EASTERSNOW; A description by John O'Donovan

What an extraordinary corruption  Easter-Snow is for Disert Noone!  It is written Ath Dhisirt Nuadhain by the Four masters at the year 1330, and now very corruptly Tirs Nuadhain.

The original site of the church is still occupied by the Protestant one, and there is a holy well not far from it called Tobar Nuadhain, which is said to have been blessed by a monastic old gentleman of the name o f Noone (a surname numerous in this country of Moylurg) but at what period no one remembers.  This well is fast losing its sanctity and is now but seldom resorted to for cure.  When it was in vogue it was visited by great numbers, and when the patient was not to recover from his malady, the blessed trouts of the well, and when he came to drink of its water, turned their bellies up, and seemed to be sickish and languid; but when he was to recover  through the blessed waters of the well, they looked healthy and swam about briskly.

There is a tradition in the country that there was a town here of which no trace now remains, and the following extract from and Inquisition taken in the reign of Elizabeth would seem to corroborate it in some measure;-

“Quod est quoddam form (a forum or market) sive mercatum in die sabbatis quolibet septimana quando non est Guerra (war) in patria juxta templum Sancti Wogani culgariter Temple Issetnowne (Dhisert Nuadhain) in Barionia de Moylurg”

Roughly translated from latin "There is a form (a forum or market) or a Sabbath day each week when there is no market in Guerra (war) in the country next to the Holy Temple Issetnowne (Dhisert Nuadhain) in the Barony of Moylurg "

In Meath they corrupt Disert to Ister by a fir Dichnedh and metathesis, but here in Moylurg it is mangled to Tira in Irish and Easter in Anglicising.  If it were Isertnoone itself, it would be something like the thing!  But there is no accounting from the freaks of custom. –

Your obedient servant.

John O’Donovan