I spend three hours on the morning of the 4th of October 2018 filming this man, Canon Séamus de Val, in his home in Bunclody. We chatted about many things, from funeral customs to local placenames to 16th century bardic poets. However, we spent a while chatting about one particular woman, Eibhlín A Rúin, otherwise known as Eileen A’Roon or Elenor Kavanagh.
Eibhlín is remembered by many via the song that bears her name, Eibhlín A Rúin, however the backstory to her life has always fascinated me. Especially the bit where she jilted her husband to be on their wedding day, and made off with her true love, the poet/writer Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh. (Oh the lure of the creative mind again...)
For those of you who don’t know, the story goes that Cearbhall made his way to the arranged wedding in disguise and when he began to play his harp and sing she recognised him and away they fled. Cearbhall was part of the famous learned family of poets the Ó Dálaigh who we believe were from Pallas north of Gorey town.
Local folklore also tells us that she is buried a few miles from where we live in the old graveyard in Kilmyshall. However the jury is out on that fact. Mind you the family grave is there and there is a headstone to an Elenor Boote Kavanagh who died in 1717, who we believe to be a niece of hers.
There is loads of other incidental local material in this clip, including a reference to James Annesley, who’s kidnapping was the basis for the book Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson. Annesley was also the same fella who left his trace in the placename in the townsland I grew up in, Parkannesley in Ballygarrett.
Sadly Fr. Wall passed away on Friday the 15th of September 2023.
I’ll share some more of these interviews with you as I continue to record and edit them.
