(by Brian Geraghty, from IMC Newsletter, Winter 2004)
How the Co. Wicklow crag got its name.
Apparently the crag at Hollywood has a bit of a history of Gung Ho. A native of Hollywood told me the locals know the crag as "Mad Woman’s leap". When St. Paddy was happily living in the cave close to where the statue stands today a local woman tried repeatedly to seduce him and divert him from the path of the righteous and true. This kind of thing still happens in Tully’s from time to time. (Actually they shot Michael Collins, the actor at least, in the head, from the same general area for the movie).
Anyway, Paddy said "be gone with yourself woman". So a while later she returned with a baby in her arms and claimed it was his (again, this also happens from time to time in Tully’s). Paddy didn’t buy it and said "be gone woman, and take that feckin baby with ye" …
So heartbroken was the woman that she threw herself and the baby off the top of the crag. No rope, no harness, nothing. To their maker they went, and hence the name on the crag.
This was in a time before our society became so perverted that we claim for everything and anything, and so neither Paddy nor the landowner were challenged.
(Oh, by the way, the big boulder past the crag, that always looks like it will roll onto the road, is called "Fionn’s Marble", after the giant.)