In 1856, this holding belonged to Pat Cassidy. By 1901, There was just his wife Sarah aged 65 and daughter Catherine (Katie) aged 27, living there. They were still there in 1911. The old walls of this ruin are beautiful and were built with stone from the same field on which it was constructed.
All that is left of Katie`s house are these beautiful stone ruins.
This site is called Stone Hill and has ancient connections with Megalithic peoples who once lived there. In the field behind these walls there stands a peculiar looking standing stone reputed to have been the tethering stone of Saint Colmcille`s cow called “bacan na glisha”.
Local folklore had it that you could see the rope marks of the tether on the stone. It quite likely predates that period and was likely to have been a significant religious object of the Megalithic peoples who once lived in big numbers in this area.
Potato Lazy Beds
Close to all of our old houses in Sixtowns, you will often find the remains of potato lazy beds or `rigs` as they are sometimes known. The snow highlights the shape of the beds here which would have adequately fed a good sized family in days gone by. Lazy beds were usually found where the soil was shallow. The owners would dig trenches on each side of the bed and heaped the soil on top of them to increase its depth.
The Cassidy house was once at the top/ centre of this photograph and provides one historic picture of how we once lived.
