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ilUN 2 4 1981

NOV 15

AUG 1 8 V

805 7-S

Tenth Edition
YOURSELF AND THE NEIGHBOURS (Seumas MacManus)
Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty
rHE BALTIMORE SUN — Once in a great many years there is published a book that
s out so pre-eminently above the general run of books that it deserves to be classed among
masterpieces of a country's literature. Such a book is Seumas MacManus' Yourself and
leighbours.

'"HE LOS ANGELES TIMES — If Seumas MacManus is not taken to our bosom and
thed as a classic, then all signs by which we estimate genius fail.
Seorge W. Cable says: — I may have read as good English — not often, however. But, oh,

did any one ever read such darling Irish. Assuredly Seumas MacManus' is a master pen,
I joy to me which I mean to make permanent.

Sdwin Markham — I am struck by the freshness, the beauty, the poesy, of this, the best work
as MacManus has ever done.

tiark Sullivan — I have read Yourself and the Neighbours with the intensest interest, line
le, and am ordering the rest of Seumas MacManus' books, anticipating the greatest delight.
Jhief Justice of Canada, Sir Charles Fitzpatrick— When I finished Yourself and the Neigh-

I wanted to thank Seumas MacManus for giving me the key to so much of the humorous,
lystic, the tragic, that is the charm of the Irish people— may God bless them !
Vm. Marion Reedy, in the "Mirror" — It is the best, the very best, projection of Irish
lat I can recall. It is better than Lover or Lever or Banim or Gerald Griffin — and worth
demess of the works of George Moore.

)avid Belasco — I wish I could express how truly delightful I found this book. It is so
ling, fresh and quaintly humorous, and at the same time so pathetically tender, that I
1 and laughed and gulped "all in one breath." I wonder if Seumas MacManus realises
ine this book is? He is at his best in it.

ames Whitcomb Riley — I read Yourself and the Neighbours with avidity — as I read every
if Seumas MacManus.

irchbishop Ireland — It is a wonderfully beautiful book both in sentiment and diction,
irchbishop Prendergast — Now that I have read it, every word, and many parts more than

I wish to say that it is the most delightful book of its kind I ever read. It should be in
ome of every one of our race the world over.

(uth McEnery Stuart — This book is a delight — and for so many qualities that I find them
t lost in the word "charm." Many times in my reading I found my eyes filling with
-of keen delight and sympathy — and pride, too. This work is the real thing and as
as Seumas MacManus' first touch, which made the world look his way.
loston Transcript — Few books to-day are written with such love and sympathy as is this

Seumas MacManus has won, all over the world, a following of people whose hearts will

leave the hills of Donegal.

Ix-Gov. John K. Tener, of Pennsylvania — Already I have nearly finished this delightful —
lelicious — book. When I got into the swing of it, I sang rather than read the pages,
hancellor McCormick, University of Pittsburgh — I wonder whether Seumas MacManus him-
ealises what a fine piece of work he has here done. I dare any one to spend an hour
ig this book and not rise from it a kinder, gentler, finer soul. The world, when it comes
ow the book, will thank Seumas MacManus for it as I thank him.

[ew York Times— Seumas MacManus here puts the soul of his race into language exquisite,
tense with passion, now shaken with mirth. He has art and knowledge and sympathy;
e puts them all into this lovable book.

resident Chase, Bates College — This intensely interesting book helped me to understand,
preciate, to love, and to admire the Irish people to a degree that has enriched my own

and made more tender my own heart.

$2 (and 15c. postage). From THE IRISH PUBLISHING CO., Box 1300, New York City.

IRELAND'S CASE (Seumas MacMaaus). Seventieth Thousand
lishop Grimes (Syracuse) — ^This superb argument should echo throughout civilization,
lie Indiana Catholic — ^This is the most remarkable book ever written about Ireland.
Price $1.50 (postage lOc). IRISH PUB. CO., Box 1300, New York City,

THE RED POACHER (Seumas MacManus)

lew York Sun — ^The most dramatic book and the best story-telling that MacManus has
one.

Price $1.25 (and 10c. postage). THE IRISH PUB. CO., Box 1300, New York.

BALLADS OF A COUNTRY BOT

The Poems of Seumaa MacManns

Fiona Macleod — 'What pleasure this book gave me, with its lilt fresh from the hillsides of
Donegal, and its blithe spirit brave and glad, alike in storm and shine I I have looked into it
again and again since first I read it, and never without pleasure, or the sudden sense of wind
and air, and the singing heart.

The Leader (San Francisco) — A book to cherish, to smile over, and weep over by turns, is
"Ballads of a Country Boy." . . . We meet here all the characteristics tliat have made of
Ireland a great and holy nation. . . . Seumas MacManos shares with Ethna Carbery her
magnificent sensuousness of imagery, and haunting melody of versification. The poems of both
stand for what is most distinctly national, and, in a literary way, most excelling, in recent Irish
verse.

New Ireland Seview— It would be hard to find a new volume of popular poetry which
excites one's interest from beginning t« end to the same degree as these simple ballads of
Seumas MacManus. Here we have the joyful, the aorrowful, the beautiful— and we feel our
hearts glow with a deeper love of Ireland.

Price $1.25 (and 10c posUge). THB IRISH PUB. CO.

A LAD OF THE O'FRIBLS (Seiuaaa MacManut)

Fiona Macleod — An admirable piece of work, true to life, true in sentiment, true in touch,
with vivid actuality and the breath of romance, and a very real and appealing winsonie charm.
... It gave me sincere and deep pleasure to read this delightful book.

The Boston Transcript — ^This book is a landmark, showing the height of excellence to
which the flood of fiction may rise.

New Ireland Review — The poetry of Irish homely life has never been more faithfully and
more touchingly portrayed than in this book. ... It is a powerful work.

Irish Independent — Of all novels descriptive of Irish homely life which we have read,
"A Lad of the O'Friels" rings truest. One seems actually to aee and hear his characters
as they speak.

Punch — ^A charming book, sure of lasting fame and popularity.

Price $1.90 (and 15c. postage). IRISH PUB. CO.

DOCTOR KILGANNON (Seumaa MacManus)
The Overland Monthly says:— "This book has all the qualities that endeared the author's
earlier works to the public. The rich Donegal humour is here, and the effervescing wit which
Seumas MaoManus possesses in unusual degree. "Doctor Kilgannon" falls little short of "A
Lad of the O'Friels" in its richness of colouring and literary charm."

Price $1.25 (and 10c. postage).

LO AND BEHOLD YE (Seumas MacManus)

New York Sun — For sheer beauty, for rich humour, for Irish wit and action, for high
imagination, here is a volume worth while.

New York Times — Such a book as this is a blessing to distraught humanity.

Washington Star — Inimitable and ensnaring — a maze of bewitching Irishry, woven by the
incomparable Seumas MacManus.

Louisville Post — For wit and humour, for human feeling, for Irish gaiety and .grace,
this book has rarely been equalled.

Springfield Republican — This book of Seumas MacManus is a sheer umnitigated joy. Read
it and catch the soul of the Irish, read it to find life sweet again, read it to laugh and grow young. ,

The Catholic World — Here we have Seumas MacManus at his delicious best — ^hig^ praise
for even a good book.

Price $2 (and 15& postage). From THB IRISH PUB. CO.

TOP O' THB MORNIN' (Seumas MacManus)

New York Evening Post — Here Seumas MacManus is at his familiar best — ^and runs his
whole gamut.

Outlook — ^Abounding in raciness, true fancy, genuine humour, large-hearted human nature.

The Nation — Entirely delightful

America — Each story of these proves the author a master of his art. Pathos and humour
flow from his pen, and blend naturally — a rare gift.

Portland Express — On every page a laugh and a sigh.

Salt Lake City Telegram — Here is a freshness and cheer like the dewy dawn in Ireland.

Springfield Republican— Smiles and tears here elbow each other for room.

Boston Transcript — Entirely captivating.
Price $2 (and 15c. postage). From THE IRISH PUB. CO., Box 1300. New York Qty.

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

i J" K

SOME OF THE SEUHAS MacMANUS BOOKS

YOURSELF AND THE NEIGHBOURS (Tenth Edition)

IRELAND'S CASE (Seventieth Thousand)

A LAD OF THE O'FRIELS

DONEGAL FAIRY STORIES

BALLADS OF A COUNTRY BOY

IN CHIMNEY CORNERS

THE RED POACHER

DR. KILGANNON

TOP O' THE MORNIN*

LO AND BEHOLD YE

THE HARD-HEARTED MAN (A Play)

WOMAN OF SEVEN SORROWS (A Play)

Other Short Plays

ETHNA CARBERY BOOKS

THE FOUR WINDS OF EIRINN (Poems)

New edition (20th), with Memoir by Seumas MacManus
IN THE CELTIC PAST
THE PASSIONATE HEARTS

THE IRISH PUBLISHING CO., Box 1300. New York, N. Y.

THE STORY OF THE
IRISH RACE

A Popular History of Ireland

BY
SEUMAS MacMANUS

Assisted by Several Irish Scholars

O wind-drifted Branch, lift your head to the sun,
For the sap of new life in your veins hath begun,
And a little young bud of the tenderest green
Mine eyes through the snow and the sorrow have seen!

O little green bud, break and blow into flower.

Break and blow through the welcome of sunshine and shower;

'Twas a long night and dreary you hid there forlorn,

But now the cold hills wear the radiance of morn !

— ^Ethna Casbery.

Subscribers' Edition

NEW YORK

THE IRISH PUBLISHING CO.

P. O. Box 1300

1921

Published October, 1921

This Book is Ikscribed

to the haloed memory of one who, ponder-
ing the heroic records of her race, dedi-
cated her life to ireland's holy cause,
and in undying strains sang the glories
the sorrows and radiant hopes of her land

BELOVED —

Eire's Queen of Song,
ETHNA CARBERY.

o
0

Q
A

CONTENTS

CHAFTES

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX.

XX.

XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.

XXIV.

XXV.

XXVI.

XXVII.

XXVIII.

XXIX.

XXX.

XXXI.

XXXII.

XXXIII.

XXXIV.

XXXV.

XXXVI.

XXXVII.

XXXVIII.

XXXIX.

XL.

XLI.

PAGE

Early Colonisations 1

The Tuatha De Danann 5

The Milesians 7

Some Notable Milesian Royalties 15

Ireland in the Lore of the Ancients .... 19

Conor MacNessa 23

cuchullain 28

Two First Century Leaders 36

Conn of the Hundred Battles 40

CoRMAC MacArt 45

Tara 54

The Fairs 58

FlONN AND THE FlAN 64

The Break of Ulster 74

Niall of the Nine Hostages 77

Irish Invasions of Britain 84

General Review of Pagan Ireland 90

Irish Christianity Before St. Patrick .... 103

St. Patrick 109

The Brehon Laws 129

St. Bridget 142

Women in Ancient Ireland 151

COLM CiLLE 160

The Poets 176

The Irish Kingdom of Scotland 192

The Centuries of the Saints 196

Learning in Ancient Ireland 212

The Irish Missionaries Abroad 232

Irish Scholars Abroad 256

The Vikings in Ireland 267

Hospitality in Ancient Ireland 287

The Tribe 293

Manner of Living in Ancient Ireland . . . 296

Structural Antiquities 301

Various Arts of Ancient Ireland 307

The English Invasion 319

Norman and Gael 331

Trade in Medi^^val Ireland 340

Learning in Medieval Ireland 346

The Geraldines 353

Henry VIII's Policies 362

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

XLII.

XLIII.

XLIV.

XLV.

XLVI.

XLVII.

XLVIII.

XLIX.

LI.

LII.

LIII.

LIV.

LV.

LVI.

LVII.

LVIII.

LIX.

LX.

LXI.

LXII.

LXIII.

LXIV.

LXV.

LXVI.

LXVII.

LXVIII.

LXIX.

LXX.

LXXI.

LXXII.

LXXIII.

LXXIV.

LXXV.

LXXVI.

LXXVII.

LXXVIII.

LXXIX.

LXXX.

LXXXI.

PAGE

Shane the Proud 368

Elizabeth Continues the Conquest .... 373

Red Hugh 379

The Nine Years' War 385

Suppressing the Race 399

The Ulster Plantation 405

The Rising of 1641 408

The War of the Forties 415

Cromwell 422

The Cromwellian Settlement 428

The Willlamite Wars 436

The Later Penal Laws 454

"The Wild Geese" 470

The Suppression of Irish Trade 483

The Volunteers 493

Theobald Wolfe Tone 499

The United Irishmen 505

The Rising of 1798 515

The Union 526

Robert Emmet 532

Daniel O'Connell 538

O'CoNNELL the Idol 545

Catholic Emancipation 551

O'Connell's Power and Popularity .... 560

Through the Thirties 567

The Great Repeal Fight 574

The End of O'Connell 584

Young Ireland 590

The Great Famine 602

The Fenians 611

Charles Stewart Parnell 621

The Land Struggle Begins 631

The Land League 636

The Ladies' Land League 644

Fall of Parnell and of Parliamentarianism . . 659

The Modern Literature of Ireland .... 669

Sinn Fein 684

Easter Rising 691

The Last War? 706

The Dawning 712

An Honor-Roll 715

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

FOREWORD

This Is an attempt to sketch a rough and ready picture of the
more prominent peaks that rise out of Ireland's past — ^the high
spots in the story of our race.

The story is developed with the object of interesting and in-
forming the man who can not, or will not, afford the time to read
studiously. Yet it is earnestly hoped that it may whet the appetites
of many, and stimulate them to go browsing in broader and richer
pastures — ^in anticipation of which there are set down, at ends of
chapters or periods, titles of some of the more important books
dealing with the subject just treated of.

The writer was impelled to the compilation of this story of our
race by the woeful lack of knowledge on the subject which he found
in the four corners of America, among all classes of people, alike
the intelligent and the ordinary. With the vast majority of Amer-
ica's intellectual ones he found Ireland's past as obscure as the past
of Borneo. On three occasions he was asked by educated women
who were pillars in their Societies, Has Ireland got a history?

To a large extent the blame for American ignorance of Ire-
land's story rests upon the ignorance of our own exiles, and the
children of those exiles. Were these possessed of a general knowl-
edge of Ireland's past, and the proper pride that must come of
that knowledge, the good Americans around them would catch in-
formation by contagion. The writer hopes that even this crude
compendium may put some of the necessary knowledge and pride in
the minds and hearts of his people — and also the incentive to seek
out and study the history of the country that endowed them with
the rare riches, spiritual and mental, that characterises the far-wand-
ered children, and children's children, of the Gael.

Also it is to be hoped that many of the general American public,
ever sympathetic toward Ireland, may, through the aid of this
rough record, graduate from a state of instinctive sympathy and
love to the beginning of an intelligent one.

In making this compilation, the political narrative conmion to
all Irish histories is given briefly. But, non-political phases of our
race's history— often far more important than the political, and

xii FOREWORD

usually omitted or only hinted at — are gone into more largely : such
as the ancient customs, laws, learning, literature, scholars, teachers,
saints, missionaries — and in more modern times the spiritual strug-
gles and sufferings of our people.

In spelling the ancient Irish proper names the Gaelic form is
usually employed — except in cases where a modern form has been
popularised. For sake of readers who know nothing of Irish pro-
nunciation, the confusing aspirate has been, in most cases, omitted —
except with ^ or c where the aspirate is, to English speakers, a
help rather than a hindrance. The Gaelic reader will know where
to supply the missing aspirates.

For the inquiring reader's benefit it may be useful to quote here
a passage from an article on The Ancient Language, History and
Literature of Ireland, which Dr. Douglas Hyde kindly contributed
for this volume — ^but which was unfortunately received too late for
inclusion.

Says Dr. Hyde : "The numerous Irish annals in which the skele-
ton of Irish history is contained, are valuable and ancient. We
have of course no outside testimony by which we can verify their
statements, but there is abundance of internal testimony to show the
accuracy with which they have been handed down. The Annals of
Ulster, to take, one of several compilations of a like character, treat
of Ireland from about the year 444, and record numerous natural
phenomena as they occurred. If it could be proved that these phe-
nomena actually took place upon the very date ascribed to them in
the annals, we should be able to conclude with something like cer-
tainty that they were actually written down at the time and recorded
by eye-witnesses. The illustrious Bede in recording the great eclipse
of the sun which took place only eleven years before his own birth
is two days astray in his date, while the Irish annals give cor-
rectly not only the day but the hour. This proves that their com-
piler had access either to the original record of an eye-witness, or
to a copy of such a document. These annals contain, between the
end of the fifth century and the year 884, as many as eighteen
records of eclipses, comets, and such natural phenomena — and
modern science by calculating backwards shows that all these rec-
ords are absolutely correct, both as to the day and hour. From
this we can deduce without hesitation that from the fourth or fifth
century the Irish annals can be absolutely trusted."

The compiler expresses his earnest thanks to the Irish scholars
and writers who generously aided his work.

FOREWORD xiii

The fine chapter on the Danish period * is contributed by one
eminently well versed on the subject, Dr. Joseph Dunn, translator
of the Tain bo Chuailgne, and Professor of Celtic and Lecturer on
Romance Philology at the Catholic University of America.

The noted worker in Irish history, biography, archaeology, and
literature, "Sean-Ghall" — whom Arthur Griffith characterised as
"the greatest living authority on Irish historv"— gives us the fruit
of years of research in the picture which he contributes of the ob-
scure period from after the advent of Shane Buide to the eve of
Shane O'Neill.^

Miss L. MacManus, the admired author of "The Silk of the
Kine" and other fine Irish historical novels, and an authority upon
the periods of which she has here treated, supplies the chronicle of
Ireland during the Wars of Elizabeth, and during those of William
of Orange.'

The bright chapter on the Wild Geese,* and the record of those
momentous decades of Irish militancy 1782-1803 ^ have been treated
by another of the distinctive Irish writers, Helena O'Concannon
(Mrs. Thomas O'Concannon), author of "The Book of Irish Wo-
manhood," and several other valuable works.

Rev. Tomas O' Kelly of the National University (Galway),
whose writing both in Irish and in English is not yet as well known
as it ought to be, tells the story of the Parnell period.'

Another of the new generation, one who is making a name in
fiction, essay, and poetry (Gaelic and English) Aod de Blacam,
author of "Holy Romans," and "Towards the Republic" con-
tributes the informing chapters on Gaelic literature, and those
on the Sinn Fein period.'

For the Gaelic design on the cover of the book earnest thanks
are due to a worthy Irish-American artist who is admirably striving
to make Gaelic art live again here, in stained-glass work, Thomas
Augustus O'Shaughnessy of Chicago.

1 Chap. XXX. 5 Chaps. LVI-LIX and Chap LXI.

2 Chaps. XXXVII-XLI. e chaps. LXXII-LXXVI.

3 Chaps. XLII-XLV and Chap. LII. t chaps. LXXVII-LXXIX.
*Chap. LIV.

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

CHAPTER I

EARLY COLONISATIONS

The Irish Race of tcwiay is popularly known as the Milesian Race,
because the genuine Irish (Celtic) people were supposed to be
descended from Milesius of Spain, whose sons, say the legendary
accounts, invaded and possessed themselves of Ireland a thousand
years before Christ.*

But it is nearly as inaccurate to style the Irish people pure
Milesian because the land was conquered and settled by the Mile-
sians, as it would be to call them Anglo-Norman because it was
conquered and settled by the twelfth century English.

The Races that occupied the land when the so-called Milesians
came, chiefly the Firbolg and the Tuatha De Danann,* were cer-
tainly not exterminated by the conquering Milesians. Those two
peoples formed the basis of the future population, which was domi-
nated and guided, and had its characteristics moulded, by the far
less numerous but more powerful Milesian aristocracy and soldiery.

All three of these races, however, were different tribes of the
great Celtic family, who, long ages before, had separated from
the main stem, and in course of later centuries blended again into
one tribe of Gaels — ^three derivatives of one stream, which, after
winding their several ways across Europe from the East, in Ireland
turbulently met, and after eddying, and surging tumultuously,
finally blended in amity, and flowed onward in one great Gaelic
stream.

^ Many scientific historians deny this in toto. See Qiapter III.

' De Jubainville denies a De Danann race to Ireland. He asserts they were
mytholop^icaL MacNeill agrees with him. But many students of the question dis-
agree with both of these able men. The fact that myths grow around great people
wiyt not lead us to conclude that the people were mytiiicaL Fortunately Fionn
and fais Fian fell within historical time when actual facts, countering the myths that
have gathered around them, were set down ; otherwise, by the same process of rea-
soning, they might have been classed with the De Danann as an entirely imaginary
people.

2 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Of these three certain colonisations of Ireland, the Firbolg wjs
the first. Legend says they came from Greece, where they hid
been long enslaved, and whence they escaped in the captured ships
of their masters.

In their possession of Ireland the Firbolgs were disturbed by
the descents and depredations of African sea-rovers, the Fomorians,
who had a main stronghold on Tory Island, off the Northwest
Coast.

But the possession of the country was wrested from the Firbolgs,
and they were forced Into partial serfdom by the Tuatha De Danann
(people of the goddess Dana), who arrived later.

Totally unlike the uncultured Firbolgs, the Tuatha De Danann
were a capable and cultured, highly civilized people, so skilled in
the crafts, if not the arts, that the Firbolgs named them necroman-
cers; and in course of time both the Firbolgs and the later-coming
Milesians created a mythology around these.

The great Irish historiographer, Eugene O'Curry, says: "The
De Danann were a people remarkable for their knowledge of the
domestic, if not the higher, arts of civilized life" — and he further-
more adds that they were apparently more highly civilized than
even their conquerors, the Milesians.

In a famed battle at Southern Moytura (on the Mayo-Galway
border) it was that the Tuatha De Danann met and overthrew the
Firbolgs. There has been handed down a poetical account of this
great battle — a story that O'Curry says can hardly be less than
fourteen hundred years old — which is very interesting, and wherein
we get some quaint glimpses of ancient Irish ethics of war (for even
in the most highly imaginative tale, the poets and seanachies of all
times, unconsciously reflect the manners of their own age, or of
ages just passed) . The Firbolgs, only too conscious of the supe-
riority of the newcomers, used every endeavour to defer the fatal
encounter. When the armies were drawn up in seeming readiness,
the Firbolgs refused to begin battle. And they coolly replied to
the Impatient enemy that they could not say when they would be
ready to begin. They must have time to sharpen their swords,
and time to put their spears In order, to furbish their armour, and
brighten their helmets. The Tuatha De Danann had better
restrain their Impetuosity. Tremendous things hung upon the out-
come of this fight, and they, wisely, were not going to be rushed
into It until the last rod in the last (wickerwork) shield was
perfect.

Moreover, they observed that their opponents had a superior
kind of light spear : so time must be given them to get like weapons

EARLY COLONISATIONS 3

made. And they magnanimously pointed out to the Tuatha
De Danann that, on the other hand, as they, the Firbolgs, had
the advantage of possessing craisechs, heavy spears that could work
great destruction, the De Danann needed to provide themselves
with craisechs. Anything and everything to stave off the dread
matching of courage and skill. Altogether they most skilfully
managed to keep the enemy fretting and fuming with impatience
for a hundred days and five before the great clash resounded to
the heavens.

But the De Danann gained an important point also. For, as
the Firbolgs were possessed of overwhelming numbers, the
strangers demanded that they eliminate their majority and fight on
equal terms, man for man — ^which the laws of battle-justice unfor-
tunately compelled the reluctant Firbolgs to agree to.

The battle raged for four days. Then the Firbolgs, finding
themselves beaten, but pretending not to know this, proposed that
the doubtful struggle be ended by halting the great hosts and pit-
ting against each other a body of 300 men from each side. So
bravely had the losing ones fought, and so sorely exhausted the
De Danann, that the latter, to end the struggle, were glad to leave
to the Firbolgs that quarter of the Island wherein they fought,
the province now called Connaught. And the bloody contest was
over.

The Firbolgs' noted King, Eochaid, was slain in this great bat-
tle. But the greatest of their warriors, Sreng, had maimed the
De Danann King, Nuada, cutting off his hand — and by that stroke
deposed him from the kingship. Because, under the De Danann
law (and ever after in Eirinn) no king could rule who suffered
from a personal blemish.

The great warrior champion of the De Danann, Breas (whose
father was a Fomorian chief) filled the throne while Nuada went
into retirement, and had made for him a silver hand, by their chief
artificer, Creidne.

Breas, says the legend, ruled for seven years. He incensed his
people by indulging his kin, the Fomorians, in their depredations.
And he was finally deposed for this and iFor another cause that
throws light upon one of the most noted characteristics of the
people of Eire, ancient and modern. Breas proved himself that
meanest of all men, a king ungenerous and inhospitable^lacking
open heart and open hand — "The knives of his people" it was com-
plained, "were not greased at his table, nor did their breath smell
of ale, at the banquet. Neither their poets, nor their bards, nor
their satirists, nor their harpers, nor their pipers, nor their trum-

4 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

peters, nor their jugglers, nor their buffoons, were ever seen en-
gaged in amusing them in the assembly at his court." So there
was mighty grumbling in the land, for that it should be disgraced
by so unkingly a king. And the grumbling swelled to a roar, when,
in the extreme of his niggardliness, he committed the sin, unpar-
donable in ancient Ireland, of insulting a poet. Cairbre, the great
poet of the time, having come to visit him, was sent to a little bare,
cold apartment, where a few, mean, dry cakes upon a platter were
put before him as substitute for the lavish royal banquet owed to
a poet. In hot indignation he quitted the abode of Breas, and upon
the boorish king composed a withering satire, which should blight
him and his seed forever. Lashed to wrath, then, by the outrage
on a poet's sacred person the frenzied people arose, drove the
boor from the throne, and from the Island — and Nuada Airgead
Lam (of the Silver Hand) again reigned over his people.

Breas fled to the Hebrides, to his father, Elatha, the chief of
the Fomorians, where, collecting a mighty host of their sea-rob-
bers, in as many ships as filled the sea from the Hebrides to Ireland,
they swarmed into Eirinn — and gave battle to the De Danaan at
Northern Moytura, in Sligo. In this, their second great battle,
the De Danann were again victorious. They routed their enemy
with fearful slaughter, and overthrew the Fomorian tyranny in the
island forever. The famous Fomorian chief, Balor of the Evil
Eye, whose headquarters was on Tory Island, off the Northwest
coast, was slain, by a stone from the sling of his own grandson, the
great De Danann hero, Lugh. But Balor had slain King Nuada
before he was himself dispatched.

This famous life and death struggle of two races is commemo-
rated by a multitude of cairns and pillars which strew the great
battle plain in Sligo — a plain which bears the name (in Irish) of
"the Plain of the Towers of the Fomorians."

The De Danann were now the undisputed masters of the land.

So goes the honored legend.

CHAPTER II

THE TUATHA DE DANANN

Over the island, which was now indisputably De Danann, reigned
the hero, Lugh, famous in mythology. And after Lugh, the still
greater Dagda — ^whose three grand-sons, succeeding him in the
sovereignty, were reigning, says the story, when the Milesians came.

Such a great people were the De Danann, and so uncommonly
skilled in the few arts of the time, that they dazzled even their
conquerors and successors, the Milesians, into regarding them as
mighty magicians. Later generations of the Milesians to whom
were handed down the wonderful traditions of the wonderful
people they had conquered, lifted them into a mystic realm, their
greatest ones becoming gods and goddesses, who supplied to
their successors a beautiful mythology.

Most conquerors come to despise the conquered, but here they
came to honor, almost to worship those whom they had subdued.
Which proves not only greatness in the conquered, but also bigness
of mind and distinctiveness of character in the conquerors.

The De Danann skill in the arts and crafts in course of time
immortalised itself in beautiful legends among the Milesians. Lugh
was not only the son of a god (of Manannan MacLir, the sea-god),
and the greatest of heroes, but tradition gave him all the many
mortal powers of his people, so that he was called Sab Ildanach,
nrieaning Stem of all the Arts. When the De Danann had first ar-
rived in Ireland Lugh went to the court of Eochaid, the Firbolg
king at Tara, and sought an office. But no one was admitted a
member of this court unless he was master of some art or craft not
already represented there. The doorkeeper barring Lugh's way
demanded on what ground he sought to be admitted. Lugh
answered that he was a saer (carpenter). No, they had a good
saef in the court already. Then he said he was a good smith.
They had an able smith, also. Well, he was a champion. They
already had a champion. Next, he was a harper. They had a
wonderful harper, too. Then a poet and antiquarian. They had
such — and of the most eminent. But he was a magician. They

6 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

had many Druids, adepts in the occult. He was a physician. They
had the famous physician, DIancecht. He was a cupbearer. They
had nine. Then, a goldsmith. They had the famous Creidne.*
"Then," said Lugh, "go to your king, and ask him if he has in his
court any man who is at once master of all these arts and profes-
sions. If he has, I shall not ask admittance to Tara."

Eochaid, the King, was overjoyed. He led in the wonderful
Lugh, and put him in the chair of the ard-oUam, the chief professor
of the arts and sciences.

The Dagda, who reigned just before the coming of the Mile-
sians, was the greatest of the De Danann. He was styled Lord of
Knowledge and Sun of all the Sciences. His daughter, Brigit, was
a woman of wisdom, and goddess of poetry. The Dagda was a
great and beneficent ruler for eighty years.

1 The old traditional tales say that the Creidne mentioned was a very famous
worker in the precious metals. The basic truth of these traditions seems evidenced
by the reference in very ancient manuscripts to Bretha Creidne, "The Judgements
of Creidne," a body of laws dealing with fine scales, weights and measures, and
the precious metals. There is still preserved part of a very old poem, which says
that Creidn6 was drowned, returning from Spain with golden ore.

CHAPTER III

THE MILESIANS

The sixteenth-century scholar, O' Flaherty, fixes the Milesian in-
vasion of Ireland at about looo B. C. — ^the time of Solomon. Some
modern writers, including MacNeill, say that they even came at a
much later date. There are, however, philologists and other scien-
tific inquirers, who to some extent corroborate O' Flaherty's esti-
mate.

It is proven that the Celts whencesoever they came, had, before
the dawn of history, subjugated the German people and estab-
lished themselves in Central Europe. At about the date we have
mentioned, a great Celtic wave, breaking westward over the Rhine,
penetrated into England, Scotland, and Ireland. Subsequently a
wave swept over the Pyrenees into the Spanish Peninsula. Other
waves came westward still later.

The studies of European scholars have shown that these Celts
were an eminently warlike people, rich in the arts of civilized life,
who subdued and dominated the ruder races, wherever they went
on the Continent. They were possessed of "a high degree of po-
litical unity, had a single king, and a wise and consistent external
policy." Mostly, however, they seem to have been a federation
of patridan republics. At various times they had allied them-
selves with the Greeks to fight common enemies. They gave valu-
able service to, and were highly esteemed by Philip, and by his son,
the great Alexander. In an alliance which they made with Alex-
ander, before he left on his Asiatic expedition, it was by the ele-
ments they swore their fealty to the pact — ^just as we know they
continued to swear in Ireland, down to the coming of Christianity
in the fifth century.

They piqued Alexander's pride by frankly telling him that they
did not fear him — only feared Heaven. They held sway in Cen-
tral Europe through long centuries. A Celtic cemetery discov-
ered at Hallstatt in upper Austria proves them to have been skilled
in^ art and industries as far back as 900 B. C. — shows them as
miners and agriculturists, and blessed with the use of iron instru-
ments. They invaded Italy twice, in the seventh and in the fourth

8 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

centuries before Christ. In the latter time they were at the climax
of their power. They stormed Rome itself, 300 B. C.

The rising up of the oppressed Germans against them, nearly
three centuries before Christ, was the beginning of the end of the
Continental power of the Celt. After that they were beaten and
buffeted by Greek and by Roman, and even by despised races —
broken, and blown like the surf in all directions. North and South,
and East and West. A fugitive colony of these people, that had
settled in Asia Minor, in the territory which from them (the Gaels)
was called Galatia, and among whom Paul worked, was found to
be still speaking a Celtic language in the days of St. Jerome, five
or six hundred years later. Eoin MacNeill and other scientific en-
quirers hold that it was only in the fifth century before Christ that
they reached Spain — and that it was not via Spain but via north-
western France and Britain that they, crushed out from Germany,
eventually reached Ireland. In Caesar's day the Celts (Gauls)
who dominated France used Greek writing in almost all their busi-
ness, public or private.

The legendary account of the origin of the Gaels and their
coming to Ireland is as follows:

They came first out of that vast undefined tract, called Scythia
— a region which probably included all of Southwest Europe and
adjoining portions of Asia. They came to Ireland through Egypt,
Crete, and Spain. They were called Gaedhal (Gael) because their
remote ancestor, in the days of Moses, was Gaodhal Glas. When
a child, Moses is said to have cured him of the bite of a serpent —
and to have promised, then, that no serpent or other poisonous
thing should Infest the happy western island that his far posterity
would one day inhabit. Niul, a grand-son of Gaodhal, who had
been invited as an instructor into Egypt by one of the Pharaohs,
married Pharaoh's daughter Scota — after whom Ireland was, in
later ages, called Scotia. And the Irish Scoti or Scots are the
descendants of Niul and Scota. In Egypt Niul and his people grew
rich and powerful, resented the injustice of a later Pharaoh, were
driven from the land, and after long and varied wanderings, dur-
ing succeeding ages, reached Spain. When, after they had long
sojourned in Spain, they heard of Ireland (perhaps from Phoeni-
cian traders) and took it to be the Isle of Destiny, foretold for
them by Moses, their leader was Miled or Milesius, whose wife
also was a Pharaoh's daughter, and named Scota. Miled's uncle,
Ith, was first sent into Ireland, to bring them report upon it. But
the Tuatha De Danann, suspecting the purpose of his mission,
kiUed Ith.

THE MILESIANS 9

Miled having died in Spain, his eight sons, with their mother,
Scota, their families and followers, at length set out on their ven-
turous voyage to their Isle of Destiny/

In a dreadful storm that the supposedly wizard De Danann
raised up against them, when they attempted to land in Ireland,
five of the sons of Milesius, with great numbers of their followers,
were lost, their fleet was dispersed and it seemed for a time as if
none of them would ever enjoy the Isle of Destiny. ^ ^ ^

Ancient manuscripts preserve the prayer that, it is said, their
poet, Amergin, now prayed for them —

"I pray that they reach the land of Eirinn, those who are riding
upon the great, productive, vast sea :

"That they be distributed upon her plains, her mountains, and her
valleys; upon her forests that shed showers of nuts and all fruits;

ilnisfail, one of many ancient names for Ireland, signifies Isle of Destiny.
Of "The Coming of the Milesians," Moore sang :

They came from a land beyond the sea.

And now o'er the western main
Set sail in their good ships, gallantly,

From the sunny lands of Spain.
"Oh, Where's the isle we've seen in dreams,

Our destin'd home or grave?"
Thus sang they, as by the morning beams.

They swept the Atlantic wave.

And lo, where afar o'er ocean shines

A sparkle of radiant green.
As though in that deep lay emerald mines

Whose light through the wave was seen,
'Tis Inisf ail— 'tis Inisfaill

Rings o'er the echoing sea ;
While, bending to heaven, the warriors hail

That home of the brave and free.

Then turned they unto the Eastern wave

Where now their Day-God's eye
A look of such sunny omen gave

As lighted up sea and sky.
No frown was seen through sky or sea.

Nor tear o'er leaf or sod.
When first on t|^eir Isle of Destiny

Our great forefathers trod.

Here let us understand that the ancient historical legends of Ireland are,
generally speaking, far from being baseless myths. The Irish people are a people
who eminently cling to tradition. Not only were the great happenings that marked
great epochs enshrined in their memory forever, but even little events that trivially
affected the history of their race, were, and are, seldom forgotten. We know that
away back to the remotest antiquity, the seanachie (shanachy, the historian) and
the poet were honored next to the king, because of the tremendous value which
the people set upon the recording and preserving of their history. The poet and
the seanachie following the fashion of the time, took advantage of their artist priv-
ilege to color their narrative to an extent that to the modern mind would seem
fantastic. But it was with the details of the story that they were granted this
liberty. The big, essential facts had to remain unaltered. The things of importance
no poet of repute, however highly he might color, could or wotdd dare to falsify.

lo THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

upon her rivers and her cataracts; upon her lakes and her great
waters; upon her spring-abounding hills:

"That they may hold their fairs and equestrian sports upon her
territories :

"That there may be a king from them in Tara; and that Tara
be the territory of their many kings:

"That noble Eirinn be the home of the ships and boats of the
sons of Milesius:

"Eirinn which is now in darkness, it is for her that this oration is
pronounced :

"Let the learned wives of Breas and Buaigne pray that we may
reach the noble woman, great Eirinn.

"Let Eremon pray, and let Ir and Eber implore, diat we may
reach Eirinn."

Eventually they made land — Eber with the survivors of his
following landing at Inver Sceni, in Bantry Bay; and afterwards
defeating a De Danann host under Queen Eire but losing their own
Queen Scota in the fray — and Eremon with his people at Inver
Colpa (mouth of the Boyne).

When they had joined their forces, in Meath, they went against
the De Danann in general battle at Taillte, and routed the latter
with great slaughter. The three kings and the three queens of the
De Danann were slain, many of them killed, and the remainder-
dispersed.

The survivors fled into the remote hills and into the caves.
Possibly the glimpses of some of these fugitive hill-dwellers and
cave-dwellers, caught in twilight and in moonlight, by succeeding
generations of Milesians, coupled with the seemingly magical skill
which they exercised, gave foundation for the later stories of en-
chanted folk, fairies, living under the Irish hills.

Though, a quaint tale preserved in the ancient Book of Leinster
says that after Taillte it was left to Amergin, the Milesian poet
and judge, to divide Eirinn between the two races, and that he
shrewdly did so with technical justice — giving all above ground to
his own people, and all underground to the De Danann 1

Another pleasant old belief is that the De Danann, being over-
thrown, were assembled by their great immortal Mannanan at
Brugh of the Boyne, where, after counselling together, it was de-
cided that, taking Bodb Derg, son of the Dagda, as their king, and
receiving immortality from Mannanan, they should distribute them-
selves in their spirit land under the happy hills of Ireland — ^where
they have, ever since, enjoyed never-ending bliss.^

2 Here is the ancient story-teller's description (from the Tain Bo Cuailgne)
of the cavalcade of Bodb Derg, in after ages, coming from his palace under Sliab-

THE MILESIANS ii

Of the Milesians, Eber and Eremon divided the land between
them — ^Eremon getting the Northern half of the Island, and Eber
the Southern. The Northeastern corner was accorded to the chil-
dren of their lost brother, Ir, and the Southwestern corner to their
cousin Lughaid, the son of Ith.

An oft-told story says that when Eber and Eremon had
divided their followers, each taking an equal number of soldiers
and an equal number of the men of every craft, there remained a
harper and a poet. Drawing lots for these, the harper fell to
Eremon and the poet to Eber — ^which explains why, ever since, the
North of Ireland has been celebrated for music, and the South for
song.

The peace that fell upon the land then, and the happiness of
the Milesians, was only broken, when, after a year, Eber's wife
discovered that she must be possessed of the three pleasantest hills
in Eirinn, else she could not remain one other night in the Island.
Now the pleasantest of all the Irish hills was Tara, which lay in
Eremon's half. And Eremon's wife would not have the covetous-
ness of the other woman satisfied at her expense. So, because of
the quarrel of the women, the beautiful peace of the Island was
broken by battle. Eber was beaten, and the high sovereignty set-
tled upon Eremon.

It was in his reign, continues the legend, that the Cruitnigh or
Picts arrived from the Continent. They landed in the south-
west, at the mouth of the River Slaney (Inver Slaigne). A tribe
of Britons who fought with poisoned arrows were at the time ravag-
ing that corner of the Island. The Picts helped to drive out the
marauders, and in reward were granted a settlement there, from
Crimthann, the chief of that quarter. Afterwards they had an
outfall with Crimthann — and it was decided that they should be

na-mban to pay a visit to the De Danann chief, Ochall Oichne, who resided under
Cruachan (in Roscommon) — "Seven score chariots and seven score horsemen was
their number. And of the same colour were all their steeds ; they were speckled ;
they had silver bridles. There was no person among them who was not the son
of a king and a queen. They all wore green cloaks with four crimson pendants
to each cloak; and silver cloak-brooches in all their cloaks; and they wore kilts
with red inter weavings, and borders or fringes of gold thread upon them, and
pendants of white bronze thread upon their leggings or greaves, and shoes with
clasps of red bronze in them. Their helmets were ornamented with crystal and
white bronze; each of them had a collar of radiant gold around his neck, with a
gem worth a newly calved cow set in it. Each wore a twisted ring of gold around
him, worth thirty ounces of gold. All had white-faced shields, with ornamenta-
tions of gold and of silver. They carried flesh-seeking spears, with ribs of gold
and silver and red bronze in their sides; and with collars (or rings) of silver upon
the necks of the spears. They had gold-hilted swords with the forms of serpents
of gold and carbuncles set in them. They astonished the whole assembly by this

12 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

passed into Alba (Scotland).' The three Pictish chiefs were given
Irish wives to take to Alba with them, on condition that hence-
forth their royal line should descend according to the female suc-
cession— which, it is said, was henceforth the law among the Alban
Picts.

Eremon's victory over Eber had slight effect in fixing on his
lineage the succession to the overlordship : for, through many hun-
dreds of years afterward, the battle had to be refought, and the
question settled once more — sometimes to the advantage of the
Eremonians, sometimes to that of the Eberians. A warlike people
must have war. Occasionally, during the reigns of the early Mile-
sian kings, this want was filled for them by the Fomorians, who,
though disastrously defeated by the De Danann at Northern Moy-
tura, were far from being destroyed. Irial, the prophet, the grand-
son of Eremon, and third Milesian king of Ireland, had to fight
them again. And at many other times the Island suffered from
their depredations.

Names of a long list of kings, from Eremon downward, and
important particulars regarding many of them, were preserved by
the historical traditions — traditions that were as valuable, and as
zealously guarded, as are the written State Records of modern
days.* The carefully trained file, who was poet, historian, and
philosopher, was consecrated to the work — and, ever inspired with
the sacredness of his trust, he was seldom known to deviate from
the truth in anything of importance — however much he confessedly
gave his imagination play in the unimportant details. And, much
as the people reverenced him, they reverenced the truth of history
more; and it was the law that a file, discovered falsifying, should
be degraded and disgraced.

The Scottish historian Pinkerton, who was hardly sympathetic,
admits : "Foreigners may imagine that it is granting too much to
the Irish to allow them lists of kings more ancient than those of
any other country of modern Europe. But the singularly compact
and remote situation of that Island, and the freedom from Roman
conquest, and from the concussion of the Fall of the Roman Em-
pire, may infer this allowance not too much."

And the British Camden, another authority not partial to Ire-

^MacNeill holds that the Picts came to Ireland ahead of the Gael: and that,
as distinct tribes, portions of them inhabited many parts of it, down till historic
times. They also occupied large part of Scotland.

* Many notable scholars deny the complete authenticity of this list But un-
doubtedly the greater part of the names are the real names of real kings who
held sway over the Northern or the Southern half, if not over all, of Ireland.

THE MILESIANS 13

land, but sometimes hostile, says: "They deduced their history
from memorials derived from the most profound depths of re-
mote antiquity, so that compared with that of Ireland, the antiquities
of all other nations is but novelty, and their history is but a kind
of infancy."

Standish O'Grady in his "Early Bardic History of Ireland"
says : "I must confess that the blaze of Bardic light which illumi-
nates those centuries at first dazzles the eye and disturbs the judg-
ment . . . (but) that the Irish kings and heroes should succeed
one another, surrounded by a blaze of Bardic light, in which both
themselves and all those who were contemporaneous with them
are seen clearly and distinctly, was natural in a country where in
each little realm or sub-kingdom the ard-oUam was equal in dignity
to the King, as is proved by the equivalence of their eric. The
dawn of English history is in the seventh century — a late dawn,
dark and sombre, without a ray of cheerful sunshine; that of Ire-
land dates reliably from a point before the commencing of the
Christian Era — illumined with that light which never was on sea
or land — thronging with heroic forms of men and women — ^ter-
rible with the presence of the supernatural and its over-reaching
power." *

^D'Arcy McGee sang of

THE CELTS

Long, long ago beyond the misty space

Of twice a thousand years,
In Erin old there dwelt a mighty race,

Taller than Roman spears ;
Like oaks and towers they had a giant grace.

Were fleet as deers
With winds and waves they made their Tjiding place.

These western shepherd seers.

Their ocean-god was Mannanan MacLir,

Whose angry lips,
In their white foam, full often would inter

Whole fleets of ships ;
Crom was their day-god, and their thunderer,

Made morning and eclipse ;
Bride was their queen of song, and unto her

They prayed with fire-touched lips.

Great were their deeds, their passions, and their sports ;

With clay and stone
They piled on strath and shore those mystic forts,

Not yet o'erthrown ;
On cairn-crowned hills they held their council-courts ;

While youths alone.
With giant dogs, explored the elks' resorts,

And brought them down.

14 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Of these was Fin, the father of the Bard,

Whose ancient song
Over the clamor of all change is heard,

Sweet-voiced and strong.
Fin once o'ertook Grania, the golden-haired,

The fleet and young;
From her the lovely, and from him the feared,

The primal poet sprung.

Ossian ! two thousand years of mist and change

Surround thy name —
Thy Finian heroes now no longer range

The hills of fame.
The very name of Fin and GoU sound strange —

Yet thine the same —
By miscalled lake and desecrated grange —

Remains, and shall remain !

The Druid's altar and the Druid's creed

We scarce can trace,
There is not left an undisputed deed

Of all your race.
Save your majestic song, which hath their speed.

And strength, and grace ;
In that sole song, they live and love and bleed —

It bears them on thro' space.

Oh, inspired giant 1 shall we e'er behold,

In our own time.
One fit to speak your spirit on the wold,

Or seize your rhyme?
One pupil of the past, as mighty souled

As in the prime,
Were the fond, fair, and beautifuli and bold —

They, of your song sublime !

CHAPTER IV

SOME NOTABLE MILESIAN ROYALTIES

The popular traditions give details regarding many notable Mile-
sian royalties in the decade of centuries before the Christian Era.

Within the first century after Eremon, is said to have reigned
the distinguished Tighernmas (seventh of the Milesian line) who,
they say, first smelted gold, and introduced gold ornaments, and
gold fringes on dress. He also introduced various colours into
dresses. Sometimes to him, sometimes to his successor, Eochaid,
is credited the ancient ordinance which distinguished the various
classes and professions by the colours in their dress. A King or
Queen might wear seven colours; a poet or OUam six; a chieftain
five; an army leader four; a land-owner three; a rent-payer two; a
serf one colour only.

Tighernmas and two-thirds of his people were wiped out when
they were assembled in the plain of Magh Slecht in Brefni, at wor-
ship of Crom Cruach — a great idol which St. Patrick in his day
destroyed.

All the stories say that the greatest king of those faraway times
was the twenty-first Milesian king, known to fame as OUam Fodla
(OUav Fola) who blessed Ireland in a reign of forty years, some
seven or eight centuries before the Christian Era. His title, Ollam
Fodla, Doctor of Wisdom, has preserved his memory down the
ages. The legends indicate that he was a true father to his people,
and an able statesman. He organised the nation for efficiency —
divided it into cantreds, anointed a chief over every cantred, a
brugaid (magistrate) over every territory, and a steward over
every townland. Some traditions say that he established a School
of Learning. And as crowning glory he established the celebrated
Feis of Tara, the great triennial Parliament of the chiefs, the
nobles, and the scholars of the nation, which assembled on Tara
Hill once every three years to settle the nation's affairs. This
great deliberative assembly, almost unique among the nations in
those early ages, and down into Christian times, reflected not a
little glory upon ancient Ireland.

1 6 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

One queen, famous and capable, whom early Ireland boasted
was Macha Mong Ruad (the Red-haired), who reigned over the
land about three hundred years before Christ. Her father, Aod
Ruad was one of a triumvirate — ^the others being Dithorba and
Cimbaoth — who by mutual agreement took seven-year turns in
reigning. Aod Ruad was drowned at Eas-Aod-Ruad (Assaroe),
now Ballyshanny. And when came round again the seven-year
period which would have been his had he lived, his daughter,
Macha, claimed the crown. But for it she had to fight her father's
two partners — which she did, killing Dithorba ; and first defeating,
and afterwards marrying, Cimbaoth- — and making him king.

For many, the reign of Cimbaoth — ^which synchronises with
that of Alexander the Great — marks the beginning of certainty in
Irish history — because of the famed remark of the trusted eleventh
century historian, Tighernach, that the Irish records before Cim-
baoth were uncertain.

When Cimbaoth died this able woman took up the reins of
government herself, becoming the first Milesian queen of Ireland.
But the record above all others by which this distinguished woman
lives to fame, is her founding of the ancient and much-storied
stronghold — named after her — of Emain Macha, which hence-
forth, for six hundred years, was to play a most important part in
the fortunes of Uladh (Ulster) and of Ireland.

Macha's foster-son, Ugani Mor (the Great), who succeeded
her, led his armies into Britain, and had his power acknowledged
there. After bringing a great part of Britain to obedience, some
traditions say that his ambition led him on the Continent, where
he met with many successes also, giving basis for the ancient
seanachies styling him, "King of Ireland and of the whole of
Western Europe as far as the Muir Torrian" (Mediterranean
Sea).

All the leading families of Ulster, Leinster and Connaught
trace their descent from Ugani Mor — the common father of the
royalties of the three provinces. The origin of the name of Lein-
ster is ascribed to the activities of Ugani Mor's great grandson,
Labraid Loingsech. Labraid's grandfather (Ugani Mor's son),
Laegaire Lore, was killed for sake of his throne, by his brother,
Cobtach. His son was killed at the same time : and the grandson,
Labraid Loingsech, only spared because he was dumb, and conse-
quently could not rule. Labraid Loingsech was reared up in secret,
under the joint fosterage and tutorship of a celebrated harper,
Craftlne, and a celebrated poet and philosopher, Feirceirtne. Get-
ting a blow of a caman once, when playing caman (hurley) with

NOTABLE MILESIAN ROYALTIES 17

other boys, he suddenly found the use of speech. When he grew
up and Cobtach discovered that he no longer had the disabling
blemish, and was moreover held in high esteem, he drove him out.
The young man was received with honor at the King's court in
Gaul — whence after some time he returned, with an army of over
two thousand Gauls, armed with broad spears to which the Irish
gave the name of Laighen. On his arrival in Ireland, he learnt
that Cobtach, with thirty princes, was holding an assembly in Dinn
Righ. There Labraid marched, and destroyed them all. He at-
tacked and burned the Dinn and its guests — and won his grand-
father's throne — and incidentally supplied the plot for one of the
most famous of old Irish tales, "The Burning of Dinn Righ." From
the Laighen of the Gauls, whom he settled in this southeastern
part, Leinster, it is said took its name.^

The story of Cobtach and Labraid is to some extent curiously
paralleled in that of the next Irish monarch of much note, Conaire
Mor, who reigned within the century before, or at the time of,
Christ: and who, in establishing his strong rule over Ireland, put-
ting down lawlessness and making himself and his rule respected
and feared, drove out his own foster-brothers, the four sons of a
chieftain of Leinster. These returned after a time with a great
body of Britons, under Ingcel, son of a British king. They de-
stroyed and burned Meath, and then attacked Conaire Mor and
his retinue in the Bruighean of DaDerga (one of the six public
houses of hospitality that Ireland then boasted) destroyed it, and

* About this Labraid Loingsech grew the myth (closely paralleled in the Greek)
of his being cursed with the ears of a horse.

He always wore a golden helmet, says the legend, to conceal his horrible
secret. Because the barber who cut his hair was ever chosen by lot, and put to
death immediately after he had performed his task, a dread fear was on the whole
nation, of some awful mystery that their king concealed from them.

Once the barber's lot fell upon the son of a poor widow. The woman's broken-
hearted supplications so moved Labraid that he promised to spare her son's life,
on his taking a solemn oath of secrecy. His terrible discovery, which he must
now carry forever, a festering secret in his mind, so preyed upon the young man
that he lost his sleep, lost his health, and was on the verge of losing his reason.
He consulted a wise Druid, asking what he should do to save himself. The Druid's
advice was that he must travel to a place where four roads met, and then tell to
the nearest growing tree the dread secret which he must not give to any living
being. He did this, and was instantly relieved, and grew hale, with a mind at
ease, once more.

Now it was a willow tree to which he told the secret. In course of years this
tree was cut down, and a harp made of it for Craftine, the king's harper. And
10, when Craftine touched the strings of his new harp, in the hall of the king, the
instrument sang: "The ears of a horse has Labraid Loingsech! The ears of a
horse has Labraid Loingsech!" Over and over again, "The ears of a horse has
Labraid Loingsech !"

The court was horror-stricken, the king dumbfounded. Filled with remorse,
and humiliated, but brave as a king should be, he bowed his head, and before the
iraole court, removed his golden helmet— thus ending the dreadful mystery forever.

1 8 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

killed Conaire and his retinue. This tragic incident gave us the
equally famous and remarkably beautiful tale, The Bruighean
DaDerga.

Some of the historians say that it was Conaire Mor who
reigned in Ireland when Christ was born. But others make the
reigning monarch then Crimthann Niad Nair (Abashed Hero) —
a king famous in ancient story for his foreign expeditions — from
one of which we are told he brought back, among the booty, a gilt
chariot, a golden chess-board inlaid with 300 transparent gems, a
sword entwined with serpents of gold, a silver embossed shield,
and two hounds leashed with a silver chain.

During Crimthann's reign occurred a notable return of Flr-
bolgs from the Western Islands of Alba (Scotland) whereto their
forefathers had been driven, long ages before. Now a colony of
them, led by the four sons of the chief, Umor, with the eldest son,
Angus, at their head, took refuge in Ireland from the persecution
of the Picts, and by the high king were granted lands in Meath.
They soon however found him as oppressive as the Picts had been
coercive. And on a night they fled Westward from their Meath
possessions. They crossed the Shannon into Connaught, which was
still largely inhabited and dominated by their Firbolg kin. There,
the celebrated Queen, Maeve, and her husband, Ailill, gave them
lands in South Connaught, where they settled once more.

But they were pursued by the two great Ulster warriors and
heroes of the Red Branch, CuchuUin and Conal Cearnach, who had
gone security to the high king for their good behaviour — ^who here
fought them a battle wherein great numbers of the Umorians were
slain, including Angus' three brothers, and his son, Conal the Slen-
der. A great cairn, known to this day as Cairn Chonaill, was
erected on the battlefield to commemorate him and them. Angus
with his own people then settled in the islands of Aran, in Galway
Bay, where he built the wonderful fortress still standing there and
known as Dun Angus.

At the time of Christ, the celebrated Conor (Conchobar) Mac-
Nessa reigned over Ulster.

CHAPTER V

IRELAND IN THE LORE OF THE ANCIENTS

Scotia (a name transferred to Alba about ten centuries after
Christ) was one of the earliest names of Ireland — so named, it
was said, from Scota, the daughter of Pharaoh, one of the an-
cient female ancestors of the Milesians — and the people were com-
monly called Scotti or Scots^ — ^both terms being frequently used
by early Latin historians and poets.

Ireland was often referred to — by various names — ^by ancient
writers both Latin and Greek. Plutarch testifies to the nation's
antiquity by calling it Ogygia, meaning the most ancient.

One of its ancient titles was Hibernia (used by Caesar) — ^which
some trace from Ivernia, the name, it is said, of a people located in
the south of the Island; but most trace it from Eber or Heber, the
first Milesian king of the southern half; just as the much later
name, Ireland, is by some traced from Ir, whose family were in
the northeastern corner of the Island. Though it seems much more
likely that this latter name was derived from the most common title
given to the Island by its own inhabitants, Eire — whence Eire-land,
Ireland. It was first the Northmen and then the Saxons, who, in
the ninth and tenth century began calling it Ir-land or Ir-landa —
Ireland.

In the oldest-known foreign reference to Ireland, it was called
lerna. This was the title used by the poet Orpheus in the time of
Cyrus of Persia, in the sixth century before Christ. Aristotle, in
his Book of the World, also called it lema. In the first half of
the first century Pomponius Mela refers to it as luvernia.

It was usually called either Hibernia or Scotia by the Latin
writers. Tacitus, Caesar, and Pliny call it Hibernia. Egesippus
calls it Scotia — and several later Latin writers did likewise. A
Roman, Rufus Festus Avienus, who wrote about the beginning of
the fourth century of this era called it "Insula Sacra"— which leads
us to suppose that in the very early ages, it was, by the pagans,

Tr;cT,*^*^?"u-*t'"Hs *^e term Scot (and then Scotia) was derived from an old
Insh word which, signified a raider.. He thinks they earned the title from their
frequent raiding m Alba and in Britain in pre-Christian times. The conjecture
18 to the present writer unconvincing.

20 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

esteemed a holy isle. In a noted geographical poem of his occur
the lines

"This Isle is Sacred named by all the ancients,

From times remotest in the womb of Chronos,

This Isle which rises o'er the waves of ocean,

Is covered with a sod of rich luxuriance.

And peopled far and wide by the Hibcrni."

And the fourth century Istrian philosopher Ethicus in his cos-
mography tells how in his travels for knowledge he visited "Hiber-
nia" and spent some time there examining the volumes of that
country — which, by the way, this scholarly gentleman considered
crude.

That travellers' tales were about as credible in those far-away
days as they are in days more recent, is evident from some of the
curious things related about this Island by the early Latin writers
— oftentimes grotesque blends of fable and fact. The Latin writer,
Pomponius Mela (who was a Spaniard and flourished near the
middle of the first century of the Christian Era), says in his cos-
mography books: "Beyond Britain lies luvernia, an island of
nearly equal size, but oblong, and a coast on each side of equal
extent, having a climate unfavourable for ripening grain, but so
luxuriant in grasses, not merely palatable but even sweet, that the
cattle in very short time take sufficient food for the whole day —
and if fed too long, would burst. Its inhabitants are wanting in
every virtue, totally destitute of piety.'*

The latter sentence is quite characteristic of the Latin writers
of that day, to whom the world was always divided into two parts,
the Roman Empire with which exactly coincided Civilisation and
the realm of all the Virtues, and the outer world which lay under
the black cloud of barbarism.

But Strabo, who wrote in the first century of this era, does even
better than Pomponius Mela. Quoting Poseidonios (who flour-
ished still two centuries earlier) , he inf orm^ us that the inhabitants
of I erne were wild cannibals who considered it honourable to eat
the bodies of their dead parents I But he blends sensational pic-
turesqueness with caution; for he adds: "But the things we thus
relate are destitute of witnesses worthy of credit in such affairs."
He suspected he was setting down wild fiction, but evidently could
not resist the temptation to spice his narrative for the sensating
of his readers.'

*An English clergyman with the Cromwellian troops in Ireland vouched for
the fact that every man in a garrison which they captured was found to have a
tail six inches long. Some of the English still believe it.

IRELAND IN THE LORE OF THE ANCIENTS 21

Solinus (about 200 A. D.), as naive as any of his fellows, has
the inhabitants of Juvcrna (as he names the Island) "inhuman
beings who drink the blood of their enemies, and besmear their
faces with it. At its birth the male child's foot is placed upon its
father's sword, and from the point of the sword it receives its first
nourishment!" He, however, also heard of, and records, the ac-
count of Juverna's luxuriant grasses, which he says injure cattle.
And the true statement that there is no snake in the Island he coun-
terbalances by the misstatements that there are few birds in It, and
that the Inhabitants are inhospitable I

Seemingly forgetful of the fact that even the early Chris-
tians were accused of eating human flesh, St. Jerome accused
the Irish of cannibalism. And a reason suggested for his mak-
ing the wild accusation was because he smarted under the scath-
ing criticism of the Irish Celestius — "an Alban dog," as the
good sharp-tongued Father calls him, "stuffed with Irish por-
ridge."

The careful Ptolemy, in the second century, gives a map of
Ireland which (from a foreigner in that age of the world) is re-
markable for the general correctness of the outline, and more note-
worthy features. He names sixteen "peoples" (tribes) inhabiting
it (the names of half of them being now recognised), and he men-
tions several "cities" — probably royal residences.

With the exception of Ptolemy who, in all likelihood, derived
his knowledge from the trading Phoenicians, the early Greek and
Latin writers only knew of Ireland that it was an island sitting in
the Western ocean, and remarkable for its verdure. Yet the Phoe-
nicians were probably well acquainted with its ports. Tacitus says,
"The Irish ports in the first century were well known to commerce
and merchants."

The great antiquity of Ireland, incidentally acknowledged by
foreign writers of olden time, is, as might be expected, sometimes
fantastically exaggerated by ancient native writers.

We have the legend set down by several early Irish writers
that a Greek, Partholan, with his people came here a few hun-
dred years after the flood. The Island of Inis Saimer, In the
mouth of the River Erne, at Ballyshanny, Is named after Par-
tholan's favourite hound. A plague exterminated the Parthola-
nians.

But, not to^ be outdone In antiquity, by any European nation,
some very ancient Irish poets people their country even before
the flood — when, they say, in a well-known legend, that the Lady
Cesair came with her father BIth, a grandson of Noah, and their

22 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

following to Ireland, hoping to escape the flood — but in vain.^

■■ — - I.I.I ■ I I ■ I II .11. . ■ ■ ■ IIMI.II ■ — « 11 I ■^— i»^ I I I

s Yet another legend, of much later origin, tells that one of the Ladv Cesair's
party did escape, namely, Finntann, a grandson of Bith, who kept afloat during the
deluge — and lived afterwards, seemingly immortal, at Dun Tulcha in southwestern
Kerry. Finntann reappeared in Irish history, on a notable occasion some thou-
sands of years later, when, in the reign of Diarmuid MacCarroll, in the sixth cen-
tury of our Era, this veteran, turned up at Tara to settle, bv testimony taken from
his long memory, a dispute about the limits of the Royal Demesne. Great was
the awed wonder at the King's palace, when the old man arrived, preceded by
nine companies of his own descendants, and followed by another nine. To prove
the fitness of his memory, for testifying what had or had not been from the found-
ing of Tara downward, he gave the wondering king and people some little idea of
his age, by telling them the following story: "I passed one day through a wood
in West Munster: I brought home with me a red berry of the yew tree, which I
planted in the garden of my mansion, and it grew there until it was as tall as a
man. I then took it out of the garden, and planted it in the green lawn of my
mansion ; and it grew in the centre of that lawn until an hundred champions could
fit under the foliage, and find shelter there from wind, and rain, and cold, and
heat I remained so, and my yew remained so, spending our time alike, until at
last it ceased to put forth leaves, from old age. When, afterwards, 1 thought of
turning it to some profit, I cut it from its stem, and made from it seven vats,
seven keeves, seven stans, seven chums, seven pitchers, seven milans and seven
medars, with hoops for alL I remained still with my yew-vessels, until their
hoops all fell off from decay and old age. After this I re-made them, but could
onl^ get a keeve out of the vat, and a stan out of the keeve, a mug out of the Stan,
a alom out of the mug, a milan out of the cilom, and a medar out of the milan —
and I leave it to Almighty God that I do not know where their dust is now, after
^eir dissolution with me, from decay."

CHAPTER VI

CONOR MAC NESSA

At the time of Christ, as said, there reigned over Ulster — residing
at Emain Macha (Emania) — a king noted in ancient song and
story, Conor MacNessa.

He was a great grandson of Rory Mor, a powerful Ulster ruler
who had beeome monarch of Ireland, and who was the founder of
the Rudrician line of Ulster kings.

The memory of Conor MacNessa is imperishably preserved in
the tale of The Sons of Usnach and in the greater tale of The
Tain Bo Cuailgne (Coolney) — ^not by any means with honour, in
the former.

Emain Macha was the headquarters of the famed Knights of
the Royal Branch — now more commonly known as the Knights of
the Red Branch. And it was in the days of Conor, and at his court,
that these warrior champions reached the climax of their fame.
For he was himself a doughty champion, an ^able leader, and a
great man — ^inspiration sufficient for such band of chivalrous war-
riors as now rallied around him. In one of the tales of The Tain
there is given by the herald MacRoth, a poetic description of this
king, which at least tallies with what we would wish to think such
royal king must be. Detailing to Queen Medb (Maeve) of Con-
naught and her courtiers, a description of what he saw at the enemy
Ulster camp, MacRoth says : "A tall graceful champion of noble,
polished, and proud mien, stood at the head of the party. This
most beautiful of the kings of the world stood among his troops
with all the signs of obedience, superiority, and command. He
wore a mass of yellow, curling, drooping hair. He had a pleasing,
ruddy countenance. He had a deep, blue, sparkling, piercing eye
in his head and a two-branching beard, yellow, and curling upon
his chin. He wore a crimson, deep-bordered, five-folding tunic; a
gold pin in the tunic over his bosom; and a brilliant white shirt,
interwoven with thread of red gold, next his white skin."

The deeds of the Red Branch Knights in Conor's day, over and
over again chronicled by succeeding generations of poets and chron-

24 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

iders, have not been, and never will be, forgotten. And Conor
MacNessa was part of it all.

His first wife was the Amazonian Medb (Maeve) just men-
tioned, a daughter of Eocaid, the Ard-Righ (High King) of Ire-
land. Afterwards, as queen of Connaught and the instigator of
the great Connaught-Ulster war (commemorated in The Taiji Bo
Cuailgne) she, too, was destined to become immortal. From her —
who needed a husband to whom she could be both master and mis-
tress— Conor had to separate. He found his happiness with her
sister, Ethne, whom he took to wife then, and who proved to be
all that was indicated by her name — Ethne, that is "sweet kernel
of a nut."

