riUrH S4 HAKV> i t- \ > ' - . A TOUR IN CONNAUGHT. H.NICHOU..ARHA.O Church and Bound Tower, Clonmaonoise. A TOUR CONNAUGHT COMPRISING SKETCHES OF CLONMACNOISE, JOYCE COUNTRY, AND ACHILL. THE AUTHOR OF " SKETCHES IN IRELAND. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS ENGRAVED ON WOOD. DUBLIN WILLIAM CURRY, JUN. AND COMPANY, 9, UPPER SACKVILLE-STREET. 1839. Dublin : Printed by JOHN S. FOLDS, 5, Bachelor's-walk. PREFACE. IN offering the following " Sketches in Connaught," the result of a short excursion made in that province during the early part of last summer, I assign one or two excuses for adding to the numerous works of a similar character that have latterly come before the public, and which, to use the words of the greatest of all publishers, have "worn the subject threadbare." My first plea is, that my volume has not been got up for the purpose of leading or misleading public opinion respecting Irish politics or economics. I aim not at being the precursor of any change, or the promoter of any speculation. The tour I took for my pleasure, and the volume I wrote at my leisure, and during those evenings when I allow myself to relax from the more serious occupations 2066178 vi PREFACE. of the morning. My own pastime, I offer to the public, if it so pleases them, as part of theirs; and all my hope is, that the reader will think better of Ireland than he will do of the author. The other reason why I publish is, that I write as a native, who has made the history, antiquities, traditionary lore, and social relations of the island, his study, and therefore may be supposed to be competent to afford information on subjects not exactly within the con- venient reach of an American or Briton. In a word, I assume that my ARTICLE is what an extern could not, and, perhaps, if he could, would not supply. About ten years ago a volume of mine, purporting to be " Sketches in the North and South of Ireland," was published, and though appearing under many dis- advantageous circumstances, met with a favourable reception from the public; and therefore my pub- lishers have not only determined to venture on the present speculation, but also contemplate a new edition of the former work. It is but fair to state, that the three first chapters of the present volume have already, with some alteration, appeared in print; the two first under a different signature and form, in that humble though useful conveyance of popular knowledge, the Dublin Penny PREFACE. VII Journal, to the first volume of which I was a con- tributor. The third chapter, descriptive of Clon- macnoise, though now considerably changed, has ap- peared in the Dublin Christian Examiner. The reader who is about to give these sketches his perusal is hereby warned, that I neither set down distances, nor attempt to describe or even notice every town or place I passed through. These details I leave to be supplied by a valuable road book, lately compiled by Mr. Fraser, and published by William Curry and Co. Sackville-street. c. o. Dublin, May 18, 1839. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. rum DUBLIN TO KINNEGAD ..... I CHAPTER II. GAULSTOWN TO ATHLONE ..... 30 CHAPTER III. VISIT TO CLONMACNOISE .... 67 CHAPTER IV. JOURNEY WESTWARD . . . . \ . .117 CHAPTER V. AUGHHIM 132 CHAPTER VI. KlLCONNELL . 144 CHAPTER VII. AHASCRAGH .... 157 x CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. TUAM Ross REILLY CHAPTER IX. PAGE 177 199 CHAPTER X. 997 JOYCE COUNTRY .... CHAPTER XI. *>(>() JOYCE COUNTRY CHAPTER XII. LOIJISBUBG AND CLARE ISLAND CHAPTER XIII. 'VWi CROAGH PATRICK ...- CHAPTER XIV. WESTPOHT TO ACHILL ^32 CHAPTER XV. ACHILL ........ CHAPTER XVI. THE SETTLEMENT ...... 356 CHAPTER XVII. TOUR TO SLIEVE CROGHAN .... 368 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER XVIII. PACE VILLAGES or KEEM AND KEEL. . . . 391 CHAPTER XIX. DEPAKTUUT; FKOM TUE SETTLEMENT . . 409 APFENDIX ...... ILLUSTRATIONS. Church and Round Tower at Clonmacnoise . . fruHtitpiect Cloumacnoise .... < .... 67 Castle Hen, Longh Corrib ...... 244 MuUrea-Entrance to the Killery . . . . . .274 Clare Island ... .... 280 Grana Uaile-i Castle, Clare Island 298 Window of Clare Island Abbey 300 Croagh Patrick ........ 306 A TOUR IN CONNAUGHT. CHAPTER I. DUBLIN TO KINNEGAD. Departure from Dublin Barrack-street Phoenix-park Kilmainham Old Bull-baiting Cbapelizod Its name La Belle Isod Another Etymology Castleknock Its Legend Ballydowd The plains of Liffey Ireland a castellated country Lucan Rath Artificial Cave King John's Bridge Spa Steam fatal to Irish Spa Leixlip Its Castle-Its position Its water, fall Spa Canal Aqueduct Monument of an Irish Job Carton A good Landlord Maynooth College Castle Kilcock Cappagh Hill Boyne Its Character Clonard Its ancient celebrity Kinnegad Beggar, woman. VERY pleasant to me was the morning when, escaping out of Dublin, I took my way to the west, through that exceedingly disgusting purlieu of the city, Bar- rack-street. The road, now made level enough to an- swer even for a steam locomotive, runs parallel to the river on the right the Phoenix-park on the left the lands of Kilmainham where, in former days, the wild fellows of Dublin came out to bait bulls as is recorded in that very humorous ballad, entitled " The baiting of Lord Altham's bull." The whole of the fine inches along the river on its north side, and reaching for two miles, were granted by the crown to Sir John Temple, the ancestor of Lord Palmerston, as a remuneration for building a stone wall separating the Phrenix-park from the high road. Fine times these, when es- tates could be got in the LAND OF JOB so cheaply. B CHAPELIZOD. To the left is Chapelizod, formerly the residence of the lords deputy once a place of considerable manu- facturing industry, and where the great Duke of Or- monde, immediately after the restoration, set up the linen and cambric manufactures, under the inspec- tion of Colonel Lawrence, who brought a colony of Huguenots from Rochelle, and the Isle of Rhe, and lo- cated it here. Old Hanmer, the chronicler, tells a story mighty romantic, relative to the name of this village it being, according to him, the retreat of La Belle Isod, the frail beloved of a Danish king of Dublin. Here were her bower and her chapel the devotions of the chapel, (according to the religion of the times,) atoning for the misdeeds of the bower. But this appears but a rechauffe of the story of the fair Rosa- mond, and the more probable origin of the name is as follows the place of worship here built on the river bank was denominated Teampott or Seapoll isiol or isioldm Irish, the low temple or chapel, to distinguish it from the Teampoll Naimh Labhrais, or temple of St. Lawrence, which stood on an emi- nence near it, called St. Lawrence's brow, and forms the high bluff overhanging that beautiful bend of the river which sweeps round Knockmaroon hill.* * I cannot leave Chapelizod without directing attention to the cromleach that was last year uncovered in the Phoenix- park, in the vicinity of this village, and which contained, beside If-burned huin;.n skeletons, an urn and some curious shell or- namentsthese were collected with great care, and presented to 3 Royal Hibernian Academy, by Lieutenant Lareom, of the Ordnance Survey Department. CASTLEKNOCK. 3 Reaching Palmerstown, we rose from the river, and gained the fertile, undulating champaign that extends southward from the Liffey to the Wicklow moun- tains. To the right the deep-cut course of the river, its steep banks adorned and enriched by the straw- berry cultivation, beyond it again the Phoenix-park, and more to the west the two beautiful hills of Castle- knock the one a smoothly circular green knoll, whereon the successive proprietors, as a record of their bad taste, have allowed an unmeaning pigeon- house to remain standing for years; their only excuse, is, I suppose, that they are accustomed to its ugliness the other crowned with its ivy-mantled castle, where the Bruce, some centuries ago, halted his army, when advancing to besiege Dublin, and where yet that ancient window remains, of which says Stani- hurst, " Though it be neither glazed or latticed, but open, yet let the weather be stormy, and the wind bluster boisterously on every side of the house, and place a candle there, and it will burn as quietly as if no puff of wind blew. This may be tried at this day, whoso shall be willing to put it in practice." About two miles farther, we arrived at an eminence from whence extend westward and southward the plains of the Liffey, (as in ancient days they were called,) and certainly in no part of the British empire can the eye wander over a richer expanse. To the geologist, it is interesting, as everywhere he finds assu- rance that before the Liffey had cut down for itself to the sea its present deep and tortuous bed, all before the 4 HILL OF BALLYDOWD. view, until it touched the Curragh of Kildare, and the Hill of Allen, must have been a wide-spread lake ; and when the observer gets down to the deep, dry, cir- cular basin in which the village of Lucan is placed, he may notice the gradual depositions the subsiding waters made, and at the same time be led to conclude that some final force must have operated in the way of earthquake to form the river's present bed; the force from beneath, which has been exerted to cause the dis- turbance of the strata, must have been great, and the extraordinary disarrangement of the limestone strati- fications on the northern bank of the Liffey is worthy of the attention of the draughtsman or the geologist. Few of England's favoured vales few of Scotland's carses or straths, can show any thing to the farmer's eye finer or more fertile than the view from the hill of Bally dowd; to the left is the castle of Ballyowen, one of those old keeps so frequent all over the island; and if you look westward, you may see another, and southward, another; and pass on from this to Galway or to Cape Clear, and you will see them covering and commanding, and within signal shot of each other. They staud as memorials of Ireland's different con- quests, and as evidences that when conquered, each sub- sequent invader considered that what the sword won, it was needful for the sword to keep. Ireland is the land of ruins and memorials of powers and people that have successively passed away. The ruined for- tress the devastated abbey the lonely dun the fairy-footed rath the round tower that sends its LUC AN. 5 slender shaft on high to assert that the almost imperish- able simplicity of its form can survive human record, and eveu outlast man's tradition these are what render Ireland a land interesting to the traveller; and not all the magnificence of America not all its mighty mountains, lakes, or waterfalls, can supply to the passenger such trains of mental association, such stores of romantic thought, as a few miles wan- dering through Erin. The castles of Ireland are not only numerous, but of different character. The old massive circular Anglo-Norman the square and more regularly bas- tioned stronghold of the Elizabethan era the more simple and solitary fortalice of the Cromwellian ad- venturer, who cased himself within his strait four walls like an armadillo or hedgehog, to look out in security on his newly acquired grant, and save his soul alive from the skeins of marauding rapparees. I scarcely know a more interesting view than that presented to the traveller, when, arrived at the head of the new road, lately made to avoid the old way down the steep hill, he looks down on the valley, or rather river basin, in which Lucan is placed, and sees the village, with its church, its fine single-arched bridge spanning the Liffey, its houses appearing (at least at that distance) neat and prettily mingled with trees, and the fine, rich, full-grown woods that environ it on all sides. To the right, and overhanging a ravine, through which a stream runs and joins the Liffey, is one of the finest RATHS in the vicinity of Dublin, in 6 A RATH. the centre of which is an artificial cave * or UAIGH, such as is common in the larger and best constructed raths all over the island, but which, as usual, either filled up or rooted up, are rarely to be seen in the perfect state that this at Lucan now presents. Some former tenant of the property in which the rath is situated, (for the present owner has too much taste to fall into such a mistake,) has committed the com- mon error of planting the sides of this stronghold, and so has contrived to hide from the ken of an anti- quary what would give him no small pleasure, and now it is passed by as a tastily planted hill, deco- rated with Scotch and spruce firs my utter aversion ; a rath or dun should never be decorated in this way : the same kind of taste has ornamented a forehead, painted by a Vandycke or a Titian, with a Ramillies wig a solitary ash or oak tossing its lightning- scathed and storm-vexed branches to the breeze, showing how it has lived long and suffered much or a fairy thorn bending away patiently from the west these are what should belong to the rath, these are what the fays and elves would have in the high- places of their resort. Farther on, about a furlong from the present single- * These caves are thus described in the Icelandic Annals : Leifr went on piracy towards the west, and infested Ireland with his arms, and there discovered subterranean caves, the en- trances of which were dark and dismal ; but on entering he saw the glittering of swords, which the men held in their hands. These men he slew, but brought the swords with much riches away." LUCAN SPA HOUSE. arched bridge, is another, the most ancient construc- tion of the kind in Ireland tradition attributes it to King John it certainly is as old as the 14th cen- tury it appears to me, like some others I have seen, from the smallness and lowness of its arches, to have been intended to let the floods flow over it in the winter season. Lucan, or, as it was anciently called, Lyvecan, was the patrimony of the Sarsfields the last owner of that name was the famous partisan general in the wars of the Revolution. He forfeited it and followed the fortunes of his master; and while William took away Ms estate, James made him an Earl. The late possessor of this pretty village and fine property was Colonel Vesey, than whom a better landlord, a higher-minded gentleman, or a more devoted Christian, I never knew. How often have I admired this fine military old squire walking to church surrounded by a te- nantry that he had gathered around him a tenan- try, for whose increasing numbers that church, I may say, was built a tenantry amongst whom he might live fearless of brand or bullet. Half a mile from Lucan, westward, and between the road and the river, is the once famous sulphurous spa it is an abundant and strongly impregnated spring, and draws its mineral qualities from that modification of impure limestone, which has been denominated by Kirwan and other geologists, calpe, and which, con- taining an abundance of crystalized sulphuret of iron, gives out, when the sulphuret is decomposed by water, 8 LEIXLIP CASTLE. the gaseous matter that makes this spring medicinal. But, alas, for Ireland, steam boats and locomotive engines now carry away spa-drinkers and pleasure- pursuers from native wells and pump-rooms to German brunnens. The hotel here is empty, and lodging- houses, and all other sort of accommodations unoccu- pied and going to waste. Any one arriving at Leixlip must look up and down with pleasure while moving over its bridge. To the right, the river winning its noisy, turbu- lent way over its rocky bed, and losing itself afar down amidst embosoming woods : to the left, after plunging over the salmon-leap, whose roar is heard, though a quarter of a mile off, and forming a junction with the Rye-water, it takes a bend to the east, and washes the amphitheatre with which Leixlip is envi- roned. Very few Irish fortresses stand in a grander position than Leixlip Castle, as it embattles the high and wooded ground that forms the forks of the two rivers. Of the towers, the round one of course was built by King John, the opposite square one by the Geraldines. This ancient and grandly circumstanced pile has been in later days the baronial residence of the White family, and subsequently the residence of generals and prelates. Here Primate Stone, more a politician than a churchman, retired from his contest with the Ponsonbys and the Boyles, to play at cricket with General Cunningham: here resided Speaker Connolly, before he built his splendid mansion at Castletown- here the great commoner, as he was AQUEDUCT. called, Tom Connolly, was born. Like many such edifices this castle is haunted character and keeping would be altogether lost, if towers of 600 years' standing, with rich mullioned "windows that exclude the light, and passages that lead to nothing," with tapestried chambers that have witnessed pranks of revelry, and feats of war, of Norman, Cromwellian, and Williamite possessors if such a place had not its legend: and one of Ireland's wildest geniuses, the eccentric and splendid Maturin, has decorated the subject with the colourings of his vivid fancy. Leixlip is memorable in a historic point of view, as the place where, in the war commencing 1641, General Preston halted when on his way to form a junction with the Marquis of Ormonde, to oppose the Parliamentarians. Acknowledging that his army was not excommunication proof, he bowed before the fiat of the Nuncio, and lost the best opportunity that ever offered of saving his cause and his country from what has been called " the curse of Cromwell." Rising out of Leixlip the road leaves the line of the Liffey, and runs parallel to the small stream of the Rye- water: over which is thrown, at an immense expense, the largest aqueduct in Ireland, constructed by the Royal Canal Company, a speculation got up by an angry capitalist to rival the Grand Canal Company, from whose direction he had retired in disgust, and whose vanity and pique was the cause of this yreat absurdity, and of loss and bankruptcy to thou- sands. It is said that the enormous cost of this aque- 10 SPRING WELL. duct was gone to in compliment to the late Duke of Leinster, who desired that the canal should pass by his town of Maynooth; it certainly would have been more advantageous to the commerce of the kingdom and to the prosperity of the company, had they not de- flected here to the south, but rather kept northward through the plains of Meath, made Lough Sheelan in- stead of Lough Owel their summit level, and met the Shannon more towards its source, rather than run their line parallel, as it now does, at only a few miles distance from the Grand Canal, each starving, and interfering with the other, and acting like two rival shopkeepers who, instead of setting up at remote dis- tricts of the town, frown balefully at each other from opposite sides of the same street. Just beneath the bridge that carries the road over the canal, is one of the most beautiful and abundant spring wells in Ireland. If it had been known in old times it would have been sanctified, as most such are in Ireland but it burst out for the first time from the depths of the earth on the excavation of the canal; and as it was discovered in winter, and its deep- seated source caused it to appear warmer than other more superficial springs, so immediately there were attributed to it virtues of no ordinary degree, and the crowds that in faith (for the Irish are rich in that cardinal virtue) resorted to it were enormous. While the credulity lasted, the harvest of coach and noddy owners (for jaunting-cars were not yet in fashion) was immense : strings of carriages, miles long, might ITS MARVELLOUS QUALITIES. 11 be seen on Sundays issuing from Dublin, containing crowds anxious to apply, internally or externally, its healing waters; and attestations of its curing the blind restoring the palsied strengthening the lame, came before the public every day. But alas, the powers of ridicule were brought to bear against it, and one wicked wight drew a caricature in which he represented a broken-down noddy as washed by the Leixlip spa water, andallits spokesand shafts, underthe mopping of the jarvey, becoming strong and straight. This, certainly, was a pity; and no one in the world was served by dissipating such an innocent and salu- tary delusion, and after all it is not only a beautiful but an extraordinary spring; for, if you believe all the neighbours, not a fish or frog will live in its wa- ters ; and though there be a floculent, rusty-coloured, ocherous matter constantly rising to the surface of the well, exactly similar to that which is found in springs strongly impregnated with iron, yet no test, either gallic acid, or prussiate of potash, can detect any iron; but in the centre of this floculent matter is found a very red little worm about half an inch long, which all those who have still faith in the salubrity of the well, say, is the sovereignest remedy alive for a sore leg: nay more, let any one who has drank over night from fifteen to twenty tumblers of punch, and whose head is so hot that it makes the water fizz into which it is plunged, let him, I say, but take a quart or two of the water of this spring on the following morning, and he will lose all his whiskey fever, and walk home 12 CASTLETOWN. as cool as a cucumber. I assure you, gentle reader, I have seen sundry making the experiment, and I actually saw them afterwards sober. And now we arrive at the demesne of Ireland's only duke a demesne, according to the exclusive propen- sities of all those who have this world's wealth, walled and fenced about with a skreen of trees, through which the eye of a curious traveller has no chance of pene- trating. To the left rises an obelisk, built a century ago, in that remarkable season called in Ireland the hard frost, by a lady of the Connolly family, in order to employ the people. These things are called follies in Ireland: to give such things such names, only argues poor taste and sense in those who bestow them ; would that there were many such evidences in the land that the rich cared for the poor. Beyond that obelisk, south- ward, extend the rich wooded grounds, and rises the finest country mansion in Ireland, Castletown once the estate of Dungan, Earl of Limerick the house was built by Speaker Connolly, and presents a very chaste and appropriate/ffp ade for a rich man' s residence. There, the great commoner, as he was called, Thomas Connolly, the son of the Speaker, found an income of 30,000. a year too small for the purposes of his ex- penditure: there were estates encumbered and wasted in keeping up of huntings and racings in affording sport to a whole country, and lavishing of hospitality on all that would partake of it; so much so, that (as the legend goes) he once afforded a day's hunting and a night's entertainment to the devil, who proved CARTON DUKE OF LEINSTER. 13 himself the most entertaining companion and the pret- tiest gentleman of the party. Now that we are in view of Carton, and the fine es- tate all round it, brought into its admirable state of im- provement by the present nobleman's grandfather, the first Duke of Leinster, I wish I could plant you,, reader, for a few minutes, on the top of the tower that crowns a summit in this fine park. Looking east, west, and south, you would observe one of the best managed estates in Ireland. Comfortable slated farm- houses, two stories high, with all their accompanying homesteads; the fences hedge-rowed; the lands well drained and divided, and in the centre of the property a town laid out in the English style and all this done by one man. Would that all the great proprietors of Ireland had followed the first Duke of Leinster' s ex- ample, whose desire was to have around him not an idle, sporting, presuming, carousing, set of squireens but a comfortable, industrious, humble, but at the same time self-respecting yeomanry a class of men so much wanting, and, alas, still so scarce in Ireland. The first Duke was certainly worthy of all his honours; while living in the splendour becoming one who was lord of "2,000 acres in this county we are now pass- ing through, he had the sterling good sense to know how to improve his great possessions in the way best suited to serve his country he was no rack-renter he practically applied the old English adage, ' LIVE, AND LET LIVE.' The house at Carton is by no means answerable to the fine demesne. It is what all 14 CARTON. houses are where improvements and additions are re- sorted to, to make up for original deficiency. It was not originally intended as the residence of the lords of Kildare, but erected, I believe, by a General Ogle- thorpe. The present Duke has done much changed its front, built large additions, and made it as perfect as good arrangement can; there are a great number of pictures, and a good collection of books, that once graced the ducal house in Dublin. There is a St. Catherine there, by Domenichino, which, to my mind, is the first picture in Ireland but give me, after all, portraits; they furnish the observer with such long trains of historical recollections. Here is a noble one of Gerald, the ninth earl, who so bravely quelled and brow-beat that haughty prelate, Wolsey. There, also, is that extraordinary figure the Fairy Earl the Pilgrim Geraldine. There, also, before the hall-door of the eastern front, stands, methinks in rather an incongruous place, amidst plots of odorous plants and parterres of dahlias and roses, the ancient cut stone council-table of the earls of Kildare, when they dwelt in their stronghold of Maynooth. It lay buried there ever since the castle was sacked by the lord deputy in Henry the Eighth's time, but has lately been dug out. If I were the Duke of Leinster I would build a great gothic hall, and place it in the centre: I would hang the tapestried walls with the armour, and the fretted roof with the pennons, and would emblazon the deeds of the bold Geraldines who sat around that table, and would surround it thus with things in keeping with MAYNOOTH. 15 its ancient character, and not leave it, as it now stands, a mere support for flower-pots. We entered May- nooth after passing Carton demesne it looks neat, but like all Irish towns, without a stir of business; wnlike most, as not deformed with mud cabins. It was almost entirely rebuilt by the aforesaid first Duke of Leinster, who desired to make it somewhat like an English market-town ; but, alas, it is easier to build houses than to change the spirit and habits of a people. It is now celebrated as containing the great Roman Catholic College, which stands fronting you as you drive down the street. The centre building was erected by a butler of the late Duke of Leinster, who, out of his savings, built it as a private mansion; he little thought of all the Latin, and logic, and dogmatic theology it would subsequently contain. This college is daily enlarging itself; and so it should, if meant to supply the im- mense and rapidly increasing Roman Catholic popu- lation of Ireland with pastors. To me it seems to extend itself without any view towards uniformity, and to be straggling in its hugeness, more like a workhouse than a college. Looking on it as a great factory, where strong machinery is applied to the purpose of bending mind, and assuming that it is more notable for its disci- pline than its learning, I say, it is deficient in the air, the unction, the scholastic, grey sobriety that characterises Oxford and Cambridge in England, or Padua or Sala- manca on the continent. I prefer casting my eye and feasting it on yonder old castle. I remember well, in my younger days, driving under the archwayed tower 16 HILL OF CAPPAGH. that led into tile ballium of this Geraldine fortress; the high road ran under it then. What a grim, gloomy, prison-like pile is this keep: was it ever inhabited since the traitor fosterer of Silken Thomas betrayed it to the lord deputy? Maynooth does not boast alone of modern collegiate notoriety : Gerald, the eighth Earl of Kildare, the greatest warrior of his race since the days of his ancestor Maurice he who was made by King Henry ruler over all Ireland, because all Ireland could not rule him he who excused himself for burn- ing the cathedral of Cashel, by assuring his majesty that he would not have done so were he not sure that the archbishop was therein he who kept all Ireland under dread of his iron arm perhaps to make up his accounts I last, and produce a fair balance-sheet in the next world, founded a college here, with provost, vice-provost, and fellows, and endowed it with lands around the tower of Tahadoe. Leaving Maynooth, we pass through Kilcock an ugly, triste, and unimproving place; and still a canal runs beside it the great western road through it: and it is in the midst of one of the most fertile dis- tricts either for corn or cattle in Ireland. There is, however, an excellent corn-market here, perhaps the best in the vicinity of Dublin. The hill of Cappagh is now near at hand What a rich tract of feeding land. The road, in my younger days, wended bravely over its summit and though not three hundred feet above the level of the sea, it per- haps is the highest point between the bays of Dublin KINGDOM OF MEATH. 17 and Gahvay. How unlike most other islands is Erin its mountainous districts all around the shores its centre only just so elevated as to allow a drain- age towards the Shannon, which also, unlike every other inland river, runs parallel to the greatest length of the isle. Cappagh hill forms the high land that divides the streams falling into the Boyne and Liffey from hence is a noble view of almost the whole of the ancient kingdom of Meath. Perhaps not in Europe except in its mediolanian namesake the Milanese is there so much good laud mixed with so little bad, as within its circuit. No wonder that the kings of Meath wore so often monarchs of Ireland. No wonder that the hills of Tara, of Usneach, of Skreen, were so famous. Here also, was the great fair of Tailteen, where all the Irish lads and lasses met to get married, and where, as now at Ballinasloe, there is a splendid show of fine cattle so in those primitive days along the sides of the hill of Tailteen were ranged pretty girls and brave boys and then after the young people had for a sufficient time cast sheep's eyes at one another, and after the parents had made proper bargains and arranged family settle- ments, matches were made; and then games and sports, and feats of activity began, which were si- milar, and not perhaps inferior to the Isthmean, or Olympic games of Greece human nature is the same in all times and places the young must marry and be given in marriage and what great dif- ference is there between a mother bringing her c 18 THE BOYNE. daughter to range her with others along the side of a ball-room, and the Milesian mother of olden time leading her blushing girl to Tailteen, to sit modestly on the green clover, and with downcast diamonds every now and then peeping out from beneath her long eye-lashes, to spy whether the boys from the opposite side of the line were cocking their bonnets at her. I remember, not long ago, travelling through the county of Down, and witnessing a practice not unlike that of Tailteen. After the cattle, sheep, and pig business of the fair was over along the sides of the road leading to the fair-green, and on the smooth, grass-covered ditches, all the neighbouring unmarried girls were seated, clothed in their gayest attire; and though nothing in the least indecent or riotous was practised, yet I was assured that here they were as- sembled to run the chance of getting lovers, and, of course, husbands. Pardon this digression, good reader it was only resorted to in order to break the dull uniformity of the country from the time you leave Cappagh hill until you get to the Boyne. We now arrive at the Boyne and true it is that when you get to that river, it is about as ugly a stream, if stream it can be called that appears to have no current, as need be looked at. You approach it by what reminds you of desolation a mansion- house, ruined in the rebellion of 1 798 a place that recalls all the bitter recollections' of that period of " domestic fury and fell civil strife." Yes, look at the potato garden on the side of the road opposite the wasted mansion-house observe that little mound DUKE OF WELLINGTON, 19 enced in with gooseberry bushes there lie, in one large grave, the remains of hundreds who fell in the attack on the dwelling-house of the Tyrrells God keep such evil days and bloody deeds from ever re- curring again! The Boyne flows lazily here amidst sedge and reeds appearing but the dark drain of an immense morass the discharge of the waste wa- ters of the Bog of Allen. A strong position in time of war Lord Wellington knows it well he has often had his soldier eye upon it, his paternal mansion, Dangan, being not far off to the right, near Trim. How different was the young fun-loving, comical, quizzing, gallanting Captain Arthur Wellesley, when residing in his shooting-lodge between Summerhill and Dangan, from the stern, cautious, careworn Fabius of the Peninsu- lar war; the trifling, provoking, capricious sprig of nobility half-dreaded, half-doated on by the women, hated by the men the dry joker, the practical wit, the ne'er do well despaired of, as good for nothing, by his own family, from the redoubtable warrior of Waterloo the great prime minister of England like Julius Caesar, a roue converted into a hero. The Boyne, then, is not here that lovely, pic- turesque water, which it becomes when it sweeps under the wood-crowned banks of Beau-pare winds under the limestone bluffs of Slane, washes the castle of the Marquess of Conyngham or meets the tide " At Newbridge town, Where was a glorious battle, When Jarnes and William staked a crown, And cannons they did rattle." 20 CLONARD. But here, though the stream is muddy and ugly, a very pretty new bridge has just been erected. To the right of the road, after leaving the new bridge, is seen a fine green moat, the sure evidence in Ireland of the ancient importance of the place. These moats have given some trouble to antiquarians in accounting for their use and origin. Evidently artificial they could not be for defence could they be for places of sepulture ? They appear too large for that purpose; they are generally superior in size to the tumulus or cairn, and besides are always flat at the top. They appear to me to have been con- structed for places of assembly, where the chief held consultations with his sept, where the Brehon decided differences among the people. The very name of moate attests their origin. Amongst the Saxons, the Wittenagemote was the name given to their popular assemblies. The mote was of the same use with them as the hof and ting were to the Northmen of the Orkneys and the Isle of Man places of trial and judicial combat, and also before the introduction of Christianity, of sacrifices. Beyond the moat, and farther to the right, on a swelling bank over the Boyne, is the spot where once stood the Abbey and Cathedral of Clonard Cluain-iraird the field of the western height: but not a vestige now remains but a stone baptismal font, of what was once a bishop's see, and the most famous seat of sacred literature and pious study in Ireland. Here St. Finnian, the most learned of all the successors of St. Patrick, established, ST. FINNIAN'S COLLEGE. 21 in the sixth century, his college, to which three thou- sand students resorted, not only from all Ireland, but also from Britain, Armorica, and Germany. The venerable Bede describes the English, both of the better and middle ranks, as coming here, not merely for the sake of study, but in the hope of leading a quieter and more contemplative life, (for it would ap- pear that the Irish, in all their feuds, respected learning and the clergy,) and under the direction of holy Finnian, receiving from Irish hospitality in- struction, food, lodging, and books, without charge cad mille fdilte. So great was the fame of Finnian, as a commentator on Holy Scripture, that all the holy men of Ireland came to imbibe wisdom from his ani- mated discourses. Hither came the twelve saints whom St. Patrick constituted apostles of Ireland. The venerable Kieran of Saiger, who, with his hair whitened with the snows of an hundred winters, did not disdain to hear Finnian expound to him the sa- cred book; here also came Kieran of Clonmacnoise, the carpenter's son, who wore himself out in deeds of penance and sanctity, and died in his thirty-third year. The two Columbs, Columbkille and Columb of Tirdaglas, the two Brendans, Brendan of Birr and Brendan of Kerry, Ruadan of Lorra, Molua of Clonfert, and others, as reported by Ussher and Colgan, resorted hither. It would appear that these holy men, while residing at Clonard, did not allow their studies to interfere with their bodily exercises, but that they cultivated the rich and fertile soil 22 EISCIRS. around their abode, and thus by invigorating their bodies, enlivened their minds, and rendered them more capable of enduring the mental toil attendant on the accumulation of much learning. There yet remains a legend which says that St. Columba, the son of Crimthan, one night when his lamp failed, being exceedingly anxious to master some important passage he had taken in hand, was seen with the fingers of his right hand tipped with light running along the leaves of his book, and so, from the efful- gence which they cast on the pages, he was enabled to study on while all around him was dark. Proceeding onwards for a mile or two from Clonard, the road reaches a long continuous line of gravel hills, along which it runs for a considerable distance, and which is, perhaps, one of the oldest lines of road in Europe. These long lines of gravel hills are all through Ireland called aisgirs or properly eiscirs:* this one is that which formed, in ancient times, the grand divi- sion of Ireland. I think I could trace this eiscir from Dublin Bay by the green hills of Crumlin, and so along by the Eskir of Lucan, then south of the Liffey, near Celbridge, and so across the river near Clane, * These aisgirs are common, I find, in the Scandinavian pe- ninsula. A recent traveller thus notices them : I travelled great part of the day on one of those singular ridges and mounds of sand and stones which I met with on the borders of Lapland. Here it is on a greater scale, running, at least, ten miles. The road is carried on the top of it. It cannot be an ancient sea beach, because it slopes equally on both sides. Laing's Travels in Sweden, p. 209. CON OF THE HUNDRED BATTLES. 23 onwards by Donadea, until it strikes the line of road we are now travelling then trending southward of the hill of Croghan, until, near Philipstown, another line of road takes advantage of its elevation, to run between two bogs; then passing through the barony of Garry castle, in the King's County, in a very dis- tinct line, it strikes the Shannon, in the exact centre of the island, at Clonmacnoise. This very curious na- tural vallum, just as distinct as the great Roman wall dividing South Britain from Caledonia, was adopted as the dividing line between the two parts of Ireland, and was called Eiscir Riada, extending from Dublin to Galway, the northern portion being called Leath Con, and the southern, Leath Mogha. The cause of this division, as the Irish historian has it, was this: in the year A.D. 125, Con Ceadcathach (of the hun- dred battles) was monarch of Ireland, and his reign, " patrio more" was turbulent; according to the cus- tom of his country, though monarch of Ireland, he found it hard enough to be its master. He fought an hundred battles, as his name implies, for he was Con of the hundred battles, and not Con of the hundred bottles, as, by a ridiculous mistake, an Irish work of character represents him to be. Yet, surely, even the Temperance Society would allow that to open an hun- dred bottles, is a more innoxious business than to lead on to an hundred battles! Con, after being victorious in ninety battles, over sundry septs, found, at last, a powerful antagonist in Mogha Nuadat, king of Mun- ster. Mogha, not content with his own share of Ire- 24 KINNEGAD. land fair and fat Munster must needs try his hand with Con of the hundred battles, and defeating his liege lord, compelled him to divide the island, and this eiscir formed the boundary the northern divi- sion being called Leath Con, or Con's half, and the southern Leath Mogha, or Mogha's half. But king Con did not quietly stomach this concession; for, one morning, he had his rival assassinated in bed, and as a man-slayer, he was slaughtered himself. After wearing his uneasy crown for twenty years, he was murdered by Tiobraide, son of Roderick King of Ulster, who, while Con was taking his pleasure, unarmed, in the hall of Tara, employed fifty ruffians, in the attire of women, to put him to death. Kinnegadis, like most towns in east and west Meath, " a lean place amidst fat lands." What a sleepy spot: few up and doing, but the cur dogs and beg- gars. The bugle of the passing coach sends its clangor along the quiet street, it reverberates amongst the mud walls and dunghills the lazy cobbler lifts his head from his last, and scratches, significantly, beneath his woollen nightcap the tailor lays down his goose, scratches also ruminatingly at the organ of destructiveness, and stares at the passtngvehicle the tinker's ass brays responsively as the guard blows the sow rises from her wallowing in the green puddle that bubbles and festers before the huxter's door, to grunt in unison mendicants and cur dogs rush forth and surround us, the one barking, the other begging. Oh, why have we not the pencil of a Wilkie or an BEGGARY. 25 Ostade, a Callot or Delia Bella, to picture the group- ing of a coach changing horses at an Irish village. Here I challenge all the mendicant countries in Chris- tendom to match me Ireland in the trade, or costume, or aptitude for begging France, Italy, aye, even Spain itself, must yield the palm. Where, under the sun, could you find such eloquence of complaint such versatility of supplication such aptitude of humour suiting, with felicitous tact, the appeal to the well guessed character of the applicant ? Ob- serve, there is always a leader of the begging band, who controls the rest, and asserts a manifest supe- riority in striking the key-note of supplication. Take, for instance, the queen bee, or rather wasp, of the Kinnegad swarm that surrounded us: what a tall, sturdy, sinewy virago her dark unquiet eye, bespeak- ing her quick spirit her powerful form, the danger of disputing with her her sallow skin and sharp features, that the pabulum of her existence was drawn more from whiskey than from wholesome eatables: alas, for the body, soul, and spirit of that being whose existence depends on whiskey and potatoes. Look at her, with her filthy faltering hand fixed now on the coach door, in the attitude of threatening requisition, and almost intentionally frightening a delicate female within into the reluctant bestowment of sixpence. Again, see with what a leer of cunning she addresses herself in flattering guise to an outside passenger, and how knowingly she smokes a youth with a cigar in his mouth, and while coaxing him out of a penny, which 26 BEGGAR'S BLARNEY. he flung at her head, she played upon the puffer, offered to lend him her dudeen, quizzedhim for his par- simony, in attempting to smoke and chew at the same time from the same tobaccy twist, and exhibited him off in the truth of his nature, as a Jackanapes. Then she moved off to the rear of the coach, and com- menced flattering a farming sort of a young man, large, rude, and ruddy. " Och 1 then is that your- self, Master Tom I hope your honour's heifers sold well last market mayhe it's yourself that hasn't the pocketful o'money coming out of Smithfield and long may your father and your father's son reign, for it's he that's the good warrant to give to the poor my blessing, and the blessing of poor Judy's children light upon him every day he gets up, for it's he that never passes through Kinnegad without throwing me a silver shilling. Do, Master Tom, and the hea- ven's be your bed, throw us a half-crown now, and we'll divide dacently. Yes, your honour, I know you'll be afther putting your hand in your pocket. Molly, agra," turning to another beggarwoman, "what a sweet smile Master Tom carries isn't he as like the dear man his father, as if he was spit out of his mouth but why shouldn't he be good, seeing as how he's the rale ould sort, none of your upstart jackeens." Here a sixpence, thrown at her head, rewarded her pains, and immediately she turned to a respectable looking man, with broad brimmed hat and sad coloured attire, who stood on the other side of the vehicle, preparing to mount. "Do, your riverence, throw RETREAT FROM KINNEGAD. 27 us a tester before you go, and soon and safe may you return, for the prayer of the fatherless and widow will be along wid yees, blessing on his sweet, charitable face wouldn't ye see, Honor," addressing herself to another beggarwoman, with the wink of an eye, " that there was a heart within him for the poor." Here Honor interposed " Judy Mulcahey, and bad luck to yees, why call the gentleman " his Riverence," when you know no more than my sucking child whe- ther he be a clargy at all, at all." " Yes, but I do know, and for why shouldn't I ; don't I see his gal- ligaskins covering so tight and note his comfortable legs blessings on his Riverence every day he rises;" and then, in an under voice, and turning to a beggar- man behind her, "Jack, what matters it to the likes of us, whether he be the right sort or no what consarn is it to Judy and the childer, whether he be priest, parson, or methody preacher, so as I slewder him out of sixpence. Do, your Riverence, do, and the poor widow's blessing attend ye, throw something before yees go amongst us." Thus she carried on her attacks praised and joked prayed and impre- cated now a blessing, now a blasphemy and when the guard sang out " all's right," and the coach drove off, she heaped curses, for sheer fun sake, upon all those whom, for herself and fellows, she failed to put under contribution and then for the whiskey shop, to dissolve, with all rapidity, the proceeds of her morning's occupation. But "adieu to the village delights." 28 IRISH CHEESE. "Strange," says a fellow-traveller, as we passed along some beautiful pasturage lands westward of the village, " that a soil seemingly so rich, does not pro- duce cheese: is it the fault of your land, or is it owing to the laziness of your people, that Ireland, even from her richest soils, produces none ?" " I beg your pardon, sir," said I, " in my younger days I remember eating cheese made in this vicinity. To be sure, the manufacture of Kinnegad was not equal to that of Berkeley Hundred, and was, in sooth, a tough, thin, leathery sort of thing, very like, when cut into slices, so many razor strops, and I agree with you that it is very strange that our confessedly rich pastures cannot supply good cheese, though I have known great pains taken by sundry spirited landed proprietors to produce a good article, and still the attempt proved abortive, though the method of ma- nufacture, the machinery and the makers were brought over from the most approved places in England, as Cheshire, Gloucestershire, Leicestershire; they made cheese to be sure, but it proved not either Cheshire, Gloucester, or Stilton." "Gentlemen," said a shrewd farming-looking fel- low-traveller, "this may not be so strange as many superficial observers might be apt to suppose. The failure, instead of proving a mark of inferiority in our pasture lands, only serves as a proof of their abundant and succulent fertility. The truth is, and on this subject I am informed by a good prac- tical chemist, that our Irish soils laid out for dairy BEEF AND BUTTER. 29 husbandry, supply the cream instead of the curd; or as my friend in learned phrase said, they enrich the cow with more of the butyraceous than the caseous matter. If unable to produce cheese in sufficient quality or quantity, we can yet supply abundantly our own and foreign markets with butter the best in the world. The bounties of Providence are various, and every country has its peculiar blessing. France has her wine Italy her oil England her cheese Ire- land her beef and her butter; and as my farm in Westmeath supplies me with my daily ' mate, wash- ing, and lodging,' I do not envy the Englishman his bread, cheese, and ale." There was a sensible fellow, and just the sort of intelligent Irish farmer I would like more frequently to meet with. 30 CHAPTER II. GAULSTOWN TO ATHLONE. Gaulstown A beggarly bridge builder A great man's jealousy A word on Red Bogs Their future utility The Lakes of Westmeath The Legend of Lough Owel Tyrrell's-pass The Tyrrell Family Hugh Tyrrell, his adventurous story Kilbeggan Sculloge trick A Lord Lieutenant's Frolic The Author's miserable mishap, and his honour wounded in its most sensitive seat -The Fort of Ardnorchar Its History Moate Its appearance Quaker Improvement A Quaker wish for Ireland The Moat The Battle Rapparees Approach to Athlone Look across the Shannon Siege of Athlone The defence of the bridge The fording of the river St. Ruth and Col. Grace The bridge of the Town its Legend. PASSING by a well wooded and enclosed demesne, with a fine manor-house in the centre, some one remarked that it was Gaulstown, now the property of Lord Kilmaine, but formerly the mansion of the Earls of Belvidere. It is astonishing how pre- vious knowledge causes you, from association, to think well or ill of things and places. Gaulstown, without any grand feature, is as fine as good land, a good house, and large trees can make it, yet, when consi- dered as the prison of a pretty woman, as the lock- up house of a man who was instigated by more than Spanish jealousy, and lived and died under the in- fluence of more than Spanish revenge even if the sun were shining on it the thrush amusing its incubating mate with all the harmony of conjugal fidelity, and the ring-dove cooing its querulous love- note from every grove, I could not but consider it as a dismal place. Robert, the first Earl of Belvidere, married in 1736, as his second wife, Mary, the BEGGAR'S BRIDGE. 31 daughter of Lord Viscount Molesworth; she was wondrous beautiful, and bore him four children; but for some cause that excited to dire jealousy his deter- mined spirit, he had his Countess locked up in Gaulstown house, for nearly twenty years, allowing her only the attendance of a confidential servant; and this the most admired woman of her day, lingered away the prime of her life, neither the world forgetting, nor by the world forgot but unknown, and unknowing guarded with a vigilance that knew no intermission, until, by her lord's demise, she was liberated from her thraldom. It is questionable whether the after-life of this liberated lady evinced that her long incarceration was instrumen- tal to mental improvement, or even conducive to an amended life: at all events, during the Earl's life, no one ventured to call his severe and illegal act into question, for he was too useful to the government for it to interfere, and the personal courage of this clever and handsome Bluebeard was of that exorbi- tant and reckless character, that no preux chevalier was found hardy enough to attempt the rescue of the lovely dame from durance vile. In this way they ma- naged matters in Ireland one hundred years ago. Our next change of horses took place at a village called Beggar' s-b ridge a beggarly place, in sooth, as its name imports. The cause of its name is not a little remarkable. In old times, as was the case in most parts of Ireland, the traveller was obliged to ford over the small river that crossed the road, and here stood a beggar, who, as the wayfaring man 32 BEGGAR S BRIDGE. slowly picked his passage over the water, from an ad- joining bank, asked alms, and invoked all the saints in heaven to aid and bring to his journey's end, him that lent to God by showing pity on the poor. It was surely an Irishman who said or sung this stave " Of all the trades a-going, a-begging is the best." Thus our beggarman throve surpassingly, for so ragged, so wretched, so squalid looked he, that no man could pass by, (and it was a great thoroughfare,) without giving him alms, and it so happened that the beggar- man died and was buried, and a coffin and winding sheet were provided for him at the expense of the neighbours, and his filthy rags, as altogether offensive and unfit for any use, were cast out on the way-side, to be trodden under foot, and so resolve themselves into the element of dirt and dung they had for years approximated to but it so happened that as some boys were playing by the road-side, one of them gave an unusual toss to the beggar's rags, and out fell a piece of money, whereupon a more accurate search was made, and it was found that the ragged inside waist- coat was quilted with guineas; this money, the young men who found it, had the honesty to bring to a neighbouring magistrate, who directed that with it a bridge should be erected over the stream, on whose banks stands the little village inde derivatur, Beggar' s- bridge. " What a pity it is that these bogs cannotbe turned to some u?e," was the remark of one of my fellow travellers, as we looked southward across some thou- RED BOG. 33 sands of acres of red bog that stretched towards the Hill of Croghan. " I remember once a near-sighted Englishman, on approaching a gentleman's house in Minister, congratulating the proprietor on the im- mense quantity of fallow land he was preparing for a crop of wheat; the worthy Briton mistaking the red bog for the red soil he was accustomed to in Worcester- shire. "Won't you have patience," said I, "until these wastes are brought under cultivation, according to the process not long ago published as adopted on Chat- moss." "Pooh, pooh fiddle -dee-dee with your Chat- moss;" said my companion, "convert, forsooth, yonder quagmires on which nothing can stand, and in which nothing can swim ; which, are even too wet for a snipe or grouse to feed on into arable land, producing crops of wheat; sir, I would as soon expect my cook to turn a dish of porridge into roast beef, as to expect that the Bog of Allen should be made arable. No, sir, it is only a great system of combined and national drainage it is only the slow process of solidification subsequent to this drainage, that can change those at present growing, or, as I may say, living bogs, into recipients for seed corn into enclosures where the plough and the spade can operate. At the same time," continued he, " I wonder much that a use obvious enough, and very practicable, has not been made of the black, and the more solid* skirts of the red bogs, to manufacture These remarks I wish to be considered as written six years ago, and, therefore, before Mr. Williams had made and pub- lished his experiments on making his composition of peat and resin answer for steam vessels. 