LEGENDS OF WILLIE BRENNAN

Brennan fails to get the better of a prospective victim having tried in vain to wrestle his pack from him at Leary’s Bridge. An impressed Brennan invites the Pedlar Bán to become his accomplice in crime.

Brennan throws his pursuers off the scent by reversing his horse’s shoes and on another occasion he eludes capture by hiding under the waterfall at the Goat’s Parlour (Poll an Easa - the Waterfall Hole) by the Mountain Barracks.

Brennan is betrayed by an ungrateful ‘woman of unsettled habits’ (ref. Norris 1875) when he accepts her hospitality in her cottage at the foothills of the Galtees.

Arrested by two soldiers of the Fermoy garrison, Brennan requests the servant girl at a síbín ‘to put fire in my pipe’. She promptly returns with a blunderbuss concealed under her apron, the tables are turned and Brennan relieves the two of their arms and money. Taking compassion on the poor widow, he gives her the £5 rent money and then relieves the unsuspecting bailiff of his purse on his road back to Lord Mount Cashell.

At his trial, nobody present dared to admit they were from Kilworth or Araglen, leaving Brennan carry to the grave the whereabouts of the stolen pure gold sow and her six bonhams.

Brennan’s funeral cortège stretched for two miles to Kilcrumper cemetery where, according to Tom the Caist, he is buried near the old church wall.