Ireland's Ancient East

Did you Know ?

The Mad Sweeney

Still Hides in the Trees of St Mullins.

Well as the story goes there was this King up in the county Meath called Sweeney who lost the plot when a Bishop Ronan started building a monastery on his land, how dare he .Sweeney threw his spear missed the Bishop and killed one of his servants .Ronan cursed Sweeney to fly through the trees for the rest of his life, what a horrible man .No matter how hard his friends tried to get him back to his kingdom he was so mad they couldn’t hold on to him. The witch of time didn’t help either” Cailleach Na Dudain” The Hag of the Mill she challenged him to a jumping contest and all around Ireland and off they went jumping form hill to hill until poor auld Sweeney was exhausted. Well he ended up in St Mullins eating water cress in St Moling’s stream when who came along but the saint himself and he took pity on the wretched Man –Bird .He listened to Sweeneys tale but wasn’t able to reverse the Bishops curse but he said he could sleep in the trees around the Abbeys every night if he would tell the Saint the story of his life. The pig herder for the Abbey was Mongan and his wife put milk in a cow path so the Sweeney could fly down from the threes for a drink. But typical auld gossipers the other women suggested he was getting more than the sup of milk and let it slip to Mongan himself. Well the man had his pride so he stuck his spear into poor auld Sweeney and he died ,some say he is buried above in the grave yard others believe he is still up in the trees.

 Seeneys story is recalled by the following  Authors

“The Adventures of Suibhne Geilt “    JJO’Keeffe

“At Swim Two Birds”           Brian O Nolan( Flan O’Brien)

“ Four Masters”                   Michael O’Cleary

 “Stowe Collection @ The Royal Irish Academy” Daniel O’Duigenan

 “Sweeney  Astray”               Seamus Heaney