Peggy Barraig’s Gate
Blake’s have an old gate to the right hand side of the road that’s called Peggy Barraig’s Gate. It was said that Peggy was living on a hill on the east side of that gate. She was a Catholic and her son was a Protestant. When she was on her death bed, she called for the priest. When the priest came, the son was before him at the door with a fork in his hand and he wouldn’t let the priest in. They started fighting, but the priest got the upper hand. He went back around the house and in he went through the closed door. He gave confession and communion to the old woman and she died. A type of nearmhail (? – probably an affliction, strangeness, or regret) came on him and it stayed with him until the day he died. It was said that a man was seen with an apron some years ago. He was cleaning a stream going into the lake. The apron came up from the ground and he went out of sight again. It is said too that it isn’t right to go past that place from 12 o’clock in the night until 3 in the morning. Something can be seen there. Inside that hill, there is an old grave and there is a big stone over it. John Woods is written there. He was a Protestant and that’s the reason he wasn’t let into the graveyard.
Patrick Delaney
ARCHIVAL REFERENCE
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0024, Page 0024 Link https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4566055/4562645/4569404
