J·.JURNAL OF THE COUNTY DONEGAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY •A seven years' sentence imPosed about that date would still permit of his having fought at Waterloo. In a letter in Father :Shal"key's Heart of Ireland, it is claimed that Willy Reilly lived at Kiltubrid, County Leitrim. The kinships claimed !With him would appear to place his floruit in the late 18th century. It is suggested that research in local newsipa:per files and other Donegal records of, say, the 1'790-1810 period · may enable local historians to ex-' hume the his·torical Willy Reilly and his lady fair from the myths of folklore accretion and the "reconstructive" fictions of the uninformed literary imagination. Whatever lines such an investiga1tion may take., the tradition that Hollyibrook, · County Sligo, was the autllentic scene of the romance, may be wholly discounted. There is not a word, of reliable folklore now surviving in favour of that tradition which may not be confidently ascribed to the inspiration of Carleton's novel and to no period earlier than its publication. Even fictitious caves and undNground passages have been invented in the adjacent hills to provide ac· commodation for Reilly on the run .and for fugitive priests, to harmonise •with the narrative in the novel. News1papers, family documents, copies of old pleadings mouldering in solicitors' off.ices and court records, now afford the only possibilities of reconstructing the real story and of tracing the ballad to its source. 285.
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