One day Denis Browne was in Ballinrobe and he was hanging the people. He was engaged to a girl named Regan and this day he was after hanging her father. When she heard that her father was being hanged she said that she would have revenge on him. They had a draper shop at this time and in it were some large rolls of tweed. At noon as she was going to her dinner she saw Denis Browne and she invited him to dinner. She let on that she was inviting him unknown to her mother. Their house was a three storey house

There was a man named James Mannion, Dunmacream, Irishtown who was able to take a sack containing six and seven hundred weight. Tom Melvin of Carrinlough could mow two English acres in one day. Catherine Prendregast of Bawneighter walked to Ballinrobe and home again.There was one or two more women in the district who could walk to Tuam and back and also to Claremorris. Mrs Hynes of Carrinlough Irishtown was also a very good walker. Michael

Once upon a time there lived a man in Ballyhaunis who went to Ballinrobe for porter. His name was Mr. Teague. At that time the turlough used to overflow and flood the road. When the man was returning, the water was on the road as he came out of the cart. Then the horse reared and fell into the mearing drain between Cullane and Crimlin. The man was saved. The cows and calves went to drink next morning. They got drunk.

The people call the road that goes to Ballinrobe the Brookhill Road because it passes through Brookhill. The road going through Cloonconnor is called the Bog Road because that district was a bog at one time. The road going to Balla is called the Claremount Road because it goes through Claremount. The people call the road going to Ballindine the Workhouse Road because it passes the old Workhouse - now the Claremorris Bacon Factory. On the Workhouse Road opset English's house there is a small stone cross to the memory of Mr. Kilkelly who was shot there. His name and the year he was shot is on it. In Ballykinave there a big stone to mark the place where a brother of Lord Oranmore and Browne was accidentally shot while out shooting. On the Balla Road at Brize there is a large stone where Mr. John Coghlan was killed off his race-horse. Near the bridge from which the town got its name - Clár-Cloinne-Muiris, there was until a few years ago a big stone where Mr. McNamara from Dromady was killed off his horse.

There is a road in Claremorris called Bóthair Dub it got its name from a black dog who used to be seen at a gate every night a great many years ago. This road goes out through Cloonconnor and on to Tuam.
During the famine in Ireland in 1846 a great many poor men built a canal to connect Galway with Ballinrobe but it was only half made when the famine started to press hard on the Irish. The men working on it got four pence a day and when they wanted food they sent an order to the town nearest to them and the people gave it to them.

The name of my district is Cuslough. It means the "foot of the lake". My district is in the parish of Ballinrobe and in the barony of Kilmaine. There are fifteen houses in my district now and there were thirty in it long ago. There are five slated houses in my village and there were none long ago. The most common sir name in my village is Mellette and Sheridan. There are not many people over seventy years but all that are can tell Irish and English stories.

be nineteen or twenty years of age. When the Nationals schools were first built the children had to write on slates. The first teacher who taught in Cloonliffen school was a man named Swords from Ballinrobe.

About a mile from Ballinrobe on the left hand side of the road there stands a blessed well. The Blessed Virgin Mary was seen by some of the people that lived near the place. The wall is whitewashed and people go there every year on the 15th of August. Anybody that gets cured leave some old stick or a pen. First it was on the right hand side of the road but it is said that some one abused it and it went from one side of the road to the other.

Long ago a farmer went to Ballinrobe to sell a load of potatoes. The potatoes were named "Protestants." It happened that one of his customers was a Protestant Clergyman.
He remarked to the farmer that he was surprised Catholics used those potatoes owning to their name. The farmer replied "Sure we boil the "devil" out of them before we eat them."

burned.
During the Winter of eighteen seventy eight there was a great frost. The Corrib was frozen and the people brought turf from Derries to Billypark. It is also stated that Lake View below Ballinrobe was frozen and that a gentleman named Walshe rode across it in his coach drawn by a pair of horses.

The Irish for Roxboro is "Ceara clochar". Cearra clochar means the convent made of rocks. Long ago there was an old convent in Roxboro.
It was built with big rocks. The ruins of it are to be seen to day. it is about three and a half miles north of Ballinrobe.

hedge in Thomastown, and rooted it up. There was a line of barbed wire on the hedge. the lightning ran along the wire and burned it. There was a heavy fall of rain after the big wind. There was a big flood near Ballinrobe. It was two feet deep. There was a man passing along the road. When he came to the flood he went up on the wall. He slipped off and fell into the water. There is a big stone path where the flood was.

