Glenamaddy Turlough

Journeying still further eastward from Bweeownach towards Roscommon, and about three miles from the former, the wayfarer could not fail to notice, particularly if his journey were in the winter season, a fine lake situated to the south side of the road, and about a mile long by half a mile wide. If, at the time he was passing it, there happened to be a stiff south-westerly breeze blowing, the waters of the lake would compel him to notice it, for it abuts on the road, and the spray, cast by the wind in pail-fulls across his path, will oblige him, if he wishes to preserve a dry skin, to put up his gingham or wrap his water-proof more closely around him. And, at least in times past, he might be put to still greater inconvenience. For, if his passing were after an exceptionally heavy rainfall, the road would be covered to the depth of several feet with water, and he would be obliged, for safety as well as for convenience, to abandon the highway and make his way as best he could by a temporary passage opened through the fields on the opposite side of the lake. This inconvenience and possible danger are now obviated by the raising of the roadway and the erection of a strong concrete wall between it and the lake.

Gleann-Na-Maighe-Duibhe

Returning again in the summer-time, by the same route the traveller would look in vain for the lake which pleased or inconvenienced him. To parody the poet’s line – Its site “was still there, but the waters were gone”. Gone, he knew not whither nor how. For, though there are many obvious inlets, there is no visible outlet, and he would have to be informed that the waters had disappeared through an orifice, hidden under liquid mud, in a recess or valley at the western end of the lake, and, after flowing a considerable distance through a subterranean passage, they reappeared three miles away and served to work a corn mill and to turn a lathe which an enterprising mechanic had set up to assist him in his craft as car and cartwright.

A Haul Of Fish

Had our wayfarer being in the “nick of time” – that is, if he had passed about twenty-four hours or so before the waters finally disappeared – he would have witnessed a scene far more exciting, if not nearly so awe inspiring, as that which took place on the shores of Genesareth over eighteen hundred years ago. He would have seen hundreds of persons of both sexes and all ages gathered round the pool of liquid mud, shouting, laughing, and cheering, while a score or more of boys and men were immersed to the armpits and deeper, in the pool, and provided with gaffs, landing nets, sand-screens, perforated buckets and other contrivances for catching the shoal of fish with which the pools seemed alive. These fish were bred in the beds of the streams which fed the lake, and matured in its waters, and have now been driven to their last resort – a vain effort to accompany the element which nurtured and sheltered them. He will be equally surprised to find that the whole area for some hundreds of acres which had been occupied by the waters of the lake, covered to a depth of several inches with slime and black mud. This mud had been carried down during the rainy season in large quantities by the streams which fed the lake, and which had their rise in the vast tracts of bog lying eastward. I have no doubt that it was this large black plain, with the valley at the western end, that gave its name to the adjacent village of Glenamaddy.