School: Killea (roll number 3219)
- Location:
- Killea, Co. Leitrim
- Teacher: Séamus Mac Coilín
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0195, Page 225
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- (continued from previous page)keeping her gaze fixed steadily upon him, for it is said that if you lift your eye off a lepreachan he will disappear. She demanded his purse of gold. The lepreachan seeing no escape told her that the purse was under the tree to which the goat was tied. The woman after deciding that it was too late to look for it that night let the lepreachan go and took the goat home leaving the rope on the tree as a mark. She went home happy that evening as she thought she would be always rich. Next morning she got up at daybreak and went with her husband to get the hold. They brought spdes and shovels to dig for it. When they reached the tree where the gold was to their disappointment they found a wood of hazel trees all alike and even of the same height and size with a rope round each of them similar to the one with which the goat was tied. As they did not know which was the right tree they returned home very sadly. From that day to this, this townland is called Killea or in Irish Coill Liath which means grey wood.
- Collector
- Nellie Gallagher
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Glenkeel, Co. Leitrim
- Informant
- Patrick Rourke
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Gortnaderrary, Co. Leitrim
