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The Story for this piece:
On the 18th of July 1610, Stephen Butler received his grant from King James I, this included 2,000 acres of land in and around Belturbet. He agreed to erect, plant and establish a market town and corporation in
Belturbet to defend the ford at Kilconny. To this end, he brought over 200 English tradesmen and their families to erect the town. He built his castle on the Market Square, now the Diamond, where the town hall and the old post office stand. At this time Butler erected a punishment device called a ‘Duckin’ Stool’. The victims were mainly women called “Scolds” i.e they had been disruptive or had
blackened some person’s character. To be ‘ducked’ meant the total immersion in the water to the top of the ears.
An article from Henry’s Upper Lough Erne 1739 describes the night Butlers castle got struck by lightning
“in the most extraordinary manner.” The lightning struck the top of the castle, it went through the whole castle cutting a three foot diameter hole in the floor. The lightning then shot out the door, Two women were in the hall. One was not hurt but the other who stood by the door was struck half - dead. The side of her next to the lightning was left all black, the other side was not affected.
Skipping back to even further in time the eye in the river represents Balor the evil king of the Fomors. According to Irish mythology long before the Tuatha De Dannan or the Fir Bolg, the land was ruled by a powerful sorcerous race called the Fomors. As a child you see, Balor had happened to spy on his
father's druids enacting a plague upon their enemies and some of the
noisome vapours of that spell entered his eye, causing it to swell to a great size and granting it the power of death. Apparently the Fomor’s and Balor's evil eye lived deep in the oceans and rivers of Ireland and had the power to cause great destruction to the landscape. With his eye he is said to have blasted the islands west of Scotland, which remain bleak and haunted to this day. It was said, his gaze could turn men to stone, a power he demonstrated at the second battle of Moy Tura, still spoken of with fear by the people of Cong in County Mayo!
Could the power of Balor’s evil eye have lingered in the River Erne waters as time moved on?
Information taken from George E. Morrissey’s book, Belturbet, A Chequered History & Emeraldisle.com
