O'Fflaherties and the Poets

 

O Fflaherties and the Poets

After his encounter with O Malley chieftain (see article on the “Red Bearded Piper”) O Fflaherties decided that he couldn’t ban all pipers from visiting his castle.  It was customary at the time that households provided shelter and food to all wandering poets and minstrels.  If they refused them their hospitality they were afraid that the poets would compose poems condemning their meanness and their reputation would suffer.  Yet O Fflahertie was so incensed being fooled by the Red bearded Piper that he decided to get rid of them all if he possibly could. To enter the castle at Aughnanure you had to cross the Drimeen River: there was no bridge to assist you. There were a series of stones a foot under the water that led you straight from one side of the river to the other.  O Fflahertie changed the position of the stones. Anyone who didn’t know the position of the stones could find himself in deep water. Immediately after he altered the stones a piper came to the castle grounds.

Straight to his death

His wife and starving family decided to wait outside for the spoils the good chieftain would provide.  When the piper came to the path of the stones submerged under water, he was undaunted crossing the river as he had jumped from stone to stone previously. But on this occasion he walked straight to his death as he missed the stones and fell into the deep hole in the river. From this on this area was known as “Poll an Phíobaire”.

His family, perished with the cold, went in search of the piper and they discovered his body floating in the gushing river.  Wails of anguish and terror filled the night sky and his wife, according to legend, cursed the O Fflaherties and vowed that twenty years from then no OFflahertie would occupy the Castle of Aughnanure.