Danny’s Stone

The famous Irish writer, John Millington Synge (1871 – 1909), spent a lot of time in Erris. His masterpiece ‘The Playboy of the Western World’ is based in Erris and refers to 15 Erris placenames. On the Bangor – Belmullet road in Glencastle, you will see a large, flat-topped boulder, on which a cross is engraved. This historic stone is the scene of a terrible crime – which Synge wrote about in his famous poem, ‘Danny’. This is the last stanza:

And when you’re walking out the way
From Bangor to Belmullet,
You’ll see a flat cross on a stone
Where men choked Danny’s gullet.