One fine day in summer, after a walk up the southern slopes of Slieve Bloom, in company with some friends, we reached the site of Mundrehid’s old ruined church, the walls of which were then nearly level with the ground.
The name of this place is derived from the River Men or Mena, which runs near it, and Drehid or Drochid, the Irish denomination for “bridge,” which has spanned the stream from times the most remote. The old and lonely cemetery was round it, a few rude headstones studding its surface.
The scenery there was truly deserving our admiration. While our friends were resting on the site, and, after taking a few observations, we sat down on the low ruined wall. There, about the sixth or seventh century, St. Laisren established his dwelling. On the 16th of September his festival is registered in the Irish Calendars.
While resting there, we were soon joined by a shepherd, passing by the way, and his name was Ned Feehery. He lived near the place; and being asked for some information regarding it, he communicated very readily the following legend.
Ever since the old church fell into decay, a Druid had been known to haunt the site. Occasionally he had been seen by the older inhabitants.
Before the apparition occurs, a tremendous roar is heard, so that the earth quakes all around. Immediately the ground opens, and then a small black man springs up, covered with armour, and wearing a belt, from which a sword hangs. He draws the sword, and flourishes it over his head. He next races three times around the graveyard; and in a short time he disappears from that spot whence he rose, and sinks under the earth’s surface.
This strange earthly visitant, Ned Feehery declared, he had himself once distinctly seen—towards the dusk of evening.
The richest fields in Ossory surrounded the church, which once belonged to a monastery on that spot. Near it Gortavoragh and the Friar’s Garden—where the peasantry root for money—were pointed out beside the little River Turtawn, which appears to have bounded the monastery fields.
Through these, headless coachmen and headless horses driving about the paddocks have been witnessed by people, during the still hours of night.
Some twenty years later we returned to Mundrehid, but found that the gentleman farmer in possession had not only levelled the large ditches crowned with finely-grown hawthorns, which surrounded the small paddock fields, but even the stones were uprooted from the old foundations in the grave-yard, and the rude headstones were removed.
No trace of a grave now remains, while not a single vestige of the patron’s historic home is left. Living memory alone preserves the site. Countless generations of the dead moulder at present under the levelled spot. Thence their bones may be raised by the future antiquary, to attest the position of that disused cemetery.
The deed of the Vandal is still reprobated in that neighbourhood; but the peasants relate, how his desire to open wide pastures as a range for cattle did not prosper according to the full extent of the spoiler’s wishes, as many of them were carried off by disease, while the herds of other farmers were spared such a visitation.