34 IRON. charcoal a fuel so portable, so convenient, so valu- able, not only for culinary purposes, but for the dif- ferent arts and manufactures. Any one who has been at Paris, and seen the Seine covered with barges laden with the charcoal that feeds all the culinary fires and all the furnaces of that city, might wonder why the citizens of Dublin, and more especially the poor, in- stead of receiving as they do, cumbrous and expensive loads of smoky and strong smelling peat or turf, do not receive their fuel in shape of charcoal. Be- sides, what a material is here for iron forges. What is the reason that England, with all her science and capital, cannot produce iron equal to that of Sweden or Russia? Why is it that for all strong or safe pur- poses, artists of every sort must still purchase, even at double the price, the iron of Scandinavia? Because, that in the smelting and working of English iron, the arsenical and sulphureous fumes of the pit coal, still in- jure the material; and neither in the form of metal, bar iron, or steel, can iron manufactured with pit coal be considered perfect. And England, when in former days she worked with charcoal, and Ireland, too, produced as good iron as that of Sweden, and it is only necessary to resort to the old smelting with charcoal, to produce the good old material. Now what the woods of Sweden and Russia supply, we may have in abundance in Ire- land. I hold it is nearly as easy a process to compress, dry, and burn peat into charcoal, as to cut down and cleave timber; and surely, iron ore is very abundant in our mountains yes, and at the bottoms of our bogs, LOUGH OUEL. 35 too and limestone, another necessary, is still more plentiful. What then hinders that we have not iron founderies and forges in Ireland? What but the want of quietness, security, and commercial confidence, by- means of which we might and may yet take advan- tage of the capabilities of the island." This conversation brought us to the top of a hill which commanded a fine prospect westward and northward. Immediately in front was the pretty hill and dale country of Tyrrell' s-pass, which is orna- mented with much natural oak wood, and improved by hedge-row planting presenting in the variety of its surface, and in the number of its gentlemen's re- sidences, a country not unlike some parts of Shrop- shire. Northward you could see that beautiful oval expanse of water, Lough Ennel, with the narrow Brusna flowing forth and sweeping its tortuous way towards Kilbeggan. This fine lake, full of wooded islands indented with picturesque promontories, and thickly adorned with gentlemen's seats presents a rich, soft, riant e picture, such as Claude or Wilson might paint, or such as Dyer or Shenstone describe. Westward, again, and on a higher level, sparkling like a silver line on the verge of the horizon, might be seen Lough Ouel, in my opinion one of the prettiest of Ireland's lakes. It is of a lowland character, and partakes of the soft paysage style of picturesque beauty; no one would presume to compare the gentle naiad of Ouel, with the magnificent deities that pre- side over Killarney, or Ulleswater, or Katrine but, 36 LEGEND OF LOUGH OUEL. after all, it is a precious bijou of a lake, and though there are no sublime peaks, from whence tumble the thunder-riven rock and the avalanche though no O clouds, rolling in mysterious masses, break on the mountain side, and send down the tumbling cataract yet here are the smooth, verdant lawns the softly swelling sheep-depastured hills the wooded banks the islands consecrated by all the mournful associa- tions connected with ruined churches. I don't know whether I exactly expressed these identical sentiments and words to my coach companion, but I certainly praised, as well I might do, the very beautiful West- meath waters, along whose banks I have often wan- dered; moreover, I do not say that it was any of my fellow passengers who related the following legend respecting this lake, which, as I have before said, re- flected the sinking sun as a distinct but distant mirror. " Playful and fantastic was the being who once dwelt and had power over the sweet valley through which the waters of Lough Ouel now flow. The times alluded to were those when the Tuatha-Danans possessed Ireland when magical power was very pre- valentand a fine town, older still than Armagh or Kil- mallock, and worthy of its ancient dwellers, covered the bottom of the valley. The fisherman, as he in mo- dern days pushes his boat from the shore, and is dis- appointed in his venture by the heavens becoming sunlit, the winds still, and the calm mirror of the lake assuring him he will cast his line in vain-it is LEGEND OF LOUGH OUEL. 37 then when he looks down, for want of something else to do, into the translucent deep, that he sees stacks of chimneys, ridge poles, and gables of houses, and even a round tower Ireland's most ancient edifice and calls to mind the ditty that his nurse has sung about " the drowning of Old Mullingar." Well what a purely mischievous person must she have been that caused this submersion. Yet so it was that a female caused it. It is very much to be doubted, whether in any case, save that of our Queen, power should be entrusted in the hands of women. They are quite too capricious and they do things too much by the jerk of impulse. So it was in this instance. The Tuatha- Danans, who preceded the Milesians in Ireland, were great magicians. So the historians of our Patron Saint assure us, there are remains of their feats in the land even yet, that can only be accounted for in the way of supernatural power. Could any one but a magician take a bite out of a mountain in the county of Tip- perary, and drop the mouthful at Cashel, where it now stands as the notorious ROCK in the same way with respect to Lough Ouel. Some call her a fairy others a witch any how she had more power than I would like my wife to possess and on a fine day she travels off to the county of Roscommon, to visit a witch of her acquaintance, who resided on the borders of a very pretty lough there; and every night in which witches may disport, she spent her time in fishing for Gillaroo trout, and when she was in bad humour, turning a flat stone washed by the waters 38 LEGEND OF LOUGH OUEL. of the lake, and as ever and anon the ninth ware passed over it, in cursing her enemies. No doubt she was very proud of her way of life ; for, said she, I have here what few possess, that is, hens that have gills, and fish that have gizzards. Now hither the Westmeath wise-woman bent her way; and after certain days en- tertainment and converse, such as witches alone enjoy, she says " Cousin, I'll be lonesome when I go back to Leinster, without the sweet sounds of the wave-beating waters of this lough; will you lend it me until Monday; I will just borrow it for the sake of seeing how it will look in my own pretty valley." With all the pleasure in life," says the Connaught woman, mighty accommodating, "but how, deary, will you take it with you or send it back ?" " Och, asy enough in my pocket-handkerchief ladies carried no reticules in those days and so she did, cleverly enough : and full sure it must have been a rare sight to behold it hurrying eastward, high over the hills of Knockcrokery aqueducting itself over the broad Lough Ree disdaining to delay on the plains of Kilkenny-west and then by a slip of one corner of the kerchief, coming down and settling itself, as if it were born and bred there, in the valley of Ouel. No child was ever prouder when paddling in a puddle, than the Westmeath witch was of her borrowed water; and like all wayward and unthrifty ladies, it's little it troubled her that hundreds of acres were drowned to provide my lady with a look- ing-glass. But what was to be done when pay Mon- LEGEND OF LOUGH OUEL. 39 day came ? was the lake to be gathered up again in a shawl, and sent back ? By no manner of means. I have you, my pretty pond, and never again shall your soft murmuring waves kiss a Connaught shore. But where's your honesty, Lady Westmeath ? Oh, how ancient is equivocation how long has the prac- tice prevailed in Ireland, of not paying just debts ? was it from this witch that so many here have found out, that it was not their interest to pay the principal, or their principle to pay the interest ? Of course the Connaught woman came in due time, very huffingly, and demanded her lough. " Did you not," says she, "promise and vow to return it me on Monday?" " Yes, to be sure I did," says the crafty witch, " but, as the Irish have it, it was on the Monday after the Sunday of Eternity; or, as the English say, it was on Monday come never in a wheelbarrow." Bad treatment this of an honest, confiding, generous Connaught woman. But it was to no purpose she stormed and wept; and anger-breathing magician as she was, she could not blow back the lake, nor could all her tears create it: what is worse, she had to sit down contented, in as ugly a turlough, where once those sweet waters used to flow, as ever Christian laid eyes on all covered with limestone flags, as waste and as sorrowful as a grave-yard. The place is the Barony of Athlone, I have often passed it people dig there for pipeclay; small comfort in those early days for the loss of her lough, seeing as how tobacco pipes and smoking to drive away sorrow, were not yet invented. 40 GOLD AND SILVER HANDS. The lough itself, it would appear, did not like to stay on the Leinster side of the Shannon; and as well became it, forth it sent two streams, one from its northern, another from its southern end, both of which trending westward and called by the people the gold and silver hands stretched out towards Connaught, forming the head waters of the Inney and the Brusna, and making a very pretty island of the Baronies of Kilkenny West and Garry- castle. It may be supposed that the Westmeath witch, with the malice that ever belongs to such a magical race, did not stomach this hankering after Connaught, so on a day she says, " my pretty water, I'll teach you how to long for that land of bogs and limestone which Cromwell thought only a little better than hell I'll show you, that like a Roscommon spalpeen, you shan't be ever scheming to go back to be buried in the land you were born in." So what does my fairy woman do, but goes and makes a bargain with the Royal Canal Company, to sell Lough Ouel to them as a summit level; and she never rested until she cut oiF both her golden and silver hands, and sent the soft, sweet waters, through the deep-sinkings, locks, and levels, along with canal boats to Dublin. I do not care whether any one be- side myself believes my story; all I know is, that it is not my own invention; and this I can assure you, that contrary to the natural tendency of these waters to flow westward, they now, as forming the finest sum- mit level to any canal in Europe, flow eastward, "into the tea-kettles of the citizens of Dublin." TYRREL,' S-PASS. 41 I would not desire or expect to meet a much pret- tier village in England than Tyrrell' s-pass wood- crowned hills dry gravel roads neat whitewashed cottages comfortable and well-dressed gentlemen's demesnes a very pretty new church and steeple these all meet the eye in and about Tyrrell' s-pass; but all these interested me not so much as the old castle that stands a little way westward of the village, and which, placed at the extremity of a line of gravel hills, that rise out of large bogs which skirt it on either side, guards the only passable road leading towards Athlone. This pass often the scene of bloody con- test has got its name from the ablest partizan soldier that ever Ireland produced, and who lived in the stormy times of Elizabeth, so fertile in every de- scription of great men. This noted soldier was not only remarkable for the courage and devotedness with which he inspired his followers, but also for, in days of unusual treachery, the faithfulness with which he adhered to his cause. True to his employers, at- tached to his friends, he never despaired of what he thought the cause of his country, which he was the very last to desert. I do not desire it to be under- stood, that I at all approve of Tyrrell' s siding with the King of Spain, against his natural sovereign; but treating historically of him, I cannot but speak of him as a valiant soldier, and a consummate gue- rilla chief. Of English descent, when Tyrone rose in arms against Elizabeth, he took the command of the light-footed and light-armed Irish Bonnaghts, 42 TYRRELL. and there was not a mountain pass from Malin Head to Slieve Logher, nor a togher across a bog from Philips- town Fort to Galway, that he did not know the intrica- cies of. When in they year 1597, the new deputy, Lord Burroughs, formed the plan of his campaign against Tyrone, O'Donnel, and Maguire, it was arranged that the Lord Deputy, attended by the Earl of Kildare and the Lords of the Pale, should march direct upon Ulster, whilst Sir Croniers Clifford, the president of Con- naught, should, with a force of 2,000 men, proceed into his province, and passing through it, turn in on Ulster by the head of the Shannon, taking Maguire' 8 country in flank, and so march on to form a junction with the Deputy. Tyrone, one of the wiliest of men, was not long in ascertaining the details of this plan, and in taking measures to counteract it; and to that purpose he despatched Tyrrell, with 500 picked Bonnaghts, to proceed through the Brenny, into Leinster, to raise the O'Moores of Leix, Pheagh M'Hugh O'Byrne, and the O'Tooles, and so with these united forces oppose and check Sir Croniers Clifford. Tyrrell, on his way to effect these junctions, was reposing his men in the woods that lie around Lough Ennel, when Sir Croniers, whose army lay atMullingar, hearing of the Irish partizan being in his vicinity, despatched young Barnewell, Lord Trimleston's son, with half his forces, to destroy Tyrrell; who, aware of his approach, fell back until he gained this pass, which he made more dangerous by felling trees and AN AMBUSCADE. 43 fixing them on either side of the bogs that flanked the road, and he directed half his little army, under Owny M'Rory oge O'Connor, to secrete themselves in a hollow in the ground, covered with oak copse, near which the English were to march in order to gain the pass and assault Tyrrell. Young Barnewell observing that Tyrrell was making a show of retreat- ing onwards towards Kilbeggan, hastily advanced, leaving O'Connor in his rear; whereupon the Irish rose from their ambuscade, sounding their bagpipes which was the concerted signal of the English placing themselves between the two fires upon which Tyrrell turned about, and both he and Owny M'Rory fell on. The English, assailed in front and rear, and unable to deploy as enclosed between the two bogs and the abbatis of felled timber fought gallantly, as they al- ways did, but were completely defeated and annihilated. Barnewell was taken prisoner and not a man escaped to tell Clifford the disastrous tale, except one who had plunged up to his neck in a quagmire, amidst reeds and sedge. O'Connor, who fought on that day like a very madman, had his hand so swollen with fighting and fencing, that it could not be re- moved from the guard of his sabre until the steel was separated with a file. Clifford, with an army dimi- nished to one-half, now finding himself surrounded by Irish insurgents on every side, was obliged to retreat on Dublin, and it required the greatest prudence and skill to effect his retreat in safety. This was not the only action in which Tyrrell was concerned in this 44 GENERALSHIP. vicinity. A little to the south, and occupying a similar pass in 0' Moore's country, he surprised the most consummate of Elizabeth's generals, the Lord Mount) oy; on which occasion the Deputy was in im- minent danger of his life, and had a horse shot under him. Any one who reads the history of that terrible struggle between the English and Irish in those wars, will recognize what an important part Tyrrell took in them how he was mainly instrumental in assisting O'Donnell to pass into Munster, in spite of all Lord Mountjoy's precaution, who had supposed that he had every practicable road guarded, but which Tyrrell and O'Donnell evaded by passing safely over the hitherto impracticable mountains of Slieve Phelim, and so thence gained the valley of the Shannon, when the English supposed they had enclosed them in the vale of the Suir. Tyrrell led on the vanguard of the Irish forces, at the, to them, disastrous battle of Kinsale. He protected Dunboy as long as it was possible; though often tempted by the English generals, he constantly refused to betray his cause, though thereby he might have saved from an ignominious death, his nearest and dearest friends. Often betrayed, and often thereby defeated, yet too vigilant to be taken too fertile in resources to be vanquished, he still held out; when even O'Donnell, in despair, retired beyond the seas, and Tyrone bargained successfully for his pardon, and when at last all was over in Munster, be- cause the country was turned into one wide waste Tyrrell, instead of surrendering, effected, along with IMPROVED COUNTRY. 45 his faithful followers, his retreat out of Desmond, and passed in hostile array, from the farthest moun- tains of Kerry, through the midst of traitorous Irish and watchful English, until he arrived in the fast- nesses of the county Cavan and there history leaves him for I find no record of his subsequent life or death, after the Lord Mountjoy had the honour to announce to his sovereign, that he had pacified Ireland. The country from Tyrrell' s-pass to Kilbeggan is improved. The hills are generally planted, the low grounds are drained, and gentlemen's seats are to be seen on either side of the road. One in parti- cular caught my attention, as well remembered, hav- ing, in my younger days, enjoyed the hospitality of its then owner. It has since more than once changed masters; on inquiring who now possessed it, I was informed by one of my fellow-travellers, that its pre- sent proprietor was not satisfied with his bargain; and he mentioned, as the common report of the country, how an ingenious trick was played off, in order to in- duce him to effect the purchase. "The land," said he, " is naturally very light the upland a dry hungry gravel the lowland, such as reclaimed bog generally is, wet, rushy, and inclined to return to its original un- productiveness. The gentleman, struck with the beau- tiful forms of the grounds, and with the tasteful way in which they were planted, appointed a time on which he would come and view the house and land, and pre- vious to that day the owner proceeded to some neigh- 46 A SCULLOGE TRICK. bouring fair, and bought up some forty or fifty of the fattest heifers he could meet these were, of course, grazing on the land the day the visitor arrived; ac- cordingly, in passing along, he put the question, whe- ther the land could provide good beef and mutton for the table." " My object, sir, is, if I take a country place, to live within myself, to go to market for nothing, to buy as little and sell as much as I can." " Right, sir," says the owner, " that is what I have always done : look yonder, pray, the proof of the pud- ding may be in the feeding, as well as the eating; do, sir, come over with me and handle a few of these hei- fers there is nice beef for you, fit for any market not better made up cattle from this to Kells." The stratagem was successful the admiring gentleman, struck with such convincing proofs of good land, soon concluded the bargain. But, alas ! since he became possessed of the title-deeds, he has never yet been able to have a good sirloin on his table from his grounds." "Confound the blockhead!" exclaimed a farming man, who was listening to the story, " he must have been some soft Cit to be taken in so could he not have looked at the blackheads, and fairy flax, and the traneens ? and they would have told him that he could not expect a fat goose, let alone a fat cow, from such sun-burnt hills." " Sir Henry Piers, in his account of Westmeath," observed I, " written 160 years ago, describes the inferior West- meath farmers as follows: 'The Sculloges, which may be Englished farmers, or boors, are generally KILBEGGAN. 47 very crafty and subtle in all manner of bargaining, full of equivocation and mental reservation, especially in their dealings in fairs and market, where, if lying and cheating be no sin, they make it their work to overreach any one they deal with, and if by slight or fetch, they can hook in the least advantage, they are mighty tenacious thereof.' If the story just told has any foundation, which I trust it has not, this West- meath gentleman played a very sculloge trick. We now arrived at Kilbeggau, situated on the Upper Brusna river, a small town, though before the Union returning two members to parliament. This was in old times the chief town of M'Geoghegan's country, and there were two religious establishments here, one an Abbey, founded by St. Beccan, a cotemporary of St. Columbkill; and in the year 1200, another reli- gious house, called the Abbey of the River of God why so called I have not ascertained, was founded by the D' Alton family under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin; this was supplied with monks from the great Abbey of Mellifont, whose mitred abbot could ride straight forward on lands belonging to his house, from the sea near Drogheda to the Shannon. In Elizabeth's time the Dillon family had the property of the sup- pressed Abbey; in the following reign, Oliver Lord Lambert was seized of the monastery lands of the Blessed Virgin, and his descendant, Gustavus Lam- bert, Esq. is now in possession of the property. Passing rapidly through the town, some circumstances connected with it came vividly to my recollection; the 48 LADY CUFFE. inn of the town I must remember as long as I live its titled landlady I well recollect the Lady Cuffe; never did the fountain of honour play off such a ludi- crous prank, as when it showered its spray on the head of an innkeeper; yet so it was, when ahout seventy years ago the Viceroy of Ireland dubbed mine host of Kilbeggan a Knight. Lord Townshend, the then lord lieutenant, a man addicted to the most disso- lute habits, and who, by the satirical writers of that day, was represented as one perfectly regardless of pomp, dignity, or parade one, who as he walked the streets, used to scatter his ribbald jests among the common passengers; whose festivities were often de- graded down to disorder, and his recreations to inde- licacy; he, on occasion of a journey to Connaught, was, by some accident that occurred to his equipage, obliged to stop at Kilbeggan for the night, and par- take of such accommodation as Mr. Cuffe, the inn- keeper, could afford. In those days good claret was not an unusual thing to be had even in small country inns; and it so happened that Mr. Cuffe was able to send up some fowl and fish well cooked and well served, and that the claret was in its bouquet and fla- vour adapted to his Excellency's taste; accordingly the great man unbent himself amongst his boon compa- nions, and so while losing sobriety, he forgot decorum ; and as he on another occasion, introduced his fox- hounds into the Council Chamber, now as a hair- brained bacchanalian, he ordered the host to make his appearance, and when he came into the PRESENCE, A VICEREGAL, FREAK. 49 Viceroy, in an affectedly grave speech, returned him thanks for his excellent cheer, and announced, that he would not repay the obligation in any other man- ner but in conferring on him the order of knighthood, and, accordingly, in spite of some of the more sober of the party, who remonstrated against this act of whimsical licentiousness, he actually forced mine host to kneel down, and duly dubbing him in set phrase and form, said " Rise up, thou mirror of inn- keepers, and be from henceforth Sir Thomas Cuffe." The astonishment of the innkeeper may be well sup- posed, as he returned to his wife to inform her of her new honours. The viceregal visitor, as usual, retired to rest, utterly reckless of what he had done, and rose in the morning, altogether forgetful, until reminded of the transaction; at which, when informed, he was not a little annoyed, but plucking up courage, he said to his aide-de-camp " It certainly was carrying the joke too far, but curse the fellow, sure he will not take any advantage of it ? Call him before me, and I'll persuade him to hush up the matter." Accord- ingly, the man was introduced "Mr. Cuffe," says his excellency, " a circumstance occurred last night, which I am sure you understood in the proper light; it was, it is true, carrying THE JOKE too far; I hope, sir, you feel as becomes you, and that you will sav no more about it, nor let the thing get wind." "Oh! indeed, my lord, the honour you have conferred on me, though I am right sensible of its importance, is still what I, for one, would have no objection to fore- E 50 THE FORFEIT OF CURIOSITY. go, under a proper consideration ; but, please your excellency, what will my Lady Cuffe say ?" The inn- keeper and his wife were Sir and my Lady all their lives. The man died long before I ever passed through Kilbeggan, but I perfectly remember my Lady Cuffe. The remembrance of an ennobled hotel keeper, however, is not what has fastened the inn so much on my memory, as a still more personal occurrence ; for, be it known, and the part most concerned tingles while I tell it, I got the greatest kicking ever man got in Lady Cuffe' s yard. The lamentable event was on this wise: I, in the summer of 1799, the year after the rebellion, was travelling from the county of Westmeath to that of Tipperary, and on my way rode into my Lady Cuffe' s Inn, at Kilbeggan; there I saw, sauntering about the house, and smoking as they reclined here and there, a set of outlandish looking soldiers gigantic fellows with terrible mous- taches and other accoutrements denoting them to be foreigners. I was a young, spare, lathy lad at that time, much under twenty, and like a gaping green-horn, I must needs proceed to the stables to inspect the horses and appointments of these much dreaded men, who, I was told, were Hessians; suppose me then standing in the stables " sicut mos est Mile&ianorum" as is the custom of Irishmen, with my mouth open, admiring all the stirrups, saddles, and bridles, &c. &c. of the Germans moreover, be it recollected, that it was a token of loyalty in those days to carry a queue or tail pendant from the back of your neck, and that those AUTHOR'S HONOUR IMPEACHED. 51 who neglected or lost such an accompaniment were counted disaffected they were Croppies. Poor inno- cent Croppy then as I was, there I stood unconscious of coming evil, when I all at once found myself seized on from behind, by the grasp, as it were of a giant my arms pinioned with one hand, the poll of my neck searched for the deficient tail with the other, and my seat of honour assailed with an immense jack boot, whose toe did horrible execution, such as a battering ram would inflict on a very weak postern, and then a terrible cry was shouted close to my ears, " You be one Croppie rascal, vat te devill bring te yong rebill here ? take dot and dot and dat." So he kicked me in the stable, and he kicked me in the yard, and he kicked me in the street, and he kicked me up the front steps of the inn, and there the cruel monster, who was at least six feet four inches in height, then left me, as a hound would let drop a hare out of his mouth, pounded in body, and wounded in mind. Oh! the toe of that terrible jack boot, never can I forget the infliction what was I to do ? take ven- geance of course. Vengeance on whom ? a common soldier have the fellow punished stay in the town until you lodge the complaint before his officer have him tried, flogged, and what not oh ! but that would take time I should stop with my Lady Cuffe, that would take money, with which I was not over-bur- thened, so I thought it better to take patience, call for a chaise, and putting plenty of straw under me, for air-cushions were not then invented, proceed in a 52 THE DUN OF ARDNORCHER. very delicate state to the end of my journey, my only consolation being, that though a kicked man, the dis- grace and pain were not inflicted by a countryman by a rale 0, or a true Mac, but by a brutal Hessian. Proceeding through Kilbeggan, our next stage was Horseleap, where a church stands crowning an ad- joining height, and where are the remains of a very ancient fort, anciently called Ardnorcher, but latterly Horseleap, from an extraordinary leap, said to have been formerly made by an English knight, over the raised draw-bridge, when escaping into the fortress from the pursuit of his Irish foes. This is a curious specimen of an ancient DUN, of the remotest period, converted by the military skill of the Norman De Lacy into a more modern stronghold to quell the conquered natives. Sir Hugh De Lacy was certainly an eminent military chieftain, who took advantage of every cir- cumstance and situation to preserve his conquests. In this way he turned abbeys into castles, and wherever he found a rath or moat well placed, he repaired and strengthened it with additional defences of lime and stone. Thus the ancient DUN or moat of Ardnorcher seems to have presented itself to De Lacy as a strong link in the chain of forts and castles, which he drew along the line of the Pale from the great Bog of Allen to the borders of Brefney, (now Longford.) There is a very interesting description of this fortress, and a drawing and ground plan of it, in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. According to tradition, Sir Hugh did not live to finish his plan of Normaniz- SIR HUGH DE LACY. 53 ing this DUN ; for while this great man, the favourite of his sovereign, and one of the most valiant of that extraordinary race who came over with Strongbow, was inspecting his rising fortress, and stooping down to give directions to the workmen, an Irish labourer, deeply imbued with a sense of his coun- try's wrongs, clove his head with a single blow of his mattock. Tradition has it, that though one of the most active, valiant, and sage men of his time, De Lacy was but small in stature and was called Le Petit; and from hence theLe Petits of Westmeath derive their name and origin. Small men have often been found, not only wise in counsel, but brave leaders in the field their energies seem to act with more power, as more concentrated; and Sir Hugh De Lacy Le Petit, as well as Napoleon Bonaparte, together with thousands of other little but great men, have shown that the mind, the immortal mind, can nerve a little body to achieve great things. Sir Hugh was an ex- traordinary horseman his leap over the draw-bridge of his fortress is, as I have said, yet recorded, and the spot shown, and the name of the place and village will record, as long as time lasts, this feat of a Norman knight. Alas! for the De Lacys like the De Courcys andTyrrells of that day, they did not respect the preju- dices of the people; one of the castles he was building he dared to found on the site of an ancient abbey. The Irish were shocked at the profanation, the act therefore of the assassin was applauded by all, and even the avenging peasant's deed was counted religi- 54 THE DE LACY FAMILY. ously meritorious, as exciting the anger of St. Columb- kill on him who was the usurper of his abbey, and the spoiler of his churches. Be it as it will, the De Lacys were a valiant and noble race. Hugh, the founder of Ardnorcher, or Horseleap Castle, left two sons. Hugh, the eldest, one of the most politic of men, contrived to supplant John De Courcy, the conqueror of Ulster, in the favour of King John, and eventually succeeded in driving him out of his pro- vince, and assuming the government. The story of the rivalship of the De Courcys and De Lacys might be made the subject of a very interesting historical ro- mance. I have often wondered that Sir Walter Scott, after introducing the De Lacys into an English story, did not follow up the subject, by making some use of the materials which Irish history affords of this noble race; their strange vicissitudes of fortune now favorites now rebels defeated to-day by De Courcy and in a short space of time supplanting him and driving him from Ulster again falling under the displeasure of their monarch, and obliged to fly for refuge to France, and there forced to work as gardeners on the grounds of a Norman Abbot and again, when unable to con- ceal their noble bearing, they were detected by the good ecclesiastic, ,and by his intercession reconciled to the king, and restored to their fiefs, we find the weak and vacillating John writing a letter to Walter De Lacy, entreating him to forget all ani- mosities, and assuring him of future favour and pro- tection. MOATE. 55 The next stage is Moate, formerly called the Moate of Gren-oge the Moate of young Grania or Grace. This fine specimen of the labours of the Irish in the erection of these artificial eminences, and which, per- haps, the largest in Ireland is, as I previously said of the rath at Lucan, completely hid by being co- vered with trees, and looks like nothing more than a hill planted thickly (each melancholy fir starving its neighbour) by some very improving Quaker. A le- gend there is concerning a Milesian princess taking on herself the office of a Brehon, and from this moate adjudicating causes, and delivering her oral laws to her people. At present Moate is a neat and pretty place, as all towns in Ireland are that are much inhabited by Quakers. It is really refreshing, after having your senses of sight, smelling, and hearing, outraged in passing through such an assemblage of mud cabins, pig-sties, and dung-hills, as Kilcock and Kinnegad present, to see the cultivated fields, the slated cot- tages, and the whitewashed dwellings in and about Moate. I have often supposed that Ireland might be advantaged, in a worldly sense, at least, were its peo- ple to turn Quakers. What a change my fancy con- templates a nation of fighters turned into a commu- nity of friends ; but how cruel would it be thus to cut up the trades of distillers, publicans, pike-makers, and policemen. To be sure this snug, smooth, easy-going people, too, had their hot times as well as others ; and the steady, demure, barrel-bodied Friend, with his single-breasted surcoat scarcely able to girth in his 56 QUAKERS. abdomenic protuberance, or the pale, placid, dove- eyed, and sadly attired sister of the present day, are but cool contrasts to the stern, burning, fervid, bare- boned, proselytizing fanatic of George Fox's time, who roamed the world testifying against parsons, priests, and steeple-houses. When John Parrot, moved by mighty impulse, went to convert the Doge of Venice and Samuel Fisher rushed to Rome, to testify the truth before roseate cardinals, and instead of kissing the Pope' s toe, give it a bite, and tell his holiness he was antichrist nay more, when the pale Mary Fisher appeared in her simple garb and sweet solemn face before the Turkish Sultan, in the presence of his mighty army at Adrianople, and there spoke what she had on her mind with such simple solemnity and un- veiled modesty, that Mahomet heard her with gravity and attention, and though he might have wished to have such a variety of womankind in his harem, he dismissed her with admiration and respect; so much so, that she passed through hordes of Paynims with- out a guard, and arrived at Constantinople without scoff or hurt I say, the quiet, sedate, unmeddling Quakers of the present day, are as different from their progenitors, as the frigid from the torrid zone, and occupying now the cool, sequestered character of those who mind their own business, we see them prosperous in themselves, and not interfering with others, except in a temporal sense, to do them good. This may be worldly prudence, but its Christian cha- racter I don't understand. RAPPAREES. 57 Moate a Gren-oge is surrounded with ruined cas- tles and churches, moates, raths, and memorials of the wars, the feuds, and the ferocities of former times. It has had also its day of great Quaker prosperity, which is, I fear, passing away; for the manufactures of linen and cotton which these good people encou- raged, and which they upheld, perhaps, longer than any other class of employers, are now undersold and almost ruined by the overwhelming power of British machinery. The pretty, grassy, and well cultivated hills around this town, surrounded as they are by large bogs, have, as a good military position, been the scene in the wars of Ireland of many a skirmish and battle. Here, in the wars of the Revolution, a severe battle was fought between the forces of King William under General De Ginkel, and of James un- der Brigadier Clifford. The Irish attempted to de- fend the town, which was merely ditched and pallisa- doed, but were forced to evacuate it and fall back on Athlone; the horse retreating by the road, the infan- try through the bogs and fastnesses with which the country abounds. Here the rapparees who, in those days, were so numerous, and so effective, and who seemed to be actuated with the same spirit, and to put in practice the same warfare as the Spanish Gue- rillas; to the no small astonishment of the English army, had recourse to a manoeuvre with which they were familiar: a large party that had skirmished with the British regiments, and given them no small annoyance by their bush-firing and desultory attack, 58 A BOG MANCEUVRE. driven by the bayonet, fled to the red bog on the left of the town, and there, as if by enchantment, hun- dreds of men in the open day, instantly disappeared: they were gone as ghosts and not a single runaway could be seen as a mark for a bullet, or a butt for a bayonet or pike. Story, in his interesting account of these civil wars thus describes this evasion: " The rapparees escaped to the bog, and in a moment all disappeared; which may seem strange to those who have not seen it, but something of this kind I have seen myself, and it is thus done : When the rapparees have no mind to show themselves upon the bogs, they commonly sink down between two or three tusocks grown over with long grass, so that you may as soon find a hare as one of them ; and they conceal their arms thus: they take off the lock, and put it in their pocket, or hide it in some dry place; they stop the muzzle close with a cork, and the touch-hole with a small quill, and then throw the piece itself into a bog-hole. You see one hundred of them without arms, who look like the poorest, humblest slaves in the world, and you may search until you are weary before you find one of their guns; but yet, when they have a mind to do mischief, they are all ready at an hour's warning, for every one knows where to go and fetch his own arms, though you do not." The road from Moate to Athlone passes over a country, as I have before observed, consisting of ranges of limestone gravel hills, rising from moors and red bogs; the hills in general range from east to west, and ASPECT OF COUNTRY. 59 seem formed by currents of subsiding waters falling towards the great drain of central Ireland the Shan- non. Wherever (as is the case in a great measure be- tween Mo ate and Athlone,) the hills are planted and the moors drained, the country is pretty; and more especially about Moate, the patient industry of the Quakers has done much. As you approach the Shannon, the country presents a flat and gloomy as- pect; the western horizon exhibits nothing but a mo- notonous line, unrelieved by mountain or wooded ele- vation, and the kingdom of Connaught does not smile on you as a land of promise. As you approach Athlone, high lands to the north- west do not allow you to see the broad expanse of Lough Ree; but on casting my eye in an opposite di- rection, at the distance of about seven miles just at the termination of a line of picturesque hills the round tower of Clonmacnoise rose like the terminus of a kingdom, to mark, as it were, the limit of some royal or ecclesiastical frontier the boundary pillar be- tween O'Melachlin, king of Meath, and O'Connor, king of Connaught. As you approach the town you do not see much of it, because it is sunk in the hollow through which the Shannon forces its way in order to reach the flats to the south, and nothing in or about the town impresses you with the idea of beauty, industry, or prosperity. It contains distilleries, whiskey-houses, soldiers, and no Quakers. The coach stops at the Westmeath side; neither in the street outside, nor in- 60 ATHLONE side of the inn where you put up, do you find much that may administer to your pleasure or comfort; neither is there any thing in the town, when you walk abroad, to catch your attention; no antique buildings no marks of ancient power or splendour: when you wish to see the Shannon, you go through a narrow street, or ra- ther lane, towards the bridge, which you find narrow, and encumbered with mills and houses, besides sun- dry annoyances moveable and immoveable but still if you can with any safety, amidst the rush of pigs, cars, and Connaughtmen, stand on this important bridge, and observe the huge volume of the Shannon rushing rapidly and clearly under its many arches look upwards, and you will perceive how the stream bristles with staked eel-wears and above them, the cots of fishermen, and the pleasure yachts of the offi- cers of the garrison; look across the river and you will see the old castle, commanding the river pass, once the residence of the Lord President of Con- naught, and the well-defended position maintained for the English in the rebellion of 1641, by the Lord Ranelagh and for the Irish, still more resolutely, by Colonel Grace, in the war of the Revolution; who forced General Douglas to raise the siege in 1690, and in the following year defended it with a vigour and tenacity which, if supported as he should have been by the French auxi- liaries under St. Ruth, must have foiled his adver- saries. Perhaps modern warfare does not present an instance of greater intrepidity and devotedness, BRIDGE. 61 than was exhibited on this occasion; a great interest, indeed, was excited by this siege; the attack, sup- ported by the whole force of Great Britain in Ireland; the defence sustained by the whole combined power of the Irish and French army, led on by a general who had acquired a great name in the wars of the continent. This old bridge on which I now stand, built by Sir Henry Sydney in the reign of Elizabeth, had one arch next the Connaught bank broken down. The powerful artillery of De Ginkel had battered the castle covering the bridge on the western side, into a heap of ruins; every thing sunk before the shot and shell of the well served British artillery. The Irish laboured incessantly to repair the breaches in the walls; the workmen fell as fast as they came to work but as they were swept away, others took their places, and still men were found ready to labour at a task that brought certain death. But the Eng- lish general was not yet the nearer to his point; there was the hitherto unfordable Shannon, and there was the bridge with its broken arch; gun and mortar had done their worst, but Athlone was not gained. It was resolved, then, to force the position by throw- ing a wooden gallery across the chasm. The British, under the shelter of the fire of their tremendous artillery, had constructed a breastwork on the bridge at their side of the broken arch. The Irish had one on their part, composed of wattles and earth: but this was set on fire by the con- tinual shower of shot and grenades; and while 62 ENGLISH ASSAULT. it was fiercely burning, the English, concealed by the flame and smoke, succeeded in pushing large beams across the chasm; and now it was only necessary to place boards over the beams, and the river was crossed when an Irish sergeant and ten men in complete armour leaped across the burning breastwork, and proceeded to tear up the beams and planks. The British were astonished at such hardihood, and actually paused in making any opposition but the next instant a shower of grape shot and grenades swept these brave men away, who, nevertheless, were instantly succeeded by another party, that in spite of the iron hail storm tore up planks, beams, and all, and foiled the enterprise of their foes. Of this second party only two escaped there is scarcely on record a nobler instance of he- roism than this deliberate act of these Irish soldiers, who have died without a name.* General De Ginkel made another unsuccessful at- tempt to throw a gallery across the broken arch : when foiled in all his attempts, a circumstance came to his knowledge which saved him from the disgraceful alter- native of raising the siege, and which, no doubt, turned the fortune of the whole war. The river, for the first time in the memory of man, was found fordable a little below the bridge two Danish soldiers, who for some crime had been sentenced to be shot, on pro- * It is but fair to state, that Story asserts that these men were Scotch, belonging to Maxwell's regiment. FORDING OF THE RIVER. 63 mise of pardon tried the pass, and returned safe. It was then given out and believed by both armies that the siege was to be raised; and when the Irish saw the English in motion, they lay in perfect security, and the French camp, a mile beyond, was equally still. St. Ruth and his officers had been gambling and dancing all night in a house, the unroofed walls of which are still standing, some distance from the town; they had retired to rest as happily secure as if they had been in Paris. On a sudden, at morning's dawn, and with no other music than the tolling of St. Mary's bell, sixty chosen men in armour, led on by Captain Sandys, plunged into the stream below the bridge,* twenty abreast, and in a very few minutes the oppo- site bank was gained the bridge was possessed and with cool and steady bravery they set about re-con- structing the gallery, whereby their comrades could follow them. The Irish were taken by surprise, and had only time to escape out of the town, some with- out arms, some without clothes, and many were taken asleep on the ramparts. The British soldiers did not * The first bridge I find recorded to be built in Ireland, was across the Shannon at Athlone, by Turlough O'Connor, king of Connaught The Monk of Boyle, who in his annals states that it was built in 1140, gives us, in a subsequent notice, grounds to decide on the insecure mode of its construction. For he states that six years afterwards, said Turlough, according to the common practice of Irish kinglings, having made an in- road into Meath, in order to carry off cattle, on his return with his prey the multitude of beasts, in passing the bridge, broke the WATTLES with which it was covered, and the bridge was destroyed by the cattle falling through it into the river. 64 THE TOWN TAKEN. slaughter the sleeping men, and Mackey, their gene- ral, who led them on a man whose religion was equal to his valour felt it more necessary to reprove his men for the daring blasphemies which they uttered, as they struggled over the difficulties presented by the ruined masses of the fortress, than to reproach them for want of humanity and courage. The first express which reached St. Ruth, that the British were passing the river, found him dressing for a shooting excursion. He gave the messenger a deaf ear, and when urged by some one present to take in- stant measures, he replied that he would give a thou- sand louis to hear that the English DURST attempt to pass. " Spare your money and mind your business," was the gruff retort of Sarsfield, "for I know that no enterprise is too difficult for British courage to at- tempt." In this successful assault Colonel Richard Grace was slain; he who had so gallantly defended the town, and beat off General Douglas. It is with reason supposed that if Grace had not been counter- acted by St. Ruth, Athlone would not have been taken as it was; it would appear that he was determined not to survive its loss he was found amidst heaps of slain. Grace was certainly a noble specimen of a gallant officer and high-minded gentleman the friend of the great Duke of Ormond, the soul of loy- alty and honour; he lived and died faithful to the Stuart cause, and worthy of the ancient line from whence he sprung. He was buried in Athlone with all military honours by his admiring enemies. BRIDGE. 65 There is a curiously sculptured monument on the old bridge, bearing an inscription rather difficult to read, which records that "in the ninth year of the reigne of our most dere soveraign ladie Elizabeth, this bridge was built by the device and order of Sir Henry Sidney, Knt. who finished it in less than one year, hi the good industrie and diligence of Peter Levis, Clk. Chanter of the Cathedral Church of Christ, Dublin, and steward to said Deputy." The inscription goes on to state that "an the same yeare the bridge was finished, the newe worke was begun in the Castel of Dublin, besides many other notable workes in sundrie other places. Also the arch-rebel Shane O'Neil was overthrowue, his head set on the gate of the said Castel; Coyne and livery abolished, and the whole realm brought into such obedience to her majestie as the like tranquilitie hath nowhere been seen." In a compartment of this monument is the figure of Master Levis, attired in his Geneva gown; in his right hand is something which is said to be a pistol, though it is twisted, and more calculated to represent a screw than an instrument of death. On this pistol is the figure of a rat, appearing to bite the thumb which is holding it. Peter Levis is said to have been an English monk who turned Protestant, and coming over to Ireland was made a dignitary of Christ Church; being a man of great scientific and mechanical knowledge, Sir Henry Sidney sent him to superintend the erection of this important bridge ; but being a turncoat, a righte- 66 LEGEND. ous rat, vexed with such tergiversation, followed and haunted him by day and night, at bed and board on horseback or in boat, the disgusting vermin pur- sued him, slept on his pillow, and dipped and dabbled its tail or whisker in all he eat or drank the church itself could not save him from the persecution. One day in the church of St. Mary's, Athlone, he ventured to preach, and lo, this unclean beast kept peering at him with its bitter, taunting eye, all the time he was holding forth; and when he descended from the pulpit, after having dismissed the congregation, the cursed creature still remained mocking his reverence . This was too much Master Levis presented a pistol, which he had always about him, to shoot it the sagacious and unaccountable animal, to avert the shot, leapt up on the pistol, as represented on the monument, and seiz- ing the parson's thumb, inflicted such a wound as to bring on a locked jaw, which terminated in his death. I will not stake my veracity on the truth of this story; but at all events, this much will I assume, that here we have most satisfactorily explained the origin of the phrase, TO RAT, as applied to changelings ; and without wishing to cast MY stigma on Master Levis, who may have been a sincere and honest, as he cer- tainly appears to have been a clever man, I may add, that the conscience-stricken state of those who change their opinions for worldly advantages, is well repre- sented as under the haunting molestation of that un- clean, selfish, cunning, and voracious reptile, the rat. 67 CHAPTER III. VISIT TO CLONMACNOISE. Departure from Athlone by boat View of the Town State and character of the River Shannon Lonely navigation Meet a boat Its freight First view of Clonmacnoise St. Kieran His holy seat A solitary farm- Field of the Patron Church. yard Strange mixture of people therein Judy the beggar-woman St. Kieran's tomb Holy clay MacCoghlan Synod of Clonmacnoise Invasion of Clonmacnoise by the garrison of Athlone Robbery of bells St. Kieran's cellar O'Melaghlin, king of Meath- His fate Darby Claffy Fine sculptured cross Its use M'Carthy's Church and Round Tower Origin of these Towers Beautiful sculpture- Protestant Church Roman Catholic Sexton Protestant farmer Burial- place of the O'Malones Anthony Malone Legend of St. Colman O'Rourke's round tower Its beauty Difference between it and other round Towers Holy Well legend O'Melaghlin Cnstle Fairies Grant of Clonmacnoi-e to St.Kieran Treatment of the remains of a M'Loughlan Description of a Penance-doer from Athlone. I HAD long wished to visit the Seven Churches at Clonmacnoise; I had been at almost every other place in Ireland, where, by the erection of seven churches, round towers, and other tokens of Crenobitish holiness, 68 RIVER SHANNON. the ancient Irish desired to sanctify a peculiar place, and consecrate it to a patron saint. But to Clonmac- noise, the great central place of superstitious resort, the Mecca, as I may say, of Irish hagiolatry, I had not yet gone; for it is much out of the way, it is sur- rounded by bogs on all sides, except where that ex- traordinary chain of gravel hills, the Aisgir Reada, leads to it. Happening, however, to be in the town of Athlone, and having a day at my disposal, I was nothing loath to accept the proposal of nay excellent friend, the vicar of St. Mary's, and proceed down the Shannon by boat to visit Clonmacnoise. "Itis," (says he,) "the day after the great station held on the 9th of September, the anniversary of the patron saint, Kieran; but you will see enough to surprise you, more than enough to dis- gust you." " I am glad (said I) it is not the great day, for I have seen such scenes already at Glendalough, and other places, partaking, as is usually the case with all false worshippings, of the orgies of aBacchana- lian licentiousness mixed up with the devotions of a religious rite." The morning sun was gilding the spire of St. Mary's steeple, when we loosed our little cot and com- mitted ourselves to the Shannon, a broad and rapid stream just here, where the town of Athlone (signifying the ford of the moon*) rises on either bank, and * So says Vallancey, but the good General was fanciful in his etymologies, perhaps the ford of Luanus, a respected saint in those parts, would be the right derivation. ITS DREARINESS. 69 strongly fortified on the Connaught side this town has an interesting appearance : and as you glide down the stream, and get away from its narrow streets, and other disagreeable appendages to an Irish town, it has a very fine eifect. Just here, says my friend, is the spot where sixty British grenadiers, in 1691, led on by the gallant Captain Sandys, and marching to the sound of my church bell, entered the river, and in the face of a bastion manned with three Irish regi- ments, passed the water, and so led the way for their fellow-soldiers to win the Irish fortress. Strange it was, that the river never before or since was so low at that season of the year, as to permit even grena~ diers to wade across. The Shannon, once you clear the rapids which lie on either side of Athlone, until it enters Lough Derg, is perhaps, the ugliest and least interesting stream of any in the three kingdoms. Sur- rounded with bogs, it creeps through dismal flats, and swamps; and the narrow tracts of meadow, and small patches of cultivation along its banks only tend like green fringes to a mourning drapery, to mark off, as by contrast, the extreme dreariness of the picture. Oh ! how unlike is Father Shannon to Father Severn or Father Thames; here no trade, except that carried on by one steam-barge, no timber, no smiling lawns, no cultivation the solitary hopelessness of the bog is all around, and nothing interrupts the silence of the waste but the wild pipe of the curlew, as it whistles over the morass, or the shriek of the heron, as it rises. /O A SPIRIT BOAT. lazily from the sedgy bank, and complains aloud against our unwonted interruption of its solitary spe- culations. If ever there was a picture of grim and hideous repose, it is the flow of the Shannon from Athlone to Clonmacnoise. We met but one specimen of way-faring on this great navigable river as we rowed down with the slow stream but against the strong south-westerly wind a large boat met us half way, it bore down on us, urged along by a square sail com- posed for the " nonce" of blankets and quilts, the co- verings of yesterday's tents, and was freighted with drunken publicans, "Cauponibus atque malignis," belonging to the town of Athlone, who had gone on a whiskey venture to the patron of Clonmacnoise, and were now returning drunk with the draining of jars and kegs of spirits, that they had nearly emptied for sale on the preceding Sabbath day, which found horrible and peculiar desecration as falling on the one dedicated to Kieran. The experienced man who directed our little boat warned us not to say any thing to the crew of the boat that was now nearing us. " Every man of them," says he, "is drunk; they are all ready for a row; the very appearance of you as gentlemen is enough to excite them to quarrel with you, and little would they think of steering their boat so as to run us down gentle- men, you cannot but know that the ways of our peo- ple are strangely changed, and what some years ago would be taken in good part, would now be laid hold on as the pretext for a quarrel." It may be VIEW OF CLONMACNOISE. 