.
Dolmens.—These were supposed to be giants' graves, and, if called "altars," the word was understood in a Christian sense, with a belief that they had been used for the mass during the prevalence of the cruel penal laws. For example, Altoir Ultach was said to be named from an Ulster priest who served the mass there in the eighteenth century because the nearest magistrates were more tolerant than those of the north.[3] There is no evidence of any general popular belief that they were pagan altars, such an idea, where it existed, being derived from the "learned ignorance" of local gentry. The dolmens were, and are, called leaba (labba, "bed") and leaba Diarmuid agus Grainne (lobba 'iermuth a'us grannya) from the elopement of those famous lovers. Legend on the west coast of Clare told that Diarmuid, finding that Finn could learn all the movements of his wife by biting his prophetic thumb, put seaweed on the cover of the dolmen. Finn, finding that seaweed was over the lovers, imagined
- ↑ This cave was famous in the eighteenth century for throwing out floods of water full of fish—(cf. inter alia, Gough's Camden),—and this is remembered traditionally, although the floods have been rare and insignificant since 1833. Other similar phenomena are recorded in Irish annals; e.g. in the Ulster Annals in 759 "Bennmuilt poured forth a stream with fishes," and in 867 "a strange eruption of water from Sliabh Cualann with little black fishes."
- ↑ Vol. xxi., pp. 180, 183, 479. The Faracat, according to The Adventures of the Three Sons of Thorailbh, was a monstrous cat having a crescent on its forehead and a sharp nail in its tail.
- ↑ In fact, the Westropps, Drews, and Patersons acted as trustees under friendly "Protestant discoveries" to preserve the properties of the O'Briens, Macnamaras, and Barretts from the hostile effect of the laws, c. 1730-90.
