School: Guaire (Xtian Bros.) (roll number 12772)
- Location:
- Gorey, Co. Wexford
- Teacher: S. Murphy
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0891, Page 021
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Guaire (Xtian Bros.)
- XML Page 021
- XML “Hunter Gowan”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- Hunter Gowan
"There were numerous poems composed about Hunter Gowan but I can now only remember a scrap of one of them aswell as a bit of a story about an encounter with Hunter Gowan long after his death"
From Ballinahown came Hunter Gowan
To slaughter Christian people
This brutal beast shot sire and priest
Or hanged them from the steeple
His ghost still haunts the place he once
Committed deeds most awful
By the graveyard wall at the evening fall
And he called it murder lawful.Jack the Cooper, the best fighting man in Wexford on his way home one dark night from Enniscorthy encountered the ghostly horseman who was none other than the infamous Hunter Gowan himself, the notorious priest-hunter and rebel-killer of 1798. The Cooper arriving at the old disused graveyard opposite Lett's gate, suddenly observed the red nostrils of what seemed to be the shape of a horse spitting fire. Halting the auld ass Jack reached for the flail he purchased that day in Enniscorthy and(continues on next page)
- Collector
- John Doyle
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Camolin, Co. Wexford
- Informant
- Mr M. Breen
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Ferns, Co. Wexford