There was a landlord living in Creagh long ago. His name was Colonel Knox. He owned the town of Ballinrobe and the land adjoining it. He was very cruel to his tenants and any one that did not pay the rent the day he ordered he evicted them. There was a line of houses along the road. One day he evicted all his tenants. Then he ordered all the houses to be tumbled down that day. The only sign of life was a poor unfortunate goose who was deprived of her nest.

A man named Michael Mahon of Killawalla was going to Ballinrobe with turf one evening at six o'clock. When he went to get the horse in the stable he saw a lot of lights just at the place where he was going to get the turf. He got afraid and returned to the house. He bolted the door and sat at the fire until it was day light and then he went to the place where he saw the light and there was no track of it. It is believed there is a fairy fort in that place and the fairies come out to sing and dance there every night.

The likes of it there never was in the Ballinrobe Townhall.II
Such singing and such dancing there never was before
And as for drink they will be falling on the floor
From Headford town to Ballinrobe and all the way from Tuam
The gents they are invited by our gallant, tailor Noone
And out from Cong they all will throng the Neale and Kilmaine
And faith the boys and girls of Cross at home they won’t remain.III
The stonecutters and masons, the slaters one and all
Each of them has a ticket for the New Chapel Ball.
The ladies are in trouble getting ready for the day
Outfit one another in the most fashionable way.

323
Poets
Nosey was an old man who used to stay in Ballinrobe. He used to compose songs and get them printed and sell them. He used o be making songs on fair days and market days and people used to give him money.
He composed a song about a priest who left Ballinrobe named Father Lavelle.
This is the song,
Father Pat is gone from us
what will we do a bron
Will he e'er come back again
or will we be alone
Will he e'er come back again
to his loving flock,
To preach to us the heavenly
words was founded on the rock

408
Smiths an Forges
Pat Corcoran is a smith in Ballygarris.
There is a one in Hollymount named Thomas ODonnell and also two in Ballinrobe, Wille Walsh and John O Malley.
Pat Corcoran shoes horses and asses and put tires on carts
The Hollymount smith and the Ballinrobe smiths do the same work.
The tools they use are hammers, pincers and other tools.
All smiths have bellows for blowing the fire.
Delia Moloney,
Kilvendoney, Hollymount
Got from, Pat Moloney, (65)
Kilvendoney

One night, Mike Gilmore (Killamonagh) was going to the fair of Ballinrobe with himself. He was very lonely, and at last about three miles below Shrule a man came along with a white horse and car. He gave him a seat and brought him to a house, and left him in it. When he went in, all the people went out, and left him with himself.
He was a long time waiting and at last he went out, and he did not know where to go. As he came out who did he meet but my father (James McDermott) He knew him at once, and he went to the fair with him. Mike GIlmore told him what had happened to him, and my father told him they were fairies and that was the reason they went out of the house. My father told him he met a man himself with a white horse and car. He offered him a seat but he would not go with him, and then he disappeared.

There was a weaver living in Derryfadda where Geofrey Madden is living now. A regiment of horse soldiers came from Derrew fort across Cooley Lake walking on the water.
When they came to the road they turned up the Ballinrobe way and the weaver ( I can't think of his name now) followed up the last of them until they came right fornint his own house. He struck his foot there against what he thought was a stone. He put down his hand to see if his shoe was injured and when he looked up there were no soldiers on the road.
He went into the house and sat on a stool by the fire to take his supper. He had spuds and a mug of buttermilk for supper. As he was going to take his supper a block of bog dale was thrown down from the loft into the fire and scattered the fire round the house. He said "If I go up I'll bloody soon shift ye out of that" With that two more blocks were thrown from the loft into the fire.

(and) they would have churns of butter milk left along the side of the road and they would sell it to the people as they were going to the fair.
In the green on the fair day there would not be a place for the people to stand up. They used to be 25 or 30 tents selling drink and there were four tents where the people would get their din-ner. Two of the tents came from Ballyglass and one came from Ballinrobe and the other came from Nail. They would get their fill of bread and meat and tea or soup whichever they liked for six pence. People used to come for to get this dinner from the neighbouring villages.