Conor was not only a warrior and a patron of warriors, but a
patron of scholars and poets, also. His Ard-file (chief poet) was
the great Ferceirtne — to whom some writers of a thousand years
ago were wont to ascribe a rude grammar of the Gaelic language,
one of four books of ancient grammar, preserved in the Book of
Leinster. "The place of writing this book," says the prefatory
note to the grammar, "was Emania ; the time was the time of Conor
MacNessa, the author was Ferceirtne, the poet: and the cause of
composing it was to bring the ignorant and barbarous to true
knowledge,"

Conor, patron of poetry and the arts, was a practical man who
is said to have struck from learning the oppressive shackles of
tradition that hitherto had cramped and bound it. Till his day the
learned professions, both for sake of monopoly and of effect upon
the multitude, used an archaic language that only the initiated un-
derstood, and that awed the mass of the people. Once, however,
the young poet, Neide, son of Ferceirtne*s predecessor at Conor's
court, having just won his poetic laurels, came to the court of
Conor, where finding the poet's mani-colored tui^in (mantle)- —
made of the skins and wings of birds — lying on the poet's chair,
he assumed the mantle, and took the poet's seat. When Fer-
ceirtne discovered this, he, highly indignant, rebuked Neide, com-
manding him to resign both the chair and the tuigin. King Conor,
to whom the matter was referred, commanded that it should be
decided by a learned controversy between the two poets. The occa-
sion of the controversy, in the presence of the king, the court, and
the general public, was a great one. But to every one's disappoint-
ment, though the two scholars disputed long, and no doubt learn-
edly, no one there — ^with the possible exception of the two prin-
cipals— ^was any wiser at the end than at the beginning. For they
had used the obsolete language of the scholars.

CONOR MAC NESSA 25

Conor, provoked and disgusted, at once ordered that the pro-
fessions should not henceforth remain in the hereditary possession
of the ancient learned families — but should be thrown open to all,
irrespective of family or rank.

Yet Conor's reverence for poets was such that he saved them
from expulsion, when, once they were threatened with death or
exile, because, having grown so vast numbers, and got to be lazy,
covetous, tyrannous, they had become an almost unbearable bur-
den upon the multitude. O' Curry, indeed, says that in Conor's
time so far had the taste for learning of all kinds, in poetry, music,
Druidism in particular, seized on the mind of the nation, that more
than one-third of the men of Eirinn had then given themselves up
to the unproductive sciences. Conor gathered twelve hundred
poets, it is said, into his dominion, and protected them there for
seven years, till the anger of the people had abated, and they could
scatter themselves over Ireland once more.

The famous story of Deirdre and the Sons of Usnach, how-
ever— though it be a legend splendidly elaborated by the poet, but
yet, we may well suppose, based upon facts — ^would show that King
Conor, for all his kingliness, was sometimes no better than kings
are supposed to be. According to it, he betrayed the immortal
Naoisi and his brothers, and drove the beautiful Deirdre to her
death. The sorrows of Deirdre as told in the story of The Sons
of Usnach is one of the Three Sorrows of Irish story-telling.*

* Deirdre was the daughter of G)nor's stoiy-teller, Feidlimid, and was bom
on a night when Q>nor was at the house of Feidlimid. Conor's Druid there and
then foretold that this babe would be the cause of misfortunes untold coming upon
Ulster.

To prevent this, Conor took charge of the babe. Had her confined in a fort
where she should be reared up, without seeing any one except a nurse and a tutor,
and Conor's spokeswoman — and when she should reach maturity, he would make
her his wife.

As a young maiden, however, she managed to see Naisi, eldest of the tiiree
sons of Usnach, and immediately fell in love with him, and asked him to elope with
her. Accompanied by Naisi's two brothers, Andli and Ardan, they fled to Alba.
After a time they had to leave Alba, because the king had seen the rare beauty of
Deirdre and coveted her. So they went off upon one of the islands.

Conor's nobles, pitying the distress and sufferings of the wandering lovers,
pleaded for their forgiving and recall Conor appeared to consent to all this.
Deirdre and the three sons of Usnach returned joyfully to Emania. On the green
of Emania a body of Conor's friends, led by Eogan, fell upon the three sons of
Usnadi and slew them, and Conor then took tfie broken-hearted Deirdre to himself.

For his treachery Fergus MacRigh whose honor Conor had pledged for the
safety of tiie sons of Usnach, led a fierce assault upon. Emania, in which Conor's
son was slain, and 300 of his people, Emain itself pillaged and burned.

Deirdre was with Conor for a year, during which time she was never once
seen to raise up her head, or smile. No amusement or kindness had any effect
upon her, neither wit nor mirth could move the lowness of her spirit.

Incensed at her attitude, Conor at the end of the year, gave her to Eogan,

26 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

It is recorded that the Danes made descent upon Ireland in
King Conor's day. They are said to have besieged, about this
time, a stronghold on the site where now stands Dublin. The an-
cient seanachies tell in particular of one battle, fought at Emain
Macha against the Danes, under their commander, Daball, the son
of the King of Lochlinn (Denmark) — whereat Conor, having only
youths to put in the field«against the invaders, had the youth's faces
dressed with wool, so that their enemies, instead of being heart-
ened to victory by knowing that an army of youngsters was coming
against them, were instead disheartened by the idea that they were
meeting battle-tried veterans.

Conor died by a brain-ball that sunk into his skull — fired by the
hand of Cet MacMagach, the Connaught champion, whom he had
pursued after a Connaught cattle raid.

The legend attached to Conor's death is curious. The .brain-
ball fired by Cet did not directly kill him. It sank into his skull —
and his doctor. Faith Liag, would not remove it, because that would
cause instant death. With care, Conor might live long, carrying
the brain-ball. Henceforth, however, he must be moderate in all
things, avoid all passion, all violent emotion and lead such a life
of calm as kings in those days rarely knew.

Under Faith Liag's wise care Conor contrived to live and en-
joy life for seven years. But, one time, his court was thrown into
consternation by finding broad day suddenly turned into blackest
night, the heavens rent by lightning, and the world rocked by thun-
der, portending some dread cataclysm. Conor asked his Druids
and wise men for explanation of the fearful happening. The Druid
Bachrach, a noted seer, fold him that there had been in the East,
in one of the many countries under the dominion of Rome, a singu-
lar man, more noble of character, more lofty of mind, and more
beautiful of soul, than the world had ever before known, or ever
again would know — a divine man, a God-man, who spent his life
lifting up the lowly, and leading the ignorant to the light, and giv-
ing new hope to a hopeless world — one, too, who loved all man-
kind with a love that surpassed understanding — one, the touch of
whose gentle hand gave speech to the dumb, sight to the blind, life

the chief of Ferntnach, the man who for him had done the base deed to the sons
of Usnach.

As they took her away from Conor's residence to the residence of Eogan,
she wildly leaped from the chariot, her head struck a sharp rock, and she was
killed.

Fergus MacRigh and his companions with 3,000 followers quitted Ulster after
Conor's .treachery, and went into Connaught where they took service in the army
of Medb.

CONOR MAC NESSA 27

to the dead- He was the noblest, greatest, most beautiful, most
loving of men. And now the heavens and the earth were thrown
into agony because on this day the tyrant Roman, jealous of his
power over the people, had nailed him high upon a cross, and be-
tween two crucified thieves, had left the divine man to die a fearful

death.

Fired to rage by the thought of the terrible injustice meted
out to such a noble one, Conor MacNessa, snatching down the
sword that had not been unsheathed for seven years, and crying,
**Show me the accursed wretches who did this base deed!" burst
through the restraining ring of courtiers, leapt into the storm,
dashed through a grove of trees, fiercely hewing down their bend-
ing branches and shouting, "Thus would I treat the slayers of that
noble Man, could I but reach them."

Under the strain of the fierce passion that held him the brain-
ball burst from King Conor's head — and he fell dead.^

' Some say that it was a Roman Consul, Altus, who informed Conor of die
death of Christ. Still others say it Jjvas the Royal Branch champion, G>nal Cear-
nadi — 'who had been a prisoner with the Romans, and who had been taken by
them to the limits of their Empire, in the course of which expedition, he was in
Jerusalem on the day of days, and witnessed the Crucifixion. "A representative
of every race of mankind," says the legend, "was on the Hill of Gilvary at the
dreadful hour." Conal Ceamach represented the Gael. The beautiful story of
Conal Ceamach at the Crucifixion is related by Ethna Carbcry in her book "From
the Celtic Past"

CHAPTER VII

CUCHULLAIN

Those days when Conor MacNessa sat on the throne of Ulster
were brilliant days in Ireland's history. Then was the sun of glory
in the zenith of Eire's Heroic period — the period of chivalry,
chiefly created by the famous Royal or Red Branch Knights of
Emania. Though, two other famous bands of Irish warriors gave
added lustre to the period — ^the Gamanraide of the West (who
were Firbolgs), and the Clanna Deaghaid of Munster led by Curoi
MacDaire.

All three warrior bands had their poets and their seanachies,
who chanted their deeds in imperishable song and story which,
down the dim ages, have since held spell-bound the clan of the Gael.

But the greatest, the most belauded, and the most dazzling of
all the heroes of that heroic age was undoubtedly CuchuUain, of
whose life and wondrous deeds, real and imaginary, hundreds of
stones still exist.*

No cycle of Irish story with the one possible exception of the
Finian cycle (whose time is a couple of centuries later) can at all
compare with the wondrously rich, and extensive, CuchuUain cycle.
And in the legendary literature of the whole world, by few other
cycles is it surpassed.

CuchuUain was a foster-son of King Conor. "I am Httle Se-
tanta, son to Sualtim, and Dectaire your sister," he told the ques-
tioning king, when, as a boy, in whose breast the fame of the Red
Branch warriors had awaked the thirst for glory, he came up to
the court of Emania. When he arrived there the youths in train-
ing were playing caman upon the green. And having taken with
him from home his red bronze hurl and his silver ball, the Httle
stranger, going in among them, so outplayed aU the others, that
the attention of the court was drawn to him. And it was then that

^ The name of Cu-chullain, Cnllan's hound, he took because once, as a little
lad, when he approached the house of Cullan and was ferociously attadced by the
smith's great watch-hound, Setanta tore the hound asunder — and then pitying die
bereaved Cullan said, "I shall henceforth be your hound, O Cullan."

CUCHULLAIN 29

the little stranger gave the above reply to the question of the ad-
miring King.

The eager attention of the warriors of the Red Branch was
drawn to this bright lad, and they foresaw great things for him,
when they heard him express himself nobly and wonderfully, on the
day that, in Emania, in the Hall of Heroes, he took arms.

When a youth had decided to take up the profession of arms,
a certain day was appointed for the solemn ceremony that dedi-
cated him thereto. The day of dedication chosen by CuchuUain
was disapproved of by the Druids, who having read the omens,
pronounced that the youth who took arms on this day would be
short-lived, though he should win great fame, so his friends would
dissuade the eager youth from taking arms to-day. In answer to
them, the youth, standing up in the Hall of Heroes, with spear in
one hand, and shield in the other, exclaimed: "I care not whether
I die to-morrow or next year, if only my deeds live after me."

And in his after career he amply fulfilled the rich promise that
lay in his words. He was to become his country's inunortal hero.

And the memory of this hero has run the gauntlet of strange
vicissitudes in Ireland — ^the greatness of the man excessively stimu-
lating the imagination of the poet, in the course of centuries, caus-
ing his reality to be lost in legend; and in the course of further
centuries, the greatness of the legendary CuchuUain creating for
him a new reality in the minds of the Irish people.

His legendary history is recounted in many stories in the great-
est of Irish epics, "The Tain Bo Cuailgne" — the Cattle-raid of
Cuailgne. The plan of the very great, very ancient, epic of The
Tain Bo Cuailgne is roughly this: Queen Medb (Maeve) of Con-
naught, who was daughter of the Ard-Righ of Ireland, Eochaid
Feidlech, and was first the wife of Conor MacNessa, King of
Ulster, secured for herself the kingdom of Connaught, through a
second marriage. And by a third marriage she had Ailill, of Leln-
ster, as her consort and understudy. Once this queen Maeve and
her King Ailill got counting and matching their worldly possessions.
Throughout long and detailed reckoning of these possessions, it
was found that neither one had any advantage over the other in
woridly wealth— until, at length, it was discovered that Ailill, in
his herds, had one precious bull which Maeve in her herds could
not equal. Furthermore, in all Ireland, there was no bull to equal
him, with the single exception of the celebrated brown bull of
Cuailgne (in the present County of Louth). To the chief of
Cuailgne Maeve sent a courier, to request the loan of his valuable
animal, so that her herd might surpass Ailill's. And since it was

30 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

natural that he might not with to let out of his sight this precious
bull, the chief was invited to come with the bull to the Connaught
court, and there be royally entertained as long as the bull remained
on loan.

The request was readily granted; but unfortunately Maeve's
courier in his cups that night had vaunted that if the bull had been
denied to Maeve, she and her forces would have come and taken
it anyhow. The account of the boasting was carried to the Cuailgne
chief, who immediately ordered Maeve's courier back to Con-
naught — ^without the bull.

Then Maeve, enraged and determined, mobilised a great army
for the invasion of Ulster (which was enemy-ground, anyhow) and
for the forcible carrying off of the brown bull of Cuailgne. She
had all the Connaught forces, chief among them the Fir Dom-
nainn Knights, under their leader, Ferdiad ; and she had a splendid
body of Ulster malcontents, under Fergus MacRigh (cousin to
King Conor MacNessa), who were eager to revenge themselves
upon Conor and their native province. And she had also the
armies of her allies, from the other three-fifths of Ireland.

With this mighty army she marched upon Ulster — in the gap
of which province they were met by the redoubtable CuchuUain —
who standing in the gap of Ulster, and defending it against Maeve,
and the four-fifths of Ireland, is henceforth the hero and the great
central figure in the Tain.

Not only are his wonderful deeds in this wonderful fight here
recorded, but frequently the palpitating narrative is suspended, to
give the seanachie time to recite some deed, relate some inddent, or
give us 'some glimpse, of the great hero's earlier career.

The greatest, most exciting, portion of this great and exciting
epic is the account of our hero's fight with his friend, Ferdiad, at
the ford, where, single-handed, he is holding at bay the forces of
Connaught. Ferdiad is the great Connaught champion, chief, as
said, of the Connaught Knights of the Sword, the Fir Domniann
and a dear friend and comrade of CuchuUain, since, in their youth,
they were training for the profession of arms. And it is now sore
for CuchuUain to fight the soul-friend whom the Connaught host
has pitted against them. He would dissuade Ferdiad from fight-
ing, by reminding him of their comradeship, when they were to-
gether learning the art of war from the female champion, Scathach,
in Alba.

"We were heart companions,

We were companions in the woods
We were fellows of the same bed,

CUCHULLAIN 31

Where we used to sleep the babny sleep.
After mortal battles abroad,
In countries many and far distant,
Together we used to practise, and go
Through each forest, learning with Scathach."*

But Ferdiad had not the tenderness of Cuchullain, and would
not let fond memories turn him from his purpose. Indeed lest he
might yield to the weakness of temptation, he forced himself to
answer Cuchullain's tenderness with taunts, so as to provoke the
combat. And fight they finally did.

"Each of them began to cast spears at the other, from the full
middle of the day till the close of the evening ; and though the ward-
ing of! was of the best, still the throwing was so superior, that each
of them bled, reddened, and wounded the other, in that time. 'Let
us desist from this, now O Cuchullain,' said Ferdiad. 'Let us de-
sist,' said Cuchullain.

"They ceased. They threw away their arms from them into the
hands of their charioteers. Each of them approached the other forth-
with, and each put his hands around the other's neck, and gave him
three kisses. Their horses were in the same paddock that night, and
their charioteers at the same fire; and their charioteers spread beds
of green rushes for them, fitted with wounded men's pillows. The
professors of healing and curing came to heal and cure them, and
they applied herbs and plants of healing and curing to their stabs
and their cuts and their gashes, and to all their wounds. Of every
herb and of every healing and curing plant that was put to the stabs
and cuts and gashes and to all the wounds of Cuchullain, he would
send an equal portion from him westward over the ford to Ferdiad,
so that the men of Eirinn might not be able to say, should Ferdiad
fall by him, that it was by better means of cure that he was en-
abled (to kill him).

"Of each kind of food, and of palatable, pleasant, intoxicating
drink that was sent by the men of Eirinn to Ferdiad, he would send
a fair moiety over the ford northwards to Cuchullain because the
purveyors of Ferdiad were more numerous than the purveyors of
Cuchullain."

On the evening of the second day, after a terribly fierce
combat —

"They threw their arms from them into the hands of their
charioteers. Each of them came towards the other. Each of them
put his hands round the neck of the other, and bestowed three kisses

2 This, and foUowing excerpts, descriptive of the fight, are from CCurr/s

translation.

32 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

on him. Their horses were in the same enclosure, and their chario-
teers at the same fire."

When the fight reaches its third day the worn and wounded
Ferdiad, by his irritable temper, and testy, taunting words, shows
that he is getting the worst of it. On their meeting, CuchuUain
notices the sad change that has come over Ferdiad's darkened coun-
tenance: "It is not from fear or terror of thee that I am so dis-
dained,'* said Ferdiad, "for there is not in Eirinn this day a cham-
pion that I could not subdue." And again he says vauntingly of
himself: "Of none more valiant have I heard, or to this day did
I ever meet."

Cuchullain replies to his boasting:

"Not one has yet put food unto his lips,
Nor has there yet been bom,
Of king or queen, without disgrace,
One for whom I would do thee evil."

CuchuUain's persistent tenderness backs up the tide of Ferdiad's
bad humour, and gives outlet for a time to his better nature. He
replies:

"O Cuchullain of the battle triumph,

It was not thee, but Medb that betrayed me.
Take thou victory and fame,
Thine is not the fault.**

CuchuUain's reply:

"My faithful heart is a dot of blood.

From me my soul hath nearly parted,
I have not strength for feats of valour
To fight with thee, O Ferdiad."

But the weariness of the long, long struggle had so sorely told
upon both of them that there is bitterness in their fight to-day as
well as fierceness, till the hour of even's close.

" 'Let us desist now from this, O CudiuUain,' said Ferdiad.

" 'Let us desist, now, indeed, if the time hath come,' said Cuchul-
lain. They ceased.

"They cast their arms from them into the hands of their chario-
teers. Though it was the meeting — ^pleasant, happy, griefless, and
spirited of two (men), it was the separation — mournful, sorrxnvful,
dispirited, of two (men) that night.

"Their horses were not in the same enclosure that night. Their
charioteers were not at the same fire."

CUCHULLAIN 33

As will have been noticed from the references, the Red Branch
Knights and other famous knights of their day used chariots and
frequently fought from them.

CuchuUain's charioteer, Laeg, is, too, clothed in immortality,
because of the frequent references to him in The Tain. Laeg's
usefulness to Cuchullain did not end with his superb ability as a
charioteer : he was worth gold, for abusing and taunting his master
into hotter ire and fiercer effort, whenever in the course of a fight
his master relaxed, or weakened, or was being worsted.

For instance, on one day of t|^e fight, Ferdiad who evidently
knew a little psychology and profited by his knowledge, took occa-
sion, before the fight began, and within sight of Cuchullain, to
practise himself in some of his most startling sword feats. The
display had its desired effect.

"I perceive, my friend, Lacg" (said Cuchullain), "the noble, va-
ried, wonderful, numerous feats which Ferdiad displays on high, and
all these feats will be tried on me in succession, and therefore it is
that if it be I that shall begin to yield this day, thou art to excite,
reproach, and speak evil to me, so that the ire of my rage and anger
shall grow the more on me. If it be I that prevail, then shalt thou
laud me, and praise me, and speak good words to me, that my cour-
age may be the greater."

"It shall so be done, indeed, O Cuchullain," said Laeg.

And it was so done, indeed. When Cuchullain was getting the
worst o^ it that day, the fourth and last, the faithful Laeg came to
his rescue.

"Alas, indeed," said Laeg, "the warrior who is against thee casts
thee away as a lewd woman would cast her child. He throws thee
as foam is thrown by the river. He grinds thee as a mill would
grind fresh malt. He pierces thee as the felling axe would pierce
the oak. He binds thee as the woodbine binds the tree. He darts
on thee as the hawk darts on small birds, so that henceforth thou
hast not call, or right, or claim to valour or bravery to the end of
time and life, thou little fairy phantom."

Laeg's abusive efforts are fruitfuL Cuchullain rallies to the
fight more fiercely, more terribly, more ovcrpoweringly than ever,
and at length gives to his friend, Ferdiad, the coup de grace.

(« <"

'That is enough now, indeed,* said Ferdiad. *I fall of that.
But I may say, indeed, that I am sickly now after thee. And it
did not behove thee that I should fall by thy hand.'

34 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

"Cuchullain ran toward him after that and clasped his two arms
about him, and lifted him with hb arms and his armour.

''Cuchullain laid Ferdiad down then; and a trance, and a faint,
and a weakness fell on Cuchullain over Ferdiad there."

Laeg called upon Cuchullain to arise, because the Connaught
host would be so frenzied by the fall of their champion that for-
getting the ethics of combat, they would throw themselves upon
Cuchullain.

" 'What availeth me to arise, O servant,* said Cuchullain, 'after
him that hath fallen by me.' "

Cuchullain deplores what he calls the treachery and abandon^
ment played upon Ferdiad by the men of Connaught, in pitting
Ferdiad against himself who is Invincible. And he sang this lay :

"O Ferdiad, treachery has defeated thee.
Unhappy was thy last fate,
Thou to die, I to remain,
Sorrowful for ever is our perpetual separation.

"When we were far away, in Alba

With Scathach, the gifted Buanand,

We then resolved that till the end of time

We should not be hostile to each other.

"Dear to me was thy beautiful ruddiness,
Dear to me thy comely, perfect fonn,
Dear to me thy grey dear-blue eye,
Dear to me thy wisdom and thy eloquence.

"There hath not come to the body-cutting combat.
There hath not been aroused by manly exertion.
There hath not held up shield on the field of spears,
Thine equal, O ruddy son of Daman.

"Never until now ha%'e I met.
Since I slew Aife's only son,
Thy like in deeds of battle-
Never have I found, O Ferdiad.

"There has not come to the gory batde.

Nor has Banba nursed upon her breast.

There has not come oflF sea, or land.

Of the sons of Kings, one of better fame."

CUCHULLAIN 35

After long wars and doughty deeds done on both sides, Medb
gets the coveted brown bull, and fights her way back to Connaught
with the rare prize. Yet, does he make Connaught, in its very
short possession of him, sorely rue his carrying away.

As the account of Cuchullain's fighting gives us an idea of the
remarkable chivalry of the fighters in ancient Eire — at least the
chivalry of that very ancient time in which the poet wrote, if not
of that time in which the hero fought — so the account of his court-
ship gives us some impression of the quality and character of the
women of Eire in the faraway time, and the loftiness of men's
ideals regarding them.

When CuchuUain, chariot-driven by his faithful Laeg, went upon
his famous courting journey, to woo the Lady Emer, the beautiful
daughter of Forgaill the Brugaid (Hospitaller) of Lusc, the spec-
tacle was impressive to all the wondering ones who beheld it. When
he arrived at her father's Bruighean, the honoured Lady, modest as
she was beautiful, was on the Faithe (lawn) sewing, and teaching
sewing among a group of maidens, daughters of the neighbouring
farmers. The hero was not only smitten by her beauty and her
modesty, but captivated by her womanly accomplishments.

For Emer was possessed of the six womanly gifts, namely, "the
gift of beauty of person, the gift of voice, the gift of music, the gift
of embroidering and needlework, the gift of wisdom, and the gift
of virtuous chastity."

When, to her maidenly confusion, she learns the purpose of
Cuchullain's visit, she, with magnificent modesty, and as noble-
hearted generosity, urges upon her wooer the prior and superior
claims of her elder sister, thereby involuntarily making herself
doubly desirable. Beyond all doubt she is and must be the one
woman in all the Island suited to mate with and make happy, Eire's
champion most renowned. And eventually she did make him
happy.

Cuchullain died as a hero should — on a battlefield, with his
back to a rock and his face to the foe, buckler on arm, and spear in
hand.

He died standing, and in that defiant attitude (supported by
the rock) was many days dead ere the enemy dared venture near
enough to reassure themselves of his exit — which they only did
when they saw the vultures alight upon him, and, undisturbed, peck
at his flesh.

CHAPTER VIII

TWO FIRST CENTURY LEADERS

The first century of the Christian Era saw two remarkable move-
ments in Ireland — wherein the whole national structure was forcibly
turned upside down by one remarkable man — and then as forcibly
re-adjusted by another man even still more remarkable.

These two great leaders were the usurper, Carbri Cinn Cait,
and the monarch, Tuathal the Desired.

It was early in the first century that occurred the great Aithech
Tuatha revolution. The Aithech Tuatha meant the rent-pa^ng
peoples. They were probably the Firbolgs and other* conquered
peoples — ^who had been in bondage and serfdom to the Milesians
for hundreds of years.

Among these serfs arose an able leader, chief of one of their
tribes in Leinster, named Carbri Cinn Cait — ^which some translate
"cat-head," a term of derision applied to him by the Milesians— r
but which Sullivan (introduction to O'Curry) more reasonably in-
terprets "head of the unfree ones."

Amongst these people who by the Milesian law were excluded
from every profession, art and craft that carried honour, and
ground down by rents and compulsory toil, this remarkable man
succeeded in spreading a great, silent conspiracy. When they were
ripened for revolution, the Aithech Tuatha invited all the royalties
and all the nobility of the Milesians to a great feast, on a plain in
the County Galway, which is now called Magh Cro, or the bloody
plain, and there treacherously falling upon their guests, slew them.
After which, the rent-payers, for five years, governed the land with
Cinn Cait as their monarch. The Four Masters say of Carbri's
reign, "Evil was the state of Ireland : fruitless her com, for there
used to be only one grain on the stock; fruitless her rivers; milk-
less her cattle; plentiless her fruit, for there used to be but one
acorn on the stalk."

On the death of Carbri, his son Morann, who had become noted
as a lawgiver and who was sumamed "the Just," refused the crown,
and said that it should be given to the rightful one. Now Baine,

TWO FIRST CENTURY LEADERS 37

wife of the slain King of Connaught, and daughter of the King of
the Picts, who was pregnant, and visiting her father in Alba at the
time of the great massacre, had borne a son, Feradach. And Fera-
dach Finn-feactnach, the Fair Righteous One, now recalled from
Pict-land, became King of Ireland.

But his reign was a troubled, unhappy one. For the unruly
elements were reluctant to settle down, after having tasted revolu-
tion and rapine. Even the so-called legitimate chiefs who had come
to their own again were restless and rebellious. In the reign of
Fiacha of the White Cows, occurred another revolution — in which
the provincial Milesian kings and the Aithech Tuatha seem to have
been banded together. They overturned the reigning house, slew
Fiacha, and placed on the throne Elim of Ulster — who, by re-
pressing the Legitimists, and holding the favour of the Aithech
Tuatha, managed to hold to his insecure position during a stormy
reign of 20 years.

But the favour shown the Aithech Tuatha, and the power they
were permitted to exercise, so angered and aroused the Milesian
classes that they recalled from his exile (in Britain) Tuathal
Feachtmar — that is to say, Tuathal the Desired — ^the son of Fiacha
(and sixth in descent from Eochaid Feidlech, the father of Medb) .
A great portion of the nation joyfully hailed the Desired and
rallied to his standard. And at the Hill of Scire in Meath he
overthrew Elim, who was killed in the battle. But before he felt
secure upon the throne of Ireland, Tuathal had to fight 133 battles !

Tuathal broke up the tribes of the Aithech Tuatha and scat-
tered and redistributed them over the land in such way that they
could not easily combine and conspire again.

This was a man of strong character, marked ability, and great
moral power, whose reign influenced the future of Ireland. He
established order in a land that had been for half a century in
chaos. He fostered trade, and instituted laws for its protection
and propagation. He made a new and important fifth province of
Meath— which became fixed henceforward as the Ard-Righ's
(High-King*s) province. Before his day the other provinces met
at the hill of Uisnech in that part of Ireland which is now called
West Meath. From each of these he cut off a portion, which, at-
tached to the former small domain of Meath made an important,
rich, and royal Meath — enlarged from its former one tuath to
eighteen tuatha. From a little district Meath then became an im-
portant province— the province of the Ard-Righ or High King of
all Ireland. In each of the four cut off portions, moreover, he
erected a royal residence — at the famous location where the four

38 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

great provincial fairs were held, namely, at Tlachtga in Leinster;
at Uisnech in Munster; Cruachan in Connacht; and Taillte in Ul-
ster. Tuathal also re-organised the great National Fairs of Ire-
land, and re-established the interrupted Feis or Parliament of Tara.
And thus did the country and the Milesian dynasty recover, un-
der this strong man from the staggering revolution of the Aithech
Tuatha.

One other most notable happening in this king's reign was the
laying upon Leinster of the famous Boru tribute — -a crime which,
for long centuries, was to be the cause of bloody wars that should
shake the Island.

This was the origin of the Boru tribute: Of Tuathal's two
beautiful daughters, Dairine and Fithir, the former wedded King
Eochaid of Leinster. After some time, however, either tiring of
her or coveting the beauty of her younger sister, Eochaid put
Dairine away, and confined her in a tower. Giving out that she
was dead, he went in mourning to the court of Tara, to seek con-
solation. Tuathal gave him that, by presenting to him Fithir for
wife. Eochaid took Fithir with him to the court of Leinster,
where, after a time, and through an accident, the two sisters met
face to face, thus discovering a hidden, horrible truth. The shock-
ing discovery of the double shame he had put upon them over-
whelmed with mortification and grief the two sisters; and they
died, broken-hearted.

When their father, the High King, learnt how that Eochaid
had brought about his daughters' dishonour and death, he rallied
auxiliaries to his aid, and marched into Leinster, ravaging it as
he went. The province and its king were saved only by Eochaid' s
humiliated submission, and his binding the province to pay to the
High King at Tara, every alternate year for an indefinite period,
the tremendous tribute which came to be known as the Boru or
cow-tribute — five thousand cows, five thousand hogs, five thousand
cloaks, five thousand vessels of brass and bronze, and five thou-
sand ounces of silver.

This crushing tribute was henceforth laid upon Leinster, by the
High King of Tara from the time of Tuathal forward till the
reign of Fionnachta, a period of five hundred years — ^but in most
cases having to be lifted with steel hands. It caused more bloody
history than did almost any other festering sore with which Ireland
was ever afflicted. During these five centuries hardly a High King
sat upon the throne of Tara, who did not have to carry the bloody
sword into Leinster again and again, forcibly to hade his pound
of flesh from off that province's palpitating body. And only some-

TWO FIRST CENTURY LEADERS 39

times was the fight fought between Meath and Leinster alone.
Often, through alliances, mutual sympathies, antagonisms, hopes,
or dangers, half of Ireland, and sometimes all of Ireland was em-
broiled. So, together with much that was good Tuathal left to
his country a bloody legacy.*

*TuathaI's son, who succeeded him, Fddlimid Rechtmar, the Lawgiver, suc-
cessfully pursued his father's policy of making the laws respected,— and the better
to achieve the noble purpose, devoted himself first to making them just — ^according
to his lights. He established the Lex Talionis— the law of an eye for an eye— a
rude and severe justice, which held thereafter in Ireland until the coming of Pat-
rick. With the more lenient spirit of Christ, which he introduced, Patrick ended the
reign of Feidlimid's Lex Talionis.

For still one other thing Feidlimid's name is somewhat memorable. The old
seanachies quaintly record of him that "he died on his pillow," a phrase which
indirectly throws a flood of lig^t upon the abrupt manner in which the kings (of
all countries) in those days usually made their exit from the world.

CHAPTER IX

CONN OF THE HUNDRED BATTLES

The celebrated Conn of the Hundred Battles was a son of Feid-
limid, the son of Tuathal — though he did not immediately succeed
Feidlimid. Between them reigned Cathair Mor, who was the
father of thirty sons, among whom and their posterity he attempted
to divide Ireland, and from whom are descended the chief Leinster
families.

And we may pause to note that Cathair Mor is immortalised
in Irish history by reason of a famous ancient will ascribed to him
— a will that is of value because of the light it sheds upon many
things of prime historical interest in early days. In this will we
read, for instance, that he left to Breasal, his son, five ships of bur-
den; fifty embossed bucklers, ornamented with border of gold and
silver; five swords with golden handles; and five chariots. To
Fiacha-Baiceade, another son, he left fifty drinking cups; fifty bar-
rels made of yew-tree; and fifty piebald horses, the bits of the
bridles made of brass. He left to Tuathal-Tigech, son of Maine,
his brother, ten chariots; five play tables; five chess-boards; thirty
bucklers, bordered with gold and silver; and fifty polished swords.
To Daire Barach, another of his sons, he left one hundred and
fifty pikes, the wood of which was covered with plates of silver;
fifty swords of exquisite workmanship; five rings of pure gold; one
hundred and fifty billiard-balls of brass, with pools and cues of the
same material; ten ornaments of exquisite workmanship; twelve
chess-boards with chess men. To Mogcorf, son of Laogare Birn-
buadach, he left a hundred cows spotted with white, with their
calves, coupled together with yokes of brass; a hundred bucklers;
a hundred red javelins; a hundred brilliant lances; fifty saffron-col-
oured great-coats; a hundred different coloured horses; a hundred
drinking cups curiously wroilght; a hundred barrels made of yew-
tree; fifty chariots of exquisite workmanship; fifty chess-boards;
fifty tables used by wrestlers; fifty trumpets; fifty large copper
boilers, and fifty standards; with the right of being a member of

CONN OF THE HUNDRED BATTLES 41

the council of state of the king of Leinster. Lastly, he bequeathed
to the king of Leix, a hundred cows; a hundred bucklers; a hun-
dred swords; a hundred pikes, and seven standards."

Cathair Mor was succeeded by Conn who overthrew him in a
great battle in Meath. As Conn's title suggests, his reign was
filled with battling. Conn's strenuous militancy and the suggestive
title that it won for him, made him famed beyond worthier men —
famed through the generations and the centuries — so that it was
the greatest pride of some of the noblest families of the land a
thousand years and more after his time to trace back their descent
to him of the Hundred Battles.

But against Mogh Nuadat of Munster many of his most notable
battles were fought. And in Mogh, Conn had an opponent worthy
of his mettle.

The Southwestern province, Munster, used to be reigned over,
says Keating, alternately by the two races that inhabited it, the
Ithians, descendants of Milesius' uncle, Ith, who occupied the ex-
treme Southwestern angle, comprising the remote corners of the
modem counties of Cork and Kerry — and the Eberians, descen-
dants of Milesius through Eber, who occupied the remainder of
the province. There was an amicable arrangement between these
two races that each in turn should rule Munster. And when one
race supplied the king, the other supplied the chief judge, and vice
versa.

This arrangement lasted till about half a century before the
Christian Era, when there came South a portion of the Northern
warlike Earnaan, from their late territory along Loch Erne,
whence they had been forced out by the jealous Rudricians, the
royal race of Rory, who ruled Ulster. By King Duach, who then
ruled in Munster, the Earnaan were granted a settlement in Kerry.
But, lustful of power, dominant and aggressive, they imposed them-
selves as rulers upon Munster, when King Duach died. Their
great leader, Deagad (from whom that portion of the Earnaan
were afterwards called Deagades) , became king of Munster. And
for more than 200 years after, these Northern intruders held the
Munster kingship in their tribe — ^to the complete exclusion and
subjection of both Ithians and Eberians.

It was in the time that Conn reigned in Meath as Ard-Righ,
that Mogh Nuadat, an Eberian, roused his fellow Munstermen to
battle for freedom from the tyrannical Earnaan. The monarch,
Conn, jealous of the Munstermen, and sympathetic toward his
fellow Northerners, the Earnaan, gave his aid to the latter.
Nevertheless, the power of the Earnaan in Munster was over-

42 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

thrown, and Mogb Nuadat took the sovereignty of the province.

Mogh Nuadat then, confident of his might, went against Conn
himself. But the tide of success, that had been with him, at last
turned; and Mogh had to flee the country. To Spain he went, re-
mained there nine years, and wedded Beara, daughter of Heber
Mor, king of Castile. Then his father-in-law, the Spanish King,
gave him 2,000 troops under command of his own son, wherewith
to return and battle for the monarchy of Ireland. Returning with
these Spaniards, he rallied to his standard his former subjects, and
once again boldly invaded Conn's territory.

Conn, with hfs allies, the Degades, was defeated in ten battles —
till at length, for peace sake, he had to grant to Mogh one-half of
Ireland — the southern half, henceforth to be known as Leth
Mogha, Mogh's half — dominion over which was claimed by
Mogh's successors, through almost ten centuries following. The
northern half, which he retained under his own rule is since known
as Leth Cuinn, Conn's half.

Unfortunately, the brave Mogh soon repented making peace
for the reward of only one-half of Ireland, when, as he felt, he
was powerful enough to have had the whole. The Spanish ad-
venturers with him, having found peace unwelcome to their roving,
warring nature prodded his ambition — till he declared war against
Conn once more.

Mogh Nuadat marched to Moylena in the midlands, where he
pitched his camp, challenging Conn. Conn went against him with
a great army of the North, and the Fian of Connaught, under the
command of their hero chieftain, Goll MacMorna. Conn and the
leaders of his army planned to attack Mogh Nuadat in the night —
and did so — all except Goll and his Fian. For Goll had vowed
that he would never attack an enemy in the night, or by surprise,
or take him at any disadvantage. He had never broken his vow,
and would not do so now.

Such a capable leader was Mogh and so brave his men, that,
despite the night surprise, they were not only not overcome but,
after long fighting in the darkness, were wearing down and re-
pulsing the army of the North. Fortunately for Conn he was able
to hold out till day dawned. Then the chivalrous Goll, going to
his assistance, gave a new spirit to Conn's army. Goll himself slew
Mogh Nuadat, and Fraech, the son of the King of Spain. And
following that, the Southern army wavered, were routed, and de^
stroyed.

When Mogh Nuadat was slain, the Northerners took up his

CONN OF THE HUNDRED BATTLES 43

body upon a stretcher and triumphantly bore it up and down in
view of both armies — ^till Goll MacMorn^, seeing this, rebuked
them, saying: "Lay him down. He died as a hero should."

Conn, in his triumph, displayed both discretion and marked
ability by the adroitness with which he converted enemies into
friends. For while he gave to his ally, Mogh Lama, leader of
the Deagades, his daughter Saraid in marriage (the son of which
pair, Conaire, was to succeed Conn in the kingship), he married
his second daughter, Sabia (who was then widow of MacNiad,
late chief of the Ithians), upon Oilill Olum, the only son and heir
of the slain chieftain, Mogh Nuadat. He thus drew together,
by family tie, the Ithians, the Eberians, the Deagades, and his
own people, the Eremonians.

Moreover, because Mogh Nuadat was unfairly slain. Conn,
accepting the arbitration of the judges upon the crime, paid eric
(fine) for it — his own ring of gold, his own precious carved brooch,
his sword and shield, 200 driving steeds, and 200 chariots, 200
ships, 200 spears, 200 swords, 200 cows, 200 slaves, and his daugh-
ter Sadb in marriage. So says the old "Book of Munster."

Oilill Olum then became king of all Munster, both of the
Eberian and of the Ithian sections — the first king of all that prov-
ince. And thereafter (except in the one instance of OililFs suc-
cessor, the Ithian MacNiad) the kingship of Munster was re-
served to the Eberians alone, and handed down in Oilill Olum's
family. He willed — and his will was observed for long centuries
— ^that the crown of Munster should henceforth alternate between
the descendants 0^ his two eldest sons, Eogan Mor and Cormac
Cas — from the former of whom is the race of the MacCarthys,
and from the latter, the race of the O'Briens.

Conn's reign and life were ended by his assassination at Tara.
Fifty robbers hired by the King of Ulster, came to Tara, dressed
as women, and treacherously despatched the Monarch.

Conn's son-in-law, Conaire II, who succeeded him as monarch
—for his son Art was then but a child—is famed as father of the
three Carbris, namely Carbri Muse, from whom was named the
territonr of Muskerry, Carbri Baiscin, whose descendants peoplea
Lorca-Baiscin in Western Clare, and, most notable of them, Carbri
Kiada, who, when there was a famine in the South, led his people
to the extreme Northeast of Ireland, and some of them across to
the nearest part of Scotland, where they settled, forming the first
important colony of Scots (Irish) in Alba, and driving there the
edge of the Irish wedge which was eventually to make the whole

44 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

country known as the land of the Scots (Irish). The Irish terri-
tory which Carbri Riada's people settled, the Northeast of Antrim,
and the territory opposite to it in Alba, into which his people over-
flowed, became known as the two Dal Riada. And though divided
by sea, these two territories were, for many centuries, to be as one
Irish territory, administered and ruled over by the one Irish prince.

CHAPTER X

CORMAC MAC ART

Of all the ancient kings of Ireland, Cormac, who reigned in the
third century, is unquestionably considered greatest by the poets,
the seanachies, and the chroniclers. His father Art was the son
of Conn of the Hundred Battles, and was known as Art the Lonely,
because, the story goes, that from the time he lost his brothers,
Connia and Crionna — ^both slain by their uncles (though another
famous story has it that Connia sailed away to Fairyland and never
returned), he was pitifully solitary, and silent ever after till life's
end^ — the day of Moy Mocruime (in Galway) at which great
battle he was killed, fighting the foreign forces which his exiled
nephew Lugaid MacCon had brought back with him from his exile
among the Picts, and the Britons. Lugaid, having won at Moy
Mocruime, established himself as Ard-Righ of Eirinn. A rude, ill-
tempered, domineering man was this Lugaid, who won little heart-
loyalty from the people, and was but little mourned when he died.
He was stabbed to death by a Druid, at Gort-an-Oir, as he was
bestowing golden gifts on the poets.

It was at the court of this Lugaid at Tara, that Cormac first
distinguished himself, and gave token of the ability and wisdom,
which were, afterwards, to mark him the most distinguished of
Eirinn's monarchs.

» ART THE LONELY

The berried quicken-branches lament in lonely sighs,
Through open doonn'ays of the dun a lonely wet wind cries ;
And lonely in the hall he sits, with feasting warriors round,
The harp that lauds his fame in fights hath a lonely sound.

The speckled salmon, too, darts lonely in the pool.
The swan floats lonely with her brood in shallows cool.
His steeds— the swift and gentle— are lonely in their stall,
The sorrow of his loneliness weighs heavy over alL

For in the house of Tara three shadows share the feast.
Conn sits withio the High-King's place, against the East,
And Cnonna whispers to his hound some memory of the chase.
While Connia to the harping turns a joyous listening face.

— Ethna Carbery in "The Four Winds of Eirinn.
45

46 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

From his exile in Connaught, Cormac, a green youth, had re-
turned to Tara, where, unrecognised, he was engaged herding
sheep for a poor widow. Now one of the sheep broke into the
queen's garden, and ate the queen's vegetables. And King Lugaid,
equally angry as his queen, after he heard the case, ordered that
for penalty on the widow, her sheep should be forfeit to the queen.

To the amazement of Lugaid's court, the herd-boy who had
been watching the proceedings with anxiety, arose, and, facing the
king, said, "Unjust is thy award, O king, for, because thy queen
hath lost a few vegetables, thou wouldst deprive the poor widow
of her livelihood?"

When the king recovered from his astoundment, he looked
contemptuously at the lad, asking scathingly: "And what, O wise
herd-boy, would be thy just award?"

The herd-boy, not one little bit disconcerted, answered him:
"My award would be that the wool of the sheep should pay for
the vegetables the sheep has eaten — ^because both the wool and
the green things will grow again, and both parties have forgotten
their hurt."

And the wonderful wisdom of the judgment drew the applause
of the astounded court.

But Lugaid exclaimed in alarm: "It is the judgment of a
King."

And, the lad's great mind having betrayed him, he had to
flee.

He returned and claimed the throne when Lugaid was killed,
but at a feast which he gave to the princes whose support he
wanted, Fergus Black-Tooth of Ulster, who coveted the Ard-
Righship, managed, it is said, to singe the hair of Cormac — creat-
ing a blemish that debarred the young man temporarily from the
throne. And he fled again from Tara, fearing designs upon his
life.

Fergus became Ard-Righ for a year — at the end of which time
Cormac returned with an army, and, supported by Taig, the son
of Ciann, and grandson of the great Oilill Olum of Munster, com-
pletely overthrew the usurper in the great battle of Crionna (on
the Boyne) where Fergus and his two brothers were slain — and
Cormac won undisputed possession of the monarchy.

Taig was granted a large territory between Damlaig (Duleek)
and the River Liffi, since then called the Ciannachta. He became
the ancestor of the O'Hara's, O'Gara's, O'CarroU's, and other now
Northern families.

"A noble, illustrious king," says a tract preserved in the Book

CORMAC MAC ART 47

of Ballymotc, "now took sovereignty and rule over Eirinn, namely,
Cormac, the grandson of Conn. The world was replete with all
that was good in his time : the food and the fat of the land, and
the gifts of the sea were in abundance in this king's reign. There
were neither woundings nor robberies in his time, but every one
enjoyed his own, in peace."

And another ancient account says: "A great king, of great
judgment now assumed the sovereignty of Eirinn, i.e., Cormac,
the son of Art, the son of Conn of the Hundred Battles. Eirinn
was prosperous during his time, and just judgments were distrib-
uted throughout by him, so that no one durst attempt to wound a
man in Ireland, during the short jubilee of seven years."

Cormac rebuilt the palace of Tara, with much magnificence.
He built the Teach Mi Chuarta, the great banqueting hall, that
was 760 feet by 46 feet, and 45 feet high. Until quite recently,
the outline of the foundations of this great hall with the traces
of its fourteen doorways, were still to be observed on Tara Hill.
He also built a grianan (sun-house) for the women- — and the
House of the Hostages, and the House of a Thousand Soldiers.
He gave to the office of Ard-Righ a magnificence that it had not
known before.

Amergin MacAmlaid, the scholar-bard of King Diarmaid Mac-
Carroll, in the seventh century, gives a poetic account of Cormac's
princely household, in which he says his hall had a flaming lamp,
and 150 beds; and 150 warriors stood in the king's presence when
he sat down at the banquet; there were 150 cup-bearers; 150 jew-
elled cups of silver and gold; and 50 over 1000 was the number
of the entire household.

In the Book of Leinster is related, "Three thousand persons
each day is what Cormac used to maintain in pay; besides poets
and satirists, and all the strangers who sought the king; Galls,
and Romans, and Franks, and Frisians, and Lx)ngbards, and Al-
banians (Caledonians), and Saxons, and Cruithnians (Picts), for
all these used to seek him, and it was with gold and with silver,
with steeds and with chariots, that he presented them. They used
all to come to Cormac, because there was not in his time, nor be-
fore him, any more celebrated in honour, and in dignity, and in
wisdom, except only Solomon, the son of David."

And to the Feis of Tara he gave a new dignity and importance
that helped to make its decisions and decrees respected in every
comer of the land.

From the Book of Ballymote is taken this interesting descrip-
tion of Cormac at that Feis :

48 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

"His hair was slightly curled, and of golden colour; he had a
scarlet shield with engraved devices, and golden hooks and clasps of
silver; a wide-flowing purple cloak on him, with a gem-set gold
brooch over his breast ; a gold torque around his neck ; a white-collared
shirt, embroidered with gold, upon him, a girdle with golden buckles,
and studded with precious stones, around him ; two golden net-work
sandals with golden buckles upon his feet; two spears with golden
sockets, and many red bronze rivets, in his hand; while he stood in
the full glow of beauty, without defect or blemish. You would
think it was a shower of pearls that were set in his mouth; his lips
were rubies; his symmetrical body was as white as snow; his cheek
was like the mountain ash-berry; his eyes were like the sloe; his
brows and eye-lashes were like the sheen of a blue-black lance."

The noted 17th century Irish scholar and historian, O' Flaherty,
says : "Cormac exceeded all his predecessors in magnificence, munif-
icence, wisdom, and learning, as also in military achievements.
His palace was most superbly adorned and richly furnished, and
his numerous family proclaim his majesty and munificence; the
books he published, and the schools he endowed at Temair (Tara)
bear unquestionable testimony of his learning. There were three
schools instituted,^ in the first the most eminent professors of the
art of war were engaged, in the second, history was taught, and in
the third, jurisprudence was professed."

He sought not to confine the benefits of his rule to Eirinn, but
wanted to extend them to Alba also. The Four Masters record
under the year 240, that the fleet of Cormac sailed across Magh
Rian, the Plain of the Sea, and obtained for him the sovereignty of
Alba.

Cormac, for all his greatness, was not invariably just. He car-
ried an unjust war into Munster — and was punished therefor.
Once Tara ran short of provisions — ^which to befall king or com-
moner in ancient Ireland, at whose residence guests might any
moment arrive, was almost the unpardonable sin. On this occa-
sion, Cormac's high steward advised him that the great province
of Munster which, by its size and wealth, ought to pay two-fifths
of the tribute of Ireland to the high-king, only paid one-fifth,
and should now be called on to provision Tara. Cormac, impressed
by the argument, made demand upon Munster — ^which Fiacha, the
son of Eogan Mor, the son of Oilill Olum, promptly refused.
Cormac immediately marched into that kingdom, at the head of
his army, to collect what he considered his due. Fiacha, with the

^ O'Curry says he can find no authority for this statement.

CORMAC MAC ART 49

Munstermcn met him at the place which is now called Knocklong,
in Limerick, gave brave battle to, and completely routed, the High-
King's army, pursued them into Ossory, and humiliatingly com-
pelled Cormac to give him securities and pledges, and to promise
to send him hostages from Tara.

O'Halloran says that there was at Tara in Cormac's time, a
house of virgins who kept constantly alive the fires of Bel or the
sun, and of Samain, the moon. It became historic from the fact
that Dunlaing MacEnda, King of Leinster, once broke into this
Vetreat, and put the virgins to the sword — for which Cormac de-
creed death to the scoundrel; and compelled his successors to send
to Tara, every year, 30 white cows with calves of the same colour,
30 brass collars for the cows, and 30 chains to hold them while
milking.

Historians record that the first watermill was introduced into
Eirinn by Cormac. It was to spare toil to his concubine, Ciarnat,
the daughter of the king of the Picts, that he did it. She was said
to have surpassed all women in beauty. The men of Ulster had
carried her off from Alba. From them Cormac obtained her; and
his wife Ethni, jealous of her, made Ciarnat her slave, compelling
the woman to grind by the quern every day nine pecks of corn.
Cormac, it is said, brought craftsmen from Alba — ^where water-
mills had been introduced from the Romans — to construct the mill
— for sparing of Ciarnat.

A new classification of the people is said to have been made
by the assembled nobles and scholars, at the Feis of Tara, in Cor-
mac's time — being ranked according to their mental and material
qualifications.

When Cormac found himself advanced in years, he resigned
the throne and its cares. Some say he had to resign, because he
lost an eye — lost it in his own hall, one time that his son, Cellach,
who had insulted a woman of the Desi was thereinto pursued by
the avenger of the Deisi, the chieftain, Aengus, who killed Cellach
in his father's presence, and in the scuffle, put out the eye of the
monarch also.

Aengus, it is worth noting here, was not summarily slain by
Cormac's order. This philosophic and just king called him to
answer before a court of justice. And, for his double crime, Aengus
and his clan were exiled from Meath, where they (of the Southern
Ciannachta) had their patrimony. They sojourned for a while in
Leinster, and afterwards went onward to Munster, of their own
kindred. There they helped the Munster King (Aengus of Cashel)
to wrest from Leinster large territory in Tipperary and Water-

50 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

ford — and in reward there was settled on them part of the new
territory — in Waterford, where their country is to this day known
as the Deisi.

Cormac, as said, resigned the High-Kingship, thus ending one
of the most fruitful as well as illustrious reigns that ever blessed
the Island. "He was the greatest king," says one of the old his-
torians, "that Ireland ever knew. In power and eloquence, in the
vigour and splendour of his reign, he had not his like before or
since. In his reign no one needed to bolt the door, no one needed to
guard the flock, nor was any one in all Ireland distressed for want
of food or clothing. For of all Ireland this wise and just king
made a beautiful land of promise."

He retired to Cleite Acaill, on the Boyne, where he gave him-
self to study and good works.

Three great literary works are, by various ancient authorities,
ascribed to him in his retirement — namely, Teagasc an Riogh (In-
structions of a King), The Book of Acaill, and The Psaltair of
Tara. Teagasc an Riogh taking the form of a dialogue between
Cormac and his son Cairbre whom he is instructing for the duties
of his position as Ard-Righ, is one of the works that some old
writers claim to have originated with him — though it is more likely
to be a literary product of several centuries later.'

'Of whatever ancient age they are, these Precepts form a rather remarkable,
very wise, code of ethics — of which some samples are here pieced together —
(chiefly from Kuno Meyer's version).

"O grandson of Conn, O Cormac," said Cairbre, "what is best for a king?"

"Not hard to tell," said Cormac "Best for him — ^firmness without anger, pa-
tience without strife, affability without haughtiness, guarding of ancient lore, giv-
ing justice, truth, peace, giving many alms, honoring poets, worshipping the great
God.

"... I>et him attend to the sick, benefit the strong, possess truth, chide false-
hood, love righteousness, curb fear, crush criminals, judge truly, foster science,
improve his soul, utter every truth. For it is through the truth of a ruler that
God gives all.

"Let him restrain the great, slay evil-doers, exalt the good, consolidate peace,
check unlawfulness, protect the just, confine the unjust.

"He should question the wise, follow ancient lore, fulfil the law, be honest
with friends, be manly with foes, learn every art, know every language, hearken
to elders, be deaf to the rabble.

"Let him be gentle, let him be hard, let him be loving, let him be merciful,
let him be righteous, let him be patient, let him be persevenng, let him hate false-
hood, let him love truth, let him be forgetful of wrong, let him be mindful of
good, let him be attended by a host in gatherings, and by few in secret councils,
let his covenants be firm, let his levies be lenient, let his judgments and decisions be
sharp and light. . . . For it is by these qualities, kings and lords are judged."

"O grand-son of Conn, O Cormac," said Cairbre. "What were your habits
when you were a lad?"

"Not hard to tell," said Cormac.

"I was a listener in woods,
I was a gazer at stars,
T was unseeing among secrets,

CORMAC MAC ART 51

A second book attributed to Cormac is the Book of Acaill so
named from his place of retirement. It is a book of the principles
of Criminal Law, which is supposed to have been developed and
enriched by later lawgivers and commentators — in particular by
the eminent lawgiv«r, Ceann Falad, who died in 677. The Book
of Acaill is found annexed to a law treatise of Ceann Falad' s. Both
are preserved and form a part of the Irish Brehon Laws. The
prolegomenon of the Book of Acaill says : "The place of this book is
Acaill close to Teamair (Tara), and its time is the time of Cairbre
Lifechair, the son of Cormac, and its author, Cormac, and the
cause of its having been composed was the blinding of an eye of
Cormac by Aengus Gabuidech, after the abduction of a daughter
of Sorcer, the son of Art Corb, by Cellach, the son of Cormac."

The scholars differ regarding the authenticity — but several of

I was silent in a wilderness,

I was conversational among many,

I was mild in the mead-hall,

I was fierce in the battlefield,

I was gentle in friendship,

I was a nurse to the sick,

I was weak toward the strengthless,

I was strong toward the powerful,

I was not arrogant though I was wise,
I was not a promiser though I was rich,
I was not boastful though I was skilled,
I would not speak ill of the absent,
I would not reproach, but I would praise,
I would not ask, but I would give —

For it is through these habits that the young become old and kingly warriors."
"O grandson of Conn, O Cormac," said Cairbre, "what is good for me?'
"Not hard to tell," said Cormac, "if you listen to my teaching—

"Do not deride the old, though you are young;
Nor the poor, though you are wealthy;
Nor the lame, though you are swift;
Nor the blind, though you are given sight;
Nor the sick, though you are strong;
Nor the dull, though you are clever ;
Nor the foolish, though yau are wise.

Be not too wise, be not too foolish ;

Be not too conceited, be not too diffident;

Be not too haughty, be not too humble ;

Be not too talkative, be not too silent ;

Be not too harsh, be not too feeble.

If you be too wise, they will expect (too much) of you;

If you be too foolish, you will be deceived ;

If you be too conceited, you will be thought vexatious;

If you be too humble, you will be without honor ;

If you be too talkative, you will not be heeded ;

If you be too sflent, you will not be regarded ;

If you be too harsh, you will be broken ;

If you be too feeble, you will be crushed."

52 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

them conclude that the foundations of it at least are Cormac's.
All of them agree that it is a noteworthy product of a very ancient
lawgiver. Archbishop Healy, however, says its authenticity "is
proven beyond doubt."

The third great work attributed to Cormac is the Psaltair na
Tara. This is no longer in existence, and is known only by the
frequent references to it of ancient chronologists, genealogists,
seanachies, and poets — which references prove that it was a rich
mine of very ancient historic and genealogic information, and that
it was regarded as the greatest and most reliable authority of the
very early days. The Book of Ballymote records that it contained
"the synchronisms and genealogies as well as succession of the
kings, the battles, etc., of antiquity, and this is the Psaltair of Tara,
which is the origin and the fountain of the historians of Eirinn
from that period, down to the present time."

The learned O' Curry thinks the Psaltair was in existence a
long time before Cormac, and that Cormac altered and enlarged
it to bring it up to his time. He further says : "We have reason
to believe that the age of writing existed here, long before Cor-
mac's reign." And Healy in talking about that remarkable monu-
ment of ancient lore says: "It proves to a certainty that in
the third century of the Christian Era, there was a considerable
amount of literary culture in Ireland."

O'Flaherty says of Cormac, "His literary productions, still ex-
tant, show him a wonderful legislator and antiquarian."

This remarkable king died in the year 267 — more than a cen-
tury and a half before the coming of St. Patrick. By reason of
his extraordinary wisdom, the righteousness of his deeds, judg-
ments and laws, he is said to have been blest with the light of the
Christian faith seven years before his death. There is an ancient
tract called Releg na Riogh preserved in the Book of the Dun Cow,
which records — "For Cormac had the faith of the one true God,
according to the law; for he said he would not adore stones, or
trees, but that he would adore Him who made them, and who had
power over all the elements, i.e., the one powerful God, who
created the elements : in Him he would believe. And he was the
third person who had believed in Erin, before the arrival of St.
Patrick. Concobar MacNessa to whom Altus had told concerning
the Crucifixion of Christ, was the first; Morann, son of Cairbri
Cinncait (who was sumamed MacMaein), was the second per-
son; and Cormac was the third; and it is possible that others fol-
lowed on their trade, in this belief."

O'Curry, however, .records a fourth pagan who was said to

CORMAC MAC ART 53

have got the faith by inspiration — ^Art, the father of Cormac, and
son of Conn of the Hundred Battles, who, tradition says, believed
on the eve of the battle of Magh Mocrulme — the great battle in
which he was to be overthrown and slain by Lugaid MacCon.

The traditions about Cormac also state that having been in-
spired by the faith he made dying request that he should be buried,
not with the other pagan kings at their famous burying ground,
Brugh-na-Boinne, but at Ros na Riogh looking toward the East,
whence would dawn the holy light that should make Eirinn radiant.
Disregarding his dying wish, the Druids ordered that he should be
interred with his ancestors at Brugh of Boyne. But when, in pur-
suance of this, the bearers were bearing his body across the river,
a great wave swept it from their shoulders, down the stream, and
cast it up at Ros na Riogh, where, according to his wish, he was
then buried.

CHAPTER XI

TARA

Tara, which attained the climax of its fame under Cormac, is said
to have been founded by the Firbolgs, and been the seat of kings
thenceforth. OUam Fodla first gave it historic fame by founding
the Feis or triennial Parliament, there, seven or eight centuries
before Christ. O' Curry says it was under, or after, Eremon, the
first Milesian high-king that it, one of the three pleasantest hills
in Ireland, came to be named Tara — a corruption of the genitive
form of the compound word, Tea-Mur — meaning "the burial place
of Tea," the wife of Eremon, and daughter of a King of Spain.

In its heyday Tara must have been impressive. The great,
beautiful hill was dotted with seven duns, and in every dun were
many buildings — all of them, of course, of wood, in those days —
or of wood and metal.

The greatest structure there was the Mi-Cuarta, the great
banqueting hall, which was on the Ard-Righ's own dun. There
was also the House of a Thousand Soldiers, the ancient poets tell
us. Each of the provincial kings had, on Tara, a house that was
set aside for him when he came up to attend the great Parliament.
There was a Grianan (sun-house) for the provincial queens, and
their attendants. The Stronghold of the Hostages was one of the
structures. Another was the Star of the Bards — a meeting-house
for the poets and the historians, the doctors and judges. This
latter was built by Cormac. He also rebuilt the great banqueting
hall, the Mi-Cuarta, wherein at the great triennial Feis, all the
kings, and chiefs and nobles, the OUams or doctors, the Brehons
or judges, the Files or poets, and the Seanachies or historians, were
seated according to rank.

There every warrior sat under his own shield, which hung upon
the wall above the place reserved for its owner. The upper end
of the hall was reserved for the Ollams, the Brehons, the Piles,
the Seanachies, the Musicians, and other professors of learned
arts and sciences. The lords of territories occupied one side of

the hall, and the captains of arn>ies, the other side.

TAR A 55

When a banquet was spread in the Hall of Mi-Cuarta or when
a session of the Feis was to begin, the following was the form gone
through. — ^The Hall was first cleared of all but three, a genealogist,
a marshal, a trumpeter. Then, at a word from the marshal, the
trumpeter sounded his horn, in response to which came the shield-
bearers of the chiefs and nobles, gathering at an open door. The
marshal took the shield of each, and under the direction of the
genealogist, hung it in its proper place, above the seat that was
thereby reserved for its owner. A second time the trumpeter
sounded his horn — ^which now brought to the door the shield-
bearers of the captains. Then the marshal, under the direction of
the genealogist, hung the warriors' shields in order. Again the
trumpeter blew a blast. And to this third blast answered the
nobles and the warriors, who filed in, and took each his place
beneath his own shield — "so that there was neither confusion nor
contention for places among them."

The great Feis was held at Samain (Hallowday) . It lasted for
three days before Samain and three days after. But the Aonach
or great fair, the assembly of the .people in general, which was a
most important accompaniment of the Feis, seems to have begun
much earlier.

At the gathering in the Mi-Cuarta, the Ard-Righ of Eirinn
sat mid-way of the hall, facing West, the King of Ulster sat at his
right hand, the King of Munster at his left, the King of Leinster
faced him, and the King of Connaught sat behind him. Naturally,
at such state assemblies the participants arrayed themselves in such
splendour as those ages sanctioned. Cormac MacArt's appearance
at the Feis of Tara is thus colourfuUy described by one of the an-
cient poets :

"Splendidly does Cormac come into this great assembly; for the
equal of his form has not appeared, excepting Conaire Mor, son of
Eidersgeal; or Concobar, the son of Cathbad; or Aengus, the son
of the Daghda.

"Beautiful was the appearance of Cormac in that assembly.
Flowing, slightly curling, golden hair, upon him. A red buckler,
with stars and animals of gold and fastenings of silver, upon him.
A crimson cloak in wide descending folds upon him, fastened at his
breast by a golden brooch set with precious stones. A neck-tore of
gold around his neck.* A white shirt, with a full collar, and intcr-

1 That the wonderful, remarkable description of Tara's ancient greatness,
glory, and luxury is not any figment of the fancy of the hundreds of anaent poets
who sang Its praises, is evidenced in many ways, not the least noteworthy of which
IS the silent testimony of the valuable and rarely beautiful ornaments which in re-
cent times have been dug up there— amongst others, two splendid gold tores

S6 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

twined with red gold thread, upon him. A girdle of gold inlaid
with precious stones around him. Two wonderful shoes of gold,
with runnings of gold, upon him. Two spears with golden sockets
in his hand, and with many rivets of red bronze. And he was, be>
sides, himself symmetrical and beautiful of form, without blemish or
reproach."

At this Feis the ancient laws were recited and confirmed, new
laws were enacted, disputes were settled, grievances adjusted,
wrongs righted. And in accordance with the usual form at all such
assemblies, the ancient history of the land was recited, probably by
the high-king's seanachie, who had the many other critical seana-
chies attending to his every word, and who, accordingly, dare not
seriously distort or prevaricate. This constant and continual
repetition, down through the ages, of the ever lengthening history
— repeated, too, almost always In the presence of many critics —
fixed the facts of the past story, and familiarised them to all the
people. And while plenty of poetic colouring and artistic exag-
geration was undoubtedly permitted to the poet-hlstorlan, the basic
truths, ever had to be, preserved Inviolate. This highly efficient
method of recording and transmitting the country's history, in
verse, too, which was practised for a thousand years before the
introduction of writing, and the Introduction of Christianity — and
which continued to be practised for long centuries after these events
— ^was a highly practical method, which effectively preserved for
us the large facts of our country's history throughout a thousand
of the years of dim antiquity — ^when the history of most other
countries is a dreary blank.

Every prince had his own seanachie, a man who, having studied
twelve years under masters, was well versed in the history of
Ireland in general and in the history of his own principality, in
particular. For more easy memorising and thus familiarising the
multitude with the facts and the more surely to guard against In-
correct repetition, all Irish histories and chronicles were, In these
early ages, cast in verse. For the seanachie had to make the studies
of a poet as well as of an historian, and to have Intimate acquaint-
ance with the hundreds of kinds of Irish verse.

And since, at all minor assemblies, and even at small gather-
ings, the seanachie was constantly requisitioned for the purpose of
reciting passages of history, all of the people down to the humblest

(bands of twisted gold worn around the neck), one of them being five feet seven
inches in length, weighing twenty-seven ounces, and the other of large size also,
and weighing twelve ounces. Both of them are beautifully wrought.