71 supposed that we let the abominable barge glide on unnoticed. A tedious row of about ten miles down the most dreary of navigations brought us in sight of Clonmacnoise as I said before, a line of gravel hills, forming the Aisgir Reada, comes from the east, and cuts the line of the Shannon at right angles, causing the great river to form a reach or bend; and the hills breaking their direct line as they approach the stream, form an amphitheatre, upon the southern curve of which are erected the Seven Churches the northern terminates in a beautiful green hill, like the inverted hull of a ship, round which the river flows at some distance, leaving an extensive flat of swampy meadow between it and the water; as the wind was strong and steady here up the river, causing the labour of rowing to be almost intolerable, we drew up our little cot into a cove, and ascending the green hill, had at once from its summit a view of the sacred spot before us, and of the extraordinary country all around. The Irish saints of olden time, in imitation of their brethren of the Thebaic desert, chose places wherein to honour God and discipline themselves, which marked the austerities of that superstition, which deceivingly told them that they must not stand up to make use of the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free. What a dreary vale is Glendalough, what a lonely isle is In- niscaltra, what a hideous place is Patrick's purgatory, what a desolate spot is Clonmacnoise from this hill of Bentullagh, on which we now stood, the numerous churches, the two round towers, the curiously over- 72 ST. KIERAN'S SEAT. hanging bastions of O'Melaghlin's castle, all before us to the south, and rising in relief from the dreary sameness of the surrounding red bogs, presented such a picture of tottering ruins, and encompassing deso- lation as I am sure few places in Europe could pa- rallel. We had neither time nor patience to remain long on a remote hill, while the ruins of Clonmacnoise were within ten minutes walk of us, so we proceeded to the first ruin, which lies separate from all the rest, on the northern side of the church-yard the large field or common on which the patron is held, intervening; little remains of this church but a beautiful arch of the most florid and ornate Gothic workmanship, forming the opening from the body of the church into the chancel; it now totters to its fall it is even surprising that it does not tumble, and I suspect that it would long ago have fallen a victim to the elements or to the barbarous violence of the people, were it not that it is considered as part of an expiating penance for the pilgrim to creep on his bare knees under this arch while approaching the altar-stone of this chapel, where sundry paters and aves must be repeated as es- sential to keeping the station; adjoining this is a holy stone on which St. Kieran sat, and the sitting on it now, under the affiance of faith, proves a sovereign cure for of all epileptic people; what a contrast did this ancient arch, so exquisitely carved, tottering in all the grey antiquity of 1000 years, present to a new house erected by a half-pay captain, who has turned THE PATRON 73 his sword into a ploughshare, and in this dreary place set himself down on a farming speculation; he could not be more lonesome on the borders of the dismal swamp in Virginia his ugly tub of a house in all its raw newness had no business at all to plant itself near that fine old time-touched religious edifice. I take the man to have a yankee mind who would bring his geese to gabble and his cocks to crow near what ages had made lonely and consecrated to solitariness. Beyond the building, as I said be- fore, is the patron-green, where, on the day before, even on God's holy Sabbath, thousands had assem- bled, after doing their stations and performing their vowed penances, to commence a new course of riot, debauchery, and blasphemy; to run up a new score, which St. Kieran was, in the following 9th of Sep- tember, to wipe out; and so go on the year's sins and the day's expiation. The patron was over, and most of the people had gone to their harvest avocations, and probably so much the better for us; many a tent was still stand- ing, many were still keeping up the deep carouse that had continued all through the Sabbath night; and as we passed along by the unseemly temporary dens that are called tents, we could hear the impious blasphem- ing, the maudlin song, the squeaking bagpipe, and the heavy-footed dance yes, and now and then we would meet with some straggler who had spent all his money, or who had come forth from the feverish scene to cool his beating temples, and quaff a draught 74 THE CEMETERY. of the pure waters of the holy well, and he would look on us with a sulky scowl, and so we would move on in all prudence, lest the fellow would call forth his FAC- TION and proceed to maltreat us. Times are greatly changed in every part of Ireland. The gentleman must formerly have given no small provocation before any of the lower classes, even in their liquor, would proceed to incivility, but now, under very careful instruction, much of former deference is disused, and it is neither safe nor prudent to interfere with them; we, of course, were studiously cautious in this respect, and without delay proceeded into the immense church- yard. Here is the largest enclosure of tombs and churches I have any where seen in Ireland what a mixture of old and new graves modern inscriptions recording the death and virtues of the sons of little men, the rude forefathers of the surrounding hamlets; ancient inscriptions in the oldest forms of Irish letters recording the deeds and the hopes of kings, bishops, and abbots, buried 1000 years ago, laying about, broken, neglected, and dishonoured; what would I give could I have deciphered I should have been glad, had time allowed, to be permitted to transcribe them ; and what shall I do with all those ancient towers, and crosses, and churches, without a guide I looked around, there were many people in the sacred enclosure some kneeling in the deepest abstraction of devo- tion at the graves of their departed friends, the streaming eye, the tremulous hand, the bowed down JUDY THE BEGGAR-WOMAN. "Jb body, the whole soul of sorrowful reminiscence and of trust in the goodness of the God of spirits, threw a sacred solemnity about them that few indeed, though counting their act superstitious, would presume to interrupt: he who would venture so to do, must be one, indeed, of little feeling. I saw others straggling through the place some half intoxicated, sauntering, or stumbling over the grave-stones others hurrying across the sacred enclosure, as if hastening to partake of the last dregs of debauchery in the tents of the patron-green. One little boy, rather decently clad, seemed wandering about from tombstone to tomb- stone, reading their various legends, and at length I observed him accost a beggar-woman by the familiar name of Judy, and ask where was his mother's grave. " Oh then it's I will tell you, alanna and more than that would I do for your mammy's son, for didn't I folly along with all the neighbours her berrin when you were not larger than my milk-pitcher, and its little she thought that your daddy would have put so soon a step-mother over her sweet charge ; come, jewel, and I will put your two knees down upon the very spot where the bones rest of her who bore you." This woman will do for my business, says I ; a beggar is generally an intelligent sort of creature, male or female, if not too old, or quite blind, such have their wits in exercise, they often are the depositories of the traditions of the country, and but too often the con- veyancers of mischief; they endeavour, by being news-carriers and story-tellers, to make themselves 76 ST. KIERAN'S CHURCH. acceptable with the people, by reporting not what is true but what is wished for. This woman now before me was such a person, and I soon adopted her, nothing loath, as my guide and poor soul she did her best. I found that she made it part of her occupation to attend here and direct the people where and how to make their stations, here so many turns round an altar or a church on the bare knees, there so many paters and aves such a cross you were to embrace to avert the pains of child-birth yonder stone you must sit on to cure the pain in the back there is the place you must scrape at to gather the holy clay that is around St. Kieran's remains. After looking about vaguely for a time, this church of St. Kieran's was what caught my particular attention. It was ex- tremely small, more an insignificant oratory than what could be called a church a tall man could scarcely lie at length in it : a mason would have contracted to build its walls for a week's wages; yet this, my men- dicant guide said, was the old church of St. Kieran the walls had all gone awry from their foundations, they had collapsed together, and presented a picture of desolation without grandeur. Beside it was a sort of cavity or hollow in the ground, as if some persons had lately been rooting to extract a badger or a fox : but here it was that the people, supposing St. Kieran to be deposited, have rooted diligently for any particle of clay that could be found, in order to carry home that holy earth, steep it in water, and drink it ; and happy is the votary who is now able amongst the A HOLY POTION. 77 bones and stones to pick up what has the semblance of soil, in order to commit it to his stomach, as a means of grace, or as a sovereign remedy against dis- eases of all sorts. Alas! I would ask my dear coun- trymen, could I obtain their patience but to hear me is any superstition of Yogees or Fakeers of India more degrading or grovelling than this? Oh! but say the priests, " we do not encourage it, we do not tell you to go to the tomb of St. Kieran, or St. Bren- dan to the grave of holy father Tom, or holy father Pat, to scratch up the clay amidst which their bones and flesh have corrupted and festered, in order to in- fuse it in water, and drink the abhorrent dose." Yes, but gentlemen, ye claim and exercise the power of ARBITRARY ex communication, and ye can and do exert it with fearful effect when your own wishes and interests are concerned, as for instance, when ye de- sire to put down a school where the word of God is read; say then, why do ye not expose from your altars such as resort to these abominable superstitions why do ye not curse and ban against holy clay as ye do against Holy Bible why do ye not exclude from the confession such as make Christianity almost as degrading a service as the garlic and onion worship of the Egyptians!* * That this clay-scraping round the saint of Clonmacnoise, is not new or unsupported by grave Romish writers, we need only revert to the Hagiologists of Ireland the historians of her Saints, Colgan, Messingham, and the Bollandists. " St. Columbkill hearing of the death of St. Kieraa, made a hymn 78 M'COGHLAN'S CHURCH. From the little oratory of St. Kieran, the woman led us on to the largest of the ruined churches, which, after all, is of no great size ; but still it is the most re- markable of any, not only for its greater size, but for the beauty of its western entrance, and the exquisite and elaborate workmanship of its northern doorway: this church is said to have been originally erected by the M'Dermots, princes of the northern parts of Ros- common; a tablet on the wall, near the eastern win- dow, records that it was repaired in 1 647, by M'Cogh- lan, the lord of the adjoining territories. I remem- ber, in my younger days, when this district of the King's County was called the M'Coghlan's country, or for brevity's sake, the Maw's country; and I re- in his praise, which gave such delight to his successor in the see of Clonmacnoise, that in rapture he demanded of the sacred poet how he could or should repay him ? "I would rather have two handfuls of the clay," says Columba, " in which Kieran was buried, than shiploads of silver and gold." It may be supposed that worthy Tigernach did not hesitate in giving clay rather than silver and gold; and accordingly with his precious handfuls of earth Columba sailed away for lona ; but who that knows any thing of the Hebrides has not heard of the whirlpool of Coryvrekan, for, as it in Irish is spelled, Cari Bricain, that is, the Charibdis of one Bricain into this eddy, in spite of all their craft, and the sacredness of the freight, the ship of Columba was sucked, and into it they would have been gorged, had not Columba bethought him of the holy clay of St. Kieran, when casting in one handful, the water ceased to whirl, the Caledonian sea became as smooth as glass ; and, arriving safe at lona the remaining handful was deposited to be adored by all faithful Albanian Scots. Strange, that though I have visited lona, and saw this great cemetery of northern kings and chiefs, I heard not a word of St. Kieran 's clay ; but the people are all turned Presbyterians. THE MAW. 79 member seeing the M'Coghlan, or as he was called the Maw, a fine tall old gentleman of the French school, who lived in the profuse extravagance of Irish hospitality, for which, and for keeping up the old Milesian fighting character, and for other qualities palpable and valued by the people, he was looked on with almost kingly respect. In the midst of the re- bellion of 1641, when the Rome influenced Papists had nearly succeeded in driving out the English Protes- tants, it was then that M'Coghlan repaired this church; perhaps it was within those very walls that the Synod of Popish Bishops met when, preparatory to their removal to Jamestown, they concerted that excommunication which they afterwards hurled against their king's lord lieutenant. Whether the northern doorway into this church existed prior to the repairs of M'Coghlan, or whether executed by his direction, I am not competent to decide; but I am induced to believe that it was constructed in a more auspicious day of taste in Gothic architecture than the seven- teenth century; I do indeed consider it the most beau- tiful specimen of Gothic ornamental architecture in Ireland. It is executed in blue limestone, marble it may be well called, and the elaborate tracery on which the whole fancy and vagary of Gothic licence is lavished, stands forth as sharp, fresh, and clean as if but yesterday it came from under the chisel. Amongst the other ornaments of this highly finished doorway are figures in alto relievo one evidently of 80 CROMWELLIAN CRUELTY. a bishop giving his blessing, the other of an abbot; the third figure is much mutilated, and that appa- rently done on purpose. What was the cause of this figure being so much injured? said I, addressing myself to the woman " Och then, who could do it but cruel Cromwell's red coats! a cursed crew that came down in boats from Athlone, and not satisfied with carrying away our beautiful bells that were made of pure silver, and which sung out for mass-gathering amongst those hills, so that there was even grace in living within their sound, the bloody Sassenach hounds came, and not content with the blessed bells, they came up to this church, and after breaking with their pikes that holy image, which they say was the figure of hint who was ruler over this place after St. Kieran's death, they then rushed into the church where three priests were at the altar celebrating the mass; those they kilt outright, and after doing other mischief, which myself don't remimber, they set out to return to Athlone ; but, my dear, the man who had charge of the bells, in lifting them into his boat, fell into the Shannon, and went to the bottom ; the others, as they were going along, fell out about the division of the booty, and so they fought away until they kilt each other outright, and for many a long year, as the peo- ple say, that part of the river where the boat drifted after they were all dead, was red in all its waters as if in memory of the bloodshedding." "We entered a small arched building south of M'Dermot's church, which the woman called St. Kieran's cellar; from it ST. KIERAN S CELLAR. 81 arose a curious kind of octangular belfry; where, I suppose, the bells that the English soldiers took away were hung, a proof to me, if any were necessary, that the round towers in this enclosure were neither used nor intended for bell-hanging. " Until lately," said the beggar woman, " Father used to make this place his chapel, when, on station days, he used to come to say mass for the people, but now he cele- brate' s at farmer 's house." " Why does he not come here still?" "Troth and myself can't tell, barring it is, that though he does not say against the patron, he does not think it proper for his riverence to come into the middle, as I may say, of the people when the half of them may be drunk of late, any how, he has not sung mass here." It was well he did not, for a more filthy, abominable, fetid place I never was in; it seemed as if people on the preceding night had made it their lair, and still, unlike other beasts, they had not been careful to keep unpolluted the place where they slept. " But why call this place St. Kieran's cellar was he fond of wine?" " To be sure he was at proper times, and small blame to him or any other holy man when his fasts, and prayers, and duties, and stations are all done, and God above is satisfied if he should take a drop to comfort his poor heart ; but, gentlemen, talking of wine, did yees never hear what happened betwixt him andO'Melaghlin, king of Meath, who lived yonder (pointing to the west) in that castle? St. Kieran, (the heavens are his bed,) wanted some wine, whether as a cordial for himself, or to give the sacra- G 82 O'MELAGHLIN'S THIRST. ment to his clergy; any how, not having any in his cellar, he sends, and why should'nt he, to king Me- laghlin, and he the churl refused only think of an Irish king doing the like, bad manners to him, for being such a negur. But blessed Kieran was even with him, for down on his two knees he went, and prayed that O'Melaghlin might never know the plea- sure of a drink again, and my dear sowl so it turned out, for in the middle of that night he awoke in strong thirst, and says he to his butler, 'go down to my cellar and bring me a bowl of wine;' so down the man went, when the wine was brought to the king and put to his lips, it fled away entirely out of the cup; he then called to the dairy -maid, and said, 'go bring me a noggin of butter-milk;' so away went the maid, but when she came back with the noggin full, lo, before it touched his mouth, it went away somewhere, as did the wine. ' Heigh-ho,' says my king, ' since wine and milk fail me, sure the Shannon won't go, fetch me a pail full of that, I was never fond of cowld water, but you know the saying of 'needs must;' so they fetched him the water, but when it came before the king, it also made away with itself, nobody could tell how : so, gentlemen, to make my story short, the king died of thirst; and may be no Irish king ever after refused a saint wine or whiskey, for, sure enough, refusals of the sort are not nathural." Proceeding from M'Dermott's church, our attention was directed to a very fine stone cross, the largest in the place, formed of one piece, and covered with STONE CROSS. 83 carvings in has relievo and inscriptions, which, had I the ability, my time would not allow me to decipher. "Come, my good woman," said I, "tell what may be the stories told of these figures?" "Why, then, myself cannot tell you any thing about them, they are all out ancient; may be Darby Claffy yonder, the ouldest man about the churches, could tell you somewhat." Now Darby Claffy was standing idle, leaning not far off, against the wall of Dowling's church, looking up at O'Rourke's tower; and a finer studio for a sketcher than the head, face, and form of the venerable looking, man could not be seen; eighty winters had dropped their flakes as light as snow feathers on his head, and there he stood with his hat off, his fine Guido coun- tenance and expressive face, a living accompaniment to all the grey venerability that was around. " Come over here, Darby Claffy, honest man, and tell the strange gintleman all youknow about them crosses and things musha, myself forgets at any rate, I must run and show Judy Delaney, the simple crathur, where to find her father's grave heaven be widyees, gintle- men, and don't forget poor Judy." A shilling given to her seemed a source of unutterable joy; her little son that was beside her, appearing as if he never saw so large a coin, snatched it in raptures from his mammy, and danced about the grave-stones in triumph. I was pleased to buy human joy so cheap. The old man did not belie his fine countenance; his mind was stored with traditionary recollections con- cerning Clonmacnoise, which, if not according to recorded facts, were founded on them; and he spoke 84 ST. KIERAN'S LEARNING. with perfect assurance in the truth of what he said, and of the sanctity of all around. "Can you, my honest fellow, tell us any thing about the figures carved on this cross?" " A little, plase your honour; but sar- tain I'm no scholar: come here now, Mister, do you see that figure with the keys, that is St. Pether; and that there beside him is St. Kieran, do you see a book in his hand ? that is the Gospel of St. Matthew which Kieran learned so well from holy Finnian, of Clonard, in the county Meath, where in ould times there was a great school, somewhat the same as May- nooth now is, whence young Father Finnerty has just come home, edicated; well, plase your honours, Kieran was called Kieran of St. Matthew,* because * That there was some foundation for the old man's legend about St. Kieran we find in the Bollandists, who relate, when the saint was studying Scripture under the guidance of St. Finnian, at Clonard, when he came to the middle of the Gospel of St. Matthew, where it is said " Whatsoever yc would that men should do to you, do you even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets ;", Kieran cried out on reading this passage " Father Finnian, enough for me is the half of this book which I have read, and now let me go reduce what I have learned to practice, and do likewise ; this one sentence is enough for me." Then one in the school cried out " from henceforth, Kieran, let this name belong to you, Kieran Leath Math Kieran of the half of Matthew." " No," said the blessed Finnian, " not Leath Math, but Kieran Leath N'Erien Kieran of the half of Ireland ; for he shall be bishop of a diocese whose territories shall include the half of Ireland." And so it was, for so immense were the endowments of Clon- macnoise, that half Ireland was said to belong to it. What an awful ignorance of the Gospel ! What an utter forgetfulness there existed in these story tellers of the work done by Christ for believers, when a Christian Saint is by them represented to be contented with a part of a Gospel that had not reached to the work finished on the cross, which rested merely in the moral precept of doing as one should be done by. A follower of Zoroaster, Confucius, or Mahomet would have said as much. But more of this by and by. A STRATAGEM OF SATAN. 85 he knew that Gospel so well; and do now look below Peter and Kieran, and don't you notice young men smiling, and one playing the bagpipes ? well, this represents the young priests that Kieran brought with him to Clonmacnoise ; and as well becomes the divil, he must needs envy their devotions, and he used to come by night and play his bagpipes to divart them there, and draw them off from their vesper duties and up they'd get from their knees when the ould boy, in the shape of a piper, would play a planxty, and set about (they could'nt for the life help it) jigging it away; now, St. Pether, in heaven, saw to be sure, all this, and so he comes down to tell Kieran of it; and, moreover, he falls upon Satan in a thrice; don't you see him there how he has tumbled the enemy of man ? and, as you see there, is sending him headlong to hell." There was certainly some- thing like a man playing the pipes cut on the cross, and a representation of two persons contending, and one getting the better of the other; but whether old Claffy was right in his reading I cannot say. This cross is certainly one of the finest I have seen in Ireland; I question whether it is even inferior to those im- mense ones that are at Monaster Boice, in the county of Louth. From thence we proceeded, the old man following us to the church and round tower which stands in the north-western extremity of the cemetery, and which is usually called McCarthy's church and tower. The round tower, though small, is one of the most perfect 86 M'CARTHY'S TOWER. in Ireland: it is conically capped, and the ranges of stone, forming the cover, are of the most beautiful and singular arrangement. The tower stands on the south side of the chancel of the church; and the door- way of the tower, instead of being elevated ten or fifteen feet from the ground, is on a level with the floor of the chancel from which it leads ; it is within a few feet of the altar; moreover, the archway leading from the nave of the church into the chancel, which is of the most finished and at the same time chaste order of Gothic construction, is wrought into the body of the round tower part of whose rotundity is sacri- ficed to give room and form to the display of its light and elegant span; now these two circumstances con- vince me that, in the first place, the church and tower were built at the same time; moreover, that as the church was placed more remote than other churches, and nearer invaders coming across the Shannon, the tower was provided as a look-out station and place of ready retreat for the priests to retire to with their sacred vessels and books. M'Carthy's church, in the north-west corner of the cemetery, was built by the M'Carthy More of Munster, the greatest sept in Cork he who held under his sway the O'Learys, and the O'Sullivans, and the O'Donohus, and I don't know how many more Mile- sian O's and Macs. It is a curious and peculiarly interesting ruin, because, as I said before, there is here evident proof that the round tower and church were built at the same time; for, besides that they both VOTIVE OFFERINGS. 87 are formed of the same kind of stone, and are con- structed with the same range and character of ma- sonry, there is part of the rotundity of the tower sacrificed, to give play to the full span of the chancel- arch, and exhibit one of the most chaste specimens in the world of what is called the Saxon arch. This tower is not large or lofty; it measures but seven feet in diameter within, and is but fifty-five feet high; it has a conical cap, which is essential, according to anti- quarians, to make a round tower perfect; and a free- mason, suppose he was master of his craft, would say "well done," to the artist who constructed the beau- tiful courses of cut stone by which the conical cap was brought to a point. As I have already said, the door of the tower is level with the ground; and I think I could discern the marks of stairs that rose spirally to the top; unlike all other round towers which, though there are marks of floors, story over story, in no other instance present marks of spiral stairs. On the right side of the altar, connected with the tower, there is, as usual, a niche in the wall, forming a receptacle for holy water. It is a prettily carved shallow stone basin, with a small aperture in the bottom, introduced, no doubt, to let off, after a term, the water that had been used, in order to substitute fresh. This receptacle was now covered, and almost filled with as curious a melange of articles as ever I saw collected together: a bent nail, a shankless button, a bit of unripe apple, a tobacco stopper, a broken comb, a decayed human tooth. I might have supposed that such a thievish 88 PROTESTANT CHURCH. animal as a pet magpie, in its indiscriminate larceny, had made this hole its hiding-place, and here was its treasure. "What can be the meaning of this?" said I to my cicerone, Mr.Claffy. "Och, plaseyour honour, this is the greatest place in the varsal world for curing the tooth-ache. Any one that comes here on the pathern day, if a tooth or sound or rotten pained them, so that they could not eat a boiled pratie, always, by course, say- ing the proper aves and paters, and leaving something as you see behind them, as their offering to the saint, why, as you may say, in no time the pain would pass off, and they might, as a body may say, go crack nuts. But troth, sir, if I must tell the truth, the vartue is very much gone out of this same place ever since a polisman came here, and that not along ago ; for be- fore he came, do you see me, there never was wanting a drop of water here, no, not in the driest of seasons, that a body might take up in their fingers, and put it, hoping in the merits of St. Keeran, to his tooth. But that polisman, may bad luck and fortune ever attend him, drove the point of his walking stick into the hole, and from that day to this never a drop of water came up out of the same, so that it is as dry as any other part of the wall, as your honour now sees." Removing from this, we proceeded to a higher part of the enclosure, where a slated building appeared, which our attendant informed us was the English church. In any other place it would have been con- sidered a venerable, though a small structure; and there was a chaste and solemn simplicity in the door- DEFACING OF MONUMENTS. 89 way at its western end that well deserved attention; but the windows were closed up with jealous care by wooden shutters, and altogether it looked out of place in this scene of ruins; and my admiration was, how in this wild, superstitious spot, where crowds of preju- diced and ferocious beings assemble, it has been per- mitted to stand unscathed. My friend who had ac- companied me to Clonmacnoise, and to whom I owe the pleasure of seeing it, was not only anxious to show me the interior of the only entire church amidst this crowd of ruins, but also, as rural dean of the district, was desirous to take this occasion of inspecting the interior, so as to make in due time his report to his diocesan. Accordingly he despatched a messen- ger to the house of a man who was reported to have the care of the church, and to keep the key. It was a long time before he returned r during which period we had leisure to observe the many inscriptions in the oldest form of the Irish letter scattered about, and had reason to lament that there is no one here to pre- vent the destruction of old monuments, or put a stop to the barbarous breaking, defacing, and utter de- struction of inscriptions of kings, chieftains, bishops, abbots, and learned men : inscriptions that might serve to verify existing history, or supply the lacunae and correct the errors in our annals. The place belongs to the bishop of Meath; all the lands around are his; doubtless the parson has a property in the church- yard. Surely his lordship has, either directly in himself, or indirectly by his vicar, a conservative 90 A SEXTON. power over this burial-place of all that was hoth saint- like and learned in Ireland; and if these could not, or would not, exert themselves, why does not the parish priest ? But, as Dr. Doyle has well said, " Gentlemen, you are very much mistaken if you sup- pose that the Catholic clergy of Ireland have any power over the people when their passions or preju- dices are in operation." "Well, if priest or parson cannot preserve the monumental and ecclesiastical antiquities of Ireland from the rapid ruin which they are undergoing from the hands of a barbarous people, I wish some society, such as are, I believe, in France and Germany, would undertake the task. In about a quarter of an hour our messenger returned, but without the key of the church. He was accompanied by a woman, fat, inquisitive, and rather impertinent, who desired to know, in the first instance, who we were; and who, after endeavouring by many evasions to put us off from the desire of seeing the inside, at length told us that we could not get in, for the man who was in charge of it was unwell and would give the key to no one out of his own hand. "Go back, my good woman," said my friend, " to your husband or master, whichever he is, and tell him that I charge him at his peril to let me see the interior of the church." Accordingly, the woman went and brought back, as soon as might be, a stout, short, broad-backed, broad- faced man, half-farmer, half-publican in his appear- ance, who, with the maudlin countenance, codled eye, and brutified expression of face and form that denoted HIS VIGILANCE. 91 one who had been tippling for two whole days, asked us stammeringly and yet sturdily, what business we had to take him away from his customers, " when the woman (as he called his wife) had already tould yes that by no manner of means would we let busy- bodies and lurking strangers into the church." " Yes," answered my friend very civilly, " you, my good man, are quite right in keeping out strangers, but I am not one. I come here once a year to in- spect the church, pursuant to my duties, and if you have charge of the key, you are bound to give me ad- mittance." " And how am I to know that you have any claim or right to get into the decent man's church in his absence. I was taken in once by a man with as smooth a face as any of yees, and when I let him into the church to satisfy, as he said, his curiosity, what did he do, but set about defacing an ould tomb- stone of the Malones. Yes, in troth, a man calling himself Counsellor M did this upon me, in order that he might carry a lawsuit his own way ; and ever since I have been in dread concerning strangers getting in there." " Pray, my friend," said I, " are you the clerk or sexton, that you are so vigilant." "No, Mr. Nobody-knows-who, from Athlone; I am not clerk or sexton. I wouldn't take all the land the Shannon flows by, and have any thing to do with this English place, barring it was to keep the key for the minister, who, in his way, is a decent man enough, and a good neighbour. Sextin, forsooth! I'd have the likes of yes to know, that all of my ould name 92 A PROTESTANT MISUNDERSTOOD. stick to the ould religion." " No offence, Mr. M , but are you aware, that by your refusal to admit the clergyman, who has a right to enter, you subject yourself to be brought before the bishop's court." No Roman Catholic likes the name of a bishop's court, and I perceived that the threat had its effect on him, when a respectable gentleman-farmer sort of a man, with a Petersham great coat, covered with broad wooden buttons, and wielding a huge whip in his hand, came up, and having listened for a time to the altercation, interposed and said, " Oh, Mr. M , you need not dread that these persons will do any injury to the church. I know that this gentleman," point- ing to the vicar of St. Mary's, "is the person he re- presents himself to be, and I'll be answerable that all is right." This had its effect on the Clonmacnoise publican, and he proceeded, growlingly enough towards the church door. While approaching it, I was bold enough to ask the new-comer in the Petersham whe- ther he had arrived to perform a station : and if I had offended the publican by asking was he the Protestant clerk, I still more provoked my present companion, by asking was he a Papist devotee. "No, sir; I wonder you'd ask the like of me such a question. I'd have you to know that I'm as good a Protestant as yourself. I abhor all that is going on here, as much as any man can do, and I have more reason, for I suffer more." " Excuse, sir, my impertinence," said I soothingly; " I meant no offence. I altogether beg your pardon, but allow me to ask how it is you WHY HE VISITS CLONMACNOISE. 93 are a sufferer." " In this way, sir : I have a consi- derable tract of land in this vicinity, and, as perhaps you may have remarked in every other part of Ireland, the more superstitious the people are, the more also are they lawless and ferocious. It is fully exemplified here. My farm latterly has become totally unprofit- able it lies waste, because I ejected the old tenants who would pay me no rent whatsoever. The people will neither allow me to cultivate it myself, nor any other person to take it. If I run cattle on it, they are in danger of being houghed; if I build a house on it, it is likely to be burned; if I make fences on it, they are sure to be thrown down, and I came here to-day, not, as you supposed, to go the rounds of the churches, and keep a station, but to go the rounds of my farm, and see what state it is left in after yesterday's doings." By this time the Protestant church was opened by the Roman Catholic keeper, Mr. M . It was in pretty fair repair within; very small, and without any ancient ornaments or tombs. It was in former times called Bowling's church. For the last two centuries it has been the burying-place of the Malone family. Here lies buried the once famous Anthony Malone, who filled the highest law stations in Ireland, in the early part of the reign of George the Third, and who, (as an elegant writer described him,) " to a benign and dignified aspect, an address both conciliatory and authoritative, joined the clearest head that ever con- ceived, and the sweetest tongue that ever uttered the suggestions of wisdom, and who executed the 94 ANTHONY MALONE. highest law offices with such ability as stands unpa- ralleled in the records of justice." This may be overstrained praise, but it is not conceived in the bad taste of an epitaph upon another Malone, whose mar- ble does not blush while telling that he had every virtue under heaven. While some one of the party read aloud this panegyric, the gentleman-farmer, with a significant and sad look, exclaimed, " I deny the truth of that eulogium, seeing as how he did not exactly possess one important virtue namely, that of paying his just debts ; for the worthy gentleman died in my debt, to the tune of 1200J." " Perhaps, sir," says I, "debt-paying is not an Irish virtue." "May be not," says he, " especially within the bounds of Clonmacnoise." While standing in this little Protestant place of worship, surrounded as it is with all the grey memo- rials of ancient superstition, I cannot well imagine any stronger contrast than that of a few Church of England Christians performing their quiet devotions, amidst this scene of superstitious dissipation and riot. It was, I say, a day not of superstition and debauchery, but of riot ; for the Protestant gentleman who had accompanied us in viewing the church, asked old Clafiy, " Well, Darby, how did you get on yesterday?" " Oh, very well, plase your honour; all was regular until after the priest came down to say mass, things went mighty cordially, indeed, until his reverence was gone, but then the boys turned out, and there was as purty a fight as ever myself saw at the Seven Churches. A FACTION FIGHT. 95 Many this day are sore enough with broken heads and shins. They say it will go hard with Jem Dunne, who got his scull laid open with a cloholpeen." On returning from the Protestant church, we repassed the fine cross opposite the west end of M'Dennot's church; a number of persons were attempting to span the shaft with their arms few succeeded. It re- quired a tall aiid thin man so to do. Such being my case I succeeded; and my guide in praising me for my success, assured me that I merited for my wife that no evil should happen her in her next accouch- ment. This ought to satisfy me, as, no doubt, it would every affectionate husband. " Do you know any thing, Mr. Claffy, about the erection of these two crosses?" " But a little, sir, and it is this: There was one of our ould saints, called Colman, that once took a great fancy to gadding away from his church, and his excuse was that he must needs go and kiss the foot of his Holiness the Pope, and nothing would satisfy him but off he would go; so a brother saint, of the name of Berachy, came to him, and very dacently and wisely gave it as his advice, that it would be much better for his own sowl, and that of others, to stay at home and keep minding his devotions and offices but to brother Berachy he gave no heed. Well, says his friend, come off to St. Kieran, and maybe he will say what will satisfy you. So off they came here to Clonmacnoise, and to be sure our saint did his best, but if he was arguing with the wilful man until the cows came home it would avail not, for go he would, 96 O'ROURKE'S TOWER. to bless his own two eyes with the sight of the holy father of the Christhen world. Well, as wilful will do it, to be sure St. Berachy and St. Kieran gave him their blessing; and St. Kieran, moreover, lifting up his hand, made the sign of the cross over his head; whereupon, my dear sowl for wonderful is God's power in the hands of his saints St. Colman saw all Rome, and his holiness the Pope sitting in his easy chair, as plain as I, Darby daffy, see O'Rourke's tower that is there fornint me. This, by course, sa- tisfied my curious gentleman, and he gave up his gadding; and more than that, in memory of all the time and money that was saved him, he set up these two crosses; the little one in memory of the miracle, the larger in honour of St. Peter, St. Patrick, and St. Kieran." Mr. Claffy's allusion to O'Rourke's tower directed my particular attention to it particular, I say, for it is the great prominent eye-attracting object of the whole scene; without any exception it is the most beautiful round tower in existence ; it stands on an elevation at the western side of the churchyard, and in a line with the principal buildings ; the ground sinks from it abruptly towards the Shannon; and just under it, to the north, is the holy well. Nothing can equal the beautiful effect of this simple pillar- tower, cutting, as it does, on the horizon, and relieved by the sombre back-ground of the bog on the other side of the Shannon, that spreads for miles, cold, flat, and desolate; and then the tower itself is so beauti- fully time-tinted, I think I never saw any thing O'ROURKE'S TOWER. 97 erected by human hands so painted by fortuitous ve- getation. I might conceit that time, proud of his secret, so well kept by these Irish towers, had called on nature to deck out this master-piece in its kind, with all its lichens and mosses, producing every co- lour that could or ought to harmonize, in order to pre- sent what art could not imitate, and what the painter would despair of picturing, or the narrator of describ- ing. Other round towers that I have seen, and few have seen more of them than I have, are excellent specimens of masonry; some of them more, some less, exhibit indubitable proofs that in early times the line, plummet, and hammer, were used with consi- derable handicraft in Ireland; but here, instead of the asler or the stone-chisel work of other towers, a marble pillar has been erected almost as smooth asPompey's in Egypt, or, if a more familiar comparison will better suit, almost as smooth as the chimney-piece in your draw- ing room. It is composed of that immense secondary limestone formation that covers, with little interrup- tion, the central plains of Ireland which in many places assumes the compactness, the ringing sound, and the capability of polish, which constitute what in commerce is called marble. The stone of the tower is of an ash grey colour, full of madreporic concre- tions; and as a proof how much more permanent such a marble is, when polished, than granite or any other material, these stones, though exposed to the elements for a thousand years at least, are as untouched by the tooth of time, as if they came yesterday from under the H 98 WHO BUILT IT. polisher's hands; for, I repeat it, that every stone in the courses of this building must have been polished and fitted as you would set up your chimney-piece ; and there it stands, not encumbered with a rude bush of enveloping ivy, or with the rough garnish- ment of wall-flowers, sedums, and maidenhairs no, but with the softest harmonizing tints of lichens and close-creeping mosses. The doorway into the tower (as is usual in all perfect specimens, and where there are not occasions which require it to be otherwise, as is the case with McCarthy's tower in this cemetery, and with that on the rock of Cashel) is fourteen or fifteen feet from the ground; it is of beautiful and yet simple construction. I could not get into this tower to ascertain the interior arrangement of its lofts. In almost every other tower the interstices between the ranges of stone are sufficient to put in your toe at least, and with the help of others, you can get up; but here, instead of a resting-place for your toe, you could scarcely find a place for the introduction of your toe nail. Commend me to O'Rourke, prince of Brefney, for his spirit, taste, and devotedness, in the erection of this tower.* Did he die before his ad- * " And the same O'Ruairk, of his devotion towards the church, undertook to repair these churches, and to keep them in reparation during his life, upon his own charges, and to make a causeway or togher from the place called Cruan na feadh to Pibhac Conaire, and from Pibhac to the Lough ; and the said Fergal should perform it, together with all other promises he had made to Cluin, and the repairing of that number of chapels or cells, and the making of that causeway or togher ; and hath for a monument built a small steep castle, or steeple, commonly called in Irish, Clairtheagh (quere Cloghtheagh,) in Cluin, as HOW FINISHED. 99 mirable work was finished? did the wars which have, from the beginning of time, wasted and neu- tralized nature's blessings in this island, extend their ravages to his fair domains? was he forced to stop before he brought to a finish his beautiful work ? But so it is; the tower that rises, as one fair polished shaft, to about 55 feet, then presents a quite different aspect; some " 'prentice hand" has added about ten feet of additional structure, which, though perhaps as well built as most other round towers, presents such a contrast to the remainder,* that it seems strange a memorial of his own part of that cemetery ; and the said Fergal hath made all these cells, before specified, in mortmaine, for him and his heirs to claim ; and thus was the sepulture of the O'Ruairk's bought" Mr. Crofton Croker, from whose work on the South of Ireland, I make this extract, says, that he took it from a MS. in the British Museum, which appears to have belonged to Sir James Ware ; and he applies this donation and erection of Fergal O'Ruairk to Cloyne. But I think there is every reason to refer it rather to Clonmacnoise. At Clon- macnoisethe largest round tower is called, to this day, O'Rourke's tower. The cemetery of the Rourkes, princes of Brefny, is at Clonmacnoise, a much more probable place of sepulture for a prince, whose territories were not far distant, than at Cloyne, one hundred miles off. Besides, I have an old map in my pos- session, of lands in the vicinity of Clonmacnoise, in which a togher, or causeway, leading to the churches, across a great red bog, is laid down as the Pilgrim's Pass. For further par- ticulars respecting the above passage, see Appendix *The imperfect construction of the upper part of this tower may be accounted for in this way. The first and most perfect part may have been erected by means of an exterior scaffolding, and when arrived at a certain height, it became inconvenient, or impossible, to scaffold higher, and, accordingly, the masons had to finish from the inside, over-hand, as it is, I believe, called, just in the way that the tall factory chimneys are now con- structed. 1UU ITS USE. how any one could have the hardihood to make such an unseemly finish to so exquisite a work. Centuries, one might suppose, must have intervened before this additional work, with its eight windows, was added; and it only confirms me in my opinion, that these towers were erected as places of retreat and watch- towers. For hoth purposes, O'Rourke's is admirably circumstanced; even at the elevation originally given, it was high enough to take cognizance of the coming enemy, let him come from what point he might; it commanded the ancient causeway that was laid down, at a considerable expense, across the great bog on the Connaught side of the Shannon; it looked up and down the river, and commanded the tortuous and sweeping reaches of the stream, as it unfolded itself like an uncoiling serpent along the surrounding bogs and marshes ; it commanded the line of the Aisgir Riada could hold communication with the holy places of Clonfert, and from the top of its pillared height, send its beacon light towards the sacred isles and anchorite retreats in Lough Ree; then it was large and roomy enough to contain all the officiating priests of Clonmacnoise, with their pixes, vestments, and books; and though the Pagan Dane or the wild Mun- sterman might rush on in rapid inroad, yet the solitary watcher on the tower was ready to give warning, and collect within the protecting pillar all holy men and things, until " the tyranny was overpast." Underneath this tower, and in the low ground to the north, at the bottom of the limestone rock on which HOLY WELL. 101 the tower is built, is the holy well, round which it is necessary to go as part of the station. A few women were still about this pool, whose clear, bubbling, and er- ratic waters had scarcely cast off the muddiness and abuse which those who trampled in it and around it yes- terday had inflicted on it. For the present it only answered the purpose of affording a cooling medium into which the tent revellers might cast the fiery whiskey with which they were brutalizing themselves. A well of clear water is at all times, and in all places* a scene of interest beautiful in itself, beautiful by association the bubbling issue of its pellucid waters the irridescent play of the pebbles and mi- nute shells, as they rise and fall in the clear depths from whence it rises; these make a spring lovely in every clime, from Iceland to Borneo. Leaders of a people's religious hopes have turned to their own ad- vantage this natural feeling; and the Pagan priest, the Mahometan Santon, the Hindoo Brahmin, the Budhist, the Parsee, as well as the Romish saint, have identified themselves with the refreshment of clear flowing waters, and left their names there. And yet in Ireland, after all, these wells are but ugly things; no watchful guardianship is observed to keep the fountain clear; the mud caused by the people's tramping is allowed to accumulate; the rank weed is permitted to choke up the fountain's flow, and create a swamp all around; and the hideous garniture of old rags hanging on some neighbouring bush gives a sort of beggarly accompaniment to the place, and you turn 102 NOT BEAUTIFUL. with disgust from a spot that superstition has deformed rather than consecrated where the deformity of super- stition, and not the beauty of holiness is personified. Such was the well of Clonmacnoise. It is the only spring of good water in the neighbourhood; the Shan- non water is unwholesome and unpalatable; and while taking a draught from this fine spring, as it welled forth clear as crystal from the limestone rock, I pondered on the vast varieties of people that for twelve centuries have made use of its stream. Kieran, who first settled here, little thought of the many superstitions that have been enacted, as it were, under the sanction of his name. H,e, instructed by the holy Finnian of Clonard, the mighty master of the Scriptures in the sixth century, perhaps like his successor, St. Eangus, in the eighth century, cried aloud to his followers, "AspiCE CHRISTUM" "LooK UNTO JESUS;" and though he fell, as one of his earliest errors, into Ce- nobitish superstition, yet it is most likely, with all faithful tenacity, he held to the Head, and would have been grieved to the heart had he but foreseen how, taking advantage of the practices that he had weakly given birth to, others had beguiled the people " by a voluntary humility, and a worshipping of angels intruding into those things which they had not seen vainly puffed up by their fleshy minds." " Pray, Mr. Claffy, can you give me any informa- tion as to how or when this well was made holy 1" "Ah, then, don't your honour know better than I can tell yees. I am but an unlarned man, and how HOW SANCTIFIED. 103 could the likes of me give you right and square know- ledge about them holy things? How could I know any thing but by remimbrance of what those that have gone before me had to say ? This holy well was not blessed either by St. Patrick or St. Keiran, but by a poor afflicted man, that sacred Patrick took pity on, because he was covered with sores from top to toe, and who, though humble in body, was beautiful in soul. The man who gave the word of life to Ire- land, wherever he journeyed, took him always about with him. But soon, decent man as he was, he be- gan to find that the sight and smell of his sores were too much for Christhens; and so he searches him out for a secret place; and, sure enough, if he had his pick and choice of all Ireland, he could not get a more lonesome one than this. Here, then, he lay down, and made his bed in the hollow of an ould oak tree. And it came to pass, that he had not lain there long until he saw a comely-looking young man pass by, with a black bag thrown over his shoulders. ' Where are you going, my dearest lad?' said the leper. ' I'm coming from Rome,' answered he, ' and I'm on my way to Croagh Patrick, to find the convarter of all Ireland, and it's I that am bringing what the holy St. Patrick will value more than a silver mine a pre- sent of precious relics from the Pope.' ' Stop a bit,' says the leper, ' my purty young man, and for the love of our sweet Saviour, just go down to that hollow place under the hill, and pluck ine a bundle of rushes, upon which I may rest my poor bones.' ' With all 104 THE LEPER'S BURIAL. the veins in my heart, I will,' said the young pilgrim. So down he went, and, my dear life, the moment he made a pull at the rushes, up they come, and with them the finest flow of spring water, clear as the very air, and on it flowed over the meadow. You may he sure my man was not long until he ran back with the rushes, and tould the poor leper about the new-found spring. ' The very thing I want blessed be he that sent it,' says he; 'I'm about to die, and it is for you young man, when my soul has given itself into the hands of angels, to wash my poor remains in that wonderful spring.' Immediately on saying this, he gave up the ghost; and though it was any thing but a pleasant job, the poor youth brought the body on his back down to the spring; and, oh, the wonder! the moment the messenger of Patrick applied the water to the corpse, it, that was all foul with sores, became as clean, and clear, and sweet as the bosom of a sucking child. This was enough to tell the son of piety that the poor afflicted beggar was a friend of God, and that his sowl was in the company of saints. So, my dear, he straightway buried him in the high ground just above the well. This was the first body that was ever buried in Clonmacnoise. But, will you, howsomdever, listen to me a little longer, for my story is not yet all tould. The pilgrim, after all his dutiful labour and charity, with regard to the evil- touched man, began now to bethink him of the bag of relics, and, wonder of wonders! what should be seen but the ould oak tree sucking into the hollow, THE REPOSITORY OF RELICS. 105 where the poor leper lay, the holy hag; and, though he ran with all his might, yet the tree had closed, and the bark had covered it so, that you might as well draw the marrow out of a man's bones without break- ing the limb, as take the relics out of the tree without cutting it down. Then it was all to no purpose that the honest man went to the next carpenter's shop for the loan of an axe in vain, when he got it, did he hack away ; I might as well attempt to cut yon lime- stone rock with my tabaccy knife. Well, as it was better for him, away he went to St. Patrick, an' he up and tould his story, and, in his anger, all as one as accused the poor leper as being an agent of the wicked one, for being the occasion of his losing his relics. 'No, by no manner of means,' says holy Patrick; 'those relics were not intended for ME; they are re- served for one that is to come after me, the holy St. Kieran, who will come to that very place stand be- side that very tree, which will open its bark, and from its sanctified hollow let fall into the hands of happy Kieran these blessed relics." "Well, Mr. ClafFy, you have really told this story most fully. Can you tell us, further, what these re- lics were?" " Why then, musha, myself cannot tell, seeing as how long ago, they, were carried away by the Danes; but, as the saying is handed down, there was a lock of the blessed Virgin's hair; there was a skirt of the little coteen our blessed Re- deemer wore, when he disputed with the docthors; 106 O'MELAGHLIN'S CASTLE. and a feather which St. Mary Magdalene carried in her bonnet when she was a wicked woman." Having now seen the most remarkable things in the churchyard, we proceeded south-westward towards those picturesque ruins which are called the castle, and which writers concerning Clonmacnoise call the bishop's residence, but which, according to the peo- ple's tradition, was the palace of O'Melaghlin, king of Meath. It stands out, in singular loneliness, on the last spur of the southern limb of the amphitheatre of gravel hills that formed the Aisgir Riada. The slow- flowing Shannon forms a bend round it. If I wanted to call forth a draughtsman to exhibit with his creative pencil a building that time had ruined in the most grotesque and singular manner, I could not expect he would venture on such a vagary as this. It stands on a moat, where art has added to natural elevation of the ground, and is surrounded with a dry but deep fosse. I have just said that time had ruined it that could not be; some mine, some explosive shock, must have rent the massive works, and thrown them into the various positions and shapes they now exhibit ; some parts lie in masses, larger than human habita- tions in the fosse; others lie rolled in immense heaps in the ballium, or court-yard; an immense curtain- wall, at least ten feet thick, undermined, lies at an angle of forty-five degrees, reclining upon about half a foot of its thickness, and presents at a distance one of the most singular and picturesque hanging ruins I ever looked on. It is surprising, how coarse are the ITS CONSTRrCTION. 107 materials of this building what a large proportion the mortar bears to the stones, which consist of rounded pebble-stones taken from the adjoining hills; and it would appear to me, such is the predominating pro- portion of mortar to stones, that the building was erected by forming a sort of case-work of boards or hurdles, within which these stones were thrown at random ; and that then a grouting mortar was poured in, which was left to settle and solidify ; and then the exterior casework was removed. I cannot inany other way account for the extraordinary proportion of mortar in this building. I am quite sure, that, if any mason at present were to attempt to rear up a wall, twenty or thirty feet high, of rounded stones, cemented with so large a quantity of lime and sand, the whole concern would tumble at once about his ears. But the works of Clonmacnoise castle are now any thing but crumb- ling no breccia, no pudding-stone can be harder than the composition; time has made the mass so compact, that I am sure it would be just as easy to break the limestone pebbles of which the walls are composed, as to separate the mortar. The view from the stair- case is very fine; the tortuous Shannon sweeps calmly underneath; southward are the high grounds about Shannon bridge ; and more to the west, the wooded elevation on which the ancient epis- copal church of Clonfert stands, where St. Bren- don erected his seven altars, and which, amidst sur- rounding bogs, like Clonmacnoise, seems to challenge equality of desert seclusion. 