Old stories tell us that there were three brothers, who became hermits. They were named Illaun, Aidan and Buggan. They established cells at Islandeady, Glenisland and Glenhest, which are called after them.
In the townland of Knockbawn, history tells us, there are the ruins of an old church, beside Kileen, the cemetery in Glenisland. Near the cemetery is little ruin in the adjoining field. This is reputed to have been the hermits cell, perhaps a bee hive hut, or a cabin “of clay and wattles made”. Close by reputedly grew an Ash tree which fell into decay about 1900 and which long since disappeared. It was replaced by another Ash tree which was held in veneration by local people. That too, it seems, has gone and I am unable to locate it.
The Ash and the Yew were held as sacred trees by the “Old People” of Glenisland, perhaps an echo from Pagan times.
About 150 yd. from the hermits dwelling there is a double cupped stone by a pool on the river called Pollanass (pool of the waterfall). These are reputed to be the marks of the hermit knees. Local tradition once had as that the hermit left his cell each day, and prayed at this place, close to which grew a yew tree. There it is said he would pass from time to time into a deep trance and foretell the future. Unfortunately, only one of those prophecies exist, that I am aware of. That was that “the pookas and dark faced men who ruled the darkness and even the “Good People” themselves would be forced from the Glen by the coming of the Light”. Whether this refers to the Light of religion or the Light of the ESB I do not know.That Yew Tree was swept away in 1828 by a huge flood following a cloud burst on the slopes of the adjoining mountains Cruagh, Birreen and Chrough Moyle.
Close to that traditional holy spot at Pollanass there is a waterfall which is not very extraordinary, except for two remarkable excavations that the cascade has made in the rock foundation, which is of extreme hardness and as slippery as glass.Where the water descends it is excavated to potholes on the rock 3 ft. in diameter and 2 ft. deep. According to the information handed down from father to son, and written down by folklorists, these potholes have been present for centuries, and have got no deeper and wider. Possibly the explanation for the phenomenon, is there were two soft knuckles generally found in rocks, and the descending water washed them away.
In those times it was believed that the water had cure curative qualities, and delicate children and adults were brought and bathed in it. This was, I suppose, because it was located beside the holy place of the hermit. It was supposed to be very good for couples wanting to start a family, and also diseases of the mouth or skin.
The tradition was to bathe in the water and then to kneel in the place of the saints knees or nearby and bring his image to mind, then one made a request for the cure required.
There was a tradition that those who came for the cure left a present at the Yew Tree, growing over the hermit’s place of prayer at the cupped stones. This present was a piece of clothing which they tied to tree. It was claimed that it was festooned with rags of time the flood swept it away in 1828. It was said to me that people came from far and wide for this pilgrimage “from Burrishhoole and Erris and beyond Carra”
In that flood of 1828, which rose to a height of 20 ft. in the river running to Beltra Lake, a number of cattle, but no human lives were lost. A child in the cradle was swept away and a search party, looking for the child’s body, heard a baby crying at the Black Rock.
They looked up and found the child still alive, still in its cradle, rocking in the branches of the tree about 20 ft. up. Sadly they don’t say who the child was.

Tony Deffely

The local landlord was Sir Roger William Henry Palmer. He served in the Crimean war. He married a clergyman's daughter. He had three shooting lodges namely Keenagh Lodge, Letterbrick Lodge and Glenisland Lodge. Letterbrick Lodge is now used as a private residence while Glenisland Lodge is now a Guards' Barrack. Sir Rodger was a good landlord but it is said that he had a bad agent Frank O'Donnell from Castlebar. It is said that once as he going along the road he saw a piece of bog tilled and he caused the rent to be raised on it's owner.

from: The Schools' Collection, Duchas.ie

This is a collection of folklore compiled by schoolchildren in Ireland in the 1930s. Learn more »