TARA 57

had that pride of race, of clan, and of family, which results from
familiarity with their great achievements. Their marvellously or-
ganised methods of recording and transmitting history signalises
the Gael among the peoples of ancient time — ^just as their ancient
Parliament signalised them.

As from the great heart and centre of the Irish kingdom, five
great arteries or roads radiated from Tara to the various parts
of the country — ^the Slighe Cualann, which ran toward the present
County Wicklow; the Slighe Mor, the great Western road, which
ran via Dublin to Galway; the Slighe Asail which ran near the
present Muhingar; the Slighe Dala which ran Southwest; and the
Slighe Midluachra, the Northern road.

Great, noble and beautiful truly was our Tara of the Kings.'

2 Another much storied, very ancient royal residence was Ailech in Inishowoi,
said to have been founded by the Dagda, and where, long afterwards, but still in
very ancient times, a wonderful, beautiful residence was said to have been erected
by a famous builder, Frigrind, who had eloped with Ailech, the daughter of the
Kin^. of Alba. It was for her that he built within the great stone fort of Ailedi
(which fort still stands a monument to the pre-historic builders) this beautiful
house which a poet of the far-o£F days says was^ of red hue, carved and em*
blazoned with gold and bronze, and so thick-set with_ shining gems that day and
night were equally bright within it. It was in the beginning of the fourth century
the legend days, that Frigrind erected this notable structure. Two centuries earlier
Ptolemy, the Egyptian geographer, had properly located this royal residence upon
his map of Ireland.

At the famous Western royal residence of Rath-Cruachain, the house of Medb
and Ailill is poetically pictured by another of the ancients, in the very old tale of
the Tain Bo Fraich: — "The manner of that house was this: There were seven
companies in it ; seven compartments from the fire to the wall, all round the house.
Every compartment had a front of bronze. The whole was composed of beau-
tifully carved red yew. Three strips of bronze were in the front of each com-
partment. Seven strips of bronze from the foundation of the house to the ridge.
The house from this out was built of ^ine. A covering of oak shingles was what
was upon it on the outside. Sixteen wmdows was the number that were in it, for
the purpose of looking out of it and for admitting light into it A shutter of
bronze to each window. A bar of bronze across each shutter; four times seven
ungas of bronze was what each bar contained. Ailill and Medb's compartment
was made altogether of bronze : and it was situated in the middle of the house,
with a front of silver and gold around it. There was a silver band at one side
of It, which rose to the ridge of Ihe house, and reached all round it from the one
door to the other. The arms of the guests were hung up above the arms of all
other persons in that house; and they sat themselves down, and were bade wel-
come. *

This Rath was a circular stone fort of dry masonry, with wall thirteen feet
thick at the base, and surrounded by five concentric ramparts, traces of three of
which are still to be seen.

CHAPTER XII

THE FAIRS

The holding of the Feis of Tara was the occasion also for holding
a great Aonach or fair. Almost all the great periodic assemblages
of ancient Ireland had fairs in their train.

After that of Tara the most famous of these periodic assem-
blies were those held at Tlachtga, Uisnech, Cruachan and Taillte
— ^the three royal residences in those three portions of the royal
domain of Meath, which had been annexed from Leinster, Munster,
Connaught and Ulster, respectively. Also the Fair of Emain
Macha (in the present county orArmagh), the Fair of Colmain on
the Curragh of Kildare, and the famous Fair of Carman (Wex-
ford).

As mentioned, some of the fairs originated as accompaniment
to serious state or provincial representative assemblages. Many
fairs, however, had their beginning in commemorative funeral
games, at the grave of some notable — as the Fair of Emain Macha
was instituted in memory of the great Ulster queen.

In the case of a fair which was not instituted as the accompani-
ment of a Feis, a Feis usually developed as an accompaniment of
the fair.

For at all such fairs the chiefs, the judges, the scholars, and
other leading ones held deliberative assemblies, on a certain day
or days, during the fair's progress. Also it was an invariable part
of the pleasure and the profit of the fair gathering, that the best
seanachies, poets, and genealogists in attendance should gather
the crowds, and recite to them portions of the history of the Coun-
try, province, or tuath (district) ; the deeds of the great ones gone
before; the praises of the great ones who still walked the land;
the legends and traditions; and the genealogies of the principal
families.

There were certain two of these gatherings, those of Emain
Macha and Cruachan, whereat an important concern was the selec-
tion and examination of candidates for the various crafts, and the
certificating the successful ones. As described by Keating, the
candidates presented themselves before a board constituted of the
King, the OUams, chiefs and nobles, who examined and passed

THE FAIRS 59

upon each, giving him the right to practise the craft or trade that
he ambitioned.

At Emain and Cruachan, as well as at Tara, the assemblages
were primarily political. They were conventions of representa-
tives from all parts, for the purpose of discussing national affairs —
and were presided over by the king.

The yearly Fair of Taillte (now Telltown) in Meath, was
mainly for athletic contests — and for this was long famous
throughout Eirinn, Alba, and Britain. In the course of time, toe,
Taillte acquired new fame as a marriage mart. Boys and girls,
in thousands, were brought there by their parents, who matched
them, and bargained about their tinnscra (dowry) — ^in a place set
apart for the purpose, whose Gaelic name, signifying marriage-
hollow, still commemorates its purpose. The games of Taillte
were Ireland's Olympics, and, we may be sure, caused as keen com-
petition and high excitement as ever did the Grecian. These Taill-
tin games took place during the first week of August — and the first
of August, to this day, is commonly called Lugnasad — ^the games of
the De Danann Lugh, who first instituted this gathering in memory
of his foster-mother, Taillte. Another great assemblage for games
and sports was held by the Ulstermen during the three days of
Samain — on the plain of Muiremne (in Louth).

The last Fair of Taillte was celebrated in the year in which
the first English invaders came into Ireland — ^in 1169. It was held
by order of the High-King, Roderic O'Connor — and is recorded
by The Four Masters, who state that the horses and chariots,
alone, carrying people to this Fair, extended from Taillte to near
Kells, a distance of six miles.

The great fairs and Feisanna were regarded as of such over-
whelming national importance that special and exceptional laws
and ordinances were instituted to insure their proper carrying out.
For such occasion the king's peace was proclaimed for all. Dur-
ing Its continuance all fugitives from justice walked free men
amongst free men. At the fair, going to it, and returning from It,
no oppressed debtor could be molested, arrested, or distrained for
his debt. On the eve of a fels or fair all personal ornaments, rings,
bracelets, or brooches, that had been pawned to relieve financial
distress, or Impounded for debts overdue, must, for the time of
the assemblage, be released to their owners. The creditor who re-
fused to release them was heavily fined for the mental suffering
caused those who were forced to the disgrace of appearing without
adornment at the great festive gatherings, whereat all the nation
appeared m its richest, most beautiful, and best.

6o THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Another wise law provided for the peace of gatherings where
mingled friend and foe, where heads and hearts were light, and
where blood ran high. Any man royal or simple, who broke the
king's peace, was to be punished with death. In the days of Colm
Cille, even the saint's privilege of sanctuary failed to save a king's
son who had disturbed the peace of the Fair. The law of the Fair
was inflexible. Says an ancient writer, "They were carried out
without breach of law, without crime, without violence, without
dishonour. There was one universal Fair truce."

Surely, highly commendable was the spirit, and highly credit-
able the prudence, of the ancient lawmakers, which hedged with
wise precautions these beautiful days of jubilee provided for a
highly sociable and gregarious, but clannish and quick-tempered
people, who equally loved sporting and battling, the matching of
power in games, civil or warlike.

Joyce points out that there were three objects fulfilled by these
great gatherings. Here the people learnt their laws, their rights,
the past history of their country, the warlike deeds of their ances-
tors. Here also they got their relaxation and enjoyment, in the
music, the poetry, the fun, the games, and the sports, provided for
them. And here, likewise, were their markets* for buying, selling
and exchanging. It should be added that a fourth most import-
ant function of the fairs was the opportunity they provided for
mating and marrying the young, and thereby drawing closer the
relationship of families and clans who had been distant, or at
enmity.

Studying the account of "the fun at the fair" in those faraway
days one is struck by the slightness of the change which the lapse
of a couple of thousand years has effected. Besides athletic feats
and racing of horses and chariots they had there — ^we quote from
the poem on the Fair of Carman :

"Trumpets, harps, wide-mouthed horns;
Cruisechs, timpanists, without fail,
Poets, ballad singers and groups of agile jugglers.
Pipers, fiddlers, banded men.
Bow-men and flute players,
The host of chattering bird-like fliers,
Shouters and loud bellowers.
These all exert themselves to the utmost."

* They had three different markets there —

"A market for food, a market for live cattle,
' The great market of the foreign Greeks
In which are gold and noble raiment."

THE FAIRS 6i

The fame of the great fair of Carman is perpetuated by an
ancient poem, preserved in the Book of Ballymote and in the Book
of Lcinster. The description of the Carman fair given in this
poem may well convey to us a general picture of all those ancient
Irish fairs. Here are set down some excerpts from the version
given in the Appendix to O' Curry:

"Listen, O Lagenians of the monuments!
Ye truth-upholding hosts!
Until you get from me, from every source,
The pleasant history of far famed Carman.

"Carman, the field of a splendid fair,

With a widespread unobstructed green
The hosts who came to celebrate it,
On it they contested their noble races.

"The renowned field is the cemetery of kings,
The dearly loved of noble grades ;
There are many meeting mounds.
For their ever-loved ancestral hosts.

"To mourn for queens and for kings,
To denounce aggression and tyranny.
Often were the fair hosts in autumn
Upon the smooth brow of noble old Carman.

"Heaven, earth, sun, moon, and sea,
Fruits, fire, and riches.
Mouths, ears, alluring eyes,
Feet, hands, noses, and teeth —

"Steeds, swords, beautiful chariots,
Spears, shields, human faces,
Dew, fruits, blossoms, and foliage,
Day and night, a heavy flooded shore —

"These in fulness all were there,

The tribes of Banba without lasting grief, —
To be under the protection of the fair,
Every third year, without prohibition.

"The gentiles of the Gaedhil did celebrate,
In Carman, to be highly boasted of,
A fair vinthout (breach of) law, ^vithout crime,
Without a deed of violence, without dishonor.

62 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

"On the Kalends of August without fail,
They repaired thither every third year ;
There aloud with boldness they proclaimed
The rights of every law, and the restraints."

The forbidden things are enumerated:

"To sue, to levy, to controvert debts, —
The abuse of steeds in their career,
Is not allowed to contending racers, —
Elopements, arrests, distraints —

"That no man goes into the women's Airecht,

That no women go into the Airecht of fair clean men ;

That no abduction is heard of.

Nor repudiation of husbands or of wives —

"Whoever transgresses the law of the assembly —
Which Benen with accuracy indelibly wrote, —
Cannot be spared upon family composition.
But he must die for his transgression."

The music at the fair :

"There are its many great privileges;—

Trumpets, Cruits, wide-mouthed horns,
Cuisigs, Timpanists without weariness,
Poets and petty rhymesters."

The literary entertainment provided consisted of stories, philos-
ophy, history, and so forth.

"Fenian tales of Find, — an untiring entertainment, —
Destructions, Cattle-preys, Courtships,
Inscribed tablets, and books of trees.
Satires, and sharp edged runes ;

"Proverbs, maxims, royal precepts.

And the truthful instructions of Fithal,
Occult poetry, topographical etymologies,
The precepts of Cairbri and of Cormac ;

"The Feasts, with the great Feast of Tcamar,
Fairs, with the fair of Emania ;
Annals there are verified,
Every division into which Erin was divided ;

THE FAIRS 63

"The history of the household of Tcamar — not insignificant —
The knowledge of every territory in Erin,
The history of the women of illustrious families,
Of Courts, Prohibitions, Conquests;

"The noble Testament of Cathair the Great

To his descendants, to direct the steps of royal rule

Each one sits in his lawful place.

So that all attend to them to listen, listen.

"Pipes, fiddles, chainmen.

Bow-men, and tube-players,

A crowd of babbling painted masks,

Roarers and loud bellowers. )

"They all exert their utmost powers

For the magnaninMus king of the Barrow;
Until the noble king in proper me sure bestows
Upon each art its rightful meed.

"Elopements, slaughters, musical choruses.
The accurate synchronisms of no>'ae races,
The succession of the sovereign kings of Bregia,
Their battles, and their stem valour.

"Such is the arrangement of the fair.
By the lively ever happy host ;-»-
May they receive from the Lord
A land with choicest fruits."

CHAPTER XIII

FIONN AND THE FIAN

It is only recently that wc have realised the all-important part
played by legendary lore in forming and stamping a nation's char-
acter. A people's character and a people's heritage of tradition
act and react upon each other, down the ages, the outstanding qual-
ities of both getting ever more and more alike — so long as their
radal traditions are cherished as an intimate part of their life.
But the people's character gets a new direction on the day that
there comes into their life any influence which lessens their loving
regard for the past.

Than the Gaelic, the world has known but few races that were
enriched with a richer h iritage of legend — ^poetic, romantic, heroifc,
idealistic, wondrous, humorous — which in ancient ages sprang from
the souls of the nation's T^oblest, and through all subsequent days
nurtured the minds and souls of the multitude. In these wonder-
ful traditions every ancient great poet and teacher lives, and leads
his listening people, for all time.

Of all the great bodies of ancient Irish legendary lore, none
other, with the possible exception of the Red Branch cycle, has had
such developing, uplifting, and educational effect upon the Irish
people, through the ages, as the wonderful body of Fenian tales —
in both prose and verse, rich in quality and rich in quantity.

Fionn MacCumail (Finn MacCool), leader of the Fian (Fen-
ians) , in the time of Cormac MacArt, is the great central figure of
these tales. Fionn and the Fian were not figments of the ancient
poets' fancy — as think some who know of this lore only by hear-
say. The man Fionn lived and died in the third century of the
Christian Era. The Four Masters chronicle his death on the
Boyne, under A. D. 283 — ^though he must have died some years
earlier. Fionn's father Cumal, was chief of the Fian, in his day;
and his grandfather, Treun-Mor, chief before that. In contrast
to the Red Branch which was of Ulster, the Fian was of Munster
and Leinster origin.^ Connaught with its Clan na Moma con-
tributed largely to the body, later.

1 Fionn's clan, Qan na Baoiscne (which was the heart of the Fian) belonged
in North Munster.

FIONN AND THE FIAN 65

It was in the reign of Conn, at the very end of the second, or
beginning of the third century that was founded the Fian — a great
standing army of picked and specially trained, daring warriors,
whose duty was to carry out the mandates of the high-king — "To
uphold justice and put down injustice, on the part of the kings and
lords of Ireland — and to guard the harbors from foreign invaders."
From this latter we might conjecture that an expected Roman in-
vasion first called the Fian into existence.

They were soldiers in time of war, and a national police in
time of peace. We are informed that they prevented robberies,
exacted fines and tributes, put down public enemies and every kind
of evil that might afflict the country. Moreover they moved about
from place to place, all over the island. During the sunmier and
harvest, from Beltinne to Samain — May first till November first —
they camped in the open, and lived by the chase. During the win-
ter half-year they were quartered upon the people.

But Fionn, being a chieftain himself in his own right, had a
residence on the hill of Allen (Almuin) in Kildare. An old poem
(quoted by O'Mahony) pictures it as a very palatial residence, in-
deed:

"I feasted in the hall of Fionn,
And at each banquet there I saw
A thousand rich cups on his board,
Whose rims were bound with purest gold.

"And twelve great buildings once stood there,
The dwellings of those mighty hosts,
Ruled by Tadg's daughter's warlike son,
At Alma of the noble Fian.

"And constantly there burned twelve fires,
Within each princely house of these,
And round each flaming hearth there sat
A hundred warriors of the Fian."

The Fianna* recruited at the great fairs, especially at Tara,
Uisnech, and Taillte. The greatest discrimination was used in
choosing the eligible ones from amongst the candidate throng—
which throng included in plenty sons of chieftains and princes.

But no candidate would be considered unless he, his family,
and clan, were prepared philosophically to accept for him life or

'Fianna. meaning bodies of the Fian, is the plural of the collective noun. Fian.

66 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

death, all the daily hazards of a hazardous career — and that his
family and his clan should, from the day he joined the Fian, re-
nounce all claims to satisfaction or vengeance for his injuring or
ending. His comrades must henceforth be his moral heirs and
executors, who would seek and get the satisfaction due if he were
wounded or killed by any means that violated the code of honor
and justice. And, it should here be remarked that the high ethical
code of the Red Branch Knights in the days of Christ was not any
more admirable than the code of justice and of honor observed
now, two centuries after, by the Fian.

Many and hard were the tests for him who sought to be of the
noble body.

One of the first tests was literary: for no candidate was pos-
sible who had not mastered the twelve books of poetry. With
this condition in mind one will no longer wonder that the Fian
bequeathed to posterity ten thousand fragrant tales.

In a trench, the depth of the knee, the candidate, with a shield
and hazel staff only, must protect himself from nine warriors, cast-
ing javelins at him from nine ridges away.

Given the start of a single tree, in a thick wood, he has to
escape unwounded from fleet pursuers.

So skilful must he be in wood-running, and so agile, that in the
flight no single braid of his hair is loosed by a hanging branch.

His step must be so light that underfoot he breaks no withered
branch.

In his course he must bound over branches th» height of his
forehead, and stoop under others the height of his knee, without
delaying, or leaving a trembling branch behind.

Without pausing in his flight he must pick from his foot the
thorn that it has taken up.

In facing the greatest odds the weapon must not shake in his
hand.

When a candidate had passed the tests, and was approved as
fit for this heroic band, there were four geasa (vows of chivalry)
laid upon him, as the final condition of his admission:

1. He shall marry his wife without portion — choosing her
for her manners and her virtues.

2. He shall be gentle with all women.

3. He shall never reserve to himself anything which another
person stands in need of.

4. He shall stand fight to all odds, as far as nine to one.
Hard, then, was the task of him who entered the ranks of the

FIONN AND THE FIAN 67

noble Fian. But in the ensuing life of beauteous adventure, the
fortunate one was recompensed an hundred-fold.

Roaming and roving from end to end of the Island, hunting
and fighting, feasting and love-making, the Fian made legend every
day of their lives. New romance dawned for them with the dawn-
ing of each new day. Adventure and poetry marched with them,
on either hand. They lived exciting history; they breakfasted with
song, supped with entrancing story, and, on their three beds of
branches, rushes and moss, bedded with rare dreams of yesterday's
pleasuring and the morrow's daring. Their own warrior-poets
chanted for them their own heroic deeds; their own musicians'
carolled, and their own sgeuladoirs (story-tellers) charmed their
.leisure hour with blithesome tale. They left lasting impression on
every hill, and vale, and stream from North to South, from East to
West, of the Island. They hung rare tales of themselves on every
rowan-tree, and ten thousand great grey rocks that stud the Island's
face, are monuments immortal, proclaiming to the wondering gen-
erations, "Here passed Fionn and his Fian.'"

There were three cathas (battalions) of the Fian — three thou-
sand in each catha. This, in time of peace. In time of war, the
quota was seven cathas. And twenty-one thousand such men,
trained in agility and in strength, and in marvellous feats of arms,
by their mode of life hardened against all hardships, accustomed
to reckless daring, and familiar with death, must have been a for-
midable weapon in the hands of the High King, and insured re-
spect for him, for his laws and his commands, in the hearts of all
men in the remotest corners of the country.

Keating says they ate only one meal a day, the evening meal.
When the chase was ended at the day's end, they encamped in a
pleasant place, and dug their dinner-pits, at the bottom of which

* The sceptic who is eager to discount the singular pre-eminence, physical, spir-
itual, and intellectual, of the ancient Gael says : "Ah, but all those fine things are the
fictions of far-away poets !" Even if we gratuitously discard the compelling pile of
contrary evidence, supplied by the poems and the histories, by the ancient legends
and the ancient laws, and thoughtlessly assume with him that the fineness of an-
cient Gaelic character is a fiction of the old-time poets, — ^then such beautiful fic-
tions of such beautiful ideals, by themselves presume and prove a beautiful-souled
people, capable of appreciating lofty ideals. The greatest poet is never more
than a band's breadth higher than his people. And if the song he sings lives after
him forever, that is pnx)f conclusive Aat the people who dierished it, and passed
it on to future ages, could see his visions, speak his language, and hear with him
the music of the spheres. In any age, and of any race, the visions (fictions) of the
poet, are onlv the reflections from Qie mirror of heaven's dome of the souls of his
people. So for the purpose of constructing for us of to-day a true picture of our
forefathers, their thoughts, their deeds, their character, their height, their depth,
and limitations, every merest myth and legend is a fact four-square, ready for
the building.

68 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

they built fires that made the dinner-stones red hot On the stones
they laid the meat, wrapped in green rushes, and buried it while it
broiled. They repaired to the nearby stream to bathe — ^then
conibed and plaited their hair — after which they were eager for
their great meal. When they had eaten, they seated themselves
on the ground, in circle around a big log-fire, while one or other of
their myriad ^fted bards and story-tellers entertained them with
poem, with story, with history and with legend, till sleep stole over
their tired limbs, and they couched them beneath fragrant branches
— on "the three beddings of the Fian" — first green boughs, over
that green moss, and finally green rushes.

Although the Fianna were supposed to uphold the power of
the Ard-Righ, their oath of fealty was not to him, but to their own
chief.

And in course of time, in the reign of Cairbre Lifeachar, son
of Cormac, they revolted against the Ard-Righ — Fionn and his
Fian joining Breasil, king of Leinster, in resisting Cairbre's levy-
ing of the Boru tribute. Cairbre met with overwhelming defeat
at the battle of Cnamros — where he is said to have left nine thou-
sand dead upon the field.

One reason for their revolt was because Cairbre had favoured
the Clan na Morna, the Connaught branch of the Fian, from
whom Fionn had formerly usurped power and favour for his own
branch, the Clan na Baoscni. Cairbre had put away the latter,
and made the former, under their leader Aedh the Comely, his
buannacht (paid soldiers).

Also, from enjoying too much power too long, the Clan na
Baoscni had got arrogant. Amongst other privileges which they
came to claim as their right was that no maiden in the land, of
any rank, should marry outside the Fian unless she was first offered
in marriage to the eligible in their ranks. And when at length
they demanded gold tribute from Cairbre himself, because, with-
out asking their approval, he chose to marry his beautiful daugh-
ter, Sgeimsolas (Light of Beauty) to a chief of the Deisi, the final
break befell. They allied themselves with the King of Munster,
Mogh Corb, whose mother, Samair, was a daughter of Fionn, and
whose father, Cormac Cas, was son to the great Oilill Olum, son
of Mogh Nuadat. Since it was GoU MacMorna who had slain
Mogh Nuadat on the field of Moylena, the Munstermen had double
reason for allying with the Clan na Baoscni against the Clan na
Morna and their master, Cairbre.

In the year 280 A. D., both sides met In death grapple at the
battle of Gabra — one of the fiercest fights of ancient times. Oisin,

FIONN AND THE FIAN 69

the son of Fionn (who was now dead), led the Fian. Oisin's son,
Oscar, the most powerful fighter of the Fian, was killed in single
combat by Cairbre. And the Fianna, who had so long filled such
a shining part in Ireland's history, were annihilated.* Though
Cairbre's army and the Clan na Morna under Aedh, won, they
had but little to boast of — and not a large number of them were
left to boast. Cairbre carried himself out of the battle, but, as
he returned to Tara, was killed by one of his own kin. Aedh the
Comely survived; and Mogh Corb escaped. These two leaders
afterwards renewed the fight in Muskerry, where Aedh killed
Mogh.

But the Fian na h-Eireann were gone forever.

Yet, though dead, they live. The lays of Oisin, the Dialogue
of the Ancients, and innumerable other Finian poems and tales
have kept, and will keep, their name and their fame imperishable.'
Not only is the Fian in general immortalised, but the names, the
qualities, and the characteristics of every one of Fionn's trusted
lieutenants — ^Oscar who never wronged bard or woman, Gol the
mighty, Caoilte the sweet-tongued, Diarmuid Donn the beautiful,
the bitter-tongued Conan, and the rest of them, have lived and
will live. Even their hounds are with us, immortal. Bran, Sgeo-
lan, and their famed fellows still follow the stag over the wooded
hills of Eirinn, and wake the echoes of our mountain glens, by their
bay melodious.

"The two hounds which belonged to Fionn.

When they were let loose through Glen Rath ;
Were sweeter than musical instruments,
And their face outwards from the Suir."

In every corner of Ireland to the remotest headland, the stories
of the Fian awake the admiration, and excite the emulation of our
people. Round every hearth, in every cottage, on every hillside in
Eirinn, the Fian is the enchanted word with which the seanachie
awakes the instant interest and for as long as he likes holds the
spellbound attention of man and child, of learned and simple, rich
and poor, old and young.

The best of the stories of the Fian are preserved to us in the
poems of Oisin, the son of Fionn, the chief bard of the Fian, in the

* One old tale has it that Oisin and Caoilte were the only ones of the Flan who
escaped with their lives from the battle.

'Legend says they had four leading poets— Fionn, his two sons, Oisin and
rergus Fmnbeoil, and Caoilte.

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Agallamh na Seanorach, and many other fine poems of olden time.

The Agallam na Seanorach (the Colloquy of the Ancients),
by far the finest collection of Fenian tales, is supposed to be an
account of the Fian's great doings, given in to Patrick by Oisin
and Caoilte — more than 150 years after.

After the overthrow of the Fian, Caoilte is supposed to have
lived with the Tuatha De Danann, under the hills — ^until the com-
ing of St. Patrick. Oisin had been carried away to the Land of
Youth, under the western ocean. Both of them return to their
mortal existence, and to Ireland, when Patrick is in the land, win-
ning it from Crom Cruach to Christ. Patrick meets and converts
each of them. They attach themselves to his company, and travel
Ireland with him. When the Saint is wearied from much travelling
and work, or, as often happens, from the perversity of the people
he has to deal with, Oisin or Caoilte refresh and beguile him with
many a sweet tale of the Fian — all of which, says the tradition, the
pleased Patrick had his scribe Breogan write down and preserve
for posterity. These tales make the Agallam na Seanorach.

The tired Patrick would say :

"Oisin, sweet to me is thy voice!

A blessing on the soul of Fionn —
And relate to us the great deer-hunt
That day in Sliab-nam-Ban- Fionn."

Often however Oisin, old, blind, and bitterly remembering the
happy long-gone days, was far from sweet in tongue or temper.

"Oh, Patrick, sad is the talc,

To be after the heroes, thus feeble ;

Listening to clerics and to bells,

Whilst I am a poor, blind, and old man.

"If Fionn and the Fenians lived,

I would abandon the clerics and the bells ;
I would follow the deer from the glen.
And would fain lay hold of his foot."

He was ever longing for by-gone joys —

"The warbling of the blackbird of Litir Lcc,
The wave of Rughraidhe lashing the shore ;
The bellowing of the ox of Magh-maoin,
And the lowing of the calf of Gleann-da-maoil.

FIONN AND THE FIAN 71

'The resounding of the chase on Sliab g-Crot,
The noise of the fawns around Sliab Cua ;
The sea-gulls scream on Lomis, yonder,
Or the screech of the ravens over the battlefield.

"The tossing of the hulls of the barks by the wave,
The yell of the hounds at Drumlish ;
The cry of Bran at Cnoc-an-air,
Or the murmur of the streams about Sliab Mis.

"Oh, delight to Fionn and the heroes

Was the cry of his hounds afar on the mountain ;

The wolves starting from their dens.

The exultation of his hosts, that was his delight.

And Oisin could never comprehend why Fionn and the Fian
ihould, or could, now be in Hell —

"What did Fionn do to God,

Except to attend on hosts and sdioob;

A great while bestowing gold,

And another while delighting in his hounds.

"Were the Clanna Morna within [in Hell]
Or the Clanna Baoiscne, the mighty men;
They would take Fionn out,
Or would have the house to themselves.

"If Faolan and GoU lived,

Diarmuid the brown haired and Oscar the noble;
In any house that demon or God ever formed,
Fionn and the Fenians could not be in bondage.

**Were there a place, above or below,
. Better than Heaven;
*Tis there Fionn would go,
At the head of his Fianna."

Sometimes his boasting and his perversity provoked to ire the
quick-tempered Patrick —

"Misery attend thee, old man,

Who speakest the words of madness;
God is better for one hour,
Than all the Fians of Eire."

72 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

This would elicit retort in kind from Oisin —

"O Patrick of the crooked crozier, ^

Who make me that impertinent answer;
Thy crozier would be in atoms,
Were Oscar present.

"Were my son Oscar and God

Hand to hand on Cnoc-na-Fiann

If I saw my son down,

I would then say God was a stronger man."

But the ardent Patrick would insist on impressing this old
heathen th^t in power, might, and all good qualities, God was in-
finitely beyond all mortals. This was very hard for Oisin to com-
prehend or admit —

"Hadst thou seen, O chaste cleric,

The Fenians one day on yonder Southern strand ;

Or at Naas of Leinster of the gentle streams,

Then the Fenians thou wouldst greatly have esteemed.

"Patrick, enquire of God,

Whether he recollects when the Fenians were alive ;
Or hath he seen East or West,
Men their equal, in the time of fight.

"Or, hath he seen in his own country.
Though high it be above our heads;
In conflict, in batde, or in might,
A man who was equal to Fionn."

Moreover, these old comrades of his, from whose example,
and from the admiring of whom, Patrick strove to turn him —
possessed those very virtues which, according to Patrick's preach-
ing, should have won them Heaven —

"We (the Fenians) never used to tell untruth.
Falsehood was never attributed to us;
By truth and the might of our hands,
We came safe out of every conflict

"There never sat a cleric in a churdi;

Though melodiously ye think they chant psalms,
More true to his word than the Fian,
Men who never shrank from fierce conflicts.

FIONN AND THE FIAN 73

"A cleric never sat in a diurch,

O Patrick mild of the sweet voice !

More hospitable than Fionn himself;

A man who was not niggardly in bestowing gold.

"Fionn never suffered in his day

Any one to be in pain or difficulty ;
Without redeeming him, by silver or gold,
By battle or fight, till he got the victory.

"All that thou and thy clerics tell,

According to the laws of Heaven's king;

These (qualities) were possessed by the Fian of Fionn,

And they are more powerful in God's kingdom.

"Great would be the shame for God,

Not to release Fionn, from the shackles of pain ;
For if God himself were in bonds.
The diief would fight on his behalf."

But desire for OisIn*s delightful tales of these brave Pagans
ivould overcome in Patrick the zest for theological controversy —

"Oisin, sweet to me is diy voice,

And a blessing, furthermore, on the soul of Fionn !

Relate to us how many deer

Were slain at Sliabh-nam-Ban-Fionn."

And, Oisin, mollified, forgiving and forgetting Patrick's stric-
tures on his Fian fellows, would forthwith launch into another of
bis rare talcs.

CHAPTER Xiy

THE BREAK OF ULSTER

Op the line of Ir, son of Milesius, to whom Ulster had been ap-
portioned, that Branch called the Clan na Rory (after its great
founder, Rory, who had been King of Ulster, and also High-King
of Ireland) now had ruled the province for nearly 700 years,
namely, for more than 300 years before the Christian Era, and
more than 300 years after. And their capital city and the King's
seat had been at Emain Macha. During practically all of this
time, from that fort's first founding by Queen Macha, the Royal
Court of Ulster had been a court of splendour, and ever noted as a
centre of chivalry and the home of poetry.

And the power, and might, and courage of Ulster had ever
acted as a brake on the ambitions of their neighbouring royal depre-
dators, and especially the royal aggressors of Connaught, who
were made to fear Ulster's name.

But in the beginning of the fourth century, Ulster's power was
irrevocably broken, and by far the greater portion of her territory
wrested from her — ^her people driven into miserably narrow
bounds from which, ever after, they can hardly be said to have
emerged.

It was when Muiredeach Tireach, grandson of Carbri'of the
Liffey, was High-King of Ireland, that Ulster was despoiled and
broken by his nephews, the three CoUas, who, on the ruins of the
old kingdom of Uladh, founded a new kingdom — of Oirgialla
(Oriel) — ^which was henceforth for nearly a thousand years to
play an important part in ttie history of Northern Ireland.

Muiredeach's father, Fiacha (son of Carbri), was reigning
High-King at Tara in the beginning of the fourth century. Muire-
deach, a young man of exceeding ability, was made King of Con-
naught (for during some centuries now the Ard-Righship was in
possession of the Connaught royal family) and the throne of Con-
naught was usually the stepping-stone to the high throne at Tara.
Yet because of the general Irish custom which alternated the head-
ship of a kingdom or a chieftainry between two collateral branches

THE BREAK OF ULSTER 75

of a paramount family, King Fiacha's nephew, Colla Uais (the No-
ble), ambitioned the Ard-Righship in succession to Fiacha.

Now, at a time when Muiredeach was in Munster, fighting his
father's battles with great success and bright renown Colla Uais
saw himself eclipsed, and popular feeling leaning to the victorious
Muiredeach as the proper successor to his father, Fiacha. So
Colla Uais, and his two brothers, Colla Da-Crioch and Colla Maen,
gathered an army of their own adherents, formidably augmented
it by seducing from their allegiance a large portion of Ard-Righ
Fiacha's army, and giving battle to Fiacha, at Taillten in Meath,
overthrew and slew him.

They seized the throne for Colla Uais who reigned Ard-Righ
for four years. At the end of that time he, in turn, was over-
thrown by Muiredeach, and fled with his two brothers and their
followers, to Alba, to the King of the Picts, who was his mother's
father.

Then Muiredeach became Ard-Righ of Ireland, and reigned
for 27 years.

But in the third year of Muiredeach's reign the three Collas
returned. The story says, a Druid at the court of the king of the
Picts divined that should they return to Ireland, and Muiredeach
take the life of one of them, the Irish crown should fall to the sur-
vivors. And on the Druid's disclosure, they, keenly covetous of
the Ard-Righship, promptly acted.

They sailed for Ireland, went to Tara, and into the presence of
the King. Muiredeach was naturally surprised to find his father's
slayers audaciously present themselves before him; but, being a
man of superior qualities, he surprised them by his kindly greeting.
Then he asked what news they brought. They, determined to
provoke this good man, replied, tauntingly: "We killed your
father."

"That," said Muiredeach calmly, "is not news to me."

"Then," they said, with bravado, "you want your revenge —
and may have it."

"Yes," said the great man, "I want my revenge — so, you are
all three forgiven your crime."

The three Collas were at first dumbfounded by a great-minded-
ness incomprehensible to them. But they were not to be turned
from their object. This dull man must be baited to vengeance.
They said, "You take the way of a coward."

And the great Muiredeach, far from resenting the insolent
taunt again surprised and dumbfounded them by a noble, gentle
reply— which completely won their hearts to him, and filched from

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

their minds the foul ambition. They thereupon professed their
profound sorrow, and swore fealty to him.

But the keen-minded Muiredeach knew that these bold youths
were not meant to loll at court, and that if he did not find fitting
trouble for them, they would, themselves, in all certainty find
trouble which might be in no way welcome to him. So he directed
them to face North and win swordland for themselves from the
Ultach (Ulstermen) — on which direction they promptly acted.

The ostensible cause of their attack upon Ulster was the an>
cient grudge borne that province because many generations before,
the Ulster king, Tiobraide, had sent to Tara fifty robbers disguised
as women, who had slain Conn of the Hundred Battles — and be-
cause, a generation later, the Ulster prince, Fergus Blacktooth, had,
by setting fire to his hair at a feast, put a blemish upon Cormac
MacArt, which, for a time, debarred him from the throne which
Fergus then usurped.

But the CoUas first went to their kin in Connaught and there
gathered a great army for the invasion of Ulster. On the plain
of Farney in Monaghan they met the Ulstermen under their king,
Fergus, and on seven successive days broke battle upon them,
finally slaying Fergus and putting the Ultach to complete rout.
Then they ravaged and destroyed famed and ancient Emain Macha,
and drove the Ultach east of the Uri River and Loch Neagh —
from the great expanse of their olden kingdom, henmiing them
into the straitened limits of the new kingdom, which comprised
only parts of the present two counties of Antrim and Down. Of
the conquered portion of Ulster, from Louth in the south to Derry
in the north, and from Loch Neagh to Loch Erne, the Collas made
themselves the new kingdom of Oirgialla (Oriel), which was pos-
sessed, afterwards, by their descendants, the MacMahons, O'Han-
lons, O'Carrolls, and MacGuires.

CHAPTER XV

NIALL OF THE NINE HOSTAGES

NiALL of the Nine Hostages was the greatest king that Ireland
knew between the time of Cormac MacArt and the coming of
Patrick. His reign was epochal. He not only ruled Ireland greatly
and strongly, but carried the name and the fame, and the power
and the fear, of Ireland into all neighbouring nations. He was,
moreover, founder of the longest, most important, and most power-
ful Irish dynasty. Almost without interruption his descendants
were Ard-Righsof Ireland for 600 years. Under him the spirit
of pagan Ireland upleaped in its last great red flame of military
glory, a flame that, in another generation, was to be superseded by
a great white flame, far less fierce but far more powerful — and
one which, unlike this one, was to shed its light far, far beyond
the bounds of neighbouring nations — to the uttermost bounds of
Europe. That is the great flame that Patrick was to kindle, and
which was to expand and grow, ever mounting higher and spread-
ing farther, year by year, for three hundred years.

And Niall's career was full of drama — romantic and tragic.

Niall was a grandson of Muiredeach Tireach. His father,
Eochaid Muigh-medon, son of Muiredeach, became Ard-Righ mid-
way of the fourth century. By his wife, Carthann, daughter of a
British king, Eochaid had the son Niall. By another wife, Mong-
Fionn, daughter of the King of Munster, Eochaid had four sons,
Brian, Fiachra, Ailill, and Fergus. Mong-Fionn was a bitter,
jealous and ambitious woman, who set her heart upon having her
son, Brian, succeed his father as Ard-Righ. As Niall was his
father's favourite, Mong-Fionn did not rest until she had outcast
him and his mother, Carthann, and made Carthann her menial,
carrying water to the court. The child was rescued by a great poet
of that time, Toma,* who reared and educated him.

When he had reached budding manhood, Torna brought him

\Jorta. was also fosterer of Core, king of Cashel— one of the three Kings who
IS said to have been on the board with St Patrick, at the revision of the laws.

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

back to court to take his rightful place — much to his father's joy.
Then Niall, showing strength of character, even in his early youth,
took his mother from her menial task, and restored her to her
place.

Of Niall's youth there are many legends, but two in particular
show the working of his destiny.

One of these legends tells how, on a day, the five brothers being
in the smith's forge when it took fire, they were commanded to
run and save what they could. Their father, who was looking on
(and who, say some, designedly caused the fire, to test his sons),
observed with interest Niall's distinctiveness of character, his good
sense and good judgment. While Brian saved the chariots from
the fire, Ailill a shield and a sword, Fiachra the old forge trough,
and Fergus only a bundle of firewood, Niall carried out the bel-
lows, the sledges, the anvil, and anvil-block — saved the soul of the
forge, and saved the smith from ruin.

Then his father said: "It is Niall who should succeed me as
Ard-Righ of Eirinn."

The other legend tells how, on a day when the five brothers
were hunting, and all of them sorely thirsted, they at length dis-
covered a well, in the woods, which, however, was guarded by a
withered and ugly, repulsive, old hag, who granted a drink only
to such as should first kiss her. Thirsty as they were, neither one
of Niall's four brothers could muster enough resolve to pay the
price. But Niall unhesitatingly went forward and kissed the ugly
old hag — from whom the rags immediately dropped, and the age
and witheredness also, disclosing a radiantly beautiful maiden, who
was in reality the symbol of sovereignty. Then, before Brian,
Fiachra, Ailill, and Fergus were permitted to quench their raging
thirst all four of them had to yield to Niall their chances for the
kingship — and to swear loyalty to him.

But Mong-Fionn schemed so well that, when Eochaid died at
Tara, she had her brother, Crimthann, take the crown, to the ex-
clusion of Niall — ^with the intention that Crimthann should wear
it until her son, Brian, came of age. To her bitter wrath, how-
ever, Crimthann, instead of acting as a roi faineant, merely filling a
gap, threw over Mong-Fionn's control, and made himself a real
king, and a powerful, not only ruling Ireland but making suc-
cessful expeditions abroad against the Picts in Alba, and against
the Britons and Romans both in Britain and in Gaul, meeting great
success, inspiring respect for his might, and from his foreign cam-
paigns bringing back to Eirinn great booty.

NIALL OF THE NINE HOSTAGES 79

During his almost twenty years* reign t>ie evil and designing,
covetous Mong-Fionn never ceased planning for her son Brian's
enthroning through the downfall of Crimthann. In her main ob-
ject she failed. She, however, succeeded in killing Crimthann by
poison, but at the cost of her own life; for, to induce him to be-
lieve the poison cup harmless — she herself had to drink from it
first. To attain her ambition she gave her life — in vain.*

Niall's first foreign expedition was to Alba, to subdue the Picts.
The little Irish (Scotic) colony in that part of Alba just opposite
to Antrim had gradually been growing in numbers, strength, and
prestige — until they excited the jealousy and enmity of the Picts,
who tried to crush them. Niall fitted out a large fleet and sailed
to the assistance of his people. Joined then by the Irish in Alba,
he marched against the Picts, overcame them, took hostages from
them and had Argyle and Cantire settled upon the Albanach Irish.

After obtaining obedience from the Picts, his next foreign raid
was into Britain. When Maximus and his Roman legions were,
in consequence of the barbarian pressure upon the Continental
Roman Empire, withdrawing from Britain, Niall, with his Irish
hosts and Pictish allies, treaded upon their hurrying heels. Yet
did the Romans claim victory over Niall. For it is said his was
the host referred to by the Roman poet, Claudian, when in prais-
ing the Roman general, Stilicho, he says Britain was protected by
this bold general.

"When Scots came thundering from die Irish shores,
And ocean tremi)led struck by hostile oars."

Such rare booty was to be got from the retreating Romans that
Niall who had had a fleet with him, and had it coast around Britain,
crossed the English Channel, and pursued the Romans into Gaul.
He had laid Britain helpless, and in the maritime parts of Armori-
can Gaul must have worked wide devastation.

Gildas, the ancient British (Welsh) historian, records three
great devastations of Britain by the Scots (Irish) and Picts, of
which this invasion led by Niall was probably the first.

Niall must have made many incursions into Britain and prob-
ably several into Gaul. He carried back hostages, many captives,
and great booty from these expeditions. Yet how often out of

2 Not only did the Ard-Righship of Eirinn pass from Brian, but the kingship
of Connaught, also. This latter fell to Fiachra and his posterity, who, for 700

u»^! .u^^' "•^^^ ^ *? %.*f5'"2i?" °^ ^"*" *"<* ^« posterity. The Ard-Righship
tell to the more worthy Niall. That was in the last quarter of the fourth CMtury.

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

evil Cometh good. It was in one of these Gallic expeditions that
the lad Succat, destined under his later name of Patrick to be the
greatest and noblest figure Ireland ever knew, was taken in a sweep
of captives, carried to Ireland and to Antrim,' there to herd the
swine of the chieftain, Milcho. Many and many a time, in Alba,
in Britain, and in Gaul, must Niall have measured his leadership
against the best leadership of Rome, and pitted the courage and
wild daring of his Scotic hosts against the skill of the Imperial
legions. Yet his fall in a foreign land was to be compassed, not
by the strategy or might of the foreign enemy, but by the treachery
of one of his own.

He fell on the banks of the River Loire, in France, by the hand
of Eochaid, the son of Enna Ceannselaigh, King of Leinster, who,
from ambush, with an arrow, shot dead the great king.

Eochaid, coming in the train of Gabran, king of the Alban Dal-
Riada, had probably come purposely to France for this chance.
The old sore of the Boru Tribute imposed by the Ard-Righ of Tara
upon the King of Leinster was, of course, aback of this tragedy.
The evils begotten of that deep sore were the immediate cause.
Enna Ceannselaigh, King of Leinster, had several times put defeat
upon Ard-Righ Eochaid, the father of Niall. Niall himself, since
he had become Ard-Righ, had had trouble with the Leinster royal
family. And, once, this Eochaid, son of King Enna, taking advan-
tage of Niall's absence on a British expedition, had actually at-
tempted to seize Tara. On Niall's return he punished Leinster
for the bold outrage, took Eochaid, and held him at Tara as a
hostage. But Eochaid, in the course of time, escaped, and fled for
his father's realm. On his way home, near the Liffey, he came to
the residence of Laidcenn who was a poet at the court of Niall.
Here he wreaked his ire upon the poet's son, killing him. For
this unholy violation of the sanctity of a poet's house, even his
royal father with all the forces of Leinster would not be able to
save him from vengeance sure and swift — ^which must fall, if he
remained in Ireland. Eochaid fled from Ireland, and sheltered
him at the court of Gabran, king of the Scottish Dal Riada.

The sorrowing poet-father took his own revenge upon Lein-
ster. For a full year, it is said, he satirised that country, and its
king and its people, till, in accordance with the ancient belief in
the fearful power of a poet's satire "neither com nor grass, nor
other green things, grew there."

When Niall was about to set out upon his final expedition into

3 Probus' life of Patrick sets him down in Mayo by Croagh Patrick.

NIALL OF THE NINE HOSTAGES 8i

Britain and Gaul, he had sent command to Gabran to join him with
his forces — which gave Eochaid the opportunity of dogging Niall's
footsteps abroad, and taking his revenge. Eochaid hid himself in
a grove on the banks of the Loire just opposite Niall's camp — and
at favourable opportunity speeding an arrow to the great man's
heart, ended a notable career.

The victorious host of the Irish, now a sorrowing multitude,
had to turn their backs upon victory and Gaul, and bearing the
body of their worshipped chief, return to their island, crying loud
their lamentations instead of chanting long anticipated paeans of

joy.

The slain warrior was laid to rest at Ochain — ^the honoured
place, getting its name, says an old historian, from the mighty sigh-
ing and lamentations made by the men of Eirinn at the hiding in
earth of their greatest and best.

Niall's reign and life ended in the year 404 A. D.

By two wives Niall is said to have had fourteen sons — eight of
whom founding families, and it may be said founding principal-
ities and dynasties, lived to history.

"He was a man," says Gratianus Lucius, "very valiant, most
skilled in war. He overcame in several engagements the Albanians,
Picts and Gauls, and carried off great numbers of prisoners and of
cattle."

Four of these sons, namely, Fiacaid the ancestor of the Mac-
Geoghegans and O'MoUoys, Laegaire the ancestor of the O'Quin-
lans, Conal Crimthanni ancestor of the O'Melaghlalns, and Mani
ancestor of the MacCatharnys, settled in Meath and adjoining
parts, and are since known to history as the Southern Ui Neill (or
y Neill). His son, Conal Gulban — against the will and command
of his father — ^led his brothers, Eogan, Carbri, and Enna Fionn
to found kingdoms in the northwest of the Island. The instiga-
tion of Conal Gulban's disobedient march of conquest was the slay-
ing of his tutor by the Connaughtmen. From Connaught he then
conquered the northwest of the Island — ^the present counties of
Donegal and Tyrone, and parts of Derry, Fermanagh, Leitrim,
and Sligo. Tir Conal (Donegal) Conal Gulban reserved for him-
self. Tir Eogan (Tyrone) became the domain of Eogan. The
northeast of Sligo and North Leitrim went to Carbri. And Enna
Fionn was settled in the southern shoulder of Tir Conal.

Eogan became ancestor of the royal house of O'Neill of Ty-
rone, and Conal Gulban of the royal house of O'Donnell, of Done-
gal. Although in later centuries the Kinel Conal and the Kinel
Eogan developed a fierce rivalry, so great was the affection be-

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

tween the brother founders of the two families that when Conal
Gulban was killed in 464 by a dan of the Firbolgs, on the Plain
of Magh Slecht, in the present county of Cavan, his brother, Eogan,
within a year after, died of grief.

As was mentioned before, even the kingship of Connaught did
not fall to Niall's half-brother, Brian,* the favourite of Mong-
Fionn. That overlordship went to Fiachra, and was continued to
his posterity thenceforward to the 12th century.

Now on the death of Niall, his brother Fiachra's son, Dathi,
became Ard-Righ — and followed in Niall's footsteps, leading his
armies abroad for foreign conquest, and for the bringing home of
foreign spoils. He set out on his career of conquest at the age of
seventeen — after a Druid at Tara had told him that he would be
conqueror of Alba and impress his power on other foreign lands.
He first brought Alba to submission — fighting and overcoming Fere-
dach Finn, King of the Picts. (Conal Gulban, son of Niall, seized
hold of that king and killed him against a pillar stone.) Then,
as Niall had followed upon the heels of Maximus in his evacuation
of Britain, Dathi followed up and hastened the later retreat of
Constantine with his Roman legions from that kingdom. He foU
lowed them into Gaul — ^where he was killed by lightning. If it
be true, as recorded by the ancient historian, that it was at the foot
of the Alps he met his death, we must conclude that Dathi was
both a bold and powerful prince.'

Dathi's body, too, was borne home over land and sea and was
buried in the great cemetery of the Connaught kings, at Cruachan.

From Niall's day onward to the nth century, this Dathi and
his son, Ailill Molt, were the only Ard-Righs that Connaught gave
to Tara and Ireland. All the other kings of Tara, for the space
of 600 years, were of the family of Niall — usually taken alternately
from the Northern Ui Neill and the Southern Ui Neill.

The final cancelling of Connaught's claim to the throne of Tara
came in the last quarter of the 5th century in about the 20th year
of the reign of the aforesaid Ailill Molt — ^when Lugaid, the son
of Laegaire and grandson of Niall, aided by Murchertach Mac-

* Brian is ancestor of the Connaught CConors, the 0'ReilI)rs, O'Rorkes,
OTIahertys, MacDermotts, and MacDonoughs. Fiachra is the ancestor of the
O'Dowds, O'Kevans, CHynes, CyShaughnessys, CyQerys.

BThe Abbe MacGcoghegan, chaplain to the Irish brigade in Ac service of
France, and noted Irish historian, says that in his day there still existed in Pied-
mont a tradition of the invading Irish king being there, and of his having spent
a night at the castle of Sales— which latter fact, the Abbe says, was recorded in
an ancient registry in the archives of the House of Sales.

NIALL OF THE NINE HOSTAGES 83

Erca of the Northern Ui Neill, and by the King of Ulad and the
King of Lcinster, completely overthrew Ailill Molt and the Con-
naught forces, at the great battle of Ocha. And henceforth, for
long centuries the paramount lords of the land were of the family
of die great Niall of the Nme Hostages.

CHAPTER XVI

IRISH INVASIONS OF BRITAIN

In Spite of their apparently isolated position the Irish, from the
earliest times, seem to have kept up a fair intercourse with for-
eign countries — ^being intimate with Alba (Scotland) and Britain,
and somewhat less intimate with France, and with other Conti-
nental countries. The ancient traditions of all lands naturally re-
flect the true manners and customs of those countries, and echo
truly the old-time happenings. The ancient Irish tales bristle with
references to the aforementioned intercourse, and with evidence
that foreigners of diverse races were frequently entertained in
Irish courts, foreign mercenaries sometimes employed in Irish wars,
and foreign matrimonial alliances occasionally contracted by Irish
royal families.

Labraid Loingseach in very distant, pre-Christian days, was
said to have brought back from his exile in France two thousand
Gallish soldiers, by whom he avenged his grandfather's murder,
and put himself upon the throne. The very ancient poetical ac-
count of the Battle of Ross-na-ri says that Conor MacNessa (who
reigned in Ulster at the beginning of the Christian Era) sent an
embassy to some foreign country, and that Cano, a foreigner, went
as pilot, to teach them their way over the surface' of the sea. The
Tain tells us that Queen Maeve (Conor's contemporary) had a
number of Gallish mercenaries in her army when she went against
Ulster.

British and Pictish visitors are frequent in the old tales — and
even the Northmen — these latter almost always as enemies. Saxo
Grammaticus says that the Northmen besieged Dublin — or some
great fort that stood there — in the first century. CuchuUain, in
the old tale, is made to fight a Scandinavian, Swaran, the son of
Starno. And the Fianna in the legends had many an encounter
with the Northmen. At the battle of Magh Mochruime (in the
final years of the second century), we are told that MacCon had
in the army which he led against Art the Lonely many foreigners

whom he had gathered with him on his travels — Franks, Saxons,

IRISH INVASIONS OF BRITAIN 85

Britons, and Albans. That great old tale, the Bruidean da Dearga,
shows Saxons at the court of Conari Mor (in the century before
Christ).

Although the Irish were not a sea-going people — ^in this respect
bearing not the remotest comparison with the Northmen — and
probably because, unlike the Northmen, their country was so rich
and fruitful as not to make sea-going a necessity — ^yet they seem
to have been moderately well equipped for sea-travel and moder-
ately expert in the art. They certainly sailed as far as France,
and several of the stories would indicate that they sailed to Spain.
But this is highly doubtful. Yet the Book of Rights (said to have
been first compiled in the early third century, under direction of
Cormac MacArt) informs us that ten ships with beds was part of
the yearly tribute paid from the king of Cashel to the Ard-Righ.
Part of the Book of Acaill (also said to have been compiled by
Cormac MacArt) contains Muir-Brethra, Sea-laws, and defines the
rights and duties of foreign trading vessels.

The Annals of Tighernach tell us that in the year 222 Cormac's
fleet sailed over the sea for three years. We are told that Niall
took his fleet with him when he invaded Britain; that he had it
sail around the British Coast, and then convey his army to France.
And Cormac's Glossary says that Breccan, grandson of Niall, had
a trade fleet of 50 currachs sailing between Ireland and Scotland
— which were swallowed up by the whirlpool off Rathlin Island —
ever since called Coire-Breccain after him who met disaster there.

There is a tale of how Conal Cearnach, once, at the instigation
of Fraech, went over the sea eastward into Britain, over the Muir
Nicht to the Continent, over Saxony to the North of Lombardy
till he reached the Alps — ^to recover plunder.*

In Patrick's time we find the slave-boy, quitting his slavery, ar-
rive at the sea just in time to catch a ship about to sail for foreign
lands. And a little later still, when that troublesome Irish agitator
and denouncer of royal vice, Columbanus, is ordered to be de-
ported from France to his own country, they readily find a ship
at Nantes, just about to sail for Ireland. These historic happen-
ings imply that there must then have been fairly intimate inter-
course between Ireland and other lands.

Of course in the pre-Christian days practically all Irish foreign
military expeditions were into Alba and Britain.

The Romans, though they valued and held Britain a long time,

* It is scarcely necessary to repeat that the evidential points taken from tales are
not set down as facts— but as the probable or possible echoes of facts.

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

and even penetrated deep into Alba, never once ventured into Ire-
land— though it is recorded that at one time they were collecting
their forces in the Northeast of Britain, to attempt the Irish con-
quest. And the Roman general, Agricola, who, in the year 80
A. D. finished the conquest of Britain, evidently considered the con-
quering of Ireland. His historian son-in-law, Tacitus, mentions
how he frequently talked with Agricola on that subject; that Agric-
ola had had an Irish prince (an exile, or a prisoner) from whose
talk he concluded that the conquest of Ireland might be accom-
plished by one Roman legion, and a small number of auxiliary
troops. Undoubtedly he formed this conclusion from learning
that Ireland (as an ancient Latin historian puts it) contained "six-
teen different nations" — ^by which he meant different tribes. Hav-
ing successfully won the rule of Britain, by assaulting separately
the many tribes of that country, it was a natural conclusion that
tribal Ireland should as easily fall into the Roman net. And his
conjecture was probably correct. The want of a strong and per-
manent autocratic central authority in Ireland, commanding the
respect and obedience of the various sub-kingdoms and unifying
Ireland's power, always left the nation open to the great danger
of foreign conquest. Tacitus says that two tribes of the Britons
could rarely be got together against the foreign foe. The self-
same was always the weakness of Ireland and of all tribal nations.
Yet the Romans never launched their attack against Ireland's
independence; though oftentimes they must have been sorely pro-
voked so to do, because of the frequent harassing attacks of the
Irish upon their territories in Britain. Their discovery of the
fierceness of Irish fighters may have played a part in dissuading
them from the Irish venture. The recklessness and persistency of
Irish fighting taught them to respect Irish fighters, and Irish com-
manders. Continental records show that the Romans recruited,
anyhow one, and possibly many, Irish regiments, for Continental
service. Latin inscriptions have been found on the Rhine front
showing that the "Primi Scotti" (First Scots) regiments safe-
guarded the Roman Empire there. The Emperor Diocletian ap-
pointed as Commander in Gaul an Irishman of distinguished abil-
ity. This was Carausius, who had charge of the defence of the
maritime parts. Eventually they broke with him — and broke him
— ^because, they say, of his greed of gold. However, considering
himself as good as his masters, he went into Britain, and set up
opposition to them there. He assumed the kingship of the Britons,
and as he was an able statesman as well as fine fighter, ruled Brit-
ain well for the space of seven years. Carausius was native of an

IRISH INVASIONS OF BRITAIN 87

Irish city which the Roman historian calls "Menapia^ in Ireland."
It was in the reign of Carbri Lifeachar over Ireland that this, his
brother Irishman, was ruling over Britain.

Of course various kings of Ireland were, at various times, styled
kings of Britain also. And parts of Britain, if not all of it, paid
tribute to these Irish overlords. Cormac's Glossary tells that the
first lap-dog was brought into Ireland by Irish envoys who were
collecting the Irish tribute from southwestern England. "For at
that time," says the Glossary, "the sway of the Gaels was great
over the Britons. They divided Alba between them, and each one
knew the habitation of his friends." (Which is to say that the
various resident Irish lords or deputies in Britain, were thickly
located, in touch one with another.) "And," it continues, "the
Gaels did not carry on less agriculture at the east of the seas, than
at home in Scotia. And they erected habitations and regal forts
there."

Roman coins, some probably taken in tribute, some in war
booty, and some in trade, have been found in various parts of Ire-
land. Gold coins of the times of Theodosius and Valentinian, and
copper coins of Nero, have been found in Meath, Antrim, and
Derry, respectively.

Though, because of the independent tribal system and conse-
quent want of cohesion, the Irish nation was weak for defence, yet
was it strong for offence — and could, and did, again and again,
brave the best of the Roman legions. It was their wonderful dis-
cipline and their weight of numbers that enabled the Romans to
overcome the bold Irish attacks in Britain. And when at length
Rome, threatened by the invading hordes nearer home, had to call
back from her island outposts, legion after legion of her soldiers,
and that her army in Britain was weakened, the Irish (Scots, as
they were always called by the Roman historians) in alliance with
the Picts, helped to push south the garrisons that were left and
eventually to crowd them off the island.

Britain was then left at the mercy of her northern and western
neighbours, and as the British had grown effete under Roman occu-
pation, and were no longer fighters, they suffered fearfully from
these invasions.

It was after the destruction of Emania (A. D. 331) that the
Irish and Pictish invasions of Britain assumed their most serious
phase. The Connaught royal house and its kin was then securely

« Ptolemy, a couple of centuries earlier, also mentions this Irish city. It has
not been identified by our historians.

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

established over the greater part of Ireland — and probably be-
cause of this easy security at home the Irish fighters had both time
and inclination to look abroad for that excitement and adventure
which was the breath of their nostrils. Soon, so successfully and
so threateningly did they carry on their British operations that in
343 the Emperor himself, Constantine, had to take personal charge
of repelling them.

Marcellinus records another invasion of the Picts and Scots in
the year 360 — ^when they proved a terror to the Romans — and still
another in 364, at the inconvenient time when Gaul was being
ravaged by Continental enemies of the Empire — and yet again in
368. He always refers to them as the Scots. (The country which
we now call Scotland was then inhabited by the Picts in the North,
and by the Caledonii in the South. The colony of Scots from Ire-
land which later gave the country its name, was still an insignificant
tribe clinging to the islands and headlands opposite Antrim.)

Probably this latter invasion, as well as some subsequent ones,
was conducted by the Ard-Righ Crimthann, uncle of Niall. Irish
records say that Crimthann the Great reigned over Britain (mean-
ing, of course, a chief part of Britain) for 13 years, from 366 to
379. The Roman general, Theodosius, father of the Emperor of
that name, led the Roman legions against this victorious Irish king,
and finally drove him out. The Roman poet, Claudian, says:
"And Theodosius, following the Scots through all windings, broke
the waves of the Hyperborean Sea with his adventurous oars."
From references In the writings of the Romans, it is evident that the
Irish and the Picts had at various times made treaty with them.
Ammlanus Marcellinus, speaking of the Invasion of 360, says that
those nations "had broken the agreed peace in the British prov-
inces." '

In 386 the invaders, successfully fighting their way, had al-
most reached the gates of London. Theodosius overcame and
drove them bade.

The British historian Gildas, records three great Invasions of
the allied fighters, the Picts and the Scots — In 396, 418 and 426.
For their attacks had then grown fiercer — as the Roman garrison
In Britain had been depleted for much needed service against the
Continental invaders of the Empire. Each time the Britons had
to beg their Roman conquerors to return and protect them. They
sent embassies to Rome thus entreating. By command of the Ro-
mans they made the great dike across their Northern boundary
from sea to sea, to keep out the Invaders. But the Romans were
scarcely gone when the Invaders came flying over the dike. And

IRISH INVASIONS OF BRITAIN 89

the Britons had once more to cry out for Roman protection. The
next time that the Romans returned to free them from their op-
pressors, they ordered the Britons to put up a defence of solid
masonwork across their country. And in consequence was built
the great Roman wall, 12 feet high and 8 feet thick—extending
from sea to sea.

But walls were useless against these persevering and indomitable
invaders. The Britons tediously had to appeal to Rome again.
In their appeal they said that their "barbarian" enemies drove
them upon the sea, and the sea threw them back upon the bar-
barians, so that they were either slaughtered or drowned.

In the year 450 the Britons, to save themselves from their
enemies, chose as their king a strong man, Vortigem, who, it is
claimed by some, was Irish, his proper title being Mor-Tigeama
(high-lord).

Finally, to free themselves from the yoke of their neighbours,
the British in 474 invited over Hengis and Horsa with their Saxon
host. They readily came, cleared the country of the Picts and
Scots, and then appropriated it for themselves. The poor harried
Britons had exchanged one yoke for another.

A long while after, the Irish were still dominating Wales. One
particularly important Irish invasion of Wales, an account of which
is contained in an ancient Welsh manuscript, was conducted by an
Irish commander, whom they named Ganfael, which probably
stands for Ceannfaelad — and who may have been Ceannfaelad,
son to King Blathmac, mentioned by the Four Masters under date
670. After this conquest of Wales, the Welsh account says that
the Irish ruled there for 59 years. They were driven out bv Cas-
wallawn.

Sullivan, In his introduction to 0*Curry, says that for a long
time Wales was ruled by chiefs who were not only Irish but prob-
ably owed allegiance to Irish kings.

The Christian faith which the whole Irish people imbibed so
readily from Patrick during the fifth century caused a radical change
in their character. After that century, there is not, with the ex-
ception of the presumed Welsh conquest, any other recorded in-
stances of military raids abroad. If we compare the history of
Ireland in the 6th century, after Christianity was received, with
that of the 4th century, before the coming of Christianity, the
wonderful change and contrast is probably much more striking than
any other such change in any other nation known to history.

CHAPTER XVII

GENERAL REVIEW OF PAGAN IRELAND

Before quitting the story of the Race in its pagan days, let us see
definitely just what stage of civilisation the Irish people had now
reached.

In the centuries before St. Patrick the keen and inquiring, in-
tellectual, ones at the Irish courts must have had a fair general
knowledge of what was transpiring in the intellectual and com-
mercial world around the Mediterranean. And in turn that world
must have had a general knowledge of Ireland and its circum-
stances. Ptolemy's second century map of Ireland with its good,
general outline of the shape and proportions of the Island, and of
its coastline, and the generally correct details marked upon it, is a
surprise to those who took it for granted that Hibernia or lerna
was little more than a name to the learned of Greece and Rome in
the first century of the Christian Era. The general correctness,
for instance, with which Ptolemy traces the River Shannon, and
other rivers and lakes, is significant — as well as his properly locat-
ing such royal sites as Ailech, and Emain Macha.

Marciahus Heracleota, in the third century, was acquainted
with sixteen different Irish clans, and records that there were in
Ireland eleven cities of note. These assemblages of habitations
which he called cities were not of course those commerical centres
which the Romans usually knew as cities. They were evidently
the great assemblages of habitations that gathered around a royal
court. When we note that Tara had twenty acres of raths, that
these raths were covered with residences of the leading ones, and
that we might naturally expect, in addition, other many hundreds
of residences — habitations of the common people — ^upon the plain
and around the foot of the hill, we may well understand the mean-
ing of Marcianus' "eleven cities of note." (We may here add
that the chief structures then were almost always built of wood
— with some bronze — while the habitations of the general mass of
the people were constructed of upright poles supporting walls of
wicker work, or else were simple bothies.)

