2 68 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



The site of the traditional well of St. Colman was forgotten before 1839 ; 

 the modern, white-washed well-house enclosed that of St. Flannan, the mid- 

 seventh century patron of Killaloe, Co. Glare ; I have not found his connexion 

 with Inishbofin, but he was a worker in islands as far north as the Flannan 

 Islands north-west from Scotland, where his venerable " boat-shaped " oratory 

 still remains, with some beehive cells. 1 He was also reverenced at Bunowen, 

 Ballindown Haven, and Irrosflannan on the Connemara coast. He was son 

 of Thoirdhealbhagh, a so-called King of Thomond, not recorded in the regal 

 lists, but an ancestor of Brian Boru. 5 



Secular Buildings. 



The legends of the islands 3 are in inverse ratio to the history. The two 

 protagonists of the tales (later than those of the white cow and of St. Colman) 

 are " Bosco " and " Guarini " (or Gorham), who have as yet no place in history. 

 Aittighe Guarini, near Bunnamullen Bay, was demolished for material for the 

 priest's house before 1839 ; 4 Mr. Cyril Allies tells me that a quern stone was 

 found when a hole was dug on the site in recent years, but not even the 

 foundations were disclosed. It was not unusual to bury a quern stone, 

 generally a broken one, as a sort of symbolic sacrifice, in the foundations of a 

 house. Of Guarim's castle there was only a tradition of the site on the high 

 ground not far to the north of the new church, in 1839. Guarim was " a 

 certain old chief " who quarrelled with the monks of St. Colman over the 

 question of tithe. Not content with refusal, he laid an ambuscade, captured 

 six monks, and put them to death at a spot in Middle Quarter, where their 

 blood still rises from the ground on the anniversary of the crime. Scanda- 

 lized at the sacrilege, even his hardened followers turned against him ; they 

 bound and brought him to Kenvyle Castle, where he was tried and condemned 

 to be left chained on a rock at low water, for the tide to drown. Since then 

 it is alleged that no Gorham can enter the priesthood. 



This is evidently the legend that, in recent years, originated the story and 

 the name of the " Bishop's Eock," unknown either in name or legend in 1839. 5 

 The Cromwellian soldiers are said to have drowned a bishop. The story is 

 clearly unfounded, as it is unrecorded (so far as I have read the works) among 



1 Eoy. Soe. Antiq. Ir. Journal, xxix, p. 328. 



■ Proc. E.I. A., vol. xxix, p. 195. His life is published in "Acta SS. Hiberniae, ex codice 

 Salmatieensi," 1881. 



3 See Dr. Charles E. Browne's notes, supra, Proc, vol. iii, ser. iii, pp. 360, 363. 



s Ordnance Survey Letters, Mayo, vol. i, p. 484. 



5 The statement in " Two Islands" makes it evident that the story was new to the natives, and 

 astonished them when they heard it. 



