1887.1 [Moouey. 



section is a fertile plain, shut in by low mountains along the coast, and 

 being naturally easy of access and more exposed to foreign influence and 

 colonization, its inhabitants have lost much of their original character and 

 nearly all of their language. The western section is chiefly a region of 

 rugged mountains, and limestone clifts covered with a thin layer of soil, 

 where no one but an Irishman would attempt to raise a crop. Its inhab- 

 itants, who are fishermen on the coast and shepherds in the mountains, 

 are still in the primitive condition of their ancestors, retaining in a great 

 degree their simple habits and their Gaelic language. The typical districts 

 of this region are Donegal in the north, Kerry in the south, and Conna- 

 mara in the extreme west. Here the practices and beliefs which were 

 once general throughout the country still have full sway, the enchanted 

 horse dwells in the lough, and the fairies dance under the hawthorn. 



The Practitioners. 



In describing these customs and beliefs they will be treated, not as half- 

 forgotten superstitions raked up out of the past, but as living realities, for 

 such they are in fact. The medical professors of this region are generally 

 old women, whose stock in trade consists of a few herbs and simple decoc- 

 tions, a number of prayers and secret formulas to be recited while apply- 

 ing the remedy, and a great deal of mystery. Such a woman is com- 

 monly called a cailleac luib'e- "herb hag" or beanfeasac'f "knowing 

 woman. " When her art is of that doubtful kind which tends rather more 

 to the injury than to the good of her neighbors, she is called a piseogX and 

 the same name is also applied to her nostrums. In some few cases the 

 doctor is a man. There are also a number of persons who have cures for 

 particular diseases, these cures being innate in the individual, owing to 

 some accident of birth, or hereditary and transmitted from parent to child 

 from a remote generation. When hereditary, the secret is jealously 

 guarded — even by the mother from her child — and only revealed upon 

 the deathbed, to some one of the family who, at the same time, is pledged 

 to silence. For this reason it is almost impossible to get the formulas used 

 with any of these cures, but there are a number of charms in use which 

 are common property, and from a knowledge of these the character of the 

 others may be guessed. In rare instances the possessor of a cure bestows 

 it upon another in return for some favor, the charm losing none of its 

 efficacy by the transfer. It is generally considered essential that the 

 charm should have been inherited from a woman by a man, or from a man 

 by a woman. Persons who possess these single cures give their services 



* Pronounced cawl-yakh ttva. The Connamara i)ronuuciation is given, unless other- 

 wise noted. In the Gaelic text the aspirated consonants are indicated by a dot placed 

 after them near the top. When the Irish characters are used the dot is placed above 

 the aspirated consonant, and when the Roman characters are used, as in Scotland, the 

 consonant is followed by an h. The h is not here used, as it does not properly belong to 

 the Gaelic alphabet, and gives a false appearance of harshness. 



t Pronounced ban fCisakli. 



I Pronounced plshoeg. 



PROC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XXIV. 125. R. PRINTED MAY 21, 1887. 



