“In this graveyard [North Kilmurray] is buried a priest named Fr. Dilworth who it appears was a native of the Parish of Inniscarra. While living it is said he cured many people of some ailments and after his death and burial in Kilmurray graveyard, people continued to visit his grave and paid rounds there in the hope of being cured of whatever ailment they suffered from. Some rounds are still being paid especially on Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday and it is said that many have benefited by the rounds.

The round consists in walking slowly round the grave of Fr. Dilworth a number of times and saying custom prayers.

Across the road, in a little field is what is looked upon as a holy well, and in order to gain full benefit of the round, a visit must be paid to the well to drink some of the water (Berrings School File, Schools Folklore Commission, 1938)”.

In my own travels in the Lee valley, many people have said to me the words “it is said”. The names of the original tellers have been lost but the essence of the story of human endeavour has survived the test of time. To some people, these stories may be just data but this passed down knowledge says much of how we inherit traits of the past and select what to pass on. I have heard much about traditions, the ways of life in the areas I have passed through.

Traditions may manifest them in physical, tangible places such as country cottages churches and graveyards but there are many customs that work within a community as invisible entities bound up with human life. These passed down stories formulate local identities, a sense of pride and place and foster a respect for each place’s uniqueness and beauty. Traditions do inform the culture of future generations. However, we do not take everything with us into the future. Not everything is considered worthy of preservation. In every era, the contemporary culture selects what is kept and incorporated into the grand tradition. Certainly, from talking to the goof people of Dripsey traditions in that area were altered by the paper and woollen mills in a positive and negative sense.

We live in a fast paced world where in a sense the lines between the local and the global are blurred. In our time, a house in the rural countryside can attain the internet and find out within five seconds what is happening in places such as Sydney, Australia at the other side of the world.

I have been developed an interest in folklore in my travels and have learned that it can colour the land with the human story, which is a very important trait of history. Folklore shines a light upon tradition, ways of life and folk, popular, mass and elite culture. Below is a flavour of stories that appear in the 150 pages of folklore collected by students of Berrings National school as part of their work for the Irish Folklore Commission in 1938. Cultural items such as riddles, signs of bad weather, death, marriage customs, songs, poems, religious customs, the process of growing potatoes to methods of house construction are discussed Berrings or in Irish ‘Boirinn’ means ‘Place of Rocks’ or stoney district. In particular the name Boireann is tied up with the ‘rocking stone’.

On the Rocking Stone:

“Adjacent to Berrings National School in a farm owned by Donal O’Relly, Berrings South, is what is known commonly as the Rocking Stone. It is a large irregular shaped slab and is supported underneath by, or rather rests on a smaller stone which acts as a kind of pivot on which it used rock. Many of the local boys sat on it and rocked it when they were attending Berrings School”.

On Signs of Frost:

“When the stars shine brightly and when it is possible to hear vehicles on far away roads, or to hear the sound of the river plainer than on any other night. When the fire gives out a red light and when the wind blows from the porch”.

On Death:

“When the person dies, the clocks are stopped and the mirrors are covered. The corpse should not be left alone in the room…when the corpse is taken out, the feet should be faced out. The bed clothes should be turned over as the corpse is taken out….When the corpse reaches the graveyard, the corpse is taken all round it, before it is put into the grave. It is believed that is a person fell in a graveyard while attending a funeral that he would be the next person to be buried there. The relatives of the dead person wear black clothes as a sign of mourning”.