108 GOOD PEOPLE. Mr. Darby Claffy, whose age approached to eighty, was nothing loth to follow me up the broken and tortuous staircase, which I had ascended to view the surrounding country. What a fine vegetable is the potato that can give to extreme old age such an elas- ticity of step, such a lightness of limb, which many of the beef-eating, turbot-gorging, calipash-swilling citi- zens of London or Bristol, of half his years, could not imitate ! Potatoes are fine food for man, woman, or child, provided there is little hard work required. Darby, I believe, was all his life a herd, and had little to do with spade, shovel, or pickaxe. " These are pretty green hills, my good friend, here all around," I observed to my companion; "all quiet and lonesome, except on station days a likely spot, as one may sup- pose, for a meeting of the good people." " Och, then, it is yourself may well say that. The stars on the sky that covers us, or the merry dancers around the plough-star, are not so plenty of a frosty night as the good people are on these hills and lonely meadows in the middle of the moonlight." " Well, now, Claffy, do tell me, did you ever see them?" " See them ! ah, then it's I that did, and hear them too." "On what occa- sion?" " Why, then, your honour, if you must know, 'twas about ten years ago, when there was great want and sickness hereabouts, and the praitie crop failed, and the corn was not much better; and as there was a great price for wheat at Athlone, I was employed by one farmer Dooly, to watch his wheat that he had laid down on the river-brink, ready to send up the river in THEIR FEATS. 109 boats, at the break of day to the market. The night was bright almost as day, for the moon was nearly at full, and all was silent as the dead in yonder graves, except now and then the plash of the otter might be heard in the river, or the owl would hoot as it fluttered round church and tower. So I bethought me that I might as well go and do a DHTJRUS for a friend faraway in England, and say for him a few paters, and go on my two knees round the holy well; when what should I hear ' whiz, whiz ! ' over my head. Master, did you ever hear the whirr and the whiz that a flock of wild ducks makes of a snowy winter's evening, as they come to settle down upon the river? just, then, such a noise did I hear, and troth myself thought it might be a flock of frightened peewits or widgeon; but I looked up, and what should my two eyes behold, but a fine child carried through the air, and, oh! mother of mercy, how it did cry ! I thought as how it said, ' O Darby, save me!' But what could I do ? Away it and those who bore it went, and on I saw them go over the callow meadow as straight as a sparrow-hawk, until I saw them strike upon Bentullagh hill, which opened as easy as the chapel door, to let them enter, and then I saw no more, and there, for aught I know, they may remain until this day. Well, to be sure, my mind was full of this, and after my charge of the corn was over, away I went misgivingly home, when, what should I hear, but the whole village in a pullaloo ! little Paddy, my wife's sister's grand-child, was fairy struck, and nothing was in the place of the finest child 110 THE RETURNING STONE. that ever took breast-milk, but a little crutheen of a thing, as crooked and as crawling as a dhowlduff.* But this is not all. The cross of Christ cover us from harm! don't I recollect, as well as yesterday, when farmer Mulloy's daughter was carried off, and a dead child put in the cradle, and after its being buried, it came, in a night dream, on the father's mind, that all was notnathral; so out he goes to the grave, and he digs away, and opens it, and, as sure as I stand here, to tell it, there was nothing in the coffin but a wisp of straw." "Is there any thing here that is worth seeing, besides these old walls?" " O yes, sir," says Claffy; " may be, it would be as well to show you the return- ing stone." "What is that?" said I. "Why, it is a stone that the holy St. Kieran stood on, when he parted with his friend St. Shannon; and it is our opinion, that no one who, in the right faith, implores St. Kieran' s blessing, and says the regular rounds of paters and aves, if he leaves this place, but will return in safety to it again." We soon arrived at this spot, which was a mere hollow in the rock, such as a man's heel might make in any clayey substance. Of course it was the iden- tical mark of the saint's heel. " I wonder, Mr. Darby Claffy," says the Protestant farmer whom I have be- fore alluded to, " did your nephew, who is now in * A dowlduff is a black insect about an inch long, which all the lower classes consider the representative of Satan, and as such, kill it whenever they can. GRANT OF CLONMACNOISE. Ill jail for the murder of Mr. , take his turn round on the stone before he got into the trouble in which he now is : report says it will go hard with him at the assizes may be he won't come back, except with his heels foremost." Old Darby looked at the man who made this observation with a sinister cast of his eyes, which denoted that though aged, all the savage pas- sions that belong to unchristianized human nature were still dwelling in his bosom. The day was now beginning to turn the sun was westering, and the impatience of my friends began to evince, by many outward acts, that their curiosity was slaked, though mine was still unabated. Our way back lay through the burial-ground, and Darby Claffy, as not having received his shilling, was still in attendance. " Can you tell me any thing, Darby, about the beginning of these buildings, and about the consecration of the place." "By course, I can, sir," said he; "I recol- lect, at any rate, what all the people before me have said about it: Kieran, the carpenter's son, came directed by God's finger, to this place, which was then called Drum Tipraid, or, as one would say in English, the brow of the hill that is in the centre of the land. It was a green sheep-walk in those days, and belonged to Dermot O'Melaghlin, king of Meath. 'Give me, says the saint to the king, ' a spot of ground where I may build a house in honour of God, and enclose a place where the dead may receive Christhen berrin.' ' I cannot afford to give my best land for that purpose,' said the churlish king. ' Go,' said he, ' to some moun- 112 O'MELAGHLIN'S STAFF. tain, or some good-for-nothing place amongst the rocks of Connaught, and make the best you can of it; but, as for me,' says the proud king, ' never, until this staff in my hand fastens in the ground, and growing there, throws out root and leaves, will I give away the purtiest sheep-park in Ireland. 0! blessed day; no sooner said than done. The staff that he had used as a walking-stick for many a long year, suddenly fastened itself in the ground; branches be- gan to sprout; green leaves began to appear, and be- fore the saint had time to say credo, it had grown into a big tree that covered with its shade many a perch of ground. ' Father Kieran, says the king, 'I see it's God's will that you should have this field: take it, with my blessing, and all I ask is, that when I die you may put me in a place that your reverence will particularly bless, where I and all my seed, breed, and generation may be buried.' ' I thank you, king,' says St. Kieran, ' and though you refused me at first, I now grant for yourself, and all that die belonging to the Catholic church, who are buried here, that none, though they may go as surely you and all will go topurgathory, shall ever be plunged into the deeps of hell.' " How many bodies have been buried here since, sure of the privilege that Kieran granted to KingO'Melaghlin, heaven only knows. It was now time for us to hasten away to our boat, so making old Darby happy with his well-earned shilling, we wished him good bye. Poor old man! with what tenacity his memory adhered to these legendary lies. M'COGHLAN DISHONOURED. 113 With what perfect assurance his naturally comprehen- sive mind retained a belief in ghosts, fairies, and lying miracles; and yet there are thousands in this island, christianized thirteen centuries ago, that are just as deluded and as ignorant as he. "I dare say," says one of my companions, (as we were retracing our steps across the burying-ground, and in our way passed by M 'Dei-mot's church,) " this Darby Claffy, know- ing well you were a Protestant, did not tell you how the people annually visit the grave of the first M'Coghlan buried here, who turned Protestant." Here he related a practice of the people on every sta- tion day, which I must not commit to paper, but which singularly characterised not only the brutality, but the deep malignant hatred that has been engen- dered in their minds against Protestantism. " I wonder much," says I, "that with those feelings, thus annually revived by such a revolting practice, they have not long ago rushed on, maddened by their superstition, and hot with the fiery orgies of the patron debauch, to pull down the Protestant church that stands in the centre of all this bigotry." " Wait awhile," was his reply; "let us see what a year may bring forth, coming events cast their shadows before them; other churches, as well as yonder humble building, may yet find that it is little the existing laws can protect them in the great hour when fanaticism runs rampant through the land." We still, as returning through the cemetery, observed many persons per- forming rounds and offering up prayers. One woman 114 A GARRISON PENITENT. who had risen from such an exercise, called out after a gentleman of our party, who had come with us from Athlone, and had, as a medical practitioner sent down from Dublin during the prevalence of cholera, with singular success, ability, and humanity, fulfilled his arduous functions there. The female penance-doer, addressed herself to the doctor, and wished that God might bless him. "Alas!" said he, "is it such cha- racters as this that come to Clonmacnoise. This wretched woman the vilest of her sex, in a gar- rison town for the sake of getting the clothes that are usually given out to those leaving our hos- pital, actually feigned herself in cholera. I was obliged to turn her out; and now I see her perform- ing a religious duty, such as it is. I hope she has noted down in her long score the scene at the cholera hospital." "Oh! indeed, sir," says another compa- nion, "it is surprising how they get on here with their rounds and duties. I remember, not long ago, being here in company with two gentlemen, who came down from Dublin to make drawings of these ruins. Both were occupied with their pencils, sketching the old nunnery arch that we are now drawing near to : they were intent on their work, and so was a middle- aged woman, who, on her bare knees, was creeping along under the arch; and on she urged her painful way over the sharp stones, while she counted with intense carefulness her beads, fearful that one pater, ave, or credo should be omitted. Just at this time one of the sketchers took some instrument out of his A COVERT WAY. 115 pocket, which the woman's two children, that were playing near at hand, took for some murderous wea- pon, and immediately they both set up a shout and ran towards their mammy; whereupon the woman broke off from her devotion, and in an instant poured forth such a volley of curses on the children, and im- precations on those who occasioned them to interrupt her,, that I was as much shocked at her blasphemy as surprised at the versatility of her inclination, that could dispose her to pray and curse almost in the same breath." Passing the old exquisite arch that, in the be- ginning of this description, I had represented as near to the half-pay officer's new house, my atten- tion was directed to a rounded ridge of moderate ele- vation, which, I was informed, was the covered secret way which led from the building a nunnery built by Devorgilla, daughter of Murrough O'Melaghlin, king of Meath to the churches. I had no time to ex- plore this curious passage. Tradition records many such between monasteries and nunneries in Ireland. I suppose they were intended for useful and sanctified purposes. It may not be too uncharitable to suppose that they were sometimes applied to the furtherance of pious frauds, or to what was worse. The hagiologists of Ireland describe how St. Ita, one of the early female saints, was desirous to receive the eucharist from the holy hands of the monks of Clonmacnoise; and that, pursuant to her desire, she did receive it without any one seeing her going to the place or returning from it. 116 AUTHOR'S MODESTY. Might not the beatified dame have made use of this covered passage, and, unseen by vulgar eyes, have been at the eucharistical altar? It is now time for me to close this too long chapter. I am fully aware that the few hours I spent at Clon- macnoise were not sufficient to give me an adequate picture or intelligence of the place. I should feel the deeper regret at the cursoriness of my inspection, were I not sure that in the forthcoming work of Mr. Petrie, all that I have overlooked will be supplied. In fact, I only, in this case, look upon myself as the brief indicator of what will be amply supplied by a more practised hand. Like an insignificant bird in the American forest, my only use may be, by my garrulous noise, to call the attention of the traveller to where the honey-tree is to be found. 117 CHAPTER IV. JOURNEY WESTWARD. Appearance of the country on leaving Athlone Nature of the soil and cultivation Immense population Usual consequences Rockite disease Rockite story The conspiracy The murder The hired Bravo His character His conduct His fate The murderer murdered The Co- roner's Inquest The detection of the Conspirators The Informer His remorse Improvidence of the past generation of Irish Landlords the cause of much evil The Middlemen Good and bad A Middleman's residence Ballinasloe River Suck Trench family Planting Wise and unwise Bog improvement. ON leaving Athlone you proceed westward, through a district very ugly by nature, and instead of being improved, deformed by its inhabitants. Chains of lime- stone gravel hills, rising out of red flow bogs, stretch away, their ranges hieing nearly at right angles with the Shannon, and it would appear that at the subsi- dence of the waters under which this country was once submerged, the decreasing torrents, in seeking the great central drain of the island, left these enor- mous deposits of sand, gravel, and rolled stones. These gravel hills, covered with a shallow but kind and warm soil, support a superabundant population; a population, no doubt, encouraged to increase, more especially here, by the great facilities of obtaining fuel, the only comfort of the poor this increase seems to have met no discouragement from the prudence or fears of the proprietors of the soil, and the conse- quence is, that, as you proceed to Ballinasloe, you pass through an almost continuous village, and are 118 CONNAUGHT LUMPERS forced to observe a wretchedly clad people inhabiting wretched houses, and carrying on a wretched and destructive tillage within minute enclosures, fenced by dry stone walls of the rudest construction possible ; indeed the soil seems miserably exhausted, and you see very deficient crops of potatoes and corn, and at once can explain the cause in the almost entire absence of cattle to make manure, and therefore burning of the already too light soil is resorted to as the only means of stimulating the ground to produce a crop and such a crop, the white lumper the tired earth unable to bring to perfection even a red potato the people thus reduced to subsist on the very weakest and least nutritious variety of the lowest kind of food more- over, (and indeed this must surprise an Englishman not a little, considering the great abundance of people and the actual idleness of the larger portion both of young and old,) the crops are not kept clear from weeds weeds that children might pull up and collect for manure, are allowed to grow and run to seed, and as they do so, not only deform the face of the country, but actually help to exhaust the soil. It was to me, as I passed along, a matter of great wonder how the landlords could allow their properties to be so subdi- vided and maltreated how allow a tenantry to in- crease and multiply beyond the means of subsistence, beyond the power of drawing much more than mere existence from the land they cultivate and if such be the results already, what must be the more alarm- ing ones hereafter and what is to become of such a GENERATE AN IRISH EVIL. 119 people when one of those very frequent failures of the potato crop takes place; and how will a Poor Law then operate how affect the relative states of land- owner and occupier. Such considerations engrossed my mind as my jaunting-car swept along, and I could not help observing to my fellow-traveller "Well, of all parts of Ireland I have seen, I know no por- tion that upon the face of it exhibits more symptoms of the perhaps now inert existence of the Rockite disease as sure as effect follows cause, so must this plague spread amongst such an ignorant, half-fed, and abounding people, who cannot possibly be worse off, except under a famine of the potatoes; and who must ever remain under the apprehension of their onlymeans of subsistence failing, and thus their great poverty ending in absolute destitution. My friend, who was well acquainted with the state of the country, and had peculiar opportunities of knowing the habits and feelings of the people, told me (in corroboration of what I had apprehended) the following circumstance. A family once highly respectable, and possessed of considerable property in this district, in consequence of that inconsiderate extravagance, so much the cha- racteristic of Connaught gentry, were reduced to very embarrassed circumstances, and so in order to meet the numerous charges on the estate jointures, an- nuities, interest on younger children's portions, and on money borrowed, it was resolved to turn the fine old sheep walks, of which the estate principally con sisted, into tillage, and make settings to tenants who 120 DISTRESS OF LANDLORD. flocked in, covenanting to pay high rents, and who, while the soil remained fresh, and markets for corn good, actually paid the rents they had engaged for. But by and by these tenants are allowed to underlet to other PROMISERS of higher rent, and from the small farmer springs up the cottier as sure as bad husbandry produces weeds; and then the war ceases, and prices fall, and Mr. Peel's bill for the resumption of cash payments comes into operation, and creditors insist on the payment of the debt in gold, which was lent in paper and now arrives the time when there takes place a lamentable difference between the promise and the payment of rent; and in the mean time join- tures must be paid, and the creditor must have his pound of flesh and then ensue foreclosures of mort- gages, custodiams, and law-court receivers. Attorneys alighted on the vexed estate and fastened their claws on it, and fattened as flesh-flies do on a festering sore. In this state of things the owner, who was a young man, did what was wise and honest he broke up his establishment, he let the fire out on his paternal hearth, and went to live poorly but secretly on the Continent, leaving the nursing of the estate to a younger brother perhaps he would have done better had he sold it; but those only who are reduced to the dire necessity of selling their ancestral inheritance can tell how bitter it is to take such a deep plunge downwards, and what way will not be tried before this last leap is taken ? besides, perhaps, he could not sell it is not easy in general to make out a clear DISTRESS OF TENANT. 121 and marketable title to Irish estates but be this as it may, the owner had confidence in the firmness, the integrity, and discretion of his younger brother, and he left him as his agent, and he honestly and with dili- gence set about to force the tenants that were solvent to pay the rents they had undertaken for, and those who were not solvent, and incapable from idleness, ignorance, and bad habits, of meeting their engage- ments, he endeavoured to force off the property, giving them every aid that the limited means at his disposal would permit, to remove to some other location he gave them their potatoes and furniture, and if they desired it the materials of their cabins. It does not appear that he did any thing unjust or oppressive, either to those he allowed to remain, or those he evicted. But still he became exceedingly unpopular even those who could pay, combined to refuse pay- ment, either from fear of their neighbours, or from the expectation that they could evade it altogether, in consequence of the landlord's embarrassments, and in the midst of hostile legal proceedings. In all parts of Ireland attorneys are to be found who stimulate tenants to such evasions, and who live upon the differ- ences between landlord and tenant. Such became now the state of this deranged property some were forced off the estate others under eject- ment, by advice of their lawyers, were taking legal steps to retain their holdings, without paying rent at all. Alas for the poor young man who undertook such 122 ROCKISM. an agency. The dire spirit of Rockism rose in its wrath against him, andhemust die. In this vicinity, as in many others similarly circum- stanced in the south and west, a character is to be found a fellow from his youth up given to dissolute practices; with considerable natural ability, with great vigour and activity of body ; a violent temper * that never has been quelled, and strong passions that have always been indulged; such a person is given to no re- gular labour he will work, it is true, more than any other at certain times, and under strong excitement- he will be found digging out a poor widow's potato field, or his reverence the priest's and that more especially when whiskey and a dance are to be at the end of the job; but if inconstant at labour he is a regular attendant at fair, market, patron, wake, or hurling- match if there ensue a row, and HIS presence almost insures such a result, he is at the head of it, the ready promoter of all kinds of RUXIONS his skull, shins, and arms, are covered with scars of cudgel wounds received therein: you may be sure he does not go near the confessional he dare not go down * I consider the lower classes in Ireland to be particularly negligent in curbing the tempers of their children. The little ones of the cabin are, year after year, accustomed to be over fondled or over punished, and all according to the instigation of the present passion and victims as they are of an affection that palliates serious faults, and of a wrath that punishes without reason no wonder we see so many instances of passionate excess no wonder that the savage hand is so often lifted up to strike and commit homicide. A GOOD SHOT. 123 and "whisper at a priest's knee" and he never mar- ries,'but neverthelessis the neglectful parent of a mul- titude of children. In this way he is the cuckoo of the parish his birds are found in many nests; at times well, and at others shabbily dressed, he has always the air of a rake, and the leer of a profligate he is sometimes sober and good-humoured, and good- natured, and would go through fire and water to serve one of his own faction he is oftener drunk, and that for days together, and then he is a ferocious dangerous brute; it is not exactly known how he lives, and no one can exactly tell his "whereabouts;" but he is known to be a good shot killing wild duck by night, forms part of his ways and means, and though so often light-hearted and joyous in his deportment, it is known that he cares no more to shed human blood than he would to stick a pig. The aggrieved party on the estate in question, con- sisting of fourteen, having resolved to take the agent's life, cast their eyes on a man of this character, and they hired him as one whose heart was firm and aim sure, to fire the shot; but still fearful of their bravo, they determined that one of them should accompany him, and that individual was fixed on by lot. Accordingly the two waylaid their victim at a spot they knew he must pass, on his return from dining with a neigh- bouring gentleman. The scheme succeeded the bullet was true to its mark Mr. was shot through the heart, and the murderer and his com- panion walked leisurely away known as they were 124 MURDERER MURDERED. to thousands, not a man gave information the event, of course, for a time made a great noise rewards were offered the police were on the alert and then all blew over. The bravo for a time kept out of the way. This was not extraordinary in one who had no settled home; but by and by the money he was supplied with was spent, and he returned to give his employers very broad hints that he must have more. The Rock- ites now took counsel together they saw the danger they were in from being in such a reckless ruffian's power, and they resolved on their remedy. He was called to their meeting he got more of their money he was then informed that they wanted another cast of his hand in order to put out of the way another obnoxious gentleman who lived on the other side of the Shannon, and they engaged him, nothing loath, to come along with them to do the deed. On a dark blustry night they accordingly embarked in a cot on this dreary river, that here steals throxigh bogs and morasses its deep and silent course, and while in the middle of the stream, the bravo was suddenly caught hold of, and before he had time to collect himself for resistance, was tossed overboard, and as he rose after the plunge and attempted to catch the boat, a heavy oar's blow, aimed with vigour and certainty at his head, sent him again to the bottom, and as it was hoped, never more to rise. But in this they were mistaken, for by and by he was seen swimming steadily and lustily towards shore, and then it was that one of the party, resting the ruffian's own gun on the REMORSE. 125 gunwale of the cot, fired with sure aim, and sent the bullet through his brain. The fellows waited till they saw that he would now rise no more they then went home kept their own secret, and all was safe. But some time after in the usual process of decomposition the body rose to the surface, and was found amongst the reeds. A coroner's inquest was summoned, a doctor, pro forma, called in, and after a cursory in- spection, the usual verdict of "found drowned" was about to pass; but while the coroner was writing out the proceeding, one of the jury passing a small switch through the profuse curls of the dead man's head, found his switch enter, and as through a hole, pass out at the other side this, of course, led to a more exact examination, and the man was found to have died of a gun-shot wound inflicted by some per- son unknown. Still a year or more passed on, until, in the dusk of a winter's evening, as the chief consta- ble of the district was sitting by his fire, a message was brought to him stating, that one in his hall wished to speak with him. He accordingly had him intro- duced, when in a way not at all common with the Irish, and in apparently the deepest agony of remorse, he told the guilty story from beginning to end. He said that though he had confessed all to the priest, and gone through many penances, yet he could not find ease for his conscience that life was a burthen that he desired to die, even suppose it was by the hangman's hand. He named to the con- stable all the individuals concerned said that a 126 PATERNAL SINS. large portion of them were at that very moment on their way to the gaol of Galway, to visit others of the confederates who were confined for some other crime. By means of this information the constable succeeded in arresting almost every one of them. I do not know what became of the repentant murderer, for he was the one upon whom the lot fell to go along with the bravo to shoot the agent. I must conclude this, I fear, too long narrative by stating, that the chief constable, a most trust worthy and efficient officer, declared that in all his experience of Irish criminality, this informer showed the only evidence of genuine and uncontrollable remorse. And reader, after all, I do not regret having told this story because I think it goes a great way to explain much of the predial evils of Ireland. I think it goes to show that Ireland's over population, with a barbarous reckless vindictive multitude, is, in a great measure, owing to the im- providence and pecuniary distresses of the landlords. Are not the present race blamed for the faults of many generations ? This would qualify the censure that there has not been that watchful and protective guardianship on the part of their fathers that they have been as improvident in the selection of their tenants as they have been profuse in their hospitalities, and heedless in the choice of their guests. The truth is, that 'the present generation is suffering for the sins of their progenitors the fathers have sown the wind, and the children must reap the whirlwind. There are a few gentlemen's places between Athlone MIDDLEMEN. 127 and Ballinasloe, but they are not large or beautiful. One or two seemed to belong to that race now rapidly wearing out in Ireland the middlemen, who, let people say what they will, were in their time useful, and without whom, bad as Ireland is, it would be much worse than it is. They expended capital which either the owners of the soil could not or would not expend. They became the stock-farmers of the country, and introduced the fine breed of long-woolled sheep, that now is the ornament of our western pasture lands. The fact is, with regard to the middlemen, we are too apt to argue against the use from the abuse: the respectable, careful, well-educated middlemen in pro- cess of time rose above their condition ; they became to all intents the resident landlords; they formed a sort of intermediate proprietary between the owners of the large and unwieldy grants from the crown, and the people incapacitated by the penal laws ; they increased and improved their holdings they generally farmed their own lands they restricted their under-tenants from subletting; they discouraged rack-rent tillage, and are now the principal stock-farmers who supply Ballinasloe fair with the sheep and black cattle that are so much in demand. It is only the hunting, racing, duelling, punch-drinking, carousing, squireen middleman, that has been, and is, a nuisance in the land; who takes ground on speculation, to sublet it who gambles on land as he does on the cards who plays, as I may say, spoil acres as he does spoil five, who, because he is a spendthrift, must be a tyrant, 128 A SNUG HOME. and as he knows nothing of economy, cares not a fig for the political economy of his country; such mid- dlemen, and they are, alas, still too numerous, having long leases, and who still cling to the determination of extracting all they can out of the soil, no matter in what way, are the curse of the country. I passed by a demesne, and such a demesne ! ! ! it was owned I may suppose by one of these transition gentry an improve- ment, as I would guess, of about 30 years' standing, begun in the war time, when thedem and for Irish corn increased wonderfully the incomes of middlemen, and booted many who heretofore wore brogues; and so here was built a thin tall canister of a house, with its multitude of little windows, and its great gaunt gables and then its plantations little clumps of unsightly firs, dotted here and there over the light limestone pasture, where they grow so thick, so spare, and so unsightly. If tired of the world you might choose such a grove to hang yourself in, could you but find a branch to fasten your rope to. Then the belt all round the low-walled demesne you could see the sky and the distant bogs through it, and now the wall being here and there thrown down, you might observe pigs rooting, and mangy sheep rubbing against the stunted timber and leaving their loose wool on every ragged sloe bush, and there was a gateway and lodge but the gate of it was gone ; a sprawling root of bog timber supplied its place; the lodge was nearly roofless the avenue grass-grown and thistle-grown. We were near enough the mansion to see that rags RIVER SUCK. 129 and old hats served for stuffing to the broken panes; that the offices were partly ruinous; and that here and there straw supplied the vacancy where slates once had been. Here was a true specimen of a broken down middleman's hall; I believe a race-course was not very far off. Ballinasloe is a good town, wonderfully improved since I saw it first, twelve years ago; it stands upon the Suck, which is very like its elder brother the Shannon, the same slow dark-flowing stream,* gliding like a black snake through callows, moors, and red bogs; wasn't it very poetical in a Roscom- mon bard to call the punch-drinking squires dwelling on the banks of this sedgy stream the sons of Suck ! ! ! There is a canal navigation to Ballinasloe, and as it terminates here, so it is of advantage to the place. I believe in every instance a canal in Ireland has been found to be of little good to any place ex- cept where it terminates. Ballinasloe is certainly the most improved town I have seen in the province; it bespeaks the attention of an intelligent and assiduous proprietor it belongs to Lord Clancarty, the head of the Trench family, who are, I may say, a race, and that a numerous one, of improvers. I never passed * Perhaps the first canal in the British Isles was made by a king of Connaught. The Monk of Boyle, in his Annals, states that " In the year 1139 Turlough O'Connor digged a canal from the river Suck that came to Tuam, Dyskert, and Tur- lough hugh, that it made two great loughs, and came to the river of Eidne and Lough Ri, and the gathering of Connaught was doing that act." 130 BALLINASLOE. through any part of Ireland where I found one of the name located, that I did not see their demesnes well ordered, their farming well managed, and a benevo- lent and prudent attention paid to the education, the comforts, and, as far as they were allowed, the religious instruction of the lower classes. I shall say nothing concerning the great fairs that are held in this town : I never was present at one, I hear that they are rather on the increase, and believe the sheep fair is the largest in the British dominions from 80 to 90,000 were offered for sale last year. Westward of the town is the fine demesne of Lord Clancarty, well wooded, well kept, and well enclosed. Judicious plant- ing, rather a rare practice in Ireland, seems here carried on to perfection;* and this is all I can say of Garbally, for I had neither the desire nor the opportunity of seeing more. I did not come to Con- naught to see fine houses or fine demesnes I would rather see a well cultivated poor man's farm, a neat * What an amazing loss has occurred to Ireland by injudi- cious planting planting in improper places in an improper or imperfect manner, and bad kinds of timber ; what an absurd attachment to that ugly and worthless tree the Scotch fir, while the oak, the ash, the wych-elm, so suitable to our soil and climate, are comparatively neglected; and then the planting in thin belts and round little clumps and the rage after the larch, which, though undoubtedly a good timber tree and very hand- some in its proper place, is in most respects unsuitable to our climate, whose westerly blast it is quite unable to stand against, I dont know any outward sign that marks off the gentleman and the man of taste so much as his planting. Wherever a tailor or a grocer buys an estate he immediately sets to stick down Scotch firs and larches as thick as cabbage plants, and then leaves them to struggle with each other and starve like children in a foundling hospital. GARBALLY. 131 cottage garden, and clean and well ordered tillage I would rather see a red bog reclaimed, or an old ivy- mantled abbey protected from the avaricious hands of the spoiler, or the wanton waste of the savage. Or what is best of all, I would rather see a landlord, li ving constantly in the midst of his tenantry, and exhibiting in the peace, comfort, and order of all around him, that his prudence, principle and fortitude had got the better of all difficulties; and who, 'setting himself the example of obedience to the laws, and a love for the Gospel, had found many imitators in those within the happy circle of his Christian influence. By the way, I met a bog improvement outside the demesne of Garbally; it no doubt belonged to Lord Clancarty, and though only in progress towards perfect reclamation, it was producing a crop of rape. It seemed drained and levelled, and promised a fair crop of seed- rape; but I have as yet seen no red bog of any extent turned into good meadow, with a firm sole of grass on it; but I shall for the present pass by this subject, designing to revert to it again, merely making this observation, that it is one thing to commence a bog improvement, and another to bring it to a permanent and profitable termination. 132 CHAPTER V. AUGHRIM. A ughrim Formation of country-Hill of 'Kilcomedan St. Ruth the French General His ability shown in the fine defensive position he chose Hesitation of De Ginkle as to the expediency of attack Council of war Result St. Ruth's speech Father Stafford's speech and bearing Attack Repulse of British Contest in the morass and the hedges of Kilcomedan Confidence of St. Ruth Onset of Talmash Consequences St. Ruth's fall Panic of Irish Utter defeat and slaughter Fatal results of want of confidence and cooperation between the French and Irish Commanders State of country after battle Anecdote of a dog Irish prophecy Fatal and unexpected fulfilment Aughrim not only famous for fighting but for Fairies A herd's happiness marred by the GOOD PEOPLE. ABOUT three miles south-west of Ballinasloe rise the high grounds of which the hill of Aughrim stands most prominent. It may be supposed that I would not pass near the memorable battle-field without walk- ing over it, which I accordingly did. Even were it not the scene of one of the most important events in Euro- pean history, it is a beautiful eminence to look from a fine farm of grass land, and near it is rather a pretty village. The hill which St. Ruth, the general com- manding the united French and Irish forces, chose as the ground where he would make the last great strug- gle for the house of Stuart, is called Kilcomedan. The Frenchman, surprised as he was at Athlone, and brought to shame and confusion in the midst of his boasting, determined to show here that he knew how to choose a good defensive battle-field and certainly (speaking, as I confess I do, as a mere civilian) I KILCOMEDAN. 133 may say, that, not in Ireland, could a better position be selected. I have been at Waterloo at Culloden at Oldbridge those great fields where the fate of re- ligions, empires, and dynasties were decided, and none of them can at all be compared to Kilcomedan. The hill rises, a fine green eminence, to the height of about four hundred feet. The ascent is so gradual, that both cavalry and artillery can easily manoauvre. Along the north-eastern side, upon which the Irish army was drawn up, there were parallel rows of lofty whitethorn hedges, which partly remain to this very day. On either flank were red bogs in front a morass, only passable, and that with great difficulty, in two places. The only approach for cavalry or ar- tillery was by a narrow causeway that passed under the castle of Aughrim, a stronghold of the O'Kellys, and along which but two or three could ride abreast. It was no wonder, then, that St. Ruth, with his usual complacency, felt satisfied that his position could not be forced it was no wonder that De Ginkle, the British commander, summoned a council of war to discuss whether it were possible to beat the enemy from this position. The fog, that covered the whole country during the early part of the day, and the irre- solution of the British officers, did not allow the at- tack, which was now resolved on, to begin till about two o'clock; and St. Ruth, observing that the assault was to be made, addressed a speech to his army, in which he took great merit to himself for the wars he had waged, and the desolations he had 134 ST. RUTH'S SPEECH. been so successful in perpetrating on Protestants in France and Germany. He stated, that now or never was it for the Irish to stand by their religion and country, and he closed his harangue, as follows : " Stand to it, therefore, my dears, and be assured that King James will love and reward you Louis the Great will protect you all good Catholics will applaud you I, myself, will lead you to victory the church will pray for you posterity will bless you angels will caress you God will make you all saints, and His holy mother will lay you in her bosom."* This speech, of course, could be heard but par- tially by the officers and men; but a priest, of great eminence, Dr. Stafford, crucifix in hand, went along the lines, and with astonishing eloquence brought all the inducements of time and eternity to bear upon the feelings of the soldiery. There can be no doubt but this man was sincere, and his devotions had a wonderful effect; he stood to his work the whole day, from the beginning to the end of the fight there he was, passing from line to line, animating the men, and when all was over, amidst the thickest heaps of slain he was found, cut down while exhorting the Irish to fight for God and their country. The Irish were superior to the British in numbers, especially in cavalry, but much inferior in artillery they mustered about twenty-five thousand men. As I said, the battle began about two o'clock; the English attempted to turn the Irish right, near the house and high Story, BATTLE. 135 ground of Urrachree, but they were repulsed, with so much loss, that about four o'clock a council of war was again held, to consult whether it would not be better to draw off the troops, at least for that night; but, by General Mackey's advice, (one of the best men and bravest officers in William's service,) it was deter- mined to persevere, and to send forward the centre to pass the marsh in front. That which was then a morass, requiring caution, even in those who knew it well, to pass over without sinking up to the middle, or being swallowed up altogether, is now a fine tract of meadow and pasture ground. Across the firmest, most practicable parts, the English now ventured to make their way, protected by their well served artil- lery, which fired over their heads, and played upon the Irish who lay along the hedges that just com- menced where the hill rose from the morass. The English having passed the marsh found themselves in face of the enemy, who had lined all the hedges, and had also made open and convenient places through which cavalry and artillery might manoeuvre. Here the Irish fought most heroically, and the push of pike and bayonet through the hedges, reminds us of the same kind of desperate struggle that took place at La Haye Saint on the field of Waterloo. The Irish regiments even drove back their opponents, who, told by their commanders that they must force the Irish from the hedges, or fall back on the morass and be swallowed up, fought like tigers; yet, they were driven back, and were, while swamping in the bog, either 136 TALMASH. killed or taken prisoners. Beaten thus, on their left and centre, the evening was closing, and the Irish had all the advantage. St. Ruth was heard to say, now I shall beat back the English to the walls of Dublin. Nothing could retrieve the battle but a charge of the English cavalry from the left, to try and take the Irish in flank, and this charge must be made along a narrow causeway under the guns of the castle of Aughrim. They did attempt it, led on by Talmash, a man of ready enterprise, and of the most undaunted courage, and, like most valorous attempts, it succeeded. But, while in the act, while struggling with their great difficulty while scrambling over the torn up causeway, and plunging on, St. Ruth was heard to cry: " What are these fellows about?" "Why, they are about to turn your left," was the reply. "Then they are brave fellows," said the Frenchman, " but every man of them will be cut to pieces." It was not so they passed on like a hur- ricane they took the Irish centre in flank, and were doing horrible execution, when St. Ruth, seeing that, against all military calculation, the English horse had forced the pass and were doing valiantly, rode down the hill with a view of directing a battery that was raised to flank the pass, to play on the successful enemy. When in full career he was shot by a cannon-ball. The place where he fell is marked by a small whitethorn Jbush; an aid-de-camp threw his cloak over him, but not before it was known to the Irish cavalry who swept by, and subsequently it ran along all the Irish ST. RUTH SHOT. 137 line, that their commander was no more. The Irish are subject (more especially in their own country) to sudden panics. On this occasion, though they had, decidedly, the hest of the day, though they had fought with a courage and discipline such as in their own island they had never shown before though they had fresh troops in abundance, yet all seemed paralyzed the battery ceased to fire the Irish horse halted, and delayed to charge. Talmash, who at once saw that something was gone wrong with the enemy, took instant advantage of the delay, he called on the English, both horse and foot, to advance the columns that were unbroken, at the edge of the bog, moved forward those that had been dispersed returned to their ranks, and the whole centre charged up the hill. In the mean time, no one stood forward to command the Irish not one direction was given those who commanded the cavalry rode off the field in despair and indignation the foot, seeing themselves aban- doned by the horse, fled and dispersed over the bogs, and all was cutting down, and remorseless slaughter, until night put an end to the pursuit. Sarsfield, who had the character of an active officer, and had proved himself able to act wisely in an extremity, should have taken the command on the fall of St. Ruth. It does not appear, however, he did; it is, therefore, doubted by some, whether he was in the battle ; at all events there was evidently a want of confidence and counsel between the French commander and the Irish officers; the presumptuous and ill-conceived contempt for the Irish 138 FIDELITY OF A DOG. which possessed the boastful Gaul was exceedingly offensive, and, it would appear, that he did not com- municate his plans to any one; the result was as we have seen. Providence, in the midst of almost cer- tain success, confounded the allied arms; and the death of St. Ruth sealed the destiny of the house of Stuart. The Irish left one-third of their army on the field. The dead lay, day after day, exposed there were none to bury them the country people had all fled and the carrion-birds came and ban- quetted, and wild dogs, in packs, frequented the field, and became so fierce, feeding on man's flesh, that no one might pass by that way: and amidst this scene of pestilence and horror there was one dog, a wolf- hound belonging to ,an Irish colonel that fell, and lay upon the hill-side : on this body the attached creature remained day and night, with the rest of the prowl- ing animals, dogs, foxes, wolves he fed upon the corpses that lay around, but he would not allow any thing, either bird of the air, or beast of the field, to touch his master; and when the bodies were all re- duced to skeletons, when he was obliged to go far away, and prowl by night through the neighbouring villages, yet he came back presently to the place where his master's bones lay festering in the slow process of corruption, there to keep watch and ward. A soldier quartered in Aughrim, six months afterwards passing by chance that way, saw the dog seated by the ske- leton, and drawing near out of curiosity, the animal, fearing he came to disturb his master flew at him, A PROPHECY. 139 and the man surprised at the suddenness of the as- sault, levelled his musket and shot him dead. I shall conclude my sketch of this important battle, by noticing a prophecy which was prevalent among the Irish respecting it. A year before it took place a Protestant gentleman living near Aughrim met a number of that nomadic race that existed in Ireland during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, called Ulster Creaghts, who roamed the country, desolated as it was by] the wars of Elizabeth, Charles, and William, from north to south, and drove their herds before them, pasturing on the devastated lands where- ever they chose. Meeting this gentleman just near the castle of Aughrim, they demanded of him what castle that was, and upon his telling them its name, they pointed to the hill of Kilcomedan, that rose to the south of the castle, and declared that before long a great battle would be fought there between the English and Irish, and that the English would find their coats too heavy in climbing up the eminence. This prophecy was two-handled, and was interpreted by the Irish, to mean their foes casting off their coats while running away from them. Colonel Gordon O'Neill, who lay wounded on the hill, and was (be- fore he was trampled to death) taken prisoner and brought off the field, when he saw the British cast- ing off their coats, in order that they might more lus- tily pursue and overtake the Irish before they got to the bogs, called to mind with no small grief the pre- diction of the Ulster Creaghts. 140 GOOD PEOPLE. The green hill of Aughrim is not alone memorable for the conflict that confirmed the dominion of Eng- land over Ireland, but like every other fine green emi- nence, it is the domain of the fairies. One rich in reminiscences of the "good people" told me the fol- lowing " FACT." Just on that side of the hill where the battle raged and St. Ruth fell, there dwelt a poor man, whose bu- siness it was to herd cattle. He was married to a neighbour's daughter, fair, mild, and good; and they had three fine children, and the mother was just brought to bed of a fourth, and was doing " as well as could be expected" and the midwife had settled her snug for the night, and went home, expecting to find her and the baby well in the morning; but when morning came, to the husband's utter grief, and all the neighbours' great dismay, instead of the living wife, was found a corpse, livid and loathsome, with grim features, totally unlike those of the gentle and pretty creature who was laid to sleep over night. From such a change all knowledgeable people came to the conclusion, that it was the work of the " good people;" and this lump of loathsome flesh was left as a substitute for the woman who was carried away. Of course, the corpse was buried as soon as possible, and the little sister of the infant took to rearing it with a spoon. In this way, the family continued for some time; the poor husband remained desolate, and when he looked on his poor motherless children, he turned his head away, and dropped a silent tear for his own A VISIT FROM "FAIRYLAND." 141 and their bereavement. But it so happened, as he was sitting up one night minding a sick cow, and had just laid down in his clothes in bed, not desiring to sleep soundly all out, and the children were all enjoying the steady repose of health and innocence, the fire raked out, and the round moon ascending high in heaven, sending its slanting light hi at the little cabin window, the man saw the door open, as if stealthily, and a woman enter, whom he at once recognised as his wife. Supposing at first it was her ghost, he lay still and said nothing; but he saw her go to the fire, pull out a coal, light a rush, go to the press, take out some boiled potatoes, lay them on the coals, and then go to the churn, take up some milk, and make her supper heartily. When, moreover, he saw her go to the cradle, take the infant in her arms, and give it suck, then he was sure the woman was alive, and he bounced up and took her in his arms, and in his surprised joy cried, oh! whence come you, my own dear Mary? and then she told him how she had been carried away by the fairies that she was used as the nurse of their king's daughter that she was allowed to step home for an hour at midnight and she moreover said that she might be yet released, and restored to him, for that she had as yet eaten none of their food, but she came home every night, and eat the boiled potatoes that were left, and that her fond heart was yet with her own dear man and the children. " Well, but, MARY ASTHORE, how are you to be released from their power? or how could a poor lone man like ine, hold 142 HOW TO DISENCHANT. you back from these wise and dangerous people." " I will tell you," replied she, " we will be removing on Saturday night next from the rath, where we now are, and we will pass through the old gateway that leads down to .the castle, and you will first hear as it were a sigh, as if the wind was passing through the big ash trees, and then a rushing of (as it were) dried leaves in a whirlwind; and then's your time, Darby dear; and have with you a vessel, in which is mixed the blood of a black hen and salt, and all-flower water; and when you see the dust curling on the road, and the whirl of the dry leaves, as it were, passing by, then dash what is in the pitcher on the spot, and it will fall on me, and I will be left behind." Having said this, the wife departed, as needs she must, and the husband prepa'red himself for the disenchantment; and having concocted his mixture, he, on the night specified was at the spot, and prepared to do so as desired; but, when the moment came when he heard the midnight silence broken by the sough of the coming whirlwind when the rush, as of a multitude came hurtling along, his teeth chattered, his sight failed, his knees knocked, down fell the pitcher out of his hand it seemed as if some knowing Fay gave it a kick with his heel as he passed by. At any rate the man failed of his purpose the dusty whirl came and went, and was not sprinkled, and poor Darby, in the midst of his trepidation, thought he heard a departing moan, and a voice thai said, " Mary is gone from you and the childer for ever." In about two years after, DARBY'S PUNISHMENT. 143 Darby was found under the side of a ditch, paralyzed, and without the use of his left arm, eye, and leg, and his speech utterly gone. " I saw the man," (says my informant,) in the year 1835, he wrote me this ac- count, for he could not speak, and maintained, (which he will do to his dying day,) that he was thus struck for not releasing his wife from the fairies." 144 CHAPTER VI. KILCONNELL,. Kflconnell Abbey, its position Picturesque appearance Place of Sepul- tureTomb of Trimlestone - Cause of his interment here Who built Kilconnell Character of Connell His merits His demerits St. Patrick's anger not ill placed St. Connell's fault not uncommon in latter days St. Connell's dispute with his sister With his friend Saints wrathful at times Strife of tongues Effects of holy cursing Holy Priests Father Christy and the Fairies Christy and Grace It loses him his supper His disenchantment and return to sober seriousness Father Christy at a Funeral The dispersion of his whip. FROM Aughrim I proceeded to Kilconnell* I was desirous to see the ruined abbey there, which is as usual placed in the middle of very fertile land, close to a fine spring of water, and is as picturesque a ruin as can be, where there are neither hills, rocks, lake, nor river, and but a few distant trees to improve the scenery perhaps its ivy-mantled tower and time- tinted roofless gables, with all their salient angles, producing the happiest effects of light and shadow, were better in keeping with the waste and desolation that presided over the place, destitute as it was of any modern improvement or decoration whatsoever. The wretched houses of the adjoining village did not at any rate take away from the dreariness of the scene. I walked through a rich meadow, entered the enclo- sure, and the first thing that met my view was an immense stack of human bones. As I mean to speak * When I visited Kilconnell, the glebe-house was not built, and there was not, as there is now, a resident and pains- taking minister. My visit took place twelve years ago, I include it now in this present tour, because if I had not visited it before, I should have done so on the more recent occasion. BARNWALL'S TOMB. 145 in another place of the state of Irish abbeys, I shall say nothing further here, because my memory is not fresh, and I took no notes of what I saw of Kilcon- nell. I shall only observe that I scrambled over nasty graves, and sauntered through tottering and wasting away enclosures that once were nave, transept, choir, cloister, dormitory, and chapter-house and observed that what the original devastators had spared, the heedless and tasteless people had altogether de- molished and removed to make uncouth ornaments for the graves of the vulgar people that lay all around; my feelings were vexed and melancholy, and this mood was not altered by observing a tablet placed on the wall of a side chapel, on which was the following inscription: HERE LYETH THE BODY OF MATHYAS BARNWALL THE 12 LORD BARRON OF TRIMLESTOWNE WHOE BEING TRANSPLANTED INTO CONAGHT WITH OTHRS BY OR- DERS OF THE VSVRPER CROMWELL DYED AT MOINIVAE THE 17 OF SEPTEMBER 1667 FOR WHOME THIS MO- NVMENT WAS MADE BY HIS SONNE ROBERT BARNE- WALL THE 13 LORD OF TRIMLESTOWNE,. HERE LYETH ALSOE HIS VNCKLE RICHARD BARNEWALL, IAMES BARNE- WALL WHO DYED ATT CREGAN THE 2 OF OCTOBER 1672 AND IAMES BARNEWALL OF AGHRIM- GOD HAVE MERCY ON THEIR SOVLES Poor Barnewall, how much you must have felt the exile from your rich property within the English pale, from the smiling and exuberant plains of Meath to L 146 CURSE OF CROMWELL. ugly and stony Connaught yes, and to one of the ugliest parts of the trans-Shannonite province boggy, melancholy Monivea. That order of Cromwell's was certainly a "horrible decree," it was " vce victis" with a vengeance. It is a sad thing to emigrate at any time; for the last evening to sit round the paternal hearth hear for the last time the closing of the door of home home sanctified and made precious by the births, marriages, and deaths of all we have loved and from the last eminence whence it is visible cast a look, and then another, and it must be the last, on the scenes of our playful youth the very pleasant places where our young ideas expanded, and our young affections budded and blossomed yes, to go away deliberately, without any force but the constrainings of prudence, to where profit or ambition may call us, that is sad enough but there is this great, fond alleviation thank God we may come back and find a welcome ! But when pushed away by the stern decree of a tyrant a resistless tyrant; when the exile is taken hold of as you would an obnoxious plant, and torn up by all its roots ; when thus the delicate fibres are snapped, by which were assimilated all that consti- tuted life's pleasures, and the outcasts are sent forth on their EXODUS, and they lift up their wringing hands and say, " Nos patriam fugimus, et dulcia linquimus arva," and they are gone to sigh out life in a barren and dreary, and unwelcoming land. Oh! this is KILCONNELL. 