Volume: CBÉ 0407 (Part 2)
- Date
- 1937
- Collector
- Location
Archival Reference
The Main Manuscript Collection, Volume 0407, Page 0251
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- Latter expression is a reference to the common saying 'as rich as Damer'
Mise: Who was Damer
M. Flood: Damer was a chandler in Cromwell's army. It was his business to buy the tallow and make the candles. He went to Thurles one day and went into the tallow merchant's store. He was feeling the barrel and picking out the heaviest ones. He came on one very heavy cask standing by itself. He said to himself he'd have that one anyway. So, when there was nobody looking he rolled it over and put it in the middle of the barrel he had picked out. He paid his bill and loaded the tallow on his MULES. He was barely gone when the owner of the store missed the barrel but what could he do? It was gone with Cromwell's soldiers. It was a case of good-day to you. That's how Damer started collecting his gold.
Stranger: What was in the barrel?
M Flood It seems that some time previous when the people of Cashel heard that Cromwell was coming. They knew that he would rob the chapels and monasteries and the convents so they collected all the sacred vessels and all the treasures belonging to the church and put them into a barrel of tallow, thinking that that was the safest possible place to(continues on next page)
