Like a Roundstone cowboy

 

The old cowboy in the corner of the Roundstone saloon spat in the vague direction of the spittoon and drained his whuskey.

"The round stone?" he asked. "What would a feller like you be wanting with the round stone?"

I explained that I researched lighthouses and navigational beacons and I had heard legends about an old round stone in this part of Connemara.

"Ah, I could tell you all about the round stone," my newly-found friend whispered hoarsely, "but my throat is desperate dry."

After I had replenished his beverage, he began his tale.

"Here in Roundstone, we talk about Before Nimmo and After Nimmo. Alexander Nimmo, came over from Scotland. Couldn't understand a word he said and he had no Gaelic, not even Scot's Gaelic. Before he came, there was only a few houses dotted up and down the coast and a bit of a harbour for the boys to fish out of..."

"He built the lighthouse at Dunmore East too," I interjected.

"That he did, and a lot of roads and piers and bridges around the country too, though mainly in Galway and Mayo. Didn't build a lighthouse here, though. Could've done with one. Fierce hardworking man. I remember passing him by and he digging out foundations for the pier here, all on his lonesome, and the sweat dripping off him."

"That would have been around 1822 to 1824," I said, somewhat doubtfully. 

"Aye, you could be right, about that time. Great man he was too."

"And the round stone?"

"I'm coming to that. Before Nimmo, you see, there was nothing except rocks and islands and inlets. The lads'd go out fishing and when they were coming in again, they couldn't tell one place from another, so they'd end up in Glynsk or Letterfrack or anywhere. One lad ended up with three different families all along the coast. Every time he put out to sea, he couldn't find his way back and ended up settling in another spot..."

"That's all by the way until in 1678, a man by the name of Roderic O'Flaherty came here. He was a bit like you, baldy-headed and not very good-looking but he could read and write like the duvvle."

"You remember him, I suppose?" I asked, somewhat sarcastically.

"Little Roddy? Yes, course I do. Fierce nice chap except when you needed a drink. Anyway, Roddy noticed there was a big round stone at the entrance to Roundstone Bay. Not on the Inishnee side, mind, on the western end. And he was in this very saloon one night and he says out loud, 'Boys, when yous are coming back from fishing, why don't you look for the big round stone at the entrance of the harbour? That way, you'd know where you were.' He said it in Irish, mind - Cuan na cloiche runta, the bay of the round stone. And the boys looked at him like he was Elijah coming down from the mountain. And that's how the town got its name."

"I thought it was Cloch na Rón, the rock of the seal?"    

"Ah, so they say, but they weren't there at the time."

"And what happened to this round stone?" I enquired.

"Ah, its still there. Sure, who's going to move it? Go down to the monastery and on the right you'll see a gate. Follow the monastery wall until you come out in a field with a herd of cows in it ready to be driven up to Wyoming and you'll see the round stone just offshore. Now there was talk of another drink but sure ..."

1st edition OS Map

Last edition OS map