147 indeed a transplantation untimely, unnatural, hope- less like that of a large tree see it there in its new position, with its top withering, its branches decaying and snapping off with every wind; its stem loose and bending from the blast that vexes it with all its storms no wonder that poor Lord Trimleston soon ceased to sigh for the pleasant land of his birthright, and sought refuge where the weary are at rest. KILCONNELL. The church or cell of Council (Connell, a cotemporary, as legendaries, or, if you will, historians, say, of St. Patrick,) was one of the multi- tude of sees, existing in Ireland at that time, for it is reported that there were upwards of three hundred and fifty, and that the means of support of abishop consisted of the milk of one or two cows. Now as the credible history of Colgan goes, Connell was mighty good in the way that Irish saints are reported to have sanctified their characters; yet he fell under the dis- pleasure of St. Patrick, and of his own saintly sister, and his conduct brought down a double curse on the place he had chosen, and that curse remains to this day. Connell, I repeat, was a good man, as goodness was appreciated in that day, for each epoch has its peculiar goodness, and, no doubt, the goodness of St. Connell was very different from that of his namesake, and, for aught I know, blood-relation, the big O'Connell of the present time. Now his goodness was in this sort, into the cold, cold spring-well he would go down and kneel every morning, and minding 148 ST. CONNELL'S SIN, the water as little as a frog, would say all his paters and aves, and repeat every verse of the one hundred and fifty psalms nay more, he used to starve, flagellate, and macerate his poor body, and undergo acts of mortification, enough to turn his carcase into a mummy in the same way (as we may suppose) the men of Kent turn pig's meat into brawn. But he had better have been less ascetic, and more circumspect, and minded his Bible more than his Breviary for while he did what he need not have done he left undone what he should have done he laid hands suddenly, and without due exa- mination on certain men, and ordained them bishops, and confided the crozier to those totally unfit for the office and his imprudence coming to the ears of Primate St. Patrick, he not only rated him well for it, but he punished the place he was so partial to, and decreed that to the end of time Kilconnell should continue a poor place. I wish more of St. Patrick's vigilance, and less of St. Council's negligence, had descended to the primates and prelates of the Irish Church and this I must observe, that if the sees of bishops where their lordships lay hands suddenly on presbyters and prelates were to dwindle down to ruin like Kilconnell we should have many poor sees, where we now find rich, in the length of the land, from the Causeway to Cape Clear from *Derry {o * In making these observations, the tourist anxiously desires to have it understood, that he means no allusion to persons now iving. AND CONTROVERSY. 149 Aghadoe. St. Council's sister's curse was more intem- perate and certainly (as Colgan says) less deserved. She took a fancy to erect a nunnery near the cell of her brother, and he, the religious churl, in his ex- treme-asceticism and self-suspicion, did not think well of woman-kind being so near him; and she in anger cursed the place with poverty, which, alas, I fear, the present vicar feels, for I am led to suspect that Saint Atracta, for that was the name of the abbess, who was attracted by the " amcenitates loci" of Kil- connell, was the primal prophetess who foretold of parliamentary interference with, and plunder of, church property: especially when the true blue and staunch Protestant squires, composing the legion- dub in College-green, first took away from poor vicars the tithe of agistment, and so the pro- Protestant Whigs of the eighteenth century taught the pro- Popery Whigs of the nineteenth to appropriate church property and starve the parsons. So far written story goes concerning Kilconnell and its saints tradition, as it was communicated by one whose mind seemed to delight in these matters, informed me as follows : At the time that Connell was about building the steeple of his abbey, another saint, one Kerrill, was intending to do the same at a place called Clonkeen> about seven miles to the west, and it so happened that Connell had his materials ready first, and he came to the other and said "Brother Kerrill, let me now have your masons to help mine, and when you are 150 MUTUAL CURSING. ready I will in return send you mine back along with your own, and so there will be no time lost to either of us." "Agreed," says Kerrill. So Connell soon ran up his steeple, and was proud, as he well might, of his edification but by and by, when Kerrill was ready, he sent to Connell for all the masons but he, it is supposed, conceiving that when pious inten- tions ere to be fulfilled, it is no harm to break a promise, said, that indeed he was busy in building a chapel for the Virgin, and he could not send his people until that good work was finished. So Kerrill, in great wrath, came over to Kilconnell, and then the two saints set to rating one another most roundly; and not content with this public strife of tongues, they retired to a lonesome field, called Ballyglass, about a mile off, where there were lofty echoing rocks, and each kneeling down, with his face to a high stone, they set to, most methodically, to curse each other, and wish evil against whatever they respectively held dearest in the world among other anathemas Connell hurled this at Kerrill " May Clonkeen Abbey never see a Monday morning come to noon, without a corpse coming to be buried." "Thank you for that," says "Kerrill, and now have you done your worst?" "Yes," says Connell. "Well now," replies Kerrill, "see how I come over you and your pitiful curse for my prayer is, and I am sure it will be granted, that the corpse that is to come shall be that of a * blackbird" and * A darigg or starling, according to some banders down of the story, A FAIR CURSE. 151 so it is, for every Monday morning since that day's cursing-match, a blackbird is found dead in Clonkeen Abbey. And now it came to Kerrill's turn to curse, and his was a most catholic and general curse, attending not only on the place of his dislike, but, as I deem, extending all over the land of Ire his curse was " May Kilconnell never see a fair-day without a fight and may there be as many black eyes and bloody noses there and then, as there are cock black- birds, with red bills, in Clonkeen." Poor Conneiiwras al- together powerless to avert this curse ; fate was too stern for him, and so it is every fair day that comes, fighting follows as sure as a luck-penny concludes a bargain; and so when the cattle are driven out of the green, and whiskey has done its duty, then comes the clash of cloholpeens, and the joy of battle sparkles in each reddening eye " Bello gaudentes, prcelio ridentes." On they rush, the Kilconnellites to batter the Long- fordites and the ruxion rages. Reader, if ever you go to Kilconnell be sure to examine the heap of skulls you will see there; and pray observe the wonderful thickness of those brain bowls. Nothing but constant cudgelling could have caused this characteristic cras- situde, and so St. Kerrill's prophecy is fulfilled to the letter and why should not the inhabitants of this barony continue as long as fire burns, or water flows, to fight at Kilconnell, to keep up the credit of St. Kerrill? Now worthy reader do you doubt the truth of this tradition rest satisfied that the facts are unques- 152 PALPABLE PROOFS. tionable, for there are visible proofs of its being well founded. I told you before that the conflicting saints retired to fight out their wordy duel, to a field surrounded by precipitous rocks, and grassy hillocks; you were told that each saint, in order that his curse might reverberate and roll more imposingly upwards, turned his face, as he execrated, to the tall rock, and there and then holy rage was so great, and as they muttered their terrible rhymes, and " Sternly shook their raven hair," blood spouted from their nostrils, and as the sanguine stream struck the rock, it forced an entrance as would an auger and there, even in the hard limestone, the red holes are to be seen to this day, and you may put your fingers in, if you will, where the hot and burn- ing blood once penetrated. The fairies, who were ever and always fond of this grassy and sunny field, surrounded, as it is, with little knolls, looking like green china cups turned upside down on a tea-tray, were not over pleased at their pleasant dancing-green being tormented with all this cursing; they, there- fore, (as they say,) have no fondness for what are called holy priests, and excommunicators, and exor- cisors, and that not only for the reason that they are the well-known successors and representatives of such saints as Connell and Kerrill, and that they still love cursing with bell, book, and candle : but also, as said holy priests are apt, by night, to see double, therefore, as having much to do with SPIRITS, they FATHER CHRISTY. 153 also sometimes spy the fairies, and follow will-o'-the- wisps into bog-holes and ditches, while other, less gifted people keep never minding them. Now, there was in this neighbourhood a holy priest. "My grand- mother (says my informant) often drank the water steeped in the blessed clay in which he was buried, but no matter for that." And the fairies had a grudge against Father Christy, and watched to take him at an advantage; so one night, it was close up Hollantide, if it was not the very eve of All Saints' itself, any how, Father Christy was coming home to Kilconnell, from the hospitable house of one of his gentlemen parishion- ers. I think the place is, or was called Hillswood, and the moon, the deceiving moon, was up, and she threw her shadows and shinings in such a way, that it would be hard for any man, especially when coming from a place overflowing with hospitality, to pick his way quite straight; but at any rate the priest thought he had the path, and on he went, expecting every mo- ment to see the abbey tower when, mighty strange! ! ! his reverence found himself at the door of a great house, and standing at the hall-door, clad in green and gold lace, was a servant who bid him welcome, took his horse, with a low bow, and pointed to the open hall-door, and requested him to enter, which he did, nothing loath, for all round seemed as kind as it was lightsome and gay. At the entrance of a splen- didly lit up chamber, he met a lovely lady with a goblet of wine in her hand, as clear and sparkMng and enchant- ing as her own dark rolling eye, and she led him into 154 SEES TOO MUCH. where tables were laid out, and gallant gentlemen, and gorgeous dames sat intermingled, and, as the priest en- tered, one and all rose and cried, " You're welcome, Father Christy;" and they were all equally so kind and so encouraging. " Here's a seat by me" says one; " No," says another; " come beside ME, and have your back to the fire this cold night, dear, sweet Father Christy." But all this kind and invitatory bustle was set at rest by the little splendid man dressed in green cut velvet, with a golden hunting-cap on his head, who sat at the head of the table, and who sum- moned him, with an air of superiority, to take a chair at his right hand, as the post of honour. And now, the work of the festive hour was being begun each seemed about to address him, or herself, to the food they liked best; when up stood the Amphitryon of the feast, and with that satisfied air which denotes that the speaker is about to address a willing audi- ence, he said, " Gentlemen and ladies, before we set to, I propose that we drink the health of our guest, Father Christy, AND LONG MAY HE REIGN AMONGST us." To which all, with one accord, assented, and were in the act of filling bumpers, and crying hip, hip, three-times-three, when the priest, on being offered the wine, as it went round, with all due gra- vity, and as became his calling, said, " Most noble, my unknown entertainer, and you, ye gay gentlemen and gracious ladies, I do, from my heart, respond to your hospitalities, and shall most willingly partake of your cheer, and especially your wine, for as you all BUT SAYS GRACE. 155 may know it is more pleasant to set to drinking again than to eating; but this I must say, that it has ever been my own practice, and I do my endeavour, as becomes my cloth, to teach it to others, never to sit down to table without saying grace," and, with that, his reve- rence, with his usual slight and agility, cut the sign of the cross on his breast, and said off his Latin with such holy rapidity, that none, but a practised eye and ear, could see or hear the reverend office; but, won- drous were its effects: like a flash of lightning, or the shifting of the FATA MORGANA in the straits of Messina, or on the coast of the Giant's Causeway, all vanished : light, people, goblets, and good cheer and lo, the priest rubbed his eyes and felt very much as if he had been just a sleeping, at the stump of an ash tree near the village, and nothing was very wrong about him, save that the knee of his thickset small-clothes was burst, and the rein of his good and quiet mare broken, which was altogether of no consequence, as the gentle beast was grazing but a few yards off. The priest used, in after times, when wrought up to good humour at a station, to tell this adventure amongst the fairies. " I remember (says my informant) on one of those occasions, my grandmother asked his reverence what would have been the consequence had he drank off that bumper without saying grace. ' Why,' says the holy man, ' I never would have got away from them, they would have as hard a hoult of me, and I would be as far in them as any of the other people they have taken.' 156 A FAIRY FUNERAL. " My grandmother, God be good to her, was a great favourite with this priest, and good reason there was for it, for she was of the thrue three orders, the sca- pular, the cord, and the sacred heart, he, therefore, told her of many other doings he had with the " good people;" amongst the rest, how one day he met on the road, of a fine summer's evening, (by-the-hy it was always after dinner he saw the " GENTRY,") a hearse, followed by a long line of gentlemen's carriages, and then horsemen with scarfs, country people in thou- sands, and the keening going on as if it was quite Christian, and his reverence turned back, as it is always decent to do so, and he followed them a con- siderable way along the road, but never a word could be got from any one, nor would they say whose bury- ing it was, and where they were going, but by-and-by they came to an old building, and he saw every mo- ther's soul of them, with coffin, carriages, hearses, and all, go intoa hole in the wall, not bigger than what leads to a wasp's nest, and so, says the priest, " My nice little people I'll be after following yes as far as I can," and with that he thrust the butt end of his whip into the hole after them, but when he took it out, the lead with which it was loaded was all melted, and he could not carry it any more, it smelt so strong of brimstone." 157 CHAPTER VII. AHASCRAGH. Ahascragh Irish practice of Ford-making, and consequent Bog-making Village Church Parsonage Parsons Married Ministers of use to a people not going to church Loan Fund of Ahascragh Its benefit to the people Its prosperity Holy Well St. Cuan's reasonable religion His voyage on a flag -His eyes too winning Instance of communion of the saints Landlords in this vicinity Change for the better in the people Moylough Lough Lasarse Mount Bellew Road to Knockmoy Character of Country Translucent stone walls Limestone fields Burn- ing soil Potato tillage Deterioration of the root Change of kinds- Population in a dangerous position Abert Knockmoy Approach to Abbey Guide Big O'Connell Fertility of Abbey Land Cistercian Monks Treasure Finding Entrance of Abbey Nave Choir Fresco paintings Cause of the erection of the Abbey Cathol Crovederg His history His defeat of Sir Almeric St. Lawrence Vaults of Abbey- Drying and preserving qualities Lady Evelina French Her former state Present 150 years after death Barbarous dilapidation of Irish Abbeys. AHASCRAGH is rather a neat village, it rises from a small sluggish river over which there is a bridge. You may be always sure in travelling through Ireland wherever you find a place beginning with A or Ath, that there is a river which either is by nature ford- able or has been made so by art. The practice of the ancient Irish was to make streams fordable by casting small stones into the stream so as to make a sort of under-water causeway.* This practice was no doubt the cause of the great number of loughs, morasses, and bogs which prevailed through the island. The * This and the similar practice of making passes of hurdles across the morasses and sluggish streams, which were called toghers, tended to enlarge the morasses or bogs, and flood the upper levels by the back water created. 158 ARE PARSONS A NUISANCE? Irish in this instance acted like the beaver o f North America, they did the same mischief without showing the same constructive intelligence. There is a neat church and parsonage-house adjoin- ing this village; both one and the other show that the resident minister is an improving man in every sense of the word I hope and believe he is. That man's bigotry must have eradicated his common sense who would say that this place, or indeed any other, would be better without the parson the parson's wife his house or his church. In the absence of the landed proprietors, who as lords or commoners must, or think thfy must, for the greater part of the year be in London, I ask would the as yet ill- educated middlemen, or the bachelor priest, sur- rounded, beset, and biassed as he generally is by his low, narrow-minded relations would they make up for the parson and the contents of the parsonage, the educated, moral, independent, pious inhabitants of that clean, modest, well-regulated dwelling. No; great indeed must the animosity be, which, while deprecat- ing, as it will venture to do, all absenteeism, would drive away the three thousand of the most intelligent, moral, and useful country gentlemen that Ireland now possesses. To exemplify what I say, the parson of Ahascragh has instituted in his small town a lending fund, which is established on such good principles that though it circulates three thousand pounds annu- ally amongst the lower classes, and has been the means of giving comfort and competence to hundreds, yet ST. CUAN'S MERITS. 159 is not decreasing its capital. On the contrary, its accumulation is certain, though moderate, and there are very few instances indeed where the people who take advantage of the loan, do not strictly discharge their engagements. There is a holy well at Ahascragh which I did not see: near it are fir trees of great virtue, and around which the devotees, in pursuance of penances imposed either by priests or friars, or by their own wilful vows, circumambulate, or rather circumgenuate, creeping on bare knees, five, fifteen, twenty times, and so on, saying multitudes of paters and aves; and where, as I am told, they bow down to a picture of the Virgin, suspended by the priest for the occasion. In this holy well St. Cuan, the patron saint of Ahascragh, used to descend and stand up to his middle, until he repeated the 150 Psalms of the Psalter. Like his near neighbour, St. Connell, he was a WATERPROOF saint. This was, I believe, the same saint who sailed across Lough Corrib, along with eight of his disciples, on one of the flat limestones that are so abundant along its shores; and the same also who, when his mother admired his beautiful black eyes, lest the flattery should make him vain, gouged both one and the other out with his forefinger, which, as he cast away from him, two ravens came and carried off"; but which (while he was, as no doubt he should be, in great pain and darkness,) were snatched from the ravens' bills and restored back unto him by angels. The legendary who tells this 160 COMMUNION OF SAINTS. savoury story asserts, that when holy Cuan thus got back his eyes, he could sing as the Psalmist did in the 109th Psalm, " Open thou mine eyes and I shall behold the wondrous things out of thy law." The fame of this miracle of course went abroad, and thousands of saints nocked from all parts to see him. Of these he formed a sodality, which assembling one day in order to unite their suffrage for suffering souls in purgatory, a bell was seen flying and ringing over their heads, at which, while all were wondering and asking what this could mean, St. Cuan said, "Brethren, that is St. Fursey: the good man is so busy that he cannot come himself, but in order to show that he will join our fraternity, he has sent his bell." And upon the brethren further inquiring where he was, and what he was doing, Cuan said, "Brother Fursey has left Ire- land and gone to France ; and at Peronne he is now abbot, and he cannot come, because he has made a covenant with his friend St. Magnence, which is rather inconvenient, for in the strict ardour of their fellowship, they have swopped diseases!! ! "Fursey had a dysentery which, by prayer, has been transferred to Magnence; and Magnence, full of sores which constantly bred loathsome worms, has sent his sores, insects and all, to Fursey. This is indeed a wonderful communion of the saints, and you cannot wonder that Fursey in this predicament should send an excuse to us." It is scarcely possible to suppose that HE who would invent such absurdities as these are, he who would collect them and with all solemnity of GALWAY ABSENTEES. 161 purpose, as Colgan has done, in his "Acta sanctorum Hiberuiae," embody them in his folios, intend any thing else than to bring all miracles into discredit by such disgusting caricatures; and also they must have been the most beastly or the most unbelievingly satiri- cal of mankind: as Primate Ussher has well said, they must have had a front of brass and a heart of lead. In the neighbourhood of Ahascragh there are two fine demesnes, one Castlegar, the mansion of Sir Ross Mahon; the other, Clonbrock, the seat of the lord of that ilk (as the Scotch say). They are both very differ- ent indeed from the middlemen's demesnes I have lately described. As far as great extent, full grown timber, and roomy but not handsome houses, kept in excellent order will go, they are fine establishments. Both owners were from home, as indeed I may now say for once WAS, every owner of a fine demesne, ex- cept one, that I passed during my whole tour. I ob- served that the soil was poor and hungry in their demesnes. Though it was the latter end of May, the surface was covered with a thick vesture of moss. I had, before I visited this quarter, imagined that the central plains of Galway were of a finer quality of land than what I now found them. The finest oak-wood I have seen in Connaught is at Clonbrock ; the timber seems to stand in its natural habitat, and is full grown. Part of it was being cut down, and I observed that, contrary to the Irish practice, the bark was stripped off before the tree was felled; this, I believe, is the M 162 IMPROVEMENTS. practice in the royal forests in England, and improves the quality of the timber. I saw here pheasants running along the skirts of the wood. This rare species of game being abundant here showed that his lordship was careful of manorial rights. I confess I would rather have seen a fine peasantry than a pheasantry; and I am not sure that I saw any thing like the former. In the immediate vicinity of the great house, I saw some pretty porter's lodges, &c. &c., but outside of the demesne (on land, which, no doubt was still his lordship's property) I did not ob- serve any great improvement in the dress, the houses, or the tillage of the people. No doubt there is a slow process of improvement going on here, as in every other part of Connaught, and a change is coming over the language, and dress, and the habits of the people. Respecting this very district and property of Lord Clonb rock's, I remember being told a circum- stance which occurred half a century ago, and was witnessed by a relation of mine then on a visit at Clonbrock. The then lord was getting home his year's fuel, and as was the custom, the tenantry, ac- cording to their villages, took it in turn, day after day, to draw home, with men and horses, the lord's turf; and during the process, each set of villagers got their dinners in the servant's hall; but when it came to one set, which were located far off in an island, surrounded by red bogs, and when they were called to come in to the house to dinner, nothing could per- suade them to do so in Irish, their only language, RED BOGS. 163 they declared that they dared not do so, lest the big building should fall upon their heads while under it. Such barbarian ignorance, if ever it was shown, could not now at least be exhibited. Lord Clonbrock is, I am told, a great improver of red bogs, and I regretted much that my time and engagements did not allow me to go and inspect what he has done but when I asked was the improvement finished, is the red bog become good pasture, meadow, or tillage land, I was told that it was not so yet,* and it was more than hinted that his lordship was growing tired of his speculation. On leaving Ahascragh and its vicinity, I was in doubt whether I would proceed to Tuam by Moylough and Mount Bellew, or take a road more to the south, and see Knockmoy Abbey. I could not see both, and, therefore, though I should have much liked to have seen the vale of Moylough, and the improvements of Mount Bellew, I decided on Knockmoy. But though not taking the first mentioned road, let me say something about it. There is some uncommonly fine pasture land about Moylough; and near it is a lake called Lough Lasarae, or the illuminated lake. This was celebrated as a place of religious rite, even in the time of paganism; and its waters are said every seventy years to possess this luminous quality in ex- cess, and then the people bring their children and cattle to be washed in its phosphoric waters, and they are considered to have no chance of dying that year. * Indeed, this NOT YET, is the end of almost alt inquiries respecting the reclaiming of RED bogs in any part of Ireland. 164 CONNAUGHT FENCES. Mount Bellew, I understand, is a pretty village, and there is a fine house and demesne belonging to Mr. Bellew, a Roman Catholic proprietor. There also is a monastery, and the whole place and arrangements connected with it have a Romish air. I understand that the house contains a very fine library, particu- larly rich in manuscripts and rare works relative to Ireland. The predecessor of the present owner was an elegant gentleman of the old school; a finished scholar, and though highly devoted to his own religion, could be hospitable and useful to Pro- testants, and that more especially if he found a person attached to Ireland, and desirous to acquire knowledge concerning its ancient history. I said I took the road that led towards Knockmoy. This central part of Galway is by no means interest- ing; you either pass through lands miserably cut up and portioned out into small tenures, where the people pursue their miserable tillage of potatoes and oats, or you pass through sheep pastures, treeless and dreary, divided by the transparent stone walls that you can shoot a snipe through, and which look so loose and frail, that you would think they could not stand an hour, yet there they do stand, the wind seems to think it not worth its while to cast them down, seeing that it gets a free passage through, and the cattle spare them in their own defence, lest, if they touch, they should fall on and crush them. I suppose there is some knack, which Connaught men alone possess, in the construction of these fences, which the A BURNING COUNTRY. 165 setting and rising sun can shine through; occasion- ally in this district you come to plains entirely covered with flat masses of limestone they look like huge grave-yards nothing can surpass their dreariness, and yet they form good pastures for sheep, for as it is impossible for the plough or even the spade to be there employed, there grows up an ex- tremely succulent herbage between the rocks, which fattens sheep admirably. But independently of the na- tural ugliness of the country we were passing over, there was a smoke floating over the whole surface, arising from the burning of the soil for potatoes. The season happened to be peculiarly favourable for this operation, and the people were taking advantage of it ; all before us and behind us smoked like a brick-kiln, and the smell (to me) peculiarly offensive, was almost as annoying as that of the bogged-flax, which salutes you towards the end of autumn as you travel through the province of Ulster. Observing this universal burning of the soil that was going on, for in this inland district the poor have little else to depend on as manure for potatoes, I asked what would become of the population in very wet seasons. The answer I got was, that "God was good." It must arise from this precarious preparation for the growth of potatoes, that scarcity is so much more prevalent in Connaught, than in any other portion of Ireland. It is supposable that this system of burning the soil must deteriorate it the ashes of the roots of vegetables and the burnt clay can only stimulate. I 166 KNOCKMOY. cannot understand how they can supply food for plants, and hence I believe it is that the people in these districts must now put up with an inferior kind of root, the white the stronger and more nutritious red potatoes cannot now be raised. What is to become of such a population as this ? with the lands in their own holding run down and deteriorated, so that it can only supply the poorest and weakest kind of food, will they not, unless something is done speedily, pos- sess themselves, one way or other, of the fine fresh pasture lands now in the hands of the graziers ? Hunger will break through stone walls. I deem that a Connaught wall will yet prove no obstacle before the rush of a starving multitude, or will the new poor law find a remedy? I trow not, for why should it? I have before observed that I took a western and rather circuitous road to Tuam, in order to visit the abbey of Knockmoy. Some twelve years ago, when much less interested in antiquarian matters than I now suppose myself to be, I had visited this inte- resting ruin, and what I then saw, urged me now to make a longer and more interesting observation. The abbey is situated in a fine country, and as you ap- proach it, you pass the well wooded and fertile demesne of Abert, where I saw, and I am sure I don't know why I saw there, deer stalking through the full grown wood, without any wall to keep them in, or any one to molest them they seemed to range quite at their ease. I approached the abbey along a road that ran parallel to a river, on the other side of which MY GUIDE. 167 are the ruins, and which road divided a rising hill to the left from the rich meadows that lay along the stream. It was necessary to go up this road and pass westwards of the abbey in order to arrive at the village, and the bridge over which you must pass; and in going along I was on the look out for some one who would come and show me the place, and give me all the tradition- ary and local information he possessed. In this in- stance I showed neither my usual tact, nor had my usual success; I should have chosen some boy of twelve or thirteen years of age, or some old woman, the boy's fresh memory and youthful unsuspectingness would have helped me to all the traditionary lore he had heard during the winter's night; or the old woman, from her garrulity, when properly managed, would have poured forth all her store. But here I lit upon one who was singularly tall, and though not fat for whoever saw a potato feeder fat ? he was comparatively full. I, though not little, was as a pigmy beside him; but, in sooth, he was but a lumpish ani- mal after all he let out afterwards that he dieted on Counaught lumpers. But this is nothing to the pur- pose, I have seen men as lumpish and doltish, fed on bacon and beef, and allow (though I should not) that James the First was a shrewd observer of men, when he remarked, that as the upper stories of lofty houses are badly furnished, so were the heads of tall men; but it could not be helped, and I had as my leader Mr. O'Connell, if it so pleases you big Mr. O'Con- nell ! ! ! With this companion, who was both ignorant 168 PRUDENT GOLD FINDERS. and suspicious we proceeded; and in walking along from the old bridge to the abbey, our way was through as fine a piece of pasture as ever my foot pressed; the limestone rock rose here and there through herbage of intense verdure, and you were forced to observe that these Cistercian monks knew where to build their rookeries and feather the nests well and warm; or rather, on second thoughts, were they not improvers, and might not their long and assiduous care have made what was once a barren and waste wilderness, smile and blossom like the rose; yes, 'tis true, they were im- provers, but selfish esoteric improvers, who left the people poor, pugnacious, and barbarous, while they kept the wisdom, the knowledge, and the gastronomy to themselves. Immediately before the western entrance to the church, I observed an excavation as if recently made. I asked MY great O'Connell what that meant. He said it was sunk some time before in search of money. I asked were the persons successful. He said he be- lieved they were; and assigned this as his reason, that the following morning some gold pieces were found lying about, and hfe made me acquainted with the fact, that those who dream of hidden money, and find it in consecrated ground, never consider that they will have luck with the money, or grace in their lives, if they do not leave some of the treasure near the spot on which it has been found. Please to remember this, good reader, in case you should at any future time become a gold-finder. I think there is a moral in this superstition worth observance. CATHOL CROVEDERG. 169 The nave of Knockmoy is not long it has no pre- tence to either beauty or grandeur. The whole place is woefully dilapidated, and shamefully deformed hy the people. The choir, however, is interesting, here is the tomb of the founder, Cathol Crovederg O'Connor; and here are the curious fresco paintings. I know of nothing like them in Ireland, except at Quin Abbey, in the county of Clare; and as we shall speak of them hereafter, it is as well to make no fur- ther allusion to them now. Cathol Crovederg,* or of the red hand, founded this abbey in the year 1189. Cathol, as a brave and clear-sighted Irish prince, had seen that it was the disunion amongst his countrymen that enabled a handful of foreigners to overrun the island. He, there- fore, though fully aware of the military prowess of the Norman leaders, raised a strong, and, as he thought, a lasting confederacy against them, and to this he was the more encouraged by the dissensions between the two leaders, De Courcy and De Lacy. Crovederg having made his preparations, had soon an oppor- tunity of keeping his right hand red, for Almeric St. Lawrence, the brother-in-law of De Courcy, and per- haps the stoutest and bravest man, next to De Courcy, of his day, had, with singular temerity, and no doubt trusting to the armour in which his party were cased, ventured to penetrate into the heart of Connaught with only 30 horse and 200 men at arms; Crovederg * For the cause of Cathol's red hand, see the Appendix. 1/0 ANGLO-NORMAN DEFEAT. came up with this handful at the place where this abbey now stands, and surrounded them with his multitudes. St. Lawrence saw his danger, and assured that there was no chance at all for the foot, he proposed to leave them to sell their lives as dearly as they could, while he, with his thirty horse, effected his retreat; but against this the footmen remonstrated, and St. Lawrence, though he knew there was no escape, consented to fight and die with his fellow- soldiers; so accordingly sending off two of the horse- men to a neighbouring hill to witness how bravely they fought and died, and then proceed to report their fate to De Courcy, St. Lawrence ordered the rest of the horses to be killed, and then this little devoted band awaited the shock of the Irish. The historian says, they fought all day they killed ten thousand of their enemies, and there actually fell and died more under the fatigue of the fight, than under the blows of their enemies be this as it may, not a man escaped but the two scouts. It may be said that Crovederg had no great reason to be proud of his victory; but it seems he was so, and as when his Connaught men were hacking away at those sassenachs, who were as hard to kill as cats in armour, he vowed he would build an abbey. Accord- ingly he, under the invocation of the Virgin, founded this handed it over to the Cistercians, and called it Abbey Knock Mogha, or the abbey of the hill of slaughter. There is nothing at all remarkable, at least as far as I could observe, in the tombs or inscrip- tions, which are in fact so moss grown, that unless I FRESCO PAINTINGS. 1/1 had the chisel and time and patience of old mortality, I could not decipher them ; of this I satisfied myself, that there is no inscription in the Irish character. On the left side of the choir, as you front the altar, are the fresco drawings that have got considerable no- toriety over the tomb of Cathol is represented, in what I conceive to be a spirited manner, the taking down of our Saviour from the cross. The outline of the drawing is firm and free; and though the colours are almost gone, and all is rapidly obliterating from damp, and what is worse than time's neglect, wanton abuse yet, you may still see the features of the Saviour, shewing the muscular tension as of one who had died in great pain. Nearer to the altar, and on a large compartment of the wall, are two de- signs. The upper represents six figures, clothed in rich and flowing robes the one in the middle is said to be Roderick O'Connor, monarch of Ireland. He holds a shamrock in his hand, as the emblem of his sovereignty over the soil of Ireland. On either side are the princes, his vassals one holds a hawk on his thumb, the other a sword. The costume of their figures is well represented, and as far as deficiency in perspective will allow, they are executed with spirit. Below this is a man sitting with what appears to be a roll of pap'er in his hand. To his right is a young man fixed to a tree, and transfixed with arrows; and two archers are in the act of shooting more at him. For a mere outline it appeared to me exceedingly spi- rited; and it reminds you of the frescos which recent 172 THEIR STORY. travellers have delineated, as copied from drawings in the temples and catacombs of Egypt. It is said that this youth, pierced with arrows, represents Mac Mur- rough, son of the king of Leinster, who betrayed Ire- land to the English, and that Roderick O'Connor con- demned the youth to this fate, in revenge for his father's treason. The whole of these representations are interesting and singular, and are well worth in- spection; and the sooner they are visited the better, for they are daily obliterating. I have seen them twice twelve years ago, and lately. There have been great and evident obliterations during that time the plaster on which the drawings are made is evidently decomposing, and even suppose boys did not, which I believe they do, play ball against such a smooth, and therefore to them tempting surface a few years more of time's work will efface all. It is curious to observe the way in which this plaster decay s; it seems to have been put on without a mixture of hair, and applied of as loose a texture as possible in order to prevent cracking; therefore, it is decom- posing in volutes and circles. In the cathedral on the rock of Cashel, the ancient plaster is decompos- ing in the same manner. It has been said that this fresco painting is not as old as the foundation of the abbey, but is the work of artists employed by the Roman Catholic clergy, who, in the early part of the seventeenth century, and the more lenient reign of James the First, were allowed to repair and re-occupy the abbeys in Connaught. I do not think this to be VAULTS. 173 the case. I agree with Mr. Button, the author of the Statistical Survey of Galway, and Mr. Petrie, who consider that they are of the early Norman period, and were, if any thing, only repaired and retouched by the priests of the seventeenth century, who, if they painted any thing, would have represented some saintly legend, or some scene which magnified their church. The youth slain by arrows is like in its spirit, design, and costume, what is represented on the Bayeux ta- pestry, and other works of early Norman art. In the southern transept, which formerly contained two ora- tories, or lateral chapels, are now two vaults one of the French family, another of (if I mistake not) the Blakes both are open the vault of the Frenches has the property of drying up the bodies of those that are placed within it similar to the quality that the vaults of St. Michan's in Dublin possess. When first I visited Knockmoy, about twelve years ago, I arrived there in the evening, between seven and eight o'clock. Proceeding along the road that runs parallel with the river, on the other side of which the abbey is situated, and nearly opposite it, I encountered a handsome carriage, in which was a lady dressed out, to all ap- pearance, for an evening party; doubtless, she was proceeding to the hospitable house of some of the neighbouring gentry, and had not been sparing of the decorations of the toilet, in order to set off the advan- tages of her fine face and person either her com- plexion was high, or " Betty " had given her " cheek a little red." The " tout ensemble " of this fine 174 LADY EVELINA. woman, in all the full blow of beauty, gaiety, and pomp, had still possession of my imagination, when I entered the abbey. The little boy that accompanied me brought me, by way of a short-cut into the building, over some broken walls, and a space that once was the cloister, and the first part I entered of the edifice was the oratory, in which is the vault of the French family, and in one corner of this little chapel, sheltering them- selves from the sun that was streaming in from the west, was a group of boys enjoying noisily a game of marbles in the other corner, and over the tomb, was a little figure reclining against the wall; it was of a brownish yellow hue, it was partly furnished with skin and dried flesh its skull and face was covered with the same material, that gave a horrid tension to what were once fine features, features still so delicate as to tell they were female. The feet were gone from the ancle joints she stood upon her stumps all under the ribs had fallen in, and the horrid cavity was but partially covered with torn filaments of what seemed smoky parchment ; the same mummied integuments enveloped the limbs, andkept the joints together. The whole pre- sented what you might suppose was a dried baboon that had been hung over a fire until it was exsiccated and prepared to be hung up with a preserved croco- dile and a flying fish in the museum of some virtuoso, or the penetralia of some mountebank astrologer of past times. I asked my conductor who and what this was ? " Oh ! plase your honour, this is Lady Eve- lina French, the grandmother, or great grandmother, MUMMIES. 1/5 faix myself an't sure, of that lady who passed you by a while ago in the coach." My imagination fastened on the great contrast, and I thought of that fine plump rosy lady I had seen, coming in due time to this vault, and all her costly robes are laid aside, and her rosy cheek dries in, and her plumpness corrugates and ex- siccates, until it becomes in the slow process of that horrible vault, such another shrunken, horrid, and mummied specimen of mortality, as .that before me as that poor abused Lady Evelina, who was once the beauty and the pride, and the ennobled daughter of an ancient and honourable family. " How long, my boy," said I, " is Lady Evelina here?" "Oh sir, she is here hundreds of years." He pointed out to me an inscription over the vault, and it stated that she was entombed in the year 1686. On asking were there any more bodies in this state, I was shown where the side of the vault was opened, and there I saw bodies, reposing in broken coffins, with their flesh dried up, and somewhat of the colour and texture of saddle leather, and, while stooping and prying in, in order to take advantage of the last rays of the setting sun, something in the dark distance darted before me; you may be sure I drew back. Can, (said I to myself,) can these dried Frenches come to life again? I needed not to have conceived the silly thought the merriment of the boys could not com- port with ghosts v " What noise is that I hear, my little fellow, in the vault ?" " Oh! it's only a rabbit, your honour; the place is all out alive with them." 1/6 DILAPIDATIONS. On my late visit to Knockmoy, things respecting this burial-place were much altered. I found boys no longer playing marbles in the oratory; they were only playing ball in the ruined refectory. Lady Eve- lina was taken from the corner where she had been heretofore planted as a most disgusting object of mockery and profane jest; her remains now repose in an open coffin, and are much more decomposed. The bodies are also coffined, and covered in; and as there have been no late funerals of the French family, I had no opportunity of ascertaining whether this vault still retains its drying and preservative efficacy. In Knockmoy, you may observe the usual destruc- tion I complain of going on; all the ornamental parts torn out of their places, whenever they could be reached at by the people to make head-stones, and uncouth decorations for their ugly graves. This monastic es- tablishment was once of great consideration, and had large possessions. Hugh O'Reilly, the abbott, in Henry the Eighth's time, gave up the pope, and got the property restored to him, on conditions of fur- nishing the king, when he or his deputy came a warring into Connaught, with sixty horse, a battle of gallowglasses, and sixty kerns pretty strong follow- ing for a cidevant priest. 177 CHAPTER VIII. TUAM ROSS-REILLY. Dainty dinner at Knockmoy Its price in the inverse ratio of its pleasure- Old Bridge Sight of Tuam Town Romish Cathedral How built Drafts on Bank of Purgatory, better than Protestant Ecclesiastical Board Anecdote Character of this Cathedral Mistakes as I apprehend in its construction Mishap of eastern window Cruel failure of great tower Deficiencies of town Departure from Tuam Character of coun. try Turloughs Approach hills Castle Racket Knockma Its folly and its Cairn- Fynn Yarrow Headford House of Mr. St George Character of family Ross Keilly Abbey Size Repairing of tombs Bone heaps- Rabbits Anecdote Mosswigged skulls A skull-snatcher Extent of this Abbey. HAVING satisfied my curiosity at Knockmoy, I re- turned to the village, to try and get some dinner, be- fore proceeding to Tuam; and I may as well mention, for a warning to other travellers who may venture when hungry, to call for food in an unfrequent- ed village, that I was flatly refused at two houses, where our guide informed us we could be supplied; at the first house we called at they said they had nothing to give us; at the second we were refused, because we did not, in the first instance, call there, but afterwards when we saw a pot boiling over on the fire, out of which steamed a sa- voury smell that caused hunger to twinge cruelly, and when we used all the eloquence we possessed to turn " mine hostess" from her cruelty, she condescended to give us a share of the food she was preparing for some sheep-shearers, and this consisted of the saltest and toughest parts of a pig, namely, his feet, and 178 A DINNER. these with the hair not altogether scalded off, and bristling sharp on our tongue and palate, and only garnished, with lumper potatoes, very like lumps of bad soap, and a very small portion of whiskey to keep down the feet from tramping up out of our stomachs, formed our repast, and for this she had the conscience, and may the priest, when she goes to con- fession, put her to a hard penance for her extortion I say she had the conscience to charge us seven shil- lings. We proceeded across a very ancient bridge, to take advantage of a short cut over a bog, to Tuam. The bridge was one of those low-arched unbattle- mented passes that were thrown across our rivers in the seventeenth century, when it was intended that in flood times the water should flow over as well as under the arches, which were only designed to be used in summer time, and when people ought to travel. We soon saw Tuam, for the tower of its new Romish cathedral called our attention as it rose above the mist that settled on the smoking country. Tuam no one can expect that much will be said of it; with a Connaught town it is not out of character. Of course, MY imaginative prejudices made me consider it had a Romish look that indolent, unbusiness-like, " ne'er do weel" look which belongs to most towns all over the world where priests enjoy much power; but as it was a fine evening, and too early to go to bed, off I started to see the great sight of the place, the Roman Catholic cathedral, and, certainly, while HOW TO BUILD A CHURCH. 179 approaching it, where it stands a little to the north- east of the main-street, I felt astonished at such a building being erected within these few years in the poorest country, and by the poorest people, perhaps, in Europe. Ever since I had entered Connaught, my eye, I may say, (except in a few instances, when observing the demesnes of absentee Protestant pro- prietors) settled on nothing but poverty; and yet, here stands a building that must have cost thousands upon thousands. I cannot suppose it possible that such a poor town and poor vicinage as Tuam could do all this? No; I suspect that all Romish Connaught, nay, all Romish Ireland was taxed to effect this wonder. In Tuam was built the first stone building, not a church, by O'Connor, king of Connaught, and it was called "Castrum mirificum," the wonderful castle. Archbishop M'Hale is determined to have his " Basi- lica mirifica" also, 'and exhibit what wonders pur- gatory can effect. The whole established church, with all its tithes and church lands, with all the machinery of its ecclesiastical boards, nay more, with all the private and public influence of its valuable clergy, could not raise such a splendid edifice as this. No; Purgatory thou art a most profitable dogma, and well may we apply the Italian adage with respect to you, and say, " Si non e vero e ben trovato." This reminds me of an incident told me by a Me- thodist preacher. While on his circuit through the northern part of this province, and riding, as most of these worthy men do, rather a sorry horse, with 180 PRIEST VERSUS his travelling appurtenances, " methodistico more," strapped behind him he was overtaken, as he slowly jogged along, by a moon-faced, able-bodied person, the ample calves of whose black stockinged legs protruded from top boots which hung, with all their straps, in wrinkles about his ancles. This goodly man, whose shoulders taxed the black broad cloth which covered them to its full measure, was riding on a huge mare, whose feeding and whose breeding, and that part of her which the northern jockeys call the " Farewell," bespoke the abundance with which the owner was thrice blessed. One person scarcely ever in Ireland passes another on the road with out some friendly accost, and, of all men, the parish priest, except where he meets the parson, is the most kindly in his* acc6stings he does it patronizingly, for he is powerful he does it benevolently, for he really is a kind-hearted, good-humoured, accommodating being, full of good words, good common sense, and intent on * I have sometimes had occasion (and will, I fear, have to do so still) to speak disparagingly of Roman Catholic priests, and while doing so, it is with much regret, and more certainly with the desire of exhibiting the SYSTEM under which they are trained, disciplined, and constrained, than with any view to represent them as individually evil. I believe the Irish Roman Catholic clergy to be, in general, not only clever, but kind, generous, hospitable, and charitable. I believe that a large portion of them regret that they are forced to stand aloof and show an alienation from the clergy of the Established Church. I know that many, against the grain of their hearts, feel it incum- bent on them to pass the parson without wishing him God speed. I know of one whom it would be a pleasure to me to name, if I did not fear that by doing so I might injure him who has done acts of kindness, by stealth, to the parson of his parish, which were as delicate in their performance as they were bene- ficent in their intention, and who almost with tears in his eyes, PREACHER. 181 kind actions. So the two soon got into conversation, and "talk of various kinds beguiled the road;" but in the midst of their chat, the poor rosinante of the preacher made a stumble, and down he came on his knees, casting the rider over his head; luckily, not being much hurt, and finding his horse's knees not much worse than they were before. Reader, did you ever see a man get up after he fell over the neck of his own stumbling horse, who did not cast his first glance at the nag's knees. He remounted, and immediately the priest began to remonstrate with him, in a sooth- ing way, for riding such a bad horse. " Why, sir," says the preacher, " perhaps I cannot help it is it not a fair excuse to say, ' my poverty and not my will consents.' " " Why, who are you, if I may make so bold to ask?" says the priest. " Sir, I am the Wes- leyan preacher of the S district." " Well, good sir, without any disparagement to your calling, let me give you a bit of advice, and that is, if you want to solicited the Protestant clergyman not to appear to acknow- ledge him as a friend, or when they met on the road, lest the greeting might be observed and reported in a quarter from whence a coadjutor might be sent and placed over him. I could mention some beautiful acts of benevolence performed by this dear good priest. By the way, I may here observe that the individual independence of the parish priests of Ireland is circum- scribed, and their natural good nature and desire to promote harmony and good will kept in check, not only by the voluntary system, of which they are the victims, but also by their bishops, who have assumed the power of removing the parish priest from one parish to another, which is not only contrary to the ancient usages of the Irish Church, but to the decrees of the Council of Trent. I know of no body of men so much at the mercy of others, and so little free agents as the parish priests of Ireland. 