The story of the water-horses is part of the folklore of the west of Ireland. However, on my visits to the west with my wife and daughters, I could never find Lough Afoor, or indeed, anyone who knew where it was, until one day we visited Clonboo Riding School. Clonboo is on the road from Galway to Cong. The riding school, we discovered, lay beyond a marshy area just off the Galway to Cong road, and was run by Alexandra Donnelly Nash. During our visit, her mother Josephine showed us a small flint arrowhead. Alexandra, she said, had found the arrowhead in the marsh beside the laneway. Both Alexandra and her father, Eddie, had studied archaeology, so they got the arrowhead carbon dated in University College Galway. This showed that it was about 4,000 years old. But how did it come to be in the marsh? The answer became apparent when they told us that the marsh was in fact Lough Afoor. Prehistoric man must have been hunting or fishing at the lake, perhaps trying to spear trout.
What do You think about The Legend Of The Corrib King?
