Collectanea. 187
table." The monument at the ford, below Kilmoremoy, a primitive church, connected with St. Patrick in the early Lives of the saint,^ is with probability supposed to be that called Fert Echtra in the legends. It was, however, called Leaha Liabadoir, after a supposed giant, as was believed in 1839; he was said to have been slain by a rival giant named Conan. The legend may still exist, but I never heard it on the ground. There is a giant's grave on Slievemore in Achill, but I doubt if the name is local, more probably it originated with some tourist or surveyor. I heard of no giants from Dunadearg down to Bofin ; there the tyrant " Bosco " may perhaps belong to that class.2 Bennabeola, the noble range of serrated peaks in Conne- mara, and Tombeola Abbey are said to commemorate a giant
- ' Beolo." The " Abbey," a Dominican House, founded about
1427 (or, as some say, a Carmelite House of 1356), built by a De Burgo, had been demolished early in the eighteenth century and the antiquary, Walter Harris, notes it as destroyed;^ the name Tuaim beola seems to imply the former existence of a tumulus. O'Flaherty in 1684 calls the " Twelve Pins " {recte Bens) " the 12 high mountains of Bennabeola, called by mariners the twelve stakes."
In 1878 there was a floating legend of a giant who lived on the north shore of Galway Bay and who threw the great trans- ported blocks into Inishmore (Aran) at another giant there. I do not know if he is the " big man " of Cuan an fhir mor (" Great Man's Bay "), called Fearmore by O'Flaherty. He was of great local repute, living long ago, and seizing and plun- dering all the vessels passing near his den. A large hollow rock was reputed to be his churn, Ctiinneog an fhir mhoir, and three other rocks, Brannradh an fhir mhoir, his cauldron, in which he used to boil whole the whales he caught for his dinner.-*
^ Oi-d. Sun'ey Letters, Mayo, vol. i. p. 70 ; Book of Armagh, p. 27.
" Proc. K.I. Acad. vol. xxxi. part 2, p. 57, p. 68.
" Wares Bishop (ed. Harris), vol. ii. p. 295.
- HIar Connaiight, and Hardiinan's notes thereon, pp. 63-4.
