When the friars were in the abbey, there was a bakery in Quin, opposite the Church. The bakery was owned by Denis Moloney. At the right hand side of where he lived there was a one-storey house attached to it and that was the bakehouse.
One day the friars went short of bread and two of them went to this bakery. Denis Moloney and his baker were there. They went to the door and one of the friars says that they were short of bread and would he give them some.
“I will,” says Denis Moloney, “if you have the money for it.”
“Oh,” says the friar, “our rule is that we are not allowed to handle any money whatsoever. But,” says he, “if you’ill give us the bread you will be rewarded.”
“And who’s going to reward me?” says Denis Moloney.
“The Almighty,” says the friar to him.
“Go away”, says Denis Moloney.
So the friar walked away and went to the other man and told him what just happened. “Go back”, says the other man, “and tell him that the oven of bread that he has down baking will be the last oven of yeast bread that will ever be made in Quin.”
So the friar walked back and told Denis Moloney, “That oven of bread that you have down baking will be the last oven of yeast bread that will ever be made in Quin.”
He walked away from the door and out to the other friar that was waiting outside on the street. One of them went down to Ballymaclune and the other to Mooghaun looking for bread. The people of these two townlands not only gave them bread but they also gave them every kind of vegetable; onions, carrots, cabbage, parsnips, potatoes and even meat and bacon. They brought it up to the abbey to them in horse and cars. The friars said that the people of these two townlands would never be short of anything as long as they lived, nor would their families. The people of Ballymaclune and Mooghaun are some of the best-off people to this day!
But the dozen of bread that Denis Moloney had down, when he thought he had them baked, he opened the oven and pulled out the trays to find every loaf as big as four loaves. He was delighted. Himself and his baker filled the tins again and put them into the oven for the time it takes to bake.
But when he opened the door of the oven this time, his bread was the very same as when he put it in, only it turned a brown colour. It never rose! He closed the oven door and left it for another hour and a half. When he opened it and took it out you would need a sledgehammer to break it. He put in another round and it was the same thing. Denis Moloney had to eventually give up the bakery!
Years later, a woman started a bakery in Quin, well after the friars were dead and gone. But it was the same way with her! it would never rise. The yeast bread will never rise in Quin. And theres no bakery here to this day!
The Curse on Quin, as told by Jimmy Armstrong to Eddie Lenihan for his book ‘The Man in the Big House’.