At the head of Lough Corrib, deep in the water about a gunshot from the land, stands the ancient castle of Caisleen-na-Cearca, said to have been built in one night by a cock and a hen, but in reality it was founded by the ill-fated Roderick O’Connor, the last king of Ireland. Strange lights are sometimes seen flitting through it, and on some particular midnight a crowd of boats gather round it, filled with men dressed in green with red sashes. And they row about till the cock crows, when they suddenly vanish and the cries of children are heard in the air. Then the people know that there has been a death somewhere in the region, and that the Sidhe have been stealing the young mortal children, and leaving some ill-favoured brat in the cradle in place of the true child.

The old castle has many historic memories; the celebrated Graina Uaile, the great chieftainess of the West, made it her abode for some time, and carried thither the young heir of Howth, whom she had abducted from Howth Castle, when on one of her piratical expeditions. Afterwards, during the Wars of Elizabeth, a distinguished lady of the sept of the O’Flaherties, Bevinda O’Flahertie, shut herself up there wit............