‘THE BREEDOG’
Another fascinating tradition associated with St Brigid is ‘The Breedog’. According to Lord Walter Fitzgerald of the Kildare Archaeological Society, there are several traditions all over Ireland associated with it.
‘The Breedog’ is probably a remnant of the procession in honour of St Brigid, when her statue would be carried about. The rude figure, if we can call it such, goes by the name of Breedog, i.e. Brigid óig, Brigid the Virgin.
In County Mayo, the children dress up a figure and decorate it with ribbons and flowers. Then four or more of them carry it from house to house on St Brigid’s Day, and ask the housewife to ‘honour the Breedog’. One of the girls hums a tune, and the others dance. It is thought a very rude thing to refuse to honour the effigy. Eggs are taken if the housekeeper has no coppers to give. There is a spokeswoman for the party, who has a short speech that she delivers at every house. The money and eggs collected are evenly divided between the girls, who purchase sweets and cakes with the proceeds. The girls usually choose the day for their rounds; then, at night, the boys go round with what is called ‘The Cross’. This is a cross made of two ropes; four boys catch an end each, and then they dance away to the music of a flute; like the girls they, too, gather contributions from each house they visit, and spend the result in a jollification.
In County Kerry the ‘Breedhogue’ is an image, supposed to be St Brigid. It consists of a churn-dash or broomstick, padded round with straw, and covered with a woman’s dress, the head being formed of a bundle of hay, rolled into a ball; the hands are formed of furze branches, stuck up in the sleeves. This figure is carried round from house to house by boys and girls on St Brigid’s Eve. One boy starts a tune, and the others commence dancing, after which they are given pennies, or more generally eggs, in honour of the ‘Biddy’. No matter what the weather is, the Breedhogue is annually carried round, though since moonlighting commenced in Kerry it had to be discontinued for some time, owing to the fear of being mistaken for members of that band.
Walter Fitzgerald recorded the event in County Cork:
In some parts of the county the boys dress up a female figure in a white dress with gaudy ribbons, which they call ‘a Breedhoge’. They are generally themselves queerly dressed and disguised. On St Bridget’s Eve they visit from house to house in the parish, particularly those houses where there are young women who, they say, should get married during Shrove time. If they are welcomed, and given money for a spree, then they will praise up and recommend the girls to their male friends; but if not, they will warn them to avoid them.
I myself have seen the Breedog being used on St Brigid’s Day in various parts of Northern Ireland. The Breedog that I have seen is made from straw and bound tightly together to make an effigy of a doll. The doll is then dressed in white cloth and adorned in flowers and carried in processions.
6
THE DEVIL AT CASTLETOWN HOUSE
Growing up in Kildare, I went to school in Celbridge and I was always interested in Castletown House, a big stately home with a strange aura about it. The house was built by William ‘Speaker’ Conolly (then Speaker of the Irish House of Commons) in 1722. The Conolly family were well-known for building other fine pieces of architecture around Kildare. During the Great Famine they commissioned ‘Conolly’s Folly’ or ‘The Obelisk’ to generate work for the starving. ‘The Wonderful Barn’ was also built to store food.
William ‘Speaker’ Conolly had a hunting lodge built on top of Mount-Pelier Hill in the Dublin Mountains in 1725. After his death in 1729 the lodge lay unused until it was bought by Richard Parsons, Earl of Rose, in 1735. He turned Conolly’s lodge into ‘The Hellfire Club’. This became a place of demonic practices and extreme debauchery. And, indeed, it is said that Auld Nick himself decided to pay a visit. In fact, it seems that the Devil may have made several visits to Castletown House. I found this story in a great little book called Irish Ghosts by J. Aeneas Corcoran published by Geddes & Grosset in 2002.
Castletown House was inherited by William Conolly’s nephew, who married Lady Anne Wentworth, daughter of the Earl of Stafford. One day she saw the figure of a tall man standing in the upper gallery, who proceeded to walk down a nonexistent staircase, past a big window, taking little steps as though each stair was quite shallow. He paused and laughed, a high, cold, arrogant laugh, as though he were the rightful owner of the place, mocking the people who lived there.
Ten years later, a staircase was built in exactly the location in which Lady Anne had seen the figure. More than twenty years after that, Lady Anne’s son, Thomas Conolly, now the owner of the house, was walking in the garden with his wife, recalling the strange story of what his mother had seen in the hall. A few days after that, he was out riding with the Kildare Hounds. Many of the hunt gave up and went home, for the fox was proving to be tricky and elusive. Only Conolly and a handful of others were left, when he noticed that a newcomer seemed to have joined them. Mounted on a fine black horse that looked as fresh as if it had just come out of the stable door. The rider was a tall fellow, dressed in grey, with great thigh-boots.
‘Good day to ye,’ called out Conolly. ‘A poor day for sport, though.’
