Excerpt
"Many of the neighbors used to sit skurreechting at night at my father's fireside, and it was here I learned many matters of Irish history before I was able to read history. It was here I came to know Tead Andy, of whom I wrote thirty years ago, when I was in an English prison:
In songs and ballads he took great delight,
And prophecies of Ireland yet being freed,
And singing them by our fireside at night,
I learned songs from Tead, before I learned to read.
That fireside was a big open hearth. . . . Then with a turf fire and a big skulb of ver in that fire that lighted the plates on the dresser below with the photograph of all who were sitting in front of it, I, standing or sitting in the embrace of one of the men, would listen to stories of all the fairies that were 'showing' themselves from Carrig-Cliona to Inish-Owen, and of all the battles that were fought in Christendom and out of Christendom."