182 GRANDEUR IS NOT TASTE. ride a BASTE that is not given to say its prayers, which, though very proper in a Christian, is not so good or natural in a baste preach purgatory." Say- ing this, while clapping his hand to his breeches pocket, from whence jingled the sound of much silver, onward rode the man who had had his dinner at a station, leaving the man of method to ponder how much the children of this world are wiser than the children of light, to which light he, of course, be- longed. Purgatory this is what will make its preacher not only well housed but well horsed it is a most EDIFYING dogma and all Europe and Hindostan know it for the Brahmins and Budhists work wonders with it, as well as the priests of Rome. It has built Tuam cathedral a monument of the ambition, shall I say, the taste of the Connaught hierarchy. This temple assumes the florid gothic, and yet, after all, it is nothing at all like any of the fine old cathedrals I have seen in England, France, or Germany. It has a pretending, assuming, falsetto look a Brummegem imitation! ! its immensity of windows its multitude of little spires, spiking up into the air, put me in mind of a centipede or scorpion thrown on its back and claw- ing away at the sky. I don't know how it would look when five centuries had bequeathed it their ivy and their lichens, and all their time-prepared tints; but now it is any thing but chastely gothic, or soberly venera- ble. I hold it, that this edifice is, like all other ambitious imitations of foreign models, altogether uusuited to the place, the people, or the climate. It A BAD FOUNDATION. 183 is too grand for the place or people, it is too lofty for the climate, and so it is there must be a great eastern window, in imitation of what are seen in the well sheltered,* city-placed cathedrals of other lands, and this great window has been adorned with stained glass, and, doubtless, the prince prelate of Connaught was not a little proud of the (not dim) religious light that streamed from the countenances, the red and blue countenances of the saints, who stood out so gorge- ously in that window, and illuminated his canopied altar an altar, by the way, though very beautiful, totally out of character and keeping with the rest of the building. But, alas ! there was no calculating on the blustering winds that hurtled furiously up against that window from the north-east and so now it is all broken the stained glass has mighty gaps in it, and these gaps and "lacunae" are filled up with uncouth boards instead of being properly restored; and so before one part of this gorgeous building is finished, another is going to decay; and there is this fine eastern window, the elaborate glory of the whole building, showing its disgraceful and premature decay. But this is not all, one would think that fate had decreed that pride -should have a fall. It was intended that a western tower, " reaching to the skies," should overlook the land, and "like a tall bully," put Protestantism out of countenance and frown it out of the province. * Few of our ancient Irish buildings are in high places, or are lofty erections ; no doubt the old architects took account of the stormy nature of the climate. 184 A DEAD STOP. Antwerp, or Salisbury, or Strasburg were to be over- topped by it,* but alas! it has not been " founded on a rock," the foundation has given way, an awful settlement has bent out of line the courses of the masonry, crushed the magnificent western door-way, so that its strong jambs have cracked and split, and splintered, as if they had been so many laths. And there they have come to a stop, and now they dare not go up higher, they tremble lest it should all come down. The man who stood along with me while I in- spected tne building, seemed to think his own character injured, and his importance lessened, by some remark I made concerning the instability of the whole edifice, and so he was fervent and fertile in his excuses for the event, and I gave him credit for his feeling, and I myself would, indeed, be sorry that any further mis- hap should happen to it, for may I not anticipate that the time will come when the pure Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, unadulterated by human traditions, will be preached within its walls. I had not time or occasion to see the Protestant cathedral or archiepis- copal palace as I passed by; the former looked quite venerable, but neither large nor imposing in outward * As an instance of the ambition of the Irish priests in the erection of their places of worship, I may mention, that not long ago, while on a visit at Cambridge, there was an Irish architect then occupied in taking plans, elevations, &c. of the king's chapel, certainly the finest specimen of gothic architecture in England, or perhaps in the world. His declared purpose was to build a similar church in Dundalk ; either his eye was bigger than his purse, or his faith was strong in purgatory and Irish pride; such a building would now cost half a million. A COUNTRY TOWN. 185 appearance; a fine old gothic door-way caught my sight; if all were like that, it would be well. The archbishop, I suppose I must say PROTESTANT, to distinguish him from his eminence of Rome, was absent on his episcopal duties, for though advanced in life, there is no prelate who is more faithful, more intelligent, in the discharge of his high functions; so I bid adieu to Tuam without any desire ever to behold it again, for neither it nor its environs are attractive indeed, I may ask, what Irish country town is agree- able? for a day's sojourn, not to speak of a life's resi- dence. Here is a town, once a borough, and in all like- lihood to be a borough again; an archiepiscopal see, the residence of two most reverend lords, with a population of fifteen thousand, and yet there is no public walk, no library, either circulating or stationary but* (and I use the words of Button, the author of the Statistical Survey of Galway) " there is a billiard-room, and over it a reading-room, (that is, I suppose, a room where there may be one or two Dublin papers, one or two provincial, an almanack, and a racing calendar,) which is a great relief to many shopkeepers, as it takes away from them that great nuisance in country towns, idle loungers, who fill their shops, and frighten away many timid country people, especially women." Valuable use this for a library. The country, as you leave Tuam on the way to Headford, is exceedingly ugly on your left you see * I may here remark, that in the whole line of road from Dublin to Westport, inclusive, 134 miles, there is not one book- seller's shop. 186 A GOOSE OR a low flat, with a desolate lake, whose waters flow towards Galway. I scarcely could bring myself to believe that a lake could be an ugly thing until I saw some of those in Galway and Mayo, surrounded by the dreary rockiness of the uncovered limestone wastes, or by the brown desolation of the bog; and a turlough is still worse, that is, a depressed basin of the limestone district which in winter is covered with water, but which, as there is no outlet, becomes dry in summer by evaporation, or by a swallow (as it is called) in the centre, leaving a whitish clayey soil, covered with a coarse weedy herbage on which depas- ture a flock of ragged mangy sheep, or of plucked un- comfortable geese I don't know which would be the greater purgatory to me, to drawl out life in a town like Tuam, or sigh it away by the side of a turlough in its vicinity I believe I would prefer the latter. Give me the " bipes plume," the goose of the tur- lough, rather than the " bipes implume" the gal- lant of the billiard-room and race-course. Indeed I cannot but consider that much of the po- verty, the indolence, the ignorance, and the moral degradation of the lower classes is owing to these gallants of the hunt, the race-course, and the billiard-table. This province has been from earliest time full of such idlers. Their (I may say) only occu- pation, stock farming, is calculated to generate habits of idleness and dissipation. Their absurd family pride debars from the pursuits of commerce. The heretofore neglect of education produced a laxity of A GALLANT. 187 morals ; and it cannot be supposed that when the pea- santry saw their betters hunting, carousing, duelling, and given to female seduction, they would not imitate their betters, and that more especially when the gentry of this province were in many instances professors of their own form of religion. I hope and believe that what I have just said refers rather to past time, and to a former generation; but what I hold) is, that what the lower classes have learned from the higher, they will for a long time retain, and that there may now be reflected from those below, the hideous images that once shone forth, but may now in a great measure be obli- terated, in the practices of those above them. Charles O'Connor, a Roman Catholic historian, observes, that two centuries ago "Connaught was infested with an idle, loose-living gentry," similar to those I have above alluded to. "It (says he) then abounded with idle swordsmen, more numerous and dangerous than any in Ireland seven thousand idle fellows were therein, fit for nothing but arms, who lived upon their friends." Mr. Laing, in his recent very able account of Sweden, accounts for the low state of morals in that kingdom, as owing to similar causes, " Trade and the learned professions are held beneath the dignity of the Swedish noblemen they are generally sunk in debt and poverty. Military sen-ice and places about Court are the only means of living their pride and poverty can allow them to bring up their sons for; they dance well, dress well, and have the appearance of gentlemen, in an eminent degree; but they are 188 CASTLE RACKET. often ignorant and unprincipled much of the immo- rality of Sweden proceeds directly or indirectly from the want of education and conduct in this class." (Laing's Sweden, p. 243.) I beg leave to refer the reader to the Appendix for what a writer fifty years ago said respecting the Connaught and Munster gentry. The country improves as you approach Castle Racket. You observe here a very bold and picturesque hill to the left of the road, and a handsome house and demesne of Mr. Kirwan's to the right there is a fine ancient cairn on the hill, and also some castellated buildings and crennellated walls. I never in Ireland saw a castle on such a lofty eminence, so I asked a man breaking stones on the road what it was he said it was Mrs. Kirwan's FOLLY and a folly it is she ought to have been contented with the cairn, which was, as I may say, natural, and in keeping with the elevation. It was no place at all, madam, for castle building. There are fine pastures and noble fields around this gentleman's house; and, as I was given to understand, there is no hill in Connaught where there are more interesting botanical specimens. My friend Mr. Mackay, of Trinity College botanical gardens, has found some rare and beautiful plants on its summit. But this hill, which all the world knows is called Knock Ma, is not only famous for its plants, but for what is of more good and evil, at least to Connaught- men it is the favourite resort of fairies the very FYNN YARROW. 189 place which the king of all the western "good people" delights to honour with his presence. Here king Fynn Yarrow keeps his court, here he holds his mushroom dance, here he comes, when after his triumphs over other " Faery" potentates he wishes to solace himself. Nothing at all was equal to the fun kept up round the cairn on Knock Ma the year he overcame Sheguy Rau Cruach, or (as it is in English) the Spirit of Wind, dwelling at Rath Croghan, (county of Roscommon,) in a sea battle fought in the bay of Galway. The fishermen of Claddagh can bear wit- ness to the gleaming of the battle array as it sparkled under the lee of the isles of Arran before the conflict took place, and of the turbulent rush, as it were of two seas, when the battle came on. The end of all this was, of course, the victory of the western king; and this was not without its blessing, for such a take of herrings was never before or since known on the coast the people actually gave up collecting sea weed. The fish were taken in such abundance that the fields were manured with them. Blessings, then, are following king FynnVarrow. Whenever his exploits are crowned with success over the other potentates of "Faery Land," the harvests are abundant in Con- naught. But this is not all it is not only good for all West Connaught to have a conquering Fynn Yarrow for its patron and sure it is that the poor Atlantic land wants all his assistance but it is a blessing to live near Knock Ma, and so the Kirwans have found it. All the world knows that this family, for genera- 190 A CHEAP CELLAR. tions, have been great and successful horse-racers. The Curragh of Kildare rejoices in the name of Kir- wan, and every jockey and every gambler considers that luck is on his side when he identifies himself with a Kirwan STAKE. Who leads on to all this glory? who has thus fortunated the Kirwan family? It is Fyim Yarrow, the king of the fairies nay, what is more, and there is not a gentleman in Connaught who hasnotexperienced the rich results Fynn Varrow fills the cellars of Castle Hacket has the port a raciness? the Madeira a smack? the claret a bouquet? Fynn Varrow is said to have been the providore and butler of all this.* I wish it had been my good fortune to have had Knock Ma upon my estate. Now it may be that there are many who have doubts of all this it is very extraordinary that such should exist, when not a person about Castle Hacket hesitates for a moment to assert it. I myself cannot say that I know any thing about the matter, for it so happened that when I journeyed by that place, I could not get any one to converse with me, and the driver of my jaunting-car was not a Connaughtman; but a friend of mine was lately passing by, and his driver was all- out-Galway, and he told the above stories with all * I hope the respectable owner of Castle Hacket will excuse (if ever this trivial work comes under his notice) the liberty I take with his name and household. What is said is but a re- port of the fanciful gossip of the lower classes, who, I believe, (as in this instance,) never consider a family or indivdual, favoured by the fairies, that is not at the same time, and that deservedly, a favourite amongst themselves. A FRIEND TO SERVANTS. 191 the assurance of faith no, there was not a word of lie in it. "And sir," says he, "I know it all to be thrue, for my own fe\\ow-sarvenf, who was groom at Castle Racket, tould me this." " He was one night out at a dance, and making haste to get home before the doors were shut, he took a short cut through a grove, when in the midst of the wood he saw a grey mare, one of the breeding dams, no doubt, that produced all the fine colts and fillies that won so many plates on the Curragh. So the mare kept whisking her tail, mighty kind, as much as to tell Tim that she knew him to be one who could groom a baste well. So with that Tim caught a hold of her tail, and on the crathur brought him without harm or hap until she left him at his master's back-door just as the house was going to be closed for the night. But this is not all the " good people" have an especial oversight of all in the big house. Kitty, the chambermaid, went out to spend, and why shouldn't she, a jolly evening with her fe\\ovf-sarvents at a PUBLIC in the neighbourhood." What a stupid, sorrowful, sighing-place would a big house be to all belonging to the servants' hall, were there, not asHEEBEEN at hand. "Well, after a right jolly night there, all came home except Kitty, and no tale or tidings were of her, though up and down she was sought for three long days; but at the end of that time, in her own bed she was found, and all the account she could give of herself was, that she was brought home and left there by Fynn Yarrow, king of the fairies." My friend, while ascending the hill where the 192 A LEG MISSING. road cuts through the fir-grove to the west of Castle Hacket, was told by his driver all these FACTS, and lest there should be any doubt in the mind of his hearer, he referred him to Tim the groom, and Kitty the chambermaid themselves, who would make him sinsible of the truth. Nay more, he referred him to Mick Lynott, the blacksmith of Claremorris, for the following fact. One day Fynn Varrow was going to do battle with his old antagonist, Sheguy of Knock Croghan, and it was revealed to Fynn that he would have no success unless he got his horse shod by a mortal smith; so off he goes to Mick, for where would he find a better than the man who used to plate the Marquis of Sligo's cattle, before they went to the Curragh ? and he knocks in the grey of a drizzling morning at Mick's forge, and he calls him up out of bed to come in no time and shoe a gentleman's horse who was in great haste entirely. So up Mick gets, and setting his little boy to blow the coals, he fell to handle his job. Accordingly he shod this leg, and Ma^leg, and then another; but when he sought for the fourth, not a joint of it was to be found, high or low " Och pillaloo," cries Mick, "here's a baste with but three legs." "Be asy, honest man, (says Fynn Varrow,) and don't make a noise about a trifle it's all my fault, and see what it is to set out in a hurry so with that he pulls out the fourth leg from his pocket, which was no sooner fastened on and shod, than off Fynn rode to fight and conquer and you may be HEADFORD. 193 sure that when he returned home, he called at Mick Lynott's and paid him well for his job, and it is with no small pride that the merriest and queerest smith in all Connaught tells how he shod a fairy horse. Approaching Headford from the rising ground we caught some fine views of Lough Corrib ; and under- neath us was the large demesne of Mr. St. George, which contains seven hundred Irish acres, and is well planted, well kept, and altogether bespeaks the resi- dential care of an intelligent and improving landlord. Stopping at this rather pretty village to breakfast, I took occasion to see Mr. St. George's house and pleasure-grounds, and nothing could be better kept than the whole. The house is built in the fashion of a mansion of the Elizabethan days, where some of the defences of a castle are still maintained, with- out the discomforts of a fortress. Accordingly here, though in looking from the house you see no obstruc- tion, and all the well-ordered pleasure-grounds lie expanded before you, yet you are in fact surrounded by a fosse, and no entrance can be had, except through an old ivied castle, which forms a sort of barbican or outwork, in excellent keeping with all around. I merely entered the hall, for I detest the process of seeing great houses. My object was to look on the portrait of Colonel Mansergh St. George, who about forty years ago was murdered by the Defenders in the county of Cork. I remember the cruel slaughter of this brave and eccentric man. I remember also to have seen him, a fine soldier-like gentleman of the old o 194 ROSS REILLY ABBEY. school. The picture is good the mournful attitude of the man tells as it were its own sad story; and I don't wonder that he who inherits, along with Colonel St. George's virtues, his unshaken loyalty and Protes- tantism, should wish to have a fosse and ramparts round his dwelling. The person who showed me the house and grounds was the gardener, an intelli- gent and well-informed Scotchman one who not only knew his own business, but seemed to have read and thought much on other subjects he evinced that a man, to be a good and successful horticulturist, must possess much general information. On leaving Headford, on my way to Cong, I saw about a mile to the north-west, and on the banks of the river that divides Galway from Mayo, a ruin of very considerable magnitude, which I was informed was the Abbey of Ross Reilly. These ruins appeared of such extent, and had such an imposing appearance, that I determined to visit them; so leaving the jaunt- ing-car on the road-side, we proceeded in their direc- tion, and indeed the approach was by no means easy, for they are nearly surrounded by the river, which makes its slow sluggish bends through bog, morass, and meadows we therefore endeavoured to keep along the high ground, and had to scramble over sundry dry walls enclosing potato fields, where the process of either burning or planting was going on; but at length, with no small exercise of our active powers, we arrived at the ruin. It fully comes up to the description given of it in an old Monasticon TOMB RESTORERS. 195 which Button quotes that " this place is very lone- some, encompassed on all sides with water, and is only one way accessible, and was not many years since preserved entire by the interest of the Earls of Clanricarde." It certainly is the most entire of any of the Irish abbeys the walls are all standing, not a breach in any one of them. One chapel even has its flagged roof still remaining. The whole covers, I am sure, an acre and a half of ground and every accom- modation that any monastery ever had seems here to be provided. It is a great bury ing-place, but luckily for it the choir, nave, and transepts, comprising the different side chapels, are, I suppose, only considered as holy ground, and are therefore only used for sepul- ture, and consequently they are the only places that are dilapidated and purposely dismantled their or- naments, as usual, all torn away. There were two sets of masons and stone-cutters repairing tombs and con- structing vaults. We found a marble tablet, contain- ing a large, and to all appearance a poetical inscrip- tion, for the lines had jagged ends, and this was my only means of guessing, for the marble was turned upside down by these tasteful artisans, who, rejoicing in their handiwork, seemed to take with perfect non- chalancq the hint we suggested, that by their means the virtues of some worthy Blake, Bodkin, or Ffrench were to remain " to dumb forgetfulness a prey." They most Christianly felt resigned to the wrong they had inflicted, the thing was done, and there was no help for it. The whole of this cemetery forms one 196 BOXE HEAPS. immense rabbit burrow.* I think I have seldom seen a warren that exhibited so many holes. In this un- couth habitation for conies, bones, skulls, and coffins lay all around, that the creatures had tossed about, and by their thus rooting up, they seem desirous to antici- pate the usual short time allowed for bodies to lie en- tombed; and, therefore, besides the common quantity of these remains tossing all about, there was an im- mense heap lying outside the church, and as these bones seemed to have accumulated for ages, and as the * It is not at all uncommon to find rabbits burrowing in the ruined Abbeys of Ireland, and the loose soil of the nave, choir, and transepts, hollow as it is with graves and vaults, forms a secure place for breeding and retreat. A dignified clergyman lately related to me a circumstance of rather striking nature, that he witnessed in a Munster Abbey. He had entered unattended on a fine summer's eve the precincts of the venerable pile, and the declining sun, casting its long beams through the windows, arches, and apertures, was effecting all those beautiful contrasts of light and shade that harmonised so well with all that was around. Nothing was within the enclosure to interrupt the quiet and lounging scrutiny he was making amidst the tombs, save the caw of the daw from the belfry, or the hum of the beetle urging its drowsy flight through the ivied windows when on a sudden, a few yards off, he heard an agonising squeel, as of a being in great pain, and then looking in the direction of the choir, he saw a weasel mounted on the neck of a large rabbit that was thus giving its death-note as the fierce animal was sucking out its life's blood: when, all of a sudden, and to his utter astonishment, he saw from under the tomb, adjoining to which the struggle was going on, a bare human arm protruded, which with strong grasp seized the rabbit, and dragged it into the vault. What could this be a ghost? pshaw ! a miraculous interposition ? what, for a rabbit ! take courage, oh my soul, and let us see and it was soon explained ; a mason who was repairing the interior of the vault, seeing the success of the hunting weasel, took a dirty advantage of the stout little vermin, and had the lion's share. A SURPRISE. 197 place from the vicinity of the river was very damp, this immense " ossarium," if I may so name it, was covered with all sorts of verdure, mosses, lichens, sedums, saxi- frages, and wild strawberries just showing their fruit between jaw-boiies. It was curious to see skulls like wrens' nests and thigh bones as green as cabbage- stalks; the dry bones had, as it were, assumed a new mode of existence, and again served as the basis of a new life. It really was a scene on which a person might ponder and phrenologise; and I confess no collection of human bones I ever saw interested me more no not even that far-famed congeries which at Cologne assumes to be the remains of St. Ursula's eleven thousand virgins. The cloisters of Ross are quite perfect as perfect as those at Muckruss or Quin; but they have not the picturesque accompaniment, like those at Killarney, of a magnificent yew-tree in the centre. The dormito- ries, the chapter-house, the cellars and kitchens, are all (as far as walls go) perfect. There the friars, living in a damp and low situation, had need of fires, and they took care to have them. I never saw such huge fire-places. The kitchen hearth would not dis- grace the largest at Oxford or Cambridge. In one of the corners of a huge apartment, which seemed to be a scullery, there is a circular excavation, cased with cut stone, too large for a well in all likelihood a place for holding live fish, which taken out of the adjoining river, no doubt were kept here for ready use. Altogether, this abbey seemed to have formed a 198 A ROBBERY. little town in itself, having no entrance but the one, and its walls high and thick; it was a sort of strong- hold, and, no doubt, in the lawless times before the reformation, afforded an asylum for the weak and persecuted, as well as a sanctuary for the criminal. If any one wishes to see an Irish monastery in perfection, with all its " menage" they will, before passing on to Cong, and before visiting the, western highlands of Ireland, take a view of Ross Reilly, which was founded by Lord Granard, in the fifteenth century, and was placed under the rule of the Franciscans. It, like many others, was repaired by the Roman Catholic clergy in 1604. On leaving this abbey, I could not resist the desire I had to bring away one of these moss-bewigged skulls, in order to show it to some phrenological friends in Dublin; and as we had no means of secreting it, and justly apprehended that if we returned the way we came through the field where the people were working, we might be ill treated, (as perhaps we de- served,) as robbers of the dead, we had to keep along the margin of the river, and not only disentan- gle ourselves from its windings, but leap over, as best we could, the numerous and wide drains that lay in our way, with no small fear of being caught, and well beaten. We, however, effected our retreat to our jaunting-car, and secreted our skull, which may be seen in all its verdant beauty in the library of the Roval Irish Academv. 199 CHAPTER IX. CONG. Entrance into the County of Mayo River Blackwater Bridge of Shruel Memorable massacre there Humane Abbott of Ross Reilly Cha- racter of County Mayo Appearance of Connemara mountains Ap- proach to Cong Description of that singular place Lough Corrib and Lough Mask Cavernous state of limestone formation Village- Want of accommodation Visit to the Pigeon-hole Guides Babby B:irUe Dis- charge of her functions Cong Abbey Story Digression on Irish Abbeys hi general Difference between monastic remains previous and subsequent to English conquest Tomb of Roderick O'Conncr Tomb of M'Namara the Robber His history and that of his mare Moreen Visit to Robber's hole Story Mishap of Connemara man Abbots of Cong Helics Stories of these valuables Departure from Cong Meet an Ulster man Help him to escape from Counaught hostility. CROSSING a bridge over the river, which, encircling the walls of Ross Reilly, and dividing the counties of Gal- way and Mayo, is called, like many others in Ireland, the Blackwater; it falls, after passing for some distance under ground, into Lough Corrib. About four miles to the north-east is the bridge and castle of Shruel where was perpetrated one of the most cold-blooded massacres that disgraced the bloody and disastrous period of 1641. Sir Henry Bingham, with a great number of respectable Protestant gentry, and fifteen clergymen, (amongst whom was the bishop of Kil- lala,) being obliged to surrender his stronghold of Castlebar, for want of provisions capitulated with Lord Mayo, on the condition, that he and the whole garrison should be safely conveyed to Galway. I tell this story, in order to exhibit not only the cruelty, but the wanton treachery of the transaction for the besieged had not only the assurance of Lord Mayo, 200 MASSACRE OF SHRUEL. the great leader of the Mayo Burkes but they had the promise of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Tuam, who assured them of a safe delivery at the fort of Galway; and this was not all Lord Mayo, the night the convoy arrived at Shruel, made the bishop of Killala sleep with him, in his own bed. This was Saturday on Sunday Lord Mayo deli- vered up the convoy to a relative of his own, Edmond Burke, a notorious rebel, and bitter papist the man who not long before, having taken the bishop of Killala prisoner, wanted to fasten him to the sow (a battering engine) with which he was attempting to beat down the walls of Castlebar, in order that the besieged, in firing, might shoot their own prelate. To this ferocious man Lord Mayo consigned the Protestants; and A Those whose desire is to establish the sway of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy in Ireland may skip this chapter, unless disposed to read what they won't Hke.J WHILE thus conversing, our length of road was beguiled, and just as the sun sunk behind the western range of Slievemore, but while all the hill tops were bright with its departing light, we entered the village of Dugurth . Just such 'a village as I have above described, but certainly containing some houses that had gable-ends; but for the most part of the construction I have alluded to, a dirty, dreary, un- couth place; and then, turning a corner of the road, and ascending an eminence, "the Protestant settle- ment" came into view, and truly it was a contrast to the congeries of wigwams called Dugurth; it con- sists of a long range of slated buildings fronting the south-east, and with its rere to Slievemore, A DOCTOR TURNED JUMPER. 357 that rises in great loftiness to the north-west, ornamented by a sort of pedemented building in the centre, having a handsome broad esplanade in front, on the other side of which extend some well -culti- vated, well-ordered gardens. All this formed a tout ensemble, peculiarly striking and satisfactory, as con- nected with extraordinary contrasts that presented themselves on every side. Having the pleasure of an acquaintance with both Mr. Nangle and Mr. Baylee, the superintending clergymen of the settlement, I 'soon found myself at home, was most hospitably entertained and lodged, and had for the rest of the evening a pleasing and truly instructive conversation with these gentlemen and their admirable consorts. The next morning I also had the pleasure of meeting another friend, Dr. Adams, a physician who left his practice in Dublin, where, besides his professional income, he was in the possession of a good private fortune. Yet this man, having come down out of curiosity to see the settle- ment, was so taken with the great field of usefulness lying here before him, that he gave up his practice and comfortable house in Stephen's-green, built him- self a dwelling here, laid out a pretty garden, now producing abundance of .vegetables and some fruit, the first fruit, except a bilbery, that ever ripened in the island; and what is better than all this, he has a well-furnished dispensary, where he spends two days of the week, from morning until evening, and where 358 WHAT THE POPE SHOULD DO. he instructs a young native in the compounding of medicine. Now, though some may be inclined to douht whe- ther Dr. Adams's doses are better for the stomach than, the old woman's bullet; yet all must allow that, though a bullet may cause it cannot cure broken arms, legs, or heads. It does not let blood so neatly as a lancet: and, after all, even Dr. M'Hale, and his men of might, Fathers Hughes and Dwyer, cannot but allow that Dr. Adams's dispensary is better than the old woman and her ball. So the people think at any rate, and they do come to be cured and will come, though the priests say it is better for them to die and go to heaven, than come to be cured by a devil's child and go to hell hereafter. Alas such is the love of life, that they run even that chance. Dr. Adams, besides his medical efficiency, has made himself extremely useful in the conducting of the infant school. The dispensary is his business, the infant school his recreation. What a fanatic this man is: may be so; but of all the forms and phases of fanaticism I ever met or heard of, this is the least objectionable. The pope himself, however he may wish him out of Achill, would admire him. I am sure the venerable old Italian priest would praise him. Yes he would; and only think of the sovereign pontiff beatifying the doctor, and making him a second St. Luke, as far as a pope could do so. I rose early in the morning and visited the whole range of buildings of which the settlement is com- A TREASURE FOUND. 359 posed. The first of the line to the north is Dr. Adams's house; next the infant school; then the boys' daily and Sunday school, which has a commu- nion table, and reading-desk and pulpit, and answers for the present, as the chapel; then come the two central houses, forming the residence of the chaplains; next the female school; then the printing office; then the house of the steward; and next the houses of the schoolmasters and Scripture-readers. Pleased, as indeed I was, with all this, I took advantage of the time which was to elapse before morning prayers, to go down to the sea-shore, which lies about a quarter of a mile to the left; there to see the cliffs, and inspect the fine bed of limestone that has been lately disco- vered, and which promises to be of such advantage to the vicinity. "Why, if the Protestant settlement had done no other good to Achill, the finding of this TREASURE would have proved a blessing. The whole island is one great primitive formation, and gneiss is the prevailing rock. The Rev. J. D. Sirr, who, be- sides being a truly pious Christian pastor, and an able writer on religious subjects, is a good geologist, walking along the shore for his recreation, while spending some time at the settlement, detected this immense mass of limestone. As it belongs to the pri- mitive formation, it, of course, contains a great deal of silex, and like that of the similarly circumstanced districts of Connemara and Donegal, is white, flesh, and dove coloured; and it was a pleasant lounging hour I spent amidst these sea-cliffs, admiring, not 360 MORNING SERVICE. only the curious sea vegetations* and animals, but also the curious inroads that the pholadae and other marine animals of that class were making in the limestone, while the gneiss and granite remained untouched. Taking care to return to the settlement in proper time, I of course joined those who \vere from all sides approaching the house of prayer. All persons belong- ing to the settlement, before breakfast and supper attend public worship at a stated hour; about forty persons were present on this occasion. The service was as follows : first a hymn, set to some simple but sweet popular tune; the air chosen for the day was " Old Lang Syne," and all joined, and it was sweet and interesting; and then was a chapter read in Irish, and briefly commented on by the mi- nister in English; and then there were some of the beautiful collects of our Church Service read, and we were dismissed. After breakfast I went forth to see the gardens and the farm; there were good and thriving vegetables in the gardens, and some few trees of the poplar sort that were venturing on a little growth; about thirty acres are reclaimed, and there were promising crops of artificial grass-oats, and potatoes. The houses of the settlers were scattered up and down through the improved land, and on con- * It was stated to me that the people had no estimation for this limestone because it was discovered by Protestants. They made no use of it. This won't last long. The schoolmaster and printer have got to Achill. FARM ECONOMY. 361 versing with the steward I found him an intelligent and business-like person. The shortness of my stay precluded me from making any inquiry as to the economics of the farm. In the present up-hill state of the work, embarrassed as the conductors are with all manner of difficulties and opposition, I think it would not be fair to object, even _suppose the expenses far exceeded the profits my conviction was, that all concerned in the oversight of the whole settlement were honestly and vigorously doing their duty. But here I may observe, that I think the settle- ment has not been happily located. The take con- sists of one hundred and thirty-three Irish acres, the greater part of which extends up Slieve More, one of the loftiest mountains in Connaught, the rest of it is situated in a valley, or rather gully, that crosses the island from north-east to south-west, and it is in a direct line with the gully that the buildings of the settlement range; the consequence is, that the winds, the terrible winds of this climate, rush through this valley and sweep all before them.* The settlement, therefore, though it may look very well on a fine summer's morning or evening, must be a fearful place for a winter's residence; but indepen- dent of its unhappy position, there is not enough of reclaimable land to support the people, and were it * The 6nesf field of oats (says Mr. Nangle in the seventh page of his third Report,) ever seen in Achill, growing on six acres of our reclaimed land, was almost totally destroyed by the rain and storms; our potato crop also failed. 362 A REACH OF PRIESTCRAFT. not that Mr. Nangle has been fortunate enough to obtain from Sir Richard O'Donnell a lease of a fine improvable island, called Innisbeagle, * I really do be- lieve that the priests would have been successful in their attempt to starve them out of Achill. But getting possession of this isle, containing three hun- dred acres of comparatively level ground, all improv- able, and having along its shores an inexhaustible supply of sea-weed, the colony may now bid defi- ance to the priests, and may grow even more than is required for their own subsistence. I had for my dinner, both days I staid on the island, as good beef, stall-fed, from the produce of the farm, as could be desired. I am sure wheat can be grown on Innis- beagle, and as a mill is being built to grind it, I ex- pect that in a very few years this colony will show a smiling and thriving, as well as a religious aspect. And here I must speak somewhat at large of the * Amongst the many companies got up in London, one has been set on foot for cultivating the waste lands of Ireland. Now the moment it was known that such a company was in being, the Mayo priests determined to make it a cat's-paw, and aware how essential it was to the overthrow of the Achill settlement that the island of Innis- beagle should be snatched out of Mr. Nangle's grasp, it was made evident, such is the power of Jesuits!!! that no part of the west of Ireland was so advantageous for the new company's operations as this little Innisbeagle out of a million of acres, this island of three hundred acres was the only spot fit for a commencement of operations. It could not possibly be done without. Accordingly application was made to the land- lord, Sir R. O'Donnell, and a handsome offer proffered ; to his credit, it is to be said, that as he had promised it to Mr. Nangle, nothing would tempt him to recede from his agreement. OPPOSITION. 363 opposition which this settlement of Mr. Nangle's has met with from the Roman Catholic clergy of the dio- cese of Tuam. It must be allowed that it was not in human nature for them to see a Protestant, a deci- dedly Protestant and polemic settlement made in a place where never Protestant had slept one night be- fore, (except some of the coast-guard, who though quartered were not settled, and who, when they de- parted, left nothing behind.) A fair, honest, open, uncompromising hostility, Mr. Nangle had a right to expect, and was prepared for; an opposition similar to what we might suppose would have been made to a convent of monks or friars, if they had chosen to settle in the exclusively Protestant Isle of Man or Anglesey. But here the priests have actually gone beside themselves with rage and vexation. Mr. Nangle set up his schools he provided good masters, and a system of instruction commenced such as never was seen in Achill before for the priest, and indeed the parson who drew tithe from the island, never troubled their heads about the teaching of the people; no matter how the flock fed, so that they could be fleeced. But now the raging priests came in and cursed the parents if they did not take away the chil- dren from the heretic schools. " Give us something then in their place (said the people) and we will do your bidding." The National Board here was ready to help the priests in their necessity, and funds were supplied houses procured or built masters, such as they were, provided, and Romish education began; 364 FAIR AND UNFAIR. and the people of Achill have to thank Mr. Nangle for this. Well, as yet the priests had done nothing very outrageous; they acted like conscientious men in doing their best to keep the children away from the danger of imbibing false doctrine; a Protestant cler- gyman should and would use his influence in the same manner if he saw his young parishioners induced to go to a convent school. But the priests did not stop here, and their commands were, " have nothing to do with these heretics curse them, hoot at them, spit in their faces cut the sign of the cross in the air when you meet them, as you would do against devils throw stones at them pitch them, when you have opportunity, into the bog holes nay more than that, do injury to yourselves in order to injure them don't work for them, though they pay in ready money every Saturday night don't sell them any thing, though they provide you with a market ready money and a good market at your own doors nay, don't take any medicine from their heretic doctor, rather die first." This was exacting great sacrifices, and that to please men who seemed never to care for them, until this terri- ble Nangle and his jumpers came into the island. Have these anathemas, these directions to do bodily injury, these self-denying ordinances, succeeded? Not quite: the children of Roman Catholics come yet to the schools : the colonists can still get potatoes, oats, and Keem mutton to buy. The people are beginning to look foolish on finding that Roman Catholics from West- port can be hired in the spring and autumn to do the WILL THE TUAM PENAL LAWS SUCCEED ? 365 extra labour of the settlement, and they think, and that justly, that it is carrying self-denial too far to let others, and they of the Church of Rome, carry away the hard cash that they are not allowed to pocket. It is not in human nature for such opposition to succeed. The Romish arch-prelate may come into the island, as he did lately, with mitre on head, and vestmented in all pontifical splendour, and he may set up a cursing stone, and call all true to Rome to come and there covenant to have no dealings with the hateful heretics but the thing won't do some will even on selfish grounds break through the ^absurd TABOO that the priests have drawn, and others will begin to think daily better and better of the Protestants who have provided them, however indirectly, with schools, and a more active and circumspect priesthood; have given them a sight of a bishop and introduced cultivation, order, sobriety, and decency, into the island. But what an audacious set these Romish priests are I declare I have no patience with them here are they assuming in Dublin, and all over England and Scotland, such a bland, and soothing, and liberal aspect, and they come and even ask our Protestant bishops to give them money to build their chapels; yes, and conservative lords and squires are found giving sums, and those large ones, to build chapels. A Protestant landed proprietor has given a large territory to the monks of La Trappe. Moreover, if a man refuses to aid them in building schools, chapels, and con- vents, he is pointed at as a bigot may be he is ? 366 THE BENEFIT OF A PERSECUTION. well, but look at the proceedings of these most exact- ing and expecting, and very bland priests in the west. Here comes a Protestant clergyman, altogether un- connected with church property of any sort, not drawing one penny from the " blood-stained tithes," but depending on the voluntary system, as much, and infinitely more than the priests themselves; and he takes from a Protestant landed proprietor a piece of ground in a totally neglected island, and there he opens schools, into which he don't drive, he merely invites children, he sets about an improved system of culture, encourages industry, discourages drunken- ness and disorderly conduct, as far as possible requires that all within his influence should abstain from violence, injustice, or breaches of the peace, and lo! because he has the impertinence to molest the priest's owlish, silent, solitary reign, they are to be cursed, hooted, stoned, pitchforked, and thrown into bog-holes, and a man calling himself a priest of Jesus is found, and that openly, saying, that he has encouraged his followers to do these things. I really consider these such unwise proceedings on the part of the Romish clergy, that I might suspect, if I did not know the singleness of purpose of Mr. Nangle, and those associated with him, that the Most Rev. Father, Dr. M'Hale, was bribed by him, to resort to such ab- surd opposition, to serve the cause of the settlement, and at the same time bring their own intolerant system nto disgrace with all sober men. At all events the arch-prelate has given Mr. Nangle the benefit (and it is a great one) of a persecution. LION IN THE WEST LAMB IN THE EAST. 367 And now, gentle reader, I will give you a bit of advice, which you may follow or not just as it pleases you when next a pair of bland, glozing, supplicating faces, stand at your door, asking you for some aid to build their chapel, school, hospital, or convent, just put a report of the Achill mission into their hands, and ask them how their church can carry thus two faces under one hood; the face of a ramping roaring lion, in the west, and elsewhere that of a pretty playful lamb, wagging its tail, while it is sucking .you and fattening on you?* I am glad I have done with the subject. It would have given me pleasure to record liberal rather than illiberal acts; it would have pleased me more to have to say that Popery, where it can, is not that cursing, banning, biting, inquisitorial thing that it was in the dark ages; but when I see the logic of the cudgel, the stone, and the bog-hole resorted to at present, I can- not, even if my book never sold, forbear expressing my indignation. * I would willingly, if I could, confine my accusation of intolerance respecting the Achill settlement to Dr. M'Haleand his subordinate clergy, but I cannot do so, when I find not one single Roman Catholic voice raised through the empire against the penal proceedings of the Achill priests. Suppose, for an instant, that a Romish settlement were commenced in the Isle of Anglesea, and that the bishop of Bangor and the clergy of his diocese isued forth such commands and curses as have been promulgated against the Achill Protestants. What a commo- tion would not this raise how the Protestant press of the em- pire would sound, and that jutly, the tocsin of reprobation. 368 CHAPTER XVII. TOUR TO SLIEVE CROGHAN. Excursion through the island My companions Their characters Anti- quities of Achill Come upon an assemblage of Celtic monuments De- scription Universality of them Proceed westward Watch-tower View therefrom A wild moor Group thereon Islanders' costume Mistake and wrath of an archbishop Yellow is not orange Legend of the Billies Rock The metempsychosis of a whig who had not the nerve to be a radical How dare he stop It is not safe sometimes to prophesy Ascent of Slieve Croghan The greatest precipice in Ireland The mountain cloud The clift's The ocean Sublime view Eagle Inniskea Its Te- raphim Its deathless bird Innisgloria A place much to be desired for sepulture Where the dead grow as if they were n live and stout Return to the dust Top of the mountain Indication of a great disruption- Traditions of Atlantis Ireland its eastern cape Proofs Our gigantic ex- tinct deer Belonging to a continent and not to an island Great changes of level I CAME not to Achill for the sole purpose of seeing this settlement, planted as it is purely on the volun- tary system, asking tithe from no man, and propos- ing to put money into, instead of taking it out of the pockets of the natives. If there never was a Mr. Nangle or his colony, I would visit this curious and hitherto unnoticed district. So, as I had a day freely at command, and had inspected all the economy of the settlement, I determined to make an excursion to the western end of the island, where Slieve Croghan lifts its bold perpendicular front, and breasts, as the great bastion of Europe, the Atlantic ocean. I felt obliged to my much esteemed friend, the Rev. Mr. Baylee for undertaking to go with me, and to bring two or three companions, who would not only add to MY COMPANIONS. 369 my information and amusement during our long ex- cursion, but also give such a strong appearance to our party that there was no danger of bodily injury; for though on our onward journey we were to pass through or near villages where no priests dwelt, and therefore would, in all likelihood, be treated with civility and respect, yet as on our return we should pass villages where the priest, schoolmasters and confraternity men reside, there we might chance to receive some salutations, harder even than hootings. We therefore were attended on our excursion by a schoolmaster employed under the mission, not ex- actly at Achill, but on the adjoining mainland; by a Scripture-reader, and a cottager of the settlement. All these men were, not four years ago, Roman Ca- tholics; all different from each other as much as men could be, and yet all, in their way, exceedingly interesting. The two former were of unquestionable talent and energy of mind; indeed, their daring to come out from Popery bespoke the latter quality; but there was moreover, an " esprit " an " abandon " in their character, which peculiarly belongs to the Irish, the excitable Irish when breaking loose from the trammels of the priests, they fly high, like wild hawks, unhooded and disregarding the old lure. The schoolmaster was once the peculiar protege of the priests; he was from the neighbourhood of Bal- linasloe, and was thought so much of, that he was sent to Innisbofin, there to keep the natives steady to their duty to the priest, and discourage and discomfit 2 B 370 ANTIQUITIES. any audacious swaddler that should venture on their shores. I wish I had time and space to describe in his own ardent language, the way in which he saw, renounced, and fled from his former bondage. The man is decidedly a man of talent; if he has a fault, and it may, when over indulged in, be a great one, it is, that he is too polemical and disposed to dote about questions. The Scripture-reader is a quieter man; he is admirably adapted to his work; he has Scrip- ture, as they say, at his fingers' ends; he has it also, I deem, at the ends of his heart and brain. I never saw a person apply it better, or more timely. The labourer seemed to be a dark, though not a dull man. It is likely he has learned enough to believe that what he formerly trusted to was wrong; but he had not yet, I think, had his eyes opened to see clearly what is right. The fact is, the man was and is yet but a semi-barbarian. I believe he was born on the island. We set out along the valley leading to the southern face of the island, and then taking a turn to the west, kept along the southern side of Slievemore, the second loftiest mountain in all this district. We had not gone far until, I may say, tired of discourse on religious polemics, I asked were there any ancient buildings, or caves, or cairns on the island. " Oh ! yes," says Mr. Baylee, "we are just in the vicinity of some;" so my attention was directed to some more than usually grassy slopes on the side of the hill, where I at once recognised a whole assemblage of anti- quities, a Druidical circle, two cromlechs, an artificial GIANT'S GRAVE. 3/1 cave, and what all over Ireland, wherever I have met one, is called, a giant's grave. The circle of pillar stones was not large. One of the cromlechs was perfect; the top stone of the other was thrown down. The cave was torn open, and its covering removed, and the grave was as much destroyed as the people could afford, without expending more labour than was convenient. What curious, what unaccountable works, espe- cially these long Kists,* composed of upright stones, about four feet high, five feet asunder, twenty or twenty-five feet long, and covered at top by massive flags; they generally are found adjoining cromlechs. There is one I lately visited, it is near that noble cromlech, a few miles north of Dundalk. I also saw one adjoining that wonderful congeries of Drui- dical circles and cromlechs near Sligo. In the Trans- actions of the Celtic Society of France, there are an account and plans of two such, one near Tours and the other in Brittany. Both are called, " Les Roches aux Fees;" they also have cromlechs near them. They are certainly the unaccounted for remains of the same great people who, it would seem, have, though powerful, scientific, and universal, left no literary records, and who, as is supposed, existed before the introduction of syllabic writing. We asked the natives of the adjoining village (who were quite civil) who it was erected these monuments ? They said they were put there by the Danes; by the * See Appendix. 372 DANES. way, the greater part of these Achillians are said to be descended from these Danes, who, I am sure, were not the sea-pirates of the ninth and tenth centuries, but that very ancient race that is known in Irish story as Tuatha Danaans,* a people so clever and in- telligent, that they were counted by their more savage conquerors as necromancers. I think I have before remarked, the strange circumstance of an intelligent and more civilized race being conquered, and if not extirpated, at least enslaved and degraded, by a more numerous, but an inferior and more ignorant people. I dare say, had I time and opportunity, I should find many more remains of remote antiquity in this island. I think I could observe a marked difference in the countenance, the eyes, the formation of the head of the Achillians. Their eyes are generally dark, their faces flat, and their heads large. I would say they are like the Welch, f Having passed along the roots of Slievemore, we arrived at where Achill narrows to about three miles in breadth, and upon a ridge of comparatively low mountain that connects Slievemore with SlieveCroghan. Where the ridge is highest, stands a square building, lofty and slender, which was erected during the * Since writing the above, I think I have reason to believe that, though there may be descendants of the Tuatha Danaans on the island, yet, that there has been a Scandinavian settle- ment in more modern times. f The distinctions are still kept up between the two races in the island. Those who suppose themselves Milesians, speak with contempt of their fellow-islanders of Danish descent. When wishing to mark an act with reprobation, they say, " None but a Dane would do that." WATCH-TOWER. 