In the MS. marked R.I.A. 23/E. 13 in the Roy' Ir. Ac., there is a long poem describing such a fairy hurling-match as the one in the story, only the fairies described as the shiagh, or host, wore plaids and bonnets, like Highlanders. After the hurling the fairies have a hunt, in which the poet takes part, and they swept with great rapidity through half Ireland. The poem ends with the line—
"'S gur shiubhail me na cûig cúig cûige's gan fúm acht buachallân buidhe;"
"and I had travelled the five provinces with nothing under me but a yellow bohalawn (rag-weed)."—[Note by Mr. Douglas Hyde.]
Father John O'Hart.—Page [220].
Father O'Rorke is the priest of the parishes of Ballysadare and Kilvarnet, and it is from his learnedly and faithfully and sympathetically written history of these parishes that I have taken the story of Father John, who had been priest of these parishes, dying in the year 1739. Coloony is a village in Kilvarnet.
Some sayings of Father John's have come down. Once when he was sorrowing greatly for the death of his brother, the people said to him, "Why do you sorrow so for your brother when you forbid us to keen?" "Nature," he answered, "forces me, but ye force nature." His memory and influence survives, in the fact that to the present day there has been no keening in Coloony.
He was a friend of the celebrated poet and musician, Carolan.