J·;)URNAL OF THE COUNTY DONEGAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY that his sources were entirely oral and I was lorig of opinion that other, older, and possibly more reliable, versions had all p:rished i:1 the po·pula:-ity of the novelist's rendering. Some time ago, ho•wever, I found in RIA 12 B 18, Irish .Song Book, Vol. 6, a print of the ballad of Willy Re-illy made in Dundalk in 1820. If Car!ec.:m had to re-arrange the oral vers'ion cons·iderably it is a strange coincidence that his arrangement approximated verv -clos2ly to the wording and order of verses in the 1820 version. It is also a coincidence that Ca:-!0 ton in his vo-uthful wanderirigs spent some 'time in the Dund ?lk area. The two ve·rsions differ, howe.v<::r, in some important uetalls, viz. 1820 : When lhe lady was res. cued O'Reilly had no bail And for the said offence he was sent to tSligo jail. Carleton : It's home then she w1as taken and in her closet bound Poor Reilly all in Sligo jail lay on the stony ground. 1820 : Gentlemen of the Jury with pity look on me This inferior came among us to disgrace my family. Carleton : "Oh ! Gentlemen," Squire Foillard said, "with pity look on me, This villain came .a,mongst us to disgrace our family." Carlet<m has the following for which 1820 has no corresponding lines. Now Willy's drest from top tc· t,l}e a.II in a suit of green ·His hair hangs o'er his shoulders, most glorious to be seen; He's tall and straight and comely, as any could be found He's fit for Foillard's daughter was she heiress t0 a crown. Thus Carleton's Reilly differs from the earlier hero in that he is not .a man who "had no bail"; he may be rhetorically descri·bed as a "villain," but he must not be called an "inferior"; and in appearance, dress, e.tc., 283. he is "fit for Foilla1d's daughter." All .this is in harmony with the character of the gentlemanly Reilly ;portrayed in Carleton's novel, but it does violence to the peasant origin -0f the hero of the ballad. The scene of Carleton's tale is laid near Boyle, "Co-rbo Castle," being a fictitious alias for the Folliott family home at Hollybrook, County Sligo, about five miks from Boyle. There is no record that ·Carleton ever v ;~ited Holy.brook or its neighbourhood and his fanciful descriptions of lhe district show tnat he was quite unfamiliar with it. Carleton says that the events on ;which the novel is ba,scd took ·place about 1745. Priest-hunt111g and •penal laws are rem.pant in the are,a and so :.u-e ''ra1pparees," whereas in fact there is little or no evidcr,ce of active rPligious per·~ecut1on at. that time in the arEa in question where there is ·a well authenticated record of regular Catholic ministration. The heroine, "Helen Folliard." is called the "Cooleen Hawn." "Coo·leen" Carleton attempts to explain (Chap. 1 V) in a passage where he is obviously confusing the s•pelling and the meanings Of lwo words which we would now write Cailin and CuilJ!hionn. (The 1820 ballad, by the way, refers to the lady as Reilly's "mornesn bawn.") In Carleton's book Reilly's love affair with "He'.en" is thwarted by the ignorant bigotry of her father and the rascality of one ":Whitecraft" who plans to marry her. Reilly has to flee f:-om the plots of Whilecrnft and his confederates but returns to Squire· Folliard's in d isguise and obtains employment· ·as a gardenei:.-His identity is ·suspected on account of his beautiful white hands, the hands of a gentlem;w-the gentlemanliness of Reilly is underlined throughout the book. The couple elope, but are captured and Reilly is char·ged with the theft of
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