Deer are very plentiful around here and the big wood near Dundrum, parish Ballintemple, Kilnamanagh Lower, is sometimes called the Deer Forest. There is hardly a time you go into the wood that you would not see a herd of deer roving round. In spite of that they are very hard to get near to shoot them.They resemble the bark of the trees in colour and they are off like the wind at slightest sound.
Once or twice every year there is a deer shoot but they hardly ever get more than three or four. They mostly eat a very coarse grass which grows plentifully in the wood called "deer-grass" and very often they do a great deal of damage by eating turnips and cabbage in the gardens and fields next the woods.
At this time of year the deer are very cross and it is safer not to go too near them but at other times they are perfectly harmless. The deer in the Dundrum wood are not a very big kind: they are the small common variety but occasionally you would see a big buck with branching horns.

the Titanic, and was saved when it went down. She was speaking on the not long ago, and she told how she got into a lifeboat just before the ship sank.
We have no very old people in Ballintemple. Mr Barron is the oldest, and he is in his seventieth year.
He lives not far from my home.

Priests. It was he that evicted the O Dwyer of Dundrum out of their estates.
There is a story told about Cromwell. One day Philip O Dwyer was coming out of the Church in Ballintemple and Cromwell asked him to hold his horse while he was mounting. That was to make little of O Dwyer. He was too proud and he would not hold the horse and Cromwell was angry and he hated the O'Dwyers.
Andrias Ó Briain
Cnoc-a-baile

This townland is called Weston's Lot. The way it got this name is, I am told, a party of Cromwellian soldiers were passing through Tipperary near Clongharp when the officer in charge said to the men that he would give all the land to any man that a horse could race over in a day. One soldier took up the bet and turned his horse to the West. After going over rough country the poor horse fell dead in a field near Phil Ryans (Martins) house. The rider of the horse was Weston. Hence thename Weston's Lot.Mrs. O'Brien also told me that a relative of hers died in Templemore and that the coffin was carried to Ballintemple Churchyard on the shoulders of the people leaving cars to follow behind.

Long ago there lived in the parish of Ballintemple a man named McGarron.
Mc Garron had his land near a lough one year he had oats in a field near the lough and in the harvest time his oats was eaten every night.
He complained to his neighbour that his cattle was destroying his oats and the man said that his cattle was not going near his oats. Still the oats continued to be eaten and trampled.
The men agreed to stay up at

The best known landlord in this part was Sir Thomas Butler whose son Sir Richard Butler now owns a large estate of some thousand acres in Ballintemple.
The family is one of the most ancient and illustrious in the country and for services rendered to the crown in olden times got lands in most parts of Ireland. They are the same family as Ormonds of Kilkenny.
There was a family called Butler of Broomville a place now occupied by Mr Halton and they also descended from the Kilkenny Butlers.

the priest went to say Mass in this Mr Andy Byrne's house but he would not be let do so as the King of Engalnd was staying there. The priest was very angry and he left the house saying that the house would be a den for rats and mice. Mass was then said by the side of the road and although it was a very windy day, not one of the candles blew out. Mass was also said in a cave under Mr Byrne's field (Ballinasillogue). Father Fitzsimons was the last priest to say Mas in Ballinasillogue.
Mass was also said on Kilahurler hill and there was a cross on the hill. There is also an underground cave near Mr Darcy's house (Ballintemple) and Mass was supposed to have been said there too during the Penal times.

about nine or ten years ago there lived in Ballintemple an old lady called Fairy Harriet. One day her son sold pigs in a fair. He asked the man to inform to whom he sold them if he had milk to feed them. He said he had and the next day his cows bad very little milk. The man then went to the priest, who told him his cows would give milk again if he gave them some of their own milk to drink. The next morning Fairy Harriet was seen around his house in the form of a hare and it is believed it was she who had taken the milk from the cows.
Collected by: Anne Galligan, Aughaconey, Ballinagh
From: Edward Galligan, (age about 50 years), Aughaconey, Ballinagh.

About ten years ago there lived in Ballintemple an old lady called Fairy Harriet. It is said she went around the country taking butter off the farmers' milk. There was a fairy fort beside her and used to spend some of her time about this fort at night. When she got every thing silent at night she used to steal away for the butter. It is said that when leaving her own house she used to sit on a riddle and say the words "riddle come round" and then she was away for the butter. It is also said that she used to change herself into a hare and that she had some way of getting at the churn in the house.
One early morning a man saw the hare running out of the dairy where the churn was kept. This man got a gun, put a crooked sixpence in it and shot the hare. It is said that Fairy Harriet was lame from that.
Collected by: Kathleen Martin, Kilnacreeva, Ballinagh

About twenty years ago on Saturday the last day of July there was a great thunder storm in my district. It was a very close dark hot day.
Before the storm a great darkness appeared in the sky. At fire oclock that evening the storm began and it lasted until eight oclock that night.
There was damage done to people, and cocks of hay in meadows in this district were burned by the lightning. In the townland of Ballintemple a girl was struck by it and it is said that only she was barefooted she would have been killed.

