BSW3A 5. Beware of the Pooka

Speaker: Mary MurphyFrom The Bluestack Way - Part 3 playlist.Directions You'll be coming out onto the R263 main road from Frosses to Glenties here. Take a right and walk against the traffic until you get to Sir Arthur's Bridge.  Pooka In the village of Killian not far from Binbane, Kinnfaela tells the story of the Pooka, which infested the district around 1817. The Pooka was a ghost, which showed himself regularly every evening about dusk. His appearance was that of some shapeless monster, apparently without head or limbs. His mode of locomotion was neither walking, jumping, crawling, nor flying, but rolling himself along as one would impel a cask or barrel. For two years inhabitants within three miles of Killian would hear his horrid cry with all the regularity of the setting of the sun. No one could expect to go outdoors after dusk without being sure of meeting him. Anyone who did confront him could expect to be found dead of fright the following morning.  Kinfaela continues ‘A man called Bryan MacGuire who lived in Tiawar and needed to go to Meenagran for a creel of potatoes met the Pooka on his return. He sustained a deep shock to his nerves, but being a religious man, he committed himself to the protection of heaven. He could not go forward as the Pooka was in his path, and was keeping up such a horrid bellowing as would prostrate poor MacGuire, had not the aid of religion supported him.  So blessing himself, he manfully accosted the Pooka, who thereupon lost some of his terrors for his questioner. They entered familiarly into conversation with each other, the result being that the monster confessed himself a spirit from the ‘vasty deep’ and imparted much information to MacGuire respecting the other world, and his own mission upon earth. Whatever secrets the latter learnt that night were never divulged. In the end MacGuire exorcised the unclean spirit and duly consigned him to some place of confinement, to which he made his exit immediately, giving forth from his capacious lungs one shrill piercing shriek, as a parting farewell. But the shock was too much for poor human nature. MacGuire languished and died within the year, but the Pooka was never again heard in Killian’.  Picture of Pooka by Unkraut.  Our audio piece elaborates on the superstition of the Pooka.