3/3 French war as a watch-tower. It is well adapted for that purpose, for the eye sweeps from it the whole north-west coast, up along the Mullet, south to Innis Bofin, and the coast of Connemara. Here an officer of the navy was quartered with a few men. What a lonely spot! what a horrible solitude! when the driving tempest sending up the spray of the Atlantic billows, and sending down the almost incessant rain from the clouds, roared in wrath, and, as it were, said, " I want to wash away these fellows;" and yet there is no account of any of these weather-beaten men committing suicide. No that is left for the sated sensualist to perpetrate, as he sits in cushioned indolence, and feels that he is tired of a world, out of which he has extracted all its joys, and left not even the dregs of hope behind. Keeping to the southward of this lonely tower, a large tract of moorland lay before us, rising with a gradual ascent until it closed upon the loftier ranges of Slieve Croghan, to which we were tending. This moor was now dry and passable, both for man and cattle, in consequence of continued dry weather. Coming towards us was a group of men and women, driving before them a small herd of cattle. The cows, some red, some black, and some white; the women with scarlet cloaks, and deep yellow handkerchiefs tied round their heads; and the men in their dark sombre frize all presented those contrasts and positions that form the charm of colouring and grouping; and moving as they did 374 A GROUP. slowly and compactly along the face of the wild moor, over whose wide surface the shadows of the light clouds coursed after each other, and presented those varieties of light and shade that make you exclaim, how lovely in all its changes is the face of nature ! Upon my remarking what a fine effect the moving group had upon the moor, one of the company said that the yellow kerchiefs I was admiring had been, not long ago, the cause of exciting, in no small degree, the wrath and almost malediction of the great Dr. M'Hale, on the occasion of his coming first to Achill, for the gracious purpose of cursing and putting down " THE SETTLEMENT." Of course the priests exerted themselves that his Grace should be hailed, on his arrival, by a multitude of people. Accordingly all were commanded to be in attendance, in their best attire, to welcome the greatest man that ever was seen. Accordingly the people, and especially the women, flocked in from all the villages of the island; and, as for centuries the Achill beauties have rejoiced in tiring their heads with deep yellow* kerchiefs; when the touchy prelate, who was no doubt in a chafed mood from the force of his excom- municating offices, saw what he conceived to be the ORANGE colour exhibited all around, he raged. Reader, did you ever see a scarlet coat or handker- * The ancient Irish were partial to yellow ; even their under- garments were of this fashionable hue ; and a yellow chemise, consisting of some '20 yards of narrow linen, was the indis- pensable integument of an Irish belle. A COLOURABLE MISTAKE. . 375 chief shaken at a turkey-cock, and then observe the strutting wrath the purple passion the blue swell- ing neck, gills, and face of the irritable creature how it at length erupts its ire in a loud and dissonant gobble, gobble ? So did the great Titular of Tuam. He burst out upon the Achill priests, and said he did not understand being thus insulted by that hateful and Protestant colour; and supposed that these base women had been taking orange handkerchiefs as their SOULS' BRIBE from that pestilent Nangle. With great difficulty (says my informant) was the noble rage assuaged of this great prince prelate, by the assurance that this was a YELLOW,* and not an orange colour; that it was in vogue amongst the Achill beauties 1000 years before Luther came to trouble the world. And now we began to ascend Slieve Croghan, whose top, I was sorry to see, had caught the clouds, and was hooded in mist, while all below was clear. But I was thankful for the day even as it was, and had no right whatever to complain; and here, before undertaking the ascent of this very lofty mountain, we sat down to take some refreshment, and it was needful. While sitting here we had a * There is no word expressive of orange in the Irish lan- guage. Accordingly, when the hated Dutchman introduced his orange symbol, the Irish were at a nonplus. And, there- fore, when a Jacobite song was composed abusing John Orange- man, they had to call him SHAUN liuiE, which signifies YELLOW Jack. If the reader desires to see a song, as bad as it is bitter, entitled Shaun Buie, he may consult Hardiman'slrish Minstrelsy. 376 A METAMORPHOSIS. fine view to the southward, including the outer part of Clew Bay, Clare Island, in the distance Innisturk and Bonn Island, and directly off shore, the Billies Rock, which rose pyramidically out of the sea, about two leagues south-west of where we sat, and against which the heaving billows were vexing and tossing themselves, as if angry at their own ineffectual efforts to overpower it. The following legend one of the party told concerning it: One of the Brownes of Westport, the grandfather or great-grandfather of the present Marquis of Sligo, was a wise man in general, and noted for that wisdom that looks after the main chance, adding house to house and acre to acre. Happy the grandson or great-grandson of such a man, even suppose that in the long run it should befall the founder of the inherited greatness, as it befell the great Browne of Westport. He, it seems, insulted a friar why or how the legend does not tell but the results were awful: the man, in the midst of his magnificence, died miserable; and, what is worse, his soul was sent to haunt yonder Billies Rock in the form of an eagle it is well the friar was so merciful as not turn him into a cormorant and there, perched on that lonely sea- pyramid, undergoing his penal metempsychosis, was the solemn osprey. The live-long day, he stood proud and melan- choly, like Lord Altamont, only in feathered instead of robed magnificence when happily came on the days the glorious and liberal days of Catholic emancipation; and perhaps one of the reasons of CONSEQUENCES OF FINALITY. 377 Lord Sligo's voting so strenuously for that great and healing measure was to disenchant his progenitor. Be this as it may, the vote was given the gratitude of the priests knew no bounds and they showed it for on the day on which the noble marquis said in his place in the house of lords, CONTENT, up flew the eagle from the Billies up, I say, soaring until he pierced the clouds, and entered the empyrean. But was he never to come back? never again to grasp, with his yellow talons, the black point of his old perch? He was he was emancipation is not a final measure. Justice for Ireland is yet to be done. The noble marquis had gone a great way but not far enough and he came to a sulky stop. His odour has, therefore, got bad again in the nostrils of those who can command heaven and Lord Mel- bourne. The too late conservatism of Sligo is visited on the great-grandfather.* And old Altamont is come back to the Bellies, there to stay until mass is said * From what I have above said, and from remarks I have ventured on respecting the Marquis of Sligo's lodge at Delphi, I would not have it for a moment supposed that his family (or indeed himself) are low in my humble estimation quite the reverse. I consider that there is not a county in Ireland that owes so much to a single family as Mayo does to the Brownes. They first introduced obedience to the laws into this district, where the gentry set the example of lawlessness, and carried their measures more by sword and pistol than by peaceful pro- cesses. Mr. Bald, the engineer, who has executed the large and admirable map of Mayo, has furnished me with the follow- ing memorandum, to whose truth I fully accede " During the period of the Right Honourable Denis Browne's being generally foreman of the grand jury of Mayo, the map of 3/8 A PROPHECY. in Westport house, and the black slugs are driven out of Ireland. Speaking on the present occasion of the fishing on this coast, what I heard from the coast-guard's officer was corroborated. The fishing has been latterly most unsuccessful. Besides the failure of the fishery in shore, that on the sun-fish banks, twenty leagues out to sea, has almost gone to nothing. The priests of Achill have made some hazardous ventures, in the way of prophecy, respecting the fish. Last year, previous to his dues being collected, and no doubt on that occasion to keep the people in good humour, his reverence prophesied an abundant take of fish. Alas! to the utter disappointment of the people, and discountenance (if any thing could put the county of Mayo was executed under his direction. The road from Castlebar to Ballina by the Puntoon the road from Castlebar to Belmullet at the great harbours of Blacksod, and Broadhaven in Erris the roads from Westport to the Kille- ries ; the road from Newport to and through the island of Achill, commencing at Mollyranbee, and terminating at near the western extremity of that island the road from Killala, along the north coast, and on to Belmullet the road from Bangor to Corraan Achill the Tulloghan road, with many other lines, were surveyed and laid out by Mr. William Bald, the civil engineer. Even the line of road passing through Barney Lough Tail was, at the recommendation of Mr. Bald, changed by Mr. Nimmo to a more eligible one, viz. from Swineford to Ballina by Foxford. There were also many small fishing piers erected on that coast by the Fishery Board, of which board Mr. Browne was one of the most active members. Mr. Browne gave powerful aid and assistance in procuring the extension of the Grand Canal from Shannon Harbour to Ballinasloe. There was an activity and an energy combined in all his actions; and since the period of his decease, no roads, nur harbours, nor general county improvements have been carried on." A SERIOUS OBSTACLE. 379 him out of face) of the priest, the year was the worst for fishing ever remembered.* Having rested ourselves, we started up to face the mountain, which is said to be 2500 feet high, there- fore loftier than Croagh Patrick. The way we ascended, though long and wearisome, was gradual; and from this easiness of ascent of what I knew to be lofty, I considered that we were to descend as easily on the other side, and so get down to the cliff, which I knew was very bold, overhanging the ocean. So thus we toiled along, my companions * The following statement was related to me, which, I be- lieve in the main, to be true, shows to what lengths the priests venture with these poor people. It was notorious that the fish did not approach the coast as formerly : a reverend gentleman accordingly went through the villages, assuring the people, that God had, in anger for their allowing Nangle and his jumpers to fix themselves in the island, built up a great wall in the sea, to hinder the fish from coming in from the deep sea ; but, if the people would subscribe, and pay him properly, and have no more to do with the settlement, he would say a mass upon the sea-shore, that would throw down the wall, and let the fish in, as before. Accordingly, those people subscribed pretty gene- rally along that part of the island most distant from the settle- ment ; and the priest, to fulfil his part, set up an altar on the shore, to say his mass ; but when he attempted to light his candles which is necessary to be done for the due celebration of the office the wind blew them out, and the service could not be done. The wind was obstinate against the mass, and jealous, perhaps, of the priest's attempting to raise it against its wish, and so, for a long season, it continued obstinately obstre- perous. This seemed to have cooled the people's confidence, and rather sceptical whispers went abroad concerning the priest and his sea wall. It was further stated to me, that when the reverend gentleman tried the same method on the northern side of the island, in those villages nearer the settlement, it would not do there. No subscription could be got up, and no attempt made to throw down the wall. 380 A CLIFF. talking of other things besides the character of the mountain, when all of a sudden we entered the cloud that was now sweeping thick and cold all around; and I should have gone on, taking advan- tage of what I conceived was a level summit before me, were I not held back; and, lo! we were at the edge of a tremendous precipice, down which to look was enough to turn giddy any head, and against the edge of which the cloud struck, and then rolled up curling, and swept along eastward; for on this day the wind came gently from the ocean. Waiting a while patiently until the cloud passed over, we were shortly gratified by the mist becoming more transparent, and we could see, but not clearly, forward towards the ocean ; but downwards the vision was complete, and we could observe 2500 feet below us, the great ocean, heaving against the cliffs of the shore that basked in light, and their dark and lichen-tinted colours grandly contrasted with the azure billows that heaved in so beautifully blue, and then changed, with admirable and instant muta- bility, to snow-white foam, as they were shattered along the rocks. Here we were, then, upon a precipice about 2,000 feet high, that went down almost plumb; and then there was an inclined plane covered with the debris of the upper stratifications; and then, about 200 yards further on or so, there were cliffs about 300 feet high, against which the waves washed. The top of this extraordinary mountain was certainly very sublime, and perhaps the mist made it seem A PROSPECT. 381 grander, as it now came on thick and dripping, and then rose and partially passed away. Our chief employment (as I suppose it has ever been of all who have stood on the verge of a great precipice) was to cast down stones and watch the time of falling, and the noise and impetus of the mass as it bounded, and smoked, and shattered itself in pieces below. But it was pleasanter to go a little lower, still keeping along the precipice, which retained its perpendicularity, but was not high enough to catch the stratum of clouds. Here we sat the cloud just festooning, as it were, a raised-up curtain over our heads, and all below was serene; and from the lowest edge of the precipice at this point there extended underneath us a pretty little vale, in which was a tarn, so smooth, so shining, and so clear, that it might have been taken for a mermaid's looking-glass; and yet, though of fresh water, it was so near the edge of the ocean (but perhaps some hundred feet above it) that you might imagine you could empty its contents with a syphon. While sitting here and looking out north-eastward, where was spread out before us the great extent of Black-Sod bay then northward the low, sand-hilled shores of the Mullet the rock-defended islands of Imiisgloria and Inniskea, with their light-houses and watch-towers I observed that in such a place, and in an island that got its name from eagles, it would be disgraceful to the " genius loci" if he would not show us an eagle or two. The observation was 382 A PALLADIUM. scarcely made, when upward, from a ledge of rock beneath our feet, sprung a noble bird, and we could see him open his beak and shiver his feathers, just as a wild beast would stretch himself when rising from his lair; and then he soared directly over our heads, took a wheel round, as much as to say, I don't un- derstand what these fellows want here, and, keeping close to the stratum of clouds that was still incum- bent on the topmost cliff, he kept afloat exactly under it, as if coasting along a ceiling, and then struck away northwards, taking his direction towards the highlands of Inniskea. One of the company men- tioned his having visited Inniskea; and that, as usual, the people are beset with gross superstition. They have a wooden idol there, left by a holy priest, who said that as long as it was preserved with reverence, no loss of life by shipwreck would happen to any of the islanders, who always worshipped the idol before venturing to sea. He said that (as he was informed) this idol was once stolen by smugglers, who supposed that they carried their palladium while they kept this wooden saint on board; but from the day they stole it until it was returned, which, with all repenting speed, they hastened to do, they were persecuted by a revenue cruizer, and vexed by storms, and driven up and down on the ocean; for how could they have luck when they had no grace, and stole from the Inniskeans their teraphim, their little god. Inniskea is not only celebrated for its idols, but for a crane that has lived alone without mate or offspring, BODIES IN GLORY. 383 old as the twinkling stars; and there it is, and there it will be until the day of judgment. But what is more important, it is noted for its spirits. Oh whiskey, thou art a darling, delicious, dangerous crathur; and you are made here in perfection. The gay and pleasant author of the " Wild Sports of the West" tells us that he emptied a Dutchman! ! ! freighted with .this nectar in one night, and only inherited a headache for his pains in the morning. May he never do it older, say I. Beyond Inniskea I was shown the direction of Innisgloria, a more northern isle. Here, as the story goes, bodies buried will not corrupt. The living people can, therefore, see their dead progenitors, with their teeth and skin whole and sound, and their nails and hair perfect and still growing; so their descendants, to the tenth generation, can come, and with pious care, pare the one and clip the other. There was no one in com- pany who had been on the island to verify this fact, which is so well established in the minds of the people, that there is a strong desire to be buried there, and many bodies are kept overground until they are not sweet, waiting for fair weather to waft them to Innisgloria. I have no information as to whether they recover from putridity when laid in GLORIA.* * " Nunc superest tredecim gentis miratida refierre, Quae comprensus erat raetris Flahertius illis. Insula Inniskea scriptis ut fama priorura, Credula commendat, regio qua prorainet Irras, 384 ATLANTIC OCEAN. Having looked sufficiently long northwards, we determined again to mount the highest parts of the mountain, and skirt along the precipice until we gained the loftiest eminence; and by this time the cloud had in a great measure gone off; and though every now and then a winged wool-pack passed, and in passing struck the sublime edge of the precipice, yet you could see downwards and onwards down- wards to behold the ranges of the mighty rocks that show here, by indications that cannot be mistaken, that the disruption of what has now left this wondrous facade bare, was as instantaneous as it was powerful. The look-out to ocean was sublime. Oh! what would I not give to stand here, if possible, and witness a tempest from the west; but even as I did see it, it was elevating to the mind, filling you with grand conceptions of God's creation, and raising your imagination to consider what the mind may yet take in, when escaped from this mortal coil; and the un- trammelled intellect can see, understand, and more intensely adore the God of the ocean and the moun- tain the God of power, and oh! thanks be to Oceani in fluctus grus est ab engine rerum, Unica, sideribus minime consumpta cosevis. Cernere Innisgloria est Pelago, quod prospicit. Irras Insula avos, atavos solo post fata sepultos, Effigies servare suas vegetisque vigere, Unguibus atque comis, hominum caro nullaputrescit." From a Latin Poem, descriptive of Ireland, by Sir William O' Kelly, of Auyhrim. A CHASM. 385 Jesus, the pardoning God of love. Upwards of 2000 feet must have given a great field for vision; yet you strained your eyes as imagination urged its impossibilities. Though you well knew that nearer than America no land was, you looked and looked, and yet nothing was to be seen but the lights and shadows, cast by the slow moving clouds along the surface not a sail to break the uniformity of this sublimely solitary watery waste. I say that there are evident indications here of Slieve Croghan being sliced down, and left, as it were, a palpable remnant of some great convulsion. Here are, in my view, incontestable proofs of this event; for just behind the precipice where it is highest, and about 20 feet from the brow, an interior chasm is seen, forming an enormous and rugged fissure for hundreds of yards along in some places hundreds of feet deep; and this shows that when the mighty blow was given, and while half the mountain was falling down, this crack took place. It was but a chance that this great slice did not go down along with the rest. Though now confirmed in this belief, I have been long assured that a great change has taken place in the western coast of Ireland; that a great disrup- tion and sinking of the land has occurred; and that subsequent to the existence of man, and the erection of some of his primeval monuments. If there be a well supported statement of remote tradition, it is that of there having been a great tract of land in the western ocean, that sunk at once by some natural 2 c 386 ATLANTIS. convulsion.* I consider also that this great sub- mersion took place when that part of the continent called Ireland was inhabited; and I ground my belief, not only on the universal tradition prevailing along the whole western coast, but also from the fact, that in one place a Cyclopean wall and building on the coast of Erris, not far from Killala, has been torn asunder by the very same disruption. And that on an island, now separated from the main land by an enormous chasm not only the stratifications of the rock correspond, but also the ranges of stones forming the Cyclopean wall.f I therefore consider that the * We learn from Plato and other Greek writers, that, at a very remote era, a large island in the Atlantic Ocean was swal- lowed up by the sea, and with its numerous animals and people. This may have taken place when the Euxine and the sea of Asoph broke their banks, and when the opening was made at the straits of Gibraltar. f Mr. M'Pharlane, in his Statistical Survey of Mayo, gives the following account of this singular and important curiosity at Downpatrick, ten miles along the coast, westward from Killala. Please goodness, if allowed health so long, I will visit this spot next summer. " After travelling from Killala, about nine miles due west, you gradually ascend upon a neck of land, which stretches on to the ocean, narrowing to a point, until you arrive at a preci- pice, three hundred measured feet from the bottom to the top, upon which the sea is always rough, and dashes itself in enor- mous billows. About the same distance of three hundred feet out to sea, stands a rough perpendicular rock of the same height as the main land and precipice. It is of a triangular form, and terminates conically from a broad base to top, the surface of which is about sixty yards round. On the top appear, to the naked eye, the ruins of some building. There is, in the main- land precipice, an angular indention arid an angular promi- nence corresponding to it, in the opposite rock not only the prominence and indention of the fracture, but the colour and quality of the rock seem to correspond. Within a one hundred FOND FANCIES OF THE IRISH. 387 people who built Stonehenge, Abury, and Carnac who raised our stone circles, pillars, cromleachs, and giants' graves who formed New Grange, and erected our Cyclopean walls and cahirs were in existence at the time of this great physical phenomenon to this, I say, bear witness all the old story-tellers of the west. In Connemara, where Plato's name never reached, they will tell you how the beautiful western land sunk beneath the waves; and standing of a sum- mer's eve on the shores of Ardbear or Renvyle, an old man will say to his son, " Look out there where you now see nothing but the waves dancing in the sunbeams, there is 'our lovely land,' and it will one of these days make its appearance." In no place is the belief so strong as in the county of Clare : there they consider a whole barony to have gone down, and it fell away from the cliffs of Moher and the precipices along Malbay; Mutton Island being but a remnant of the great loss; and when Mr. Burton went, in the year 1/65, in search of the Ogham monument, called Cuneen Mini's Tomb, on the side of Callan mountain, which rises about seven miles inland from Malbay, the people would not be persuaded that it was to copy a parcel of scratches upon a flag that he was come so far but it was to and thirty yards of the extremity of the neck of land, a strong grouted wall, seven feet broad, and nine high, runs across the point, from sea to sea, about sixty yards. The gateway is very narrow and strong. Every thing seems to indicate the rock and building to have originally belonged to the main land, and the cross ramparts to have been the fortifications of the Castle." 388 O'BRAZIL. find the key of the enchanted island that lay hurled in Cuneen's tomb he came; which key, if found, would bring up the "lovely land"* in all its beauty, with a fine city in the middle of it, the inhabitants of which would be so generous as to divide their wealth with all good Irishmen their long-lost coun- trymen. The general opinion is, that though the great part of the land is gone down into the depths of the ocean, there are parts of it, consisting of beautifully wooded, and verdant isles that are still over water, but are kept from the ken of man by enchantment. This is O'Brazil. This the happy land to which St. Brendanf and his companions sailed in the skin- covered skiffs, and remained for seven years in its sunny fields, flowing with milk and honey. This is the land that rises all so suddenly to the view of the men of Antrim or Innishowen. They see it now rising in all the luxuriance of hill and vale, and then evanishing, the baseless fabric of a fairy vision. This is the land that the Welsh have their poetical tradition of; the Flathinnis, or noble island, that lies surrounded with tempest in the western ocean this the island which, in fact, Ortelius laid down in his map of Europe, 300 years ago, as the island of O'Brazil. * The banks, forty miles off shore, where the sun-fish are caught, of course, are parts of the sunken land. So may be the banks of Newfoundland. f See Appendix. GIGANTIC DEER. 389 I am satisfied, then, that a great disruption has taken place. I have observed it, I say, at Horn- head, in Donegal at Achill at Moher at Malbay, and Kilkee. The conviction on my mind is, that Ireland, as it now stands, is but the eastern headland of the continent of Atlantis. It is altogether unlike Britain in its formation. The great coal measures of England and Scotland, and all their superior sandstone and oolite strata, exist not in Ireland. What is called mountain limestone in England is the surface stratum of the lowest parts of our island. In England, in the caves, sand gravel and marl pits, in the tertiary and diluvial beds, are found the re- mains of mammoths, rhinoceros, and sundry animals of prey or pasture now belonging to the tropics. In Ireland no such thing not one organic remain is found in our tertiary or diluvial strata; and in our alluvial beds but the one single species but indeed that makes up for all the peculiar animal characte- ristic of a great, distinct, and separated continent the gigantic deer. I have often wondered, when contemplating the horns and skeleton of this magnificent animal, how it could exist in an island so small as Ireland how stalk, with its horns spreading out twelve feet and more, through its thick, tangled, and circumscribed woods. No: this creature was certainly intended for a larger range for the wide-spreading prairies and lofty steppes of a great continent; and it appears to me that the specimens dug up now in our moors, 390 A CHANGE OF LEVEL. incumbent as they generally are on marl, show, that while the remainder of this continent sank below the ocean, its eastern headland, now called Ireland, rose above its former level; and that in this great transition, the Atlantic deer that happened to be in its eastern parts were destroyed. 391 CHAPTER XVIII. VILLAGES OF KEEM AND KEEL. Legends connected with the sunken land Innis Bofin enchanted and dis- enchantedLegend of Adam and Eve Fairies What happened Phelim the devout He puts a finish on a fairy Story of a heavenly windmill The fall of its mill-stone The Most Rev. Father M'Hale's infallibility brought to a NON PLUS Power of Elements on Slieve Croghan Descent to Keem village Its position Good for mutton Author a Castle- builder A digression on Irish landlords Extravagance of the Achillians as to houses Quantity scarcely atones for quality Coast-guard station House and economy of one Not fit for the Most Rev. M'Hale's " BOLT GARDEN" To be temperate against one's will Amethyst mine Iron as good a cure for cattle as lead for men in Achill Village of Keel Position Appearance Capabilities Reception Some incivil Some good hu- moured Return to settlement. WHILE sitting resting ourselves on the great in- terior chasm behind the precipice of Slieve Croghan, I gave to my companions the theory and suppositions it is founded on, which I now offer to the reader. They all seemed amused and interested in the dis- cussion; and the schoolmaster, whom I have before alluded to as acting confidentially for the priests in Innis Bofin, said " Sir, what you say is, I am sure, true. At any rate, I have often heard of the en- chanted island called O' Brazil in Bofin. Indeed, according to the natives, that isle was once a part of the enchanted land; and I'll tell you, if you please, how it was disenchanted, for once it was invisible like all the other, in the far western sea, and was only spied at times, and then passed away again like a fog bank. 392 PADDY OF OMAY. " Well, sir, as a man and his son, upon a long day in summer, was out in his coragh, a-fishing mackarel, far away from the island of Omay, of which he was a native, and had brought a coal of turf with him, neatly settled in the bottom of a lump of blue clay, in order to broil the mackarel when they were hungry and now they had got into a misty part of the sea, which was very quare all out ; and they heard birds singing, and sheep bleating, and cattle lowing, as if they were close under the land, and still these men knew that they were some leagues from shore. So, with this, he happened to hook one of the finest mackarel ever his eyes beheld; and he says to his son Darby, ' Boy, jewel, we'll just have this fine fellow for our dinner ;' and, with that, he takes the coal* of turf off the clay between a clipstick, and begins to blow to light it up, when, as it happened, some of the fire fell overboard, and, would you be- lieve it ? all at once, a beautiful island burst on his view, just within five fathoms of his boat, arid he had nothing to do but push on shore, and look about him. Now, this Paddy of Omay, it seems, was a cute fel- low : he saw what the coal of fire had done. So, do you see, he wraps his coal up close in a handful of sea-weed, and on he marches to make discoveries ; and had not gone far, when he saw a beautiful * The general opinion is, that no enchantment stands against fire taken from the hearth ; this is an old determination, as appears from the statement of Giraldus Cambrensis, which the reader will find in the appendix. THE BOY AND THE WHITE COW. 393 lady, all dressed out in a gown and petticoat of green, driving a white cow before her. I'm sure he was mighty pleasant with himself at the sight. ' Come,' says Pat, ' this is the owner of the place, and it well becomes such a clone, pretty lass, to own such a purty little bit of land, and I'll just be going after her while, do you, Darby dear, keep the cow in sight, and, if possible, catch a hould of her. I'd like to handle the cattle, and see whether they're good for milk.' So, he makes up to the lady, and Darby to the cow ; and not very far off was a pretty little inland lake, just such a one as we were looking at from the bank there just below us but here, mind you, that the father had the coal with him ; but Darby had not. So, when the boy, as he was directed, caught the cow by the tail, she gave him a kick that sent him sprawling ; and when he got up, the cow was gone, and nothing in his hand but a long stem of sea-weed, very like, indeed, to a cow's tail. But the father followed the lady, and she, the crathur, neither kicked nor spoke uncivil, but seemed mighty much afraid of the coal of fire. So, in this way, he ad- vanced, and she retreated, until she found her back to the lake, into which, having no other escape, she plunged, and the isle has been disenchanted ever since, and is called the Innis Bo-fin the Island of the White Cow. From this tradition, the people all along the coast expect, that some time or other, greater and finer islands will be disenchanted ; and they say that, when fishing, some twenty leagues off shore, for THE BOUGHAL AND COLLEEN. the sun-fish, often a fog will rise out of the water on the banks which lie around, and, while in the middle of the fog, they hear the sweet singing of birds they smell the fragrance of sweet flowers lambs are heard bleating, and calling for their dams and all around, floating on the waves, are seen the leaves of apple-trees and oaks; and then the fog rises, and nothing is seen but the foam curling on the billow, and the tossing of the porpoise." Let me, sir, before I have done, tell you one legend more which these Innis Bofiners narrate: There are two lofty rocks that stand out by them- selves a league or more. They are remarkable for their slender and exact form, not unlike two gigantic human creatures. They are called the Boughal and the Colleen the Boy and the Girl. The tradition is, that they fell down from heaven the Boughal stands upright, the Colleen leans as upon one side: this is accounted for by the statement that the male was innocent until the female was tempted and fell. It is the dark idea that these rocks represent Adam and Eve, and that as two eagles make their nest on these rocks, roost together, soar away together, come home together, and in the season make here their nest, so these must be the souls of Adam and Eve. I took occasion here to observe to Mr. C r, " I suppose that Bofin being so lately disenchanted is still in some measure the resort of fairies and such 'good people.' " certainly, sir perhaps no where are the people A FAIRY KILLED. 395 so assured of their existence, or where they are so often (if you believe them) seen and felt too. The hills are full of them in dark nights, when they cannot go out by the light of the moon, for they love to dance upon the hill-side they are heard romping and carousing within the hills they carry away chil- dren, and make them do sen-ice and wait on them in their night excursions they enter the dairies of those who have plenty of milk and butter, and there they eat and drink cleanly but not voraciously, and it is considered that they can be killed, when caught, only by the stab of a black-hafted knife. I have heard," says Mr. C , "one of the Bofiners say, that there was one of these ' good people' much more dangerous and mischievous than the rest he was full of frolic and mischief at the same time: once, as a Bofiner was going along the side of a hill, a shower of her- rings came down, bleeding fresh from the sky, and lay, with their beautiful green backs, all around, and a voice came down from a little flying cloud * Come, Phelhn, broil and eat' but no! Phelim would not touch one of them, for he very well knew, that if he once eat of their meat or drank of their drink he would be enchanted, and for ever after, until the day of judgment, live amongst them. " But this audacious fairy went too far, at length, with his jokes, for he chose to play his pranks on a confraternity man, who wore the scapular, and carried a black-handled knife in his pocket; so as this man was going by the rath side, up came the 396 A HEAVENLY WINDMILL. fairy with a long flagger in his hand, very like a sword, and mighty playful, but little knowing who he had to deal with, he hits the man a blow across the chops with his flagger, when the other, very cross, drew out his black-hafted knife and gave the little fellow a dig in the ribs, so the fairy gave a groan, and the man ran away home the blood of the ghost was found on the blade of the knife in the morning, and moreover its body too was found, but dissolved into a heap of slime, just like the jelly that you will often see in a bog, which every one knows is what remains of a dead frog." I can only record one more matter of " Glamour," drawn from the rich stories of Mr. C , of what he heard while schoolmaster at Bonn. In an island, or near it, is a huge millstone which all the people assert dropt down from the sky where the fairies had a windmill how else, as they say, could it come on the island, or for what use could it be brought, seeing that there never was a mill there since the world began. Mr. C r's informant, speaking of this millstone assured him he saw it descend from the clouds, and that when it came down, they found some of the meal on it which the fairies had been grind- ing in the upper regions a few minutes before. The day was breezy when it descended in a shower of snow it came down, floating gently in the air like a table- cloth; who could doubt this fact after such attestations and particularities respecting its origin. It is now in a small island called Omay near Clifden ; and, reader, AN INFALLIBLE AT A LOSS. 397 when you go to Connemara, as, no doubt, if an Irish tourist, you will, you can go to Omay and satisfy yourself about the millstone. I cannot give up Bofin without alluding to the Most Reverend Father M 'Bale's visit to this very civilized place, and which is, to use his Grace's own expression, the " Garden of Jesus Christ," because a Protestant has not yet contaminated it by his residence. This island is sacred to St. Colman, who erected a college here for the Saxon students who had been at the college of Mayo, but were driven from thence by the jealousy of the Irish collegians. Now this Col- man blessed a well here, and made it holy, and so it is that there are two wells near each other, and in process of time men forgot which was the real blessed one, and thus they were in unhappy doubt, until in the year 1836, the great Bishop came to confirm the children, give dispensations, and bless the coast and its fisheries; and in their difficulty about the well, they consulted THE INFALLIBLE. But, alas he did not condescend to decide, but said, with great discre- tion, that if they performed their DUTY with the requisite disposition, it was not much matter which of them they went their rounds about. He, himself, however, took off his hat, bowed his knee, and repeated something like a prayer before one of the wells. All this while, occupied as I have been with O'Brazil and the fairies, and Innis Bofin, and Doctor M'Hale, I have forgot that I was standing two thou- 398 WIND versus ROCK. sand five hundred feet above the. level of the sea, on the precipice of Slieve Croghan, and it is time to leave it; so giving a long, last look at the grandest cliff I ever have beheld, or ever shall see, we all went down its eastern side, and were not twenty feet on our descent until there appeared no more evidence that this sublime precipice was within so few feet of us than if we were on any other mountain of the same height. I did not fail to observe the decomposing power of the elements at this great elevation; the whole forma- tion, like that of most of the summits I am acquainted with in Ireland, is composed of compact quartz rock of the most homogeneous character. A few- yards back from the precipice the whole boyyy surface is covered with a pure white sand composed of the rock disintegrated and powdered by the winds and rains that here operate so constantly. Our descent was rapid for two reasons, first, that the mountain, though very lofty, was not difficult; there were no obstructions from chasms or bog, an exceedingly compact and hard conglomerate formed the rocks on this side, composed of square, not rounded, masses of quartz bedded in the closest possible silicious cement. The mountain on this side forms a sort of large gorge, looking towards the south, and protected from the east and west winds by ridges that form the northern part of Clew Bay, on one side, and the southern part of Achill on the other. Here, for about one thousand feet from the level of the sea are very green sheep CASTLE BUILDING. 399 pastures which reach down to the little village of Keem ; and here, as I am told, is fattened some of the sweetest mutton in the county of Mayo. By the way, the village of Keem is not only remarkable for the fine hill pastures that are around it, but also for its magnificent position and for its singular character. Slieve Croghan embraces the vale in which it lies within its sublime gorge, to the north and west; open to the south-east, and protected from the roaring Atlantic by Moilog head. There is just under the village a yellow stranded bay, as smooth and firm as sand can be, up which the blue billows heave and dis- perse in white foam most musically; possessing, there- fore, this soft sunny aspect, and this great shelter all is green and fertile around. Then, such a prospect; the many interior isles of Clew Bay eastward, all green and gentle in their forms and aspect; westward, the larger and exterior ones, the outworks of Europe, as I may call them, against the Atlantic, the lofty and cliff embattled Clare, Cahir, Davelin, and Innisturk; and then the Lord of the southern horizon the Reek the Holy-head of the west. I think I have never seen such a position for a great man's castle, if I were Sir Richard O'Donnell, and had, along with his eighty thousand acres, half as many pounds, I would build my castle here, make it my summer resi- dence, spend my time, and my thoughts, and my patience, and what common sense Providence has gifted me with, in endeavouring to improve my island and my people; endeavour to educate them; endea- 400 LANDLORDS. vour to give them a taste for comfort and for decency; elevate them up to a standing of self respect; teach them or get them taught, to know that true religion was a reasonable service; that when embraced it always makes the slave a freeman; that there is no occasion for another to stand between the sinner and his God; that it is always right to think that the spirit of priestcraft is dangerous when popular force and passion are made to work in the way of getting rid of the priests' enemies, and promoting, un- disturbed, his own unquestionable views. Thus the landlord, making use of his proper influence, gra- dually, temperately, firmly, evidently disinterestedly, nay more, evidently ready to make great pecuniary and personal sacrifices, what a field he would have here; what a great theatre for the exercise of Chris- tian philanthropy; yes, but where is such a landlord to be had; I might go to and fro through the British empire and hardly find such. I might find men with prudence without zeal, and men with zeal with- out prudence, and might find one ready and one willing, but suffering under the sins of his forefathers and not able; and another politically or religiously unquali- fied; and he dare not do the good he would for fear of his sect or his party. Such being the case, I think it must be allowed that good landlords, as well as good tenants, have been very scarce in Ireland, and sure I am its evils have in a great measure flowed down from the rich upon the poor; and that if there was an Irish Dante to arise, his bitter and gloomy satire would SUMMER-HOUSES. 401 allocate in his Modern Inferno, a large district for the bad landlords of the last century; yes, room, much room, ample room and verge enough for the crowds coming down from where aristocrats were basking in their club-house selfishness and forgetfulness of duty. Keem, I said, was a singular village; it is only in- habited in summer who would suppose that the Achillians had such a superfluity of houses, that they had both their winter and summer residences. The Greenlanders and Esquimaux are so changeful, from their excessive vicissitudes of heat and cold but here I was surprised to find empty every house but two, (and these were the residences of the coast-guard, all with their doors fastened and un- tenanted; and certainly such miserable wigwams, I had never before seen all built, as I have already described, without gable-ends. It seems the owners of the village of Keem, and the renters of the adjoining district, have other houses in a distant part of the island, where they spend the winter and spring; thence they come when their oats and potatoes are planted and spend the summer months, herding their cattle on these heights, and leading a pastoral life. Thus in Switzerland they have their chalets on the hills, and in old times in Ireland the creaghts (as they were called) had their boolies on the mountains; but I don't think I ever saw a summer-herding VILLAGE before. I said that two of the coast-guard lived here, and what a lonely life they must lead in winter, in this 2D 402 A COAST GUARD. extreme western end of Achill, when the villagers go home leaving them entirely by themselves. But speak- ing of one of the party, the only one I met, if ever I saw a man well adapted, from patient, pious Christian resignation, to live within the circle of his own family, while the howling tempest was hurtling all without it is Mr. Hamilton I say Mr., for he had the man- ners and bearing of a gentleman, in the best sense of the word a fine, tall, handsome seaman as ever I saw he invited us into his cottage, spread before us his cleanly dressed, plentiful, but frugal fare, and made our most desirable entertainment still more acceptable by the heartiness of his welcome. And then his poor lowly residence was rendered as comfortable as neatness and order could make it ; and his tidy wife, and beautiful healthy, mannerly children; and his collection of books to beguile away the long winter's evening, all having a religious tendency, all leading the sinner's trust to Christ; and there was one con- venient handy spot where the Bible was always to stand, not for show, not for pretence, not as I have seen it in the houses of some, with dust on the cover, so that you might write with your finger thereon, the owner's character, and that was sluggard ? No, the Bible was here a USED book, and the eldest boy was brought up, not ostentatiously, not unseasonably, but at our own request, to show that he had been duly instructed in its holy truths ; and, indeed, he satisfied us that, as far as parents could go, he had been reared in the fear of the Lord. A WEED IN DR. MORALE'S GARDEN. 403 Here there was a man, perhaps in as lonely a place as any in the British isles, and he had all the means of contentedness about him, because he was in the face of his God, with the humility of a Christian believer doing his duty to his country and to his family. Dr. M'Hale, in a late rabid letter, which he has written to Lord John Russell, has com- plained that Protestants should be quartered as coast- guards on this island: it offends his Catholic exclu- siveness, his view of what "a garden of Jesus Christ" should be, but all I wish is, that said Lord John Russell could see this coast -guard of Keem and his little homestead, and I think he would hesitate before he would pluck this flower of civilized life from amidst the weeds of barbarism that are growing all so lustily in this Roman garden. Here let me acknowledge a little weakness; I was grievously disappointed, even while thus treated as he best could by this hospitable coast-guard. I had for hours been walking over the lofty mountains. I was in a state of great lassitude, heat, and perspira- tion, so thirsty that I panted for a drink; I dared not touch water, my stomach never could bear milk. Oh! that I had a little wine or spirits ay, spirits ye stern souls of the Temperance Society, I honestly confess that, as I had no chance of wine, I modestly and slyly hinted that I would be glad of a little drop of a dram. But no, Mr. H. was a strict Temperance Society man; and, ah me, I had just to get cool quietly and as I might before I could assuage my burning thirst with spring water. 404 AMETHYST MINE. " But rest assured, sir," said Mr. H. "you will get home better, and find less bad consequences from your walk, doing as you must, without any spirits." " Perhaps so," said I. At all events I did do, and that safely, without the crathur. Near Keem Mr. H. showed us where the large crystals of amethysts are found it is on the slope of the hill, and by the side of the road that leads from Keem eastward, and about three hundred feet above the level of the sea, that they are, or rather have been, found. It is in the gravel and rubbish, the debris of the higher ranges of the mountain, and always with their points downwards, and broken at the apex of the crystal that they are found. From the ground being much run over, and from there being no plan or science exhibited in the search, the specimens are now very rare, but I am sure that if any intelligent person were to come here and employ men to work in a proper way, there would be obtained an abundant supply of this very beautiful mineral. We were now on our return home, and our road lay eastward, keeping nearly along the southern coast of the island. One of our company showed me just on the road-side what the people used as a cure for their sick cattle it was a mineral substance that appeared on the surface of the hill, and being nearly black, was evidently either bog iron ore or manga- nese. I had no opportunity of testing it my infor- mant said it was considered a sovereign remedy for all sickness in cattle, and was given infused in water : VILLAGE OF KEEL. 405 it is about as simple and perhaps as efficacious as the old woman's bullet. These Achillians certainly make short work of the materia medica. We had now to pass through one or two villages on our way homewards (a toilsome and rather uninterest- ing walk along the lowlands, if I may so call them, of the island,) and as these villages are much under the influence of the priest, I certainly was anxious to ob- serve how our party, known as it was to belong -to the "SETTLEMENT" would be treated as we went through. The village was larger than any I had yet seen, but the same want of any sort of regularity or decency no street the cabins all dropped, as it were, here and there; no such thing as a cabbage garden. One or two corraghs or wicker boats covered with pitched canvas, were lying with their bottoms up on the strand the place had a strong smell of putrid fish and sea-weed, and alto- gether it was a savage place, nasty in the extreme, I was still very thirsty and so was my friend partly to assuage thirst and partly to see whether a cup of cold water would be given, I requested one of the men to go (which he rather unwillingly consented to do) up to one of the houses and ask for a drink of water; the man was sternly refused; we went a little further, and boys began to hoot, and women readily joined in the outcry, and " jumpers^ jumpers," were then exclaimed, and some other expressions in Irish, denoting scorn and hatred, but no stones were thrown; and I observed that the men joined not in 406 CAPABILITIES. the outcry, but kept a strict silence; they neither saluted nor insulted us. On walking across a pretty long sandy strand, and crossing a small stream that flowed from a lake, half a mile or so in the interior, we struck inland towards the north. The village we left is, I believe, called Keel. Here one of my companions said that it was the intention of Sir R. O'Donnell to build a house, form a demesne, and make the island his summer re- sidence. I confess, I would, as I said before, prefer building at Keem ; but here he would have a fine opportunity of improvement ; I never saw a tract of country more capable. A great extent of moorland, that only wants the expenditure of capital, and that a small one, to make it productive. Abundance of sea- weed and sea-sand ; a pretty lake, whose shores could be converted into rich meadows. I am sure that there are f thousand acres about Keel that could be made worth a pound an Irish acre. Striking inland, towards the north, the " settle- ment" lying on the northern shore, we met, for it was now growing duskish, a number of men returning from their day's labour. Mr. Baylee, let us meet whom we might, always accosted them civilly in Irish. Some touched their hats, and made a good-natured reply ; others passed on, and made no answer. One man, when accosted with the usual address, " God save you," with a horrible scowl of his eye, and an expression of malice I have seldom seen equalled, re- plied, " may the devil damn you, and all belonging A NATIVE PUNSTER. 407 to you." This excited the wrath of the labouring man from the settlement, who had attended us, and he exclaimed in Irish, " may death crush you, you unmannerly brute ; why do you answer gentlemen in this way?" For this wrathful outbreak of the man, he was immediately, in the presence of the fellow who called it forth, reproved by the schoolmaster, Connor, who quoted the injunction of St. Paul, " not to re- turn railing for railing, but, contrariwise, blessing." Another fine healthy active young man met us, with his loy or gowl-gob on his shoulder ; Mr. Baylee, as usual, saluted him, and he replied right civilly. He even stopped to speak to us, and inqmred where we had been, and who the strangers were, pointing to us. Thus encouraged, Mr. Baylee ventured to say some words of a religious tendency, to which the other answered, that he was ready to wish us all well ; that he was any thing but one that would a^iise or injure a man for his religion, but he would wish to have his own religion let alone. " Well, but suppose your own religion (says Mr. Baylee) is not the true one." " Oh ! sir, God bless you ; let me alone. How could the likes of me argue with a minister like you. I leave all that to the priest. Here I am, as you see, a loy -man, (pointing to the loy, over his shoulder,) but no lawyer." With this pun, quite satisfied, the young fellow sprang across the bog-drain that divided the road from the potato-garden, and he was off across the ridges in an iqstant. 408 A GOOD NIGHT. The night had fallen on us before we reached the settlement, and right glad was I, as I believe was every one of the party, when we got where each of us was to sup and sleep ; and, reader, I don't care how active or young you may be, but if ever you visit Achill, and take the same excursion that I did, you will, I rest assured, be as willing as I was to enjoy the creature-comforts of a good repast and a soft bed. 409 CHAPTER XIX. DEPARTURE FROM THE SETTLEMENT. Prepare to return from the settlement Infant School National School of Dugarth A gymnasium Walk from the settlement to Achill Ferry- Proposal for a LIBERAL settlement Is the patriotism of Liberals but talk ? What Achill owes to Mr. Nangle He blessed the island with the pre- sence of two Archbishops Speech of Titular Situation of the priests of Achill Voluntary system operating on character and conduct Conse- quences of dependent poverty Anecdotes The priest of Dunevir, and the pig and purgatory Anthony O'B and his station A religious con- troversy over a cup A precaution before death How many masses a heifer is worth A holy well can kill as well as cure Achill theology and sacred history bearing upon the natural history of goats Adam and Eve, and the Doul Duff Mr. B 's apology for controversy A challenge to conciliation And no more at present. WE were to return next morning, and make our way to Castlebar. The two missionaries, Nangle and Baylee, had both, previous to my arrival, (which was quite unexpected,) made arrangements to proceed to Dublin on the day subsequent to the departure of the Archbishop of Tuam. This plan Mr. Nangle felt obliged to adhere to ; but Mr. Baylee kindly consented to defer his journey for one day, in order to show me the lions of Achill. This he had done, as I have above recorded, and, on the following day, we all determined to set out after breakfast. I enjoyed, on t hat morning, the privilege of divine service. I went into the infant school, the hobby of the Achill St. Luke, Dr. Adams. I saw what no one, ten years ago, would have dared even to suppose feasible in such a place, a number of pretty creatures, about thirty chil- 410 INFANT SCHOOL. dren, (I, indeed, forget exactly how many,) clean, neat, healthy, and happy all under that lovely dis- cipline that makes primary instruction a matter of playfulness, and allows the young being, just budding into rationality, to be joyful while it is learning. I envy not the feelings of that man, let him call himself what he may, that would say that those who had suc- ceeded in establishing such a school as this, were evil doers, and who would wish that Dr. M'Hale and his priests should eradicate all, and send the fox to peep out of its desolated windows of this institution. Before my departure, I had occasion to go through the village of Dugarth, on my way down to the sea- shore, in order again to inspect the place among the cliffs where the stratum of primitive limestone lies in- cumbent on the gneiss, and crops out on the edge of the sea. I have already spoken of this village it is not worth any farther notice it is but a congeries of dens of barbarism, and must give place shortly to habitations more fitted for educated men. But one of these dens or wigwams caught my notice, because, on it was a board, on which were painted the words, NATIONAL SCHOOL. This I was determined to enter, and accordingly I stooped to do so. Well, of all the school-houses ever I entered, the National school-house of Dugarth was the most miser- able. At the time I saw it, there were no scholars. It was about nine o'clock in the morning; none were in the house if house it could be called, consisting of but one NATIONAL SCHOOL. 