Killarney reports, County Kerry

Serious Landslip Near Killarney. A house and its occupants swept away.

A Killarney Correspondent  telegraphed last night: - "An extraordinary and disastrous landslip occurred, early this morning, near Rathmore, about ten miles from Killarney, and it was, unfortunately, attended by a serious loss of life. An enormous bog was, so to speak, let loose, and moved a considerable distance, sweeping everything before it in its irresistable course. A great tract of country has been devastated, and the destructive course of the moving mass can be distinctly traced for miles. The travelling bog in its widest part is nearly a mile across, and everything which stood in its way appears to have been utterly destroyed. A house on Lord Kenmare's estate, known as Quarry Lodge, and occupied by one of his land stewards, named Donnelly, which lay right in the track of the bog, was completely demolished and swallowed up, not a trace now remaining of the building and outhouses and contents, save a few household articles. Donnelly, his wife, and seven children, together with a number of pigs and cattle, have all disappeared, and their bodies, it is thought, will never be recovered from the bog. There was a very heavy rainfall in the district last night, and this, it is believed, precipitated the catastrophe, which, it is thought, occurred between one and four o'clock this morning. This time, however, is merely conjectural, for, so far as can be ascertained from inquiry in the district, the moving bog made no noise, and the victims could have had no warning of the terrible fate in store for them."

Beginning of an article in the London Evening Standard, 29th December 1896.


The Wailings of the Banshee.

A remarkable story has gained currency in the Killarney district. It is stated that about a week before Christmas extraordinary noises were heard in the valley at night, which the people describe as resembling what is traditionally supposed to be the wailings of the banshee. These noises - a long-drawn uncanny sound with cries resembling the Irish keen - are said to have been heard by several persons residing in the valley. Large numbers of the people explained the nature of the cries to the priests, who succeeded in calming their fears.

So widespread were the feelings which these sounds occasioned that numbers of old people sent for the clergy to visit them in their houses. The priests were busy for some days ministering religious consolation to the people and reassuring them. The noises undoubtedly were there, for numbers of the people heard the cries during the night, and in one instance they reached official ears also. The fact that these banshee-like cries, causing apprehension of some disaster among the people, should be so quickly followed by the great calamity that has befallen the district is regarded (the London Daily News says) by those who attach credence to the story as very singular.

Yorkshire Evening Post, 1st January 1897.



Belief in the Banshee.

A respected and entirely serious Irish correspondent of the Daily News believes in the banshee story. He writes:- The statement made with absolute sincerity that the wailings of the banshee were heard a week before Christmas in the valley of the moving bog in East Kerry by large numbers of people must not be set down to a freak of the Celtic imagination. These cries, which are believed to presage death, reached at least in one instance official ears on the eve of this terrible disaster.

I have myself heard the late Archdeacon Whately, who was an Englishman educated in England, the only son of the celebrated Archbishop of Dublin, say that in an Irish country parish he heard distinctly, when administering the Holy Communion to a dying person, the wail known as the cry of the banshee.

Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 9th January 1897.