PREFACE
Of the stories in this book Canon O'Leary writes: "It was at home at Liscarrigane that I heard the ‘Bí-se ag'séideaḋ an ḟaid a ḃéad-sa ag iṫe’, and it was my mother that told it to me. It expresses the cool impudence of people who want another person to be the slave and to fast, while they themselves do nothing but eat.
"It was my mother also that told me the story about the Tri leaṫṗinní, a long time before I ever entered Maynooth.
"I was told the story ‘Prioc mé agus beiḋ spórt againn’ at home at Liscarrigane, on some occasion when I came home from Maynooth on vacation.
"It was when I was on the mission at Rathcormac, over forty years ago, that I heard the story of 'Neirḃis'."
Canon O'Leary himself is one of the actors in the little stories Dliġe an tSoluis and Dliġe na n-Uḃ.
Sliaḃ na mBan ḃFionn, Canon O'Leary says, was told to him and to some other children between sixty and seventy years ago by Máire Ruaḋ, the mother of Peig, the narrator of Séadna.
Part of the scene of the story ‘Ċa-ċa-ċa-ċailleas é’ is laid in Canon O'Leary's grandfather's house.
