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A number of accounts in the Schools’ Collection of the National Folklore Collection of the late 1930s describe the Great Drowning at Bruckless in 1813. On the 12th of May of that year large crews of fishermen including men from Teelin and Kilcar, were out on Bruckless Bay fishing for herring. A storm blew up without warning, all the boats capsized and over eighty men were drowned. According to Peadar Ó Beirn, speaking to Séamus Ennis about the tragedy, a piper was heard on that night playing this tune which has been known since as ‘Báthadh Phroclaisc’ ‘ The Drowning at Bruckless’. A version of this tune with the title ‘Carbray’s Frolics’ can be found in O’Neill’s The Dance Music of Ireland No. 407.
![Peadar Ó Beirn ; and others / [unidentified photographer], Teileann, Co. Donegal, 1935. Image courtesy Ríonach uí Ógáin](https://s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/images.itma.ie/seamusennis/277657_peadar_obeirn.jpg "Peadar Ó Beirn ; and others / [unidentified photographer], Teileann, Co. Donegal, 1935. Image courtesy Ríonach uí Ógáin")
