Please activate JavaScript!
Please install Adobe Flash Player, click here for download

MAGUS

114 now hastening. To present his musket and fire at the foremost was the work of a moment. The man reeled and fell over the edge, knocking heavily against the sharp and jutting rocks which broke his fall into the sea many fathoms below. The momentary confusion and pause which followed, enabled Carroll to hide behind a clump of furze which half-concealed the entrance to the cave where Mary and the serjeant yet remained insensible. With a yell, the soldiers rushed to the spot where the object of their pursuit had fired from and, finding him gone, dashed into the cave. The discovery of the supposed dead body of the serjeant for a minute delayed their search, and, in this second confusion, Murtough sprang from his hiding place towards the rocky ledge which the yeoman had just crossed. The action was seen and pursuit was instant; but bounding with the speed of a chamois amid its native hills, he had reached the narrow and dizzy path when one of a shower of bullets shattered his arm. He fell, but clutching the rock with his uninjured limb, had almost regained his footing, when a second shot struck him in the side and he rolled over the giddy eminence, like his own victim, a mangled corpse into the sea. Before another moon shine upon the scene of her lover’s death, Mary O’Neill was sleeping in her grave. Fortune-telling [Back to Contents] O/S Memoirs, Parishes of County Antrim III, vol. 10, Parish of Islandmagee, James Boyle, April 1840. (p. 41) ‘In a house in Balloo strange noises have been heard, and in several parts of the parish the fairies have been seen and their music has been heard. Many old women practise card- cutting and cup-tossing, telling fortunes and interpreting dreams. One old woman named Mary Haddock of Carnspindle townland is remarkable for her ability and dexterity in these acquirements.’ Belfast Newsletter, 3 April 1863, Armagh Petty Sessions – A Fortune Teller. Daniel McGahan charged a scheming-looking fellow named Owen Magill, on whose hirsute appendage the snows of time had left their impressions with obtaining money under false pretences. The Plaintiff lives in Edenderry and it appears from the information sworn by him that the prisoner entered his house some few days ago and pretending that he was a dummy and gifted with supernatural knowledge, he proposed to spae the fortunes of the family. With

Pages Overview