Away back in the nineteenth century. Ireland was persecuted with the English taking their property which ended up in a famine. Millions of people died from hunger and plague, and were found dying in the ditches.
There was a house in Cavan where the dead bodies were thrown until they got time to convey them to a trench that was prepared for them, and grass has not grown on it since.
There was also a hut in Boland's field called the "Fever Hospital" where the people were minded when they were attacked by the plaque which was caused by hunger and want.
Near Ballintemple Church there was a huge hole, called

My district is Ballinagh got its name from the mouth of the ford. It is situated in the diocese of Kilmore and in the parish of Ballintemple. It is in the barony of Clonmahon. The most common names are Brady and Reilly.An old woman named Mrs Mac Veety who is over seventy years of age living in the townland of Gortahork tells many old stories and tales.The Irish people were all over the world in America, Australia and Scotland. The houses in olden times were mostly thatched but nowadays the greater part of them are

There are many fairy forts throughout the country from which various townlands get their names.
In the townland of Lisduff which means the "black fort" there is a fort from which the townland gets its name. An old man who lives in the townland of Corragaren told the following story. When he was a small boy he was coming by this fort accompanied by an old man there were two gaps on this fort and they saw two little men with red jackets coming out on one of the gaps. They played some music and then went back on the other gap.
There is another fairy fort in the parish of Ballintemple and one morning (when there were some men going to

There was an old chapel in Mr. James McGahern's field of Bruskey in the Penal Times. When Mass was being said there a crowd of yeoman came in to the chapel and took the priest of the altar Where they killed him is now known.
It is thought that Mass was said on McCabes rock of Carrigan. Ballintemple is so called because it was there the parish chapel was until Cromwell's time. It was then destroyed. It was situated in the present old graveyard.
Some of the Franciscan missionaries had a monastery beside where the creamer is situated in Bruskey at present. There is a small field belonging to Mr. Peter Smith and is known as the "Friars Garden". There is also an old cave there where it is thought Mass was said in the Penal Times. The opening to it is at the garden. The missionaries were hunted the time of Queen Elizabeth. The monastery was knocked when the missionaries left it. They used the cave as a hiding place.

A Collection of Riddles
Q There is a little house and it wouldnt hold a a mouse and it has as many windows as a Lord Mayor's house.
A A thimble
Q What walks up and down the stairs with its head down?
A A nail in your boot.
Q What sleeps in the corner with its finger in its eye?
A The brook.
Q Chip, Chip, Cherry, all the men in Derry wouldn climb Chip Chip Cherry.
A The smoke.
Q What has several eyes and cant see.
A The brook.
Q A big bellied father a small bellied mother and three children just like each other.
A A pot.
These riddles were told to me by my brother
Sam Bennett,
Ballintemple,
Ballinagh,
Co. Cavan.
Written by Eliza Bennett,
Ballintemple, N.S.,

A Collection of Riddles
Q Alive in the front dead in the middle and baptized behind?
A A man ploughing.
Q A leaper of ditches, a clipper of thorns, a little cow, with a pair of leather horns.
A A Hare.
Q Two feet on the ground, three over head, the living, in the mouth of the dead.
A A man with a pot on his head.
Q How many wells would make a river.?
A One if big enough.
These riddles were told me by my brother
John Cown,
Aughaewlia,
Ballintemple,
Ballinagh
Co. Cavan.
Written by Olive Cowan,
Ballintemple N.S.

The name of my townland is Coolbawn. It is situated in the barony of Clonmahon and in the parish of Ballintemple. There are seven families and forty - two people living in it.
The family most common in it is "Fitzpatricks". There are two people over seventy years living in it. They are not much good at telling stories. There is the ruins of one old house called by nickname "Rosies Walls". The land is rocky in Coolbawn and contains a lot of whins.
There are no rivers or lakes in it but there are many streams.

In the year 1820 a terrible fever broke out in this country; it was called "The Black fever". There was a very big population in Ireland in them days so the fever caused so much death that it was nearly impossible to bury them.
All the people in Ballinagh to the fever and the men came from other places to bury them. They were paid at the rate of 3 1/2d per day. The people were different in them days. They had no coffins they used to put the dead bodies in canvas bags. The people died so fast that they buried them as soon as the life left them, as many as 100 in one day.
These men were called sack-a-mups. There were not many horses to be had that time and the men were so strong that they carried on their backs to Ballintemple graveyard.

Most marriages take place during Shrove or on Shrove Tuesday. May is the most unlucky month to get married because as the ancient proverb says, "marry in May and you'll rue the day." Also the last three days of the week are very unlucky, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. "Monday for health, Tuesday for wealth, Wednesday the best day of all, Thursday for losses, Friday for crosses and Saturday no day at all," says the rime.
Matches were made in every house that there were marriagable boys or girls, in this district long ago. Money is usually given as dowry nowadays, but, long ago they usually gave cattle or land.
The late Rev. Father Conn Reilly of Ballintemple administered the Sacrament of Matrimony in the house of the brides parents about seventy years ago.

himself at the head of his men, his presence bringing them renewed courage and after a stubborn fight they were forced (the orangemen) up the Old Road. The Catholics kept pursuing them until on Tullyboy Bridge young Captain Galligan got a bullet which proved fatal in a few minutes. His sorrow stricken comrades sadly conveyed his dead body back to the village of Kilnaleck. He was waked in a house in the town now inhabited by Patrick Keogh. "The Peep of Day" Boys came to his wake and would go over to his corpse, catch him by the hair of the head and say in dension "Are you a defender now".
Captain Gosling gave orders that the funeral should take place at 2' oclock p.m. on the third day but the Catholics too well knew what that meant. The "Peep of Day Boys" would again congregate and massacre the Catholics they decided to convey the body to Ballintemple Old graveyard and have it buried in the early morning. Accordingly The Catholics conveyed the body to the appointed cemetery in the grey dawn of the early morning.