Clare Island Survey — History and Archaeology. 2 53 



the east gable of the church, and the Lcac na naomh, or saint's stone, a mass 

 of conglomerate on the altar of the oratory. The last was used for a sort of 

 ordeal — a wronged person used to go to the island, fast and pray, imprecating 

 on himself the wrath of God, Patrick, and the saints, who had blessed the 

 stone, if he was wrong. He then turned the Lcac. If he was in the right 

 (said Geraghty), a storm arose and boats and men were lost. O'Donovan 

 objected that the destruction of innocent men's lives and property was a 

 questionable proof of Divine justice, but Geraghty triumphantly silenced 

 him by citing the miracles of Joshua ; and O'Donovan could only bow before 

 his robust faith. O'Toole took a more Christian view, that while unable to 

 deny the power of the relic, he had little regard for its decisions, and wished 

 that it were destroyed. It was, however, agreed that it punished perjurers 

 who appealed to it. Dr. C. K. Browne 1 was told by E. O'Maille that the block 

 had been thrown at St. Patrick by a " bad friend " ; the saint, being unable to 

 avoid it, signed the cross, and the block fell harmlessly to the ground. A 

 similar legend is told at Downpatriek Head of how the saint escaped the 

 spear of the Giant Geodruisge, hurled from the now isolated rock of 

 Dimbriste. 2 



So holy was the island that boatmen, when passing it in 1839, took off their 

 hats and said, " Umluighmid do Dice mor na huile chumachta agus do Phadricig 

 miorbhuilteach " (" We make reverence to the great God of all the powers and 

 to Patrick the wonder-worker "). So at Inisglora, farther to the north, and at 

 Cruach mac Dara, in Galway Bay ; opposite St. Grigoir's tomb in Aranmore, 

 and at St. Senan's "sacred isle," of Iniscatha, off county Clare, the fishermen dip 

 sails, raise oars, or in some way salute the local saint. 



Another mark of the sanctity of Caher Island was that (as at Inishglora) 

 no rat or mouse could live for even a few minutes on its shores, and the earth 

 drove them from any house in which it was sprinkled. It was wrong to take 

 any object from the island, but an offering should be left on it. Epileptic 

 persons could be cured by a few minutes' sleep on St. Patrick's Bed. It is 

 said that one visitor, who removed a stone from one of the leachts, met with 

 an accident on the home voyage, and humbly brought back the stone to the very 

 spot from which he had removed it. So also Kev. Ctesar Otway 3 tells us 

 how the wooden image of St. Brendan, on Inishkea, was carried off as a 

 palladium by smugglers, but they were pursued by a revenue cruiser and 

 vexed by storms, and driven up and down the ocean, so long as they retained 



! Proc. R.I. A., vol. iii, ser. iii, p. 66. 



2 I gave the Downpatriek legends in a paper submitted to the Roy. Soc. Ant. Xr., at their 

 Summer Meeting, 1911. 



3 " Tour in Connaught,'' p. 382. 



