MISCELLANEOUS 

There is a legend here that I wish to refer to, though I must admit that I can throw little or no light on it. There is a portion of a field in the townland of Derrygannon, now owned by Mrs. Beagan and formerly owned by James Rooney, known as " SRAIC na Faille”, SRAIC in Irish means a river valley and is the same as straw or strath in Scotch Gaelic while Faille means deceit or treachery, Faille being the genitive case of Faill . 

The meaning therefore is the river valley of the deceit or treachery. By the way, the people around here have the correct pronunciation of the place. 

The story goes that there was a battle fought some distance from here in which the Irish were defeated. A small company of the vanquished made their way to SRAIC na Faille where, exhausted, they lay down to rest and sleep. But a considerable company of the victors followed them and came up with them the following morning about daylight, slaughtering them in their sleep.

None of the narrators could say what particular battle was referred to. I have often wondered could it have been the battle of Newtownbutler in the Williamite wars? It is quite conceivable that some of the vanquished could have made their way thus far, (as the crow flies, though cannot be more than nine or ten miles.

Sweat houses were common all over Ireland some time ago and may be regarded as the forerunners of the modern Turkish Baths. There were some in this district, but, as far as I know, only one remains. It is in the townland of Corraleek, on Mr. C. McGuire's farm and is, I hear, in a good state of preservation. Though I lived quite near to it and had often been within yards of it, I must admit that I never visited it, to my shame be it added. It is a small, round stone building, with a roof also of stone and rather neatly constructed. There is no window on the building and the door is not more than three feet in height, so that when the door was closed, the building was almost air tight. The floor was earthen. When a patient wished to take the treatment, a good fire was lighted on the centre of the floor. When the fire became somewhat clear, that is when most of the smoke had cleared away, the door was closed to keep as much of the heat inside as possible and the fire to bum low. The house being small, the walls and floor would be quite hot. The remains of the fire would be swept aside, a stool placed on the spot where the fire had been, and on this the patient sat until he had enough of the treatment. 

There was an amusing tale of one Con Clifford who decided to take the treatment and must have been the last to do so. This was some time between 1850 and 1870. There was no stool for Con's accommodation so he sat on the floor, with unpleasant consequences for poor Con, no doubt, for he sat on the spot where the fire had been. 

I heard or read somewhere that there was a pool at each of these sweat houses and that the patient plunged into this at the conclusion of the house treatment and then was wrapped up in a blanket or some other warm clothing. This would not be so bad; but if the patient had to go a considerable distance to his home there might be serious danger of his getting cold. But in any case the whole treatment was somewhat drastic and took a tough subject to undergo; the supply of oxygen in the house must have been very low and the turf smoke also added to the discomfort. No doubt these houses served a purpose in their day, and when medical knowledge was rare or non-existent, the people were glad to avail of them. It is satisfactory to know that this particular example of a sweat house has been preserved, as a great many others must have been destroyed by vandals or other thoughtless people. 

AMUSEMENTS 

The most outstanding musician in this district was Micky Rooney who died in the sixties of the last century, about 1865. He was born in the townland of Knocknagross and when a child of seven or eight lost his sight in that dreadful scourge of the time –smallpox. I have seen quite a number of people in this parish who bore the marks left by this disease on their faces and were said to be "brocked" or "brock-ed", their faces being covered with little holes and terribly disfigured. Anyone seeing such disfigurement must surely give credit to vaccination, which in this country wiped out the scourge completely. 

Micky's parents decided that he should learn the fiddle, so that he should have some source of livelihood when he grew up. He was sent to the famous McCaffrey of Monaghan, the best traditional fiddler of the time. Mickey was an apt pupil and made rapid strides under McCaffrey's tuition. Monaghan was ten or eleven miles from Micky's home, too much of a journey for him to walk, considering his handicap, so he rode an ass to and from his lessons. 

If you have read Carlston's description of Micky MacRory you will have little trouble in imagining what the main outlines of Micky Rooney's character were; for it always seemed to me that the two fiddlers resembled each other in quite a good many ways. Rooney had that calmness of spirit peculiar to the blind, he was a man of few words, of temperate habits, fond of a little joke now and then, and, as if in compensation for the loss of his sight, his other senses were remarkably sharp. If a string of his instrument happened to break he would sometimes call on the woman of the house to bring him a candle while he put in a replacement for the broken string, and usually the poor woman fussed around and came along with the candle, to find that Micky had the broken string replaced. 

Micky had a great many relations in the locality and he visited most of those from time to time on his rounds. There was always a dance in the house where he was a guest: but if he stayed for more than one night there were sure to be more than one dance. There were pauses for songs during the night and Micky sometimes obliged. He was a rather good baritone. Of course he accompanied himself on the fiddle. 

He was a late riser, some time between ten and twelve o'clock. He spent a long time at his prayers, for he was a deeply religious man, like numerous others of his time. He would then proceed to brush his clothes and this took quite a time also, but somehow he managed to appear spotless in the kitchen where the woman of the house was impatiently awaiting his arrival.

Micky reminds me in some ways of the bards and minstrels of ancient Ireland, but ' Micky went round the homes of his relatives, while the former visited the houses of the great. He took little interest in money; if he got it, well and good, if he didn't, he never complained. My father and he were cousins. Our people came to this part of Fermanagh as refugees from Drogheda, Co. Louth, after or during the sack of that city by Cromwell.   

SPORTS  

Gaelic football was introduced to this parish when the G.A.A. (Gaelic Athletic Association) was founded in 1884. I remember the first game the newly-founded team played in the townland to Eshnadara though I was only four years at the time. I could see, young and all as I was, how proud the young men were of their jerseys, shorts and football boots. Young and old turned out for the display, which was nothing more than a practice match. 

I remember seeing two members of the team who lived in the mountainous part of the parish going to a match beside Roslea, a distance of four miles, dressed out in shorts, jerseys and football boots, the only additional garment being a jacket. What a state their feet must have been in when they reached Roslea! The team was always handicapped by the lack of a suitable football field, though I see by the papers that work is in progress to remedy this, and let us hope that the local team will soon have conditions comparable with neighbouring parishes. 

In the early years of the G.A.A. the game was very often unnecessarily rough and many of the players received injuries, often serious, and in some instances even fatal.Very often the spectators were as much to blame as the players, by applauding rough play from the sidelines and urging their favourite player with shouts and cheers of approval for his rough play. Nowadays the game has become too fast for rough football, and the team that resorts to rough tactics is very often the loser. The referee has a most important part to play and his competence and impartiality are of the utmost importance to ensure the smooth running of the game. 

Handball has almost completely disappeared from Roslea parish, due probably to the lack of any modern handball alleys and competition from other games, chiefly football. There are no suitable places to play the game; when it was played in the past the only places available were house gables and walls. Let us hope that in the foreseeable future something will be done by way of providing two or three alleys in different parts of the parish to encourage the revival of the game. It is a sport without danger, a grand developer of the muscles of the arms and legs and can be played by young and old. 

"Camans" (hurling) used to be played by the young in my youth, but it was a rather primitive form of the game which we played, the caman being taken from the nearest hedge and the ball a lump of any convenient material, like a lump of wool, a large spool or a ball made of straw or hay. A brother of mine had a front tooth broken in half by a spool used as a ball in one of those dangerous games. The real hurling such as we have in the West and South is a manly spectacular game for which any country could and should be proud. The girls in Roslea are now playing "Camogy", founded on hurling, and are, by all accounts, making a name for themselves in the world of sport.