Page 29 - The Drivers Guide 2019

The Driver's Guide
Castle leslie estate
JN 17 (N53 AND N2) TOWARDS CASTLEBLANEY
When you can trace your roots to Attila the Hun and your family history is littered with poets, painters, war heroes and people with passions for monster hunting or UFOs – you will never be at a loss for a tale to tell. When your home is also one of the last great Irish Castle Estates still in the hands of its founding family, every door opens onto another story rich with personal connections.
The long woman's grave
CORRAKIT, CO. LOUTH
The Long Woman’s Grave or “The Cairn of Cauthleen” is the grave of a Spanish noble woman who married Lorcan O Hanlon, the youngest son of the “Cean” or Chieftain of Omeath. On the death of the Cean he ordered that his lands be divided between his two sons, Conn óg and Lorcan.
However, Conn óg tricked his brother Lorcan by bringing him up to the Lug or Hollow in the mountains at Aenagh, telling him that he would give him the land “as far as he could see”. The mist and the bleakness of the hollow was Lorcan’s only legacy. However, Lorcan owned a ship and began trading in the East, making his fortune and becoming prosperous. On one of his voyages to Cadiz, Spain he bravely saved the lives of a Spanish nobleman and his
Which bedroom shall be yours in this sumptuous castle hotel? The Mauve Room where an Earl hid in the big white wardrobe in order to surprise a Queen? The Nursery where the giant dollhouse has been ingeniously transformed into a bathroom? Original features, antiques and curios all have their tales to tell.
Outside, 1,000 acres of rolling parkland refresh body and spirit, while the
four-mile Famine Wall, built in the 1840s as a relief project, reminds how Christina Leslie conscientiously helped local people in those dark times of hardship and hunger by providing employment and soup kitchens. A monument in Glaslough Village marks their gratitude.
daughter. Lorcan was enchanted by Cauthleen, a descendant of the great O’Donnells of Ulster and fell in love with her. The pair made a handsome couple, she was 7ft tall, only three inches smaller than Lorcan. Cauthleen was already engaged to be married but was wooed by Lorcan’s professions of love and the promises of the the good life they would have back in Omeath. The pair eloped. When the couple arrived in Carlingford Lough the locals were enchanted by this tall beauty adorned with jewels.
The couple set along the mountain path until they came to the Lug or Hollow in the rocks. Lorcan bade his bride to stand in the centre and look around as far as she could see as he “Was Lord of all she could survey”.
Cauthleen looked around, so great was her disappointment and the realisation of what she had left behind in Spain that she fell to the ground and died.
Lorcan was horrified that his duplicity had caused his wife to die and flung himself into the murky waters of the marsh at the crossroads. His body was never recovered.
The locals found the long woman’s body and dug a grave for Cauthleen in the “Lug Bhan Fada” (Long Woman’s Hollow) where she lay. Each person laid a stone on the grave to raise her burial cairn and here she sleeps today in the hollow of her disappointment and unfilled promises.
IRELAND’S ANCIENT EAST 27