An Chraobh Airgid

Person

Charles Bunworth

Rector of Buttevant, harper, and friend of the travelling harpers.

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Rector of Buttevant, Co. Cork, until he died there in 1772. He was famous for his playing on the Irish harp and his welcome to the poor harpers who travelled the country, and five times between 1730 and 1750 he presided over the meetings of the bards of Ireland at Bruree, Co. Limerick. A harp made for him by John Kelly in 1734 is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. His great-grandson, Thomas Crofton Croker, wrote down how the bean sí keened for him: the tale of The Bean Sí.

In the tales

  • The Bean Sí The herdsman swore he had not touched a drop. All the way through the glen, a woman with long white hair had kept at his side, keening and calling his master’s name.

See also

  • The Bean Sí The woman of the sídhe who keens before a death in the old families.
  • Cill na Mallach Buttevant. A small old town on the Awbeg in north Cork, where the bean sí keened for a harper.

Sources

Collected folklore. Recorded from storytellers and local tradition.

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