Third Day of Gobnait

This wasn't intentional. 

Today was a sunny day, so we decided to drive around our Iveragh Peninsula, also known as The Ring of Kerry. 

The very first place we stopped was what had been referred to the other evening as The Haunted Village." I hadn't noticed it, but Artemis had seen it from the road, and our Kenmare friends knew a little about it. The story was that long ago there was an old woman who people thought was a witch, and they made her leave the village. As she left, she cursed them, and thereafter terrible things kept happening, so everyone in the village just moved away, leaving their little town the ruin we see today. 

Comparing this village with the photos of the hospital, farm, and Co-op founded by Gobnait Ní Bhruadair, who I wrote about about yesterday. 

According to that story, the hospital is ever empty because our Gobnait was never allowed to open it. Middle-aged revolutionaries spending their money on care for sick rural children is just a bit too eccentric perhaps. But we don't know. I've met revolutionaries and you don't always want them running hospitals. 

According to the site I referred to yesterday, she lived here doing good works, saving money, providing care to the sick, and playing the organ in her church at Sneem until she died in 1955. 

So it turns out that there was an old woman, and she was a healer—who are  often confused with witches—but she didn't leave her village, and she didn't curse anyone for chasing her out. The village was unlucky, if not cursed. There may have been official forces acting against its success, or perhaps the Co-op core group--there is always a core group in a co-op--didn't work well together. Small, idealist groups do tend to fall apart. 



We didn't clamber too far into the cow pasture that is now her former property. 


 This is the building closest to the road. 
This is the view from the "haunted village."
Lovely and healthy place to recover from TB. 

These are the cows I didn't want to disturb. Perhaps we will learn more about return another day. 






This is the google earth view of the site. Taken in the morning, the long shadows show how the buildings are roofless and windowless. The "Haunted Village" is just west of Castle Cove.