On our recent trip to Northern Ireland and the Republic, my husband and myself stayed in a small town called Newtonstewart near Omagh. While there in this 120 year-old cottage, a book left for our perusal caught my attention.

There is a Castle ruin on a hill outside the town known as Harry Avery’s Castle, it’s quite a climb to get there.

However, my story begins with an earlier owner called Henry O’Neil, who owned the castle in the 14th century. This man was reported to be a wicked man with quite a temper. Henry had a sister, we don’t know her name, but she was reported to be very ugly, having the head of a swine! This sister offended Henry’s sense of pride so he wanted to get her married off. He was prepared to let the groom have a fairly large dowry too (Henry was quite rich) if only they would take her off his hands. The condition of the arrangement was that they weren’t to see her before the marriage, then, on seeing her, if they changed their mind, then they would hang!

Accordingly as the story goes, 19 persons, including a prince, were executed on the original platform that stood between the two towers.

The 20th person to accept the challenge was the son of his cowherd who was tempted by the most generous dowry. However, on laying eyes upon her, he was reported to say – ‘Cur sous me, cur sous me’ – roughly translated as -‘please hang me, please hang me’ – rather than have to marry her!

However, the cowherd was obviously valuable to Henry as he chose to spare his life and hanged the sister instead!

Another account of the story suggests that the princess or sister was fed from a silver trough and rolled down the castle hill in a barrel to her death.

As there are two versions of the story perhaps it is just a bit of old Irish blarney, but it’s certainly a good one.