GENERAL REVIEW OF PAGAN IRELAND 91

But in the first century of the Christian Era, Tacitus tells us
that the Irish ports were well known to commerce and to mer-
chants. The Phoenicians undoubtedly carried on a fair trade be-
tween the Mediterranean and Ireland. The very fertile island,
fruitful in soil, and not poor in minerals, had much to give to the
Mediterranean traders, and much to get from them. When their
ships sailed into the various Irish ports, we can readily see the
Phoenician agents travelling thence, at head of bands of burdened
slaves, white, and brown, and black, bent under the rich merchan-
dise of Tyre and Sidon — ^penetrating the country, to the various
inland royal courts, to the duns of the chiefs and brughaids, and
to the many great fairs, for which Ireland was then distinguished.
And we can see them returning, laden with the wealth of Ireland's
woods and vales, and of her earth — pelts and metals and ores, and
corn; rare products, too, of her weaver's shuttle; fancy ones of
her women's needle; and delicate work of her craftsmen. Around
the big blazing fire, at the Court, in the evening, we can hear these
merchants, mellowed by Irish mead, enchanting the king, the king's
scholars, his warriors and visitors, with account of the works and
the wars, and the laws and the lore, the statesmen, the orators, the
poets and historians, of their far fascinating world. And we can
furthermore see occasional ambitious natives — ^with that roving
disposition for which a few centuries later they became noted, if
not notorious, on the Continent — some thirsting for knowledge,
and some for adventure, returning with the merchants to their
ships, and sailing away to the far lands that seemed haloed in
glory. Most of these adventurers were eventually swallowed up
in oblivion, so far as concerned the land and the kin that they left;
though it is certain in later years there were not a few citizen orna-
ments of the far-flung proud Roman Empire, who, if from them
were torn the toga, would stand revealed exiles of Eirinn — such,
for instance, as the great Latin poet Sedulius (Seadhal),the Chris-
tian Virgil, and the noted Roman lawyer and famous heresiarch
Cclestius (Cellach), of whom we shall treat In a future chapter.

Undoubtedly Ireland was then rich in metals, and the hands
of its unsurpassed craftsmen deftly wrought from them not only
the utilitarian article, but also ornaments whose beauty astonishes
connoisseurs to-day. From the common sickle of the far-away
bronze age to the delicately beautiful spear of days only a little less
ancient, and to the beautiful, spiral-decorated bronze ornaments —
of all of which, rare specimens still exist — ^Ireland can show samples
of pre-Christian metalwork which in perfectness are paralleled by
the productions of few of the most ancient countries.

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

The Ceird or metalworker, In ancient Ireland, was ever a
highly-honoured craftsman, who, because of the beauty and excel-
lence of his work, ranked among the nobles. And the soil of Ire-
land is still wealthy with the buried evidences of his superb artistry.

Here may be mentioned, too, the very ancient art of enamelling,
in which the early Irish artists excelled. Philostrates, a Greek
teacher in the Imperial Palace in Rome at the time of Septimus
Severus (about 200 A. D.) is supposedly referring to the Irish,
when he describes, as a nevf art to him, enamels which he examined
on the horse trappings of "barbarians who live in the ocean." (To
the egotistical Roman all who lived beyond Roman influence and
did not adopt Roman culture, were "barbarians.") Very beautiful
examples of this Irish enamel work can be seen on those two vener-
able and beautiful treasures, the Ardach chalice, and the Cross of
Cong. And though these articles are hoary with antiquity, the
enamel craftsmanship shown on them, was in its turn hoary when
they themselves were new.

Ireland was rich in gold. It was the one country above all
others in Western Europe that was distinguished for its gold
wealth. Professor Mentelius says that the ancient gold of Scandi-
navia came chiefly from Ireland "which during the bronze age was
one of the lands in Europe richest in gold." ' The ancient gold orna-
ments preserved in the National Museum in Dublin weigh 570
ounces; while in the British Museum the total gold ornament col-
lection from England, Wales and Scotland combined, is only 50
ounces.

The ancient seanachies In the olden tales constantly convey to
us an impressive sense of the lavishness with which the precious
metals were, in those times, used. In quoting from the tale of the
Bruidean Da Dearga the poetic description of the maiden Edain,
dressing at the fountain, O' Curry says that the old writer might
well be charged with too extravagant fiction, if we did not still
have, In proof of Its accuracy, the combs, the gracefully carved
caskets of gold, the clasps and the fastenings, and the gold balls
in which the ends of the ladies^ flowing locks were anciently in-
serted.

"There was of old an admirable Illustrious king over Eirinn,
whose name was Eochaid Fedleach. He on one occasion passed over
the fair-green of Bri Leith, where he saw a woman on the brink
of a fountain, having a comb and a casket of silver, ornamented with

* In the year 1796 nuggets of native gold weighing 7 ounces, 9 ounces, 18 and
22 ounces were picked up in a mountain stream that flows between Wicklow and
Wexford.

GENERAL REVIEW OF PAGAN IRELAND 93

gold, waging her head in a silver basin with four birds of gold
perched upon it, and little sparkling gems of crimson carbuncle upon
the outer edges of the basin. A short, crimson cloak, with a beau-
tiful gloss, lying near her; a brooch of silver, inlaid with sparkles
of gold, in that cloak. A smock, long and warm, gathered and
soft, of green silk, with a border of red gold, upon her. Won-
derful clasps of gold and silver at her breast, and at her shoulder-
blades, and at her shoulders in that smock, on all sides. The sun
shone upon it, while the men (that is the king, and his retinue) were
all shaded in red, from the reflection of the gold against the sun,
from the green silk. Two golden-yellow tresses upon her head, each
of them plaited with four locks or strands, and a ball of gold upon
the point of each tress. The color of that hair was like the flowers
of the bog fir in the summer, or like red gold immediately after re-
ceiving its coloring. And there she was disentangling her hair, and
her two arms out through the bosom of her smock."

Silver and bronze ornament, also, were plentifully used then.
The old story-teller is of course Idealising some realities that must
have been in themselves both rich and beautiful, when he gives a
description of the dun, which Cormac MacArt entered in the Land
of Promise. "He saw there a very large house with its rafters
of bronze, and its wattling of silver, and a thatch of the wings of
white birds. And he saw too a sparkling well within the lis, and
five streams issuing from it, and the hosts around drinking the
waters of these streams."

The reader will remember that at the Feis of Cruachan and
of Emain Macha were held examinations for the various kinds of
craftsmen. Sixty persons of each craft were selected at each feis,
and assigned each to his own district. But even then, before he
could practice in that district, the chosen craftsmen had to be finally
examined and approved by the Saoi-re-Q^ird or master mechanic
of his own craft, in that district.

Speaking of two pieces of a Pagan Irish bronze ornament pre-
served in the Petrie Museum, Miss Stokes says : "If they are not
the finest pieces of casting ever seen, yet, as specimens of design
and workmanship they are, perhaps, unsurpassed." And she
quotes the authority Kemble, the author of "Horae Ferales," who
says of them: "For beauty of design and execution, they may
challenge comparison with any specimen of bronze work that it
has ever been my fortune to see." Those few words from these
two eminent authorities, more strikingly impress upon us the won-
derful advance of art in pre-Christian Ireland than could volumes
written upon the subject.

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Evidence of beautiful Irish art, in days more ancient still, is
found in the delicately ornamented burial urns of beautiful form,
that have been dug up out of ancient raths, and taken out of the
very ancient Irish sepulchres. Some of these urns arc pottery, some
are stone — evidencing the forwardness of the Irish mind in the
remote and supposedly primitive Stone Age. Also, the great dome-
roofed sepulchres of the royal cemeteries on the Boyne, wherein
the beautiful urns containing the ashes of the dead were preserved,
are admirable evidences of the singular advancement of ancient
Ireland among the countries of the West — as also are the much
later, but still very ancient, pre-Christian, gigantic stone forts like
those of Dun Aengus on the island of Aran, and Ailech in Inish-
owen, with their great walls of marvellously fine construction.

Apropos of modes of burial in pre-Christian days, of interest
is Caoilte's description of one. In an ancient tale in the Book of
the Dun Cow, this old Fenian warrior, returned to earth from his
long sojourn in the enchanted palaces of the Tuatha De Danann,
is called upon to settle a dispute about a happening which was now
history, but which befell during his former days on earth — the
death of *King Eochaid Airgtech (who was slain in battle in An-
trim, A. D. 280). Caoilte says: "There is a chest of stone about
him there in the earth; there upon the chest are two bracelets of
silver, and his bunne-do-ats (ancient ornaments) and his neck
torque of silver. And by his tomb there is a stone pillar, and on
the end of the pillar that is in the earth is an Ogham which says:
'Here Eochaid Airgtech. Caoilte slew me in an encounter against
Finn.' ';

It is generally assumed that, for making short, important rec-
ords, the early Irish used the ogham style of writing, repre-
sented by numbers of straight lines upon both sides of the edge-
angle of a flag or tablet of wood. The ogham letters are named
for trees. They follow in an order totally different from the order
of the letters in all other alphabets. The Irish call this alphabet
Beth-luis-nion — the three syllables of which word are the three first
letters (b, 1, n) of that alphabet. Great numbers of ogham stones
have been found in Ireland, and the form of the language used on
them points to the conclusion that these stones are mainly from
pre-Christian times. Though it is the opinion of some noted
scholars that ogham was introduced into Ireland at or immediately
after the coming of Christianity. Anyhow, the ogham writing
continued to be used down to the sixth and even the seventh cen-
tury. The Continental Celtologist Zeuss who was profoundly im-
pressed with the great antiquity of it, found ogham among the

GENERAL REVIEW OF PAGAN IRELAND 95

glosses on a copy of Priscian, which emanated from the Swiss-Irish
school and monastery of St Gall — glosses that were written by
Irishmen in the 7th or 8th century. He concluded that the Irish
in pagan days wrote only in ogham.

Several leading scholars agree, however, that books were writ-
ten in Ireland for a long time before the coming of Patrick. Says
Dr. Todd : "That a pagan literature existed in Ireland before
Patrick, and that some of it is preservednis highly probable." He
points out that some fragments found in the Brehon Laws show
internal evidence of pagan origin, and of high antiquity. O' Curry
says that St. Patrick found the country teeming with men distin-
guished for their acquirements in the native language and litera-
ture, if not in other languages ; philosophers, Druids, poets, judges.
"Even at that remote period," he says, "we were a nation not en-
tirely without a native literature, and a national cultivation suffi-
cient to sustain a system of society, and an internal political gov-
ernment so enlightened that, as our history proves, Christianity
did not teach us to subvert, but rather endeavored to unite with it;
a system, moreover, which had sufficient vitality to remain in full
force through all the vicissitudes of the country, even till many
ages after the intrusion of the Anglo-Normans, in the twelfth cen-
tury— who themselves indeed found it so just and comprehensive
that they adopted it in preference to the laws of the countries from
which they came."

There is foreign evidence, too, of a pre-Christian Irish litera-
ture. In the fourth century of the Christian Era there was pro-
duced on the Continent a work, Cosmographia Aethici Istrii, com-
piled by a Christian philosopher of that time, in which are recorded
the observations of Aethlcus of Istria on his travels in various
countries. He tells of visiting Ireland and remaining there some
time, examining the books of the Irish, about which he, in egotistical
Latin way Is scornful. From Orosius' history Joyce quotes the
terse account of his visit to Ireland — "He hastened (from Spain)
to Hibemla and remained there some time examining their volumes ;
and he called them («. e., the Irish sages) ideomochos or ideo-
histas, that is, unskilled toilers or uncultivated teachers."

The hard-headed Scotch-Englishman, Fergusson, concludes that
from the time of Cormac MacArt (middle of the third century)
the Irish had books. In his View of the State of Ireland, Edmund
Spenser (who so frequently derides the Irish people among whom
he spent days both pleasant and profitable) says: "It is certain
that Ireland hath had the use of letters very aunciently and long
before England. Whence they had those letters it is hard to say

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

. . . but that they had letters aunclently Is nothing doubtful, for
the Saxons of England are said to have their letters and learning,
and learned them from the Irish, and that also appeareth by the
likeness of the character, for the Saxon character is the same with
the Irish."

After the Seanchus Mor was compiled by a council of the
learned ones under direction of St. Patrick — a collection of the
old laws expurgated and Christianised — various accounts agree in
stating that he committed to the flames a pile of old pagan volumes
— some say up to two hundred. But it is probable that this con-
clusion about Patrick burning the pagan books may, by the old au-
thorities, have been arrived at rather by inference than instance.

In both the Book of Ballymote and the Book of Lecan there
is an ancient Irish grammar, in four parts, in which the Gaelic
language is elaborately compared with the Latin, and occasionally
with the Greek and Hebrew. The first three parts of this grammar
are attributed to pre-Christian Irish scholars, and only the fourth
to an ante-Patrician scholar, the celebrated Ceann Faelad — a re-
markable man in many ways. Some who believe that he is rightly
credited with part four of the book, also think that he revised, or
rewrote, or was himself the author of, the other three parts.

There is an ancient metrical life of St. Patrick attributed to
Fiacc — ^who, when Patrick came, had been a disciple and pupil of
the court poet, Dubtach, and whom Patrick converted and chose
as one of his disciples. It contains one hundred and thirty-six lines
in the most ancient style, idiom, and rhythm of the Gaelic. The
oldest existing copy is contained in a remarkable collection, that is
more than a thousand years old, the Liber Hymnorum. Several
noted antiquarians express their belief that this remarkable hymn
or poem is the genuine work of him to whom it was attributed.
If the work be really Fiacc's, then, though it was written in Chris-
tian days, it is obviously the fruit of pagan culture.

The same, of course, is true of the Seanachus Mor, that won-
derful code of laws compiled under Patrick. Sullivan, in his in-
troduction to O' Curry, treating of the Brehon Laws, proves that
the fundamental principles of them belong to very early pagan
times — and says that the latest period at which those institutions
could have attained their full development was in the seventh or
eighth century.

Among shining lights of pagan Ireland, Keating enumerates —
a famous wise Brighitt of whom survives the phrase "Briathra
Brighdi," the Sayings of Brighitt; Conla of the Mild Judgments,

GENERAL REVIEW OF PAGAN IRELAND 97

a Connaught sage; the two Senchans; Morann, the son of Maen;
Fercertni, the poet; Neidi, the son of Adna; Athairni; Fergus, his
son; Feradach the Just; Fithll the Sage; Fergus, the poet; Dub-
thach O'Lugair; and Rossa, the son of Tirchin (the last three of
whom laid the old laws before St. Patrick) . And he points out on
ancient authority, that in pagan times in Ireland so high was the
ethical standard that no one could hold the rank of Ollam ri-Sean-
chus, or Doctor of History, who once falsified a fact, and that no
one could hold the rank of Brehon, or Doctor of Law, who had
once given a corrupt judgment.

Finally, it is to be remembered that the late Professor Zimmer
(of the University of Berlin) most eminent of recent Celtologists
on the Continent, concludes that Irish schools had begun to be
known on the Continent before the coming of Patrick — by the end
of the fourth century.

Altogether, the mass of evidence is strongly in favour of the
supposition that Ireland was in the enjoyment of letters long be-
fore the introduction of Christianity.

While there is much evidence to show that the pagan Irish in-
dulged in the sun worship which their ancestors brought with them
from the East, there is also some little ancient evidence, including
a sentence from the pen of St. Patrick himself, betraying that some
idol worship must have been practised there, likewise. 'Though
it is quite possible that this idol worship may have pertained not
to the Milesian but to one or other of the subject races on the
Island.

The idol, Crom Cruach, which stood on the plain of Magh
Slecht (near Ballymagauran, in Cavan) before which the ancient
Tighernmas and his host, long centuries before Christ, were
stricken with sudden death, on the eve of Samain (Hallow Eve)
was destroyed, it is said, by Patrick. The image or the pillar of
Crom Cruach was said to be of gold and silver (probably covered
with these metals) and around it were twelve other images or
pillars of brass or bronze.

Before St. Patrick's time O'Curry says the instruction of youth
seems to have been in the hands of the Files (philosophers) and
the Druids. The instruction was sometimes given indoors, but
oftentimes in the open air. And frequently the teaching was car-
ried on as the master and his pupils travelled from place to place
over the country.

The Druid is frequently mentioned in the old Irish tales and
poems. The Irish word Draoi is used — ^which, by general accept-

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

ance, is rendered Druid. However, there seems to have been very
great ceremonial difference at least between the Druidism of Ire-
land (if it was Druidism) and the Druidism of Wales and Gaul.
But to the Irish, as to the Continental Druid, fire and water were
sacred elements. The holy wells of all Christian days, from Pat-
rick's time to the present, were still holy in pagan times. And
the festive bon-fires still lighted on all hills of Ireland on Midsum-
mer Night (which term we apply to the night of June 23rd) with
torches from which, even in the present generation, the sacred circle
of fire was drawn around the growing crop to insure both its pro-
tection and its fruitfulness — and through the embers of which the
cattle were, for their blessing, driven — these bon-fires are assuredly
of pagan origin, marking a great sun feast, on that day on which
the Sun-god was supposed to be longest above the horizon. The
Irish name for May-day, Baltinne, meaning the fire of Bal, or the
sun, commemorates another of the great sun festivals of our fore-
fathers. And the title Bal given to the sun-god is the same title
which the faraway ancestors of the Milesians knew and reverenced
in the far Eastern land, before their chronicled wanderings began.
Patrick had to preach against this sun worship — "All those who
adore it," he says in his Confession, "shall in misery and wretched-
ness be given unto punishment."

That frequent and much reverenced character, the Draoi, is
said, by some, including John D'Alton, to have been, not at all a
Druid priest, but a wiseman and instructor. There were two of
these, namely, Luchru and Lugad the Bald, who, at the court of
King Laegaire, met, encountered, and tried to overthrow Patrick,
when he first appeared there. Other two of them, Mai and Caplait,
were at the royal palace of Cruachan, instructing the two beautiful
daughters of the king, Eithne the Fair and Fedelm the Ruddy.

Most famous of Irish Druids was Mogh Ruith, a great Mun-
ster magician — of whom is the legend that after having exhausted
all the secret knowledge of these islands, he went with his clever
daughter, Tlachtga, to Italy, to Simon Magus, to assist him in his
contention with the Apostles. With the aid of Simon Magus they
constructed a dread, magical wheel, the Roth Ramach, Rolling
Wheel — which rolled along the skies, blinded all who saw, and
killed all who touched it.

In these pre-Christian days the paradise of the Gael, to which
went the good and the heroic, was beneath the hills, or far off under
the sea. It is variously named — Magh Mell, the Plain of Pleas-
ure : Tir-Tairnigri, the Land of Promise ; I-Breasil, the Isle of the
Blessed; or Tir na n-Og, the Land of Perpetual Youth — "^ land

GENERAL REVIEW OF PAGAN IRELAND 99

wherein there is not save truth, and where is neither age nor decay,
sorrow nor gladness, nor envy nor jealousy, hatred nor haughti-
ness."

Midir, a chief immortal of the immortal Tuatha De Danann
whose paradise was under the hill of Bri Leith, in Longford, very
finely describes this paradise, in his poetic address to Queen Edain,
when he surprised her, with her fifty beautiful maidens, bathing at
Inver.

"O Befind ! wilt thou come with me

To a wonderful land that is mine,
Where the hair is like the blossom of the golden sobarche.
Where the tender body is as fair as snow.

"There shall be neither grief nor care;

White are the teeth, black the eyebrows,
Pleasant to the eye the number of our host;
On every cheek is the hue of the foxglove.

"Crimson of die plain is eadi brake,

Delightful to the eye the blackbird's eggs;
Though pleasant to behold are the plains of Inisfail,

Rarely wouldst thou think of them after frequenting the Great
Plain.

"Though intoxicating thou deemest the ales of Inisfail,
More intoxicating are the ales of the good land —
The wonderful land — the land I speak of,
Where jrouth never grows to old age.

"Warm sweet streams traverse the land.
The choicest of mead and wine ;
Handsome people without blemish.

Conception without sin, without stain.

"We see every one on every side,

And no one seeth us;
The cloud of Adam's transgression

Has caused this concealment of us from them.

"O lady, if thou comest to my valiant people,
A diadem of gold shall be on thy head ;
Flesh of swine, all fresh, banquets of new milk and ale,
Shalt thou have with me there, O Befind !" '

'Translated by Dr. Joyce.

Among modem poets who have described the enchanted land, one of the
many beautiful descriptions is by Ethna Carbery in her "Four Winds of Eirinn"—

lOO

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Many of the noted heroes of old were borne away in the body
to the pagan paradise. Oisin, it will be remembered, was taken
there, and his comrade-in-arms, Caoilte: and Conla, the son of
Conn, was by a fairy maiden carried there in a crystal boat. The
famous Voyage of Bran, one of the Hnest of ancient Irish stories,
gives an account of Bran's search, over the western wave, for that
coveted land. He found the happy isles of paradise — and sailed

I-BREASIL

There is a way I am fain to go—
To the mystical land where all are young,

Where the silver branches^ have buds of snow,
And every leaf is a singing tongue.

It lies beyond the night and day,

Over shadowy hill, and moorland wide,
And whoso enters casts care away,

And wistful longings unsatisfied.

There are sweet white women, a radiant throng,

Swaying like flowers in a scented wind ;
But between us the veil of earth is strong,

And my eyes to their luring eyes are blind.

A blossom of fire is each beauteous bird,

Scarlet and gold on melodious wings.
And never so haunting a strain was heard

From royal harp in the Hall of Kings.

The sacred trees stand in rainbow dew,

Apple and ash and the twisted thorn,
Quicken and holly, and dusky yew,

Ancient ere ever grey Time was born.

The oak spreads mighty beneath the sun
In a wonderful dazzle of moonlight green —

Oh, would I might hasten from tasks undone,
And joiu-ney whither no grief hath been !

Were I past the mountains of opal flame,
I would seek a couch of the king-fern brown,

And when from its seed glad slumber came,
A flock of rare dreams would flutter down.

But I move without in an endless fret.
While somewhere beyond earth's brink afar,

Forgotten of men, in a rose-rim set,
I-Breasil shines like a beckoning star.

The Irish scholar O'Flaherty in 1684 in his "lar Connacht" tells: "There is
now living Morrogh O'Ley, who imagines he was himself personally in O'Brazil,"—
he went mere from Aran — and came back to Galway 6 or 8 years later and b^an
(as a result) to practise "both chirurgery and phisick, and so continues ever since
to practise, tho' he never studied or practised either all his life time before, as all
we that knew him since a boy can averr." Hardiman says the story now is that
the Book of O'Brazil was given him there — but he was not to open it for seven
years.

O'Flaherty relates that about 20 years before he wrote, a boat out of the
Owles, blown west by night, next day about noon spied land so near that they could

GENERAL REVIEW OF PAGAN IRELAND loi

among them for hundreds of years. At last venturing home to
Kerry one of his con^any jumped on shore, and became a heap of
dust. Laegaire of Connaught with fifty men reigns in Magh McU
— ^jointly with Fiachna who had gone before him.

The voyage of St. Brendan, too, was in search of this Land of
Promise.

For that enchanted land did not fade away before the light of
Christianity. Even to many of the spiritual-minded, present-day
dwellers on the Western margin of Ireland, Tir n'an-Og or I-Brea-
sil, exists under the sea, just at the horizon's rim. Some rarely
blessed people still alive, have, on occasion, seen it on a beautiful
summer's eve rise over the sea, in all its intoxicating, indescribable,
beauty. And more than once have courageous fishermen tried to
reclaim it for mortal man — but ever in vain — and sometimes, also,
with dire result to the adventurous one.'

see sheep grazing on shore — ^yet dared not touch shore, imagining it was O'Brazil.
They were two days coming back toward home.

In the early 17th century Leslie of Glasslough, Co. Monaghan (ancestor of the
present Leslie family there) secured a grant of I-Breasil when it should be re-
covered— such recovery or disenchantment being considered imminent then (as it
was in every generation). Hardiman in his "Irish Minstrelsy" reprints a letter sent
from W. Hamilton of Derry in 1674 to a friend in London advising him of the
discovery, a few weeks before, and practical recovery, of I-Breasil, by the Captain
of a Killybegs schooner. The curious account is gfiven in most circumstantial de-
tail— and Hamilton asks his friend to inform young Leslie of the good newis, that
he may claim the land under his father's patent.

' Sometimes the spiritual Celt even in those pagan times had a paradise here
on earth. Such was the case in the reign of Geide Ollgotach, Geide of the great
voice, so called, says the Book of Leinster, because of the peaceful, harmonious
character of his reign, when the people heard each other's words and voices, with
the same delight as if they had been the strings of the melodious harp of Ben-
Crotta.

102

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

SELECTION OF WORKS DEALING WITH THE VARIOUS
PERIODS AND PHASES OF PAGAN IRELAND

Carbery, Ethna: In the Celtic Past (Stories of Ancient Ireland).

D'Alton, John: Prize Essay on Irish Hist. (Proc R. I. A.).

Henderson, Geo., M.A., Ph.D.: Fled Bricrend, the Feast of Briciu, Irish

Text, Translation and Notes.
Hull, Miss Eleanor: The Cuchullin Saga in Irish Literature.
Hyde, Douglas, LL.D. : A Literary History of Ireland, from the Earliest

Times to the Present Day.
Jones, the Rev. Wm. Basil, M.A: Vestiges of the Gael in Gwynedd

(North Wales).
Joyce, P. W. : Social History of Ancient Ireland.
Jubainville, H. D'Arbois de: Le Cycle Mythologique Irlandais et la My-

thologie Celtique. Cours de Litterature Celtique.
Keating's History of Ireland (Translated by Jno. O'Mahony).
Meyer, Kuno: The Courtship of Emer, Translation (without Text)

Archaeol. Rev., 1888.
MacGeoghegan Abbe : History of Ireland.
MacNeill, Eoin: Some Phases of Irish History.
Nutt, Alfred: The Voyage of Bran: Essays on the Irish "Other World"

or Pagan Heaven and on the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth.
— — — Ossian and the Ossianic Literature.
■ Cuchulainn, the Irish Achilles.

O'Curry, Eugene: Manuscript Materials of Irish History.

Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish.

O'Donovan, Jno., LL.D.: Annals of the Four Masters (Translation and

Notes).
O'Halloran's History of Ireland,
Ossianic Society: Transactions of.

Petric, Geo. : On the History and Antiquities of Tara Hill.
Riiys, Jno., M.A, D.Litt.: Early Irish Conquests of Wales and Dumnonia:

in Proc Roy. Soc. Antiq., Ireland, 1890-91.
Stokes, Whitley, D.C.L., LL.D.: Bruden Da Derga: the Destruction of

Da Derga's Hostel; Rev. Celt. XXII.
Sullivan, W. K., Ph.D. : Introduction to O'Curry's Manners and Customs

of the Ancient Irish.
-— — Tain bo Chuailnge (The Tain).

Wakeman, Wm. F.: Handbook of Irish Antiquities: Pagan and Christian.
Wilde, Sir Wm., M.D. : Catalogue of Irish Antiquities.

The Boyne and Blackwater.

Wood-Martin, Col. W. G.: Pagan Ireland.

Traces of the Elder Faiths of Ireland, 1902.

'■ Rude Stone Monuments.

CHAPTER XVIII

IRISH CHRISTIANITY BEFORE ST. PATRICK

While St. Patrick was unquestionably the evangeliser of Ireland,
there is now hardly a doubt remaining in the minds of the scholars
that Christianity had foothold on the Island before he came — ^and
long before, think some.

In A. D. 431, a year before the coming of Patrick on his Chris-
tian mission, Palladius (who, by one authority, John Sichard, is
even said to have been himself an Irishman) was sent by the Pope
"ad Scotos in Christum credente" — ^to the Irish believing in Christ
— ^which words clearly show Rome to have been impressed with
the fact that the Irish Christians then were of some numerical im-
portance.

"It is universally admitted," says George Stokes, "that there
were Christian congregations in Ireland before Palladius came."

It is an interesting curiosity to find told among the ancients —
as recorded by Eusebius and Nicephorus — ^that some of the apostles
visited the Western Islands. Julian of Toledo says that James
addressed a canonical letter from Ireland to the Jews in Spain.
And Vincentius of Bauvais says that James, the son of Zebcdee,
preached in Ireland and that when he returned to Jerusalem —
where he was martyred — he took with him seven Irish disciples.

Usher quotes Nicephorus' Ecclesiastical History as saying that
Simon Zelotus brought the Gospel to these islands, and was cruci-
fied in Britain.

St. Paul is also mentioned as ha^^ng been in these Western
lands.

Reference has been made to the tradition of Conal Cearnach's
visit to Jerusalem. Richardson (Prael. Ecc. History) says he
brought back the faith to Conor MacNessa, and others of the
Ultach, and that several Irish went to Jerusalem to be baptised.

While the foregoing are set down as interesting curiosities, it
is still an easy matter to conclude, as a result of the frequent inter-
course between Ireland and the Romanised possessions of both

Britain and Gaul, and of the interchange of war captives and

103

I04

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

refugees likewise, and the coming and going of travellers, that the
doctrines of Christianity, which in the early centuries were promul-
gated with such ardour and spread to the earth's ends with such
amazing rapidity, must have been conveyed to Ireland from many
sources, and through many channels — and that these new strange
doctrines must have been many times examined and frequently de-
bated by the scholars at the Irish courts, ever eager to discuss the
doings of the outside world.

Although Christianity did not obtain a hold upon the minds of
the mass of the British people until Augustine, to some extent, and
the Irish missionaries, in the main, carried the doctrines of Christ
to them, it is known that there was Christianity in Britain in the
latter half of the first century of the Christian Era — obviously con-
veyed there by ardent Continental Christians in the Roman legions.
And at the Council of Aries (in the year 314) a few British bishops
were in attendance.

Bollandus says that Palladius probably found in Ireland more
Christians than he made. And that some Irish Christians figured
prominently on the Continent of Europe in the pre-Patrician days
is fairly well established by Continental records. "It is evident,"
says Dr. Todd, "there were Irish Christians on the Continent of
Europe before, the mission of St. Patrick, some of whom had at-
tained to considerable literary and ecclesiastical eminence." He
refers to, among others, Mansuy or Mansuetus of Toul, and says
that in all probability he was an Irishman, distinguished as an emi-
nent Christian missionary about a century before Patrick. Man-
suy was sent from Rome to be first Bishop of Toul (in Lorraine).
His tenth century metrical biographer, the abbot Adso, shows that
Mansuy's Irish nativity was then taken for granted :

"Insula Christicolas gestabat Hibernia gentes,
Unde genus, traxil, et satus inde fuit."

(Hibernia's soil was rich in Christian grace;

There Mansuy saw the light, there lived his noble race.)

Near Toul more than half a century before Patrick's day, in
the time of the apostate Julian, and, say some, in the presence of
Julian, was martyred St. Eliphius, with his brother, Eucharius, and
their sisters — ^who, says Peter Merss, were Hibernians of royal
blood. Rupert of Luitz, in his "Life of St. Eliph," says, too, that
he was son of the King of Scotia (Hibernia) . Mt. St. Eliph where
he is buried still commemorates him. St. Eliph did great mission-
ary work in the city of Toul, suffered imprisonment, and after-
wards converted four hundred people.

IRISH CHRISTIANITY BEFORE ST. PATRICK 105

Usher states that St. Florentinus who was imprisoned by Clau-
dius, and converted and baptised ninety-six men and women fellow
prisoners as well as his jailer, Asterius, "was a glorious confessor
of Christ, born in Ireland." It is by no means certain, however,
that Florentinus flourished before Patrick.

The poet, St. Sedulius (in the Irish, Siadal), is asserted to be
Irish by many authorities, from Trithemius who called him "Scotus
Hybernienses," down to present day scholars. Dr. Sigerson says
it was this poet and Irishman who first introduced into Latin poetry
the Irish rhyme and assonance, which, at that time, were cultivated
only in Ireland. His most noted work, "Carmen Paschale," earned
for him the title of the Christian Virgil. Sedulius travelled much
in Southern Europe and in Asia. He dedicated a work to the Em-
peror Theodosius.

By far the most brilliant Continental celebrity claimed for Ire-
land before the days of St. Patrick, is undoubtedly Celestius, the
disciple of Pelagius, who drew world-wide attention to himself in
the very first years of the fifth century. This noted man's nation-
ality is disputed, but amongst those who have gone into the subject
there is fair consensus of opinion that he was at least Irish in blood
if not also Irish by birth — either Irish of Ireland, or Irish of the
Irish colony in Scotland. For those who would deny his Scotic
(Irish) origin there is no way of getting around the allusions in
St. Jerome's abuse of him, where once he calls him a "stupid fel-
low, loaded with the porridge of the Scots," and again, "a huge
and corpulent Alban dog who can do more with his claws than
with his teeth, for he Is by descent of the Scotic nation." He was a
well-known lawyer in Rome about the year 400 when he began
espousing the heretical doctrines of Pelagius, so warmly, persist-
endy and aggressively, that he overshadowed his master. Those
who would argue that he is not Irish have to admit that he showed
the eloquence, persuasiveness, aggressiveness of a true Irish-
man. He went to Carthage to preach against St. Augustine. He
spoke before the Patriarch in Constantinople and before the Pope
in Rome. Both by Imperial and Ecclesiastical decree he was ex-
pelled again and again from both Rome and Constantinople. But
this only increased his vigour, his ardour, and his militancy. He is
said to have won over to his side Pope Zosimus in 416 — ^whom it
took all the powers of Augustine and Jerome to win back again.
This man who would not be downed, turned up at the Council of
Ephesus in 431, espousing, against the Pope, the cause of the
patriarch, Nestorius, in the great Nestorian controversy. He was
excommunicated by the Ephesian Council. He had been condemned

io6

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

by the Senate of Carthage twenty years earlier — but that had not
dampened his ardour or dulled the edge of his word.

There is mention made by Gennadius of three epistles said to
have been written by this fighter, "to his parents in Ireland" —
before he espoused the cause of Pelagius.

It is Dr. Douglas Hyde's conclusion that the Scot whom St.
Jerome abuses is not Celestius, but his heresiarch master, Pelagius.
He says: "Pelagius was an Irishman, descended from an Irish
colony in Britain."

Lanigan concludes that Celestius "of Pelagpius, the most able
favourite," surely seems Irish. Usher, O'Connor, Petrie and
Stokes hold the same opinion. And Dr. Todd sums up his conclu-
sion in the following words : "Be this as it may, it must suffice to
observe that St. Jerome manifestly speaks of an Irishman who was
a professor of Christianity, engaged in the controversies of that
day. This is unquestionable evidence that there was at least one
Irishman on the Continent of Europe at that early period who
was a Christian."

Pelagius was the genius, and Celestius the brilliant talent, of
the great Pelagian controversy.

The brothers Moroni, who wrote the life of the Irish evan-
geliser, and patron saint, of their city Tarentum, St. Cataldo (Irish,
Cathal), say that he came there in the second century — but other
evidence, which we may treat of later, would show that he was
ante-Patrician.

So much for the claims of Continental Irish Christians before
St. Patridc. Now to return to the claims made for Irish Chris-
tians living in Ireland. Many of the old Irish authorities, and
indeed a few of the modern, urging that Christianity had not a
disputed, but firm, foothold in some parts of the South, say that
four of the well-known Irish saints flourished and preached to na-
tive congregations before Patrick began his mission — Saints Ailbe
of Emly, Declan of Ardmore, Ibar of Beg Eri, and Ciaran of
Saighir. Colgan indeed says that not only were these four pre-
Patrician, but eight or nine other old Irish saints, also.

It is Hyde's opinion that the pre-Patrician claims made for
Declan and Ailbe are substantiated. "We have it from the most
ancient Acts of our Saints," says Colgan, "written one thousand
years ago and up, that there were in Ireland not only many be-
lievers of Christ, but also many distinguished for sanctity, before
Patrick and Palladius came." There is a tradition of Ailbe that in
the beginning of the fifth century, returning with fifty companions

IRISH CHRISTIANITY BEFORE ST. PATRICK 107

trom Rome, he preached to the Gentiles and baptised many and
built a monastery for them.

This is what an ancient Life of St. Dedan says upon the sub-
ject of the four bishops, his alleged forerunners, making their
submission to Patrick :

"The four Bishops aforesaid, who were in Ireland before St.
Patrick, having been sent from Rome, as he also was, namely, Ailbc,
Declan, Ciaran and Ibar, were not of the same mind as St. Patrick,
but differed with him ; nevertheless, in the end they came to an agree-
ment with him. Ciaran, indeed yielded all subjection, and concord,
and supremacy to Patrick, both when he was present and absent.
But Ailbe, seeing that the great men of Ireland were running after
Patrick, came to St. Patrick in the city of Cashel, and there, with
all humility, accepted him as his master in presence of King Aongus ;
this, however, had not been his original intention. For those Bishops
had previously constituted Ailbe their master, and therefore he came
to St. Patrick before them, lest they, on his accoimt, should resist
Patrick. But Ibar, by no argument could be induced to agree with
St. Patrick or to be subject to him. For he was unwilling to re-
ceive a patron of Ireland from a foreign nation; and Patrick was
by birth a Briton, although nurtured in Ireland, having been taken
a captive in his boyhood. And Ibar and Patrick had at first great
conflicts together, but afterwards, at the persuasion of an angel, they
made peace, and concord, and fraternity together. Declan, indeed,
was unwilling to resist St Patrick because he had before made fra-
ternity with him in Italy: but neither did he think of becoming his
subject, inasmuch as he also had the apostolic dignity: but having
been at length admonished by an angel, he came to Patrick to do
his will."

Talking of the claims made for St. Ciaran of Saighir, MacNeill
urges that southwest Cork, being, as shown by historical incidents,
in touch with foreign lands, might well have got Christianity be-
fore Patrick came.

Usher agrees with Colgan regarding the four first mentioned.
But such keen thinkers as Lanigan and Todd decisively deny their
pre-Patricianclaims — and by some it is alleged that these claims
made for the four southern saints were cunning inventions of the
nth and 12th centuries, when there was being waged a struggle
for the spiritual supremacy of the Munster See of Cashel over the
old Primatial See of Armagh.

Archbishop Healy thinks that Ibar was probably pre-Patrician.
He, anyhow, became a disciple of Patrick. He rerired to the

io8

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Island of Beg-Eri,* in Wexford Harbor, about fifteen years before
the fifth century's end, and died in the last year of the century.

The dates of the deaths of these men, as recorded in the An-
nals, and pretty generally agreed upon, tend to prove that they
could not possibly have been pre-Patrician, unless we suppose them
to have far outstayed the ordinary span — for all of them lived into
the sixth century, with the exception of St. Ibar who, as mentioned,
died on the threshold of that century.

At all events it is a safe conclusion that there were groups of
Christians in Ireland when Palladius, preceding St. Patrick, came.

Palladius landed in the southeast of the Island. He stayed
only a short time, yet — and this is additional evidence of his having
found Christians there — he had erected three churches before he
left. He departed in the same year — some say driven out by a
Leinster chieftain, Nathi — and went to Alba, where he died. It
was on the news reaching Rome of his departure from Ireland and
his death that permission was given to Patrick to follow his heart's
desire, and, answering the cries which he had heard in his dream
from the children of Focluit Wood, go to the evangelising of the
people whom he loved.

Lannigan, Rev. John, D.D.: Ecclesiastical History of Ireland.

Hyde, Douglas, LL.D.: A Literary History of Ireland.

Stokes, the Rev. Dr. Geo. T. : Ireland and the Celtic Church.

MacGeoghegan, Abbe: History of Ireland.

Keating's History of Ireland.

Healy, the Most Rev. Jno. : Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars.

St. Patrick.

* Says the tradition, when Patrick threatened Ibar that if he did not make sub-
mission, he would not suffer him to remain in Eire, Ibar answered, "If I will not
be in Eire, it will be Eire where I am" — hence "Beg-Eri" (little Ireland).

CHAPTER XIX

ST. PATRICK

The coming of Patrick to Ireland marks the greatest of Irish
epochs.

Of all most momentous happenings in Irish history, this seem-
ingly simple one had the most extraordinary, most far-reaching
effect. It changed the face of the nation, and utterly changed the
nation's destiny. The coming of Patrick may be said to have had
sublime effect not on Ireland alone, but upon the world. It was a
world event.

The man himself proved to be a world figure— one of the mas-
sive giants who tower distinct and sublime above the dense mists
of dim antiquity — one, too, of whom it may truly be said that the
more intimately you approach him and the nearer you view him,
the greater he grows. He was one of the greatest of Celts, be-
came one of the greatest of Irishmen, and one of the very great
among men.

Patrick first came to Ireland — as a captive — in the year 389, in
the reign of Niall. It was forty-three years later, in the year 432,
the reign of Laoghaire, that he came upon the mission which was
so miraculously to change the Island's destiny. An ancient Pagan
prophecy attributed to Conn of the Hundred Battles says : "With
Laoghaire the Valiant will the land be humbled by the coming of
the Tailcenn (i.e., Patrick) : houses across (i.e., churches) : bent
staffs which shall pluck the flowers from their high places."

In the period of Patrick's coming the great Roman Empire
was crumbling, while Ireland, with fleets on the sea and armies in
foreign lands, had reached the pinnacle of her political power — a
time that would seem the least propitious for winning men to the
meek and abnegatory doctrines of Christ. Yet was it, in His own
mysterious way, God's chosen time for sending His chosen man.

There is endless dispute as to where exactly w^s the birthplace
of Patrick, which, in his Confession he appears to tell us was in
"Bannaven of Tabemiae."* Many authorities hold that it was

* Though strictly speaking the only assurance to be found in that sentence of
the G>nfession is that he was there taken captive.

109

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

near Dumbarton, in the most Northern Roman province of Celtic
Britain. Others hold that it was in the Celtic province of Brittany
in France. In his Confession are pieces of internal evidence that
sustain either theory. The fact that St. Martin of Tours was his
maternal uncle is one of the strong points in favour of his Conti-
nental origin. His father, Calporn held municipal office in the
Romanised town (of Britain or Brittany) which was his native
place — was a Decurion, a kind of magistrate, there. His mother,
Conchessa, was niece of St. Martin. He himself was christened
Succat, signifying "clever in war."

Wherever he was born it seems to have been from Brittany,
from the home of his mother's parents, where he was visiting, that
at the age of sixteen he was taken captive, with his two sisters,
Darerca and Lupida. It was in a raid made by the men who sailed
on a fleet of King Niall, says Keating. They were borne to Ire-
land, and his sisters said to have been placed in Muirthemne
(Louth) while he was sold to an Antrim chieftain named Miliue,
who set him herding his flocks in the valley of the Braid, around
the foot of the mountain, Sliab Mis.*

His occupation as a herd upon a mountainside was fine proba-
tion for the holy career that was to be Patrick's. He confesses
in his biography that in his wayward youth at home he had for-
gotten God, and from Him wandered into the ways of sin. Alone
with his herd upon Sliab Mis during the day and the night, the
months and the seasons, his spirituality was reawakened. And
God guided his feet to the path of duty again. "I was always
careful," he says, in the affecting picture which he paints of the
herdboy's wonderful days on the mountains, "to lead my flocks to
pasture, and to pray fervently. The love and fear of God
more and more inflamed my heart; my faith enlarged, my spirit
augmented, so that I said a hundred prayers by day and almost
as many by night. I arose before day in the snow, in the frost, and
the rain, yet I received no harm, nor was I affected with slothful-
ness. For then the spirit of God was warm within me."

And thus did he spend seven years in human slavery, working
out, with God, his spiritual freedom. And his human freedom fol-
lowed. In a dream that came to him he was told to travel to the
seashore at a certain place two hundred miles distant, where he
should And a ship on which he would make his escape. He found

• One of his biMn^apfaers, Probus, says that it was into the country of Tirawley,
in Mayo, that Patriae was sold — and on the mountain of Croagh Patrick herded his
flocks. There is grave doubt as to whether Darerca and Lupida were sisters
(other than sisters in religion) of his.

ST. PATRICK III

the ship and was taken on board — after first getting a refusal and
being turned away by the captain — and in the seventh year of his
captivity he sailed away from Ireland.

And be it noted that the Irish land which he had entered as a
foreigner, he now left as an Irishman. For, as he was destined
to give a new faith and new soul to Ireland, Ireland had given a
new faith and new soul to him. He had found himself and found
God in that land to which he was destined to bring God. In his
seven years' slavery the Irish tongue had become his tongue, and
his spirit was the Irish spirit, which at that impressionable age he
had imbibed. So, to make him truly one of the people to whom
he was to carry God's word, God had wisely ordained his slave
service among them during the very six or seven years in which
men's characters are stamped with the qualities of those amongst
whom they move. For it is not where a man is born, or spends
the careless years of childhood, but where and among whom he
spends the plastic and absorbent years of youth, that determines
his true nationality. So the Irishman, Patrick, now sailed away
from his own land, whereto had arrived, several years before, an
alien Patrick.

A three days' voyage brought him to the land from which he
had been carried captive — after which a distressing journey of
twenty-eight days through deserts and wilds brought him to his
home, where the lost one was welcomed with great rejoicing.

Yet, though his people resolved never to let him from their
sight again, and though it gladdened him to be with his kin, his
heart could find no peace for thinking of the country and the people
that had grown into his soul, and had become his. There were
centred the thoughts of the day, the dreams of the night.

Till at length he had a vivid night vision, in which there came
to him a man, Victor, from Ireland, bearing letters which were
marked, "Vox Hibemionacum" — ^which, however, he could not read
understandingly, for keen pathetic cries filled his ears, from the
people of Foduit Wood beseeching him to come to them. "And
there I saw a vision during the night, a man coming from the west;
his name was Victoricus, and had with him many letters; he gave
me one to read, and in the beginning of it was a voice from Ire-
land. I then thought it to be the voice of the inhabitants of Focluit
Wood, adjoining the western sea ; they appeared to cry out in one
voice, saying, *Come to us, O holy youth, and walk among us.'
With this I was feelingly touched, and could read no longer: I
then awokew"

After this he could not rest inactive. He must prepare him-

112 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

self for the task of carrying the Gospel of Christ to the people
of his heart. And despite the tears and entreaties of his own rela-
tives, he bade good-bye to them and home, and travelled away to
study for the ministry.*

But, finally, having been consecrated Bishop, Pope Celestine
commissioned him to carry the gospel to the land of his love — and
conferred on him the Roman noble name Patricius.

He reached Ireland in 432 in the fourth year of the reign of
Laoghaire, son of Niall, High-King.*

' A tantalising vagueness settles over the history of his Continental travels in
search of learning and ordination. And very many conflicting accounts of his
travels and studies are given. In 396, he is said to have entered the monastery of
Marmoutiers, near Tours, a foundation of his uncle, St. Martin. Here he remained
till Martin's death, which occurred, some say in 397, some in 402. And here had
St. Martin gfiven him the monastic habit and the clerical tonsure.

Some (doubtful) accounts show him studying next (in 403) with the students
of St. John of Lateran in Rome. He visited and sojourned in many holy places
and studied under many holy men — in monasteries and in hermitages, in Italy and
in Mediterranean islands. He is said to have spent many years in a monastery on
the Isle of Lerins, under St. Honoratus and St. Maximus. Afterward, many years
seem to have been spent at Auxerre under St. Germanus, the Bishop, a man of
great culture as well as piety.

In the year 430 St. Patrick turned up at Auxerre again, his age being now
thirty-eight. He had long sought to be commissioned to Ireland. At this time
again, backed by the influence of Germanus, he preferred his request to Rome —
but was refused because Palladius had then been sent. When finally came the
news of the failure and of the death of Palladius, Patrick journeyed to Rome,
to Pope Celestine, carrying with him a letter from Germanus. Celestine now granted
his request, and consecrated him Archbishop for the Irish mission. Also twenty
priests and deacons were ordained, to be his companions in the undertaking. And
at his consecration, says a tradition, three choirs answered: to wit, the choir of
Heaven's household, the choir of the Romans, and the choir of the children of the
Wood of Focluit, all singing: "Hiberniensis omnes clamant ad te, tuer."

Celestine also conferred upon him his new name, Patricius — an andent title
of the highest honour among the Romans.

It was on his last journey from Germanus to Rome that, tradition says, he
got his famous Bachaill losa, Staff of Jesus — ^his pastoral staff, which is still
preserved. Sailing to Rome, he stopped at a house on an island in the Tyrrhenian
Sea, says the story, a new house of a young married couple, who had children and
grandchildren, old and decrepit. The lanantain, the young couple, had been married
in the time of Jesus, who passed that way immediately after they were married,
and received their hospitality — for which He blessed them and their house, and
said that they and it should remain new and young till the Judgment Day. In
their care He left His Staff, with injunction that it should be kept for Patrick
against the day that he, too, passing that way, should there be entertained. "And
God hath enjoined thee," said the young man to Patrick, "to go and preach in the
land of the Gael. And Jesus left with us this staff to be given to thee."

Then, the desire of his life being crowned, he, at the age of sixty, with buoyant
soul and gladdened heart, amid his rejoicing company, set forward from Rome,
upon his momentous mission. On his way ne stopped with Germanus, who pre-
sented him with vestments, chalices, and books, and gave him advice and blessing.

♦ He is said to have first landed near Vartry in the County Wicklow — ^at about
the same place at which Palladius before him, had arrived. There he preached
and baptised, and like Palladius, was driven out. He sailed northward, and into
&rangford Loch in Down, where landing he was again attacked. Dichu, a
chieftain of the Dal Fiatach, taking Patrick and his company to be a band of
British pirates, descended upon them. But Dichu was so struck with respect and

ST. PATRICK 113

On the eve of Easter, Patrick's party encamped at Slaine, on
the left bank of the Boyne, opposite to and in sight of Tara ; and
Patrick lighted in front of his tent a fire which was visible at the
king's court. Now a great festival was beginning at Tara, coinci-
dent with the beginning of Patrick's Easter festival. And it was a
gross violation of royal and ancient order that on this eve any fire
should be lighted before the court Druids should light their sacred
fire upon the royal Rath. Accordingly, when Laoghaire's
astounded court beheld in the distance the blazing of Patrick's fire
before the Druid fire had yet been lit, great was their consternation
and high and hot their wrath.

"What audacious miscreant," demanded the king, "has dared
to do this outrage ?" The Druids answered him that it was indeed

veneration when Patrick faced him, that he lowered his arms, hearkened to the
words of the apostle, and finally, with his family, was baptised. Patrick afterwards
built a church on this spot, commemorating this first conversion of his, in the
north. The place has since been called Sabhall Padraic— or corruptly, Saul.

But Patrick craved to bring to Christ his old master, Miliuc. Forth then he
fared toward the country of his captivity and the house of his master. But Miliuc
is said to have grown furious when intelligence was brought him that Succat, his
former slave, was journeying hence, bent on converting him to a new faith —
and that he was winning all to whom he preached by the way ; for the new faith's
appeal, voiced by Succat, no man could resist Rather than submit to the mortifi-
cation of being converted by his swineherd, the determined old pagan set fire to
his house, and immolated himself in the flames.

But a son of the old pagan was saved, and two daughters. They were con-
verted, moreover, and the son lived to become a bishop, and the two daughters nuns.

When Patrick arrived and found what had happened, and that his old master
had removed himself from the reach of Christ, he is said to have shed floods of
tears. He wended his way back to the territory of Lecale where he had first landed,
and there did successful missionary work, converting and baptising Dichu's people.
And having ordained priests for them, he sailed again southward, and landed at
the mouth of the Boyne — with intention of proceeding to the court of the High King,
Laoghaire, at Tara. He left his nephew, Luman, with some sailors in charge, in
the boat, while he travelled inland — toward the royal Court.

On his journey to Tara he won the love and the faith of a little lad who was
destined to shine as the brightest and greatest of his disciples. He had stopped to
rest and be refreshed at the house of the chieftain, Sesgne, and falling asleep in
his seat beneath a tree, after he had eaten, a little son of Sesgne, Benin, whose
love had gone out to him, now approached the resting warrior of Christ, and was
strewing wild flowers over him — till he was stopped and rebuked. But Patrick,
awaking, said, "Molest him not, for that youth shall yet heir my kingdom." And
when, later, Patrick was entering his chariot to go forward, the little Benin, pressing
through the surrounding throng, took hold of his hand crying: "Let me go, too."
And Patrick added to his company the gentle and beautiful, sweet-voiced little
Benin whose love he had won. The goodness and loveliness of the gentle-natured
boy won all hearts to him — won for him even the love of the beautiful Ercnat,
daughter of King Daire, of Ulster — which love he could not return, since he was
bent upon giving himself to Christ. The sweet-voiced boy became Patrick's
psalmist. Later, in Armagh, he became Patrick's coadjutor. And finally he heired
and worthily filled Patrick's primatial chair in Armagh, and headed the school
of Armagh, as well as ruled the church. And to the learned Benin (Benignus)
IS now attributed, by many scholars, the authorship of the great and valu^^le ancient
Irish book. The Book of Rights. Others hold that Benin only re-wrote and revised
this important work, which, they say, was compiled by Corraac MacArt, 200 years
earlier.

114

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

the Tailcenn of the old prophecy, come to supersede his rule, and
their rule, in Eirinn. "Moreover," they said, "unless the fire on
yonder hill be extinguished this very night, it shall never more be
extinguished in Eirinn. It will outshine all fires that we light, and
he who lit it will conquer us all: he will overthrow you, and his
kingdom overthrow your kingdom : he will make your subjects his,
and rule over them all forever."

Then King Laoghaire, a splendidly determined old pagan, of
like nature with Miliuc, angrily demanded that the transgressor
should be dragged before him, with all the other foreign intruders
who were supporting him.

Then Patrick's camp was raided by Laoghaire's soldiers, and
he and his companions ordered to march to Tara.

An old tradition has it that, as, on Easter morning, the mission-
aries proceeded in processional order, toward the king's court, they
chanted the sacred Lorica, called the Faed Fiada, or Deer's Cry,
specially composed by Patrick for their protection. It is said that
as the minions of the Druids lay in ambush to intercept and kill
them as they came to court, these evil ones now saw not Patrick
and his companions pass, only saw pass a harmless herd of gentle
deer, a doe followed by her twenty fawns. Hence the hyriin's title,
the Faed Fiada — Deer's Cry. And through all the centuries since,
the Faed Fiada — ^which many old authorities pronounce to be Pat-
rick's own work, and the first hymn written in Gaelic — has been
used by the Irish Race as a lorica for protection."

I bind me to-day,

God's might to direct me,
God's power to protect me,
God's wisdom for learning,
God's eye for discerning,
God's ear for my hearing,
God's word for my clearing.

God's hand for my cover.

God's path to pass over,

God's buckler to guard me,

God's army to ward me,

Against snares of the devil,
Against vice's temptation.
Against wrong inclination,
Against men who plot evil,
Anear or afar, with many or
few.

Ill

Christ near,

This, Dr. Sigerson's rendering of the
and rhythm of the original.

Christ here,
Christ be with me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ within me,
Christ behind me,
Christ be o'er me,
Christ before me.

Christ in the left and the right,
Christ hither and thither,
Christ in the sight.

Of each eye that shall seek

me,
In each ear that shall hear,
In each mouth that shall speak
me —
Christ not the less
In each heart I address.
I bind me to-day on the Triune — I

call.
With faith in the Trinity— Unity-
God over all.
hymn is in the same measure, metre,

ST. PATRICK 115

And having been carried safe by the Lord through the am-
bushes prepared for them, Patrick led his host into the king's pres-
ence, chanting: "Let them that will, trust in chariots and horses,
but we walk in the name of the Lord."

To impress and awe these foreigners, King Laoghaire with his
queen and court, sat aloft in state, while his warriors, in silence, sat
around in a great circle, with the rims of their shields against their
chins. Laoghaire, evidently apprehensive of the secret power of
the Tailcenn, had warned his court that none of the marks of re-
spect which were the due of a stranger, should be shown to this
bold aggressor. But so impressive was Patrick's appearance that
immediately he came into their presence, Dubthach, the King's
011am poet, arose, in respect for him ; as also a young noble, Ere —
who afterwards became Bishop Ere And these two were Patrick's
first converts at Tara.

In the presence of King and court Patrick was first confronted
with the Druids, who, it was hoped, would quickly confound him.
But matching his miracles against their magic he showed to all that
his powers far transcended theirs. He dispelled a darkness, which
they, by their magical powers had produced, but were powerless to
dissipate — "They can bring darkness," he significantly said, "but
cannot bring light." He preached Christ to the assembly, and
won to his Master the queen and several prominent members of
the court. And, though Laoghaire's pagan faith was unshaken,
he was so far won by the man Patrick that he gave him the freedom
of his realm to preach the new faith where and to whom he would.'

Patrick's next great preaching was to the vast assembly of the
men of Eirinn, who had gathered at the Fair of Taillte. Though

"Laoghaire, we may here mention, died a pagan — Skilled by lightning. The
Leinstermen had defeated him in the battle of Athgara, and taken him prisoner,
at a time when he had gone to demand from them the Boru Tribute. They com-
pelled him to take oath, by the sun, moon, and stars, that he would never again de-
mand the tribute. But ne broke his oath and went against them once more.
Then Heaven's lightning, it is said, visited vengeance on him, for the breaking of
the oath. He was buried in one of the old pagan fashions — in standing attitude,
fully accoutred, and facing Leinster and his enemies.

Among the many distinguished converts whom Patrick made at Tara on that
occasion was a young noble, Fin^r, who, because he had accepted and would not
recant the new fait!^ was, by his father, Qito, driven into exile. With several
other nobles who had become Christians he sailed to Brittany. When his father
died, he returned to Ireland, and after renouncing his heritage, he took with him
his sister, Fiala, and seven hundred men, including seven bishops, all of whom
sailed awav to devote themselves to religion, to enjoy Christ themselves, and give
Oirist to those other lands that had Him not. But the whole party was massacred
in Cornwall by the Cornish King, Theodoric

The life of Fingar, written by St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, and
presented in Paris through long years, was finally published there, in the seven-
teenth century.

ii6

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

at these national fairs the multitude always anticipated hearing and
seeing many wonderful things — scholars, historians and poets of
their own nation addressing them, sometimes scholars and travel-
lers from far countries, as well as, always, foreign merchants bring-
ing rare merchandise — the Fair of Taillte at the Lammas of 432
furnished to the expectant multitude a rare sensation. When they
beheld the procession of foreign clerics, all clad in strange gar-
ments, and headed by a beautiful and venerable man, arrive chant-
ing strange new chants, there surely was startling commotion —
even at that Fair where sensations and commotions were many.
Astonishing must have been the crush, and vast the crowd, of the
tens and hundreds of thousands of fair-goers who now pushed and
pressed to get nearer sight of this wonderful procession of chant-
ing strangers — to learn who they were and whence, and what was
their object in Eirinn. And when the venerable one who headed
the procession addressed the seething crowds telling them that he
was the ambassador of the King of the world's kings, describing
to them his King's kingdom, telling them of the infinite love of his
King for all of them, of rlis yearning desire to have them know
Him, and to enter into and enjoy the kingdom whose beauties and
whose pleasures, and whose riches and whose bliss, infinitely ex-
ceeded all that the mind of man had ever before conceived or man's
imagination in its powerfulest flight ever pictured, of His sending
His own Son as His messenger to mankind, of the beauty and good-
ness, meekness and lovableness of that Son, and then of His suf-
ferings, His torture and death, at the hands of those whom He
came to invite to the enjoyment of His Father's kingdom — how
the bearded warrior throngs, and even the eager youths there must
have been impressed, inspired, fired and melted ; how the wild ones
must have felt themselves tamed; and the haughty humbled; and
the scornful sweetened; and the strenuous soothed; as eventually
the mightily moved multitude — including a Prince, Conal, son of
Niall, whose heart was there reached by the grace of God — bowe4
for the Tailcenn's blessing.

He spent the next year preaching throughout Meath and Lein-
ster. He went into the province of Connaught in 434. On his
way there he visited the Plain of Magh Slecht, where stood the
great idol Crom Cruach, before which, in the ancient time, Ti-
ghernmas and his worshipping thousands had been slain by Heaven
— and threw down this idol, along with the twelve others that stood
around it.

He met and converted King Laoghaire*s two beautiful daugh-
ters, Ethni the Fair, and Fedelm the Ruddy, who were at the Con-

ST. PATRICK 117

naught Palace of Cruachan, under the tuition of the two Druids,
Mai and Coplait.'

On top of the mountain of Croagh Patrick in Connaught, he
spent the forty days of Lent, watching, and fasting, and praying.
And the tradition goes, as recorded by the Monk Jocelin that it
was from this mountaintop he commanded all the serpents and
venomous things in Ireland, driving them into the ocean, and rid-
ding Ireland of all viperous things forever.*

The Saint at length reached the Wood of Foduit dear to his
memory — reached it at the time of a great assemblage of people
and there preaching to those children of Focluit Wood, whose cries
he had heard in his dream, he converted, it is told, the seven sons
of the chieftain. Prince Amalgaid, and twelve thousand people.

In 441 after seven years in Connaught, he proceeded by the
narrow way between Benbulbin and the sea, into Ulster, where he
spent four years travelling, preaching, baptising and church-build-
ing.

After that he preached through Leinster — on the way to which,
the Dubliners, it is said, came out in 3rowds to meet him. And
then on through Munster. At royal Cashel in Munster, he con-
verted the king, Aongus."

' He had to measure his power with these Druids, as with the Druids at Tara.
To prevent his finding the palace of Cruachan, they, by their Druidic art, brought
down upon the plain, for many miles around, a thick darkness which enveloped
Patrick, his companions, the castle and all within the plain of Magh Air — a
darkness which held that region for the space of three days and three nights.
Then Patrick, in the name of Christ, blessed the plain, so that the Druids alone
remained in darkness, while the blessed light was restored to all others there.
Finally Mai and Coplait were convinced and converted— along with their charge,
the beautiful princesses.

"Some centuries before, Solinus, the Roman writer, recorded that there were
no snakes in Ireland — which belies the honoured tradition. The tradition, how-
ever, persists, and will always persist in the popular belief. There is a second
legend in some parts of Ireland which says that one serpent, either through a
fortunate slothfulness or some other cause, was not cast out with the others. Pat-
rick, being later informed of this, induced the dilatory fellow to go down into the
deep waters of Loch Neagh, on the promise, more ingenious than ingenuous, that
he should be released therefrom "on the morrow." Since that time children liv-
ing in the neighbourhood of Loch Neagh can hear the prisoned fellow raising his
head above the waters, at the dawning of each new day, to inquire, "Is this day
the morrow? Is this day the morrow?" But alas for him — for him, and for all
unfortunates who wait for the morrow which never comes 1

" When about to baptise the king, Patrick thrust his pastoral staff, by its sharp

iron point, into the earth — as he thought But it was through the foot of Aongus

he thrust it He discovered his grave mistake only when the ceremony was finished.

Whv did you not tell me this ?*• be cried to the king. And Aongus answered

simphr. "Because I thought it part of the ceremony."

Twelve sons and twelve daughters of the heroic Aongus were consecrated to
God. Aongus ordered that henceforth a capitation tax from his people should
he paid to St Patrick and to his successors m Armagh. It was paid every third
year, by the kings of Munster, down to the time of Cormac MacCuUanan in the
tenth century.

Ii8

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Patrick convened a Synod at Cashel, where be met his southern
rivals. Saints Ailbe, Dedan, Ciaran and Ibar, and after much argu-
ment got their obedience. Ibar was the most obstinate and last
to yield. For he was unwilling, says an account, that any one but
a native of Ireland should be acknowledged the ecclesiastical patron
of the country.

After completing his work in Munster the Saint returned north
again through Leinster into Ulster, where he was to spend six years
more, visiting the churches, organising congregations and ordain-
ing priests.

He then founded Armagh — where was to be his See ^ — built his
church, his monastery, and school. He made it the primatial
city of the island. But, through the work and the fame of the great
schools which were to develop there, it was to become, within a
few centuries — ^to quote words of a great Continental scholar
(Darmesteter) — "not only the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland but
the capital of civilisation."

His favourite disciple, Benignus (Benin), the herdboy, he put
into his See of Armagh, to administer it for him, while he spent
these years of his old age for the most part in tranquillity, some-
times in Armagh and sometimes in his first church of Saball.

In all likelihood it was during these tranquil years, when now
his hardest work was over, that Patrick directed the compilation
of the laws, known as the Senchus Mor. He got the law-givers to

^"The Hill of Armagh on which he founded his Archiepiscopal citv was nven
him by Daire, the chief of that district Tradition says that Patrick saved the
life of Daire; and as a token of his thanks, Daire sent to Patrick, by messenger,
a brazen cauldron. When the messenger returned, the chieftain, desiring to have
pictured to him the overwhelming gratitude which he had anticipated Patrick
would display, asked what Patrick had said. And the messenger replied that the
good man had said, "Gratias agam." "Gratchacam !" exclaimed Daire, *Hhat's a
poor reward for a good cauldron. Go take it from him again!" When the
messenger returned with the cauldron, Daire once more asked what Patrick had
said when the cauldron was taken. The messenger answered that he had said,
"Deo gratias I** "Gratchacam again!" exclaimed Daire. "Gratchacam is the first
word with him, and gratchacam the last. Gratchacam when giving it to him,
and gratchacam when taking it away. The word must be good! With his wife
he then went to Patrick, and bestowed on him not only the cauldron but also the
Hill of Armagh, for the building of his primatial city. Says the Four Masters,
under the year 457: "Ard Macha was founded by St Patrick, it having been granted
to him by Dari, son of Finneadh, son of Eogan, son of Niallan. Twelve men
were appointed by him for building the town. He ordered them in the first place
to build an archbishop's city there, and a church for monks, for nuns, and for the
other orders in general; for he perceived that it would be the head and chief of
all the churches in Ireland." It is related that when he went with his men to
mark out the dty lines upon the hill, he came upon a doe that had just siven birth
to a fawn which the men would kill or roughly drive away. But Patrick lifted the
helpless fawn tenderlv in his arms, and bore it off where it could remain undis-
turbed— while its mother meekly and trustingly followed, like a pet sheep.

ST. PATRICK 119

lay before him all the old laws, and, to codify and purge them,
called into council upon them three kings, three bishops, three
ollams, and they got a poet "to throw a thread of poetry around

them."

