i8 9 5-96-3 299 



29 January, 1896. 



A special meeting was held on the 29 January, when a 

 lecture was delivered by William Gray, M.R.I.A., entitled " A 

 Holiday Trip from Belfast to Galway by Sea and Land." This 

 lecture was most exhaustive in its interesting details of the 

 Galway Conference, elsewhere described in the account of the 

 Galway excursion, and in the August number of the Irish 

 Naturalist. The room was filled to overflowing, and the 

 audience appreciative. The lecture was illustrated by a great 

 number of lantern slides. 



18 February, 1896. 



On the 18 February, W. H. Patterson, M.R.I. A., read a 

 paper to the club on '* Gaelic Charms, Incantations, and Cures." 

 The President, F. W. Lockwood, C.E., was in the chair. W. H. 

 Patterson began his lecture by quoting some lines of the famous 

 lorica or breastplate of S. Patrick, and showed how similar it 

 is to prayers used by the Gaelic-speaking population of the 

 Hebrides at the present day. A number of formulae were also 

 given for witchcraft, such as detecting it, learning it, and so 

 forth ; and the most gruesome of all charms — the " spancel " — 

 described. This consists in taking a strip of skin from a corpse 

 to tie on the person whose affections are desired ; this was in 

 use so recently as 1841. Another curious form of witchcraft 

 was causing some animal to take up its dwelling inside a man, 

 thus causing him to be ravenously hungry. Many remarkable 

 legends are told of cures performed by S. Columba, such as an 

 issue of blood being stopped, and the series of cures effected by 

 the blessed pebble. Stones are often invested with powers of 

 healing, numerous instances being given, the most remarkable 

 being S. Molingue's globe. Another strange method of curing 

 swellings was the apportioning of parts of the tumor to various 

 hills, when the lump gradually decreased. W. H. Patterson 



