School: Tobinstown, Tullow
- Location:
- Tobinstown, Co. Carlow
- Teacher: Bean Uí Ghrádaigh
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0910, Page 047
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- XML School: Tobinstown, Tullow
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- XML “The Devil and Cards”
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- There was a man one time named Patrick Byrne, he lived in Liscolman and died about ten years ago.He was a carpenter. On his way from work he called to a neighbours house to play cards.When he was getting in on his pathway one night to go home from the card party, he met a strange man who asked him "had he got any cards" and the man said that he had. The stranger said "He would play him a twenty five for ten shillings" and the man said we have got neither a table nor a candle, but the stranger said. "He had both".They played away for a while until Mr. Byrne dropped a card, while picking it up he saw the clover foot then he knew. it was with the devil that he had been playing. Mr. Byrne said that he would play no more cards to night and the devil said - "He would either have to play it out or fight it out".The man was a carpenter and he had tools with him and among them he had a saw he took the steel saw and he beat the devil with it. the day after he went and told the priest about it and the priest said that was not himself that beat the devil but his faith. the priest warned him never to play cards or carry them about him again. Patrick Byrne of Liscolman told this story to my father about fifteen years ago.
- Collector
- Lizzie Curran
- Gender
- Female
- Age
- 11
- Informant
- Patrick Byrne
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Liscolman, Co. Wicklow
