feakle town

Feakle is doubly famous as the place in which the poet Brian Merriman taught as a School-master and as the home of Biddy Early, the wise woman or witch about whom Augusta Lady Gregory collected much traditional lore and published it in her Visions and Beliefs of the West of Ireland.

Brian Merriman was neither born nor did he die in Feakle (born Ennistymon 1749, died Limerick 1805) but he chose to be buried here where he had spent many years and made the location and background of his only major work, a long poem in Irish entitled, Cuirt an Mhean Oiche (The Midnight Court). A monument to his memory has been erected by An Cumman Merriman (the Merriman Society) and may be seen in the local graveyard.