It was an evening towards the close of the 18^th century. The crimson sun sank slowly and the evening stretched oe'r the Lucra hills. Another day was dead. Dead as a particle of time but destined to be alive forever in the history of the small townland. What terrors that night brought to the inhabitants of the peaceful valley of Barnagh nestling in among the hills of Templeglantine.

A lone horseman was making his way home from Newcastle West to Meenoline at the foot of Barnagh Hill. Where the railway bridge spans the roadway he met with the dreaded Sprid na Barnagh.

Before I continue with more of the night's proceedings, let me tell you something of the weird spirit. Her name was Moll O'Shaughnessy. She was married and had one child. One night in a violent fit of anger she killed her husband and her child. She was tried and sentenced to death. The death she got was to be put into a barrel riddled with sharp nails on the inside and taken up to the top of a high hill and left to roll down until it reached the foot of the hill.

Some time after her death, she appeared around Barnagh in different forms. When people were saving hay she'd come on a greyhound flying madly around the meadow and knock the haycocks about.

Well, as the man was coming he met with the spirit and she jumped up behind him and stayed on the horse until she came to a place called the tip. She challenged him to fight and then they both jumped off the horse. During the fight the man slipped and fell and the weird spirit killed him.

After that the people were eager to banish her. They heard that there was a very holy hermit in a place called Cratloe in the parish of Athea. They sent for him and he came and banished her to tame the Red Sea with a bottomless thimble and she was since seen 'round the peaceful valley of Barnagh.