SOME GREAT STORY TELLERS FROM ARDNAGREEVAGH (1937).

SOME GREAT STORY TELLERS FROM ARDNAGREEVAGH (1937).

'There were three sisters long ago and they were great story-tellers. They were Sweenys. 

They were related to Micheál Mac Suibne, the poet. The three of them were married. One of their names was Mrs. Fleming. 

The other one's name was Mrs. Davis and the third was Mrs. Heanue.They told all their stories in Irish. The best one of them that was fit to tell stories was Mrs. 

Heanue. She had a charm for telling stories. If a person went listening to her he couldn't leave her until she was finished.

Sometimes she would tell you ones lasting a day and perhaps longer. Mrs Heaney lived in Ardnagreevagh. 

One morning John Heaney from Letter Hill was going to the strand cutting black wrack. He was in a great hurry. 

He had a cleeve on his back. He went into Mrs Heaney to light his pipe. She asked him what hurry was on him. He told her. She told him to sit down on a chair. 

When he did, she began her story. He thought he was only five minutes within, when he saw Mrs Heaney's son coming home with a cleeve of wrack. He looked around him. 

He knew it was evening. He asked Mrs. Heaney what he would do. She told him to wait until her own son would go down for his second cleeve of wrack. When he got him gone down she gave him the wrack.

Mrs. Davis had a son named Terry Davis. He learned all the stories from his mother and his two aunts. 

After a while he became the best story teller of them all. People would go into his house at night. 

They said he was the best story teller in Renvyle. He died about thirty years ago in the year 1909. Some of his stories would take more than one night to tell. He could tell a different story every night of the year. He was John and Mark Davis' father.

Peadar Bhideach who died last year knew some of the stories he had. His right name was Peter Conneely. 

These are the names of some of the stories that Terry Davis had. The Arabian Knights, Flaitin O Neill, and Brian O Maille, Cola Boloban, Manus an beolthach. 

Michael Faherty of Letter told stories in English.'

NB Both Terence Davis and Michael Faherty mentioned above gave several stories to author William Larminie in the 1890s. 

These were published in the latter's book 'West Irish Folk Tales and Romances.'

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