St. Lassair Clay

I thought that the two people who slid out of the big cream car had come to admire the progress we were making at the church in Keadue. “Where would a man get Saint Lasair’s clay around here” was the man’s salute to us in a strong Donegal accent. He and his wife showed little interest in the big task we had undertaken but both were very interested in Lasair.

Lasair’s Clay

They told us that emigrants from their homes used to bring Lasair’s clay with them on their journeys to Scotland and America. Their old folk often told them that once a Donegal woman threw some of this blessed clay on raging waves and that the ocean became calm. This same story we too were told by our old folk in Kilronan.

Soldier Healed

When we were children we heard how Lasair had blessed the clay. A badly wounded soldier who had barely survived a battle came to Saint Lasair one day and asked her to cure him. She blessed the clay under the cliff, rubbed it on the soldier’s wounds and made him well. Then she declared that anyone who used this clay would be cured of any disease he might have.

Twelve hundred years after that promise I filled a little box of clay for those two Donegal people which I took from beneath the rock on the hill opposite the blessed well.

On the Sunday within the octave of September 8th. a great crowd will gather for Mass at the well. Some will do the station on their own and all will have dispersed within an hour and a half. Seventy years ago it was different.

Pattern Day

Pattern Day was a big day in Kilronan and in the parishes around. “You’ll be at Lasair’s " was as common a comment as remarking on the hay that had not yet been gathered. When a child ran a message how often he was promised: “I’ll have a ha’penny for you for Lasair”.

On that Sunday the narrow -gauge railway ran an excursion train from Ballinamore to Arigna. Along the mountain side, from early morning, crowds scurried down the “short-cut” from Drumkieran, Arigna and Glan.

People who had married outside the parish came back home on Pattern Day. That left a busy day in some houses as a goose was cooked for the big dinner. And the horses which had come a long road were not neglected - stables had been cleaned and a generous supply of oats and water were left in.

From Keadue to Lasair

From Keadue to Lasair the road was choc-a-bloc with people, side cars, traps and carts. Along the wall were the stalls, or stanins as we called them. Here can-sweets and currant-biscuits, ginger-bread and sugar-stick, liquorice and Peggy’s Leg were bought.

In earlier days great cauldrons stood along the wall where their owners cooked and sold fish. For the alcoholic drink people had to go to Keadue where the public houses were thronged until they were inspected by the police.

Pipes and Drums

Back in the field above the graveyard the Arigna Pipers and the Keadue Fife and Drum Bands played through the day. Of the members of those bands the most famous was the Arigna drummer, Thomassie Cullen.

Lasair Day

Lasair day was a day of jollity and of some prayer. It had other characteristics too. “I’ll see you at Lasair” had its acquired meaning for the local community. Pattern Day had its fights. Differences through the year might be ‘settled’ there in the hollow on the road that led to Mollymore. And Lasair had its faction fights.

McManus vs Gaffney

Each year the families of the McManus and the Gaffney clans fought each other with loaded sticks. The McManus family were the old Kilronan family while the Gaffney family came to settle in the parish when they and the defeated northmen made their way home from the battle of Kinsale.

To the cry of : “While Lasair is in Kilronan the Gaffneys will hold sway” the annual fight began. This fight won for itself wide notoriety. One Pattern Day Bishop O’Higgins arrived from Longford. He sent for two carts and sledges to Kilronan Castle. There in front of the astonished crowds he had Leac Ronain, broken in two pieces. One part of the stone was taken and brought over towards Ballyfarnon and it has never been found.

The other half was brought towards Keadue and thrown in the ditch. Many years later this part was retrieved by the late Paddy Duignan and set up at the well. It was on this `leac’, the reputed alter of Saint Ronan, that Cannon Lennon said Mass. Lasair was kind to the two families on at least one occasion . In the year 1798 both families joined the French army and the Irish rebels as they made their way to cross the Shannon at Ballintra. On the way the Kilronan rebels realised that if they continued to Granard they would miss the fight at Lasair on Lady Day. They judged that family honour came before the national cause and so they came back and fought at Lasair and escaped the slaughter of the Irish at Ballinamuck.

Even when the faction fights came to an end not everyone agreed with the celebrations and the devotion at Lasair. For years it was subjected to the scorn and the biting ridicule of the parish priest, Canon Meehan. From the pulpit the people heard of strange happenings on “my holy mountain and its capital, Lasair”. Father Meehan told of the fictitious Paddy and Biddy from Breedogue. “They slug the water and then Paddy looks for a rag to hang on the bush and his trousers nothing but rags”. To Lasair too came the `Ballinamore bullocks and the Crosna cranes’. Like other Irish holy wells Lasair had its tree on which pilgrims put rags. Canon Meehan had this tree cut and thrown into the adjoining lake. Despite the constant ridicule, he must have felt that he was losing the battle against Lasair because one Sunday he advised his congregation in Keadue: “if you come to court, court, but for God’s sake don’t mix them”.

Dean Kelly replaced Canon Meehan

The Dean was a native of the parish, knew its history and was proud of it. He revived the pilgrimage with a procession from Keadue Church to the well where the people made the station together. My abiding memory of him is of his leading that procession in his later years with his head erect and his slowing steps helped along by his sturdy blackthorn stick.

It was in his last year with us, and he wondering would he be able to walk to Lasair, that Father O’Brien, then curate at Ballyfarnon, suggested that Mass was said at the well that year and Canon Lennon continued the custom which is now being carried on by Father Masterson.