FINVOLA  the Gem of the Roe

Finvola O’ Cahan had lots of brothers. She came from an important family, her father was an O’ Cahan Chieftain. The O’ Cahan clan lived in a castle on the outskirts of the town at a place called the Priory. She lived at the top of the castle tower. Everyone in the town of Dungiven loved Finvola O’ Cahan. She was kind and thoughtful, never saying a bad thing about anyone. She was pleasant and always shared a smile. She respected everyone. But most of all, Finvola was beautiful. Her eyes were as blue as the sea, and she had long red hair. She was known to everyone in the town as ‘the Gem of the Roe’.

            When Finvola was still a young girl, she met a man that had travelled to Ireland from Aebudae in Scotland. He wore a tartan kilt and grew a short brown beard. He was called Angus McDonald. From the moment that Finvola met Angus, she fell in love with him, and him, her.

            During his stay in Ireland, Angus got to know Finvola well. They both grew more and more in love and one day Angus asked Finvola to marry her and come back to Scotland with him. Finvola wanted this more than anything in the world. But she loved her brothers and father very much. She also knew that they shared the same love for her and that their hearts would be broken if she left them.

            The day after Angus proposed, Finvola told her father and brothers. They were deeply sad that she was going to leave them forever but they knew that it was what she wanted to do and they were not going to stop her.

            Before Angus and Finvola set off for Aebudae, Dermot O’ Cahan, Finvola’s father, took Angus to one side. If Finvola got sick, or was in trouble, Angus was to take her home to her family. That was the only condition that Dermot would let Finvola go on.

            Finvola’s life was cruelly caught short by a fatal sickness not to long after she got married in Scotland to Angus. Angus was in great despair when Finvola took sick. He knew the fatality of the sickness yet he did not alert the O’ Cahans. Finvola died in the care of Angus McDonald, in spite of her father’s wishes to see her once more, if by chance she took sick.

       Meanwhile, on Benbradagh Mountain, Dungiven, the Banshee cried the death of an O’ Cahan. Who could it be? The sons of Dermot O’ Cahan searched Dungiven, the outer area, everywhere- they tried desperately to find out which O’ Cahan had died. They did not want to believe that it might well be their beautiful, only sister Finvola. But after discovering that not an O’Cahan in the whole of County Derry had died, the family of the Gem of the Roe jumped aboard the O’ Cahan boat and tied up on the grey shores of Scotland.