Folklore Survey of County Clare

Thomas Johnson Westropp’s survey gathers County Clare traditions concerning place names, legends and reported supernatural encounters. Its subjects include banshees, the Death Coach, fairies and fairy forts, ghosts and haunted houses, water spirits, supernatural animals, and spectral lands and cities.

Alongside these accounts, Westropp records omens, dreams, divination, charms, magical sites, wells and well customs, calendar observances, religious rites, and legends attached to religious objects. The survey also considers animal and plant superstitions, notable rocks, caves and stones, earthworks and buildings. Formed from nine papers published in Folk-Lore between 1910 and 1912, it presents a wide-ranging record of Clare belief, custom and place-based tradition.