Irish folklore abounds with stories of submerged lands including the mythical island of Hy-Brasil and the submerged land of Everlasting Youth , Tir na Nog. Though most of these stories are passed on from oral records, the Annals of the Four Masters confirm in writing a local episode alleged to have occurred over 1,000 years ago, when an earthquake occurred in West Clare, splitting the Cliffs of Moher on the north and Baltard Cliffs on the south. The subsequent tidal wave engulfed the whole district between these two headlands, and the Atlantic is now rolling over what was once dry land. One of the many hamlets to be buried with its people in that disastrous upheaval was Cillstifiann, and though the names of the other submerged places have long since been forgotten, Clillstifiann lives on in the minds and tongues of the West Clare people to this day. They will tell you with utter conviction that time and time again the ghost town of Cillstifiann with its monastery and clustering houses has been seen in the clear waters of the bay south of Lahinch and that its appearance has signalled death and disaster to those who have witnessed it.