James Fitzgerald, Mr

Jim Fitzgerald, known as ‘The Hermit of Lackendarra’, lived halfway up the Comeragh Mountains for over forty years. Before he became known by the name of Lackendarra, Jim Fitzgerald was a young lad raised by his grandparents in the townland of Castlereagh near Lackendarra on the other side of the Comeraghs. Jim enlisted with the Royal Irish Regiment in 1914 and was sent to Mesopotamia with the 1st Bn Connaught Rangers in 1916. In 1918, he was discharged with diagnosis “melancholia” due to suffering a severe shell shock, a broken man, physically and mentally. The people in the locality always 'looked out' for him and they discovered he was seriously ill with pneumonia in 1959. They carried him to an ambulance and he died in hospital a few days later. He was buried with his relatives in Knockboy cemetery.