The man merely grinned, showing large, discoloured teeth, then set his horse to the slope of the hill and went galloping up. At that same moment, the hounds began to bay, as if they were closing in on their prey. Conolly followed the horseman up the hill, but when he got to the brink, he reined in, astonished. The hounds were not to be seen, but the stranger stood there, dismounted from his horse, and with the bloody carcass of the fox held in both hands high above his head. He grinned again at Conolly, then lowered the fox’s body to the level of his mouth, and in one swift bite with his great teeth, cut away the brush. Dropping the carcass he held it out to Conolly, still grinning.
The young squire of Castletown turned away in disgust, but the man then spoke: ‘Conolly, if you will not take the brush, will you offer me a cup of something hot in your great house?’
The Conollys had always maintained a tradition of hospitality, and Thomas did not refuse, though there was something about the man, his leering smile, and his high voice, that turned his blood. ‘There is hot rum punch at my house for all who want it,’ he said.
The stranger entered the house at Conolly’s side. Conolly saw him pause and survey the great entrance hall, and the staircase that came sweeping down from the gallery, past the window, and he heard a sound of hissing laughter escape from the man’s lips. The stranger took a chair by the fire, and stretched out his legs, but when a servant came up, to help take his riding boots off, he waved the man away.
‘Leave me be,’ he said. ‘I am sleepy and don’t choose to be disturbed.’
He closed his eyes and appeared to settle down for a comfortable nap. Coming more closely to get a good look at him, Conolly was amazed to see that the stranger was as hairy as an animal. Coils of hair matted on the backs of his hands and more emerged at his cuffs. Tufts of coarse hair sprang from his ears. Beginning to have suspicions, Conolly told two of the servants to take off one of the sleeping stranger’s boots. As they cautiously worked it off, a thickly haired leg appeared, terminating in a great black hairy hoof.
Hastily, as all the company retreated from the fire, Conolly sent a man to ride for the parish priest. As the priest arrived, the stranger awoke, glanced at his feet and saw one boot had been removed. With a snarl he rose up, and placed himself against the mantelpiece, right in front of the roaring fire, and laughed the same high-pitched, spine-chilling laugh that Lady Anne had heard all those years ago in the same room. The priest, as terrified as anyone, mumbled an incantation, but it had no effect except to provoke further demoniac laughter. At last, the priest in desperation threw his missal at the figure. It missed its target and struck the mirror above the fireplace, which shattered. But, at the threat of being touched by the holy book, the figure leapt high in the air and vanished, leaving only a greasy boot in the room, and a great cra
ck in the stone fireplace.
THE STORY OF CASTLETOWN HOUSE IN CELBRIDGE
This is another version of the story given to a young person at Rathcoffey School over eighty years ago by John Brilly of Rathcoffey, Donadea. He had heard it several times from the old people around him. This story was collected by The Irish Folklore Commission in University College Dublin.
There was a gentleman living in Castletown House, Celbridge named Conolly. He was a very bad and wicked man. One morning he was going out to hunt. As he was mounting his horse, he said he would ride against the devil or get the fox’s brush.
On leaving his own house a strange gentleman saluted him and accompanied him to the Liffey Bridge at Celbridge, where the hounds met and from where the hunt started. Conolly was supposed to have had a splendid horse. Still he was unable to get away from the man who kept following him. The fox was eventually caught and killed.
Conolly and his new friend were the only two who were there at the time and they were about to draw lots for the brush when the stranger agreed to give it to Conolly. Conolly invited his friend home to dinner. James Graham, the head groom, was ordered to take care of the stranger’s horse.
After dinner the guests played a game of cards and the stranger was winning every game. A card fell on the floor. Conolly stooped down to pick it up and he noticed a cloven hoof instead of a foot on the strange man. Conolly called his servants and attendants and tried to get the stranger out of the house, but they failed. He sent his carriage for the RIC but they too were unable to get the stranger out of the house.
All the animals in the outhouses burst their doors and raced madly through the yards. Conolly sent for the Protestant minister of the place, but the stranger just laughed at him. He remained there for two days.
The gardener asked Conolly if he would go for the priest. Initially Conolly refused but at last he gave in and went himself for Father Kenny of Celbridge. When the priest arrived at the house he found the devil in a room burning up in a great fire.
The priest prayed for a long time and the devil disappeared through the hearth stone, leaving behind a large split in this stone.
The priest, Father Kenny, only lived for nine months afterwards.
THE DEVIL AND TOM CONOLLY
I found this little masterpiece of ‘folk-art’ in the 1911 edition of the Kildare Archaeological Society Journal, p. 415, under the chapter entitled ‘Ballads and Poems of the County Kildare’. The piece is entitled ‘The Devil and Tom Conolly: An Eighteenth Century Legend of Castletown’. The author goes under the strange title of ‘A Broth of a Boy (Russell)’.
The ballad is based on Tom ‘Squire’ Conolly’s encounter with the Black Earl of Hell. The terminology and turn of phrase is unique to the period and there is a good balance of humour and horror alike. The poor fox is referred to as ‘Reynard’ (an old folkloric name for the red fox or trickster) and the Devil as ‘Auld Nick’, giving the piece a sense of familiarity and empathy with the characters. You will notice that certain words are missing; this was common at the period so as to not cause offence or controversy to the family this ballad is based on. The Ballad first appeared in 1843 in The Dublin University Magazine, Vol. xxii, p. 677 and was reprinted among ‘The Kishoge Papers’ in 1877.
