An extract of a story written by John Keegan of Laois, published in Dolman's Magazine September 1846. Source: John Keegan Selected Works, published by Galmoy press: ISBN 0 9531583 0 6 edited by Tony Delaney 1997 The Dihreochs Legacy Scattered over the length and breadth of 'the Green Isle', are numerous, commodious, and many beautiful, Roman Catholic chapels and houses of public worship. The ugly, uncouth thatched sheelings of the last century have nearly all disappeared, and are replaced by substantial edifices of stone and mortar, with slated or tiled roofs, well-glazed windows, and in many instances, with light graceful spires or plain massive steeples and bells. The Catholic priest is no longer hunted as a beast of prey through the bogs and fastnesses of his native land, nor is the faithful, patient Catholic peasant compelled, as in the days of old, to steal to the lonely glen or mountain cavern, to 'bear the word of God', or bend his knee to worship in the manner of his ancestors - those sleeping martyrs who wept and bled, and suffered persecutions for 'the faith that was in them', that one true faith which they kept with undying fidelity, and transmitted to their children of the present and future generations. The Irish Catholic can now breathe as freely as any other of his fellow-subjects, and when he gazes on the grey steeple of the village chapel, and hears through the sacred haze of the Sabbath morning, the deep-pealing bell calling the gay, light-hearted peasantry to early mass, he may well-uphold his brow in triumph and pour forth his thankfulness to that providence which preserved to the old 'Isle of Saints', that saying faith, without which there is no true happiness on earth, and no final blessing from above. Though plain and small, one of the prettiest and most convenient of those rural Catholic chapels is that of Shanaboe, in the Queens County, the beautiful little 'house of God', where the writer of this tale some five-and-twenty years ago, first bent his tiny knees in public worship, and where, ever since, he has appeared each Sabbath, to join in prayer and sacrifice with the friends and playmates of his childhood and youth. This chapel possesses peculiar attractions, and is invested with peculiar interest. Situated in a retired, but beautiful and highly-improved district of country - a district too, eminently rich in antiquarian remains and historic associations; it forms a pleasing and a soothing feature in the scene. At a little distance eastward flows in calm unruffled tranquility, the silver waters of the river Nore, its banks studded, in the vicinity, with monastic and military ruins. In this neighbourhood, too, will be found the cave of the Firbolg, the rath of the Dane, the Norman castle, and Cromwellian bawn; whilst about a mile westwards lies the classic vale of Gurtnaclea - i.e. 'the plain of wattles, or the plain of stakes', where the Mac Giolia Phadruig, dynast of Ossory, treacherously led his warriors to way-lay the Dalcassian heroes on their return from the battle of Clontarf But independent of these considerations, this chapel boasts another matter which must render the place highly interesting to the traveller, the virtuoso, the man of taste, and the lover of the mysterious and the curious. This is a splendid portrait of St. Peter, holding the keys in the usual position, encased in a richly gilt frame. This magnificent picture is attributed to different masters; but at all events, it is of considerable antiquity, and allowed by competent judges to be one of the finest paintings in the British islands, or perhaps in Europe. Besides its inimitable beauty, this picture derives very much interest from the romantic circumstances attending its introduction to the little chapel, of which it now forms such a rare ornament. These incidents I am about to relate: they have never before met the public eye, and I shall offer no introductory remark farther than to say, that how improbable or strange so-ever my story may appear, the truth of the leading features or circumstances of the narrative, cannot, as far as I can learn, be, even for a moment, disputed. About forty years ago, one dreadful day in mid-winter, an old man, feeble and bending, tottered, with the aid of a long iron-shod wattle, which he carried in his withered hand, to the door of a snug-looking public-house, which then stood on the 'cross, or four-roads' of the village of Shanahoe. The stranger's step was slow and painful, for he was faint and way-worn, and the biting west-wind, and the cutting cold sleet-shower, was driving full bang in his pale face, as he struggled to open the door of the 