The Fairy Tree

Shanrahan Cemetery – Part 4

Trinity Well, Newmarket, Co. Cork

Holy Well of St. Colman MacDuagh, Oughtmama, Co. Clare

I have read of and encountered Rag Trees at Holy Wells.
 
Most people would have heard of the planned motorway in Co. Clare being rerouted so as to avoid knocking a Fairy Tree.
 ​
Until last week, I had not heard of the song, The Fairy Tree sung by John McCormack among others – or heard of Kate Ryan who features in the song’s lyrics.

As we were making to leave the cemetery for the first time, local residents, P.J. and his good wife, out for their evening stroll, educated me as to The Fairy Tree and brought me to the grave of Katie Ryan where the headstone records the name of the deceased and the song.
 
It is a bad day when one does not learn something new.

​“They’ll tell you dead men hung there
Its black and bitter fruit
To guard the buried treasure
Round which it twines its root
They’ll tell you Cromwell hung them
But that could never be
He’d be in dread like others
To touch the Fairy Tree  “

“From moonrise round the thorn tree
The little people play
And men and women passing
Will turn their heads away
But if your heart’s a child’s heart
And if your eyes are clean
You’ll never fear the thorn tree
That grows beyond Clogheen”
Temple Lane
​