411 room three little children seemed but just risen where they had been sleeping for the night, in a sort of crib, at the left hand side of the door. Opposite the door of this apartment, which was about fourteen feet in length, were stones ranged along the wall, on which were placed two loose boards, which v/ere for seats for the scholars. At the right side of the door, were a parcel of dirty stinking ozier creels, intended to carry fish or turf. These were the whole furniture of this National Gymnasium, and so it might well be called ; for, I believe, that the scholars were as nearly naked as the apartment. I asked where was the master : the eldest child replied in Irish, and, therefore, what it said was to me unintelligible, and I had to depart without further information, and this was the National School of Dugarth. One would think that Mr. Nangle had decoyed the Education Board to allow this gymnasium to assume its imposing name of "Na- tional," and stand there as a foil to set off his own admirably appointed schools, not a furlong distant. I should certainly like to see the inspector's last re- port of this academy ; or, could it be possible that it was no National School at all, and that the priest had the board fixed up to satisfy the natives, who, poor things ! were thus satisfied with the name of a school. " Lucus a non lucendo" " Schola a non scholando."* * I suppose it may be cor.sidered by many who will take up this volume that I am very deficient in not speaking more on the subject of education, and more especially here where I have come across the school of Dugarth. But I am free to aver that I have no desire to discuss the subject. I do not feel that, on this subject, I have sufficient information, or had op- portunity of adequate observation. 412 ACHILL ROADS. About eleven o'clock we left the settlement for the Sound which divides Achill from the mainland: the distance is about ten miles. As I had got walking enough the day before, my friend and I procured a pony, on which we agreed to ride and tie (as the phrase is) for that distance. Mr. Baylee, a Scrip- ture-reader, and two or three more who were going to the'Sound, accompanied us. There is a road the whole way, which, with others in the island, were constructed some years ago, more I believe to give employment to the people in time of scarcity than any thing else. These roads are now let to go to ruin. The mountain torrents in many places tear them up; and it would appear that the natives set little value on them, as they carry what they want on the backs of horses, and often, for want of four-footed animals, on their own. Mr. Baylee and the others walked; indeed this worthy and admirable man is singularly adapted for the missionary work, for his body and mind seem indefatigable. He appears to me as if he could talk and walk for ever; he is all energy. I certainly was sorry that I had not the power of staying longer at Achill settlement; in many ways it was interesting to me, and I was certainly desirous of informing myself and being able to give information to others of a more accurate character. I would have also wished to have sojourned in the island, and had communications with the natives previous to my going to " the settlement," in order that I might have known, as far as they would tell, their opinions A LIBERAL SPECULATION. 413 respecting the strangers that had come amongst them. But this at least I could not effect, and I must leave it to others to do so if they can. And here I must observe that I wonder much that some person or persons, who object to the mode pursued by Mr. Nangle in forming and carrying on this colony, do not try a settlement of a different nature in Achill, or in the similarly neglected, wild, and barbaroilS dis- tricts of Connemara or Erris. Why not establish a settlement, where, by introducing better modes of rural economy, setting examples of cleanly, regular, and sober habits, showing the natives by well tried experiments, the advantages attending the winter feeding of cattle, the cultivation of green crops; also by giving premiums for house industry and cleanliness amongst the females, and establishing schools for the teaching of needle-work. I say, even suppose literary and religious instruction were quite left out of the question, why do not some of your patriots, your liberal well wishers for the good of Ireland, bestir themselves ? why in this way confine themselves to benevolence, while all the BENEFICENCE is left to Mr. Nangle and his supporters. Of course as we went along, I had much conversation with Mr. Baylee and his cortege. The Scripture-reader, who came with us, seemed a very intelligent man, and I would say, considering his position, singularly mo- derate. He described to me with much effect, the different parts, if I may so speak, the two archbi- shops, Doctors Trench and M'Halc, played while 414 THE TWO ARCHBISHOPS. discharging their episcopal functions on the island. I have before said, that to Mr. Nangle it is altogether owing that the two prelates should honour thus this hitherto neglected spot with their gracious presence. It would seem that the Roman prince descended, as it were, like one of the eagles of Slieve Croghan, with a pounce.* He came as a Boanerges, a son of thunder, and behind him a fiery tail of priests in awful coil, and every thing that could dazzle and subjugate the savage mind was resorted to. The arch-prelate, in his paraphernalia, with mitre on his head, crozier in hand, clothed in amice, chesuble, and stole, invested with his papal pall, the peculiar token of his dignity as primate of Connaught. There he stood, as we may suppose Balaam stood on Pisgah, (when sum- moned byBalak,) looking down on "the settlement," and ready to wither it with his curses, if God would so permit; and he did what Balaam dared not do, he took up his parable against it and prophesied, and -* If we are to believe the pleasant author of the " Wild Sports of the West," the eagles of Achill have a national school therein, more efficient than that of Dugarth, where they teach the young idea how to pounce. " This morning (says he) the eagles descended from their rocky habitation, accompanied by two eaglets evidently to teach their young to stoop and lift their prey. The old birds tore up the turfs from the mountain side, rose up high in the air, and then dropt them the eaglets in their turn stooped and took them up again this was fre- quently repeated, and the course of instruction having lasted half an hour, the eagles mounted to their eyrie, leaving their progeny safe in their nest, and sailed off on the rising breeze to provide for their evening meal." This author further observes, that these eagles have a great penchant for black fowl, therefore the Achillians never keep a black hen as far as I could see they kept little domestic fowl of any kind. AN UNFULFILLED PROPHECY. 415 ventured to foretel that all would go to ruin, and leave nothing behind but a cursed memory of the mischief it attempted to do to Achill. I may as well give the words of this prelate while he foretold, with all the assurance of a prophet, and cursed with all the ritual exuberance of a Romish pontiff : " Some of the bro- therhood (meaning some belonging to the settlement) have already fled from the utter derision of the people, others are preparing to follow their example, finding or feigning a convenient apology in the unwholesome- ness of the atmosphere. The Achill mission is already another tale of the numerous failures of fraud and fanaticism, and its buildings, now unfinished, are like the tower of Babel, (his own tower at Tuam as I have shown, is more like that,) a monument of the folly and presumption of its architect. Whoever thus, in future, should contribute to such a project, will not only be the dupe of delusion but the willing agent of imposture." Well, two years and a half after this, the settle- ment, instead of being deserted, instead of its build- ings being left unfinished, or tenanted by the daws and Royston crows, throve so much that its increas- ing population of adult children, absolutely required that the Protestant archbishop should, when holding confirmations through the rest of his diocese, come into Achill, which he accordingly had done immedi- ately previous to my arrival, and there he confirmed twenty-eight persons, nineteen of whom were the children of parents that had been Roman Catholics. 416 THE POUNCING PRELATE AND THE GENTLE. The appearance of the Protestant archbishop was quite a contrast to that of the Roman. Dr. Trench, the brother and the uncle of an earl, appeared at Achill without either show or pretence. He came on a jaunting-car, he could not be distinguished from the two other clergymen who attended him, except by his age, and venerable, but humble demeanour. The people seemed asto- nished at his not, as his rival, " assuming the god and shaking the spheres of Achill;" therefore, some almost doubting the reality of the thing, asked, can this gentle man be an A.RCnbishop ? but the doubt was soon removed all saw when they looked to the scriptural definition of bishop, that his calling was to bless and curse not, and so that worthy man, after performing his episcopal functions with the simple dignity and decorum that belong to the Christian bishop, went away pleasing and pleased, and it was hard to tell whether the people were more satisfied with him, or he with the people. The titular archbishop, in the October of this year, 1838, again visited the island; again he cursed and threatened. On this occasion, in his address to the people, he stated that before the coming of this cursed people (meaning Mr. Nangle, &c.) this island was the garden of our Saviour: "and I hope," (says he, " that I shall have my prayer from our Saviour and the blessed Virgin, that this island shall be again what it formerly was." The conversation I had with the Scripture reader RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 417 and Mr. Baylee, as we were proceeding to the sound, exposed to me what "a garden of our Saviour" Achill was. I have already shown what was their civil and moral state before the coming of this " cursed people." I will now show what was their religious state ; and certainly, if but a small part of what I heard were true, there was not in the wide range of Christendom a more neglected, and more ignorant people. Without' desiring at all to infer that the priests of Achill were worse men than others, yet, from the poverty of the people, and the undesir- ableness of the place as a residence, it may be sup- posed that very inferior persons were allowed to' remain in such a charge. Accordingly, under the worst of all religious systems, the voluntary, the priests, if they pleased to live in Achill, must live to please, and please too, a savage people with whom they must associate, and, if possible, govern, not by opposing their vices and superstitions, but by making use of both, as means of procuring a very precarious income; and I do hold, and that not only respecting Achill, but the whole of the kingdom, that a great deal of the superstition, and immoral practices con- nected with that superstition, that prevail at this day, are owing to the necessity the priests and friars are under to keep well with the people in order to get their alms and dues. I will adduce one or two anec- dotes that I heard from the Scripture readers, and schoolmaster of the settlement, to show how the priests stood with the people. There was resident in 2 E 418 THE WORTH OF A PIG. the village of Duniver, a Father O'M , the pre- decessor of the present Father Connolly, and in the same village dwelt a poor, struggling fellow, who had to support his aged parents, that, unable to work, sat by the hob in his cabin, and in their turns dropt into the grave. Now, his mother died first, and to use my informant's phrase, "there were five shillings coming to the priest out of her death." The poor son neglected to pay this due, for the best reason, because he had it not to pay, and by-and-by the father died, and five shillings more were " coming to the priest out of his death;" this was too much money for the priest to lie out of, so he demanded, insist- ingly, his due. " Give me time, father," says the poor man, " until I sell the pig, it's a fine slip, and wait till Shrovetide, father jewel, and my blessing go wid yees, and I'll do my best to fatten it for your reve- rence's sake and my own." "Ah! thin, Darby, you deceyver, do you think I'm an omaudawn all out, to be out of my money so long, and I wanting, as I do, a dacent suit of clothes to go to meet the bishop. I'll do no such thing, you beggarly spalpeen. But I'll tell you what I'll do, I've the best of good feeding for the pig myself; and Darby, I'll take her from you, and allow you as much, after pay- ing myself, as any one else would give you maybe more." So the man gave him the pig, and it in due time fattened, died, and was hung up in his reverence's A STATION. 419 kitchen, and supplied him with bacon when he needed flesh food, for many a day; and after a decent time elapsed, and Darby did not find that the priest was forthcoming with the balance due on the pig, he went to him and humbly put him in mind of the agreement. "Oh! yes," says the priest, "I do remember that I did promise to give you the value for your pig over and above what was due to me, and so I will, Darby; when you yourself die, avick, you shall have the value, and more than the value, in masses for your sowl, so be content, iny child, it's well you have the likes of me to keep father, mother, and yourself, and all for a little slip of a pig, out of purgathory." Another anecdote may suffice on this head: Anthony O'B was one of the snuggest men in Achill, he had more cattle on the hill side than any other in the village, and here it was that the priest, as of course he should, determined to keep a station. So when the confession was heard, and the penance imposed, and absolutions given, the dinner came, and Anthony, to be sure, was not the man to disgrace his name by stinting his reverence. So there was plenty of bacon and some cabbage, (which is scarce in Achill,) a side of Keem mutton, and to wash all down, pails full of whiskey. Now, the priest had a mighty sound head, and though he drank with any man and would fill bumpers with you, if your eyes were shut, yet he never forgot the main-chance so when they had drank a great deal, and the hearts began to open, though the tongues faltered, a contro- 420 THE VALUE OF A HEIFER. versy (such as it was) arose about religion, and his reve- rence insisted that no mortal man would or could go to heaven without masses being said for his soul, and that one mass said before death was worth four masses said afterwards: "Because, do you see me," says he, "according to the proverb which you all know, 'a stitch in time saves nine.' " "Well," says Anthony, "it is certainly wise to settle for my sowl before I die, seeing as how it is the safest way, and seeing as how those I'd leave after might think more of themselves than of me. I have a pretty little thrifty baste, as any running on the side of Sleive- more; and now, your reverence, how many masses will you say for that said brindled heifer?" "Anthony, as I love you, you shall have forty." " No, father dear, you sha'nt have her, unless you say fifty." So upon this they nearly fell out; but as the saying is, they split the difference, and shook hands on it, and by-and-by the priest, as he could not go home, was put to sleep with Tony, and it seems they did not agree in the night, for there was a great noise and uproar, and all the people had to get up, and both were found wallowing on the floor, and it was hard enough to put them back into bed again, or keep them there. The next morning, Anthony was sorry for his bargain, and wanted to keep his brindled heifer, but it could not be, all the neighbours gathered round and said he should be as good as his word with the priest. Accordingly the heifer was given, and of course the masses were said. A NEAT WELL. 421 At all events Anthony O'B e from that day after- wards never throve his stock died off one after the other, and to use his own phrase, he never since had one cow to look in the face of another. The consequence of all this insufficiency and vul- garity of mind, as well as manners, in the priests, was, that the people were given up to the most absurd superstitions, and had the most ridiculous and abject notions respecting what they called their Christian faith. Well worship was, as through all the west, a most important point of religion. I was shown one of their holy springs, and while it was dirty and sordid in the extreme, it showed evident marks of the resort of pilgrims by the muddy tramp- lings of the votaries all around. I think a well of water, bubbling up from a limestone rock, with the little shells and minute particles of sand ever dancing, and sparkling, as it were, "instinct with life," beneath its waters, translucent as the surrounding air, and these waters, as thus they spring from their pure source, running off playfully and pratlingly over their pebbly bed I say this is a lovely and refreshing sight, and it is no wonder that in dry and hot climes some beneficent deity should be as it were identified with these much desired fountains, and it is quite in keeping to see all around the fresh and varied vegetations of nature fostered and yet kept from weedy and choking abundance by the hands of pious taste. But there was nothing of beauty, taste, or assiduity connected with this ugly, green-mantled, and weed-obstructed 422 ST. PETER. water, which was only more disfigured and vulgarized by the filthy rags that were fastened on stones about it, for there was not even a bush on which to hang them the ugliness and offensiveness of the place was not diminished, in my conception, by being informed that a man came here to do penance some time (not very long ago,) and was found next morn- ing smothered (not drowned, for there was not water enough for that) with his face downwards in the well; the man, it is supposed, came drunk to do his devo- tions there is no other way of accounting for his perishing. The people, though they in general look with fear and repugnance on the place where a man is found to have died suddenly, yet frequent this well, and drink the water wherein a dead man had lain steeping the whole night. I have said that the people have the most mean and degrading opinions respecting Christianity and its divine Author and followers. How could it be otherwise, when no Bible, even in the possession of the priest, was, perhaps, ever in Achill until Mr. Nangle arrived. One of the people who assumed to know somewhat, on being asked why St. Peter was called the rock, said it was because Christ made him his altar and always said mass upon his back. Ano- ther and I hope here the reader will pardon the ludi- crous nature of the illustration I am about to intro- duce; and whether pardoned or not, as I am about to show how far the island of Achill was heretofore "the garden of Jesus Christ," I will detail what I have heard. GOATS AND SHEEP. 423 I say one Achillian asked another " Paddy, ma bouchal, can you explain to me the reason why all goats I have ever seen have their tails turned up, when the sheep, as every one may observe, have theirs hanging downwards dacently and purtily?" "Why then I'll tell you, Larry. Once on a time, when our Saviour was persecuted by the wicked Jews, and they hunted him from place to place to have his life, he met a goat, and would have hid himself under her, but the nasty and wicked baste turned up its tail and exposed him to his pursuers; so with that he ran off, and seeing a sheep at hand, he went on all fours, and hid himself under her, and she, the kind crathur, dropped down her tail and fixed herself low and care- ful so .as to hide him from all eyes and from that day forth, the" goat's tail turns up, and the sheep's tail falls downwards." Another, and I have done: Here is the Achillian description of the fall and reco- very of man " Adam and Eve were in paradise, as happy as the day was long; they had plenty to eat and nothing to do, and were as innocent as a child is after a christening; and so it was that the devil was passing by one day and peeps in over the stone wall that was all around the garden, mighty high entirely, and he saw Adam and his wife so comfortable and quiet, not having a hand's turn of work to do; so the devil was mighty angry at this, and says he, " I'm much mistaken if I don't spoil your sport;" so he tried to get in to do his mischief, but the good angels were too cute for him if he went to bounce over the 424 A DOUL DUFF. wall there he met an angel with a drawn sword if he attempted to slip under the gate, there he met St. Peter, ready to strike him back with his key " So," says the devil, "I'll be up to them," and he changed himself into a doul duff: * and so, though black and ugly, (for he could not change himself into any thing purty,) he crept under a dock-leaf, and there remained until night, when he slyly wriggled himself into the garden." Well, my story's too long to tell how the enemy over-persuaded Adam and Eve to eat of the apple; but they did it, that's sure, and all the world went wrong. " So, after a very long time, the good God had pity upon a poor unhappy world ; and he says to the angel Gabriel ' Go down upon earth, and as the world has been lost by a sinning woman, you must find out a perfect one who will set all to rights.' So Gabriel got his directions what to do, and down he flew, and, of course, he flew so as to land near the right place. As he was going along, he met a great number of people going to prayers, for it was Sunday; so passing them, a little further on he sees a neat, clane, sweet-faced, little colleen as ever went to confes- sion, sitting by a well side, and she was a putting on her shoes and stockings, having washed her feet very dacently. So, says angel Gabriel to her ' Hail Mary ! * A doul duff is a black colceopterous insect, somewhat in the shape of an earwig, but perfectly black, about an inch long, which turns up its tail as if to strike whenever approached it is really a hideous creature, and the Irish have an intense antipa- thy to it, and, as a representation of Satan, always kill it when they can. EARLY MASS. 425 what are yees about and where are you going?' So she ups and told him, mighty civil, that she was preparing to go to MASS, and that properly as became her father's daughter." I need not proceed with the remainder of the history, enough is told to give an example of how the truths of sacred story are vulgarized and perverted; how the moss is made the important affair at the ex- pense of all truth and chronology; and how, instead of the poor people being elevated up, and humanized by a lofty, pure, and rational faith, the religious sys- tem is brutalized and brought down to their grovelling comprehension; and so whatever true Christianity may do to elevate and humanize mankind, it is proved here, as well as all over the world, that its Roman representative only depresses and lies as a great nightmare terrifying and oppressing the world. I believe I have exhausted all my recollections con- cerning Achill, and it is time for me to quit the sub- ject. But, before I conclude, I would just repeat a conversation I had with Mr. Baylee, respecting the mode of controversy adopted by him and Mr. Nangle, and indeed by all persons connected with the settle- ment, with their adversaries, the priests and their con- fraternity men: and I took leave to ask, might not a gentler and less offensive attack be made on the false doctrines and superstitious practices of Rome, and be attended with better effects; or might it not be still better to preach the Gospel without controversy, and show by a holy and circumspect life and conversation that here was a more excellent way ? To this his 426 SUITABLE CONTROVERSY. reply was, that to be sure the language he and his friends used would not be expedient before a cultivated audience, such as might be collected where educa- tion and good manners had given a finer polish to the mind; but that it was absolutely necessary to speak coarsely to coarse minds; that a people who really exhibited very little delicacy in their language or conduct, must be approached, if you wish they should understand you, by downright statements, couched in language adapted to their own daily con- versation. That in this way Luther, living in coarse times, used the broad coarse language befitting his time and companions ; and that as what he wrote and spoke, though now considered vulgar and gross, were not either one or the other in his own day and country, so now what may be objected to in Dublin or in England, as unfit for ears polite that love para- phrase, still is suitable language for the western meri- dian in which they are located; and though it might befit those who, on their becoming senators of the British empire, had declared that transubstantiation was a damnable and idolatrous tenet, to whisper else- where in more gentle mood, that it was only an amiable and venial error. Yet it did not become him or his friend to compromise their doctrine, lower their colours, or bow either the knee to Baal or the head to Rimmon. Their colony, he said, was established in direct hostility to popery; that it lost all claim to a religious and proselyting establishment if they treated that gently, which was like the nettle, a thing A CHALLENGE. 427 that when only touched lightly, stung the hand severely, but when grasped lustily, might be plucked and eradicated without injury. Moreover, he said, it might be well for those who sat at home at ease, who saw Romanism, as it were, tired out and painted like Jezebel, looking so alluringly fine at her window, to speak softly of the gaudy mischief; but those who saw it roaming in all its reckless and poisonous vigour, in the places where it may do as it likes; it was for them and them only to know how best to oppose it, and wrestle against it with success. He finally ob- served, and here I beg leave to say, and without expressing an opinion of my own on the subject, that I am only recording the substance, and not the ipsissima verba, of our conversation, that enough had been done already in the gentle and conciliatory way, and that without any success; and, he must say, that before your conciliators should venture to condemn decidedly the mode of proceed'ng at Achill, they should either point out any place on earth where their mode of operation had succeeded, or have patience and forti- tude to try such a method in Ireland, and report progress. APPENDIX. No. 1 PAGE 99. In a MS. in Marsh's Library, I find the following account, which settles the matter respecting the disputed passage. In the ancient registry of the possessions of the see of Clonmacnoise, which was transcribed in the thir- teenth century by direction of Bishop Muercheartach from the original entries which were written in the life of Cearan, " fearing lest it might be obscured and lost." The original MS. of this registry was, as Archbishop Usher (in his report to King James's Commissioners of the state of the diocese of Meath) states, in existence in his time, but had been lately conveyed away by the practice of a lewd fellow who hath thereupon fled the country ; tran- scripts, however, were in the hands of the Archbishop and of his friend, Sir James Ware, who got it translated into English by Dugald M'Firbiss, and the autograph of that translator is preserved in the British Museum, amongst Ware's MSS. In this registry, after stating that O'Rourke had given for his right of sepulture at Cluain. s<-\ en cells or churches in his territory, with as much land attached to each of them as could be ploughed in 48 days, it proceeds thus : there was a controversy between M'Granail and Fergal O'Ruairk, because M'Granail had got no place for a tomb in Cluain and did stop the building of a church there for O'Ruairk. Afterwards M'Granail got a tomb in the place of sepulture allotted for O'Ruairk. Wherefore that M'Granail, which w;i> Brian M'Granail, bestowed for his part 48 ploughs in the aforesaid Killaghthain. so that the bishop of Cluain had in Killaghthain, ninety-six plough-days in all. whence it came that a Comorbe or Corbe was sent from Cluain to Killagh- thain, who used to receive the bisho; s of Cluain' s rent*. viz. two beeves and three hogs at St. Martin's eve, and 430 APPENDfX. two beeves and one hog from every one of the six churches mentioned before in O'Ruairk's country ; then follows the above cited passage stating how O' Ruairk built the steep Castle or Tower. In the annals of the four masters it is stated that in the year 1 1 24, " Operimentum Campanilis, (Cloictighe) Cluan- macnoise factum per O'Maloneum vicarium Ciarani. As a proof that these towers were places of retreat, it may be stated that in the annals of the four masters and others, the burning of persons who had retired to those towers was often effected ; that of Slane is thus recorded : Campanale(Cloicthighe) Slanense Combustam ab Aliegenis cuma bundantia reliquiarum et religiosorum hominum simul cum Caonocharo Prselectore et Baculo Patroni et Campana optima Campanarum. To obviate the danger arising from being burnt while in the towers, by foes from without, some of the towers show in the doorways provision for a double door. No. 2 PAGE 169. Cathol Crove Derg, according to tradition, was the natural son of Roderick O'Connor by a low-born maiden of the name of Moran. Roderick's wife, hearing of the unfaithfulness of her husband, and of the pregnancy of his concubine she herself being childless felt in extreme the pangs of jealousy ; and in her malicious mood sent for a Scotch witch to consult her how best to put a stop to the birth of the hated child; and the witch, obedient, (as Lucina was found on a like occasion,) directed that nine hazel rods should be twisted in a knot of her own con- triving, and so hung up against the gable end of the royal residence ; and she asserted that unless this magic knot were untwisted Garouge Nevorane (or in plainer terms, the concubine Moran) could never be delivered. Of course poor Moran's time came ; and for nine long days she underwent the severest of all pangs, and still there was no strength to bring forth tantummodo manus dextra infant is protrusa et exinde rubrafuit. An old woman in attendance upon poor Moran all this while, suspecting that what was so unnatural must arise from malicious witchcraft, and shrewdly suspecting the queen, went forth and accosted her highness as she was APPENDIX. 431 walking, proud and melancholy, in the lawn opposite her palace. She besought some nourishment for a poor female who had just been brought to bed, and was sick and weak. " What is the woman's name?" says the Queen. " Garouge Moran, please your majesty, who is delivered of a fine boy." On hearing this, the disappointed queen, consider- ing that she was deceived by the Scotch enchantress, ran to the gable end, cut the knotted hazel rods in bits with her skein, and of course Moran was in a thrice safely delivered. Her son was the famous Cathol of the red hand, who was never received or acknowledged by his father ; but during his reign worked as others for his daily bread. He was reaping oats, as the tradition goes, when the news arrived of his father's death ; he at once threw down his hook, went to his father's palace, claimed, according to the law of tanistry, the vacant throne, and being elected to it, showed himself worthy to be King of Connaught. The O' Conor Don is said to be descended from Cathol Crove Derg. The monk of Boyle thus records the demise of Cathol : 1223, Jan. Cal. Cathol Croderg O'Connor, King of Connaught, and King of the Irish in Ireland, died in the Abbey of Knockmoy. The best Irishman that came from the time of Brian Boroihme for gentility and honour ; the upholder, mighty and puissant, of the country, keeper of peace, rich and excellent ; for in his time tithe was paid and established in Ireland first legally. Threshold meek of belief and Christianity, corrector of transgressors and thieves ; the banisher of the wicked and robbers ; the defender of the right cause ; clement and courageous ; to whom God gave great honour in this world, and ever- lasting life in heaven, dying in a monk's habit, overcoming the world and the devil. No. 3 PAGE 188. " The general characteristics (says he) of the class of society I speak of, are dissipation, idleness, and vanity ; every man with a few acres of land, and a moderate revenue, is dignified, as a matter of course, with the title of esquire ; and, be his family ever so numerous, or the incumbrances on his little patrimony ever so great, he must support a pack of hounds, entertain with claret, or 432 APPENDIX. if not able, with whiskey, keep a chaise and livery ser- vants, and, in short, ape his superiors in every respect. Meanwhile, his debts are increasing, his creditors growing clamorous, and every industrious occupation which might relieve his distresses neglected, as utterly beneath the dig- nity of a gentleman. The numerous instances of this which occur, cannot fail to have a very serious and powerful influence in the obstructions of national indus- try and employment. The bad debts of men of business are more numerous in Ireland than can well be imagined ; such must considerably injure and obstruct the industrious ; those sums which should be saved for the younger children of the family, and laid out in the establishment of some industrious occupation that would enable them to afford employment to thousands of their countrymen, are either- squandered in idle extravagance, or, if collected from the fortune which the hopeful heir-apparent may obtain in matrimony, are employed by those on \vhom they are bestowed in pursuing the laudable example they have been accustomed to from infancy ; but the influence of such example is still more extensive ; its ruinous contagion ex- tends to the most inferior ranks. The labouring hind quits his spade to pursue his landlord's pack of beagles on foot, and at night intoxicates himself with whiskey, while the master enjoys a similar pleasure with liquors more refined and palatable. To the one source are we to trace those nuisances to every rank of society, deno- minated bucks and buckeens. Such, in general, are either the eldest sons of gentlemen of small property we have described, or the younger children of those possessed of larger, who have received their scanty pittance, of which the augmentations by industrious means is never once attempted, and the final dissipation one would imagine deemed impossible. To stand behind a counter, superin- tend a farm, or calculate in a counting-house, would be beneath the dignity of such exalted beings, and disgrace the memory of their gentlemen ancestors ; but would not such pursuits be finally beneficial to their country, and more grateful to their own feelings, than a mode of life which dissipates the funds which should be employed in industry, and corrupts the manners of the people, ruins the health, and annihilates the fortunes of the individuals in general, and, at last, finally, leads them to subsist as mendicants on the charity of some more opulent relation ? APPENDIX. 433 It is disgusting to see such beings gambling at a hazard- table, bustling at a horse-race, quarrelling over their claret, or hallooing after a fox, perhaps in an equipage they have neither inclination nor ability to pay for. Let us turn from the picture ; the only satisfaction atten- dant on its examination is, that the species are daily diminishing." (See Doctor Crump's Essay on Providing Employment for the People.} No. 4 PAGE 222. On a day as holy Patrick, with his blessed company, approached a certain river called Dabhall ; and because it was late, and the sun setting, it was determined to spend the night on the banks, and pitch their tents upon a beautiful meadow adjoining. Presently the prelate pro- ceeds to the stream, therein to wash his hands and his face ; and while in the act of scrubbing his gums and his teeth and while, perhaps, too hardly rubbing what was over loose from age one of his teeth by a chance spit, or as it may be better said, by divine ordinance, was cast into the water. As soon as his disciples heard this, they, with intense industry, sought for the tooth in the stream, but with all their diligence could not find it. But when night came on, amidst the darkness, the tooth, lying at the bottom of the water, cast up a splendour like one of heaven's bright stars, so much so that all abiding in the vicinity of the river were drawn to behold and get posses- sion of it. And so the tooth being taken up was brought to the holy father, and it was by him and all present dedi- cated to the honour and glory of God ; and the saint, in the place where it was found, built a church, placed the tooth under the altar, which place immediately became eminent for many miracles, and is called to this day Clueyn Fiacal that is, the Church of the Tooth Colgan Trias Thaum Sexta Vita St. Pat. page 85. No. 5. PAGE 318. " Then St. Patrick, according to the example of our Lord, went forth in the forty days of fast before Easter, into the desert of Cruachan Aigle, and there he 2 F 4J4 APPENDIX. sat upon a stone, with four stones on the four sides of him ; then a mighty multitude of black birds, or rather of demons, kept flying over his head, and grievously they impedimented his praying. But Patrick sounded his bell, and sent them trooping off into the sea, and immediately a host of angels, in the form of snow-white birds, came flying round the mountain, and chorused soft music for his solace. While in the mountain he put up three petitions ; the first was, that every inhabitant of Ireland who did penance at his last hour should not have the gates of hell close him in ; the second was, that no aliens or barba- rians should inhabit the island from that time forth until the day of judgment ; the third was, that four years before the day of judgment the sea should cover the island. When he was about to descend from the moun- tain he blessed the island, sounded his bell, and all the inhabitants of the whole land heard plainly the sound thereof." I have within these few days heard from my friend Dr. Wilde, that Patrick's Bell THE BELL!!! is still in existence, and in possession of a poor man near Ballin- robe, in whose family it has been handed down from father to son from time immemorial. This man, on particular station days, brings it up to the Reek, where it is offered to each pilgrim to kiss, and each kiss is paid for ; it is also brought about the country and passed round the bodies of those afflicted with disease, and of pregnant women altogether the owner has a profitable estate in the Bell. Colgan has a note upon the second petition of Patrick, in which, while he acknowledges that aliens and heretics had got possession of the land, yet, to save the credit of the saint, says, that he meant that pagans should not re- ceive possession of Ireland. After all, in the friar's view, a heretic is not so bad as a pagan. There is much scepticism abroad about St. Patrick. Some suppose there was no such person, as Ledwich ; others suppose, as Sir William Betham, that there were many Patricks. I am disposed to think, that, as the persons who brought Christianity to Ireland came from the Roman provinces of Britain and Gaul, they were called PATRI- CIANS, a name of honour not unusually assumed in the latter days of the Roman empire, and still more generally attributed by those amongst whom they travelled, as the APPENDIX. 435 English are at this day usually called milord ; thus there might have been Palladius the Patrician, and Ccelestius, the Patrician. Higgins, a learned, but fanciful, absurd and sceptical writer, makes short work of Patrick. In the Celtic Druids, Chap. V. Sect, xliv., I have said, " Thus there is an end of St. Patrick. I shall not repeat the reasons which I have given for that opinion, which are quite sufficient for its justification. A learned and ingenious gentleman has written a life of St. Patrick ; and Nimrod says, " Firstly, and most obviously, the express tradition that St. Patrick's fosse and purgatory were the fosse and necyia of Ulysses. Ogygia (moreover) was the isle of Calypso, in which Ulysses sojourned ; and Plutarch informs us that it was situated five days' sail to the west of Britannia, and that there were three other islands near it. From the south-east of Britain, where the Romans used to land, it would have been a five days' journey to Ireland for ancient navigators. The first name of Ulysses, before he came to be styled Ho-dys-eus, was Nanus ; and the first name of St. Patrick was Nunns. In Temora, the bardic capital of Ireland, Nani tumulum lapis obtegit, and it is one of Ireland's thirteen mirabilia. Ulysses, during his detention in Aiaia, was king of a host of swine ; and Patrick, during a six years' captivity in the hands of King Milcho or Malcho, was employed to keep swine. Ulysses flourished in Babel, and St. Patrick was born at Nem-Turris, or the Celes- tial Tower ; the type of Babel, in Irish mythology, is Tory Island, or the Isle of the Tower. At the time of its expugnation Sru emigrated from the east. Rege Tutane gesturn est praelium campi Turris et expug- nata est Troja Trojanorum ; but Tutanes is the Teu- tames, King of Assyria, whose armies Memnon com- manded. Ulysses was the Roiranus (or King) whom a dolphin saved, and whom all the dolphins accompanied from Miletus ; his son Telemachus, whom a dolphin saved, was the bard Arion ; but Arion was King of Miletus in the days of Priam, King of Troy ; and a* Miletus was a considerable haven of Asia Minor in Homer's time, it is the most probable place of Ulys- ses's departure. But a great consent of tradition brings the colonists of Ireland from Miletus. Miletus, father of Ire, came to Ireland in obedience to a pro- phecy." The above is a very small part of the similitudes 436 APPENDIX. between Ulysses and St. Patrick ; but it is enough to confirm what I have said in the Celtic Druids, and to blow the whole story of the saint into thin air. I believe that the whole was a Romish fable. Nimrod afterward goes on at great length to show how the story of St. Patrick is accommodated to the ancient Homeric Mythos, and Patricius and the Paterae to the saint ; and he particularly notices a famous ship-temple, described by General Vallancey in the Archaeologia. Now I think it is quite impossible to date this great stone ship after the rise of Christianity. This at once raises the strongest probability, indeed almost proves that the stories of Ulysses, King Brute, &c. &c. detailed in the old monkish historians, are not their invention in the dark ages, as they are now considered by all our historians, and as such treated with contempt, but are parts of an univer- sally extended Mythos, brought to the British isles in much earlier times, and as such in a high degree worthy of careful examination. The proof of any part of this Mythos having existed in Ireland or Britain before the time of Christ, opens the door for the consideration of all the remainder, and is a point of the greatest importance. Higgins's Anacalypsis, Vol. I. page 367. No. 6 PAGE 371. On a certain day, as St. Patrick was going about preaching the Gospel and healing all manner of disease, he met by the wayside a tomb of astonishing size, (being thirty feet long). His companions observing this, expressed their opinion that no man could have ever arrived at such a size as to require such a grave. Whereupon the saint replied that God, by the resurrection of this giant, could persuade them, provided they were not altogether slow of faith. For just at that time there existed much doubt respecting the truth of the general resurrection. St. Patrick therefore prayed fervently that his statements might be borne out by facts, and that thereby the scruples of doubt might be eradicated from their minds. And lo a wonder wonder heretofore in past ages unheard of For the man of heavenly might approaches the sepulchre ; he pours out his powerful prayer ; signs with the staff of Jesus the tomb. And up rose the giant from the grave ; and APPENDIX. 437 there he stood before them all, in stature and countenance most horrible ; and looking intently on St. Patrick, and weeping most dolorously he cried, " Immense gratitude I owe you, my lord and master, beloved of God and elect ; because that at least for one hour you have snatched me from out the gates of helL, where I have been suffering unspeak- able torments." And he besought the saint that he would allow him to follow him ; but the saint refused, giving for his reason, that men could not bear to look without intolerable terror on his countenance. When being asked who he was, he said his name was Glarcus, son of Chais ; that heretofore he was swineherd to King Laogair, and that about 100 years ago he was attacked and killed by one Fin M'Coul in the reign of King Cairbre. St. Patrick then advised him to believe in the Triune God and be baptized, if he would not return to his place of torment, to which the giant joyfully agreed ; and then he returned to his grave, and he was delivered, according to the word of the saint, from his place of suffering. Colgan Trias Thaum SextaVita Sat., page 83. No. 7 PAGE 388. In Colgan's Acta Sanctorum, page 721, the account is given " De egressione familia? St. Brendani." and therein it is narrated how St. Brendan got information from a certain St. Barinthus, of a paridisaical island in the western ocean, to which he had once sailed under the instruction of a hermit living an ascetic life in one of the islands off the western coast of Ireland. How, said Berinthus, thus instructed, sailed through seas covered with fogs, so that they could not see from stem to stern of the vessel ; and how, at length they touched on land, all whose fields were flowery, and whose forests bore sweet fruit ; and how, when he went into the interior he met a person in shining garments who desired him to return ; and leave the discovery to one more favoured of heaven. St. Brendan hearing this from his friend St. Barinthus, and assuming that he was the chosen for the adventure, departed with fourteen of his confraternity to the island of Arran, where flourished the wise and the good St. Endius; from whom receiving much wise and holy advice (for there is no doubt but that the saint of Arran 438 APPENDIX. knew more of the remote west than any other person) St. Brendan departed for his own country in Kerry there to see his parents before he ventured on his voyage. Having there with much prayer consorted with them for a brief space ; in a little bay at the foot of that mountain, which, to this day, is called St. Brendan's Hill, he and his companions constructed a vessel such as is still used along that coast, framed of wattles, over which were ox skins stretched and made waterproof with pitch and tallow, and taking in provision for fifty days they set sail, and proceeding against the summer solstice, ("navigantes contra solstitium sestivale,") they had a prosperous wind, so that for fifteen days they never shortened or changed sail ; but on the fifteenth day the wind ceased, and they took to their oars, at which having laboured long and much, the man of God, St. Brendan, at length said to his fellow voyagers, u Cease your toils ; we will commit ourselves to the Lord, in whom we trust ; we will hoist our sail, and, without using oar or helm, abide the leadings of Providence." So on they sailed, not knowing whither ; sometimes they had wind, sometimes not ; they refreshed themselves but once during the day, and that was before the hour of evening prayer ; and at length reached the lovely land of pro- mise, where they remained seven years. So far I have contracted Colgan's account, who promised to give a fuller history of the adventure of St. Brendan and his followers when he came to the 1 1th of May, the day sacred to St. Brendan. But Colgan never published more than the acts down to the end of March ; and I have not yet come across, though I know it is in existence, any account of St. Brendan's actions during his seven years' sojourn in this transatlantic country. But let us try and connect this discovery of St. Brendan, which I am quite certain was not pure monkish invention, and which when stripped of the superstitious verbiage in which it is involved, contains in the main much veri- similitude. Now we find it stated in the introduction to the account of the Icelandic Discoveries of America, pub- lished lately at Copenhagen, page xxxvii. that the Shaw- neese Indians, who some time ago emigrated from Florida, and are now settled in the Ohio, have a tradition that Flo- rida was once inhabited by white people, who were in the possession of iron implements, &c. &c. &c.; and judging from ancient account of the habits, language, and tenets of APPENDIX. 439 this white race, they must have been an Irish, Christian people, who, previous to the year 1000, were settled in that region. The powerful chieftain, Arc Marson, of Prykanies in Iceland, was in the year 983 drawn thither by storms, and was there baptized. The first author of this account was his cotemporary Rafn, sirnamed the Limerick Trader, he having his residence in Limerick. This Rafn, or as he is in other accounts called, Ari, sailed to what he called Whiteman's Land, and dwelling there for some time, returned, and named it Great Ireland. The ori- ginal Icelandic of the passage is quoted in the second volume of the Anthologia Hibernica. In the preface to the Co- penhagen work the following circumstance is narrated : " In the year 983, Gudlief Gudlauson sailing from Dublin to Iceland, was driven by north-east winds to the land above alluded to, and found a Norwegian dwelling there, by whose means he was rescued when about to be put to death by the natives ; he in a short time safely returned to Dublin and reported that the people he was amongst spoke what resembled the Irish language." No. 8 PAGE 388. The compiler of the MS. history of Ireland, preserved in the library of the Royal Irish Academy, written about the year 1636. He, as quoted by Hardiman in his Irish Minstrelsy, vol. 1, p. 138, speaks of the sunken land thus : " The Tuatha Danaans, coming in upon the Firbolgs, ex- pelled them into the out islands, which lay scattered on the north coast, and they themselves were served the same measure by the Clanna Miledhes ; but what became of the remainder of them I cannot learn, unless they do inhabit an island which lyeth far out at sea on the west of Connaught, and is sometimes perceived by the inha- bitants of Uaile and Iris. It is also said to be sometimes, seen from St. Helen's Head, being the farthest west point of land beyond the haven of Calbegs, now Teeling Head, bounding the bay of Killibegs in Donegal ; likewise several seamen have discovered it at sea as they have sailed on the western coast of Ireland ; one of whom, named Captain Rich, who lives about Dublin, had of late years a view of the land, and was so near that he disco- vered a harbour, as he supposed, by the two headlands 440 APPENDIX. on each side thereof, but could never make the land, although when he had lost sight thereof in a mist which fell upon him, he held the same course several hours after- wards. This I am bold to assert by the way. because I have heard a relation thereof from many credible persons, and particularly from the said Captain Rich ; although in many old maps (especially maps of Europe and maps of the world) you will find it by the name of O'Brasil, under the longitude of 13, and the latitude of 50 20' ; so that it may be those famous enchanters now inhabit them, and by their magic skill conceal their island from foreigners. Yet this is my own conceit, and would have it taken for no other." So strong was the belief at this time in the existence of O'Brasil, that a fictitious account of a voyage thither found circulation in 1675. The story purports to be told in a letter from one William Hamilton of Lon- donderry, to his cousin in London, and is entitled " O'Brasil, or the Enchanted Island, being a perfect relation of the late discovery and wonderful disenchant- ment of an island on the west of Ireland." The tale itself is sufficiently absurd, but the writer states some collateral facts worth noticing ; as that on first coming to Ireland he heard many stories which were common in every man's mouth concerning the island of O'Brasil which multitudes reported to be often seen from the coasts of Ulster. Again he expresses his wonder at having found it laid down in many maps both ancient and modern ; and still greater surprise at what moved his correspondent's cousin " who was a wise man and a great scholar to put himself to the charges and trouble (in the late king's time) to take out a, patent for it when it should be gained ;" on which there is this note u There is nothing more certain than that a patent was taken out for it in the late king's days." He further adds, ;t since the happy restoration of his majesty that now reigns, many re- ports have been that it has been disenchanted or taken, yea at the time of the sitting of the last parliament in Dublin, (in the year 1663,) one coming out of Ulster assured the House of Commons (whereof he was a member) that the enchantment was broken, and it gained ; but it proved not so ; and about two years after, a certain Quaker pre- tended that he had a revelation from heaven, that he was the man ordained to take it with a new ship built by his APPENDIX. -141 inspiration, &c. ; and in order thereto he built a vessel, hut what became of him or his enterprise I never heard," &c (See Hardimaris Irish Minstrelsy, V. I. pp. 369, 371.) It may here be remarked that the island, as known to the Irish, is properly called Hy Bresail, corresponding with the Bresilium of Hadrienus Junius, being accented on the first syllable, not as in the present name of Brazil proper ; and that in this respect it agrees with the old name, as known to Chaucer, in whose verse the accent is thrown back ; so also Marston, in his satires, used the word with along penul- tima, some time after the name had been imposed on the coun- try which now bears it " God bless his honour's running Brasell bowl." Marston, Sat. 1 1, from which it appears that this wood was also turned to the manufacture of utensils. Such, also, seems to be the pronunciation indi- cated by the spelling of the word in the other evidences. The affix Hy used in the Irish name, as in Hy Mania, Hy Niellam, &c. &c. is nearly equivalent to Clan, as in our Clan-Breasal, meaning the tenantry of or country occupied by the descendants of Brasail, which is still a common Irish name. For these observations I am indebted to my friend Mr. Ferguson, who lately read a clever, pleasant paper on the subject, before the Royal Irish Academy. No. 9 PAGE 329. In order to show with what fidelity tradition is pre- served amongst the Irish, I think it well to quote the following passage from an author who wrote 500 years ago, and whose work is so scarce that it is quite impos- sible that the Connaught schoolmaster should have ever seen it. Yet his tradition is almost identical with the statement of Gerald Barry : Giraldus Cambrensis Topographia Hibernia, book 2, chap. 12. u Inter alias vero Insulas est una nuper nut a. quam phantastica vocant, cui talis eventus originam dedit : Die quodam sereno emersit in mari, cumulus terra? non modicus, ubi nunquam, antea terra visa fuerat videntibus et admirantibus insulanis. Quidam enim ex iis dicebat balenam vel aliam beluam marinam monstrosam esse ; 442 APPENDIX. alii vero considerantes quod sine omni motu persisterat ; dicebant nequaquam, sed terra erat ; ut vero hanc contiguitatis conditionem certitudo discrimerent, elect! juvenes de insula quadam propinquore illuc navicula remisque adire statuerant. Accidentes vero tarn prope ut applicare jam se arbitrati fuerint tanquam in mare descendens ab oculis eorum insula prorsus evanuit. In crastino, vero, similiter, apparens eosdem juvenes simili delusione decepit. Tertio tandem die senioris cujusdam consilio accidentes sagittam igniti ferri in insulam promiserunt et sic applicantes terrain stabilem et habitabilem invenerunt. Multis itaque patet argumentis phantasmati cuilibet ignem semper inimicissimum." TRANSLATION. Amongst other islands there is one lately come to light, which they call the Phantom Island, which was discovered in the following manner : On a certain calm day a mass of no small size emerged from the sea, where never before land was seen by the now wondering natives. Some indeed said it must be a whale or some other monstrous creature of the deep ; but others considering how steady the mass appeared, asserted that it must be land ; and in order to arrive at a certainty, certain young men were chosen to row thither in a boat, and they accordingly pulling towards it, and now almost touching the land, found that, as in an instant, the island vanished from their sight. To-morrow, however, as it appeared again, the same young men tried, and that in vain, to reach it ; but on the third day, pursuant to the advice of an old man, they on approaching shot an arrow tipped with red hot iron towards the shore, and then landing they found a land steady and habitable. 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