'Fighting Cocks'. "God bless all here", said the old man in Gaelic as he stood on the threshold, and cast a wistful glance on the brilliant turf fire which blazed so red and so tempting on the clean well-swept hearth of the village hostelry. "Amen, - all but the cat and the dog" replied Mrs. Carwell gruffly as she poked her red fat face from the chimney-corner to scrutinize the appearance of the stranger. "Ah then, mistress agrah, for the love of God and His Virgin Mother, would you let me in to-night to your chimney-corner, for in troth I am not able any longer to endure the piercing severity this tremendous blast that's blowing." "Indeed, and I will not," replied the woman, unceremoniously. "A public-house is no place for strollers, and even if it were, I have no accommodation for you at this present." "No way for me, is it," echoed the old man. "I want nothing but the shelter of your roof until morning. I have my own blanket in this little wallet on my back, and I have as many cold potatoes as will for my supper," and he exhibited his miserable stock of provisions a tin can which hung from a horse-hair girdle, beneath the tattery remnants of his old grey frieze bang-up. "Who are you, or what are you, or what keeps you out on Shaugh-rawn this wicked-blowing day?'" asked the landlady. "As to who I am," replied the wanderer, "it matters little. I am a Dihreoch by profession, and did not sleep two nights endwise in the same house these twenty years. I never troubled you before, and probably never will again; so let me in to-night, and may God never shut the gate of paradise before your soul." "Go and try at Denny Bergan's, he has a good warrant to give lodgings to shoolers," said the woman. "Jem Rooney, the tinker, and his whole retinue are there to-night" said Mrs. Carwell's husband, speaking in an under-tone from the fire-place. "Aye, and Mat Carroll's is crammed, from the hearth to the dresser, with boccoughs and beggars, going to the fair of Ballinakill to-morrow," observed a little chubby-face gorsoon, who was, devouring a piece of bread and butter at his father's knee in the warm corner. "The worse luck now, the better to-morrow," said the unfeeling woman, accompanying her observation with a signal to the old man that his presence at her door was no longer desirable. "Must I go?" asked the wretched man, whilst his palsied limbs shook with cold and weariness, and a big tear rolled slowly downhis furrowed cheek. "Aye, while your shoes are good," answered the hardened Mrs. Carwell. "Shoes inagh," said the trembling stranger. "Shoes! I did not know the comfort of shoe or stocking these twenty long years and more and he looked as if mechanically at his thin legs and naked feet, -, blistered with travel, and bloody with that cutting December wind "To make a long story short," resumed the woman with increasing impetuosity: "I want no further conversation with you or any Skibbeeya like you. Be off in a jiffey, or I will set the dog after you,, and she commenced calling the mastiff, which slumbered in the ashes, as if about to put her threat into instant execution. Without a word of reproach or remonstrance, the old man hobbit away from the door. Mrs. Carwell popped her head out in the storm to gaze on his woe-begone figure, and as she viewed him, an unusual. violent gust of wind turned up the tattered skirts of his old coat, an exhibited his naked legs and thighs to observation. "Fair weather after you and snow to your heels," cried the heartless wretch, and as she closed the door her laughter at the supposed smartness of her rude joke, mingled with the melancholy wailing of the storm, which as now momentarily increasing. And the wind whistled and the snow fell bleakly, and the night came down dark and dreary on the lonely plains around. The door and windows of the 'Fighting Cocks' were secured against the hissing storm; the fire burned with a redder and a merrier glow; a good jug of punch smoked on the little table, at either side of which sat Mr Carwell and her 'good man' enjoying the comforts of the scene; but alas! they thought not of the abandoned condition of the poor pilgrim whom they had so rudely turned from their door to face the 'pitiless peltings' of that wild winter's tempest. The night set in quickly, and it was as dark and as dismal a one as ever descended from heaven. Shooler: Strolling beggars, wanderers, pickpockets, persons of suspicious character. Boccoughs are of this class; but that term is usually applied to the blind, crippled and the mutilated. Skibbeya: Jack Ketch the common hangman, but vulgularly used to represent a big, ugly, naked, strolling beggar man.