It is a brilliant piece of work that conjures up so much wonderful imagery and excitement, creating the archetypal great fireside tale.
‘A southerly wind and a cloudy sky.
What a beautiful day for the Scent to lie!’
Says a huntsman old, with a very keen eye,
And a very red nose, to a whipper in by,
As he sits on the back of a very spruce hack,
And looks with delight on a beautiful pack
Of foxhounds as ever yet ran a track.
There were Howler and Jowler and Towser and Yelper
And boxer and pincher and Snarler and Skelper.
But Alas! And Alack! That it rests to be said,
That the last of the pack is some eighty years dead!
And the huntsman that sat on the back of the hack,
Died very soon after the last of the pack,
Having kept up the chase by good humour and mirth’
’Till Death one fine afternoon ran him to earth.
Rest to his bones! He has gone for aye,
And the sod lies cold on his colder clay;
He lists no more to the deep-mouthed bay,
Nor wakes the hills with his ‘Hark Away!’
But never did a man with a hunting-whip rack
That I’d back at a fence against red-nosed Jack.
The cover is reached, and a better array
Of sportsmen it never has seen than to-day.
’Tis as gallant as all Ireland could yield:
The horsemen to all kinds of devilment steeled,
The best of the senate, the bench and the bar,
Whose mirth even Petty and Coke couldn’t mar.
Bright spirits! Regarded with pride by a race
That loved Genius unmasked by Stupidity’s face;
Nor fancied that Wisdom high places should quit
If she flung round her shoulders the mantle of wit!
The hunting-cap triumphs today o’re the wig,
The ermine is doffed for a sportsmanlike rig;
But enough of the horsemen: the nags that they ride
Are as noble as horsemen might ever bestride;
In bottom or speed, few could match them indeed,
And if put to the pound wall of Ballinasloe,
There are plenty amongst them, who would never look,
‘No!’
But the best mounted man at that gay coer-side
Is honest Tom Conolly, Castletown’a pride;
And mirth and good fellowship beam in his eye,
Such a goodly collection of guests to descry;
For guests shall be all, in Tom Conolly’s hall,
Who keeps ‘open house’ for the great and the small;
And none who takes share in the fox-hunt today
Ere midnight from Castletown’s mansion shall stray.
Right warm are the greetings that welcome the squire,
As he rides up-but the entire preamble will tire;
Besides that the hounds through the brushwood are dodging,
And making inquiries where Reynard is lodging;
Some snuffing the ground, with a caution profound;
Some running and poking their noses all round;
And now of the whole not a vestige is there,
But a number of tails cocked up in the air;
And now there’s a bark, and a yelp, and a cry,
And the horsemen are still standing anxiously by;
And some of the pack
Are at length on the track;
And now there’s a shout!
Sly old Reynard leaps out.
‘Hold hard! Don’t ride over the dogs!’
What a scramble!
Away go the hounds in the wake of the fox!
Away go the horsemen thro’ brushwood and bramble!
Away go they all, o’er brooks, fences and rocks!
Afar in the plain, they are stretching amain:
Each sinew and nerve do the gallant steeds strain,
While the musical cry of the fleet footed hound
Is ringing in chorus melodiously round,
And the horseman who rides at the tail of the pack
Is a very tall gentleman, dressed all in black!
Away! Away! On his restless bed
His wearied limbs let the sluggard spread,
His eyes on the glorious morning close,
And fancy ease in that dull repose!
Give me to taste of the refreshing draught
Of the early breeze, on the green hill quaffed!
Give me to fly, with the lightning’s speed
On the bounding back of the gallant steed!
Give me to bend o’er the floating mane,
While the blood leaps wild in each thrilling vein!
Oh! Who that has felt the joy intense,
To tempt the torrent, to dare the fence,
But feels each pleasure beside give place
To the manly danger that waits the chase?
Onward still – ’tis a spanking run
As e’er was seen by morning’s sun!
Onward still, O’er plain the hill
Gad, ’tis a pace the Devil to kill!
A few of the nags it will puzzle, I trow,
To ride at that neat bit of masonry now.
Steady there, black fellow! – over he goes;
Well done, old bay! – ho! The brown fellow toes,
And pitches his rider clean out on his nose!
Eighteen out of fifty their mettle attest,
There’s a very nice view from the road for the rest.
And now the ‘boreen’, with that rascally screen
Of furze on each bank – by old Nim, that’s a poser!
There’s the black fellow at it – ‘Gad, over he goes, sir!’
Well done, Conolly! Stick to the brute, you dog!
Though he does seem old Beelzebub riding incog.
Ha! The third fellow’s blown – No go, doctor, you’re thrown,
And have fractured your ‘Dexter Clavicular’ bone;
Gad, here’s the Solicitor-General down on him:
Who could think that he ever had got wig or gown on him?
Cleared gallantly! But sure, ’tis plain common sense,
Bar practice should fit a man well for a fence.
Kildare Folk Tales Page 6