Now also it probably was that he wrote his famous Confession;
and possibly also during this period his second most famous work,
his Epistle to Coroticus — works which after fourteen hundred
years, still live — and will live." They were written in the rather
poor Latin of which Patrick was master, the provincial Latin of
the Roman provinces. For, as he humbly stated again and again,
he was not of the very learned ; and he was profusely apologetic
for his temerity in writing what would be read and criticised by
the really learned ones, his contemporaries.

"I, Patrick the sinner, unlearned, no doubt," he humbly begins
his Epistle to Coroticus, a British prince, who making a raid into
Ireland, slaughtered many there, and carried off with him many
captives^ — among them some of Patrick's newly baptised children
of the Church. "With mine own hand," he says, "have I written
and composed these words, to be given and handed to, and sent to,
the soldiers of Coroticus." "On the day following that on which
the newly baptised in white array were anointed with the chrism,
it was still gleaming on their foreheads, while they were cruelly
butchered and slaughtered with the sword."

In this intense document Patrick first gives utterance to that
cry against British oppression which the agonising heart of Ireland
has echoed every year of the past seven hundred and fifty years.
"Is it a crime," he cries out, "to be born in Ireland? Have not we
the same God as ye have?" He boldly demands return of the
captives, and mercilessly castigates the tyrant who sacrilegiously
carried them off.

But of course Patrick's magnum opus, which will live forever,
is his Confession. To others, Fathers of the faith, he had been
calumniated. One whom he had held to be a dear friend turned
disloyal to him and endeavoured to injure him in the eyes of these,
his brethren. Amongst other things he informed them of a false
step Patrick had taken in his youth. And he evidently had accused
him of presumption and egotistical ambition, in assuming to him-
self the task of converting Ireland. The Confession was written
for the purpose of defending himself against the false charges.

., " These, his works, were preserved in the ancient Book of Armagh, into which
they were copied by the scribe Firdonmach, about the year SlO-there, too, copied,
as f irdomnach states from the manuscript in Patrick's own handwriting.

X20

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Timidly, and with characteristic humility, but still with a great
calm, he opens this famous document:

"I, Patrick, a sinner, the most rustic and the least of all the
faithful, and in the estimation of very many deemed contemptible,
had for my father Calpornius, a deacon, the son of Potitus, a pres-
byter, who belonged to the village of Bannaven Taberniae; for
close thereto he had a small villa, where I was made a captive.

"At the time I was barely sixteen years of age, I knew not the
true God ; and I was led to Ireland in captivity with many thousand
persons according to our deserts, for we turned away from God and
kept not His commandments, and we were not obedient to our priests
who used to admonish us about our salvation. And the Lord
brought us the indignation of His wrath, and scattered us amongst
many nations even to the utmost part of the earth, where now my
littleness may be seen amongst strangers.

"And there the Lord opened the understanding of my unbelief
so that at length I might recall to mind my sins and be converted
with all my heart to the Lord, my God, who hath regarded my
humility and taken pity on my youth and my ignorance, and kept
watch over me before I knew Him, and before I had discretion, and
could distinguish between good and evil; and He protected me and
consoled me as a father does his son."

The part of the Confession which many authorities adduce as
testimony that Patrick, with his moderate learning, found himself
in Ireland in the midst of very learned ones and great critics, is
this:

"For this reason I have long been thinking of writing, but up to
the present I hesitated; for I feared lest I should transgress against
the tongue of men, seeing that I am not learned like others, who in
the best style therefore have drunk in both laws and sacred letters
in equal perfection; and who from their infancy never changed their
mother tongue; but were rather making it always more perfect.

"My speech, however, and my style were changed into the tongue
of the stranger, as can easily be perceived in the flavour of my writings
how I am trained and instructed in languages, for as the wise man
saith : 'By the tongue wisdom will be discerned, and imderstanding,
and knowledge, and learning of the truth.' "

Both his humility and his testimony to the scholars — a scornful
one this time — are read out of the following passage of the Con-
fession :

"Whence I, at first a rustic and an exile, unlearned and surely
as one who knows not how to provide for the future — ^yet this I

ST. PATRICK 121

do most certainly know, that before, I was humble, I was like a
stone which lies in the deep mire, and He that is mighty came and
in His mercy lifted me up, and placed me on the top of the wall.
And therefore I ought to -cry out and render something to the Lord
for these benefits so great both here and for eternity, that the mind
of man can not estimate them.

"Wherefor, be ye filled with wonder both small and great, who
fear God, and ye too, lordly rhetoricians, hear and search out. Who
was it that exalted me, fool though I be, from the midst of those
who seemed to be wise and skilled in the law, and powerful in word
and in everything else? And me truly despicable in this world He
inspired beyond others, though being such, that with fear and rever-
ence, and without blame I should faithfully serve the nation to whom
the love of Christ transferred me and bestowed me for my life, if I
should be worthy — that in humility and truth I should serve them." **

Out of some later sentence in the Confession is taken apparent
substantiation of Britain's claim on his nativity where he says:

"Wherefore, however, I might have been willing to leave them,
and go into the Brittaniae, as to my country and relatives, and not
only so but also to the Gallise, to visit my brethren."

"Again after a few years I was in the Brittaniae with my parents."

This evidence, while colourable, is far from being positive, in
favour of his British birth. For one thing, Brittany may well have
been called one of the Brittaniae — ^which it was; and in the next
place, even if he referred to Britain proper, it does not follow that
because his family, of which the father was a Roman official, was
then In that particular province of the Roman Empire, he and his
had been there at the time of Patrick's birth.

The Confession testifies to Idol worship in Ireland where It
says:

"Whence Ireland, which never had the knowledge of God, but
up to the present always adored idols and things unclean — ^how are
they now made a people of the Lord, and are called the children of
God? The sons of the Scots and the daughters of their chieftains
are seen to become monks and virgins of Christ."

And again his humility — and also a hint of the accusations made
against him — in the following extracts :

"And behind my back they were talking among themselves and

**In neither of the foregoing instances, however, can we feel sure that he
refers to Irish "rhetoricians," or learned ones.

122

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

kept saying: 'Why does he expose himself to danger, amongst en>
emies who know not God?' Not for malice sake, but because they
did not approve it, as I myself can testify, and understand, on ac-
count of my rustidty. . . . But though I be rude in all things, still
I have tried to some extent to keep watch over myself. ... Or
when the Lord ordained clergy everywhere by my mediocrity, and
I gave them my ministrations gratis, did I ask from any of them so
much as the price of a sandal ? Tell it against me and I shall restore
you more.

"Sufficient is the honour that is not seen but is believed in the
heart. And He that promised the faithful, He never lies. But I
see that in this present world I am exalted above measure by the
Lord. And I was not worthy, nor am I such that He should grant
this to me, since I know for certain that poverty and affliction be-
come me better than riches and luxury. Nay, Christ the Lord was
poor for our sake. But I, poor and wretched, even should I wish for
wealth I have it not, nor do I judge myself, for daily I expect either
a violent death or slavery, or the occurrence of some such calamity.
But I fear none of these things on account of the promises of Heaven !
I have cast myself into the hands of the Almighty God, for He rules
everything. As the prophet saith: 'Cast thy cares upon the Lord,
and He Himself will sustain them.' . . . Lo, again and again, I
shall in brief set out the words of my Confession. I testify in truth
and in the joy of my heart before God and His holy angels that I
never had any motive except the Gospel and its promises in ever re-
turning to that nation from which I had previously with difficulty
made my escape.'"

And the final paragraph — of the great Confession from which
these few excerpts are taken:

"But I pray those who believe and fear God, whosoever will
have deigned to look on this writing which Patrick, the sinner and
unlearned no doubt, wrote in Ireland, that no one shall ever say it
was my ignorance (did it), that I have done God's will; but think
ye, and let it be most firmly believed that it was the gift of God.
And this is my Confession before I die."

This powerfully appealing and magnificently simple document
breathes in its every line the rare fragrance of a great and sincere,
meek and beautiful heart, reverently bowed down in the palpable
presence of God. The faultiness of the language in which it was
originally written fails to mar this precious piece of the old world's
literature. Patrick's Confession is a great picture of a great soul,
painted by one who, scorning to g^ve art one thought, was a great
natural artist. He swept art aside — and despising it, triumphed

ST. PATRICK 123

over it, and by that very means triumphantly attained art*s goal.*'
After a full life, rich with ereat labours greatly done, and by
Christ crowfted with success, thnce blessed by seeing the fruit ripen
from the seed he sowed, Patrick passed away, at Down, in about
the year 460— -leaving behind him a grief-stricken people who had
made this man one of their own, and learnt to love him almost to
the point of worship. The twelve days of his wake are known as
Laithi na Caointe, the Days of Lamentation, when a whole nation
whom he had brought to Christ, bewailed the most mournful loss
a nation had ever known.

"And for the space of twelve nights to wit the time during which
the elders of Ireland were watching him with hymns and psalms and
canticles, there was no night in Magh Inis, but an angelic radiance
therein. And some say that angelic radiance abode in Magh Inis
till the end of a year after Patrick's death. And so night was not
seen in the whole of that region during the days of lamentation for
Patrick. The odour of the divine grace which came from the body,
and the music of the angels, brought sleep and joy to the elders of
the men of Ireland who were watching the body."

"Patrick, son of Calphronn, son of Potaide, Archbishop, first
Primate, and Chief Apostle, of Ireland," say the Four Masters,
"whom Pope Celestine the First had sent to preach the Gospel, and
disseminate religion and piety among the Irish, was the person who
separated them from the worship of idols and spectres, who con-
quered and destroyed the idols which they had for worshipping, who
expelled demons and evil spirits from among them, and brought them
from the darkness of sin and vice to the light of faith and good works,
and who guided and conducted their souls from the gates of hell to
which they were going, to the gates of the kingdom of heaven. It

^* Another work of Patrick's which is lost, is referred to, by his biographer
Tirechan, under the title of Commemmoratio Labonim.

In the noted work, The Book of Rights, ascribed to his disciple Benignus, is
found the Blessing of St Patrick, which some think is one of Patrick's poems :

"The Blessing of God upon you all.
Men of Erin, sons» women.
And daughters; prince-blessing,
Meal-blessing, blessing of long life,
Heahh-blessing, blessmg of excellence.
Eternal blessing, heaven-blessing,
Qond-blessing, sea-blessing,
Fruit-blessing, land-blessing,
Crop-blessing, dew-blessing,
Blessmg of elements, blessing of valour,
Blessing of dexterity, blessing of glory,
Blessing of deeds, blessing of honour.
Blessing of happiness be upon you all,
Laics, derics, while I command
The blessing of the men of Heaven ;
It is my bequest, as it is a Perpetual Blessing,"

124 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

was he that baptised and blessed the men, women, sons and daughters
of Ireland, with their territories and tribes, both fresh waters and
sea inlets. It was by him that many cells, monasteries and churches
were founded throughout Ireland, seven hundred chui^h^ was their
number. It was by him that bishops, priests, and persons of every
dignity were ordained, seven hundred bishops and three thousand
priests was their niunber. He worked so many miracles and won-
ders, that the human mind is incapable of remembering or record-
ing the amount of good which he did upon the earth. The body of
Patridc was afterwards buried at Dunda-leth-glas, with great honour
and veneration. And during the twelve nights that the religious
seniors were watching the body, with psalms and hjmnns, it was not
night in Magh-Inis, or tlie neighbourhoods, as they thought, but as
if it were the full undarkened light of day."

And says the ancient Tripartite Life of Patrick:

"Now after founding churches in plenty ; after consecrating mon-
asteries; after baptising the men of Ireland; after great patience and
after great labour; after destroying idols and images and after re-
buking many kings who did not his will, and after raising up those
who did his will ; after ordaining three hundred and three score and
ten bishops, and after ordaining three thousand priests and folk of
every grade in the church besides; after fasting and prayer; after
mercy and clemency; after gentleness and mildness to the sons of
Life ; after love of God and his neighbours, he received Christ's body
from the bishop, from Tassach, and then he sent his spirit to Heaven.
His body, however, is here still on earth, with honour and venera-
tion. And though great be the honour to it here, greater will be
the honour to it on Doomsday, for it will shine like a sun in Heaven,
and then it will give judgment on the fruit of his preaching, even
as Peter and PauL It will abide thereafter in the union of patriarchs
and prophets, in the union of the saints and holy virgins of the world,
in the union of the apostles and disdples of Jesus Christ, in the union
of the church both of Heaven and earth; in the union of the nine
ranks of Heaven that transgress not, in the union of the Godhead and
manhood of God's son, in the union that is nobler than any union,
the union of the Trinity, Father and Son and Holy Ghost"

Thus passed away one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest,
that Ireland ever knew, or ever will know — still more, one of the
dominant personalities of world history, whose influence will end
only with the final running out of the sands of Time. What Con-
fucius was to the Oriental, Moses to the Israelite, Mohammed to
the Arab, Patrick was to the Gaelic race. And the name and the

ST. PATRICK 125

power of those other great ones will not outlive the name and the
power of our Apostle.

"A righteous man, verily, was this man. With purity of nature,
like the patriarchs. A true pilgrim like Abraham. Mild, forgiving
from the heart, like Moses. A praiseworthy psalmist like David.
A shrine of wisdom, like Solomon. A joyous vessel for proclaiming
righteousness, like Paul the Apostle. A man full of the grace and
the favour of 'the Holy Ghost, like John the child. A fair herb-
garden with plants of virtues. A vine-branch with fruitfulness. A
flashing fire with the fervour of the warming and heating of the
sons of Life, for kindling and for inflaming charity. A lion for
strength and might. A dove for gentleness and simplicity. A ser-
pent for prudence and cunning as to good. Gentle, humble, merci-
ful unto the sons of Life. Gloomy, ungentle to the sons of Death.
A laborious and serviceable slave to Christ. A king for dignity
and power as to binding and loosing, as to liberating and enslaving,
as to killing and quickening life."

One of the secrets of the wonderful power he has wielded over
the Irish, and one of the secrets of his world-popularity, was the
rare combination in him of the spiritual with the human. Among
saints, Patrick is eminently saintly, and very, very human among
human beings. His shining virtues make him kin of the angels,
while his human frailties — Celtic frailties — ^his passionateness, his
impetuosity, his torrential anger against tyrants, his teeming fierce-
ness against sinners in high place, his biting scathe and burning
scorn, made men feel that he was a brother to all men — especially
to all Irishmen. More surely did these qualities win the Irish Celt
when they found in him combined the terror of a warrior with the
tenderness of a woman ; the ferocity of a tiger, with the gentleness
of a lamb. The same Patrick who had tenderly lifted on his shoul-
ders and carried to safety the fawn of Armagh Hill later thun-
dered denunciations at the plundering, murdering Coroticus and
his^ men — "fellow-citizens of demons," "slaves of hell," "dead
while they live," "patricides, fratricides, ravening wolves, eating
up the people of the Lord like breadstuff s !" It was only a man
of such terrible passion and such ineffable tenderness who could
have gained, as quickly as Patrick did, complete moral ascendancy
over the Irish nation — so amazingly compelling their allegiance,
obedience, faith, belief and trust as in one generation to work that
wondrous change which called forth the testimony by the old poet
(put into the mouth of the returned* Caoilte) : "There was a
demon at the butt of every grass-blade in Eirinn before thy ad-

126

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

vent; but at the butt of every grass-blade in Eirinn to-day there is
an angel."

And that Caoilte's figure of speech finds its justification in the
historical records of those days we shall admit, when we contrast
the two widely differing natures of the Irish people who before
Patrick were carrying the ruthless law of the sword far over sea
and land, and that very different Irish people who, after Patrick,
left the conquering sword to be eaten by rust, while they went far
and wide again over sea and land, bearing now to the nations —
both neighbouring and far off — the healing balm of Christ's gende
words. All histories of all countries probably could not disclose
to the most conscientious searcher another instance of such radical
change in a whole nation's character being wrought within the life-
span of one man.

An unquenchable burning desire for bringing souls to Christ
was the passion of Patrick's life. And he pursued his passion with
an unremitting perseverance, with a greatness of mind and a gran-
deur of soul that has infrequentiy been paralleled in missionary
annals, and seldom surpassed.

And this singularly great man was, as we have seen, steeped in
humility: "I was a stone, sunk in the mire till He who is power-
ful came, and in His mercy, raised me up." He was possessed of
that great humility and sublime simplicity which is attained never
except by moral giants."

It is of interest to note that the traditions of Patridc which
linger down the ages represent him not merely as a saint, law-giver,
statesman, and a brother of the common people, but ever, also, as
an admirer of the literary men, scholars, and poets of the nation,

^*This singular humility of his as well as his characteristic impetuosity, are
both well illustrated in the account given us of the origin of Sechnall's Hymn-
made in Patrick's honour and published to him with fear and trembling of the
author. Sechnall made the hymn by way of amends for having angered Patrick
by an imprudent criticism. For, Patrick did not please all his fellow-workers, by
reason that he asked not su£ficient contributions from the faithful for the support
of himself and his fellows. So Sechnall once said : "Patrick is a good man, were
it not for one thing, that he preaches charity so very little." When this came
to Patrick's ears he, in a holy rage, got into his chariot, and set out for Sechnall,
whom he drove his chariot against — some say drove it over — ^"What is that one
thing thou saidst I did not fulfil? For if I fulfil not charity, I am guilty of
breaking God's commandment" He added: "It is for sake of diarity that I
preach not charity: for other good men will come after us, who, more than we,
will need the support of the faithful"

Sechnall made his hymn as a peace offering, and brought it to Patrick. "What
is it that you have there?" Patrick asked. ''A hymn," replied Sechnall, "that I
made for a certain son of Light. I desire you to listen to it" Patrick answered •
"I welcome the praise of a man of God's household." And Sechnall held Patrick's
ear and won approval and praise from him by artfully hiding, till he came to the
end, the fact that Patrick himself was the subject

ST. PATRICK 127

and an ardent lover of their profane literature. In the Ossianic
tales are many evidences of this. The Colloquy of the Ancients
again and again shows the old poets building upon Patrick's love
of the national lore. This love, indeed, is so strong in him, that
he fears it may be sinful — until he questions his guardian angel,
and gets his approval for the delightful indulgence of barkening
to Caoilte's fascinating stories of the Fenians. And he is so
charmed with them that he orders them to be written down, so as
to preserve them for the delight of future generations of the noble
men of Eirinn.

"Palm of eloquence on thee, my son," Patrick says to Caoilte,
•'and let every third word uttered by men of thine art seem melo-
dious to every hearer, and let one of them possessed of the skill
always be a king's bedfellow and the torch of every assembly."

In recent times several ingenious people have demonstrated to
their own complete satisfaction that Patrick was a Protestant, a
Methodist, a Presbyterian, a Baptist — a Jew even — almost every-
thing except what he was — and that he founded in Ireland an in-
dependent church which they call the Celtic Church. These absurd
contentions are set at rest — if they needed setting at rest — ^by the
Canon of St. Patrick, preserved in the old Book of Armagh —
which was finished by the scribe Firdomnach in 807 — a Canon
which those very learned Protestant Irish scholars, Usher and
Whitley Stokes, accept as proof of his Roman authority and affilia-
tion."

"Moreover, If any case should arise of extreme difficulty, and
beyond the knowledge of all the judges of the nations of the Scots,
it is to be duly referred to the chair of the Archbishop of the
Gaedhil, that is to say, of Patrick, and the jurisdiction of this bishop
(of Armagh). But if such a case as aforesaid, of a matter at bsue,
cannot be easily disposed of (by him), with his counsellors in that
(investigation), we have decreed that it be sent to the apostolic seat,
that is to say, to the chair of the Apostle Peter, having the authority
of the dty of Rome.

"These are the persons who decreed concerning this matter, viz. :
Auxilius, Patrick, Secundinus, and Bcnignus. But after the death
of Sl Patrick his disciples carefully wrote out his books."

^''Even if, by straining of the imagination, we should suppose this document
to be forged by Firdomnadi — without any conceivable reason for forging it then —
»t shows that, at the time Firdomnach wrote it, the See of Armagh, the centre of
the church in Ireland, was subordinate to the Pontiff.

Again within the Century after Patrick we find the ^eat G>lumbanus, when
submitting to Pope Gregory the question of his dispute with the Gaulish ecclesias-
tics, saying, "We Irish ... are bound to the Chair of Peter."

128

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Hcaly, The Most Rev. Jno.: St. Patrick.

Stokes, Whitley, D.C.L., LL.D.: The Tripartite Life of St. PatricL

Lannigan, Rev. Jno., D.D. : Ecclesiastical History of Ireland.

Keating's History of Ireland.

Bury, J. B., LL.D.: Tiredian's Memoir of St Patrick; printed in £ng.

Hist. Rev. for 1902.
Todd, James Henthom, D.D.: Memoir of St Patrick.
Jocelyn: Life of St Patrick.
O'Curry, Eugene: Manuscript Materials of Irish History.

CHAPTER XX

THE BREHON LAWS

We may here take a glimpse at those marvellous institutes, the
old Irish laws which Patrick is credited with codifying — and the
study of which, in these later days, throws a flood of light upon
both the intellectual and the social condition of early Ireland.

Marvellous they are — and have excited the wonder and ad-
miration not of laymen only, but of eminent jurists deeply versed
in law codes both ancient and modern. It has proved amazing to
modern scholars in other countries to find such a great and such a
just and beautiful judicial structure reared up, in dim centuries of
antiquity, in one little island seated on the waters of a wide ocean,
far oflF on the rim of the world.

Of the great body of ancient Irish law literature still existing,
five large volumes have been printed — the principal part of these
being the Senchus Mor, supposed to be the fruits of Patrick's en-
deavour-— and their ordinances appropriately called after him Cain
Padraic, that is, the Statute Law of Patrick. When we reflect
that these five volumes are but a portion of what came down to
the twentieth century, and that what came to the twentieth century
was necessarily but a small fraction of the ancient Irish Cana or
ordinances, we get some impression of the vastness of the law
literature of ancient Ireland. When it is stated that in the ancient
glosses upon the Senchus Mor citations are made from no less
than fourteen different books of civil law; and that Cormac in his
later Glossary (about tenth century) quotes from five law books
only one of which is among the fourteen of the Senchus glosses,
that also will give the reader a little idea of the multitude of law
books that there must have been prior to the tenth century in
which the scholar Cormac wrote.

And realising the vastness of the body of the old Irish laws,
the reader will not wonder to learn these laws covered almost every
relationship, and every fine shade of relationship, social, and moral,
between man and man.

129

I30

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

The ancient Irish laws are now popularly termed, "The Brehon
Laws" — from the Irish term Brehon which was applied to the
official lawgiver.* The Brehon was an important officer at all royal
Courts, from the most remote times of which we have any shred
of record, historical or even legendary. The precepts and maxims
of famous law givers, men and women, of legendary days are
quoted to us through famous successors who just came within the
horizon of history. Even a famous woman law-giver of pre-
historic times is thus conmiemorated in Briathra Brigid, or the
judgments of a very andent wise Brigid, cited by the earliest
writers.

One of the most famous of ancient historic personages cele-
brated as a law-giver, was, as mentioned heretofore Cormac Mac-
Art, in the third century. Cormac's chief judge, too, Fithal the
Wise, wrote his name on fame's honour-roll. But some centuries
earlier, in the time of Christ, flourished Irish law-givers, who are
still known to fame. Senchan, the son of Ailill was then chief
judge of Ulster, at Conor MacNessa's court. The venerated

^ Instead of filling the position of judge (as usually sui>posed) the Brehon
was rather a legal expert who devoted himself to arbitration — and sometimes to
advising — and was paid a fee from his client — a fee that in case of an award was
about one-twelfth of the amount awarded. In studying for the profession the
Brehon had not onlv to make himself master of the ancient legal records, and of
the very complicated leg^al rules, the abstruse technical terms, and all the intricate
forms in which the law was purposely entangled, but he must also be a genealogist
and historian.

Though the Brehon was but an arbitrator, so scholarly was he, so skilled
in the laws and so wise and weighty in his solemn judgments, that, sitting at a
Dal, where two witnesses were needed to prove a fact, his words were venerated
and his awards sacredly respected — as though they were the awards of a judge
consecrated to the judgment seat, and rare was it to find any person hardened
enough to evade or reject them.

But it should be recorded that there were lawyers, or law arguers — advocates —
of a very much lower status, much less learned and much less Honoured than the
Brehon — men who were paid to argue cases before the Brehon. It is some of
those lawyers — not unlike many of our own day—whom Cormac raps in the
ancient "Instructions of a King" —

"O Cormac, grandson of Conn," said Carbcry, "what is the worst pleading and
arguing?"

"Not hard to tell," said Cormac.

"Contending against knowledge,
Contending without proofs,
Taking refuge in bad language,
A stiff delivery,
A muttering speech,
Hair-splitting.
Uncertain proofs,
Despising books,
Tumjng against custom,
Shifting one's pleading.
Inciting the mob.
Blowing one's own trumpet.
Shouting at the top of one's voice."

THE BREHON LAWS 131

Morann the son of Mjicn (or of Cairbre), lived then. Athairne,
the bitterest of ancient satirists, was also a lawyer at the court of
King Conor. Ferceirtne, Conor*s chief poet, was famed in law,
likewise. But up to the era of Ferceirtne the poet-brotherhood held
a monopoly of all legal knowledge. It has already been described
how this monopoly was, by the indignant Conor, shattered — after
he and his court had, non-understandingly, barkened to the famous
dispute, Agallam na da Suach (the Contest of the two Sages),
between Ferceirtne and Neide — some say between Aithairne and
j^eide— contending for the poet's tuigin. For in order to shut out
the laity from the legal profession, and also for purpose of duly
impressing the said laity with their dazzling erudition, the lawyers
wrapped the law in a phraseology so obsolete that none but the
initiated could understand the legal language. Conor, in his wrath,
on this occasion, deprived the poet order of their exclusive right to
legal knowledge and practice, and opened the field to everybody.

Yet, notwithstanding this supposed great reform of Conor's
at the beginning of the Christian Era, the lawyers of a couple of
centuries later were again indulging their vanity and their exclu-
siveness, concealing their legal wisdom under obsolete verbiage.
We find, for instance, that though the Senchus Mor was profusely
glossed by law students some centuries later, and after some fur-
ther centuries the gloss itself glossed to bring it within the range
of legal understanding of that day, O'Curry, learned student
though he was in ancient glosses, still had the most infinite difficulty
in picking out the meaning of the greater part of the work, and
had to be content with giving the probable meaning of many pas-
sages, and leaving In their primitive obscurity, some things that ut-
terly baffled him.'

This Brehon law remained the law of three-quarters of Ireland
for several centuries after the coming of the English — ^was in fact
adopted by a large portion of the English settlers themselves, to
the exclusion of the Anglo-Norman code — and it may be said not
to have gone out of existence as living law till the sixteenth century.

The advancement of civilisation in early Ireland was such that
the legislative and the judicial functions were separated at a period
before the dawn of history. While the Brehon administered the
law, the king, the nobles, and the professors of the various branches
of learning, were responsible for originating it. Even for the
making of a local law called Nos Tuaighe — ^literally "the Nine
knowledge of a territory," the aggregate wisdom of nine leading

^ Of course part of the difficulty— but not all — arose from progress of language.

132

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

representatives was necessary — all of whom had to agree to its
institution, and all of whom had to sanction its abolition. The
nine needed for the making of a local law were the chief, poet,
historian, brugaid (hospitaller), bishop, professor of literature,
professor of law. Aire Forgaill (a noble) and Archinnech (lay-
vicar) .

The local traditional, or customary, law of particular terri-
tories was called Urradus, as distinct from national law which was
j^ain law. And be it noted that when the Cain or national law
conflicted with the Urradus, or local traditional law, the traditional
territory law was acknowledged as annulling the national.

Of the many collections of ancient Irish laws the most famous
known to scholars, are the Meill Brethra, or Mild Judgments, said
to have been written at Tara in the time of Conn, and which had
to do with regulations for juvenile sports (and of which only the
name now remains) : second, the Cain Fuirthime, a body of Mun-
ster laws in twelve books, compiled by Amergin, for King Finghin
of Munster (who died in 694), which, like the Meill Brethra,
have been lost also: third, the Crith Gablach (which O'Curry
thinks was a part of the Cain Fuirthime), which is still preserved:
fourth, the Book of Acaill (third century) still preserved: and
fifth, the Senchus Mor, still preserved. The last three named are
included in the five volumes of the Brehon Laws which were re-
cently printed by the Brehon Law Commission.

The Crith Gablach defines the rights and privileges of the
various ranks of society. O'Curry says it undoubtedly belongs
to the middle or end of the seventh century, and thinks it probable
that it was part of the Cain Fuirthime.

The Book of Acaill is attributed to King Cormac MacArt and
brought up to a later date by that famous scholar and most re-
markable man, Ceannfalad, who flourished in the seventh century.
As usual in the ancient Irish books, the Book of Acaill starts by
telling the place, the time, and the cause of its writing, and the
author. It says : "The place of this Book is Acaill close to Tem-
hair, and its time is the time of Coirpre Lifechair, son of Cormac,
and its author is Cormac, and the cause of its having been com-
posed was the blinding of the eye of Cormac by Aengus Gabuai-
dech after the abduction of the daughter of Sorar son of Art Corb,
by Cellach son of Cormac. And Ceannfalad did part of it." The
Book of Acaill is chiefly a record of criminal law and laws relat-
ing to personal injuries.

The Senchus Mor is the most monumental and remarkable rec-
ord of ancient Irish law. In contradistinction to the Book of

THE BREHON LAWS 133

Acaill, it deals entirely with civil law. This is believed to have
been the great work of Patrick. He called together all the pro-
fessors of legal law, with their many law records, and he had
Dubthach (one of his first converts), *'a vessel full of the grace of
the Holy Ghost" and the great scholar at Laeghaire's court, in-
terpret them to him. ( For Patrick had blessed Dubthach's mouth,
and the grace of the Holy Ghost alighted on his utterance. ) Then
he had a board of three kings, three bishops and three scholars (a
philosopher, a historian and a poet) sit upon them for three years,
codifying and correcting them, taking out of them the pagan eye-
for-an-eye doctrine, toning down their pagan severity, and weeding
out from them whatsoever was inconsistent with the new law of
Christ, which he had brought to them.

O' Curry (in his Manuscript Material of Irish History) says
the recorded account of this great revision of the body of the laws
of Erin is as fully entitled to confidence as any other well-authen-
ticated fact in history.

The very ancient introduction to the Senchus Mor finely de-
scribes how the work was produced.'

"It was then that all the professors of the sciences in Erin were
assembled, and each of them exhibited his art before Patrick, in the
presence of every chief in Erin.

"It was then Dubthach was ordered to exhibit the judgments
and all the poetry of Erin, and every law which prevailed among
the men of Erin, through the law of nature, and the law of seers,
and in the judgments of the island of Erin, and in the poets.

"Now the judgments of true nature which the Holy Ghost had
spoken through the mouths of the Brehons and just poets of the men
of Erin, from their occupation of this island, to the reception of the
faith, were all exhibited by Dubthach to Patrick. What did not
clash with the Word of God in the written law and in the New
Testament, and with the consciences of the believers, was confirmed
in the laws of the Brehons by Patrick and by the ecclesiastics and the
chieftains of Erin; for the law of nature had been quite right, ex-
cept the faith, and its obligations. And this is the Senchus Mor."

The Senchus Mor as it has been preserved to us to-day is com-
posed of four parts — namely, the introduction describing when
and how it came to be written ; then the original text, written in a

I'^It also tells us where the work was done:

It was Teamhair in the summer and autumn on account of its cleanness and
pleasantness during these seasons; and Rathguthaird was the place during the
wuiter and spring, on account of the nearness of its firewood and water, and on
account of its warmth in the time of winter's cold."

134 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

large hand, and with very wide spaces between the lines; third,
commentaries on the text, written in a much smaller hand, just
beneath the lines of the original; and fourth, glosses or explana-
tions of the words and phrases in the text, written under the com-
mentaries, and in a hand still smaller. The text is more archaic
than the commentaries, and the commentaries more so than the
glosses. The sentences in the original text are so skeleton-like,
terse and suggestive, that it is considered they are mere headings
meant to be expounded and extended in courses of oral instruction.

The laws in the Senchus Mor, like all the old Brehon Laws,
were rarely legislative enactments. Some few undoubtedly, were
enacted, but most of them were laws of user, which obtained their
force from public opinion. And a vast body of the laws were prec-
edents and commentaries of venerated law-givers of earlier times.

The whole superstructure of the ancient Irish civil law (as
again and again proclaimed) rested upon the foundation of the
sanctity of verbal contract. "For," says the old law-^ver, "the
world would be in confusion if verbal contracts were not binding.*'

O'Curry pointedly and succinctly tells us of these contract pro-
visions in the Senchus Mor:

"The Senchus Mor contains a system of law respecting Contracts,
in which every species of contract, bargain, or engagement is defined,
and the competency or incompetency, and the rights and duties, of
the contracting parties made clear ; by which a penalty is incurred for
the non-performance of every separate kind of contract; false and
fraudulent contracts annulled, and fraud punished ; and under which
judges and officers are provided to decide all disputes concerning
contracts, the decisions of such judges being in all cases enforced by
the power and authority of the state. It is curious to remark that,
under this ancient system, neither the judge nor the advocate — of the
latter of whom there were, it appears, three grades or classes, — was
held harmless in cases of false or corrupt judgments, or faulty or
incompetent advocacy." *

•* O'Curry gives a highly interesting enumeration of the various kinds of law
that arc embodied in this marvellous record — a list that will surprise those who
hitherto knew little about the subject of ancient Irish law. He shows that the
Senchus Mor includes:

The laws defining all the different species of Bargains, G)ntracts, and Engage-
ments between man and man.

The laws respecting Property entrusted or given in charge by one man to
another ; and the Liability of the person trusted, in case of loss or damage, whether
by accident or design.

The laws respecting Gifts and Presents, and respecting Alms and Endowments.

The laws as to Waifs and Strays, Derelictions, and the Abandonment and Re-
sumption of Property.

The law of Loans, Pledges, Accommodations, and Securities.

THE BREHON LAWS 135

Although O' Curry again and again says that there was an
executive power attendant upon the judicial — that the state en-
forced the Brehon's decision — there is the best reason to believe
that the executive power was, not official, but that greatest of all
powers, especially in Ireland, the moral power of public opinion.
Everybody considered it his bounden business to see that the pro-
nouncement of their venerated Brehons were observed to the letter,
and the verdict summarily executed. And despite the sean-fhocal

The law of Prescription, or lapse, and of the Recovery of Possession of
Property.

The laws concerning the relation of Father and Son, and the legal and
illegal contracts of the son as connected therewith.

The laws respecting illegitimate Children; as to Affiliations, and the Adoption
of children.

Laws minutely regulating the Fees of Doctors, Judges, Lawyers, and Teachers,
and of all other professional persons.

A series of laws concerning the varied species of Industry: such as Weaving.
Spinning, Sewing, Building, Brewing, etc ; concerning Mills and Weirs ; concerning
Fishing; concerning Bees, Poultry, etc.

Laws with respect to Injuries to Cattle; by neglect, by over-driving, etc.

Laws concerning Fosterage, and the relative duties of Parents and Children.
Foster-fathers and Foster-mothers; including details of a very curious kind,
respecting the training, food, clothing, etc., of all foster-children, from the king
to the peasant.

A very complicated, yet dearly defined series of laws for Landlord and Tenant,
and Master and Servant; explainmg the different species of lords and masters, of
tenants and of servants; and the origin and termination of Tenantry and Service.

Laws concerning Trespass and Damage to Land, whether by man or beast.

A curious series of laws concerning Co-Occupancy of Land; and concerning
the dividing, hedging, fencing, paling, ditching and walling, and the ploughing
and stocking of land.

Laws of Evidence; of Corroborative Testimony; and of Compurgation.

The law of Distress and Caption; including most minute details, which appear
to embrace almost every possible point that could be made concerning the legality
or illegality of a Distress or Seizure.

The laws of Tithes and First Fruits; and concerning the relations of the
Church with the state or nation (a law, doubtless introduced at the direct sugges-
tion of St. Patrick).

Laws concerning the regulation of Churches and tibe tenants of Church lands,
and the servitors of Churches and Ecclesiastical establishments.

In Criminal Law; complete laws respecting Manslaughter and Murder, dis-
tinguishing accurately between principals and accessories before and after the act

Laws concerning Thefts, and the receiving and recovery of stolen property;
in the greatest possible detaih

Laws concerning the infliction of Wounds and the shedding of Blood; and
with regard to the commission of violence by insane as well as by sane persons.

And lastly, laws concerning Accidental Injuries; as from sledges, hammers,
flails, hatchets, and other implements connected with peaceful labour.

After perusing that wonderful list of only one collected portion of the laws
of Ireland in the early centuries of the Christian Era, the reader can, for himself,
hazard a guess at the very advanced state of early Irish civilisation which evolved
and called forth such laws— ^d which evolved, too, a professional body of highly-
trained law-givers. Overtrained indeed Brehons often came to be, and so steeped
in, and saturated with, their science, that, passing beyond the love of law for
justice sake, many of the noted ones, as shown by their rulings, their conunen-
jaries, and anecdotes of them, came at length to pursue law for law's sake, and
loved to indulge themselves, and dazzle the multitude, by elaborate quibblings,
and the working out of fantastically far-fetched legal problems.

136 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

that everybody's business is nobody's business, we know that, so
far as concerned carrying out the judgments of the Brehons, every-
body's business was truly the business of each.

As a sample of judicial procedure in civil law we set down the
usual course followed in recovering for a debt. A fasc (summons)
was first served upon the debtor, in which were entered the details
of the claim, and demand for payment made according to law. A
certain number of days of grace was then allowed the debtor, after
which, if the debt was not paid, a gabail (distress)* was laid upon
some portion of his property — almost always on his live-stock.
For this purpose the creditor took with him a law agent and seven
witnesses, and attached, but did not then carry off, the seized
goods. There was an anad (stay) of a day or days — to give the
debtor a second chance of paying. If he did not pay within the
anad, the distrained goods were lifted — ^the cattle, say, driven off,
and placed in a pound. An apad (notice) was then served upon
the debtor, telling him that the cattle were taken, and informing
him just where they were impounded. Then followed a dithim,
another stay, to give the debtor yet another chance for redeeming
his property. If, when the dithim had expired, the debtor had not
redeemed his property, the next stage, the lohad (wasting) be-
gan; that is, instead of selling all of the seized property for the
immediate and complete satisfying of the debt, it was sold in por-
tions— out of still further regard for, and mercy toward, the debtor.

But if, when the creditor with his agent and witnesses first
went to distrain, the debtor denied the claim, and demanded trial
of the case — or if he agreed to pay after the expiration of a cer-
tain time — he got a stay of execution on giving pledge (gell), or
giving bail. If, then, the debtor did not fulfil the conditions of the
stay of execution, the pledge, or the bail, was forfeited, and the
levying of the distress proceeded. Sometimes he gave his own son
in pledge. In that case the services of the son were forfeit, if the
conditions were not fulfilled — the son became the bondsman of the
creditor, till the debt was worked out. If he had been bailed the
athire (bailsman) became the creditor's bondsman, in the same
case, if he could not meet the liabilities of him whom he had bailed.
If the debtor was superior in rank to the creditor, the latter had
to try fasting upon his debtor before he could seize his goods.*

' Sullivan, in his introduction to O'Cuny derives the word gaol from gabail
(pron., gow-ail), which originally meant a distress by the body.

•This fasting upon a debtor, or upon a wronger, which is an Eastern custom
still or till recently practised in some parts of India, was a common enough practice
in olden times in Ireland. A creditor wanting payment of his dd>t from a superior,
or a wronged person demanding justice, or any one demanding any right to which

THE BREHON LAWS 137

The most notable way in which Patrick deprived the ancient
law of its severity was his substitution of eric-law for the Lex
Talionis. Under the new law a graduated system of money fines,
called eric, was substituted for the eye-for-an-eye ordinance of the
old. Only, when the criminal or his family or tribe did not pay
Jiis eric, the law sanctioned his personal punishment — ^which, more-
over, might even then, instead of following the old method, take
the form of his being sold as a bondman. Or, again, he might
become the bondman of any one, outside his fine (his own rela-
tives), who paid the eric for him.

The eric for killing one of the bond-class was twenty-one cows.
Forty-two cows was the eric for killing a freeman. This, how-
ever, was only the standard when the homicide was one of the

he was entitled, sat him down by the door of the dishonest or unjust one, and,
while the sympathetic world looked on, and its indignation daily grew greater
against the wronger who had forced the wronged to take this extreme course, the
latter tasted of no food. In short it was a plain hunger-strike for compelling
justice from the powerful

If he who was fasted upon, felt that he had not been unjust, that he was
wrongly accused and exposed, by the hunger-striker at his door — or if, knowing
that he was unjust, he wished to make the world believe otherwise, he in turn
adopted the fast against his accuser. Naturally he who could longest hold out in
suffering — which usually meant tlie man whose conscience supported and inspired
him — won out

In the ancient tale of the sons of CCorra is an account of how Conal Dearg
O'Connor and his wife fasted against the devil, that he might bless them with
diildren — and succeeded. In the Book of Lismore is the account of three young
clerics, who had pledged themselves to say between them a certain, total of prayers,
daily. One of them died, leaving a heavier task on the other two. Then a sec-
ond diedj leaving still greater task to the survivor — whereupon last of them —
upon which he began fasting against God for the injustice of taking away the
other two and leavmg their burdens to him. Also, one of the Irish legends tells
how Adam, in the Jordan, after he had been expelled from Paradise, and Eve in
the Tigris, fast against God, to compel forgiveness; and request the beasts and
the fishes to fast with them.

There were a few special laws bearing upon the subject of debtor and creditor
which are interesting to note in passing.

One law justly provided that "no one must be oppressed when in difficulty."

To those who had pledged personal ornaments for debt (as has been stated
in a previous chapter), the pledged object had to be released on the occasion,
and during the term, of any of the great Aonachs (fairs), which the debtor, like
the people in general, was expected to attend. If the creditor neglected to release
the ornaments on such occasion he was under liability to pay to the debtor a blush
fine for the embarrassment incurred by the debtor in appearing before the gay and
richly-decked crowds on festive occasions without his personal ornaments.

Moreover, as general jubilee was proclaimed during the term of the ^eat fairs,
it was the law that during such festive time the creditor must rid his mind of
debt memories. A debtor could not be arrested, or annoyed, for debt at the
Aonach, or going to, or coming from it.

Furthermore, the laws against debtors were suspended during the official
period of grief following the death of the Primate of Armagh, or the Ard-Righ of
Ireland. Both these grave occasions were the cause of proclaiming a twelve months'
moratorium. On the death of the king of one of the provinces all d^tors had a
uiree months' exemption: and one month on the death of a chieftain of a ttiath
(territory).

138

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

plain people. If a noble were guilty of killing he had to pay the
ordinary eric plus a log-enach, or honour price, graduated in the
scale according to his rank : the higher his rank the higher was the
honour price which he had to add to the ordinary eric.^

The Senchus Mor established it that half a noble's log-enach
was lost to him the first time he was found guilty of false judg-
ment, false witness, fraudulent security, false information, false
character-giving, bad stories, lying, criminal wounding, betrayal,
or refusal of food. On commission of the third such offence he
was deprived of his honour-price complete.

In the old Irish laws then, the sword of Justice had ever two
edges sharpened for punishing people of rank. From those to
whom much was given, much was to be expected. The democracy
of those laws was shown in dozens of other ways. The king carry-
ing building material to his castle had the same and only the same
claim for right of way as the miller carrying material to build his
mill. The poorest man in the land could compel payment of a
debt from a noble — could levy a distress upon the king himself,
through the person of the king's steward. The man who stole the
needle * of a poor embroidery woman was compelled to pay a far
higher fine than the man who stole the queen's needle.

One of the seven things forbidden by law was for a poor man
to give service or rent to a noble who demanded an excess of
either ; while the noble was mulcted for making the unjust demand.
The king himself was bound by law to do justice to his meanest
subject: for the law, while enumerating and acknowledging his
rights, very distinctly and definitely points out to him that he had
duties also. "The king must not exact his rights," says the law,
"by falsehood, nor by force, nor by despotic might. His fostering
care must be perfect to all, both weak and strong." And this sacred
regard for rigid justice is well exemplified in the judgment given
(in the case of the killing of Patrick's charioteer) by Dubtach,
King Laoghaire's OUam, in the presence of the King and the court,

'The log-enach or honour price, not merely made for the democratic justice
of the law, which recognised that the fine laid upon a poor man or an ignorant,
did not suffice to punish a noble, or a learned man — but it likewise placed in the
hands of the law another unique and powerful instrument for the punishing of
men in high place. This power lay in the fact, which will at first seem strange,
that if a man of rank Tsodal-or intellectual) was found guiltv of a degrading
act, his honour price— the extra fine he should pay for bis misdeed— was thereby
reduced: thereafter, be ^id for his crimes the smaller fine of a man of lower
rank. The dramatic justice of this usage is plain to us, when we consider that the
reducing of his honour price had the moral effect of degrading him henceforth to
lower rank.

*A needle then was a prized possession — value for a year-old calf.

THE BREHON LAWS 139

and of Patrick, when, unlike the degenerate courtiers of later days,
he boldly proclaimed :

"Let every one die who blls a human being;
Even the king . . .
Who inflicts red wounds intentionally."

The king, too, was threatened with degradation by these im-
partial laws. Four dignitaries who may be degraded are, "a false-
judging king, a stumbling bishop, a fraudulent poet, and an un-
worthy chieftain." One spedal privilege accorded the king, how-
ever, was that only men of three specified ranks could reply to him
at law; namely, a bishop, an oUam, and a pilgrim.

Running through all the laws for all the ranks, impartiality
was the salient characteristic. Always the Irish law expected most
from those who had most received from God. The laws bearing
upon ecclesiastics, again, well exemplify this. For instance, while
there was a certain fine imposed upon laymen for neglecting to
honour a summons to court, an ecclesiastic was fined double for
the same offence. And, whereas, for certain offences, lay people
of rank were deprived of half their honour-price the first time, and
all their honour-price the third time, clerics for the very first offence
were condenmed not only to lose all their honour-price, but like-
wise to be degraded. Pursuing stem justice still farther — ^while
ordinary clerics could, by doing penance and suffering punishment,
win back their grade, he of higher rank, the Bishop, not only lost
his honour-price and was degraded for the first offence, but could
never again regain his position. He must go out from the abodes
of men and henceforth live a hermit.*

That the impartiality of the law persisted even toward its own
professors is exemplified in the ordinance which discriminated
against law advocates being paid a blush fine. Blush fines were
payable for insults offered to all persons of all ranks, with a few
notable exceptions. The ne*er-do-well, the squanderer, the idler,
and the lazy man, could not claim blush-fine. Neither could the
selfish, earthy one who thought only of his cows and his fields ; the
druth or the clown who distorted himself before crowds at a fair;
the Cainte or Satirist who himself made a trade of insulting others,
and, finally — ^the lawyer! "A man who is paid to abuse others,"
says the law, "is not entitled to daim damaees when abused him-
self."

• It may here be noted that, in the sight of the law, in the same rank with the
bishop was the king, the chief poet, and the brugaid or public hospitaller: a like
"''•e fine or eric was ]>ayable for the killing of either of the four.

I40

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

For the Brehons who framed the laws showed no leniency to-
ward their own order. "Every judge," says the Book of Acaill,
"is punishable for his neglect. He has to pay eric-fine for his false
judgment." Another law, too, ordered that for false judgment
he should be degraded.

And the old law's fairness is again shown, and its chivalry, in
the stipulation that every alien who came into the country to pur-
sue a suit at law against a native, was entitled to his choice of the
Brehons of Eirinn. And paralleling this was the ordinance that
every outsider who came into any territory for purpose of suing a
subject in that territory, had his choice of the Brehons of the ter-
ritory.

But, the thoughtful wisdom of the ancient law-makers is every-
where exemplified. There were laws prescribed for the care of the
poor, the aged and the sick — with detailed instructions in each case.
For the sick, the doctor was bound to provide plentiful ventilation
— so that, through open doors or windows, the patient could be
seen from all four sides, by one outside the house. A running
stream of fresh water must flow through his hospital. For neglect,
or blunder, or mismanagement of an operation, the doctor was
fined. If he failed, through ignorance, to effect a cure he could
claim no fee.

Knowing the exacting nature of those who depended upon the
charity of others, this law thoughtfully provided that the official
who looked after the poor should have no recourse at law against
the abusiveness of those under his charge. He or his family could
not claim blush-fine for insult hurled at him by the creatures whom
he helped.

Minute details are given of what must be provided for the de-
pendent aged person; details of the house; the furnishings of the
house; the supplies necessary; details of the old person's care — as
for instance, how often he must be bathed, how often have his
head washed, and so on.

There is found in the Yellow Book of Lecan, and also in the
Leabar Breac a curious Cain Dotnnach, Law of Sunday, which was
said to have been brought over from Rome by St. Conall, a sixth-
century Donegal saint. During the Sabbath, which in ancient Ire-
land extended from sunset on Saturday to sunrise on Monday, the
Cain Domnach forbids all labour outdoor or indoor. It forbids
sweeping or cleaning the house, combing, shaving, clipping the hair
or beard; it forbids games of all kinds, buying, selling, washing,
bathing, cutting, sewing, churning, fishing, boating, grinding com,
cooking, splitting firewood, riding on horseback, journeying of

THE BREHON LAWS 141

travellers. Wherever the evening of Saturday descended on a
traveller, there should he pause in his journey, and resume it only
on Monday morning.

In quitting the subject of the old laws, after this brief glimpse
at a broad field, we may agree with Patrick when he indicated that
even the Pagan law-givers were inspired by the Spirit. He con-
sidered that they spoke, as he asked Dubtach, when giving judg-
ment, to speak — "What God will give you for utterance, say it.
It is not you that speak but the spirit of the Father which speaketh
in you."

Ginnell, Lawrence: The Brehon Laws.

Joyce, P. W.: Social History of Ancient Ireland,

Brehon Laws: the Ancient Laws of Ireland.

Maine, Sir Henry: Dissertations on Ancient Law.

Sullivan, W. K., Ph.D.: Introduction to O'Curry's Manners and Customs

of the Ancient Irish.
O'Curry, Eugene: Manuscript Materials of Irish History.
Manners and Customs.

CHAPTER XXI

ST. BRIDGET

For four centuries after the Bishop Patrick, setting foot in the
country, began scattering far and wide the seeds of the Gospel, the
history of the Irish race hangs upon' the history of the holy men
and women, and the scholars, who continued Patrick's work, at
home in Ireland and afar on the Continent of Europe.

And by far the greatest woman in this work was Bridget.

When Patrick rested from his labours it was on Bridget that
the seeding sheet was bound. And over the hills and the dales of
Ireland then went she, sowing the fruitful words of the new Master
to whom Ireland had learnt to bow. And a worthy successor to
Patrick was she — Bridget the beloved, Bridget of Eirinn, the Mary
of the Gael! In the centre of the trinity of Irish patron saints
Patrick, Bridget and Colm Cille, she stands, crowned, the spiritual
queen of the race. And warmly and fondly as the memory of the
other two great ones is treasured in the Irish heart, it is doubtful
if their names evoke the deep, sweet and tender, overwhelming
affection that is breathed with the name of Bridget.*^

^ Oh, she was fair as a lily,

And holy as she was fair,
The Virgin Mary of Erin —

Brigid of green Kildare.
She came to earth when the snow drops

Were starring the rain-drenched sod.
The sweetest blossom among them,

From the far-oflF gardens of God.

O Brigid, so high and holy I

So strong in womanlv grace.
Look down from the sills of heaven

To-day on your olden race,
lis over the world we're scattered.

And vour land is a land of woe.
But we re holding you as a lodestar,

Whatever the roads we ga

For you are our pledge in heaven,

With Padraig and Colm Cille,
For the Faith by our foes unbroken.

And the hopes that they could not still ;

142

ST. BRIDGET 143

But not in Ireland alone is it a living thing, that intimate devo-
tion to her, the woman patron saint of the Gael, but wherever they
go and wherever they are they bear in their breast a little flame
of the perpetual fire of Kildare. And devotion to her is as sweet
and ardent among the simple islanders of Highland Scotland's
fjords as it is in the Western Aran, or on the Currach of Kildare.
The bare-footed maiden in Uist of Hebrides, driving the cows to
pasture, still chants — but in melodious Gaelic:

"The protection of God and Columba,
Encompass your going and coming,
And about you be the milk-maid of the smooth white palm,
Bridget of the clustering hair, golden brown."

Bridget was born just twenty years after the coming of Patrick,
about the year 450, at Fochart, near Dundalk. She met and heard
Patrick preach. According to an ancient tradition she slept a
mystic sleep once, during his preaching at Clogher, and had a sym-
bolic dream in which was shown her the future triumphs, and the
future trials of the faith in Ireland. Another tradition has it that
she aided in making his winding-sheet

It is the universal Irish claim upon Bridget which has called
forth legends giving every quarter of Ireland a proprietary right
upon the national treasure. So some traditions would have her
bom in the house of a Druid, at the court of the chieftain of Tir-
Conaill, of a Munster father and Connaught mother, while her
future home was to be Leinster.

Bridget's mother appears to have been a bond-maid in the
house of Bridget's father,' Dubtach, who was of royal descent,

For the surge of our prajrers unceasing.

For the depth of our love unpriced.
For our agony in earth's garden,

And our crucifixion with Christ.

And we cry to you, holy Brigid,

Tis you have the right to pray
For us in the land of Erin,

In the hour of our need to-day.
We breathe your name as a symbol.

Like the lamp on your altar set.
That God is an un forgetting God,

And will stand for our n^hting yet
Yea, He who so lon^ has tried us

In the flame of His purging fire,
Will give to the race of Brigid

The crown of their souls' desire.

— Temesa Brayton.

'Concubinage was, in ancient times, common in Ireland, as in almost all
countries.

144

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

tenth from King Feidlimid the Lawgiver. And the tradition goes
that just before Bridget's birth, her mother, like Hagar, was,
through the jealousy of the wife of Dubtach, driven forth upon
the world. She was sold into the service of a Druid — ^in whose
house Bridget was born, and in whose service she is said to have
lived to free her mother.

The Druid, when he had acquired the bond-maid and learnt
the cause of her selling foretold to Dubtach: "The seed of thy
wife shall serve the seed of the bond-maid, for the bond-maid wiU
bring forth a daughter conspicuous, radiant, who will shine like a
sun among the stars."'

« As Bridget grew up she became both a shepherd and a dairy-maid on the
Druid's farm — a dairy-maid, sweet, gentle and beautiful, with a disposition that
was perpetual sunshine in her clean white dairy, or in the woods with her sheep.
In these days Bridget's heart went out to all living things, to God's beasts and
birds as well as His mankind — on all which she lavished her love. And all in
return loved her. God, too, sent His blessing upon her and her work. "Every-
thing to which her hand was set," says ^ the Book of Lismore, "used to increase.
She tended the sheep ; she satisfied the birds ; she fed the poor."

Brid^^et cared for the milk of twelve cows. And when she took the butter she
made it mto twelve equal parts and one large part, in memory of Christ and the
apostles. And the large portion she gave to the poor and to the stranger — for
she used to say, "Christ is in the person of every faithful gruest"

And one of the legends of the Book of Lismore tells how, once, the Druid
and his wife learning that great quantities of their butter were being given away
by the dairy-maid came to the dairy to see for themselves, and to demand from
Bridget a hamper of butter for their own use. "Of butter, what has thou?" the
Druid demanded. Now it happened that Bridget, because of her generosity, had
only as much left as should come off one and one-half churning. Yet when her
master and mistress demanded a full hamper, she cheerfully went into her dairy-
kitchen, singing:

"Oh, my Prince

Who canst do all these things,
Bless, O God,
My kitchen with Thy right hand.

"My kitchen

The kitchen of the white God,
A kitchen which my King hath blessed,
A kitchen that hath butter.

"Mary's Son, my Friend, cometh
To bless my kitchen.
The Prince of the world to the border,
May we have abundance with Him."

In and out she went chanting, and in and out continuously bearing with her
from the kitchen, each time, the butter of half a churning till a large hamper was
filled. And says the tale in the Book of Lismore, "If the hampers which the men
of Munster possessed had been given her, she would fill them all."

Astonished at the miracle and the miracle-worker, the Druid exclaimed : "Both
the butter and the kine are thine. Thou shouldst be serving not me but the Lord.
"Take the kine," said Bridget, "and give me my mother's freedom." The Druid
thereupon gave her both the kine and her mother's freedom. She gave the kine
to the poor. The Druid and his wife were baptised, and were full of faith hence-
forward.

ST. BRIDGET . H5

When the maid, Bridget, a free woman, returned to her father's
house, she was so singularly graceful and beautiful, that the
fame of her spread far and near. Ardent wooers, in the person
of champions, chieftains, young princes in numbers, came to
woo her for wife. But she refused them all — -for she had re-
solved to be the bride of Christ This her father did not like —
much less her stepmother who became intensely jealous of
her. But her father's objections increased, and her step-
mother's dislike for Bridget multiplied many times, when they
discovered that the luxurious excess for which their house
had been famed, was melting away, by reason of Bridget's
bestowing their substance upon the poor who crowded to

her.

At the instigation of his wife, Dubtach, for peace sake had to
decide to put Bridget away, just as he had once put away her
mother. So he took her with him in his chariot to the Palace of
Dunlaing MacEnda, King of Leinster. "It is not for honour or
reverence to thee thou art carried in a chariot," he said to her, as
they went, "but to take thee to sell thee to grind the quern for Dun-
laing MacEnda.'*

When he reached Dunlaing*s residence he left Bridget in the
chariot while he went to see the King. But, so notorious had she
become for her unstinted giving that he left with her in the chariot
nothing which she might in his absence bestow on the poor — ^noth-
ing but his sword. As, however, a leper, coming down the way,
begged charity of her, and that she had nothing else to give him,
she gave him her father's sword.

When her father returned with Dunlaing MacEnda, and dis-
covered what she had done, he was mightily provoked. He ap-
pealed to the King saying: "Thou seest for thyself why I am
forced to sell this daughter of mine."

And Dunlaing said to her: "Neither can I take you into my
house, for since it is thine own father's wealth that thou takest and
givest away, much more wilt thou take my wealth, and my cattle,
and give them to the poor."

To which Bridget replied: "The Son of the Virgin knoweth
that if I had thy might with all Leinster and all wealth, I would
give them to the Lord of the elements."

Then Dunlaing said to Dubtach: "It is not meet for us to
deal with this maiden. Her merit before the Lord is higher than
ours."

And so was Bridget saved from a second slavery.

146

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

She was veiled* with seven other virgins by Bishop Macaille
whose church was in that part now called Kings County. And
the inevitable legends that grew up around all of Ireland's be-
loved record that, when she was taking her vows, in the wooden
pillar of the altar-rail on which she rested her hand the sap circu-
lated and the pillar became green, and bloomed again.

She went into Connaught — ^where her piety and charity, her
faith and her work, were such that she quickly became the most
famous personage there. Her Leinster people, learning of her
fame, sent to her, besought her to come home to them, and offered
a habitation at Kildare to her and the great number of followers
she had now gathered around her. Bridget accepted — and there
then, she founded the Church of the Oak, and founded the Mon-
astery of Kildare which was to be famous for all time. She
founded also the little less famous school of Kildare. This was in
the latter years of the fifth century. Her home in Kildare became
a centre of religion and of learning, of piety and of lore, whose
fame almost rivalled the fame of Patrick's See itself, at Armagh.
Great were the crowds that resorted here, not only from all Lein-
ster, but from every corner of Ireland. Crowds of poor came seek-
ing material relief; crowds of the pious to satisfy their souls;
crowds of students who thirsted for knowledge — all classes came —
those in wealth and those in want; the humble and the haughty;
learned and illiterate; chieftain and bondman, layman and eccle-
siastic— all attracted by the piety and wisdom, the goodness and
greatness, of the foremost woman of the Gael.

Yet the humility of this noble woman remained such that often-
times when the very greatest sought her, they found her not in the
hall nor the church, but, though it might be blowing or snowing,
off in the fields herding the cattle that gave milk to the monastery,
or the sheep that gave them wool.*

*The Tripartite life of St. Patrick implies that in his day he consecrated mins
— that they even thronged to him from abroad. Nine daughters of the King of
the Lombards, it says, came to Patrick, over the sea, and a daughter of the King
of Britain. It is also said that he veiled the daughters of Laoghaire, the two prin-
cesses, Ethni of the Golden Hair, and Fedelm the Ruddy. "Patrick put a white veil
upon their heads, and having received the Body and Blood, they fell asleep in deadi.
Patrick laid them side by side on the one mantle, and in the same bed."

5 It was herding thus she was, when occurred the little incident that is related
of Ninnid and herself.

Ninnid from Loch Erne whose name as a saint was afterwards to be fameo
was then a little lad studying at the school of Kildare. On a morning when she
sat herding her sheep on the currach, enveloped in a cloak that hid her identity,
the little Ninnid came running past — ^probably in fear of being late for his class.
The cloaked nun called out, asking him why he ran. "O nun," the ready-witted
boy replied, "I am going to Heaven." "Well," said the nun, "won't you pause and
make prayer with me that it may be easy for me to go?" "O nun," replied the

ST. BRIDGET 147

Once when Bishop Conlaeth (whom she had selected for the
See of Kildare) preached to the sisterhood upon the Beatitudes
she proposed to the nuns that each sister should take one of the
Beatitudes as her special object of devotion, she herself character-
istically choosing Mercy.

In those days many Bishops were skilled in trades — ^which
were then considered noble and ennobling. Her bishop Conlaeth
was a fine artificer, skilled in doing beautiful work in metal. He
is supposed to have taught decorative metal art in the school of
Kildare, which was a centre of that art. Here they turned out
chalices, bells, patens and shrines, beautifully ornamented. The
art of working in metal was particularly prized in Ireland then:
many devoted themselves to it and much tasteful work was pro-
duced. Of the multitude of presents that were given to Bridget
and her monastery and her church by those who were constantly
thronging there, it is recorded that the queen of Crimthann, the son
of Enna Ceannselach, gave to Bridget a silver chain of which the
Book of Lismore says: "The semblance of a human shape was
on one of the ends thereof, and an apple of silver at the other
end."

Bridget made many journeys through the south and west of
Ireland, consulting, counselling and directing the spiritual leaders,
spreading the faith wheresoever she went, and inspiring great num-
bers to devote themselves to the service of Christ. And where-
soever she was, at home or abroad, crowds of people were con-
stantly thronging to this wonderful woman. The rich came with
gifts, the poor came for help; the sick came for healing. She is
recorded to have worked many miracles by the power of her sur-
passing faith — a faith so powerful that it is related that a woman
consumptive who touched her shadow was instantly healed. The
belief of the people in her power begot many legends — one of these
telling us that she was once seen to hang her wet cloak, for drying,
on a ray of sunshine.*

hurrying boy, "I cannot, for the gates of Heaven open now, and if I delay they
may be shut against me." But she insisted, "Pray to the Lord with me that it may
be easy for me to go, and I'll pray to the Lord with you that it may be easy for
you to go— and to bring thousands."

Ninnid, thus persuaded, knelt down with Bridget and prayed. And it was
ordained that this lad would help to smooth her way to Heaven — he was to give
her, at her passing away, the last rites.

And it was this praying of Bridget's on the currach with the little scholar,
Ninnid, that constituted her the natron of students.

* Of an old blind sister, Dara, whose sight she had restored, it is told that she
hegged to be darkened again —

Yet she said, my sister,
Blind me once again,

148

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Cogitosus, a monk of Kildare, who In the eighth century wrote
the life of Bridget says, "Uncountable were the numbers who
flocked to her: the sick for healing; and the rich with gifts."

This was not by any means the first life of Bridget written.
Bishop Ultan of Ardbreccain, who is frequently styled a brother
of Bridget's, collected the virtues and miracles of Bridget, and
commanded his disciple Brogan to put them into poetry.^

A wonderful description of Bridget's Church at Kildare is
given by Cogitosus which is evidently imaginary of that day, but
which Dr. Petrie (in his "Round Towers") affirms was real for
Cogitosus' own day. Cogitosus says that in that church in Kildare
"repose the bodies of Bishop Conlaeth and his holy virgin, Bridget,
on the rijght and left of the decorated altar, deposited In monu-
ments adorned with various embellishments of gold and silver
gems and precious stones, with crowns of gold and silver depend-
ing from above, elevated to a menacing height and adorned with
painted pictures . . . one partition decorated and painted with fig-
ures and covered with linen hangings."

Bridget, it is said, took the Blessed Mother, Mary, as her
model. "She was following the manners and the life," says one
account, "which the Holy Mother of Jesus had." "It was this
Bridget, too," says O'Clery's Martyrology, "that did not take her
mind or her attention from the Lord for the space of one hour at
any time, but was constantly mentioning Him, and ever constantly
thinking of Him. She was hospitable and charitable, and humble,
and attended to herding sheep and early rising."

Lest His presence in me
Groweth less plain.
Stars and dawn and sunset
Keep till Paradise,
Here His face sufHceth
For my sightless eyes.

Oh, she said, my sister,

Night is beautiful

Where His face is showing

Who was mocked as fool.

More than star or meteor.

More than moon or sun.

Is the thorn-crowned forehead

Of the Holy One.

— Katherine Tynan Hinkson.
' Ultan, however, could not have been her kin-brother, for his death is recorded
only in the year 656, when he died of the great plague — during which he had been
father to the flocks of orphans which that plague, the buidhe'Chonaill, made m
Eirinn. O'Der/s Martyrology says "Ultan of Ardbreccain used to feed with h"
own hands every child who had no support in Eirinn — so that he often had fi'^
and thrice fifty with him together."