GLENISLAND'S FOLK HERO IN THE LAND DOWN UNDER

GLENISLAND'S FOLK HERO IN THE LAND DOWN UNDER

Jack Reilly (Riley) was born in 1841 in Cashel, Glenisland, Castlebar, Co. Mayo, He was the son of Dan Reilly (Riley) and Anne (nee Murray). He grew up in Cashel during the Famine and saw starvation, disease, eviction and emigration rip through his locality. His sister Mary Anne, emigrated to Australia and married a man called Jones who established a tailoring business at Day St, Omeo. Omeo is about 400km North East of Melbourne. It is a pioneering mountain town on the Great Alpine Road that is now known for its gold mining history, high country cattle grazing and historic buildings, including the post office, court house, pub, and 1858 jail built of logs.
How Mary Anne from Cashel came to live there is probably due to the gold fever which had gripped California in 1848 and later Australia with the discovery of gold around Ballerat When her husband died she sent home to her mother and father , Dan and Anne for her young brother Jack to come out to help her survive. Young Jack was excited because Australia was in the news In April 1852 the arrival at London’s port of six ships carrying a total of eight tons of Victorian gold had excited the press and the public. The Times of London declared: "... this is California all over again, but, it would appear, California on a larger scale". Such was the atmosphere prevailing as Jack said ‘Goodbye’ to “Sweet Glenisland” never to return.
Young Jack was 13 when he emigrated to Australia and he arrived in Sydney on a ship called "The Rodney" on March 15th 1854, two days before St Patrick’s Day. Still a teenager he lived with and supported his widowed sister, Mrs. Mary Anne Jones and he quickly learned and operated the tailoring business. But he really wanted to dig for gold. Meanwhile Mary Anne had not given up on life and when she remarried Jack got out of the way. He left Omeo to pursue the life of a gold digger, but finding the life dangerous and fruitless he soon took up the life of a bushman and stockman. He loved horses and worked on big cattle stations near the border of New South Wales and Victoria. His was the life of a Cowboy, known in Australia as a Stockman. Ha had a mop of tight black curls and he was small and wiry and extremely tough and fearless. He quickly acquired notoriety as a mountain rider, horse-breaker, bushman and tracker of wild horses.
In 1884 cattle baron John Pierce appointed him to look after a cattle run of 20,000 acres in the foothills of the Kosciuszko Range on the Upper Murray river He lived there alone in a log cabin for nearly 20 years and drove cattle every summer to graze on the high country. During that time he was visited and made friends with A.B. (Banjo) Paterson (Poet and author of Waltzing Matilda) . Banjo had heard of Jack from the Mitchell homestead at Bingenbrong and he went to visit the famous Rielly (Riley) at his cabin in 1890. A bottle of whiskey emerged in the cabin that night and it is said there was none left by morning. "Riley just kept talking" Elyne Mitchell (author of the Silver Brumby novels) said. "Those were the days when a person who could tell a good yarn was always popular because there was no wireless and no television." Riley was asked to tell the tale of one of his exploits about chasing a herd of wild horses. From this story Banjo Paterson wrote his poem "The Man from Snowy River"  "The Man from Snowy River" in 1890. The poem tells the story of an extremely valuable race horse, which escaped and joined a band of wild horse (brumbies) and the princely sum offered by its owners for its safe return. All the riders in the area gathered to pursue the wild bunch of horses and cut the valuable racehorse from the mob. But the country defeated them all except for one "The Man from Snowy River" Jack Riley. No doubt his escapades on Cruach and the Black Rock at an early age had honed his instinct. Whatever it was, his personal courage and skill turned him into a legend. In 1914 Jack Riley died on the 15th of July, after suffering from heart problems. They buried him the next day at the Corryong cemetery. In 1956 they erected a rough granite head stone in his memory.
When news had reached Corryong that Jack Riley had become ill, a party was sent to bring him in. The going was tough with snow falling. On July 14th 1914 Riley died in a hut at Surveyor’s Creek and was buried the next day. This event is celebrated each year by a commemorative ride along the route taken by those who brought the dying Jack Riley into town from his mountain home. Jack Riley’s grave is located in the hillside cemetery at the top of Pioneer Avenue, Corryong. Australian born Fr. John O Brien whose parents came from Lisseycasey, Co. Clare performed the last rites. The Man from Snowy River Museum is located in Corryong. Corryong is a quiet town of some 1,500 people situated in the upper section of the Murray River about 320 meters above sea level. It is one of the most unspoilt places in Victoria and is surrounded by spectacular countryside. It is 437 km north east of Melbourne via the Hume Freeway and Murray Valley Highway. The town is the gateway to both the Snowy Mountains (Australian Alps) and to Kosciuszko National Park. The Man from Snowy River is a song almost as famous as Banjo Pattersons others song ”Waltzing Matilda”
For us ,living back in Jacks home community it may be hard to grasp why a humble stockman could be such a folk hero but the explanation is simple enough . Australians value toughness and skill and determination. That “Fighting Spirit” reflects how they see themselves and how they want to be seen, as hard and tough and indefatigable. Jack Reilly epitomized that fighting spirit and Banjo Patterson saw it and recognized it and immortalized it so that it represents the spirit of Australia. We in Glenisland can only feel proud of our native son whose spirt and courage inspires a whole nation.

