There does be a gathering on the same Sunday at Dún Padraig or Downpatrick at the well which is called Tobar Brighde or Briget's Well beside Cill Brighde, and close to Dún Briste; but, love of my heart, since the English jargon began a short time ago in that place the old Christian custom of the Christians is almost utterly gone off.
There now ye have it as I got it, and if ye don't like it add to it your complaints.[16]
MARY'S WELL.
PREFACE.
The following story I got from Proinsias O'Conchubhait when he was in Athlone about fifteen years ago, and he heard it from a woman who herself came from Ballintubber, Co. Mayo. This Ballintubber is not to be confounded with the Roscommon place of the same name, which is called in Irish Baile-an-tobair Ui Chonchubhair, or O'Conor's Ballintubber. The Mayo Ballintubber is celebrated for its splendid Abbey, founded by one of the Stauntons, a tribe who took the name of Mac a mhilidh (Mac-a-Veely or Mac Evilly) in Irish. The prophesy is current in Mayo that when the abbey is re-roofed Ireland will be free. My friend, Colonel Maurice Moore, told me that when he was a young boy he often wondered why the people did not roof the abbey, and so free Ireland without any more trouble. The tomb of the notorious Shaun na Sagart, the priest-hunter, which is not far away from it, is still pointed out by the people. It is probably he who is the "spy" in the following story, although his name is not mentioned. He belonged to a class who appear to have made it their business to track down priests and friars, which is alluded to in the following lines:
It is no use for me to be saying it,
Seeing your kinship with Donough-of-the-priest
And with Owen-of-the-cards his father,
With the people who used to cut off heads
To put them into leather bags,
To bring them down with them to the city,
And to bring home the gold they got for them,
For sustenance for wives and children.
It will be noticed that it was Mary Mother who put the curing of the Blind into this well, and Owen O Duffy, the poet, says of her that she is