ST. BRIDGET 149

Bridget made Kildare truly great. The old annalists who made
a point of recording the names of abbots of monasteries, but not
abbesses, always, however made exception to their rule in the case
of the abbesses of Kildare. And because of the priority that
Bridget's greatness gave it, Kildare's abbess came to be looked
up to by all the nuns of Ireland, just as the Primate of Armagh
was looked up to by all the clerics.

In her day, because of her power, she ruled the monks of Kil-
dare as well as the nuns. Before she died it was said that as many
as thirty religious houses were under her obedience. It is recorded
that for nearly a thousand years her name was honoured, and her
feast was celebrated, in every Cathedral Church from Grisons to
the German Sea. As many as thirty Continental cities are quoted
for their devotion, in the middle ages, to Irish Bridget.

Four years after the birth of Colm Cille, Bridget died — in 525
— ^leaving Ireland in mourning. And they mourned for Bridget
as they had never mourned for any, high or low, simple or gentle
— ^wlth the possible exception of Patrick. And in the one tomb
with Patrick at Down, was interred Ireland's greatest woman, Ire-
land's Bridget, the Mary of the Gael.

"It was she who never turned her attention from tfie Lord for
one hour, but was constantly meditating and thinking of Him in her
heart and mind, as is evident in her own life and in that of St.
Brendan, Bishop of Cluain-Ferta. She spent her time diligently
serving the Lord, performing wonders and miracles, healing every
disease and malady, until she resigned her spirit to heaven on the
first day of the month of February, and her body was interred at
Dun, in the same tomb with St. Patrick, with honour and veneration."

And the Book of Lismore :

"For, everything Bridget asked, the Lord granted at once. For
this was her desire: to satisfy the poor; to expel every hardship; to
relieve every misery. Now never hath there been any one more
bashful, modest, gentle, humble, more sage, more harmonious than
Bridget She was abstinent, innocent, prayerful, patient, glad in
God's commandments, firm, humble, forgiving, loving. She was a
consecrated casket for holding Christ's Body and Blood. She was
. a temple of God. She was simple toward God; compassionate to-
ward the wretched ; she was splendid in miracles and marvels ; where-
fore her name among created things is like unto a dove among the
birds, a vine among trees, the sun among stars.

"She is the prophetess of Christ: She is the Queen of the South.
She is the Mary of the Gael."

I50

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Stokes, Whitley, D.CL., LL.D.: Lives of the Saints from the Book of

Lismore.
Healy, The Most Rev. Jno., D.D., LL.D., Archbbhop of Tuam: Ireland's

Ancient Schools and Scholars.
Lannigan, Rev. John, D.D. : E^cdesiastical History of Ireland.
Joyce, P. W. : Social History of Ancient Ireland.
Reeves, The Rev. Wm., D.D.: The Martyrology of Donegal ("O'Clery's

CoL"), a Calendar of the Saints of Erin. (Edited by Dr. Reeves and

Dr. Todd conjointly.)
O'Hanlon, The Rev. Jno., Canon : Lives of the Irish Saints.

CHAPTER XXII

WOMEN IN ANCIENT IRELAND

The fact that in such remote time as the fifth century a woman
could command the respect, the reverence, and moral obedience
which were so fully and freely rendered to Bridget will naturally
surprise the many who reflect that in most countries it is only a few
centuries since women came out of semi-bondage.

But, in Ireland, from the remotest time of which we have any
record, historical or legendary, woman stood emancipated, and
was oftentimes eligible for the professions, and for rank and fame.
In the dimmest, most ancient legends, casual references to druid-
esses, poetesses, women physicians and women sages, prove that
in the very remote days in which these legends were created, there
was nothing uncommon or surprising in women filling these posi-
tions. In one of the oldest, if not the oldest, of all invocations in
Irish legendary lore, the invocation of Amerg^n, son of Milesius,
praying to the gods for the safe landing of their company against
which the Tuatha De Danann were raising magic storms, he says :
"Let the learned wives of Breas and Buaigne pray that we may
reach the noble woman, great Eirinn."

The ancient Irish had a goddess, Bridget, who represented
poetry and wisdom — and, as before mentioned, they had a mortal
Bridget who was a famous lawgiver — whose faws and sayings were
instanced} and her decisions followed as precedents, by her learned
successors, well down into historical times. She was either wife
or daughter of Senchan, the OUam of Ulster, at Conor Mac-
Nessa's court.

Woman was then nearly on an equality with man. Particu-
larly great women compelled the admission of this equality, and
sometimes of superiority, too. Still, the man-made laws took care
to throw the weight of authority in the scale with the so-called
lord of Creation. Although the Crith Gablach, in discussing the
privileges of a man of the noble classes, lays down the dictum, "To
his wife belongs the right to be consulted on every subject," and
although before a Brehon's court the husband and wife stood on

151

152

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

equal terms, still the law held that the man had headship in the
marriage union. Then, however, it proceeds to safeguard the
rights of the wife. For it says that though he had headship of
the two, he did not own her. "It is only contract that is between
them," says the law.

Again, insisting on the man's superior privileges the old com-
mentator on the Senchus Mor, while admitting that the laws therein
were equally for the women as well as for the men, goes on to ex-
plain why it is entitled the Senchus of the Men of Eirinn. "It is
proper, indeed," he says, "that it should be so called, so as to give
superiority to the noble sex, that is to the male, for the man is the
head of the woman. Man is more noble than the woman."

This is the hard, dry lawyer of it. The poet of that day was
very far from agreeing with the lawyer on this point, though it
must be admitted that while the poet proved the fair sex nobler
than the other, he generously did so in spite of the fact that in
common with the less visionary part of mankind, he still believed
her to be the sole cause of man's downfall — as witnesseth this an-
cient Irish poem. Eve's Lament.*

That it was not considered unwise to open the schools to women
is shown by a hundred references in the old records. It will be re-
membered that Patrick, when he came to the palace of Cruachan
found there the two princesses, Fedelm and Eithne, King Lao-

1 From Kuno Meyer's "Ancient Irish Poetry."

"I am Eve, great Adam's wife,
'Tis I that outraged Jesus of old ;
*Tis I that robbed my children of Heaven,
By right 'tis I that should have gone upon the cross.

"I had a kingly house to please,
Grievous the evil choice that disgraced me,
Grievous the wicked advice that withered me !
Alas ! my hand is not pure.

" 'Tis I that plucked the apple,
Which went across my gullet:
So long as they endure in the light of day,
So long women will not cease from folly.

"There would be no ice in any place,
There would be no glistening windy winter.
There would be no hell, there would be no sorrow.
There would be no fear, if it were not for me."

WOMEN IN ANCIENT IRELAND 153

ghaire's daughters, under the tuition of Mai and Coplait. We
hear of the delg-graif, the writing style, of the mother of King
Brandubh, in the sixth century. When, in the sixth century also,
St. Brendan the Navigator, after he had mastered the canons of
the old law and the New Testament was about to set out to the
school of Jarlath at Tuam to add to his store of lore that of the
rules of the saints of Ireland, his foster-mother Ita, the Book of
Lismore tells us, warned him: "Study not with women, nor with
virgins, lest some one revile thee." And St. Ita herself was a
teacher of girls. When St. Mugint went over and founded a
school in Scotland in the seventh century, we are given to under-
stand that girls studied there as well as boys. At the school of St.
Finian at Clonard, in the sixth century, women attended. For we
learn incidentally that when the daughter of the King of Cualann
came to it, to learn to read her psalms, Finian put the girl in the
companionship of his favourite pupil, Ciaran, with whom she read
them. As it was in the Latin that the Bible was read at those
schools it follows that some women even studied the classics then.

Under date A. D. 932, the Annals of the Four Masters chron-
icle the death of Uallach, the daughter of Muinnechan, the chief
poetess of Ireland — one of many Irish poetesses. Famous female
rulers and famous mothers and wives of male rulers, such as Taillte
and Tea and Macha — and fine warriors, too, like Medb — are en-
shrined in the accounts of the ancient seanachies.

Of course it is not for a moment to be understood that in early
Ireland the education of woman was of the same importance as
that of man — very far from it. The instances are given only for
purpose of showing that women were not excluded from the privi-
leges of education, nor was there any prejudice against their ac-
quiring the learning of the schools. In the various centuries and
in the various generations some of the more ambitious of them
sought and obtained such an education, at least from the days of
Patrick downward. And through all the centuries some of them
acquired fame in this, just as they did in other lines of what is con-
sidered man's endeavour. There is, in the old Book of Ballymote
a sort of history in prose and verse of Eirinn's famous women
down to the time of the English Invasion.

By reason of their equality or near equality with man in other
realms, women warriors frequently felt it their duty to take up
arms and march into battle with their brothers or husbands. It
was only in 697 that they were exempted from warfare — by the
influence of St. Adamnan at the Synod of Tara in that year. The
law that exempted them is known as the Cain Adamnan. The

154

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Feilire of Aongus describes how Adamnan was moved by his
mother to fight for this exemption, "It came to pass that Adamnan
once travelling in Magh Breagh with his mother on his back saw
two battalions smiting each other. It happened, moreover, that
Ronait (his mother) saw a woman with an iron sickle," so bar-
barously tearing to pieces one of her own sex that she, Ronait, laid
it on Adamnan to rest not until he had obtained the passing of a
law that would prevent such savagery among women forever after.

In Ireland, after marriage, the woman did not become a chattel
— thus radically differing from the usual custom in the other coun-
tries of Europe. Before marriage she was wooed and courted
like the superior being which, later, she was acknowledged to be
in all countries. In the exercise of the acknowledged privileges of
a superior being she could scorn and frown down the attentions of
chieftains and kings — and scholars, too — send them home with
hanging heads, and choose whomsoever her heart went out to.
And after marriage she was not — as unfortunately was too gener-
ally the case elsewhere — ^the property of her husband. "It was
contract that was between them." In the eyes of the law, they
were partners in a matrimonial venture — ^with the husband, how-
ever, the leading partner. And so very far in the lead was the
Irish law that under it the wife could remain sole owner of prop-
erty that had been her own before marriage. Also, such property
as was jointly owned by them could not be sold or signed away by
the husband. Their rights in the joint property were equal; and
the voluntary consent of both was necessary for its disposal. This
is a remarkable acknowledgment of the equality of the women of
Ireland with the men in the remotest days — above all, an equality
persisting after marriage, when, down to very recent days, even in
highly advanced countries, all such rights were insured to the hus-
band.

A married woman retained the right, too, in her own person
to pursue a case at law, and in her own person to recover for debt.
In this connection it may be mentioned that when a woman levied
upon the goods of a debtor, she distrained such things as were ap-
propriate for women; such animals, for instance, as lap-dogs or
sheep ; such articles as spindles, mirrors, or comb-bags.

Because of the primary importance of military duty, and the
necessity of having men liable therefor — in ancient Ireland, as in
all ancient countries, the man had the preference over the woman
in the inheriting of land. If there was a son he inherited the land
in preference to a daughter — ^who, however, got coibche, marriage
portion, out of the general estate. The daughter, however, in-

WOMEN IN ANCIENT IRELAND 155

herited the land if there was no son. But by virtue of her getting
the land she had to provide and pay a warrior when a military
levy was made. It is said that it was the famous law-wise Brigid
Brethra, Brigid of the Judgments, who, about the time of Christ,
gave the legal decision which granted this right to women.

A woman's coibche, tinnscra, or tochra,'' as the marriage por-
tion was variously called, took the form of gold or silver, animals,
clothes or household articles. But the term coibche, although often-
times used for dowry, was more properly the price which the bride-
groom paid to the father of the bride, or to the bride herself—
after the marriage had been consummated. The very old laws
laid it down that the coibche should be paid In yearly instalments,
the whole of the first year's instalment going to the bride's father,
two-thirds of the second year's to him, one-half of the third year's,
and on decreasingly. To the wife went the remainder.

There was another payment at marriage, called tinol, a collec-
tive g^ft made by the friends to the lanamain (young couple). In
this tinol the man had two-thirds right and the woman one-third.

Whether she did or did not bring anything else, however, the
wife practically always brought into the marriage contract her own
articles of industry, her distaff, spinning wheel, spindle, loom, etc.
In the few cases in which she did not bring these, she had a con-
siderably lower legal standing in the partnership.

There were certain cases of legal separation — for legal separa-
tion for good cause then existed — in which it was adjudged the
right of the wife to take with her all of the marriage portion and
the marriage gifts, and an amount over and above that for dam-
ages.

The old laws as well as the old stories everywhere testify that
Irish women of ancient days devoted much attention to dress,
toilet and the general care and adornment of the person. The
finger-nails received much attention; and well-kept finger-nails sig-
nified that their possessor was a person of taste. The nails of the
women of leisure were dyed crimson. The eye-brows also were
dyed, usually black — ^with berry juice. A vegetable dye was some-
times used to tint the face. But the care of the hair was the most
elaborate of all — and this applied to men (who then wore their
hair long) as well as to women. Much time and attention were
bestowed upon the hair's combing and dressing. The oldest illu-
minated manuscripts reflect this. It was beautifully curled in spiral
curls, both in front and hanging down to either side. It was

* Hence the Scottish "todier."

156 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

braided down the back, and confined at the end with golden rings,
or with light, hollow, golden balls. Women's hair was sometimes,
however, bound up, and held in position by golden rings. There
were beautiful combs of bone or horn, which were carried in cioT'
bolgs (comb-bags). The bath was regularly indulged in — ^by the
men as well as the women. The Fenians bathed every evening be-
fore they took their great meal. It was considered a shameful
breach of hospitality if a bath was not at once prepared for the
traveller and the stranger in the house that he honoured by his
presence.

Gloves and veils were worn by the fine ladies. Maidens went
with their heads uncovered ; but married women wore on their heads
either a hood, or a roll of linen, folded around several times.
Their dress of woollen, linen, silk or satin, was oftentimes a single
garment falling to the ankles, and consisting sometimes of as much
as thirty yards of stuff, tastefully gathered in many and deep folds.
And over this dress was worn out of doors a long cloak.

Many of their ancient ornaments and their beautiful toilet ar-
ticles are still preserved. Very beautifully wrought brooches of
silver, and gold, and bronze; great pins for the hair and pins for
the cloak; leathern handbags, with embossed patterns for carrying
their personal ornaments; veils and gloves; beautiful combs; mir-
rors, too, called scadarcs; may be seen in the museum of the Royal
Irish Academy and in the National Museum. They had scented
oils for toilet use. They had furs also — skins of the otter, seal
and badger.

Chivalrous respect for women, both the married and the un-
married, was a characteristic feature of Irish life in all ages. And
the natural chivalry of true men it was that was shown to them, not
at all the artificial thing which in later days and in other countries
was the base counterfeit substituted for the real thing. True
courtesy, respect and honour were accorded the women, every time
and everywhere. Most ancient accounts of the most ancient revels
show that the women were seldom permitted to be present. They
had their own part of the house, where they talked and worked,
played and sang, while the men revelled. The account of the Fair
of Carmen shows that the women there had a place apart, where
they could meet and commingle, and which the law of the Fair for-
bade men to enter. In the chief residences and palaces, always, the
women had their own special wing of the house exclusively re-
served for them. It was known as the Grianan, signifying the
sunny part.

An apparent exception to the rule that women were excused

WOMEN IN ANCIENT IRELAND 157

from the revel, occurs in the well-known very ancient account of
the feast of Bricriu, where the women are made to play a part
which is popularly supposed to be characteristic of woman's nature

and which shows that womanly rivalry in those far-away days

was the same human quality that it is in the world to-day.

Bricriu's feast was not a common revel. It was a great feast
of almost national importance, the preparations for which occu-
pied a whole year and which was attended by all the great ones of
Ulster. The satirist and cynic, Bricriu of the Poison Tongue, who
was the host of this wonderful feast, seeking to indulge his malev-
olence by creating dissension among the bright heroes of the prov-
ince, attained his end by artfully playing upon the natural vanity
of their beautiful wives. Cuchullain's wife, Emer the Discreet,
Conal Ceamach's wife, Lendabair the Fair, and Laoghaire Bua-
dach's wife, Fedelm the Ever-blooming, he made his unwitting tools.

For this feast there was specially built by Bricriu a magnificent
house which "excelled in material and art, beauty and gracefulness,
in pillars and walls, and variety, and in porticoes and doors, all the
houses of the time."

Fergus MacRiogh, knowing well the evil Bricriu, wisely tried
to dissuade the Ulster champions from going to this feast — "Be-
cause," he said, "if we should go, our dead would be more numer-
ous than our living."

But they went — to their black sorrow. When they were assem-
bled Bricriu took well-planned opportunity to speak privately in
the ear of each of these beautiful ladies, impressing on her with all
the insinuating power of a poet, that she was by far the most beau-
tiful, lustrous, the greatest and first, of the women of Ulster, just
as her husband was the greatest and noblest man and champion.

"Well done this night, thou wife of Laoghaire Buadach. It is
no nick-name to call thee Fedelm the Ever'bkwming, because of the
excellence of thy shape, and because of thy intelligence, and because
of thy family. Conchobar, the king of the chief province of Eirinn,
is thy father, and Laoghaire Buadach thy husband. New I would
not think it too much for thee that none of the women of Ulster
should come before thee into the banqueting house; but that it
should be after thy heels that the whole band of die women of
Ulster should come (and I say to thee that) if it be thou that shalt
be the first to enter the house this night, thou shalt be queen over
all the odier women of .Ulster."

In like manner did he whisper to each of them. When the ser-
pent, Bricriu, whispered in the pleased ear of these fair ladies,

158 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

each of them, accompanied by her fifty attendants, was strolling out
to take the air, upon the lawn of Bricriu's magnificent house. And
as he had told each of them that when they were returning the
first woman to enter the hall of the festivities should be queen of
the whole province, we can easily conjecture that the return was
exciting —

"The three women moved on then till they reached the same
place, that is, three ridges from the house; and none of them knew
that the other had been spoken to by Bricrind. They returned to
the house then. They passed over the first ridge with a quiet, grace-
ful, dignified carriage ; hardly did any one of them put one foot be-
yond another. In the second ridge their steps were closer and
guicker. On the ridge nearest to the house each woman sought to
forcibly take the lead of her companions ; and they even took up their
dresses to the calves of their legs, vieing with eadi other who should
enter the house first; because what Bricrind said to each, unknown,
to the others, was that she who should first enter the house should be
queen of the whole province. And such was the noise they made
in their contest to enter the kingly house, that it was like the rush
of fifty chariots arriving there ; so that they shook the whole kingly
house, and the champions started up for their arms, each striking liis
face against the other throughout the house."

The fine virtues and accomplishments which went to the mak-
ing of a perfect woman in ancient Ireland, were well exemplified
in this Emer, wife of Cuchullain, one of the most famed women in
ancient Irish story. "The six maidenly gifts of Emer" faithfully
reflect for us what was the popular conception then of a desirable
maiden. They were : "Beauty of person, beauty of voice, the gift
of music, knowledge of embroidery, knowledge of needle-work, and
the gift of wisdom and virtuous chastity."

And when we are first introduced to Emer, we find her at
needlework in the midst of a group of maidens likewise engaged,
outside the Dun of her father Forgaill. It is when Cuchullain
arrives to pay her court. She is shown shy, demure, and self-deny-
ing, hesitant about permitting herself to be wooed, and endeavour-
ing to pass the coveted honour to her elder sister. Such is the poet's
reflection of the popular conception of maidenly modesty, and
maidenly excellence, in the far-away time.

Yet for all their maidenly modesty and true womanliness, the
women of ancient Ireland were sensible of the fact that they were
man's equal, and where necessary could insist upon equal treatment.
A very fine instance of this is the case related in the Book of Lis-

WOMEN IN ANCIENT IRELAND 159

niore of Canair the Pious. She was a holy maiden of the Benn-
traighe who lived the life of a holy hermit there, in the days when
Saint Senan, having his monastery and school on Inis-Cathaig, for-
bade any woman to come upon the island. The Book says that
Canair, praying after nocturne one night, saw as in a vision all
the churches of Ireland sending up towers of fire to Heaven. But
the greatest of the great fire towers went up from Inis-Cathaig.
"Fair is yon cell I" exclaimed Canair. "Thither will I go that my
resurrection may be near it." But Senan, meeting her on her ar-
rival on his shore, commanded her: "Go to thy sister on yon
island east, for guesting. No woman shall enter here." To which
the indignant Canair, fired for her sex and their rights, answered :
"How canst thou say that? Christ is no worse than thou. Christ
came to redeem women, no less than men. No less did He suffer
for sake of women. Women have given ser^ce and tendance unto
Christ and His apostles. No less than men do women enter the
heavenly kingdom. Why then shouldst thou not take women to
thee in thine island?"

And this able pleader won over the Saint, and for once shat-
tered his rigid rule.

It was this respect for women, permeating society in every age
in Ireland, that gave such moral fibre to the Irish race as enabled
it not only to persist through later long and fearful centuries of
oppression unparalleled, under which other races would have dis-
appeared— not only to persist through these terrors, but to come
out of them still morally stronger than almost any other of the most
favoured peoples of Europe. God and Bridget blessed the race
that blessed the name of Woman.

Sullivan, W. K., Ph.D. : Introduction to O'Curry's Manners and Customs.
Joyce, P. W. : Social History of Ancient Ireland.
Henderson, Geo., M.A., Ph.D. : Fled Bricrend, the Feast of Bricriu.
O'Cuny, Eugene: Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish.

Manuscript Materials of Irish History.

Brehon Laws: the Ancient Laws of Ireland.

CHAPTER XXIII

COLM CILLE

Among native Irish saints Colm Cille (Columba) divides the hon-
ours with Bridget in the affections of the Irish people — divides the
honours for greatness also, some say. But when we consider the
works he performed, the monasteries he founded, the power he
wielded over princes and provinces, the veneration he compelled
from three countries, and the Christian reclamation of which he
was the direct cause, added to the powerful personality of the man,
which holds him as a living presence in Ireland and Scotland more
than thirteen centuries after the green sod of Hy was drawn over
him, we recognise that he was without a peer among native Irish
saints — and had only one peer — which is to say, Patrick — among
all the saints of Western Europe. And in Northern Ireland and
Western Scotland he has outranked Patrick himself in the power
he has wielded over the imagination of the people. With Patrick
and Bridget, Colm Cille also is one of the great personages of the
universal Church.

Colm Cille was of Irish royal stock, very close in the line of
succession to the kingship of Tir-Conaill, and the high-kingship of
Ireland. Indeed one of his historians says : "He had the natural
right to the kingship of Ireland, and it would have been offered
him had he not put it from him for God's sake." He was a de-
scendant in the third degree from Conal Gulban, the founder of
the principality of Tir-Conaill, and consequently in the fourth de-
gree from Niall of the Nine Hostages. He was born a nephew of
the then reigning High-king, Muircertach MacErca. And a High-
king who reigned later in Colm's career, Ainmire, was his cousin.
His father, Feidlimid, was chieftain of the particular territory of
Tir-Conaill, in which he was born. And his mother, Eithne, was
daughter of a Munster chief, of the line of Cathair Mor. It was
only in a time when, as then, the fires of Christianity glowed at
white heat, that a man of such, and so many, royal entanglements
could turn his back upon wealth, rank and power, and give himself
to God.

160

COLM CILLE i6i

Colm is said to have been baptised Crimthann, when he was
born at Gartan (Donegal) in the year 521. Some think it was in
his days of study under St. Finian of Moville (in Down) that,
from this gentle boy's haunting the church in the hours between
study-times his fellow-pupils gave him the name of Colm Cille,
Dove of the Church.

He was fostered and tutored in his earlier days by a priest
pamed Cruithnechan, at the place which is now called Temple
Douglas— only a few miles from his birthplace. He went to three
or four other schools later, for his higher education — ^to the school
of St. Finian of Moville, as mentioned, where he is said to have
been made deacon; later to the other and greater St. Finian, of
Clonard, to study divine wisdom. There he was a fellow-pupil to
a band of youths who were to be, with him, among Ireland's great-
est. He was one of that band of Finian's pupils who came to be
known as the Twelve Apostles of Eirinn.

For Colm, Finian had a great liking — ^took that liking the first
day that the youth from Tir-Conaill appeared at his school. For
he asked the lad to erect his hut at the door of the church. Finian
had a mystic dream later regarding Colm and his other favourite,
Ciaran of Clonmacnois. It appeared to him that there arose in
the sky a moon of gold from the horizon in the northeast, and a
moon of silver over the midlands. The latter lighted the whole
centre of Ireland; but the former, the golden moon, lit up all Erin
and Alba, and the whole western world, with its brilliance and
radiance.*

Colm returned home to Tir-Conaill in 544 because of the
Buidhe Chonaill, the dreadful pestilence that swept Ireland several
times in those centuries — and which at this particular time, broke
up and scattered the great schools, sending the pupils in drifts to
hqmes oversea, as well as to homes in Eirinn — and which now car-
ried off several of the leading teachers, and some of the leading
saints of Ireland, including the famous saint and scholar, Ciaran,
the founder of Clonmacnois.

It is generally agreed * that Colm was ordained to the priest-

* Either before or after his career at Qonard he attended in Leinster the
bardic school of one Gannan, where he is supposed to have had his well-faiown
poetic talents developed, and ^his poetic training perfected. Finally, he is believed
by some to have been studying at St Mobi's school at Glasnevin with Comgall
and Cainnech as his companious. Lanigan, however, denies that he was at St.
Mobi's school. And indeed the only proof on which it rests is the tradition of
himself and his fellow-pupils, on the nig^t of a storm, on which the River Tolka
was swollen, swinuning the river rather than miss vespers at the church on the
opposite bank.

2 Lannigan denies this also.

1 62 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

hood while at Clonard. It throws an interesting light on the char-
acter of the ecclesiastics in early Christian Ireland, several of
whom we know, by authentic record, to have been artisans, to learn
that when the boy sought out Bishop Etchen for his ordination,
he found him ploughing his field.

He was about twenty-four or twenty-five years of age when he
returned home from school. His close kinsman, the Prince of Tir-
Conaill, gave him a grant of land, a hill of oaks near where the
river Foyle debouches into the Loch of the same name — ^where he
founded his famous monastery of Derry. As a love for all of
God's living things was a marked characteristic of almost all the
early Irish saints, we find Colm, when erecting his monastery here,
breaking a precedent, that was not only honoured but blest, by re-
fusing to build his church with its chancel towards the east---be-
cause he was thereby able to spare the life of many oak-trees.'

His next foundation, after Derry, was the monastery of Dur-
row (in the present Kings County) — founded seven or eight years
later. His missionary activity now became extraordinary. He
was travelling east and west, preaching, exhorting, organising com-
munities, founding monasteries. He founded Kells, Swords, Drum-
colum, Drumcliff, Screen, Kilglass and Drumhome, and many, many
more. In all he is said to have founded thirty monasteries in
Northern Ireland — ^before yet he was exiled, which event occurred
in 562, when he was forty-two years of age.

His exile, the greatest, saddest event of his life, for which
calamity through all his years after he never ceased to grieve, was
yet fraught with seeds of happy blessing for the neighbouring coun-
tries to which he and his disciples were to bear the tidings of Christ.
The reason of Colm's exile, the terriblest sentence that could be

'After he left Derry and left Ireland we find him in his beautifully pathetic
lament for exile telling how the angels crowded every leaf of the oaks of
Derry, listening to the monks chanting the psalms, both at midnight and
at mom. For, through the beautiful years that he spent there building up the
community, and making the monastery a temple of the living God, the hol}^ man's
heart sent down its roots deep into Derry hilL His soul was sorely pained at
parting from his many monasteries, but it got a most woful wrench whe6 he had
to tear his heart's roots from among the roots of the oak wherewith they had
mingled on his beloved Derry hill.

. "The reason that I love Derry is,
For its peace, for its purity.
And for its crowds of white angels,
^ From one end to the other.

"O Derry, my own little grove.
My dwelling, my dear little cell I
O Eternal God in Heaven above.
Woe be to him who violates itl**

COLM CILLE 163

pronounced against one of the most passionate patriots that Eirinn
ever produced, is alleged to have been a penance for causing the
great battle of Cuildremne (in Sligo) where a host of lives were
lost. And the causes of his instigating this battle are popularly
supposed to be two : because the Ard-Righ, Diarmuid O'Carroll,
in the first place adjudged a case against him — ^unfairly, as Colm
believed; and because, furthermore, Diarmuid violated monastic
sanctuary and carried away and punished with death a homicide
who had taken sanctuary with the saint.

The case adjudged against him affected a copy of the Psalms
which he, Colm, had made surreptitiously from the book of his mas-
ter, Finian of Moville. When Finian discovered that his pupil had
made and carried off a copy he claimed its return as stolen prop-
erty. The case was laid before the High King, Diarmuid, who,
after hearing argument on both sides, delivered the sententious
judgment which was popularised ever after in Ireland, "Le gach
boin a boinin" — to every cow her calf — a verdict which, as it would
make the copy Finian's, Xlolm hotly resented and rejected.*

After this Cuildremne slaughter (in 561) the impetuous Colm
gave way to remorse that bit into his soul. His biographer, Adam-
nan, says there was a synod held at Taillte shortly after, where a
motion was made to excommunicate Colm, for his crime — ^which
would have been carried but that his bosom friend, Brendan of
Birr, held out against the other members and saved Colm. But
his own soul was punishing him. He finally went to St. Molaise— ^
of Devenish, as some say, or St. Molaise of Inishmurry, others
say — ^humbly confessed his crime and asked to be penanced.

For such a great crime the penance must be great. Knowing
the intense love that possessed Colm for his native land, Molaise
ordered that he should go forth from his country and behold it
never more. Also he should bring to Christ as many souls as there

* The violation of. sanctuary occurred when Curan, son of King Aed of Con-
naught, a hostage at Tara, had, at a game of caman, struck and killed the son of
the High-King's steward, and had then taken refuge with Colm. King Diarmuid
commanded that the young prince should be taken forcibly from Colm and put to
death — ^which was done. For this unforgiveable outrage against traditional sanc-
tuary, Colm, eluding a guard that had been put over him, quitted Diarmuid's
domain, and made his way over the mountains to his home in Tir-Conaill. His
kinsmen, the princes of. Tir-Conaill and Tir-Eogain, took up his quarrel, and
ioiniair their army to that of Aed, King of Connaug^t, father of the prince who
had been ^ut to death, met Diarmuid and his forces at Cuildremne, fought and
defeated him, with terrible slaughter— 4hree thousand dead, some say, bemg left
on the field.

The battle of Cuildremne was not the only one for which the impetuous Colm
was responsible. Other contention of his had caused the battles of Coleraine
wherein his people fought the Dal Araide, and the battle of Culfeda in which th^
fougitt Coleman, the son of Diarmuid.

164

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

had been lives lost at Cuildremne. Sad-hearted for the sore sen-
tence that had been meted out to him — ^but resolute — Colm, taking
with him twelve companions, among whom were his uncle, Emaan,
and his cousin, Baoithin, sailed away from the land which his heart
loved so fondly, and which now must nevermore be his.

"Alas for the voyage, O High King of Heaven,
Enjoined upon me,
For that I on the red plain of bloody Cooldrevin
Have sinned against Thee.

"Three things I am leaving behind me, the very
Most dear that I know,
Tir-Leidach Tm leaving, and Durrow and Derry.
Alas, I must go!

''Yet my visit and feasting with ComgaU have eased me

At Cainnech's right hand:
And all but thy government, Eire, had pleased me.
Thou vraterfall land!"*

Into a bay on the island of Oronsay in the southern Hebrides
they ran their boat, on an evening. Next morning Colm, climbing

' It was a grievously sorrowful leave-taking of Ireland was Colm's, as, looking
back from his boat, his moistened sight embraced the beloved hills that, afar,
were sinking forever from view. In his Lament for Erin, one of the several beau-
tiful poems credited to the poet Colm, he says :

"There is a grey eye
That will look back upon Erm :
Which shall never see again
The men of Erin nor her women.

"I stretch my glance across the brine
From the firm oaken planks;
Many are the tears of my bright soft

grey eye
As I look back ttpoa Erin.

"My mind is upon Erin,
Upon Loch Lene, upon Linny,
Upon the land where Ulstermen are,
Upon gentle Munster and upon
Meath.

"Melodious are Erin's clerics, melo-
dious her birds,
Gentle her youths, wise her elders,
Illustrious her men, famous to be-
hold.
Illustrious her women for fond
espousaL

'Carry my blessing wiA thee to the

West,
My heart is broken in my breast :
Should sudden death overtake me,
It is for my great love of the Gael.

"Were all Alba mine
From its centre to its border,
I would rather have the site

house
In the middle of fair Derry.

of a

"Beloved are Durrow and Derry
Beloved is Raphoe with purity,
Beloved Drumhome with its sweet acorns.
Beloved are Swords and Kellsl"

COLM CILLE 165

a high hill to look toward the land where he had left his heart,
beheld, on the horizon's verge, low and dim, that land for which
his soul so sorely grieved. Here he must not stay I

"To oars again, we can not stay,
For ah, on ocean's rim, I see
Where sunbeams pierce the cloudy day,
From these rude hills of Oronsay,
The Isle so dear to me !"

The sad company had to take to their boat again, and spread
their sail to catch a wind that would drive them farther from
Eirinn.

Their next landing was their final one. It was on lona.* And
on that quiet evening on which the keel of their boat grated on the
pebbled shore of this quiet isle, to the world unknown till now.
Fame with its thousand wings encircled it and marked it for its
own.

lona was part of the Scotic Dal Riada, colonised and ruled by
the Scots (Irish) . King Conal, who now reigned there, was of the
Tir-Chonaill family, Colm's own kinsman. And to the exile he
made a grant of land whereon the holy man founded a home for
his monks, where he was to found his monastery, and where he
was to build his school, and from whence he and his disciples were
to carry Christ, first to the untutored Picts, and later to the Britons
and the Saxons of the south.

Starting here with a small number of brothers, and small and
poor shelter, they drew to them from Ireland recruits in great num-
bers, whom the fame of Colm, his power and his piety, perennially
attracted. Their buildings grew, their farms spread, their flocks
increased. They bore the Gospel tidings to King Brude and to
his Pictish hordes in the uttermost corners of Scotland. Their
school, too, attained great fame, and attracted students from all
these island countries.'-

*GilIed also Hy, and I-Colmcille.

'From time to time also to lona came to visit Colm his brother-saints from
Ireland, famous men of that day — the two Brendans, the two Finans, Flannan,
Ronan, Comgall, Finbar, all are said to have visited the exile, bringing dearly
loved Eirinn to him who to Eirinn could not return. Many others, too, abbots of
various Irish- monasteries came there, like these, to seek the counsel and advice
of one whose counsel was prized beyond that of any other Irishman of that day.
Among them, the wandering al)bot Cormac Ua Liathain, who, forced from Colm s
monastery of Durrow, because he was a Munsterman presiding over Northerns
who nagged him, was seeking a deserted isle where he mieht end his davs alone
With God. And for leaving that land which of all earth s lands was the most
(delightful, most joyous, from which no man in his sanity could voluntarily exile

1 66

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Yet, despite the penance which seemed to forbid it, was he
destined to tread Eirinn's hallowed soil again. The romantic, dra-
matic return to his land of him who had been solemnly forbidden
ever to see that land again, is one of the outstanding incidents of
a life filled with big incidents. He was to return to Eirinn to the
famous Convention of Drimceatt — return, too, without literally
transgressing against the penitential ordinance. And this was the
reason of his return.

The poets of Eirinn — of which brotherhood Colm was a proud
member — had now not only multiplied so largely, but also had
become so satirical, so overbearing, and so exacting, that the no-
bles of the land loudly murmured, because of the burden these
people had become. Wandering over the island as they did, sur-
rounded by their hungry bands of attendants, seating themselves
down in what court they pleased, conunanding whatever their
erratic minds fancied, remaining as long as they pleased, exacting
what they wished, and leaving when they would, it was little won-
der that people began to groan under the intolerable burden. But
this state of evil came to a head when at length one of them
went so far as to demand, in tribute to his poetic powers, the royal
brooch, a rarely beautiful heirloom, of the Ard-Righ — ^who was
now Aedh, the son of Aimmire. The restraint which even a High
King had imposed upon himself in deference to poetic genius and
sacred tradition, was burst by such brazenness. He swore that the
island should be cleared of the poet tribe. To pass a decree for
this purpose which should be legal, he called a convention of the
princes and nobles, scholars and ecclesiastics of the land, to meet

himself, the home-sick Colm, with affectionate upbraiding, upbraids the errant
Cormac. "For," Colm tells him, "I pledge thee my uneering word, which may
not be impugned, that better is death in reproachless Eirinn than life forever in
Alba."

And his pining heart which dwells forever upon happy memories of his
native land, paints for the hapless wanderer such alluring picture of that pleasant
Durrow which he madly quitted as should swiftly bring him back to reason, and
draw him there again: "How happy the son of Dimma (i.e., Cormac) of the
devout church, when he hears in Durrow the desire of his mind — the fingers of the
wind playing upon the elm-trees, the black-birds* joyous note when he claps his
wings; the lowing of the cattle at early dawn in Ros Grencha; the cooing of the
cuckoo from the tree, on the brink of sununer."

Even to a sea-gull visitor which comes flying toward lona from Eirinn, in
the west, he addresses a poetic appeal full of affectionate envy for that it saw
Ireland so recently, and can see it when it will again. For, this passionate love
and longing for the country of his nativity, the intense love and longing which
endowed the cold flag of Gartan, that had been his bed, with the virtue of averting
home-sickness, persisted in the saint's soul through all his days in Hebridean exile-
On Colm's flag (his stone bed) at Gartan, down to most recent days, poor
Donegal boys on the eve of their starting for America, Australia, or other far
exile, would pass a ni^ht — ^to obtain the great Exile's blessing, which should avert
from them the home-sickness which had racked his heart

COLM CILLE 167

at Drimceatt— near the present town of Limavada in Derry.

When the sad news reached him on lona, Colm, alarmed for
his soul-brethren, the poets, knew that some extraordinary meas-
ure was immediately necessary to save Ireland from a shame which
in the eyes of all noble ones, should stain its honour down the
ages. His heart was alarmed and his soul was fired for the in-
justice about to be done his brethren, the poets. Well he knew that
they had grown arrogant and unjust: but no crime whatsoever on
the part of a class so justly privileged should draw upon Ireland
the sacrilege of their driving out. Despite his penance, he re-
solved that he should appear in person at Drimceatt to avert from
Ireland a dire disaster.

As the words of his penance had been that he should never
again see Ireland, he, blind-folded, sailed for Ireland, attended by
several bishops, fifty priests, fifty deacons and thirty clerics.

"O Son of my God, what a pride, what a pleasure

To plough the blue sea!
The waves of the fountain of deluge to measure,
Dear Erin, to thee.

**We are rounding Moy-n-Olurg, we sweep by its head, and

We plunge through Lough Foyle,
Whose swans could enchant with their music the dead, and
Make pleasure of toil."

What a dramatic sensation must there have been when in
among the assembled nobles and scholars and kings of the nation,
(vas led at the head of his company, this blinded man whose name
«vas a name of wonder in every household in Eirinn, extraor-
dinarily cherished in most, extraordinarily feared in some. What
commotion must have been there; what craning of necks; what
straining of eyes; what stamping of feet; what rattling of spears!
What a fierce hurrah must have torn from the throat of the Conal-
lach and the Eoganach, and from the men of many a sympathetic
clan! And what troubled thought must have shown in the curled
brow, what burning resentment looked out of the eye, what dour
jilence sat upon the lips, and what burning memories consumed the
breasts of a hostile minority there I*

'For there were some who as fiercely resented GDlm's presence at Drimceatt
's others ardently rejoiced in it. The wife of Ard-Righ Aed, a bitter opponent
n this strong man, had commanded her two sons, Conal the elder, and Donal the
irounger, on no account to take part in the welcome whidi the Convention would
surely extend to Colm, and to refrain from showing him any respect whatsoever,
^nal not only oibeyed his mother, but some say went so far as to insult, if not

i68

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

And when this blinded man began to speak, beseeching the men
of Eirinn to save their famed and loved land from the indelible
stain of sacrilegiously violating the most sacred, most ancient tradi-
tion, the sanctity of the poet's person, to save it from banishing
forever from Eirinn those great and noble, learned and gifted
ones, whose tongues, touched with divine fire, had in their slightest
word the fearful power of making the name of Eirinn famous or
infamous — how he must have swayed and shook his audience as
the hurricane from the north shakes the fir-trees of the forest —
made them tower with pride, and cower with shame, lashed them
and soothed them, roused them and melted them, elevated and
prostrated them, now to the highest heavens, and now to earth's
dust- — how he must have lifted them beyond themselves, and how
made them the abject creatures of his will and slightest word —
till he had only to say go and they would go; do this and it was
done ! Colm completely routed all hostility, carried the Conven-
tion, and saved the great order of his brother-bards from extinction
in Eirinn."

assault, Colm and his companions. The younger lad, Donal, however, moved by
instinctive respect and love for such a great and holy man, arose up on Colm's
entrance, went forward and embraced him, and kissed him on either cheek— in
reward for which generous impulse he was blessed by, as his elder brother was
deprived of, the succession to the throne.

^ The Convention decided that they should not expel the bards, but it was at
the same time agreed that the order should be completely reformed. A new
set of laws and rules for the order was then drawn up. The High King of Eirinn
was to maintain his own special 011am of poetry; and each petty king and each
chieftain to maintain a file also; but the numbers of their pupils and of their
attendants were reduced so that they would be less of an imposition to those who
extended to them hospitality. Fees for their compositions were fixed, beyond which
they could not exact in future. A tract of land was to be set apart for each
Ollam, free of all payments. Every member of the order was entitled to universal
freedom and sanctuary from the men of Ireland, in their land, person, and worldly
goods. To make them useful to the state and to gfive employment and the means
of living to that large portion of them which would otherwise go idle, it was
arranged that public schools should be opened wherein they would become instruc-
tors and where, in the words of Keating, "any of the men of Ireland could get
free instruction in the sciences."

"The educational establishments now endowed," says O'Curry, "were national,
literary colleges, quite distinct from the great literary and ecclesiastical schools
and colleges, that had formed themselves around individual celebrities, and were
then in operation."

The carrying out of the new order of things was put in the hands of the
celebrated blind poet, Eochaid Righ Eigeas, better known as Dalian Forgaill, the
Ard-Ollam and King-Poet of Ireland— whose dust now mingles with the earth
of the Island of Inis Caoil, in the west of Donegal. This was the poet who com-
posed the poem (still extant), the Arma Colm Glle, by way of reward to the
Saint for saving the bards.

In a eulogy written upon this Dalian, after his death, by his great successor
Senchan Torpeist, is said:

"The ocean's caverns, which armies dare not, —
The mighty cataract of the great Eas Ruadh ; —

COLM CILLE 169

Another most important matter with which the Convention of
)rimceatt concerned itself was the dispute between Aidan, the
Ling of the Irish colony in Alba, that is the Scottish Dal Riada,
nd Ireland's Ard-Righ, as to where the allegiance of the Irish Dal
liada (the northeast of Antrim) was due. As the people of the
Evo Dal Riadas were of the same clan, Aidan claimed kingship
ver both. But Aed, High King of Ireland, held that the tribute
nd the military support of the Irish Dal Riada were due to Tara.^°

The convention agreed to leave the decision of this case to
]olm, who was equally concerned on both sides. Colm, however,
eclined to be judge in the matter, and referred it to St. Colman,
le son of Comgallen, who decided that the Irish Dal Riada should
e directly and entirely subject to the Ard-Righ of Ireland, paying
im tribute and supplying him with military levies, but they should
e allies of their brethren over the Channel, the Scottish Dal Riada,
nd in case of a war of theirs against the Picts, or the Britons,
hould supply them with a fleet.

The Convention of Drimceatt is said to have remained in ses-
ion for a year, making laws, redressing grievances, adjusting dis-
utes. Colm, however, quitted it when that in which he was in-
erested was finished with. He spent some months in Ireland,
lowever, visiting several of his foundations, sojourning for some
ime with one and another of them, settling their affairs, counselling
nd directing, and leaving them treading the path that he wished
hem to go. After which he returned to his beloved charge in the
Vestern Islands again, and resumed his arduous duties, working,
caching, preaching, writing, travelling and baptising the heathen
nto the faith. He wrote much, chiefly copying the Scriptures,
^nd on occasion he set down a poem or a hymn of his own com-
losing. Several such, still existing, are attributed to Colm."

The rolling wave of a spring-tide's flow, —
Were the meet images of Dalian's intellect.

Until the shining sun is surmounted,

Which God has created above all creation,
No poet from north to south shall surpass
Eochaidh, the serene royal poet

He was sage, O God of Heaven !
He was a noble and a chief poet ;
Until the wave of death swept placidly over him,
Uch ! he was beautiful, he was beloved."

**• There are different versions of this dispute, but this is Lanigan's view of it.

/*In the Liber Hymnorum, an ancient Irish Book of Hymns saved from

oblivion, there are three Latin poems which the general body of authorities believe

to be truly Colm's. The most noted of them is the Altus Prosator, a Latin poem

5x the Abecedaria class; that is the twenty-two first letters of the twenty-two

170

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

As one of Colm's characteristic qualities was his indomitable,
never-tiring energy, he believed in all around him being energetic
— and insisted on it. One of the rules which he established in his
monasteries, and a rule that became proverbially associated with
lona was that the day should be divided into three parts, one part
for good works, one part for prayer, and one part for reading —
the good works to be either for a brother's own benefit, for the
benefit of his brethren, or for the benefit of his neighbours. His
dictum was, "Let not a single hour pass in which you do not devote
yourself to prayer, reading, writing or some other useful work."
The copying of the Scriptures occupied much of the writing time
of the brothers ; and the copying of the classics for the use of their
schools occupied a marked portion of their time. For, the classical
education of their students was in this, as in all Irish schools at
that time, an important part of the school's curriculum. And by
practical example Colm firmly instilled his favourite precept about
work, just as by practical example also he instilled all other of
the good monastic precepts. He prayed and he worked whole-
heartedly. He went out in the fields with the brothers, and in
storm or shine toiled as one of themselves. He devoted much in-
door time to copying of the Scriptures and other writings. He
chastened himself by marvellous fasting. His bed was on the bare
ground, with a stone for his pillow; sparing himself not, and
spending himself ever, as well for his own benefit as for his fol-
lowers' encouragement.

The spiritual humility of this impetuous, fierce, strong, domi-
nant man is well shown in the anecdote recorded in O'Clery's Mar-
tyrology, under the anniversary of Baithen (Colm's cousin) :

stanzas form the alphabet — following in this case the order of the Hebrew letters.
Colm is said to have written it in Derry. He sent it to Pope Gregory the Great
in return for valuable presents brought to him by messengers from that Pope.

The celebrated Book of Kells, one of the most beautiful of all ancient books
in the world, was said by some authorities to have been written by him. An
entry in it asks for "a remembrance of the scribe, Columba, who wrote this
evangel, in the space of twelve days." And those who say that the Book of Kells
is our Colm's conclude that this evangel was the stolen copy from Finian's book
which changed the current of Colm's life. But most authorities deny to Colm
the transcription of the Book of Kells. The fact that it was written by a Columba
does not advance the proof in the great Colm's favour, for there were innumerable
holy men and saints of that name. Archbishop Healy holding that the Book of
Kells is a genuine work of Colm Glle, also says that the Book of Durrow is his-
However, the proofs advanced by the upholders of Colm's authorship of these
books is far from being conclusive.

Original matters attributed to him include the Lament for Erin, his Farewell
to Aran, the Dialogue of Colm with Cormac in Hy, and the poem he is alleged
to have written as he took his lonely way homeward over the mountain, when
fleeing from the court of Diarmuid MacCarroll

COLM CILLE 171

"It was this Baithen who was permitted to see three grand chairs
in Heaven, empty, awaiting some of the saints of Eirinn : namely, a
chair of gold, a chair of silver, and a diair of glass. And he told
Colm of the vision. And Colm answered him: 'The gold diair is
prepared for Ciaran, the son of the carpenter, in reward for his sanc-
tity, hospitality, and charity. The silver chair is thine own, Baithen,
for the brightness and the fervency of thy piety. The glass chair is
mine, for I am brittle and fragile, in consequence of the battles which
I have provoked.* It was after this that he resolved on abstinence
from food, except nettle pottage, without dripping or fat, so that
soon the impression of his ribs through the woollen tunic that he
wore, was to be seen on the sandy beach where for penance he used
to lie at night"

Yet like other great men he had not only dear vision of the
great work which he was accomplishing, but also a child-like pride
and child-like frankness in telling of it — ^beautifully expressed when
in the course of another talk — this time upon the day of General
Judgment — ^with his cousin and soul-friend, Baithen, he said:
"Great also shall be my following on that day, Baithen, for its
forefront shall be in Clonmacnois, and its rear in Dun Cuillinn in
Alba.""

Adamnan*s personal description of him has preserved for us a
physical picture of the man:

"Colm was a man of well-formed and powerful frame, his face
broad and fair and valiant, lit by large grey luminous eyes ; he had a
large and well-shaped head crowned with dose and curling hair —
except where he wore his frontal tonsure. His voice was clear and
resonant, so that it could be heard a distance of fifteen hundred
paces, yet was sweet with more than the sweetness of the bards."

Colm was by no means a young man when he appeared at the

^2 The genial humour, which emphasised the Irish character of this Irishman
IS well exemplified in a story of him and his friend, St. Mochua, set down by
Keating. Mochua lived a hermit in the wilderness devoting himself to the service
of God — his sole worldly wealth a cock, a mouse and a fly. The cock called him
to prayers at a certain hour in the night. The mouse was to scratch his ear if
sleep deafened him to the call of the cock. The fly made itself a pointer for him
upon his psalter. It crept along the page under each line and each word of the line
that he chanted. And when he ceased chanting, to attend to other business, the
tiy paused upon the word on which he had stopped, thus pointing the place for him
when he returned again. The cock and the mouse and the fly at length died on
{I'm. He wrote to Colm, in lona, lamenting his loss. And Colm replied to him:
Brother, thou must accept in the right spirit the affliction that has been sent upon
tnee. Thou shouldst have known that worry always follows in the wsdce of
wealth."

172 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Convention of Drimceatt, in 575. But he lived and worked, in-
spired countless other workers, and was a big power in two coun'
tries for almost quarter of a century after.

In was in 597 that death came to him. In May of that year
he visited the farm where the brothers toiled, in the west of the
Island. He went among the brothers, spoke affectionately with
them and consolingly, told the sorely grieved ones that his days
were now numbered, and he should depart from them within a
month. He blessed them, blessed their work and blessed the island.

When saying Mass, some time after, an angel appeared to him
to warn him that the days were now few till his passing. On Sat-
urday of that week he visited the great barn in which was stored
the community's stock of food, and rejoiced in the great store he
found there, which would insure plenty for his beloved ones for
that year. With exceeding earnestness he blessed the barn, that
it should ever hold and give in plenty to the ardent servants of God.
Then he said to those who stood around him: "This day in the
Holy Scriptures is called Sabbath, which means rest. And this day
is indeed Sabbath to me, for it is the last day of my laborious life,
and on it I rest. And this night at midnight I shall go the way of
my fathers."

As he wended his way slowly back from the barn, he talked
consolingly to his faithful attendant, Diarmuid, who was weeping.
Half way to the monastery he had to sit to rest by the wayside.
And when he had thus sat down an old white horse which for long
years had been used to carry the milk from the milking ground to
the monastery, approached, thrust his grey face into the saint's
bosom, while tears, as if from a human being, rolled from his eyes.
The saint would not let the horse be driven away. He was deeply
moved by the affection of the prescient animal, which he caressed
and soothed.

The hill called Cnoc-na-Caman, which arose above the mon-
astery, he then ascended and took a last long look over land and
sea — and we may be sure a fond, fond look toward the western
horizon below which lay the land of his heart. From this hilltop
he blessed all that his soul cherished. And uplifting his hands, he
blessed his monastery saying: "Small and mean though this place
is, yet it shall be held in great honour, not only by Scotic kings and
people, but also by the rulers of foreign and barbarous nations,
and by their subjects; the saints also even of other churches shall
regard it with no common reverence."

It is characteristic of this man who so firmly believed in work
and preached work, that when, now within a few hours of his

COLM CILLE 173

death, he returned to the monastery, he sat him down in his cell,
and continued the transcription of the Psalter which he had been
copying. At the end of the day, when it came time for the Sabbath
vigils, having reached the end of a page, he laid down his pen, say-
ing: "Let Baithen write the rest." And his last written words
were those of the thirty-third psalm — "They that seek the Lord
shall want no manner of thing that is good."

So that the first words which his successor in the abbacy, Bai-
then, was to write were : "Come, ye children, and barken unto me.
I will teach you the fear of the Lord."

Colm's last hours could not be more finely described than in
the words of his biographer and kinsman, his tenth successor in
the abbacy, Adamnan : "

"Having written the aforementioned verse at the end of the page,
the saint went to the church, to the nocturnal vigils of the Lord's
Day; and so soon as this was over, he returned to his chamber and
spent the remainder of the night on his bed, where he had a bare
flag for his couch, and for his pillow a stone, which stands to this
day as a kind of monument beside his grave. While then he was
reclining there, he gave his last instructions to the brethren, saying:
*These, O my children, are the last words I address to you — ^that ye
be at peace, and have unfeigned charity among yourselves: and if
you thus follow the example of the holy fathers, God the comforter
of the good, will be your Helper, and I, abiding with Him, shall
intercede for you ; and He will not only give you sufficient to supply

^3 Colm's life was also written by a distinguished one of his own clan, Manus
O'Donnell, chieftain of Tir-Conaill in the sixteenth century. But his most dis'
tinguished biographer and most successful was St. Adamnan, who was bom in
Tir-Hugh, in Southwestern Donegal a quarter of a century after Colm's death.
Adamnan became abbot of lona in the last quarter of the seventh century. His
"Life of Colm," one of several works written by this able writer, is described by the
Scottish historian, Pinkerton, as "the most complete piece of biography which all
Europe can boast of, not only at so early a period, but even through the middle
ages." And Montalembert says of it, "It forms one of the most living, authentic
and vital relics of Christian history."

Of this Adamnan, CyQery, in his Martyrology, relates the legend how once
when he was three days and three nights in the church alone, praying to God, and
that messengers from the monks were sent to find what kept their abbot from
them, they, peering into the church, saw "a little Boy with brilliance and bright
radiance in the bosom of Adamnan. Adamnan was thanking and caressing the
Infant. And they were not able to look at Him any longer, by reason of the divine
rays around the Boy."

Adamnan was once sent as an ambassador from lona to England to request
the return of Irish captives who had been carried away in one of many raids
which the Britons and Saxons made into Ireland in these centuries. Keating says.
The Northern Saxons gave Adamnan great honor, and eveiything he wanted."

"He was a vessel of wisdom," says the Martyrology, of Adamnan, "and a
n»n full of the grace of God, and with the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, and
of ever^ other wisdom; a burning lamp to illumine and enlighten tiie West of

174

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

the wants of this present life, but will also bestow on you the good
and eternal rewards which are laid up for those that keep His com-
mandments.' Thus far have the last words of our venerable patron,
as he was about to leave this weary pilgrimage for his Heavenly
country, been preserved for recital in our brief narrative. After
these words, as the happy hour of his departure gradually approached,
the saint became silent. Then as soon as the bell tolled at midni^t,
he rose hastily, and went to the church; and running more quicldy
than the rest, he entered it alone, and knelt down in prayer beside
the altar. At the same moment his attendant, Diarmuid, who more
slowly followed him, saw from a distance that the whole interior of
the church was filled with a heavenly light in the direction of the
saint. And as he drew near to the door, the same light he had seen
and which was also seen by a few more of the brethren standing
at a distance, quickly disappeared. Diarmuid, therefore, entering
the church, cried out in a mournful voice, 'Where art thou, father?'
and feeling his way in the darkness, as the brethren had not yet
brought in the lights, he found the saint lying before the altar; and
raising him up a little, he sat down beside him, and laid his holy
head on his bosom. Meanwhile the rest of the monks ran in hastily
in a body with their lights, and beholding their dying father, burst
into lamentations. And the saint, as we have been told by some
who were present, even before his soul departed, opened his eyes and
looked around him from side to side, with a countenance full of
wonderful joy and gladness, no doubt seeing holy angels coming to
meet him. Diarmuid then raised the holy right hand of the saint
that he might bless his assembled monks. And the venerable father
himself moved his hand at the same time, as well as he was able—
that as he could not in words, while his soul was departing, he might
at least, by the motion of his hand, be seen to bless his brethren.
And having given them his holy benediction in this way, he immedi-
ately breathed his last. After his soul had left the tabernacle of
the body, his face still continued ruddy, and brightened in a won-
derful way by his vision of the angels, and that to such a degree that
he had the appearance not so much of one dead, as of one alive and
sleeping. Meanwhile the whole church resounded with loud lamenta'
tions of grief."

After matins the bereft monks bore the body of their beloved
father back to the monastery, chanting psalms. And mourned not
only by his monks but by a great multitude of sorrowing Islanders
and their chiefs, this singularly great man was laid under the earth,
in the humble little cemetery of lona.

Little wonder it is that signs on the earth and in the heavens
should accompany the passing of one so great, whose greatness im-

COLM CILLE 175

pressed many lands." "And this unusual favour hath been conferred
by God on this same man of blessed memory; that though he lived
in this small and remote island of the British sea, his name hath
not only become illustrious throughout the whole of our own Scotia
(Ireland), and Britain the largest island of the whole world, but
hath reached even unto triangular Spain, and into Gaul, and to
Italy which lieth beyond the Pennine Alps ; and also to the city of
Rome itself, the head of all cities. This great and honourable
celebrity, amongst other marks of divine favour, is known to have
been conferred on this same saint by God who loveth those who
love Him, and raiseth them to immense honour by glorifying more
and more those that magnify and truly praise Him, who is blessed
forever more. Amen."

Lannigan, Rev. John, D.D.: Exxlesiastical History of Ireland.

Reeves, The Rev. Wm., D.D. : Adaiiman's Life of St. G>Iuinba.

Healy, The Most Rev. Jno., D.D., LL.D., Archbishop of Tuam: Ireland's

Ancient Schools and Scholars.
Keating's History of Ireland.
Montalembert : Monks of the West.

O'Hanlon, The Rev. Jno., Canon : Lives of the Irish Saints.
Stokes, The Rev. Dr. Geo. T. : Ireland and the Celtic Church.

^* As might be expected, in his own beloved Ireland at the time of his passing
strange signs were seen in the skies. Various holy men were witnesses of symbolic
phenomena. Ernan of Drumhome — which it will be remembered was one of
Colm's foundations — fishing in the River Finn, beheld the white vault of heaven lit
up. He looked to the east and saw an immense clear fire, which seemed to
illumine the whole earth, like the sun at noon. A pillar of fire ascended from
earfh to heaven and then disappeared. The strange sight was also witnessed by
many other fishers who were fishing in the Finn with Ernan.

Lugaid, the son of Tailchann, had a beautiful vision at Rosnarca at the same
time.

"In the middle of this last night," says Lugaid, "Columba, the pillar of many
churches, passed to the Lord ; and at the moment of his blessed departure, I saw in
the spirit the whole Ionian Island, where I never was in the body, resplendent with
the brightness of the angels ; and the whole heavens above it, up to the very zenith,
were illumined with the brilliant light of the same heavenly messengers, who
descended in countless numbers to bear away his holy soul. At the same moment,
also, I heard the loud hymns and entrancingl^ sweet canticles of the angel host,
as his soul was borne aloft amidst the ascendmg choirs of angels."

CHAPTER XXIV

THE POETS

Ireland was the poets' land in earliest days as well as in latest.

In very early times Greece and Rome, only, excelled Ireland
as nurturers of poets and nursing grounds of poetry.

From the most remote antiquity of which we have legendary
record, the poet was one of the greatest, most honoured, in the
land. In social rank he held next place to the king — and at table
he was entitled to the king's joint, the haunch. But in sacredness
of person, the king usually held next place to the poet. The lives
of kings were frequently taken, but seldom occurred the sacrilegious
killing of a poet.

When Fachtna Finn (who was Chief Poet of Ulster away be-
fore the Christian Era) learned that the Ulster chiefs plotted to
slay at a feast their two kings, Congal Clairnach and Fergus Mac-
Leide, he saved both their lives by seating each between poets.
The assassins then had to stay their murderous hands lest the poets
should be accidentally slain or injured. In the very rare instances
in which such disaster befell the land, the whole nation mourned
the calamity, and the sacrilegious scoundrel, who had been guilty
of the appalling crime, was shunned by man, cursed by God and
punished, moreover, with immortal obloquy.

When Cuain O'Lochain, chief poet of Erin, was, in 1024, put
to death by the people of Teffia, the Annals of Clonmacnois re-
cords— "after committing of which there grew an evil scent and
odour off the party that killed him, that he was easily known among
the rest of the land." And the Annals of Loch Ce, continuing the
after history of the sacrilegious ones who had hand in the poet's
death, says: "God manifestly wrought a poet's power upon the
parties who killed him, for they were put to a cruel death, and
their bodies putrefied, until worms and vultures had devoured
them."

The poet's dire fine* was the same as the king's — and his hon-

___^ rf

* His honour-price was seven cumals (twenty-one cows).

176

THE POETS 177

our-price usually the same. And because of the sacredness of
his position he was, like the king, subject to degradation for any
sin that besmirched the whiteness of his office. And for sins more
venial he was, like king and commoner, amenable to the law —
which prescribed, for instance, that he should pay fine for the un-
fairness of satirising a man, in his absence; and for satirising by
proxy — having his satire recited by a substitute, while he protected
himself in the cowardly safety of distance. And he had to answer
for crimes committed by any paying foreigners among his pupils.*

From very ancient times in Ireland almost all things worth
recording were put into verse for their more easy remembering,
pleasanter reciting and more welcome hearing. The most ancient
Lives of the Saints are in verse — or where they have come down
in mixed verse and prose, the prose is only a later paraphrasing
of verse whose language was becoming obsolete. Ancient history
and genealogy wejre in verse — and likewise the ancient laws. When
Patrick had the laws codified it will be remembered that a file was
asked "to put a thread of poetry round them." Such old stand-
ard records as the Book of Rights, and the Calendar of Aengus,
are in rhyme. Even there have come down to us ancient school
text-books, on various subjects, completely in verse.

Some noted Continental scholars such as Zeuss and Nigra, agree
with leading Irish authorities that it was the ancient Irish who in-
vented rhyme — and introduced it, through the Latin, to the coun-
tries of Europe.

Constantine Nigra (quoted by Hyde) says:

"The idea that rhyme originated among the Arabs must be ab-
solutely rejected as fabulous. . . . Rhyme, too, could not in any
possible way, have evolved itself from the natural progress of the
Latin language. Amongst the Latins, neither the thing nor the name
existed. The first certain examples of rhyme, then, are found on
Celtic soil and among Celtic nations ... we conclude that final
assonance or rhyme can have been derived only from laws of Celtic
phonology."

And Zeuss :

"The form of Celtic poetry, to judge both from the older and

' A passage from the Brehon Laws :

"The poet (or tutor) commands his pupils. The man from whom education
>s received is free from the crimes of his pupils, though he feeds and clothes them,
and that they pay him for their learning. He is free, even though it be a stranger
he instructs, feeds, and clothes, provided it is not for pay but for God that "he
does it If he feeds and instructs a stranger for pay, it is then he is accountable
lor his crimes."

178 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

the more recent examples adduced, appears to be more ornate than
the poetic form of any other nation, and even more ornate in the
older poems than in the modem ones; from the fact of which greater
omateness had undoubtedly come to pass that at the very time the
Roman Empire was hastening to ruin, the Celtic forms — at first en-
tire, afterwards in part — passed over not only into the songs of the
Latins, but also into those of other nations and remain in them."

Dr. Atkinson thinks It was as far away as two thousand years
ago that the Irish began to grace their then ancient poetic art with
their new invention of rhyme. From the Latin verses of Colm
and other earliest Irish saints, we have positive proof that, any-
how, rhyme was in use in Ireland in the very earliest Christian
times — ^both vowel rhyme (assonance) and consonantal rhyme
called comharda.

The first English poet to use rhyme — ^in his Latin verse — ^was
Aldhelm, in the eighth century, who, it will be noted, was a pupil
of the Irish mpnk, Mael-dubh, whose school was on the site of the
present English city of Malmesbury. And a century later, as Pro-
fessor ZimmCT points out, the poet Otfried, who first Introduced
rhyme to the German people, received his education at the Irish
monastery of St. Gall In Switzerland. Even the first poets to sing
ih the Icelandic language had the Irish names Kormack and Sigh-
vat, and were from an Irish ancestress — and we are warranted in
concluding that their poetic education was Irish. Long centuries
before that, the immortal Welsh poet, Caedmon, was educated by
an Irishman, surrounded by Irish literary influences, and fed upon
Irish literature.

Douglas Hyde says:

"Already, in the seventh century, the Irish not only rh)rmed but
made intricate rhyming metres, when for many centuries after this,
the Germanic nations could only alliterate. . . . And down to the
first half of the sixteenth century the English poets for the most part
exhibited a disregard for the fineness of execution and technique of
which not the meanest Irish bard attached to the pettiest chief could
have been guilty."

As is only to be expected, the Irish, the inventors of rhyme,
carried it to a wonderful perfection, never approached by any other
people — a fact acknowledged even by those who still withhold
from them the credit of having originated It.

"After the seventh century," says Dr. Hyde, in his "Literary
History of Ireland," "the Irish brought the rhyming system to a
perfection undreamt of even to this day, by other nations. Per-

THE POETS 179

haps by no people on the globe at any period of the world's his-
tory was poetry so cultivated, and better still, so remunerated, as
in Ireland." And Dr. Atkinson pronounces Irish verse "the most
perfectly harmonious combination of sounds that the world has
ever known." Dr. Joyce says, "No poetry of any European lan-
guage, ancient or modern, can compare with the Irish poetry for
richness of melody."