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A great thunderstorm came over Glenisland, Castlebar, Co. Mayo on St.Peters and Paul Day the 29th June 1828. The people went to mass on a beautiful fine summers day and the clouds arose while the people were at mass. Thunder and lightning filled the place and rain commenced to fall in sheets. Hailstones almost as big as hen eggs fell and lumps of ice fell and broke the crops and the foliage of the trees. The rain came so heavy that in an hour the whole district was covered with water. The centre of the storm was a line of mountains in Glenisland known Doogary, Cruach-Beirin, Croc Mor and onto Beltra Lake. From Doogary the end of the watershed, a river runs on to Beltra Lake a distance of about five or six miles down this river the waters came in a huge flood and in about an hour and a half, after the rain started, the water was 24 ft deep in Glenisland burying (called Kileen) ground. There were two trees growing in this graveyard and when the flood had subsided the mark of the water stood 18 ft high on them. Those trees grew on ground which was six foot higher than the surrounding ground. It flowed in depth from 18 to 24 ft and in width it ranged from Croc Mor to the Black Rock on the other side of the valley a distance of about 150 yards. A man named McGowan living in the village of Crocban was at mass and he got home through the rain before the flood came. He lived at a height of about 80 ft above the surface of the river. When he arrived at his home he found 3 or 4 ft of water all around his house. He broke a wall at the gable and let the water rush away down to the river. Between six and seven head of cattle were taken from Doogary. They were got dead in Glenhest on the far side of Beltra Lake about 8 or 9 mile from where they belonged. At a place called Porcse Ruad in the village of Crocban there was about an acre of the best tillage land in vicinity and this patch was covered with abut 200 tons of rock from 1 cut to 5 tons in size. The rocks may still be seen covering this area. All the bridges and gullets in Glenisland were swept away. For some 100 years previously there was a prophecy that this flood was coming and that it would sweep away the bridge at Bunawona near the present Guards barracks. It slap stated that on the site of this old bridge a new one, which would be the strongest in Ireland, would be built and that it would never be finished. The bridge was built in 1829 and was never completed yet. It got a kind of a capping about twenty years ago but not according to the plan. There is a tradition that in future times a great battle will be fought in and around the bridge and that this battle will result in the final smashing of English rule in Ireland. There were five or six corn mills on this river, two in the village of Doogary (remains still there) one at CrocMuileann and 3 or 4 down along in the stretch where the barrack is. All of them were swept away by this flood. Before the flood the river was famous for its salmon which used to run up from the lake, but the flood swept down such an amount of debris which it depostited at the mouth and for a considerable distance into the lake, that there were no salmon seen on the lake for sixty years. Salmon now frequent the river in the spawning season and the first one seen on the river after the flood was in the spawning season of 1888.

from: The Schools' Collection, Duchas.ie

This is a collection of folklore compiled by schoolchildren in Ireland in the 1930s. Learn more »

Down in the village of Beltra in the parish of Islandeady there is a little hillock called Crochán na Muc. It is situated on the right hand side of the road as you go from Glenisland towards Beltrá near a house named Morrisons. There is said to be a treasure of gold hidden in this hillock and it is guarded by a pig. This pig was seen on several occasions.

from: The Schools' Collection, Duchas.ie

Between Beltra Lake Glenisland, Castlebar, Mayo and the Guards Barracks Glenisland in a S.W. direction from the lake and about 100 yards therefrom there is a pool of water known as Poll an Tairbh. About two hundred years ago on a summers evening a young man was herding his cattle in the immediate vicinity of this pool and a most beautiful milk-white bull arose out if its waters came on to the land and matched one of the cows. Then he returned back into the pool, disappeared under the waters and was never seen since. This pool previous to this time was not supposed to be enchanted. The bull was never known to be there before. The cow in due time had a calf and the first man to drink her milk after her calfing was a man named Brian Ruadh. From that time forth he could foretell the future. Some of the things he foretold were:
1. The coming of the Great Flood told in the preceding story.
2. The building of the barrack in Glenisland and the coming of the police. In his time no one ever had heard of police or barracks.
3. The building of Bunawona bridge near the barrack which he said would be one of the strongest bridges in Ireland and would never be finished.
4. The sweeping away of the old bridge by the flood
5. He also foretold that on this bridge would be fought the decisive battle between the English and the Irish giving victory to the Irish and crushing forever English power; that the Irish would be aided by the Spaniards that in fact it would be the Spaniards who would be mainly responsible for the victory; that in the village of Muicneach which is between the Guards Barracks and Newport, there is a three cornered field and that anyone taking refuge or shelter from the fighting in this field would be saved from the slaughter. In those days the pool was much bigger and cleaner than it is today. At the present time it is been overgrown with reeds and grasses and bushes and is slowly changing into land.

from: The Schools' Collection, Duchas.ie

Tom Cadden: Political Activist and Poet
ouririshheritage.org

A PEASANT SAMARITAN – Laurence McHugh, of the village of Barnastang, Glenisland, with a family of six children, himself and wife, in all eight persons, were on Monday morning last in that low degree, from hunger that, as our informant states, the most of them could not survive until night. With much difficulty the poor man made his way to the house of Patt Malley, a neighbour, who is in great want himself, having no provisions but as he buys the market: still the Irish heart beat in his bosom: “he could not,” he said, “see his neighbours die while God left him anything” and he forthwith went out, took one of his four sheep, and handed it over to poor McHugh, to kill for himself and family.

THE TELEGRAPH 7-10-1846