As of late, I’ve noticed the same fox walking by where I live each night. As I watched him go by, it brought me back to something, or rather someone, I had come across while creating an index for the Urban Folklore Project, as part of my work in the National Folklore Collection. The Urban Folklore Project (UFP), was a project undertaken in the late 1970s and early 80s which focused mainly on the urban areas in Dublin. Many of these areas didn’t feature in the “Schools’ Collection” of the 1930s, yet all carried equally rich amounts of lore concerning their localities.
Séamas Mac Philib, one of the collectors involved in the UFP, recalled his first interview taking place in Clondalkin, Co. Dublin in an article in the journal Béaloideas. He notes the wealth of knowledge on everything from ghosts and fairies to Daniel O’Connell and the Great Famine, all taken not far from the Naas road. This type of folklore was typically associated with rural areas, yet here it was just as strong in the traditions of Dubliners.
Collectors Gerry Brady, Séamas Sisk and John Newman, Co.Dublin Photographer: Séamas Mac Philib. M002.06.00052
Rónán Bourke, another collector involved in the UFP, conducted an interview with Thomas Mulligan from Co.Westmeath. Mulligan tells of a local landowner who was known to be quite eccentric. The man in question was Adolphus Cooke, owner of Cookesborough, and Mulligan tells us he was given these stories by a local labourer who worked for Cooke.
The first story Mulligan tells is of a labourer showing up to work, about an hour late. In a desperate attempt to find an excuse, ‘he tore all his clothes and his face and hands and got them bleeding and he ran up and down until he was kind of panting’. Upon seeing him, Cooke asks what’s the matter, to which the labourer gives a fascinating answer. As Mulligan states, ‘Oh he says, he was in an awful battle. A battle between the Killuca crows and the Cookesborough crows.’ Cooke does not bat an eyelid at this unusual account. Instead he simply asks who won. When his labourer replies that the Cookesborough crows did indeed win, Cooke responds ‘Well of course, I always knew I had the strongest and best fed crows in all Ireland’. It did not end there, however. Cooke proceeded to order all of his men to go and assist the crows in their nest building as a reward for their excellent win in battle, which Mulligan says ‘the workmen spent weeks building’.
NFC 1951: 207-208 Account of Adolphus Cooke
Mulligan tells another tale of a hungry man, who upon hearing of Cooke, heads to Cooksborough. As Mulligan says, ‘He’d heard about Cooke and the way he carried on, you know, so it was coming up near dinner time so he said he’d go in and try to get a feed off him. So when he was going up near the hall door there was a lawn of long grass and Cooke looking out the window. So he got down on his hands and knees and started to eat the grass. Next, Cooke arrived out and asked him what was he doing, well he says your honour I couldn’t resist the lovely long grass you have here, I just had to get a few mouthfuls. Oh, says he, come on with me and I’ll fix you up’. At this point in Mulligan’s story we can assume that the hungry man is expecting a grand dinner to be given to him. That is not the case. As Mulligan concludes, ‘he brought him in and sent for the steward, told the steward to bring him out to the field behind the house where there was a lot better and sweeter grass and to go out and let him have his fill. So that’s the dinner he got. Cooke would be dead in earnest as he thought he was dying for a feed of grass’.
NFC 1951: 215-216 Account of Adolphus Cooke
Now, to refer back to the beginning of this blog post, you are probably wondering why I associate Cooke with foxes? Well, Mulligan tells us that Cooke insisted that when he died, he would be reincarnated as a fox. Therefore what he ordered his men to do, only made perfect sense. As Mulligan states, ‘He thought that when he’d die he’d turn into a fox. So he built all underground tunnels and earths and escape routes out of it so when the hounds came after him he’d be able to get away. Oh they spent a few years building them – the stone masons. But small enough that he could get into them but that the hounds couldn’t get in after him’.
NFCS 737: 266 Account of Adolphus Cooke.
From the account Mulligan gives, Cooke seemed to be very fond of animals and he was known to treat animals the same as if they were people, as seen in a story involving Cooke’s own beloved dog. Upon seeing his setter chasing a female dog, Cooke, deeply upset, decided to put him to court, making his servants serve as the jury. Cooke even proceeded to give a speech, which Mulligan quotes for us: ‘Gusty my favourite setter dog, I sentence you to death for crimes of misdemeanour’. He sent one servant off to hang the dog. Of course the servant couldn’t carry it out and so he returned a while later, with the dog still alive. When Cooke saw the dog he began to ask questions, but as Mulligan explains ‘He knew [the servant] that Cooke believed in reincarnation. He says, I didn’t hang him because he spoke to me. He told me he was your grandfather and not to hang him, to spare his life’. In response Cooke insisted that ‘he’ll have to be minded especially from then on’. Indeed, Mulligan claims that from that day, the dog only ate out of a silver dish and ate the very same food as Cooke himself.
Dog on street. Stoneybatter. Photographer: Gerard Brady. A010.06.00467
Accounts of Cooke are also to be found in the Schools’ Collection. Thomas Fagan from Tyrellspass school in Co. Westmeath tells us that it is believed he is in his tomb sitting upright with his arms outstretched, ready to grab hold of anyone who enters. Indeed Mulligan tells us that ‘he built a special tomb for himself’ in the shape of a beehive. ‘And he had a marble chair in it and he was to have been put sitting in it and his own special books were to be left in with him’.
NFCS 0731 312 Account of Adolphus Cooke. Collected by Thomas Fagan
If you ever find yourself near the grounds of Cookesborough house near Mullingar, I advise you to look out for any foxes, and let them pass on their way. Those are only some of the tales to be found about Cooke as featured in the Urban Folklore Project. These accounts can be found in NFC 1951: 200-217 as well as UFP0586. More accounts are featured in an interview with Mr Flynn of Westmeath in UFP0587, along with accounts in our Schools’ Collection. Further material from the Urban Folklore Project can be explored on request
in the National Folklore Collection.
Further Reading:
Mac Philib, Séamas. “Dublin South County to North Inner City: An urban folklore project
1979-1980”. Béaloideas 74 (2006): 103-21. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20520902.
NFC 1951: 202-217 Thomas Mulligan, (50), Farmer, Killucan, Co.Westmeath. Collector: Rónán Bourke, September 1980.
NFCS 731: 311-12; Mr J Hynes (80), Ring, Co.Westmeath. Collector: Thomas Fagan. Tyrellspass National School. Teacher: S. Ó Cléirigh.
https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5009064/4982754/5120193HighlightText=adolphus+cooke&Route=stories&SearchLanguage=ga
NFCS 737: 258; Patrick Cleary (38), Loughagar Beg, Co.Westmeath. Loughagar National School.
Teacher: Énrí Mac an Abba.
https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5009086/4985234/5121303HighlightText=adolphus+cooke&Route=stories&SearchLanguage=ga
NFCS 737:266-269 John Price, Loughagar Beg, Co.Westmeath. Loughagar National School.
Teacher: Énrí Mac an Abba. https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5009086/4985242
This post was written by Polly Morton, National Folklore Collection