It was lavish in beautiful metres, in alliteration, in assonantal
rhyme, in consonantal harmony. The rhymes were usually not at
the end of the line only but were often repeated, again and again,
within the line, which spilled over with richness of melody.

The technique of Irish poetry was far and away more elabo-
rate, complex, intricate and subtle than that of any other nation,
ancient or modern. It had an amazingly complicated prosody —
"astounding" is the term that Dr. Hyde applies to it.

It is proof of the originality of Irish versification that the many
technical terms used in this intricate prosody are purely Irish —
showing no trace of Latin or other foreign influence. And Latin
Christian influence would inevitably have left its impress on the
system if that system had not been brought to complete perfection
before the coming of Patrick, and the introduction of the general
knowledge and use of Latin among the scholars and the clergy.

It is difficult for us to realise that in the ancient Irish Schools
of Poets the students were trained in not less than three hundred
and fifty different kinds of metre. Twelve years was the minimum
period' of study in the schools. There were four grades of poet —
each requiring three years of concentrated study. Each grade was
sub-divided again many times. Of the lowest grade, the bard,
there were sixteen divisions distinguished by the metres they had
mastered. As instance of the prosodial subtilty and complexity
of the metres, let us instance that of one kind alone, the nath metre
which was mastered by the king-bard, there were six different kinds,
and these six again divided, some of them into as many as six sub-
divisions. Therefore, it was an arduous task which arose before
the Irish poetic aspirant — and wonderful and powerful was the
mental training through which the Irish poet passed.

The poet's course in literature embraced seven times fifty of
the great bardic epics — all of which he must not only have mem-
orised, but have mastered in every detail — and with each of which,
when called upon, must be able to hold spellbound every gathering.

'The English Campion in his "History of Ireland" recorded that in his day
(loth century) the length of the course sometimes extended to 20 years.

i8o THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Furthermore, when he should go for his final degree he must be able
to compose an impromptu short poem on any subject suggested.
The poet-ollam, the poet of the highest rank, must be a master of
Irish history, Irish antiquities and genealogies of all the leading
Irish families — and always able and ready at a moment's notice,
to recite anything called for in any of these subjects. Few and
far between are the twentieth century scholars who are as thor-
oughly steeped in their subjects as were the poet-oUams of fifteen
hundred years ago.

Although poets were attached to certain courts of king or chief,
where they received regular stipend together with a residence, land
and animals (the ollam twenty-one cows and their grass, two
hounds and six horses), they frequently made circuit of their prov-
ince or of the country — accompanied by their retinue — ^honouring
with their visits various princes and notables whose praises they
chanted in such measure as their merits demanded. All courts and
all residences were of course thrown wide to the touring poet and
his company. Twenty-four was the number of attendants pre-
scribed by law for the ollam poet when he bestowed for only one
night, upon each host, the honour of his entertaining. When he
intended a longer stay, or went to a feast (to which of course other
companies were likewise coming) , the law fixed ten for his follow-
ing. But oftentimes the very famous poets, considering themselves
greater than the law, travelled amid three or four times the pre-
scribed number of attendants, and imposed themselves and their
tribe for days and weeks, months even, upon courts that they fa-
voured. The sixth century national poet, Senchan Torpeist (Dal-
ian Forgaill's successor), visiting the court of the Connaught king,
Guaire the Hospitable, with attendant poets, students, servants,
wives, dogs and horses, treated his overpowered host to a year
and a day of his party's joyous company! And, since under no
conceivable circumstances could any host, much less a royal one,
ask a poet to move on, this visitation might only have ended
when Guaire was eaten into poverty, had not the king's brother,
the holy hermit, Marban, been blessed with the inspiration of com'
missioning Senchan and his company to go eastward upon a literary
mission (in search of the lost Tain Bo Cuailgne, which, tradition
said, had been "carried east over the sea with the Cuilmen") which
promised to take years, if not eternity, for its fulfilment.

Senchan's parting ode to Guaire must have sounded in that
king's ears one of the sweetest by poet ever spoken — if we except
the alarming last stanza:

THE POETS i8i

"We depart from thee, O stainless Guaire!
We leave with thee our blessing ;
A year, a quarter, and a month.
Have we sojourned with thee, O high-king!

"Three times fifty poets, — good and smooth, —
Three times fifty students in the poetic art.
Each with his servant and dog;
They were all fed in the one great house.

"Each man had his separate meal;
Each man had his separate bed;
We never arose at early morning,
With contentions without calming.

"I declare to thee, O God !

Who canst the promise verify.

That should we return to our own land,

We shall visit thee again, O Guaire, though now we depart.**

Since In a land of poetry and of hospitality this privileged class
had the strongest incentive to increase and multiply, it is no won-
der their numbers and presumption grew to such proportion that
they more than once became an unbearable burden upon the land.
And three times in the early centuries, one of these being a time
when they and their uncountable followers are said to have con-
stituted a third of the population of the Island — ^the suffering peo-
ple, goaded even to the point of outraging sacred tradition, pur-
posed banishing from the land the poets and their bands. One of
the last of these popular anti-poet outbreaks was that which was
allayed by Colm at the Convention of Drimceatt. Though, twice
within the half century following. Kings of Ulad (Ulster) had to
harbour the bards and save them from extinction.

Of course it was the riotous and disreputable ones — from which
the poet-tribe was never free, in modern, any more than in ancient
days — ^who dragged the whole body into these periodic spells of
disrepute. The unworthy ones severely hurt the whole body, not
only by outrageous imposition on the people's hospitality, but like-
wise by the exactions which they drew from a too-willing people.
The law of custom provided that a poet should be paid for his
composition a price that was commensurate with his standing and
the worth of his work. But sometimes the reckless ones came to
exact what they pleased. No one of any character would refuse a

l82

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

poet's demand. And indeed if any one was cither unworthy enough
to deny a worthy poet his price or foolhardy enough to refuse an
exaction, he did so at the risk of being satirised with a biting poetic
satire, which would make him the laughing-stock of the land, and
his children's children's children the laughing-stock of generations
yet unborn. And so gifted in this malicious art were some that
it was legended their satires could not only blight the crops of the
satirised, but actually raise blisters on his face.^

The greedy ones carried with them a Coir Sdinnte, Pot of
Avarice, for inviting donations. It was a small pot made of silver
and hung by nine chains of findruine (white bronze) from golden
hooks on the points of the spears of nine men of the poet's com-
pany. The Coir Sdinnte preceded the greedy poet into a chief-
tain's presence as he came chanting his poem of praise, chorused
by his students. The chieftain and his friends were expected to
make the pot-bearers feel the weight of their appreciation.

The celebrated Ulster satirist, of the first century, Athairne,
was one of the bitterest and most brazen as well as greediest of
his tribe. On a time when he was going on circuit through Lein-
ster, one king, fearful of his tongue, met him at the border of his
territory, with great presents of money and cattle, in hope to buy
off the threatened visitation. He went so far as, when he was visit-
ing a king who had but one eye, to ask — and accept — ^that eye in
payment for a poem. This account of his request is, we may judge,
figurative — and a satire upon the satirist. That famous Leinster
circuit of Athairne's was only ended by an Ulster-Leinster war,
which his greed provoked.

The time of Athairne was one of the several times in which
the poet order got out of hand, and produced and prided itself
upon such biting, bitter, malevolent and grasping ones as were
he and his imitators. One of the latter, named Redg, got from
Cuchullain meet reward for his impudent presumption. He had
appeared before Cuchullain and recited a poem in his praise — and

*Once, when Dallon Forgaill stopped with Mongan, King of Meath, "Even-
night the poet would recite a story to Mongan. So great was his lore that they
were thus from Halloweve till May-Day. He had gifts of food from Mongan.
One day Mongan asked his poet what was the death of Fothad Airgdech. Forgaill
said he was slain at Duffry in Leinster.^ Mongan said it was false. The poet
(on hearing that) said that he would satirise him with his lampoons, and he would
sing (spells) upon their waters, so that fish should not be caught in their river
mouths. He would sing upon their woods so that they should not give fruit, upon
their plains so that they should be barren forever of any produce.

"Mongan (thereupon) promised him his fill of precious things, so far as (the
value) of seven bondmaids, or twice seven bondmaids, or three times seven. At
last he offers him one-third, or one-half of his land, or his whole land; at last
(everything) save only his own liberty with that of his wife Breathigrend."

THE POETS 183

then demanded for fee Cuchullain's remarkable spear, supernatu-
rally gifted, called the gae-buaid, or spear of victory. It was one of
CuchuUain's enemies who had instigated the treacherous demand.
The champion offered him instead many rich ^fts, one after an-
other, all of which were steadily refused by the poet, who at length
threatened to satirise CuchuUain, and disparage his honour. "Then,
take your gift I" cried the champion, flinging the spear with all his
force at the miscreant, whom he transfixed through the skull across.
And the satirist, exclaiming, "This indeed is an overpowering gift I"
dropped dead.

There were some notable instances of praiseworthy exactions
imposed by high-minded poets on people who deserved punishment
— exactions heartily approved of by a delighted country. Such
was that of the eighth century Meath poet, Ruman (who died in
742), the "Virgil of the Gael," who, when he visited Dublin, then a
stronghold of the Danish Galls, composed a poem to these Galls
and named as his reward a penny to be paid him from every mean
Gall and two pennies from every noble Gall. It is needless to add
that he carried away from this city of foreign marauders a very
weighty bag of money, indeed — every piece of it a two-penny. He
bore his booty to the noted School of Rathain, near Kilbeggan;
and there to the crowd of foreign scholars (who occupied seven
streets) he distributed one-third of his wealth; he gave another
third to the school and kept a third to himself.

The poet of repute in ancient time had no need to be exacting;
for so high was the regard for him and for his work that the volun-
tary fees were handsome. And they were consequently wealthy.
The old proverb tells that "Three coffers whose depths are not
known are those of the chieftain, the church and a privileged poet."
Fees fixed by law were graduated according to a poet's rank. A
file-poet, one of the highest order, was to be paid three milch-cows
for a poem; and a bard of the lowest order, to be paid one calf.
Naturally it was the latter class who usually sinned by their im-
position, impudence and unmerited satirising.

The generous and the pleased paid the lawful fee and as much
more as generosity prompted. A chieftain of the O'Donnells of
Tlr-Conaill who was a worthy patron of literature, once paid to a
poet, who made a poem in his praise, a mare for every rann ( four-
Hne stanza). The patronage of the people of Tir-Conaill for the
poet, is well exemplified in a poem by the great Flann MacLonain
(tenth century). It relates how Flann and his suite arrived at
the court of Elgnachan, prince of Tir-Conaill, just when the chief-
tain had finished dividing among his nobles and his churches great

1 84

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

spoil of gold taken from the Danes. Eignachan blushed for
shame at being empty-handed on a poet's advent — and his people,
seeing their chiefs confusion, came forward and put into his hands
again the gold he had given them; whereupon, the overjoyed Eig-
nachan, from the restored store, bestowed lavishly on the poet —
and divided the remainder among his people.

The same MacLonain in another corner of Ireland was the
recipient of another remarkable tribute to poetry — as related in
a poem of his equally famous contemporary, MacLiag, the poet-
ollam of Brian Boru. MacLiag tells how, one time that Mac-
Lonain was travelling in Galway, he met a labouring man of the
Dal Cas of Clare returning to his own country with the wages of
twelve months' service in Galway, a cow and a cloak. When the
poor Dalcassian learnt that it was the noble poet, MacLonain
whom he encountered, he begged a poem of him:

"He said to me in prudent words,
Sing to me the history of my country;
It is sweet to my soul to hear it."

MacLonain stirred his auditor with a poem in praise of the
Dalcassians and was immediately rewarded with the twelve months'
wages of the gratified one. But, for his pride of race, and gener-
osity to a poet, the man was repaid tenfold by his equally proud
and patriotic fellow Dalcassians, who, when they learnt what he
had done, received him with honour in their assembly, and bestowed
on him ten cows for every quarter of his own cow.

But, it was the most illustrious of all Dalcassians, Brian Boru,
the warrior king and patron munificent of poets and scholars, who
once gave to MacLiag the richest gift probably ever bestowed upon
one of the bardic race. On a day when Brian with his court stood
upon the battlements of KIncora, gratefully gazing upon the vast
tribute of cows' from Ulster and from Leinster, that were arriv-
ing at the Castle, the poet at his side paid a word of praise upon
the great flocks and herds that came to Brian — ^whereupon the mon-
arch turning to the poet said : "They are all thine, O noble poet I"

To this MacLiag is credited a classical piece of satire, one of
the rarest ever originated in any language. Moreover, he skilfully
combined, in one little off-hand remark, the most withering sar-
casm with the dizziest praise.

Once when he and his attendants had returned from circuit and

»It was this which gave to Brian his title Boru (of the Cow Tribute).

THE POETS 1 8s

he was entertaining Brian's court with accounts of his travels, the
king inquired which of all the visited chieftains had rewarded him
most generously. To everybody's amazement, the poet named one
who was notorious for niggardliness. "Donal MacDubh O'Dav-
eren," he said, "was the most generous of all." "What did he give
yrou ?'' asked Brian. "A leathern girdle and clasp," answered Mac-
Liag. "Did you visit Cian, the son of Malloy, chief of the Euge-
lians of Cashel, and his wife, Sabia, my daughter?" *'Yes. They
advanced to meet me when they heard I was coming. They had
myself and fifty of my train borne on men's shoulders. We were
brought to their Dun, and each man was given handsome garments,
a chain shirt and a cloak. To me Cian gave his own habiliments,
his horse, his armour, his chess-tables and nine score of his best
kine. He gave fifty steeds to my train — '•and lavished gold and fifty
rings on my bards." Said the astonished Brian, "Strange it is
that you are more grateful to Donal MacDubh O'Daveren for his
paltry girdle and clasp, than to Cian and Sabia." "Not strange
it is," replied MacLiag, "for it was more difficult to O'Daveren
to part with that girdle and clasp than to Cian and Sabia to bestow
all theii noble gifts."

The tenth-century poet, MacCoise, when ending a visit to Mul-
rooney, King of Connaught (ancestor of the O'Connors), was pre-
sented by that king with a chess-board, a valuable sword, fifty
milch cows and thirty steeds. And MacLiag in his eulogy on the
death of another great Connaught king, Tadg O'Kelly (whose
court-poet he had been), tells how, on the day that Tadg won the
battle of Loch Riach, he presented to him:

"An hundred cows, an hundred swords, an hundred shields,
An hundred oxen for the ploughing season,
And an hundred halter horses.

"He gave me on the night of Glenn-gerg,
An hundred cloaks and an hundred scarlet frocks,
Thirty spears of blood-stained points.
Thirty tables, and thirty chess-boards."

In the case of the plundering and burning of the poet Mac-
Coise's home by Donal O'Neill's army, the noted scholar Flann
or Clanmacnois assessed the damages due a poet for such insult
and loss; namely, full restitution and in addition fourteen cumals
(forty-two cows), and the breadth of the poet's face of gold. By
the learned men present, O'Neill himself, and his chiefs, it was

i86

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

then agreed that such should be the damages ever after payable in
all similar cases."

No great wonder it was that a class of men so favoured, in-
dulged, flattered and honoured, should sometimes find among them
many who came to think that no consideration should bar them
from the gratification of their lightest whim; and that no man's
rights were of any importance, if they came in conflict with their
rights. This point of view is strikingly exemplified in a quatrain
from a poem of Muiredach O'Daly who considered himself grossly
and wantonly persecuted because The O'Donnell pursued him from
tuath to tuath, and from kingdom to kingdom over Ireland, after
he had killed that prince's steward at LissadlU:

"Trifling our quarrel with the man (i.e., O'Donnell)
A clown to be abusing me,
And me to kill the churl —
Dear God, is this a cause for enmity!**

But a poet's moral attainments were expected to be on the same
high level with his Intellectual. There were demanded of him :

"Purity of hand, bright without wounding.

Purity of mouth without poisonous satire,

Purity of learning without reproach,

Purity of husbandship."

And, despite grave sins of the few sinners among them, the
ancient poets of Eirinn proved themselves worthy of their sacred
trust.

Much of the work done by the ofliclal poet was of a utHItarian
nature. The chief duties of his office, as king's file, were to keep
In verse the historical, genealogical and legal records; to prepare
for the public special poetic accounts of particular actions in which
the people were engaged; and to sing the feats of the champions,
the hospitality of the princes and the charms of the women. Such
were the more Important subjects from which the poet was expected
to derive Inspiration. And very many examples of the ancient
poet's work preserved down the centuries, are concerned with these
matters.

But the unofiiclal poet showed a wide range of inspiration.
Amongst the old poetic pieces, which escaped the destructive hand

• It was MacCoise himself, by means of a very clever allegorical poem, which
he entitled The Plunder of the Castle of Maelmilscothach, who brought O'Neill
to realize the enormity of the insult done by his men — and induced him to volun-
teer full satisfaction.

THE POETS

187

of alien enemies and blight of time are several which show the
ancient poet's marvellously keen observation, and ardent love, of
Nature, as well as his wonderfully subtle sense of beauty. Here
is a nature-picture (attributed to Oisin) as vivid as ancient:

"A tale for you: oxen lowing: winter snowing: summer passed
away: wind from the north, high and cold: low the sun and short
his course: wildly tossing the wave of the sea. The fern bums deep
red. Men wrap themselves closely: the wild goose raises her
wonted cry: cold seizes the wing of the bird: 'tis the season of ice:
sad my tale."

A poem attributed to Fionn is this description of May-day
(translated by O'Donovan) which shows that the love of nature,
ivas, in the far-away days of Ireland as truly cultivated, and as de-
lightfully expressed, as it has ever been in modern countries of
nodern days:

"May day! delightful time! how beautiful the colour;
The blackbirds sing their full lay. Would that Laegh were here'
The cuckoos sing in constant strains. Now welcome is the noble
Brilliance of the seasons ever ! On the margin of the branchy woods
The summer swallows skim the streams. The swift horses seek the

pooL
The heather spreads out her long hair. The weak fair bog«down

grows.
Sudden consternation attacks the signs ; the planets
In their courses nmning, exert an influence ;
The sea is lulled to rest, flowers cover the earth."

And now that Erin had become a land of schools, and of scribes,
«ve find one of the latter, entranced with his work, charmingly, im-
parting to us the beauty of his feeling.

THE SCRIBE »

A hedge of trees surrounds me,
A blackbird's lay sings to me;
Above my lined booklet
The thrilling birds chant to me.

In a grey mande from the top of bushes
The cuckoo sings:
Verily may the Lord shield me: —
Well do I write under the greenwood.

^ ^ This poem and the one that follows are from Kuno Meyer's "Ancient Irish
Poetry."

i88

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

A couple of hundred years after Patrick, a passionate desire
to live alone with God and Nature swept Ireland, and carried to
the wilderness and to remote and lonely islands tens of thousands
of intellectual and spiritual ones. One of the many hermit-poets
puts his soothed soul into a seductive song which in these days of
unrest makes us realise that though he is called hermit it is we who
are alone.

HERMIT'S SONG

I wish, O Son of the living God, O ancient, eternal King,

For a hidden litde hut in the wilderness that it may be my dwelling.

An all-grey lithe little lark to be by its side,

A clear pool to wash away sins through the grace of the Holy Spirit

Quite near, a beautiful wood around it on every side,
To nurse many-voiced birds, hiding it with its shelter.

A southern aspect for warmth, a litde brook across its floor,
A choice land with many gracious gifts such as be good for every
plant.

A few men of sense — we will tell their number —
Humble and obedient, to pray to the King: —

Four times three, three times four, fit for every need.
Twice this in the church, both North and South : —

Six pairs besides myself,

Praying forever to the King who makes the sun shine.

A pleasant church and with the linen altar cloth, a dwelling for God

from Heaven;
Then, shining candles above the pure white scriptures.

One house for all to go to for the care of the body,
Without ribaldry, without boasting, without thought of evil.

This is the husbandry I would take, I would choose, and will not

hide it:
Fragrant leek, hens, salmon, trout, bees;

Raiment and food for me from the King of fair fame,
And I to be sitting for a while praying God in every place.

And when the Connaught King, Cellach, from a hollow-tree
where, cornered by his enemy Maelcroin and armed band, he had
spent his last night on earth — ^beheld the spears of that dawn which
ushered in his death, he could not, still, withhold the expression
of his rapture :

THE POETS 189

' "HAIL to the Morning, that as a flame falls on the ground!
hail to Him too, that sends her, the Morning many-virtued, ever-new!

"O Morning fair, so full of pride, O sister of the brilliant sun!
hail to the beauteous morning that lightest for me my little book I

"Thou seest the guest in every dwelling, and shinest on every
tribe and kin; hail, O thou white-necked beautiful one, here with
us now, golden fair, wonderful!"

"My little book of chequered page tells me," continues Cel-
lach, "that my life has not been right." For, Cellach, even in
flight for his life had with him one of the books he dearly loved.
A student he had been, and should have continued — but, in a fool-
ish moment that he lived to regret in bitterness, he gave up the
student's cloister for the court. And in another poem this sixth*
century student-king sighs his sharp regret:

"Woe to him who leaveth lore

For the red world's arts or ore ;
Who the true God's love would leave
With the false world's Kings to cleave I

"Woe who taketh arms in life
And retaineth hand of strife.
Better far books of whiteness
Where psalms are seen in brightness!"

— From a translation by Dr. SiGERSON.

The English poet Tennyson dipped into ancient Irish lore and
poetry before singing of Arthur. Knowing this, we are led to won-
der if he who wrote Crossing the Bar did not stumble upon the
beautiful little piece of our ninth-century Cormac MacCuilleanain :

"Wilt Thou steer my frail black bark
O'er the dark broad ocean's foam?
Wilt Thou come, Lord, to my boat
Where afloat, my will would roam?
Thine the mighty, Thine the small,
Thine to make men fall like rain,
God, wilt Thou grant aid to me
As I come o'er the upheaving main?" *

* Translated by Douglas Hyde.

•There are dozens of different kinds of the poems of ancient Ireland that
must be left unsampled. But here is one on the fleetingness of life, translated by
O'Donovan, which while far from being as good as a hundred others that miglrt
be quoted, is in a style that will please many readers —

Like a damask rose you see,
(> like a blossom on a tree.

190

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Hyde, Douglas, LL.D.: A Literary History of Ireland, from the earliest
times to the present day.

Irish Poetry: an Essay in Irish, with translation in En^ish.

Sigerson, Dr. Geo, : Bards of the Gael and Gall.

O'Curry, Eugene: Manuscript Materials of Irish History.

Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish.

Joyce, P. W. : Social History of Ancient Ireland.
Meyer, Kuno: Ancient Irish Poetry.

Carmichael, Alexander: Carmina Gadelica: Hymns and Incantations orally
collected in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, and translated into
English.

Or like a dainty flower in May,
Or like the morning to the day.
Or like the sun, or like the shade.
Or like the gourd which Jonah made ;
Even such is man whose thread is spun,
Drawn out and out, and so is done.

The rose withers, the blossom blasteth,
The flower fades, the morning hasteth,
The sun sets, the shadow flies.
The gourd consumes, the man — he dies.

Like the grass that's newly sprung,
Or like the tale that's new begun.
Or like the bird tiiat's here to-day,
Or like the pearly dew in May,
Or like the hour, or like the span.
Or like the singing of the swan;
Even such is man who lives by breath,
Is here, now there, in life and death.

The grass withers, the tale is ended,
The bird is flown, the dew's ascended.
The hour is short, the span not long,
The swan's near death, man's life is done.

Like the bubble in the brook.
Or in a glass much like a look.
Or like shuttle in weaver's hand,
Or like the writing on the sand,
Or like a thought, or like a dream.
Or like the gliding of the stream;
Even such is man, who lives in breath,
Is here, now there, in life and death.

The bubble's blown, the look forgot.
The shuttle's flung, the writing's not,
The thought is past, the dream is gone.
The water's run, man's life is done.

Like an arrow from a bow.
Or like a course of water flow.
Or like the time 'twixt flood and ebb.
Or like the spider's tender web,
Or like a race, or like a goal.
Or like the dealing of a dole;
Even such is man whose battle state
Is always subject unto fate.

THE POETS

191

The arrow shot, the flood soon spent,
The time no time, the web soon rent,
The race soon run, the goal soon won,
The dole soon dealt, man s life soon done.

Like the li^tning from the sky,

Or like a post that quick doth hie,

Or like a guaver in a song.

Or like a journey three days' long

Or like the snow when summer's come,

Or like the pear, or like the plum;

Even such is man, who heaps up sorrow.

Lives this day, and dies to-morrow.

The lightning's past, the post must go.
The song is short, the journey so,
The pear doth rot, the plum doth fall.
The snow dissolves, and so must all.

CHAPTER XXV

THE IRISH KINGDOM OF SCOTLAND

Probably there is nothing in Irish history which has caused more
confusion than the terms Scotia and Scot, which, at first applied
to Ireland and Irishmen, came to be applied later to Ireland's
northeastern neighbour, Alba, and its inhabitants. A statement of
the cause of this change may aid to untangle a historical tangle
which troubles the minds of many who are not students.

It will be remembered that our most ancient poets and seana-
chies claimed that an early name for Eirinn, Scotia, was derived
from Scota, queen-mother of the Milesians. The derivation may,
or may not, be imaginary. But, downward from the days of the
Emperor Constantine the Great, when the poet Egesippus tells
how "Scotia which links itself to no land, trembles at their (the
Roman legions') name" — ^the term Scotia is, by Continental writers,
applied to Ireland more often than any other name. And Scot is
the term by these writers most constantly applied to a native of
Eirinn. Orosius, the third century geographer, uses "Hibernia the
nation of the Scoti."

As late as the end of the seventh century we find the Irishman
Adamnan, when residing and writing in the country which is now
Scotland, using the word Scotia to designate his own home coun-
try from which he is an exile. And down in the eleventh century
we have an Irish exile on the Continent, the celebrated Marianus
Scotus (Marian the Scot) referring to his countrymen as Scots.
The foreigner, Hermann, in the same century, is calling them Scots
likewise. And still farther on, in the thirteenth century, Caesar of
Heisterbach, talking of Purgatory, requests any one who doubts
its existence to go to Scotia to St. Patrick's Purgatory there, and
be convinced. The reference is to the then world-famous St. Pat-
rick's Purgatory in Loch Dearg (Donegal) where penitents en-
closed for many d«ys in a cave, had vision of Heaven, Hell and
Purgatory.

Isidore of Seville, writing in the seventh century, uses the
phrase, "Scotia eadem et Hibernia." And Charlemagne's biog-

192

THE IRISH KINGDOM OF SCOTLAND 193

rapher, the celebrated Notker le Begue of the ninth century who
was intimate with the Irishmen of the school of St. Gall in Switzer-
land, and a pupil of the Irish teacher Mongan, there — uses the
phrase "In the Island Hibernia, or Scotia," when talking of Colm
CiUe. And again in talking of St. Kilian, the martyred bishop of
Wurzburg, he says: "He came from Hibernia, the Island of the
Scots."

The modem name of Ireland seems to have originated with
the Northmen, in about the seventh century — ^being probably
formed from Eire, they called it I r or Ire, and after that the Eng-
lish called it Ireland, and its natives Irish. For several centuries
longer, however, these terms were noi adopted by Continental
writers, who still continued to speak of Scotia and the Scot, and
designated the Irish scholars on the Continent by the term Scotus.
The new name Ireland was on the Continent, first used only in the
eleventh century (by Adam De Breme).

To Alba (the present Scotland) was transferred the term
Scotia, and to its people the term Scot, because the Scoti of Hiber-
nia, having again and again colonised there, built in it a strong king-
dom, which gave the Scotic (Irish) people dominance there, and
soon made the Scotic kings the kings of the whole country. The
first account of Scotic colonising in Alba occurs in the very begin-
ning of the third century when Conaire the Great, a son-in-law of
Conn of the Hundred Battles, was King of Munster — ^to become
later High King of Ireland. One of his three sons, the Carbris,
Carbri Riada, namely, led a large body of his people from Kerry to
the northeast of Antrim, where he settled some of them, and cross-
ing Sruth-na-Moill to the adjacent coast of Scotland, settled a col-
ony there also— in those peninsulas and islands which are now
part of Argyle.*

This first colony of Scots from Ireland to settle in Alba, from
time to time received increase in numbers from the mother coun-
try— and military help also whenever they needed it against their
neighbours, the Picts.

A hundred years later, namely, in the first part of the fourth
century, Lugaid MacConn, another Munsterman and a descendant
of Conn of the Hundred Battles, who had to flee from Ireland,
brought some accessions of strength to them, when he came there

*It is held by some that Carbri Riada settled his people entirely in Antrim,
and that it was Fergus who first brought the people of Dal Riada over the water,
and established the Scotic kingdom of Alba. The former, however, is the popular
oelief, and is attested by the Venerable Bede as well as others. CFlaherty and
Usher diflfer with Bede, though.

194

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

about two centuries later, and made himself a power in the Scotic
colony. From his son, Fothaid Canan, whom he left in power
there when he returned to Ireland, to wrest the High Kingship
from Art the Lonely, sprang the ancestors of the lords of Argyle,
variously named MacAUen, Campbell and MacCallum Mor.

About a hundred years after Carbri Riada had established the
Scotic Dal Riada in Alba, as well as the Dal Riada in Antrim, there
also came to the Scotic colony a considerable accession of strength
— a body of their kinsmen from Kerry led by one of their chief-
tains, Fergus.

The Picts, naturally jealous of these usurpers on their soil,
continued exerting the utmost pressure upon them, in the hope of
crushing them out, till Niall of the Nine Hostages, going to their
assistance with an army, overcame and drove back the Picts, estab-
lished the Scotic kingdom in Alba on a solid foundation, and, it is
said, got the submission of the Picts and the tribute of all Alba.

When the colony had added another hundred years to its age —
at the beginning of the sixth century that is — it got Its greatest
and strongest accession by the coming of a Niallan host, headed
by the three grandsons of Ere, Lome, Aongus and Fergus Mor
their leader — ^who gave new blood, strength and leadership to the
Dal Riada of Alba, and made It an island power to be reckoned
with. For before the century's end It was strong and plucky enough
to demand its complete Independence from the mother country — a
claim which, in 576, King Aedh, accompanying Colm, carried to
the Convention of Drimceatt — and which was settled to the young
kingdom's complete satisfaction. While united to Ireland by the
closest bonds of blood, friendship, education and military in-
tercourse, it was now a separate and independent kingdom' — ^with
the Antrim Dal Riada, some hold, as an appanage.

The Scots' kingdom of Argyle and the islands held its own and
more, for a long time. But at the end of the eighth century, in
the reign of Don Coirce, the Northmen pushed them eastward
from their original seat, and they In turn pushed the Picts east and
northeast, and against these Picts conducted a campaign of con-
quest which lasted half a century, till, in the year 850, their king,
CInead (Kenneth) MacAlpIn, completely overthrew the Picts and
was the first Gaelic king of (the chief part of) Scotland. Some
claim that he got dominion over the Britons, who occupied the
southwest of the country and the Anglo-Danish population of the

2 MacNeill holds that the Alban Dal Riada had got its independence from the
mother-country before Drimceatt — ^and that Aedh's claim at Drimceatt was for
sovereignty over bis kinsmen of the Antrim Dal Riada.

THE IRISH KINGDOM OF SCOTLAND

195

southeast. Now that the Scotic people got complete dominion over
all or the main part of the country, it began to be called Scotia — •
at first Scotia Minor, in contradistinction to Eire, which was Scotia
Major — ^but gradually the title Scotia fell away from Eire, and
solely came to signify Alba.

In the eleventh century, when all of the present country of Scot-
land— ^with exception of the Western Islands and headlands,
and northern islands, which were held by the Danes — had been
brought under Scotic sway, the dominant Gaelic power began to
wane. A number of leading English families who fled or were
driven from the south, in consequence of the Norman invasion,
flocked into southeastern Scotland and came into favour at court (in
Edinburgh). Then also Malcolm married Margaret, daughter of
Edmund, King of the Saxon peoples (afterwards St. Margaret).
The new influences began to affect king, court and government
from this time forward. And the king began to find it easy to lean
upon the newcomers, the southerners, as well as their kinsmen, the
old Anglo-Danish colony of the southeast, in the differences that
were constantly arising between him and the semi-independent (Gae-
lic) chieftains of the Highlands. When, at the end of the eleventh
century, Malcolm's son, Edgar, English both by name and nature,
was crowned king — ^the Gaelicism of royalty and of the court
waned more rapidly, till in the thirteenth century it went out alto-
gether; and the last of the Irish royal line became extinct with
Alexander the Third, who died without heir in 1287. Then be-
gan the Wars of Succession among the Lowland old-English fam-
ilies, the Bruces and the Balliols.

So, though the greater portion of the country was, and still is,
Gaelic — ^with Gaelic manners, customs, dress and language, still
holding in the Highlands and the Islands — the end of the thirteenth
century saw the end of Scotic (Irish) rule in Alba.

Keating's History of Ireland.

Joyce, P. W. : Social History of Ancient Ireland.

O'Curry, Eugene: Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish.

— Manuscript Materials of Irish History.

MacNeill, Eoin: Some Phases of Irish History.
Skene, W.F.: Celtic Scotland.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE CENTURIES OF THE SAINTS

The new impetus and aim that Patrick gave to the Irish nation,
turning it from war-love to ideals much higher, wrought in the
island a phenomenal transformation. While foreign warring and
raiding ceased, and internal warring became more rare, tens of
thousands of every rank and class in the nation vied with one an-
other, not, as formerly, for skill in handling war weapons, but
for ease in conning the Scriptures; not for gaining fame in fight-
ing, but for gathering favour in the sight of God. The religious
development and spiritual revolution were extraordinary. A con-
suming thirst for knowledge, and burning ardour for spreading the
Gospel, swept the eager land, as a Lammas fire would sweep the
powder-dry mountainside. Old and young, men and women, teacher
and fighter, king and kerne, all were caught up in the Christ-fire
that glowed in every vale and leaped on every hill in Erin. The
true history of several centuries succeeding Patrick's coming, con-
sists not of the chronicle of Erin's wars, and the roll of her kings,
but the record of the thousands of the saints,^ and the tens of thou-
sands of the teachers of Erin. And let us keep in mind that this
period of the spiritual rejuvenation of the island on the verge of
the world synchronised with that dark and fearful period in Eu-
rope when Chriistianity and culture were being mercilessly over-
whelmed by the onward-rolling, irresistible wave of barbarism that
left naught but wild desolation in its wake.

Fortunate for Europe and for the world it was that in this
dread hour the Lord called the eager labourers of Eire to His
island vineyard; and from it sent the saving vintage far and wide
for the reviving of a perishing world.

"For once, at any rate, Ireland direw on herself the eyes of the
whole world," says Kuno Meyer, in the Preface to his Ancient Irish
Poetry . . . "as the one haven of rest in a turbulent world overrun

^All men who signally devoted themselves to the religious li£e then were
termed saints.

196

THE CENTURIES OF THE SAINTS 197

by hordes of barbarians, as the great seminary of Christianity and
classic learning. Her sons, carrying Christianity and a new human-
ism over Great Britain and the Continent, became teachers of whole
nations, the councillors of Kings and Emperors. . . . The Celtic spirit
dominated a large part of the Western world and its Christian ideals
imparted new life to a decadent civilisation."

Christianity and learning went hand in hand in Ireland. Al-
most every one of her multitude of holy men became scholars, and
every holy scholar became a teacher. Each holy man's fame went
wide over the land, attracting to him crowds who desired to sit at
his feet and emulate him. And unexpectedly would he then find
himself the head of a school — for, both for their sake and for
sake of those with whom they should afterwards work, it was
necessary to educate the colony of disciples, whose little huts
and bothies arose so thickly around his own modest habitation.
Hence, ecclesiastical schools, side by side with their secular
forerunners, and soon far overshadowing them, sprang up in
every corner of the country, till the land was thickly dotted with
them.

Of what is known of the holy men of this period many volumes
have been written. It would take infinitely more volumes to record
all that has been lost or forgotten regarding them. Here we can
only suggest the men and the time, by sketching some shadowy
outlines of a few of the more prominent figures — chiefly saints of
the second order — ^with a few scraps of the characteristic folk-lore
that has grown entwiningly around their memory.

For, those centuries had three orders of saints, namely: the
Patrician or secular clergy, missionaries who travelled and preached
Christ to all the land during the hundred years succeeding the com-
ing of Patrick; the monastic saints, who, during the next hundred
years, cultivated Christianity in, and radiated it from, their monastic
establishments and monastic schools ; and the anchorites, the hermit
saints, who, succeeding the great ones of the second order, culti-
vated Christ in solitude, on lonely islands, on wild mountain-tops,
and in the impenetrable wilderness. These last, like Fechin, Se-
nach, Coleman, Emaan, are described as "holy and shone as aurora ;
the second class, more holy, lighted the land as does the moon ; and
the first, most holy, were like the sun that warms the land by the
fervour of its brightness."

Under the second order such communities sprang up as that of
St. Nessan,* of Mungret (near Limerick) of which Keating states,

' "Never came forth from his mouth what was false or deceitful.**

198

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

"The following was the number of its members, to wit, five hun-
dred monks who were men of learning, whose office it was to
preach to the people, six hundred choristers who sang in the choir,
and four hundred seniors who were devoted to the meditation of
divine things."

One of the most honoured and most beloved of the second
order of Irish saints was Finian of Clonard, a child of the Clan
Rory — "a doctor of wisdom and tutor of the saints of Erin, in
his time," as O'Clery in his Martyrology styles him. For, from
his famous school at Cluain-erard — Clonard, on the River Boyne
— ^went forth the twelve saints who were styled the Twelve
Apostles of Eirinn: the two Ciarans, the two Brendans, the two
Colms,' Mobi,* Ruadan, Lasserian, Ciannech, Senach and Ninnid
of Loch Erne. Strange to say, Finian got his education in Britain
— in that part which is now called Wales. There he studied chiefly
under Cadoc, who was himself part Irish and had been trained by
two Irish teachers. He also studied under the Welshman Gildas,
who had conducted some of his own studies in Ireland. After
Finian had returned to Ireland, and had established himself, about
A. D. 520, on the Boyne, his fame for piety and for wisdom spread
so fast that in short time a community was established there. "Ab-
bots left their monasteries and bishops their sees, to come to learn
Divine Wisdom from his lips." "His school," says O'Clery, "was
in quality a holy city full of wisdom and virtue. And he came to
be called Finian the Wise."

The growth of his community, and of his power, are well illus-
trated in a little incident recorded of Colm Cille's first coming
there. Having told the little stranger, to whom he took a liking,
to build his hut at the door of the church and finding, later, that
he had, instead, in his modesty, gone far off to build, Finian af-
fectionately chided him for not doing what he had been told — to
which the princeling from Tir-Conaill prophetically replied, "But
here, before long, the door of thy church will be."

His school grew so enormously that it is recorded he had at
length three thousand pupils, native and foreign.

' Of course this refers to the two most famed Colms — Colm of lona and Colm
of Tir-da-glass. There were scores of St. G>lms. CHalloran reckons of Irish
Saints whose names were common : 4 named Colga, 10 named Gobhan, 12 Dicuil
12 Maidoc, 12 Adran, 13 Caman, 13 Dimian, 14 Brendan, 14 Finian, 14 Ronan, 15
G>nall, 15 Dermod, 15 Lugad, 16 Lassaran, 18 Comin, 19 Foilla, 20 Ciaran, 20
Ultan, 22 Gillian, 23 Aidan, 30 Cronan, Zl Moluan, 43 Lasrian, 34 Mochuma, 58
Mochua, 55 Fintan, 60 Cormac, 200 Colman.

* Mobi, who had a school at Glasnevin, sent to Colm Glle on lona, the present
of a certain sacred girdle. "Good was the man who had this girdle, for it never
opened on feasting nor closed on falsehood."

THE CENTURIES OF THE SAINTS

199

That Finian*s pupils advanced in sanctity as they did in knowl-
dge we learn from a quaint bit of lore recorded in the old Book
»f Lismore, which tells how Finian, otherwise occupied himself,
»nce sent the student Senach to observe and bring him word how
he other pupils were engaged — "Different in sooth was that at
Fhich each of them was found, yet all were good. Colm the son
if Crimthann was with hands stretched forth, and mind contem-
tlative of God, the wild birds resting on his hands and on his

lead.'

With this Finian is sometimes confounded his contemporary,
i'inian of Moville* in Down, who, Colgan says, is the Irish Frigi-
lius, who became bishop of Lucca in Italy — at whose school the
jeat Colm chiefly studied, and from whose book of the Scriptures
e took the surreptitious copy that indirectly caused his exile.

The Senach just referred to — the saintly Senach, on whom at-
ended many miracles, and who was one of the twelve apostles of
irin, is the same who afterwards failed in attempt to turn away
rem his Island of Iniscathy (at the mouth of the Shannon) the
loly woman Canaire. He conducted on this Island of Iniscathy
noted school. It was when (before that) he conducted an estab-
ishment at Iniscara, that there is said to have landed in Cork a
hip's company of Romans, hither attracted by Erin's fame for
loHness and wisdom. Ten of these Romans are said to have
oined Senach's Iniscara community. That he should be a worthy
nd inspiring teacher is not to be wondered at, for as a lad he had
n unquenchable thirst for knowledge, which forced him to be-
ome that which in later days was termed a "poor scholar." He
lad read and profited by the verse of Matthew which says : "Who-
oever will be great among you, let him be your servant." And
or his teaching he paid with service. He herded cows and calves
or Notal of Kell Manach, with whom he read. Senach carried
I book with him to the fields, when he went herding.'

^Once, says a legend, Kevin of Glendalough prayed so intently that a bird
uilt its nest between his extended palms, laid its eggs, and reared its young.

' Of this Finian of Moville is related one of the heavenly bird legends — ^which,
lowever, for chronological reasons, must have been first related of some other of
he many St. Finians. Once when he was in the woods gathering wattles for
uilding a monastery, a beautiful bird sang three enchanting songs to him— whiA
leld him spell-bound for, he thought, several minutes. But when the songs were
inished and that he went home with his burden of wattles, — ^which were still green
7he was astounded to see a g^eat monastery built — ^and occupied by a commu-
uty of men all strange to him. When he and they had got over mutual aston-
shment and bewilderment, and that the records were seardied it was found that
Finian had gone into the woods to gather wattles ISO years ago— and never re-
amed !

^So that he might not be distracted in his reading, he would, when he went

200 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Like Senach, Ciaran the Wright, he of Clonmacnois, herded
in his youth, and carried to the herding his hunger for knowledge.
He was herding in Magh Ai for his foster-father, Justus, who was
also his tutor when, attracted by the saintliness of Ciaran, a fox
out of the woods made itself his servant, it is said.*

Ciaran was a beautiful character, who was cut off in the flower-
ing of his manhood.* After Colm, he had been the favourite of
his master, Finian, at Clonard. To Finian's eyes he was the moon,
who was to cheer and enlighten the centre of Ireland, while Colm
was the sun which should enlighten Erin and Alba, and all of West-
ern Europe.

His liberality, and love of helping others, made him noted—
and won for him a nick-name, when he studied under the loving eye
of his spiritual father, Finian. It was on the first day when that
little Ninnid the slant-eyed, of Loch Erne, seeking the knowledge
for which his soul yearned, came to the big school. When the
great-hearted Finian had spoken with, and accepted, and enrolled
the shy little fellow from Loch Erne, he told him to go among the
scholars and borrow a book. But all whom the timid boy visited
were so deep in their studies that they could not spare him what he
wanted. He returned to Finian and told him he had made the
rounds of the school, but could get no book from the scholars.
"Hast thou gone," said Finian, "to yon tender youth who is on the

to the pasture, separate the calves from the cows — drawing a line across the field
between them, over which neither had the power to go to the other. And when
in the grinding season, he had to take his turn sitting up in the mill at night, he
also brought a book for study. On one occasion, when they knew that he was
there alone, robbers came, but on arriving saw to their dismay two men, one
reading and one grinding. And their evil scheme was thus miraculously thwarted

Of pupils in his school is told a beautiful incident Two of them, little boys,
having gone with another bigger boy, Donnan, the son of Liach, to cut sea-weed
for the master, were drowned. To assuage the frantic grief of their parents,
Senach recalled their souls to their discovered bodies. Then the re-living lads
protested to their mother : "O Mother, though the power of the whole world
was given us and its delightfulness and joyance, we would deem it the same as
if we were in prison, compared with being in the life and the land we reached."

*The fox, we are told, used to carry back and forth between pupil and
tutor the psalter wherein Ciaran read. The animal would sit by Ciaran in the
field, barkening to the boy reading his lesson to the end, and would watch while
Ciaran, with his style, copied the lesson upon the waxen tablets. Then the wise
animal, taking the tablets in his mouth, carried them, with the psalter, home to
Justus, and brought them back corrected. But, once, tempted by the tastiness of
the wax, the fox succumbed to the devil's prompting — and went aside from the
straight path to enjoy the lesson under a bush. Aongus, the son of Crimthann cawe
upon him with his hounds and men at that critical moment, and gave chase to
Reynard, who, with the tablets, fled for his life. He ran to Oaran and came
tmder his cowl. And Ciaran saved the fox from the hounds, and the tablets
from the fox.

» He died A. D. 548, aged only 33. "He never uttered a word that was false"

THE CENTURIES OF THE SAINTS 201

north of the green?" Ninnid, replying that he had not done so,
was directed to go there now. The tender youth was Ciaran, the
son of the Carpenter. When the slant-eyed one asked Ciaran if
he might have his book to read from, the reader was studying that
verse of Matthew: "Omnia quxcumque ultis ut faciant homini,"
etc. — and turning to the timid lad, answered him: "This I read,
that I should do unto others what I would desire them to do unto
me. So, though I am only half through Matthew, you may have
it." And he gave his book to the little fellow with whom no one
else would bother. His playful fellow-students hereupon nick-
named him "Ciaran half-Matthew" — and when the story came to
the ears of Finian, he proudly said to these students : "Not Ciaran
half-Matthew will he be, but Ciaran half-Ireland."

Shortly before his birth, Ciaran's mother came to visit a holy
bishop, who, when he heard the roll of her approaching chariot
said: "It is the noise of a chariot under a king. And he shall be
a mighty king. As the sun shineth among the stars of heaven, so
shall he shed on earth imracles and marvels that can not be told." "

When he was at Clonard, and would go out to study in the
silence of the woods, tradition says that a stag used to come and
lie down in front of him, presenting its horns for a reading stand
on which he laid his book whilst he read.

After Clonard he went to Aran to study under St. Enda. While
studying there he used to thrash the corn for the community; but
they had to take this office from him, because he gave of the corn
so lavishly to the poor that he often left the students and the com-
munity hungering. When he was leaving Aran he had vision of a
tree which grew up in the middle of Erin and sheltered all the land.
Its branches bent with load of fruit, wherefrom all the birds of
the air came to eat. Enda read the vision for him : "That tree
is thyself. All Erin shall be filled with thy name, and sheltered
by the grace that will be in thee. And many from all parts will
be fed by thy prayers and fastings. Go, in God's name, and found
thy church on the Shannon's barJcs."

Before Ciaran put his foot in his boat to sail away from Enda
and Aran, he knelt him down upon the strand to get his teacher's
parting blessing. And the grieving Enda, as he would give it, broke

^"On a certain day Garan was sowing seed at Iseal-Chiarain. A poor man
asked him for alms. Garan threw a handful of grain into his breast, and it turned
immediately into gold. King Angus, son of Crimthann, sent two horses and
chariots to Garan, and Garan gave them to the poor man for the gold, and the
gold turned into grain immediately, and the field was sown with it after, so that
not in the whole territory was there com better.

202 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

down and wept — and was gently chidcd therefor by his brethren.
*'Oh, my brothers," said Enda, "why should I not weep; this day
our Island has lost its rarest flower."

He went to the place where he had been directed by Enda. He
first stopped at Ard Mantain, a beautiful and fertile spot, on the
river banks, which attracted him much. But on consideration he
said: "No, not here may I found my church. Here indeed are
the world's riches in plenty, but from such a place the souls going
to heaven would be few." He next stopped at Ard Tiprait, a
place unattractive and with soil unyielding. "Here let us remain,"
he said to his companions, "for many souls will ascend to Heaven
from this spot." That was Saturday, January 23rd, 540. In that
place and on that day he blessed and drove the first post. When
he was making his preparations for this there appeared upon the
scene an outlaw — Diarmuid, the son of Fergus KerbeoU, who was
hiding from the High King's armies that sought him. This Diar-
muid enthusiastically aided the young cleric in fixing the first post
of his church. Turning to the faithful one who was hunted, Ciaran
then said : "Though to-day thy followers are few, to-morrow thou
wilt be High King of Eirinn." And his words were fulfilled, for
the powerful Ard-Righ of later days, Diarmuid O' Carroll, was
no other than the outlaw friend of Ciaran. Ciaran had his church
finished on May 9th, of the same year; and then his community and
school began to grow. He lived for a very short time to enjoy
and to foster both. But even in this short time new lustre was
added to a name whose brightness had before been notable.

In his very short life — for he died at the age of thirty-three—
he had lifted many thousands toward God. He had evoked won-
derful veneration throughout the land, and been a beacon on a
mountaintop to the men and women of Eirinn. And the monastery
and school which he had started, which he blessed with his name,
and inspired with his spirit, was to be among the greatest of the
great monasteries and schools of Eirinn; and down the ages the
fame of his school was to exceed the fame of all other schools that
Eirinn ever knew, and its scholars were to be noted for their wis-
dom and their learning, both at home in Ireland, and abroad on
the Continent.

The last moments of the holy Ciaran are told with simple
beauty in the Book of Lismore:

"When the time of his decease drew nigh to holy Ciaran, in the
little Church, in the thirty-third year of his age, on the fifth of the
Ides of September, as regards the day of the solar month, on Satur-
day as regards the day of the week : on the eighteenth as regards the

THE CENTURIES OF THE SAINTS

203

day of the moon, he said, 'Let me be carried to the little height above
the church.' And when that was done he looked to the sky and
the lofty air above his head. And saith he, 'Awful is this way above.'
'Not for thee is it awful,' say the monks. 'I know not indeed,' saith
he, 'aught of God's commandments I have transgressed, and yet even
David, son of Jesse, and Paul the Apostle dreaded this way.* Then
the stone pillow was taken from under him for his comfort. 'Nay,'
saith he, 'put it under my shoulder.* . . . Then angels filled all be-
tween heaven and earth to meet his souL Then he was carried into
the little church and he raised his hands and blessed his people" —
and closed his eyes in Christ.^^

This Ciaran the Wright is not to be confounded with the other
amous Ciaran, Ciaran of Saighir. Ciaran the Wright (the son
if the Carpenter), with whom we have dealt, was of Ulster origin;
Ciaran of Saighir was of Munster. He was born in Cork. It is
le who, some contend, first introduced Christianity in the South of
reland — ^before the coming of Patrick. Southern tradition is stub-
ornly strong on this point, but there are many pieces of circum-
tantial evidence that tend to prove him of the sixth century. Very
;reat he was though, to judge from tradition — ^which after all, is
ne of the most certain proofs of true greatness. So great was he
1 the popular esteem that one legend has him as conceived of
leaven. A star fell into the mouth of his mother, Liadain, when
leaping: "thereof was born the wondrous birth, Ciaran of Saighir.
^nd after his birth the angels of the Lord tended him, and the
anks of Heaven baptised him. And it is in Corcu Luidaich first
bat in Ireland the cross was believed in — ^thirty years before the
oming of Patrick."

He was a worker of miracles, was this great Ciaran. And in
is love of the poor, the southern Ciaran rivalled his humbler name-
ake. The Feilire of Aongus tells us, "Many cattle had Ciaran

^* Ciaran died of the great plague, the Buidhe Conaill, a kind of yellow jaundice
'hich again and again ravaged Ireland (as well as the neighbouring countries in
le sixth and seventh centuries). About the time of Ciaran's death it played havoc
ith the monastic communities. The schools were broken up, and the pupils sent
ome. In that visitation during which Ciaran died St Ultan signalised himself
y^ becoming father and mother to hundreds of children who were orphaned by
le pestilence. Apropos of this is a truly quaint legend (recorded by Aongus)
ow that an invadmg fleet arrived at this time oflF the coast of Ireland. Diarmuid,
no was then Ard-Righ, sent a messenger, with the alarming news, to Ultan,
fging his intercession with (jod to avert tnis second calamity coming upon the
ifFering country. When the message was delivered to Ultan he was busy feed-
's his children But he raised against the fleet his unoccupied left hand, where-
Pon a storm arose and completely wrecked the fleet. And when they would
lank Ultan for this he reproached them, "Shame it was not to have left me till
'y right hand was free. For, against the raising of my right, no foreign foe
>uid ever after invade Eirinn."

204

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

of Salghir, for there were ten doors to the shed for his kine, ten
stalls for each door, ten cows for each stall, ten calves for each
cow. ... So long as he was alive, Ciaran consumed not any kine,
small or great, of their relish nor of their great produce ; but dls-
tributed to the poor and needy of the Lord. Moreover, Ciaran
had fifty horses for ploughing and tilling the earth, but it seems that
of what they tilled he ate not a single cake so long as he was alive.
The following, was his dinner every night: a little bit of barley
bread and spring water as a drink with it, and two roots of sea-
fern as relish for it. Skins of fawns was the raiment he wore. A
bolster of stone was at his head when he used to sleep."

This Ciaran was of the first order of Saints — b, missionary,
who did great work in bringing the people of Munster to Christ.
And winning them for Christ, he won them also for himself. For
his fame in Munster is imperishable."

One of the thousand traditions, which display the Irish sym-
pathy with the animal world and show so many of the saints in
intimate intercourse with the dumb living things around them, says
that when Ciaran lived in the woods, worshipping God, a furious
wild boar came to keep him company. And after that came a fox,
and then a wolf, and a badger, and a fawn. And this curious com-
munity lived together in loving harmony always. At least except for
one little slip when the fox, getting inordinately hungry, stole the
saint's sandals, and carried them off to make him a meal. But the
badger, discovering the crime, indignantly followed, took the san-
dals from the thief, and returned them to their owner.*'

Another famous southern saint of the early Church was the
Kerryman, Brendan — ^known as the Voyager, or Brendan of Clon-
fert — to distinguish him from his contemporary Brendan of Birr.
Throughout the Middle Ages Brendan was known and famed in all
corners of Europe, through the romantic account, then translated
into every written tongue, of the wonderful voyage, extending over
seven years, which he is said to have gone upon — a voyage, in the

12 A legend, proving — if proof be needed — that the Lord would not suffer His
beloved Munstermen to be put to shame before outlanders from less favored prov-
inces, tells how on a fast-day, Brendan of Birr, and Garan of Cluain, once un-
expectedly dropped in upon Ciaran of Saighair._ Finding him with nothing eatable
in the house, but a piece of meat, Garan, taking the meat, blessed it, and lo he
had Rsh, honey and oil in plenty to put before these outlanders.

13 Many ot the saints were noted for their love of animals, and for the animals*
love of them. A flock of wild ducks followed St, Coleman, wherever he went
Brendan, the Navigator, had a pet crow: Colm Glle, a pet crane. When Molua
MacOchae died all the birds and all the animals in Erin mourned. One bird whom
St. Maelanfaid questioned as to the cause of its sad lamenting, told him that St
Molua had never harmed bird or beast in all his life— "So, not more do human
beings grieve for him than the other animals, and the little birds that thou seest

THE CENTURIES OF THE SAINTS

205

lurse of which, say some, he landed upon the Continent that is
)W America.

Brendan was born in the last quarter of the fifth century, and
/ed nearly a hundred years. He studied his theology in one of
e very early schools, St. Jarlath's famous school near Tuam.
lit before that he had been tutored by Bishop Eire — ^the same
ho, tradition says, on the night of the birth of this Brendan, be-
:ld the woods by the home where the child was born, wrapt in
le vast flame, which reached up to the skies, and the like of which
; never saw before; and a manifold service of angels, in bright
hite garments, all around the land. And during his childhood it
said, a hind from Sliabh Luachra used to come daily, with her
iwn, to give milk for the heaven-favoured child.

It was this Brendan who, when going forth to his studies, was
imonished by St. Ita " (his foster-mother), "Study not with
omen nor with virgins lest some should make mock of thee."

But Brendan hardly needed the admonition, for his strenuous
DJection to feminine company is famed through the incident that
ippened when his foster-father. Bishop Eire, took the little lad
rendan, with him, when he went to visit the King and Queen of
le territory. He left the lad in the chariot while he called upon
le royal pair; and a pretty little yellow-haired princess entered
le chariot to play with the boy, but was ignominiously ejected by
Bishop Eire penanced him severely for his conduct-

:on-

emning him to spend the night in the cave of Fenit. The penitent
lanted psalms during the night which were heard for a thousand
aces on every side. And, says the legend, about the cave troops
i angels were seen up to heaven and down to earth, from night-
illing to day dawn.

It was in the middle of the sixth century (556) that he began
is school of Clonfert— on an island in Lough Dearg, in the River
hannon — ^which was to be one of the famous schools of Ireland,
nd which in future generations was to boast for Abbot, one of
reland's famous scholars, St. Cummian Fada."

J* St Ita, born about 480, founded the first monastery in Munster, at the foot
I Sliabh Luachra. She was a great miracle worker. Died 570.
. ^* It was in his church of Qonfert that Brendan had his vision of the heavenly
ird, which coming to him after Mass one morning, perched upon the altar, and
3 dazzled him with its sun-like radiance that he had to look away from it.
utting its bill behind its wing the bird sang for him. And, sweeter than any
lusic ever heard in the world before, was the music that it made. He hearkened,
ntranced for twenty-four hours — which passed like a moment of time. And
iter that Brendan would not any more permit worldly music to be played in his
resence ; for he did not want to lose from his hearing the music of the people of

206

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

His famous voyage, accounts of which, in many languages, are
still to be found in a dozen old libraries of Europe, was under-
taken for purpose of finding the Land of Peace which the Lord
had promised to all who did His will. "For Brendan had read in
the Gospel, 'Every one that hath forsaken father and mother, sister
and land for My namesake, will receive an hundredfold in the
present and shall possess everlasting life.* And then the love of
the Lord grew exceeding in Brendan's heart, and he desired to
leave his land, his country, his parents, his fatherland. And he
urgently besought the Lord to give him a land, secret, hidden,
secure, a delightful land, separated from men."

In answer to his persistent prayer, an angel of the Lord at
length directed him : "Arise, O Brendan, for God hath g^ven thee
what thou soughtest, even the Land of Promise." Then he built
his ship, and chose his company, and in the name of the Lord, set
out upon the trackless ocean. It Is noteworthy that the last man
to join the boat's company, a buffoon and a notoriously sinful man,
was the first to go to heaven.

And Brendan's voyage, if it gave him not the Land of Promise,
still gave to the world a wonderful romance, which through a long
count of centuries never lost its fascination for the millions of the
people of Brendan's land — ^not to mention other millions in other
lands."

Of the ship's company of Romans who, as 'was said, landed in
Cork when Senach was at Iniscara a number probably went to
the school of Enda in Aran. In the ancient graveyard there, was
discovered a head-stone, commemorating "VII Romani" for the
fame of Enda and his school travelled far. It is said that when
Colm Cille visited Aran, he saw there the grave of an abbot of
Jerusalem, who had made pilgrimage to Enda.

Under this great Enda — ^who stood in the front rank of the
saints of the second order — ^the Island home which he selected for
his activities, his monastery and school, very properly earned the
title of Aran na Naoim (Aran of the Saints). Tradition has it
that in the graveyard, at the old church of Killeany there, lies the
dust of an hundred and twenty-seven saints. Says the Feilire of
Aengus: "It will never be known till the Day of Judgment the

^•It was a time of wonderful voyages: Only a few years before Brendan's
vojrage is fixed the time of the penitential voyage of the sons' of O'Corra, who
had been foster-children of the devil^ and consecrated to him, and had been his
faithful servitors. Other two beautiful voyages of romance—of much earlier
time— are the Voyage of Bran, and the Voyage of Maelduin.

THE CENTURIES OF THE SAINTS

207

countless hosts of Saints whose relics mingle with the sacred soil
of Aran na Naoim."

Enda was from near Loch Erne. He was of princely family.
He passed a thoughtless youth, gay and sportive in the extreme.
He never took heed for the morrow, much less thought he of the
world to come. His conversion came as sudden as Paul's. It
was wrought through his sister, Fanchea, a girl notably devout.
She had a beautiful girl friend, with whom Enda fell in love — and
whom he asked to marry him. He asked her on a morning when
he was going off with other gay companions to the chase — and in-
sisted that she should have made up her mind to consent by the
time of his return. Upon his return Fanchea took him to her room,
to see the maiden. From a couch there she drew aside a white
coverlet, disclosing to him the girl's corpse. The maiden, who
was like Fanchea very pious, and who feared for Enda in the
thoughtless life he led, had prayed to God for guidance, and God
had called her to Himself. "She chose Christ for her spouse,"
Fanchea said.

Enda was «tunned — and sobered. That instant was born in
him a new man. He cast off his former companions, forsook his
former ways, and gave himself to study and prayer. He appears
to have studied under Manchan the Master, a noted Irish teacher
then in charge of the school of Candida Casa in Galloway. He
founded his own monastery, and opened his own school on the wild
island of Aran, in Galway Bay, in the late fifth century. So, it
was one of the earliest of the noted monasteries and schools.

Enda, here, came to have one hundred and fifty personal dis-
ciples. The traditional accounts bring to this school a great many
of the leading saints of the second order, many of those who had
also gone to the school of Finian at Clonard. Healy says that they
went to Enda's school after Clonard — ^when it came time to pre-
pare for the novitiate of their religious life. So great were the
numbers that flocked to Aran, from all parts, that Enda divided
the Island into ten sections, each with its own religious house and
its own superior — all, of course, under him. The remains of four
of the different groups of churches still show on the island."

" And in his Litany, after invoking the principal of Aran's Saints, Aongus
adds: "And all the other saints here deceased whose numbers are so great as
to be known to the living God only."

^*C61m Cille is said to have visited Enda there. Some say that he studied
under Enda for a while. Anyhow Enda and Aran were in high esteem with
">« ifreat saint of lona. To him is attributed the toudiing Farewell to Aran,
Written when, with regret, he Was quitting its holy ground.

208

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

The great monastery and school of Bangor took, in later days,
that leading place which Enda's establishment on Aran had for so
long held. The Bangor institution was the work in the mid sixth
century, of the great saint of the men of Ulad, St. Comgall — ^who
himself had studied under St. Finian at Cluain-Enach, in the Mid-
lands, and also at the school of Clonmacnois. His Bangor school
sent out teachers and missionaries, saints and scholars, in great
numbers to Ireland, and to the countries of the Continent. As
the Continental St. Bernard says, in his Life of Malachi (a tenth
century successor of Comgall) : "There stood a most noble mon-
astery, under the first father Comgelius, inhabited by many thou-
sand monks, and the head of many monasteries. The place was
truly sanctified, abounding in saints, abundantly fruitful to God;
so that one of the sons of this holy congregation, Luanus or Evanus,
was said to be the founder of an hundred monasteries. Its dis-
ciples not only filled Ireland and Scotia, but swarms poured like a
torrent into foreign countries."

Comgall was upwards of forty years director of this hive of
sanctity and learning, which arose on the shores of what we now
call Belfast Loch, and where we are told three thousand students
were at one time. He died about the year 600. Under May loth,
O'Clery in his Martyrology sets down the anniversary of Comgall
abbot of Bennchor Ulad (Bangor of Ulster) : "A man full of the
grace of God and of His love was this man; a man who fostered
and educated very many other saints, as he kindled and lighted up
an unquenchable fire of the love of God in their hearts, and in their
minds, as is evidenced in the old Books of Eirinn."

The Three Sorrows of the Saints of Ireland were — ^the send-
ing of Colm into exile; the cutting short of the life of Ciaran; the
driving out of Mochuda from Rathain.

Rathain was a monastery and school in the midlands, to which
it will be remembered Ruman, the Virgil of the Gael, gave a third
of the wealth he had, for his poem, extracted from the Galls of
Dublin. It was founded by Mochuda — which name was a pet name
for St. Carthach, a native of Kerry. As a lad herding swine in
his native mountains, Carthach was turned to a religious life hy
hearing the monks of a monastery near his home, chanting the
psalms — and which so entranced him that he remained spellbound
on the spot all night. Having come to Rathain on a pilgrimage,
accompanied by a body of his Kerrymen, he fell in love with the
place and there settled, and founded his monastery and school
which flourished and became famous. There gathered around him
a large body of disciples from his own Munster. And the holiness

THE CENTURIES OF THE SAINTS 209

of the life they led was such that the angels are said to have come
down and conversed with them. "It was Mochuda that had the
famous congregation, consisting of seven hundred and ten persons
at Rathain. And an angel used to address every third man of

them."

So great was the holiness of Rathain that powerful clerics of
the Ui Neill race, in whose territory it was, grew jealous of it; and
In the reign of Donal (mac Aoda), they got that Ard-Righ's
command sent to Mochuda that he and his people should leave
Rathain and return to their own province. The pathetic answer
which Mochuda returned to this order was : "Since I have served
God for many years in this place, and that now my death is nigh,
I desire to end my days here. I shall not depart out of this place
unless I am compelled to, lest men should think me inconstant of
purpose. And I would be ashamed to become a wanderer in my
old age."

