Ciorrú Geis Bhuíochais ag Fear nár Bádh / Rescued Man Breaks Taboo of Thanks

3. Ciorrú Geis Bhuíochais ag Fear nár Bádh
Val Ó Donnchadha, Bantrach Ard, Cill Chiaráin

3. Rescued Man Breaks Taboo of Thanks
Val Ó Donnchadha, Bantrach Ard, Cill Chiaráin

I often heard around here in Connemara, whether it is true or not, that it was said that any man saved from drowning, never expressed thanks to any man. You would think it a strange thing. But I know one man who thanked my father himself and his two comrades, whom they saved from drowning. That is a man from Coill Sáile, Tomás Phaitseach a’ Ghriallais.
He and children and young men and women were picking creathnach on Eagle Rock. He was on the north side, where I was telling you a short while ago, and it is still said by old fishermen that no breaker ever came in there, but that the sea breaks out from the land. It is called Maidhm Leac Dhearg (the Wave of the Red Rock [sic]).
            But Curran or Paitseach, the Grealish man, was up there and the retreating wave took him out. The women were inside and they were shouting at these fishermen and they were a good bit out of lifting lobster pots. They moved in and he was there —he was an old man at the time. The place was very rough —a tossed sea. Five or six perhaps or a dozen often, when they would get a fine day and a calm sea, perhaps they could pick on that day half the year’s supply of creathnach, picking it when the tide was out. It was called creathnach dhiúilicíneach (creathnach with mussels growing on it). It is good when dried in the sun. It is very good for the winter, for sauce and it is said that it is healthy.
           Anyhow they were picking, but Tomás went too far down and he was carried out by the retreating wave. But they did not see him. But the women were inside and the children and they were screaming. But someone on the boat said that there must be someone in danger of drowning. And they [the fishermen] moved in and Tomás Phaitseach was out in the wave, sitting down in the sea and going in and out with the tossed sea and his hair spread out on top of the water. They did their best to save him. They went out and they let down the mooring stone as far as the mooring rope allowed them and they moved inland and they took him out of the water.
            They went south then to the harbour, Eagle Rock harbour, a quiet place and they put him ashore on the mainland. The poor man was put lying on his stomach (mouth underneath) and they were saying that a whole barrel of seawater came out of his mouth. He was not regaining consciousness. He must have been near enough to death when he was picked up. someone said, ‘If there was someone who could put a bit of tobacco in his mouth, if there was any vein all alive in his heart that he would pull through.’ But Curran was never without tobacco, so he put his hand in his pocket and took a good slice of tobacco from a piece that he had, and he was trying to put it under his back teeth. You often heard of the drowning man’s grip; his teeth were so tight that you wouldn’t open them with a pincers. Whatever way he put his thumb in, when Tomás got a hold of it, he bit it and almost made two halves of it.
            ‘Ah,’ said Curran, ‘old debts.’ Curran used to have a saying always which they used to repeat. I saw him, Curran, God rest his soul, I barely remember him. He used to have a saying in which he said, ‘as the beggar said.’ ‘As the beggar said,’ said Curran, ‘I had nothing from it except the loss of my thumb.’ He saved his thumb the day the drowning man bit on it. He saved it, but it was sore. But as I was saying to you before, that no one ever thanked anyone, or so it is said, for saving him from danger of drowning. But poor Tomás was not like that. In the first public house in which he met my father or the men who were with him, he thanked them a lot, and he was very grateful to them.
            But I suppose he was not fated to die because it was said there was a priest in the place one time, and that he was looking for a passage across the bay. The day was very windy, north west storm. He found no man in his travels who said he would take him to Leitir Caladh but Tomás’s father, Paitseach a’ Ghriallais. He was a young man at that time and he went across in his púcán boat with him and he left him over there.
            ‘Muise,’ said the priest when he went out, ‘may God spare you your life and your health, and I hope to God that no one of your descendants will ever be drowned or thrown into the sea.’
And it is said that no man of the Grealishes was ever drowned since.

All images and versions of this scéal are from the Dr. Heinrich Becker archive.