Since he would not go of his own free will, two princes of the
royal line of the Ui Neill, Blathmac and Diarmuid, were sent, with
a body of men, to expel him and his monks. Three times in three
successive years the expedition against Mochuda set out, but each
of the first two times there was a parley, and a year's respite was
granted. The third time it was resolved that nothing should turn
the drivers from their object. When they reached Rathain, Diar-
muid was deputed to head a body of men into the church, and there
arrest Mochuda and lead him forth. But, filled with veneration
for this holy man, Diarmuid approached him with the utmost re-
spect, expressed his sorrow for being there, and refused to act
against him. Mochuda blessed him, prayed that the kingship of
all Ireland might come to him — ^which it eventually did — and told
him that for failing to act on his orders, he should be nick-naraed
by his companions Diarmuid Ruadnaid, Diarmuid the Ruthful —
"But that title shall yet become a glory to thee, and thy progeny
after thee." And as Diarmuid the Ruthful he is known to Irish
history ever since.

After scoffing at and reproaching Diarmuid, his brother Blath-
mac headed a body of men into the church, forced out Mochuda
and his monks and drove them forth.

When the mournful band, after weary wandering, reached the
country of the Deisii (now Waterford) the King of the Deisii,
with his attendants, came to meet the holy Mochuda, received him
with reverence and honour, knelt for his blessing, placed himself
under the saint's protection and besought him to choose where he
would in this territory to build his chuich and fix his community.

2IO

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

And the aged saint, strong in God's faith, and supported by
God's strength, began his lifework anew at beautiful Lismore—
on the banks of that river which is now called the Black Water.
Here he erected a new monastery and school, with whose fame not
Ireland alone but likewise far foreign lands were destined yet to
ring. For it was to give famed teachers and holy evangelisers to
distant countries wherein the name of Scotia was yet but seldom
heard.

Tradition says It was in these days of the great saints — and by
the action of some of the greatest — that ancient Tara of the Kings
went down forever. It was Ruadan, one of the Twelve Apostles
of Erin, who chiefly brought about that calamity. And it was
Diarmuid, the son of Fergus (the friend of Ciaran the Wright)
who, then reigning, provoked the calamity.

King Diarmuid was striving against the position of independ-
ence which the provincial and territorial kings assumed. He had
issued an order commanding that all chiefs should widen their
doors so that his spear, carried horizontally, could pass through.
It is assumed that the chiefs had narrowed their doors for greater
security against assault by the Ard-Righ's forces. Anyhow Diar-
muid sent forth his sergeant to see If his order had been obeyed.
When the sergeant reached the residence of Aed Guaire of Con-
naught, he Interrupted Aed's wedding feast, in the process of car-
rying out the Ard-Righ's command — and Aed, drawing his sword,
struck off the man's head. Then he sought sanctuary with St. Rua-
dan of Lorra. Diarmuid, who was almost as much enraged with
the ecclesiastics, as he was with the chiefs, for their Independence,
^olated the Saint's privilege of sanctuary, and took Aed Guaire
from him for his punishment. St. Ruadan then journeyed to Tara,
to curse Diarmuid, and It Is said, was joined by many other lead-
ing saints of the time, who made common cause with him. The
saints first fasted against Diarmuid, and Diarmuid answered them
with his fast. Every day the fasting ones gathered on the green
before Tara, sang their psalms, and rang their bells against the
king — till at length Diarmuid was broken In his fast, and gave in.
Then he came forth from his hall In the morning, and joined the
saints In their praying and singing. After that he reasoned with
them, showed them the unwisdom of their course, and at length,
carried away by his indignation, cursed Ruadan. Ruadan in re-
turn cursed Diarmuid, and Diarmuld's dynasty that It might come
to an end — ^which It did; and he cursed Tara that it might never
more be the residence of a king.

So tradition has it that after the year 563, through the cursing

THE CENTURIES OF THE SAINTS 2u

of Ruadan, the wild birds roosted in the hall of Tara and the
beasts of the field trampled on its hearth and made it their home/*

Stokes, Whidey: Lives of the Saints from the Book of Lismore.

O'Hanlon, The Rev. Jno., Canon: Lives of the Irish Saints.

Reeves, The Rev. Wm., D.D. : The Martyrology of Donegal.

Hcaly, The Most Rev. Jno.: Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars.

MacGeoghegan, Abbe : History of Ireland.

Heating's History of Ireland.

Montalembert: Monks of the West.

Colgan : Acta Sanctorum.

Usher's Worb.

O'Curry, Eugene: Manuscript Materials of Irish History.

Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish.

Ware's Works (Edited by Harris).

Four Masters, Annals of.

Stokes, Whitley: The Feilire (Calendar) of Oengus the Culdee: Trans.

Roy. Ir. Acad., 1880.
D'Alton, Jno. : Prize Essay on Irish History ( Proc. R. I. A. ) .
Stokes, Rev. Dr. Geo. T. : Ireland and the Celtic Church.

"Some (like MacNeill) hold that the Kings of Meath still made Tara theif
home for some centuries after that date — ^and also that Ruadan never cursed it.

CHAPTER XXVII

LEARNING IN ANCIENT IRELAND

When long ago the English poet Spenser, in his "State of Ire-
land" set down : "For it is certain that Ireland hath had the use
of letters very auntiently and long before England; that they had
letters auntiently is nothing doubtful, for the Saxons of England
are said to have their letters and learning, and learned men, from
the Irish" — he was possibly not aware that even for centuries be-
fore the English began to value learning, and in shiploads flocked
to Ireland to obtain it, Ireland's valleys were dotted with schools,
and her hillsides hummed with studying scholars. Babington in
his Fallacies of Race Theories says that in the sixth century, "the
old culture lands had to turn for some little light and leading to
that remote and lately barbarous land" (Ireland).

Says the mediaevalist, Arsene Darmesteter : "The classic tradi-
tion, to all appearance dead in Europe, burst into full flower in the
Island of Saints. The renaissance began in Ireland seven hundred
years before it was known in Italy. And Armagh, the ecclesiastical
capital of Ireland, was at one time the metropolis of civilisation."

And our own Doheny puts it as gracefully as truthfully (in his
Memoir of Keating) : "The early literary history of Ireland stands
out distinct from that of any other country of Europe. While the
revel of the Goth profaned the Roman forum and he stabled his
steeds in the Coliseum, the pilgrims of learning from every dark-
ened land found shelter, sustainment, and inexhaustible sources of
information, In Ireland."

The late Professor Zimmer, most eminent of Celtologists, states
in his remarkable little work. The Irish Element in Mediaeval Cul-
ture:

"Ireland can indeed lay claim to a great past; she can not only
boast of having been the birthplace and abode of high culture in the
fifth and sixth centuries, at a time when the Roman Empire was
being undermined by the alliances and inroads of German tribes,
which threatened to sink the whole Continent into barbarism, but
also of having made strenuous efforts in the seventh and up to the

212

LEARNING IN ANCIENT IRELAND 213

tenth century to spread her learning among the German and Ro-
mance peoples, thus forming the actual fountain of our present con-
tinental civilisation."

It is Interesting to speculate upon the certain antiquity and
activity of that learning as far away as the sixth century, when It
would give fruitful soil for the planting of such abiding tradition
as that of the fall of the book-satchels* at the death of Longarad,
"master of study and jurisprudence, history and poetry."

"This Is said," says Aongus In the Fellire, "that on the night
of Longarad's death Ireland's book satchels and her Gospels, and
books of Instruction fell from their shelves, as If they understood
that never again would there come any one like Longarad.

"Lon is dead (Lon is dead) ;

To Cill Garad it is a great misfortune ;

To Eirinn with its countless tribes;

It is a destruction of learning and of schools.

"Lon has died (Lon has died) ;

In Cill Garad great the misfortune;

It is a destruction of learning and of schools,

To the Island of Eirinn beyond her boundaries."

One tradition even has the book satchels of lona falling on
this grievous night. They fell In the cell of Colm Cille, who, with
the vision of the saint, exclaimed, "Longarad, master of every art
in Ossory, is dead." "Long may it be till that comes true," ex-
claimed the shocked Balthin. To which the impetuous Colm an-
swered : "Misbelief be in thy successor."

Most of the Irish scholars and Continental students of Celtic
lore, like ZImmer, agree that when Patrick came, in the early part
of the fifth century, he found there such a plenitude of learning
and learned men as necessitated a background of previous centuries
of educational progress. When the reputation has descended to
us of at least two most notable pre-PatrlcIan Irish scholars on the
Continent, It Is a practical conclusion that there were dozens of
others abroad also, whose memories have been submerged In the
sweep of the ages. And, Interchange of the cream of foreign learn-
ing with native Irish learning on Irish soil must have occurred with
frequency, in the ages Immediately succeeding Patrick, if we accept
the learned Petrie's conclusion (In his Inquiry into the Origin and

*The polaires or leathern cases in which the volumes of those days were
kept—hung upon the walls.

214

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland) that "Crowds of foreign
ecclesiastics, Egyptian, Roman, Italian, British and Saxon, flocked
to Ireland, as a place of refuge, in the fifth and sixth centuries.
Of such emigration there can not possibly exist a doubt."

And then there was the exchange of Irish with Continental
learning which occurred as a result of the many and great pilgrim-
ages that in Ireland's earliest Christian days were constantly being
made to Rome and to the Holy Land by crowds of Erin's faithful.
These pilgrimages sometimes extended over years,^ the pilgrim fre-
quently making wide detours for purpose of visiting temples of the
famous living, and shrines of the hallowed dead — and often so-
journing for months and seasons in the neighbourhood of a famous
preacher and teacher, or at institutional centres of piety and
learning.

Besides the dozens of incidental references to such with which
the ancient records teem, Petrie cites the testimony in the famous
Litany of Aongus Ceile De : "The three times fifty canoes full of
Roman pilgrims who settled in Ui Mele, along with Notal Nem-
shenchaid and Cornutan, invoco in auxilium meum per Jesum Chris-
tum, etc. The other thrice fifty pilgrims of the men of Rome and
Latium who went into Scotia, invoco in auxilium meum per Jesum
Christum. The thrice fifty Gaedhils of Eirinn, in holy orders, each
of them a man of strict rule, who went in one body into pilgrimage,
under Abban, the son of Ua Cormaic, invoco in auxilium meum
per Jesum Christum" etc.

Within two centuries after Patrick, George Stokes (Knowledge
of Greek in Ireland) shows that in the very centre of the bog of
Allen, in Durrow, there was "a wide range of deep learning, chron-
ological, astronomical, and philosophical." And Joyce says that
the earliest of the seventh or eighth century glosses, published by
Zeuss, testify to the fact that "the written language of the Irish
was then fully developed and cultivated, with a polished phraseology
and an elaborate system of grammar, and having fixed and well
established written forms for all its words, and for all the rich in-
flections."

It was ZImmer's opinion that at least the classical learning for
which Ireland in those very early centuries became noted, Latin
and Greek, were brought there by the many learned people from
Gaul who fled to Ireland, the haven of refuge from the overwhelm-
ing tide of barbarism, which was sweeping Europe in the fifth

* An embassy sent from the Irish ecclesiastics to Rome, in 631, was thre<
years absent — and such embassy, naturally, did not journey with the same leisure
as did pilgrims.

LEARNING IN ANCIENT IRELAND 215

c«ntury. But the fact that these learned ones should flock to Ire-
land is in itself partial proof that the fame of Ireland then as a
home of learning must have been fairly well established. The
brilliance of her beacon must have beckoned these affrighted ones,
and the repute of her schools and scholars been ringing in their
ears. Whether or not it was those very early scholar refugees,
in those early ages, who brought some knowledge of Greek into
Ireland, in addition to Latin, M. Darmesteter expresses his aston-
ishment at finding, a couple of centuries later, Greek taught in Ire-
land when it had become forgotten elsewhere, and when even such
a noted scholar as Pope Gregory the Great was ignorant of it.
But Zimmer acknowledges that in Ireland, "the standard of learn-
ing was much higher than with Gregory and his followers. It was
derived without interruption from the learning of the fourth cen-
tury, from men such as Ambrose and Jerome. Here also were to
be found such specimens of classical literature as Virgil's works
among the ecclesiastical writings, an acquaintance with Greek au-
thors as well, besides the opportunity of free access to the very
first sources of Christianity." "The knowledge of Greek," says
Professor Sandys in his History of Classical Scholarship, "which
had almost vanished in the west was so widely dispersed in the
schools of Ireland that if any one knew Greek it was assumed he
must have come from that country."

And the eminent Celtologist, De Jubainville, talking of the
Irishman, Columbanus, who, in the sixth century, was evangelising
and teaching in Burgundy and Lombardy, says: "We only need
to glance at his writings to be at once convinced of his wonderful
superiority over Gregory and the Gallo-Roman scholars of his
time."

As early as the fifth century, scholars from Wales, Cornwall,
Brittany were coming to Ireland for schooling; or were, at home,
receiving tuition from the Irish schoolmaster who had even then
begun to travel as an educational missionary. Lannigan (in his
Ecclesiastical History of Ireland) tells us that the Welsh historian,
Gildas, came to Ireland, probably in the middle or end of the fifth
century, "to perfect himself in philosophy and theology." He at-
tended several schools there, and finally, according to his country-
man, Caradoc, became a teacher at the school of Armagh. He re-
turned to Wales when he heard of his brother being killed by King
Arthur. Gildas* Welsh contemporary, St. Caradoc (who was Irish
on his mother's side), attended as a boy the celebrated school of
Caer, in Monmouth, taught by the Irishman, St. Tathaeus. Petrocus
from Cornwall was studying the Scriptures in Ireland for twenty

2i6 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

years. The Breton St. Paternus was some time in Ireland; and his
father Petranus retired to lead a holy life in Ireland — in the be-
ginning of the sixth century.

Then we have the testimony of the Venerable Bede, the Saxon
ecclesiastical historian, who, writing in the very shadow of the time
of which he spoke, and describing the great plague of 664, says:
"This pestilence did no less harm in the neighbouring Island of
Ireland. Many of the nobility, and of the lower ranks of the Eng-
lish nation were there at that time, who in the days of Bishops
Finan and Colman, forsaking their native land, retired thither,
either for the sake of divine studies, or of a more continent life;
and some of them presently devoted themselves to the monastical
life ; others chose rather to apply themselves to study, going about
from one master's cell to another. The Scots (Irish) willingly
received them all, and took care to supply them with food, as also
to furnish them with books to read, and their teaching, gratis."

Patrick and his followers founded Christian schools to super-
sede those of the Druids. Patrick's school of Armagh became one
of Ireland's greatest — attended at a later time by (says Keating)
as many as seven thousand students. This school was a favourite
resort of the Saxons, who had in the city their own quarter, called
Trian Saxon. Ibar of Beg-Eire and Ailbe of Emly, Patrick's con-
temporaries, and his convert Mochae the swineherd of Oendrum,
St. Fiach of Sletty, Olcan of Dercan, St. Mochta of Louth amongst
others, had each his school in Patrick's day.

Together with crowds of lesser ones, then followed the noted
schools of Colman at Dromore, Enda at Aran, Jarlath near Tuam,
Finian at Moville, the greater Finian at Clonard, Comgall at Ban-
gor, Ciaran at Clonmacnois, of Kevin at Glendalough, of Senan at
Inniscathy, of Brendan at Clonfert, of Mobi at Glasneven, of Fin-
bar at Cork, of Fachtna at Ross, of Finan at Innisfallen, of Colm
at Iniscaltra, of Carthach at Lismore — and numberless others —
at Roscrea, Slane, Cashel, Inisbofin, Kildare, Limerick, Fore, etc.,
all of such importance that their fame has come down to the pres-
ent day. And again and again the records and traditions intimate
that several of these schools had thousands of scholars in attend-
ance. We are told that there were two thousand students at Kevin's
school at Glendalough, three thousand at Finian's school at Clon-
ard; three thousand at the school of Comgall at Bangor^ — and that
Clonmacnois at the height of its fame was attended by between six
thousand and seven thousand students.

So famous and great did the school of Clonmacnois become
that many of the leading families of Ireland had there each its own

LEARNING IN ANCIENT IRELAND 217

cathedral, or church, mortuary chapel, round tower, or burial
place. And there the dust of students representing every clan in
Ireland, and many a people oversea, mingle underneath the green
sod of the old cemetery.

There is a fine poem by an Irish bard, O'Gillan, finely
translated by RoUeston, on:

THE DEAD AT CLONMACNOIS

In a quiet watered land, a land of roses,

Stands Saint Kieran's city fair:
And the warriors of Erin in their famous generations

Slumber there.

There beneath the dewy hillside sleep the noblest

Of the clan of Conn,
Each below his stone with name in branching Ogham

And the sacred knot thereon.

There they laid to rest the seven Kings of Tara,

There the sons of Cairbre sleep —
Battle-banners of the Gael, that in Kieran's plain of crosses,

Now their final hosting keep.

And in Clonmacnois they laid the men of Teffia,

And right many a lord of Breagh ;
Deep the sod above Clan Crede and Clan Conaill,

Kind in hall and fierce in fray.

Many and many a son of Conn, the Hundred-Fighter,

In the red earth lies at rest ;
Many a blue eye of Clan Colman the turf covers.

Many a swan-white breast.

Ireland had now truly become, as described by one of the an-
cients, "a hive of learning" : the hum of the scholars in this land
of lore was as the hum of the bees on the flowery hillsides in June.
There was no corner of the Island, convenient or remote, and even
off to the scattered islets of the ocean, but had its centre of learning,
to which came alike youth and age, noble and simple — and to which
thronged not Irish only, but flocks of foreigners also — from Britain
and from the Continent of Europe, all thirsting to drink at the
fountains that so lavishly gushed, and the streams that so plenti-
fully flowed, in the Island of the West.

One of the early writers records that when, in neighbouring
countries, a man of studious habits, was for a time missed from

21 8 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

his usual haunts, it was concluded that he had gone to Ireland to
seek education. All of the great schools had their groups of for-
eign students, who for the most part, were not only educated gratis
but lived on the hospitality of the people. We may of course as-
sume that this refers to the bulk of foreign students who, not lav-
ishly endowed with wealth, sought learning for learning's sake.
We may conclude that such of the foreign nobility as came to Ire-
land seeking learning just as an added grace and accomplishment,
paid their way — like Dagobert the Second of France, who in 656
was brought (by the Bishop of Poitiers) to be educated at Clonard.
And indeed the Brehon law, which, touching upon almost every
condition and circumstance of life in Ireland, lays down the rule
for teachers and pupils incidentally confirms this — as already shown
in the Brehon Law chapter.

Almost all of the greatest, most notable schools of the olden
days in Erin grew up incidentally, around the residence of a great
teacher. Wherever such a noted man settled thither came students,
who seemed to have been continually wandering over the land,
seeking masters. First came a few who erected their little huts or
bothies close to the hut or the residence of him, the scholar, from
whom they expected to absorb knowledge. Soon came a few more,
and still others followed. If the master's qualities, his knowledge,
his ability, his aptness in imparting instruction, held those who first
came, that fact was quickly known throughout the land, and quickly
crowds were flocking there. Sometimes the instruction was given
in the open; sometimes under cover. Largely the youths read for
themselves — under direction of the master, who laid down the gen-
eral scheme for them, and to whom they resorted for enlightenment
when they met with a problem impossible of solution by themselves
or their more advanced fellows. Oftentimes students accompanied
a teacher upon a journey, barkening to his words, observing his
actions, and absorbing knowledge from him as they went.

A pupil who was instructed gratis, was entitled to work for his
tutor. Likewise it was the law that to his tutor should go the first
fee earned by such student, when he had graduated into a profes-
sion.

In the eyes of the law, any one who insulted or assaulted a stu-
dent was guilty of insult or assault to the teacher. It was to the
teacher that the fine was paid for such misdemeanour.

Naturally a powerful bond of affection sprang up between mas-
ter and pupil — a bond that throughout life was never broken.
When old age incapacitated him, the master, if he did not belong
to a community, which naturally would care for him, was looked

LEARNING IN ANCIENT IRELAND 219

after and provided for by his former pupils. Not only was this
a matter of love, but it was a matter of law, also. In the Brehon
laws it is laid down that pupils are responsible for the comfort and
well-being of their master, in his need and in his age. In the an-
cient Contest of the Two Sages (Acallam na da Suach) Neide, in
enumerating the dire woes that will come over Erin as the end of
thje world nears, says that pupils will neglect to provide for their
tutors in their old age.'

Of course it is to be understood that in Ireland any more than
In other learned countries of the early ages, the mass of the people
was not educated. All who desired it could get an education, and
naturally the students came chiefly from the leisured class and the
professional class. Among the body of the people, it was only the
exceptionally bright and ambitious, who, shaking them free from
the fetters of tradition, bade good-bye both physically and intellec-
tually to their kith, and set out as a Scolaire bocht (poor scholar)
to seek education. Yet then, as now, some of the most noted schol-
ars sprang from the soil.

The learned scholar and noted abbot, St. Adamnan (of Tir-
Conaill and lona) is an interesting illustration of this. From an
ancient manuscript account of the reign of Finachta the Festive
who was Ard-Righ in the last quarter of the seventh century,
0' Curry tells the story of the origin of the famous friendship which
existed between the Ard-Righ and the saint. When Adamnan was
a poor scholar at Ciaran's school of Clonard, he was one day
carrying home on his back, a jar of milk, when a cavalcade, coming
up behind, made him jump to one side, strike his toe, fall and
smash the jar. Weeping and grieving, and with a bit of the broken
jar still hanging over his shoulder he ran alongside the cavalcade,
till a great man who was the centre of the group saw and pitied
the grieving lad, and stopped the cavalcade to question and console
him. Tenderly he spoke to the grieving youth. "We will make
thee happy again, for we have sympathy with the unfortunate and
the powerless. Thou shalt receive, O student, satisfaction from
me." "Oh, good man," said Adamnan, "I have cause to be
grieved, for there are three noble students in one house, and there
are three lads of us who wait upon them, and what we do is, each
one in turn goes around the neighbourhood to collect support for
the other five, and it is my turn to do so this day; but what I had

' "Instruction without reservation, correctness without harshness, are due from
the master to the pupil, and to feed and clothe him durmg the time he is learn-
ing," says the Brehon laws. "To help him against poverty and to support him in
old age; these are due from the pupil to the tutor."

220 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

obtained has been lost, and what is more unfortunate the borrowed
vessel has been broken, while I have not the means of paying for
it." The simple youth won the heart of the great man, who turned
out to be the Ard-Righ, Finachta, who became his friend and
patron from that day forward.

While most of the noted schools whose fame has come down
to us from those early ages, were ecclesiastical, there certainly were,
side by side with them in Ireland, a host of lay schools also, which
had been founded and painstakingly built up by great lay scholars.
And sometimes lay scholars were employed as teachers in the eccle-
siastical schools. The famous Colcu MacUa Dunechda, to whom
the Emperor Charlemagne sent presents was a lay fer-le^nn or
chief professor in the school of Clonmacnois. And in later cen-
turies MacCosse was the chief teacher in the monastic school of
Ros Ailithir, in Cork; and the celebrated annalist Flan, chief pro-
fessor in the school of Monasterboice.

For one who desired to graduate in the highest rank of his
profession, twelve years was the course of study — during which
the diligent student, if he were successful, passed, step by step
through the Seven Degrees of Wisdom — the details and particu-
lars of which, and the course of study for them, are contained in
the tract known as the Book of the OUams preserved in the old
Book of Ballymote and in the Books of the Brehon Laws.*

The Book of Ballymote tract gives the requirements, year by
year, for the twelve years of the scholar's course — from a course
of the elementaries up to the mastery of the six-score great ora-
tions, and the four arts of poetry — "from the study of the smallest
book called The Ten Words, up to the mastery of the greatest
book. The Cuilmen." Also the requirements are set down for
each of the Seven Degrees of Wisdom, from the first degree called
Fochluc through the others, MacFuirmid, Dos, Canna, Cli and
Anruth to the final degree of Ollam — or in a monastic school, Rosa't
or Great Professor.

O' Curry enumerates and particularises six grades of professors
in the ecclesiastical school, with the acquirements of each — from
the lowest grade, the Caogdach, up to the highest, the Drumcli
(ridgepole), a master who knew the whole course of learning.
When the latter ambitioned being fer-leginn, or chief professor in
a college, he "had to be master of the whole course of Gaelic litera-

*A sequel to the Crith Gablach, in Volume IV of the Brehon Laws, and a
law tract called the Small Primer, in Volume V, interestingly deal with these
details.

LEARNING IN ANCIENT IRELAND 221

ture, In prose and verse, besides the Scriptures and likewise the
learned languages."

In the bardic or lay schools a prominent place on the program
of studies is given to the tales and the poems of the seanachies
and poets, of that day and of the previous ages. Each year was
added to the course the memorising and the minute study and ex-
pounding of a certain number of historic and romantic tales and
epic poems. In the monastic schools, the Scriptures, theology and
the Classics very largely took the place of the study of the tales
and poems. The other usual subjects of study in both schools
were, grammar, geography, history, haglography, law, mathemat-
ics, astronomy, philosophy, logic, rhetoric, music, art and metal
work.

The common languages of the schools were Irish and Latin.
Archbishop Usher, who says that he himself saw in St. Caimin's
(seventh century) Psalter positive proof of Hebrew knowledge,
was under the belief that Hebrew was taught In the schools.
George Stokes (supported by some other scholars) holds that
Greek was well known to the Irish teachers. And such noted Irish
scholars as Cummian the Tall, Aileran the Wise, Columbanus, and
others, again and again show familiarity with the writings of the
Greeks. Greek prayers, Greek glosses and Greek quotations are
found in connection with various ancient Irish manuscripts, both
at home and in the old libraries on the Continent of Europe.

But with the Latin language all the Irish scholars of those early
days show almost a like familiarity that they do with their own
Gaelic. They were experts in Latin literature. The Latin classics,
sacred and profane, they had at their finger-tips. They wrote In
that language with a masterful ease and read In It voraciously.

A single Illustration, out of numberless ones available, is the
famous letter of St. Cummian (seventh century) written to Sege-
nlus, abbot of lona, in the Easter date controversy that then nearly
rent the church.** In this letter (preserved for us In Usher's Sylloge

^ Cummian, who is combating the Irish Easter, shows that an Irish embassy
at Rome in 631, found the Romans celebrating on March 24th the Easter which
would not be celebrated in Ireland until April 21st. The Irish continued cele-
brating the old Roman Easter long after the Romans, by direction of Pope Hilary,
had adopted the present (Alexandrian) method of fixing the date of the festival.
This was the cause of the great pasdial controversy, which, both in Irish com-
munities on the Continent of Europe (as Columbanus' commimity) and at home
>n Ireland, and with the Irish in Alba, was waged for a century. It was only in
716 that lona, the last citadel of the Roman method, capitulated. It may be men-
tioned that within two years after this capitulation, the Irish tonsure likewise,
which required the shaving of the whole front of the head, from ear to ear —
yielded to the Continental tonsure, the shaving of the crown of the head.

222 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Epistolarum Hibernicarum) there is displayed a wealth of classic
learning, and an intimate familiarity with things Latin, Grecian,
Egyptian, Hebrew, that justly amazes the scholars of to-day — "a
marvellous compilation," says Professor Stokes, "because of the
vastness of its learning." Beginning with the institution of the
Paschal Feast in Exodus (as Stokes points out) Cummian quotes
commentators as Jerome and Origen, and many Fathers of the
Church ; discusses the calendars of the Macedonians, Egyptians and
Hebrews; quotes the opinions of Augustine, Cyprian, Pachomius
(founder of Egyptian monasticism), Gregory the Great, etc.; re-
fers to the views of the Irish saints; and balances the decrees of
the Councils of Nice and Aries. He gives the Hebrew, Greek and
Egyptian names of the first lunar month and (says Healy) "re-
fers to almost every cycle and emendation of a cycle that we know
of — ^the Paschal cycle, and those of Anatolius, Theophilius, Diony-
sius, Cyril, Morinus, Augustine, Victorius, etc."

D'Arbois de Jubainville in the introduction to his Study of Cel-
tic Literature, speaking on the subject of Irish classical knowledge,
says of the early Irish missionaries and scholars in Europe:

"What surprises us most about these Irish emigrants was that
they knew Greek, and were probably the only people in Western
Europe, then, who knew it. They have Graeco-Latin glossaries,
grammars, the books of the Bible in Greek. ... It was considered
good taste among the Irish then, to mingle Greek words through-
out the Latin text which they composed."

In the library of Laon, France, there is a manuscript written
by an Irish scribe in the last half of the ninth century, containing
two glossaries of the Greek and Latin languages, some passages in
Irish, and a Greek grammar.

Dr. Healy, arguing from the evidence of the Lord's Prayer
in Greek, found upon an Irish manuscript (which he says was prob-
ably written in lona), expresses himself as convinced that Greek
was taught by the Irish monks in lona, twelve hundred years ago.
The Colophon, in which the scribe in those days often asked the
readers' prayers, reads: "Pray to the Lord for me, Dorbenum."
And Dorbene was an abbot of lona, second in succession after
Adamnan, who died in 713.

That astronomy was taught in Ireland in the early centuries of
Christianity is evident from many of the old writings. And when
we reach the eighth and ninth centuries, we find Ireland producing
eminent astronomical thinkers, such as Fergal of Aghaboe, and

LEARNING IN ANCIENT IRELAND 223

Dungall of Bangor, of whose accomplishments we shall talk in the
next chapter. In the commentary on the Senchus Mor is set
down a good general description of the universe. From the Saltair
na Rann, a collection of poems made about the year 1000, but many
of which were then hundreds of years old, Joyce extracts a short
description of the universe which gives us a good rough idea of
the state of astronomical knowledge then :

"The earth is stated to be like an apple, goodly, truly round.
The names of the seven planets are given ('Saturn, Joib, Mercuir,
Mars, Sol,*Uenir, Luna') ; the distances are given of the moon, and
the sun, and the firmament, from the earth: the firmament is round
the earth as the shell is round the egg: the signs of the zodiac with
their names in order, and the correct month and day when the sun
enters each: the sun is 30 days 10^ hours in each sign: the five
zones — ^north and south frigid, and two temperate, with the torrid
zone between."

Medicine was taught by physicians, in their own homes, from
very early times, and physicians were, as we know from the an-
cient legends, in great esteem from far beyond the dawn of his-
tory. And in this, as in every other phase of Irish life, the old
Brehons dealt with the physicians' privileges and obligations. With
nice wisdom, they specified cases in which a fee was due from the
physician to the patient — as when, either through want of skill, or
neglect, he failed to cure a wound — in which case the doctor paid
to the patient the same fine as would a man who inflicted the
wound."

Ancient traditions indicate that the Caesarian operation, and
also trepanning, were performed by Irish surgeons in olden times.

While ancient stories, poems, and traditions bristle with refer-
ences to medical men, the Annals, beginning with a record, under
date A. D. 860, of the death of O'Tinnri, "the best physician in

" A particularly wise provision of the laws affecting the sick, was that the
patient must be shielded "from dogs, fools, and female scolds" — ^an injunction
from whidi many a poor sufferer might be made to profit even to-day.

He who unjustly wounded another had to pay sick maintenance for that other
until he was cured : and he was responsible for the wounded one's being cared for,
according to the provisions of the law.

The ancient poems and stories show that the common bath was a matter of
daily routine, in the lives of many of the old Irish. The so-called Turkish Bath
was at the same time commonly used for the ailing. It is only in comparatively
recent times that, in some parts of Ireland, the ancient Sweating Houses, which
were once quite common, went out of use. Some of these old Sweating Houses
are still to be seen, in various parts of the country. And Joyce points out that at
Prague, and in Nuremberg and other parts of the Germanic countries, this Idnd
of feth was denominated Romische-Irisdie Bader.

224 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Ireland," give place to many prominent physicians,' henceforward.

Musical tuition received great attention in ancient Ireland.
Even as late as the ninth century, we find the Irishman Marcellus,
after he had consented to remain at the old Irish foundation of St.
Gall, making that school illustrious for its musical teaching, and
for the world famous musicians which it turned out. Of the Irish
music more will be said in a subsequent chapter.

The big place that learning occupied in those days in the coun-
try's life and in the people's esteem, is evidenced not merely by
the lavish wealth of traditions of the schools, which have survived
both the lapse of ages and the ruthless rule of the destroying con-
queror,* but also by the frequent references of the annalists to the

^ As in the case of the other professions, that of medicine usually descended
in the same families. Joyce mentions how that the O'Callanans were physicians
to the McCarthys of Desmond; the O'Cassidys to the MacGuires of Fermanagh;
the O'Lees to the O'Flahertys of Connaught; the O'Hickeys to the O'Briens of
Thomond, to the O'Kennedys of Ormond, and to the MacNamaras of Qare. The
O'Shiels were the physicians of the MacMahons of Oriel, and of the MacG}ghlans
of Delvin. Five hundred acres of land was the usual allowance to the physician
of the chief, — and perquisites besides. He says "the surviving collection of old
Irish medical manuscripts preserved in the libraries of London^ Dublin, and Ox-
ford, present probably the largest such collection in existence, in any one tongue."

An estimate of Irish physicians in comparatively modern days, is quoted by
Joyce, from the Confessio Authoris of Van Helmont of Brussels, who wrote nearly
three hundred years ago: "The Irish nobility have in every family a domestic
physician, who has a tract of land free for his remuneration, and who is appointed,
not on account of the amount of learning he brings away in his head from colleges,
but because he can cure disorders. These doctors obtain their medical knowledge
chiefly from books belonging to particular families left them by their ancestors,
in which are laid down the symptoms of the several diseases, with the remedies
annexed : which remedies are vernacula — ^the production of their own country. Ac-
cordingly the Irish are better managed in sickness than the Italians, who have a
physician in every village."

And the following piece, quoted by Joyce, from the preface of an Irish medical
manuscript of 1352, beautifully illustrates the singularly lofty spirit which actuated
Irish physicians in all the ages: "May the merciful God have mercy on us all.
I have here collected practical rules from several works, for the honour of God,
for the benefit of the Irish people, for the instruction of my pupils, and fortiv
love of my friends and of my kindred. I have translated them from Latin into
Gaelic from the authority of Galen in the last Book of his Practical Pantheon, and
from the Book of the Prognostics of Hippocrates. These are things gentle, sweet,
profitable, and of little evil, things which have been often tested by us and by our
own instructors. I pray God to bless those doctors who will use this book; and
I lay it on their souls as an injunction, that they extract not sparingly from it;
that they fail not on account of neglecting the practical rules (herein contained) ;
and more especially that they do their duty devotedly in cases where they receive
no pay (on account of the poverty of the patients). Moreover let him not be in
mortal sin, and let him implore the patient to be also free from gfrievous sin. I^t
him offer up a secret prayer for the sick person, and implore the Heavenly Father,
the physician and balmgiver for all mankind, to prosper the work he is entering
upon and to save him from the shame and discredit of failure."

* That learned antiquary, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Reeves (Protestant Bishop of Down),
says: "We must deplore the merciless rule of barbarism in this country, whence
was swept away all domestic evidences of advanced learning, leaving scarcely any-
thing at home but legendary lore, and which has compelled us to draw from foreign

LEARNING IN ANCIENT IRELAND 225

death of men of learning — even to the scribes, who, for their skill
in perpetuating the monuments of wisdom, commanded huge re-
spect. In the sixth and seventh centuries the annalists begin to
praise as scribes certain men whose passing they record. As, under
date 587, we are told of the death of Dagaeus of Inniscaltra:
"Scriptor librorum peritissimus." And under date 655 the passing
of Ultan: "Scriptor et pictor." They begin then, also, to refer
to the scholars and the schools.

And when we come down to the days of the ravaging Dane,
the books, because of their frequent destruction, begin to get no-
tice from the annalist. During the Danish period the annals record
nine different burnings of the great library of Armagh School, the
Teach-Screptra (House of Writings). One such characteristic rec-
ord of burning — ^though this time evidently by accidental fire — is
the following, from the Four Masters:

"Ard-Macha was burned without saving of any house in it, ex-
cept the House of Writings only. And many houses burned in the
Trians, and the great church burned, and the belfry with its belL
The other stone churches were also burned; and the old preaching
chair, and chariot of the abbott; and their books in the houses of
the students; with much gold, silver, and other precious things."

The fame of many of the Irish scholars of those early centuries
still survives — and, of some of them who have become world fig-
ures, always will survive. Bangor gave the world the great Colum-
banus, scholar extraordinary, preacher, teacher, evangeliser — Co-
lumbanus, courted of good (Continental) kings, and fearless de-
nouncer of bad — and remonstrant, too, with one of the greatest
of Popes — the learned Columbanus, for whom, on his approaching
the Eternal City "all the bells of Rome rang out." He, as we
luiow from his biographer and friend Jonas, carried with him from
Bangor, in addition to his great Scriptural and classical learning, a
remarkable knowledge of grammar, rhetoric, geometry, divinity,
and we may add poetry.

Of this famous sixth century scholar we shall later speak at
further length — as also we shall do of another alumnus of Bangor
who won Continental fame, the astronomer Dungall, whose intel-
lectual ability won him the favour and esteem of the Emperor
Charlemagne ; and who was by that King's grandson, Lothaire, ap-
pointed in charge of the educational system in the dty of Pavia.

depositories the materials on whidi to rest the proof that Ireland of old was really
entitled to that literary eminence which the national feeling lays daim to."

226

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

And from the study-halls of holy Bangor, too, emerged in later
centuries, another world figure, Marianus Scotus, who, when he
had established himself in Germany wrote his Chronicle of the
World. Bangor, of which the Saxon Jocelyn said, "It is a fruitful
vine, breathing the odour of salvation, whose offshoots extend not
only into the ends of Erin, but far over seas into many foreign
lands, filling them with abounding fruitfulness." Bangor, the beau-
tiful, whose praise is well sung in the ancient Latin hymn, the An-
tiphonary of Bangor — property, most probably of Columbanus or
Dungall, and discovered in Columbanus' monastery of Bobbio in
Italy :

O BENCHUIR BONA REGULA

"Holy is the rule of Bangor: it is noble, just and admirable.
Blessed is its community, founded on unerring faith, graced with
the hope of salvation, perfect in charity — a ship that is never sub-
merged tho' beaten by the waves. A house full of delights, founded
upon a rock. Truly an enduring city, strong and fortified. The
ark shaded by the cherubim, on all sides, overlaid with gold. A
princess mete for Christ, clad in the sun's light. A truly royal
hall adomedT with various gems."

Noted scholar of those very early days was Aileran the Wise,
head of the school of Clonard, and who, along with other works,
left to us the scholarly production, "The Mystical Interpretation
of the Ancestry of Our Divine Lord." The Benedictine editors
who republished it a couple of centuries ago (after finding the
manuscript in the old Swiss-Irish monastery of St. Gall) say, "He
unfolded the Sacred Scripture with so much learning and ingenuity
that every student of the sacred volume, and especially preachers
of the Divine Word, should find it most acceptable." To the
scholarliness of this work and its author. Dr. Healy bears this re-
markable testimony: "Whether we consider the style of the Latin-
ity, the learning or the ingenuity of the writer, this work is mar-
vellous. He cites not only Jerome and Augustine, but what is more
wonderful still quotes Origen repeatedly, as well as Philo, the
Alexandrian Jew. It shows, too, that a century after the death of
the holy founder, Scripture study of the most profound character
was still cultivated in the great school of Clonard."

It seems to have been at the time that learned Aileran ruled
the school of Clonard that Adamnan of Tir-Conaill, destined to
be famed for his literary work, studied there — and as we have

LEARNING IN ANCIENT IRELAND 227

already seen, in the capacity of a poor scholar. Besides his Life
of St. Colm Cille, which, from foreign scholars as well as Irish,
has received a chorus of praise, as one of the best and most re-
markable of ancient biographies, Adamnan left us also a book on
the Holy Land, De Locis Sanctis.

But probably a more remarkable man than any of the foregoing
was the brilliant genius Ceannfaelad. "Undoubtedly one of the
most eminent men of his age," O' Curry with good warrant says of
him. He had been a warrior in his early days, and only turned
scholar when, by a serious wound in the head, got in the battle of
Magh Rath (Down) in 634, he was incapacitated for fighting.
He was borne unconscious from the battlefield to Armagh, where
he seems to have undergone a surgical operation — ^trepanning, some
conclude — ^which not only restored his mentality but, it is concluded,
made that mentality mfinitely more vigorous than ever it had
been. "His brain of forgetfulness," says the old writer, "was re-
moved."

To convalesce he came to Tuaim Bricin in Cavan — ^where there
were three schools— of Classics, Law and Poetry. The tradition
tells that while he was convalescing he interested himself and
occupied his mind by frequently sitting in the schools and listening
to the lectures and lessons. The memory of this man was so
phenomenal that everything he heard he retained. And from this
strange beginning and discovery of his ability, Ceannfaelad went
onward till he came to be regarded as illustrious amongst the
bright scholars of Ireland; esteemed a master by his contem-
poraries and reverenced as a master by the scholars of Ireland
down till to-day. There are preserved three works which are at-
tributed to Ceannfaelad, a very ancient grammar of the Gaelic lan-
guage, a book of the laws, and primer of poetry.

Colcu, fer-leig^nn, or chief professor at Clonmacnois, author
of the Besom of Devotion, must have been a scholar of much dis-
tinction, when he won the affection and devotion of Alculn, the
chief scholar at Charlemagne's court, and won tribute from that
scholar, and from his master, Charlemagne. Usher, in his Sylloge
Epistolarum Hibernicarum gives in full the letter of Alculn to
Colcu — ^which, by a reference, in it, is shown to be only part of an
Irregular correspondence kept up between the court scholar abroad
and the scholars in Ireland. This letter addressed by Alculn to
"My dearly loved father and master, Colcu," complains that the
writer has not for a long time been gratified by receiving any of
f'olcu's coveted letters — gives gossip of the Court, news of Euro-

228 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

pean politics, and states that the bearer of the letter is likewise
taking to Colcu, for the school of Clonmacnois, a present of fifty
shekels of silver from Alcuin and fifty from the Emperor." •

Though he was of very much later date than the period we
have been dealing with, we can not help referring to another dis-
tinguished Clonmacnois man, the famous Tighernach, scholar, lin-
guist and historian. O' Curry says of the Annals of Tighernach,
"It is a composition of a very remarkable character, whether we
take into account the early period at which they were written, the
amount of historical research, or the judicious care which distin-
guishes the compiler." These valuable Annals of Tighernach cover
Ireland's history from 305 B. C. to the year of his own death,
1088. "Tighernach," says O'Curry (in MSS. Material), "was
undoubtedly one of the most remarkable of all the scholars of Clon-
macnois. His learning appears to have been very varied and ex-
tensive. He quotes Eusebius, Orosius, Africanus, Bede, Josephus,
Saint Jerome and many other historic writers, and sometimes com-
pares their statements and points in which they exhibit discrepan-
cies, and afterwards endeavours to reconcile their conflicting testi-
mony, and to correct the chronological errors of one writer by
comparison with the dates given by others. He also collates the
Hebrew text with the Septuagint version of the Scriptures."

Since the subject of Clonmacnois induced us to leap to such a
late date as the eleventh century, we may justifiably make passing
reference to another remarkable scholar of late date also — but
about two centuries earlier than Tighernach — the learned Cormac
MacCullinan of Cashel, scholar, warrior, ecclesiastic and king —
the most famous man of his time in Eirinn — and one, too, whose
fame must have sounded on the Continent of Europe. Cormac

•Here is George Stokes' summary of this letter: "He begins his letter with
telling Colcu the news of the day ; tells him how Charlemagne had converted the
Saxons and the Frisians, some (as he naively expressed it) by rewards, and
others by threats. He narrates how, during the previous year the Slavs, Greeks,
Huns, and Saracens had been defeated by the master's forces. He describes a
quarrel between Charlemagne and the Mercian King, OflFa. He laments that he
has not received any Irish letters for a considerable time, and continues : 'I have
sent to thee some oil, which is now a scarce article in Britain, tiiat you may di-
vide it among the bishops, for man's assistance and God's honor. I have also
sent fifty shekels to my brethren from the King's bounty; I beseech you pray for
him; and from myself fifty shekels. For the brethren in the South I have sent
thirty from the king and thirty from myself, and for the anchorites three shekels
of pure silver; that they all may pray for me and King Charles, that God may
preserve him to the protection of his Holy Church, and the praise and glory of
His holy name.' "

Aengus, in his Feilire praises as "a saint, a priest, and a scribe of the saints
of Eirinn, Colcu, Lector of Cluainmacnois." It records of Colcu: "It was to bim
Paul the Apostle came to converse. He took his satchel of books at Moin-tirc-an-
air, and it was he that pleaded for him to the sdiool of Quain."

LEARNING IN ANCIENT IRELAND 229

was not only a profound Gaelic scholar and commentator on the
ancient obsolete language of the Gael, but was also a Hebrew,
Greek, Latin, Saxon and Danish scholar. This truly great states-
man, churchman, writer and riiler, was cut off in the year 903, on
the bloody field of Bellach Mughna — on which disastrous day, by
the way, fell many noted scholars. Such respect did the learned
Cormac command that even the enemy whom he fought on that
fatal day, the monarch Flann Sinna, when the head of Cormac was
carried to him that he might exult over it, "kissed it, and turned
round three times therewith."

The wisdom of this scholarly king was a heavenly boon to his
kingdom of Munster.

"Great was the prosperity of Ireland," says Keating, "during his
reign, for the land became filled with the divine grace, and with
worldly prosperity, and with public peace in his days, so that the
catde needed no cowherd, and the flocks no shepherd, as long as he
was king. The shrines of the saints were then protected, and many
temples and monasteries were built; public schools were established
for the purpose of giving instruction in letters, law, and history;
many were the tilled fields, numerous were the bees, and plenteous
the beehives under his rule; frequent was fasting and prayer, and
every other work of piety; many houses of public hospitality were
built, and many books written, at his command. And, moreover,
whenever he exacted the performance of any good work from others,
he was wont to set them the example himself by being the first to
practise it, whether it was a deed of alms, or benevolence, or prayer,
or attending mass, or any other virtuous deed. It was the good for-
tune of Ireland during that epoch, that, whilst he was reigning over
Munster, the country was abandoned by whatever of the Lochlan-
naigh (Danes) had previously infested it for the purposes of
plunder." ^»

"The Will of Cormac, in verse, is of high interest as giving us a glimpse of
what were some of the prize possessions of a man of his standing in those days —

Tis time my testament were made.
For danger's hour approacheth fast;
My days shall henceforth be but few,
My life has almost reached the goal.

My golden cup of sacrifice,
Wherewith I holy offerings make,
I will to Senan's brotherhood,
At Inis Cathaigh's sacred fane.

The bell that calleth me to prayer,
Whilst on the green-robed earth I stay;
Forget not with my friend to leave
At Conall's shrine, where Forgas flows.

230 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Unfortunately, during the Danish period of destruction great
literary treasures of the very early days, and many of the works
of the early scholars, perished — and some were carried off to
Scandinavia. Vast numbers of books, too, were carried far and
wide over the Continent of Europe by the travelling Irish scholars
and missionaries in the centuries when they were spreading the light
in Europe.

After the Viking tyranny had been broken by Brian Boru,
that monarch found it necessary to do all in his power to provide
the country with fresh literature, getting the old books rewritten
or copied, and sending emissaries abroad for new ones. It is in
the century succeeding the Battle of Clontarf, fought on Good
Friday, 1014, that were made the great collections of Irish litera-
ture which we now have: the Book of the Dun Cow about iioo,
and the Book of Leinster about 50 years later. It is these books
and others like them *^ that contain (mostly in the language of the
period, but often shot through with the old Irish forms which the
scribes forgot to change) these ancient poems and sagas that date
substantially from pagan times, and give us such a wondrous in-
sight into the past of the Celtic race in Ireland, and no doubt of
the Celtic race upon the Continent also.

My silken robe of graceful flow,
O'erlaid with gems and golden braid,
To Ros-cre, Paul and Peter's fane,
And Cronan's guardianship, I leave.

My silver chessboard, of bright sheen,
I will to Uladh's royal chief ;
My well-wrought chain of faultless gold.
To thee, Mochuda, I bequeath.

Take then my amice and my stole,
And take my manuple likewise ;
To Lenin's son, who lies at Cluain,
To Colman, who has found his bliss.

My psalter of illumined leaves.
Whose light no darkness e'er can hide —
To Caisel I forever leave
This potent gift without recalL

And my wealth, I bequeath to the poor,
And my sins to the children of curses;
And my dust to the earth, whence it rose,
And my spirit to Him, who has sent it.

1* Such as those other famous ancient books— "The Lebar Brecc" (The Speckled
Book), "The Yellow Book of Lecan," "The Book of Ballymote," "The Book of
Lismore," etc., etc. — preserved in the Royal Irish Academy, and in Trinity College,
Dublin.

LEARNING IN ANCIENT IRELAND 231

Healy : Irish Schools and Scholars.

Stokes, The Rev. Dr. Geo. T.: The Knowledge of Greek in Ireland Be-
tween A. D. 500 and 900. Proc. R. I. A., 1892.

Zimmer: The Influence of Ireland on Mediaeval Culture.

Jubainville, H. D'Arbois de: Le Cycle Mythologique Irlandais et la
Mythologie Celtique.

O'Curry's Works.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE IRISH MISSIONARIES ABROAD

And, during these several fruitful centuries succeeding St. Patrick,
the story of the Race must concern itself not merely with the saints
and the scholars who towered tallest in the nation in those days,
and whose acts make the nation's most memorable history, but also
with those other commanding Irish figures who, throughout this
time, swarming forth from the Irish monasteries and schools, like
bees from a hive, bore with them to distant shores the faith and
the lore with which Ireland overflowed, and with knowledge, secu-
lar and divine, blessed many peoples and brought them out of bar-
barism.

Says Dr. Wattenbach in his Congregations of the Irish Monks
in Germany: "It was thus, when the whole world seemed irre-
coverably sunk in barbarism . . . the Irish went forth into every
part of the world," to spread Christianity and knowledge.

Says Kuno Meyer (in his Introduction to "Ancient Irish
Poetry") :

"Ireland had become the heiress to the classical and theological
learning of the western empire of the fourth and fifth centuries, and
a period of humanism was thus ushered in which reached its culmina-
tion during the sixth and the following centuries. For once, at any
rate, Ireland drew upon herself the eyes of the world, as the one
haven of rest in a turbulent world over-run by hordes of barbarians,
as the great seminary of Christian and classical learning. Her sons,
carrying Christianity and a new humanism over Great Britain and
the Continent, became the teachers of whole nations, the counsellors
of kings and emperors."

What these loyal bearers of the lamp of knowledge and eager
carriers of the cross of Christ did in the neighbouring nation or
Britain, we shall glance at first — and then outline what was accom-
plished by a typical few of the countless many who swarmed for
centuries far and wide over Europe.

232

THE IRISH MISSIONARIES ABROAD 233

Mainly from three reservoirs the faith and its accompaniment
of learning was borne to the Britons — direct from Ireland — from
Aidan's Irish monastery of Lindisfarne on Britain's northeastern
coast — and from Augustine's Roman mission in Britain's southeast-
ern corner.

The latter, though last named, was the first to go with the bless-
ing of faith to the Britons, but the two former succeeded in carry-
ing the blessing over by far the greater portion of the field. That
the work of the Roman missionary was circumscribed in its area,
and its success limited, as compared with the work and the success
of the Irish missionaries, and of Saxon missionaries who were pu-
pils and disciples of the Irish, is acknowledged by the authorities
who have written upon the subject. The English ecclesiastical
writer, Dr. Lightfoot, Bishop of Durham, speaks thus on the sub-
ject:

"Though nearly forty years had elapsed since Augustine's first
landing in England, the church was still confined to its first conquest,
the southeast comer of the island, the kingdcnn of Kent. . . . Then
commenced those thirty years of earnest, energetic labour, carried on
by those Celtic missionaries and their disciples, from Lindisfarne as
their spiritual citadel, which ended in the submission of England to
the gentle yoke of Christ."

Montalembert (in his Monks of the West) says:

"The Italians, Augustine and his monks, had made the first step,
and the Irish now appeared to resume the uncompleted work. But
what the sons of St. Benedict could only begin was completed by
the sons of St. Columba."

And Dr. Reeves says :

"St Augustine arrived in England in 597 . . , but Christianity
made litde headway in the provinces until Aidan began his labors
in Lindisfarne in 634."

To the work done and the foundations laid by this Irishman,
Aidan, the spread of Christianity to the bounds of Britain are
chiefly owing. As Dr. Lightfoot says: "Aidan holds the first
place in the evangelisation of our race. Augustine was the apostle
of Kent, but Aidan was the apostle of England."

Aidan came into England from Colm Cille's monastery of lona
—by request of Oswald of Northumbria, who had got his faith

234 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

and his education in Ireland. Bede records, "Many of the Scots
came daily into Britain, and with great devotion preached the
Word to those provinces of the English over which King Oswald
reigned."

In 634 Aidan founded the monastic community in Lindisfarne,
or Holy Isle, off the Northumberland coast, which became a boun-
tiful flowing fountain of faith for England. And Irishman after
Irishman came there in succession to tend the fount. Aidan was
succeeded by Finan, and Finan by Colman. And during three fruit-
ful decades the propagation of the faith to England was directed
by these men. They travelled and taught and preached, them-
selves. And their disciples and their pupils spread themselves out
over vast areas doing likewise. We are told that the pious Oswald
himself humbly interpreted for them oftentimes, ere yet the mis-
sionaries were well enough acquainted with the Saxon tongue to
express themselves clearly in it.

"It can be affirmed," says McGeoghegan, "that the Saxons of
the Northern provinces were indebted to those three for the knowl-
edge of the true God. Finan it was who converted Sigebert, King
of East Anglia, and Panda, King of the interior provinces, with
their courts. And he set his priests instructing and baptising their
subjects."

Besides the monastery at Lindisfarne, Aldan founded many
monasteries and many churches in other places in northern Eng-
land. Preaching, teaching, converting, baptising, he tirelessly occu-
pied himself among these Saxons to whom he brought Christ. He
won the veneration, the admiration, and the earnest love of all of
them, noble and simple. The rich loaded him with gifts — ^whidi
gifts he promptly distributed among the poor who needed them.

Then many of those Saxons themselves who were going, as
Aldhelm said, "in fleet loads to Ireland," to the schools and monas-
teries there, brought back with them to their native land and propa-
gated among their fellow countrymen the knowledge of the Scrip-
tures, and the secular knowledge which they had absorbed under
their holy masters in Eirinn.

Leland tells us of St. Petrocus, renouncing the kingdom of Cum-
berland, and for twenty years at Irish schools studying the Holy
Scriptures and literature.

Camden in his Brittania says :

"Our Anglo-Saxons went at those times to Ireland as if to a
fair to purchase goods. Hence, it is frequently read in our histob'ans

THE IRISH MISSIONARIES ABROAD 235

of holy men, *Hc was sent to Ireland to school,' or *He went to the
Irish renowned for their philosophy.* "

The royal court of Northumbria, In particular, where always
were to be found Irish preachers and Irish teachers, and where, we
are even told, Irish came to be at one time the court language,
acted as the great conduit, through which flowed both the religion
and learning of Eire for blessing the English people. The North-
umbrian kings, Egbert and Oswald and Aldfrid* (whose mother
was Irish) spent a long time, all of them, at the Irish schools.

"Edilvinus," says Bede, "was well instructed in Ireland and
came back and was appointed bishop of the province of Lindisse."
Agilberct, who was probably a Saxon, though some call him a
Frank, studied theology in Ireland for several years, and became
bishop of Paris. St. Chad, one of the Fathers of the Anglo-Saxon
diurch, got his education in Ireland. And the English Willibrord,
educated in Ireland, became the apostle of Saxony.

The Irish bishop, Diuma, was the apostle of the Mercians, and
after him the Irish bishop Cellach accomplished arduous work in
the Mercian kingdom. The Irishman, Dicuil, was the apostle of
the South Saxons. He founded the monastery of Bosanham. The
Irish bishops, St. Sampson and St. Magloire, occupied In succession
the See of York, Usher tells us. St. Claran, called by the Cornish

^This Aldfrid is said to be the author of the famous ancient poem in Irish,
"Aldfrid's Itinerary" which is now best known in Mangan's translation —

I found in Innisfail the fair,
In Ireland, While in exile there.
Women of worth, both grave and gay men,
Many clerics and many laymen.

I travelled its fruitful provinces round.
And in every one of the five I found,
Alike in church and in palace hall,
Abundant apparel, and food for all.

Gold and silver I found in money ;
Plenty of wheat and plenty of honey;
I found God's people rich in pity,
Found many a feast, and many a city.

I also foimd in Armagh the splendid.
Meekness, wisdom, and prudence blended,
Fasting as Christ hath recommended.
And noble counsellors tmtranscended.

I found in each great church moreo'er.
Whether on island or on shore,
Piety, learning, fond affection.
Holy welcome and kind protection, &c.

236 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Piran, was the apostle of Cornwall. St. Cuthbert, a native of Lein.
ster, was the patron of Durham. St. Fursa at Burgh Castle, in
Suffolk, founded a monastery, from which centre the faith was
radiated over that part of England. The Irish St. Moninna is
patron of Burton-on-Trent. The Irish St. Bega established herself
in Cumberland, at that place which is now called after her St. Bee's.
Maeldubh founded the famous monastery and school at that place
which is called after him Malmesbury — in 676 — an institution that
not only gave the faith but also for long ages, through its teachers,
gave the higher learning of those days to nobles from many parts
of England, including Aldhelm (who made the complaint about
Saxon youths continually streaming from the British shores to Ire-
land of the schools). Glastonbury in the southwest of England
was for a long time known as Glastonbury of the Gaels, because
of the great Irish school that flourished there, a centre of evan-
gelisation as well as education. At that school the Saxon, St. Dun-
stan, studied (says William of Malmesbury) "arithmetic, geometry,
astronomy and music, under Irish teachers."

But during this time those eager Irish missionaries were, with
ever-burning flames in their hearts, swarming north and south, east
and west, over the Continent of Europe, preaching and teaching,
baptising and building. From the monastic schools of Ireland
thickly they poured forth, resigning forever family and friends, and
associates and country — resigning crowns and kingdoms, sometimes
— for the purpose of carrying the glad tidings of God's Word to
all lands. And to all lands they went, from Arctic Iceland to tropic
Africa, and from the Pyrenees to Palestine.

If record had been kept of even a tithe of those who then left
Ireland forever, to attend to their Master's work, we should have
a roll of missionary heroes whose length would alike amaze and
fill us with pride. But so common was their crowding forth, and
so natural to them the undertaking, that the incident seemed too
common and ordinary to waste good parchment and ink upon its
setting down. Were it not that occasionally some Continental
writer preserved to us the fact that the evangeliser of his country,
his province, or city, was from Ireland, we, depending upon our
own records, would be in almost complete ignorance of the proud
fact (which fortunately every Continental scholar can now tell us)
that from the end of the sixth to the beginning of the tenth cen-
tury the little isle in the western ocean was the means of giving the
Gospel of Christ to the vast tract of barbarian-swept Europe. In*
deed, since for one such missionary the memory of whose Irish
nationality has accidentally escaped the oblivion of the ages, the

THE IRISH MISSIONARIES ABROAD 237

natal record of twenty must have been lost, we can only conjecture
how truly dazzling would be the list of Irish missionaries and mar-
tyrs on the Continent of Europe, if the records of all or even one-
half had been spared to us.

"At that time," says the French historian Allemand, "it was
sufficient to be an Irishman to be considered holy and become the
immediate founder of an abbey."

In the brief account permitted us here, of early Irish mission-
ary activities in Europe, we can only afford to glance at a few of
the more prominent, therefrom to obtain a slight general idea of
the whole. If we were to take one to represent them all, that one
would undoubtedly be the earliest of all the notable ones, the de-
servedly famous Columbanus— of whom the Benedictines, in their
Literary History of France say :

"The light which Columbanus disseminated wherever he went
caused a contemporary writer to compare him to the sun in its
course from East to West."

And Odericus Vital!, In his Church History:

"This father of wonderful sanctity laboured amongst the most
zealous, he shone gloriously among worldlings by his miracles, and
taught by the Holy Spirit, he established monastic regulations, and
was the first to deliver them to the Gauls."

Of course the memory of several Irish Christians on the Con-
tinent before Columbanus came, is accidentally preserved to us —
such as the elder St. Sedulius, already referred to, who was teach-
ing in Achaia. And Florentinus, of whom Usher tells us, whose
festival is on the calends of December, who was imprisoned in
Rome, and who preached and converted many.

St. Eliphius, Bishop of Toul, in the end of the fourth century
was, says Abbot Rupert of Duitz (writer of Eliphius Acts) a na-
tive of Scotia.''

* Usher sa^s: "St Eliphius, son of a king of Scotia, abandoned vast posses-
sion; was dehghted to serve Christ the Lord God, in poverty. In the city of
Toul together with thirty-three of his faithful companions he was betrayed, thrown
into prison, but by the goodness of God, was miraculously delivered in the night.
After this he preached with constancy and fervour, and made a great harvest in
the vineyard of the Lord. He converted and baptised in a short time four hundred
persons. But the Emperor Julian, the apostate, being incensed against them, be-
muse they boldly proclaimed the glory of Christ of whom he was envious, caused
Eliphius to be arrested and had him beheaded"

238

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Also St. Rcnan in the forest of Nevit in Brittany, in the latter
part of the fifth century, and St. Sezin in Brittany, in the beginning
of the sixth century (both referred to by Lannigan), were Irish.
While at about the same time that Rome rang all its bells to weK
come our Columbanus, we have an Irishman, Augustine, labouring
for God in Carthage. Augustine left us, in the Wonders of the
Sacred Scriptures, a remarkable attempt, at so early a time, to
reconcile science and revelation.*

But Columbanus was certainly the first typically Irish mission-
ary on the Continent, of whose career we have pretty full and
accurate details. Fortunately, only ten years after he passed away,
his life was written by his follower, friend, and fellow-countryman,
Jonas, abbot of Luxeuil in Burgundy. Columbanus was a Leinster-
man, born in the year 543, and schooled first with St. Sinnell on
Loch Erne — and next under Comgall at Bangor, on whose monastic
rule he modelled the rule that he gave to his own monasteries on
the Continent. At Bangor he made himself master of grammar,
rhetoric, geometry, poetry, the Sacred Scriptures, Latin — and, some
believe, Greek and Hebrew also.

When, following the example of hundreds of other holy ones
who had gone before him, Columbanus gave up all in order to
carry Christ's Gospels to the heathen, he took with him twelve
disciples (as was then the common practice of many masters who
went forth) and set out through Britain, to the Continent of
Europe.

Columbanus' first signal success on the Continent was the con-
version of Sigebert, king of Austrasia, whose heart the Irishman
won as well as his soul — for Sigebert tried to induce the missionary
to settle down close to his court (which was at Metz) offering him
generous endowments if he did so. But not for Columbanus was
the easy life. He came not to seek worldly favours but to toil for
Christ. In the Vosges Mountains he settled, at a wild and barren
spot called Anagrai. Here he and his companions lived upon
herbs and roots, and sometimes, in their stress, ate the barks of
the trees. By timely relief that seems miraculous, they were twice
saved from dying of starvation. But the news of the piety, and
beauty of the lives, of the wonderful men from Eirinn who had es-
tablished themselves in this bleak spot, was carried far and wide,

•In the course of this work Augustine correctly details all the animals that

are to be found in his native Ireland. He also mentions the recent death of »

^amous man, Mancheas the Wise, in Central Ireland. An interesting paper upon

\ugustine's work, written by Dr. Reeves, is contained in Volume VII of the pro*

ceedings of the Royal Irish Academy.

THE IRISH MISSIONARIES ABROAD 239

and mightily impressed the people of those regions, who began
thronging to them, bringing also crowds of the sick and the infirm.
And so completely won were they to their holy ways of life that
many wanted to join their community — so that after a little time
Columbanus and his companions had to quit their rude and cramped
quarters at Anagrai and go further down the valley to Luxeuil,
where they built a monastery that gave them more spacious quar-
ters, and much better facilities for dealing with the streams of pil-
grims which were constantly flowing to them from all sides.

Here also they were in far better position to provide for the
teaching of the students who had been pressing upon them, even
before they had left Anagrai. A school grew up at the Luxeuil
monastery, where the sons of the nobles of that country vied with
each other for the privilege of becoming students, and becoming
monks.

So marvellously did their fame continue to spread, and their
monastery and school to grow, that in a short time again they had
to build still another — at Fontaines. And around these three Irish
establishments, in the heart of the Vosges mountains, now centred
both the intellectual and the religious life of all the eastern part
of that country which is now France. "The fame of Columbanus'
power," says Lannigan, "brought crowds." To that great school
many prominent ecclesiastics of France owed their education.

Yet life at Luxeuil was not one uninterrupted dream of peace.
Two notable quarrels disturbed its serenity, and one of them finally
resulted in driving Columbanus forth from the great institution
which with infinite patience and thought, he had founded, and with
infinite solicitude fostered.

The neighbouring ecclesiastics assailed him and denounced him
as a disobedient child of the church because his Vosges community
celebrated the old Roman Easter — after the custom of the Irish —
instead of the new, or Alexandrian Easter, which was now univer-
sally observed on the Continent. Columbanus would not bow to
the will of his antagonists. He held his own, and wrote some re-
markable letters to the bishops, to Pope Gregory the Great, and
later to Pope Boniface, defending himself. Pathetic, but at the
same time noble, is that beautiful plea, to the Gallic bishops, of this
man representing a little band who had exiled themselves for
Christ's sake — "Let us live here in Gaul in a like peace in which
we hope to live eternally in heaven. But if it be God's will that
you should drive me from this wilderness, whither I have come so
hr for the sake of Jesus Christ, I shall say, with the prophet: 'If
^or my sake this tempest is upon you, take me up and cast me forth

240

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

into the sea.' " All he asked was to be left in peace to observe the
festivals of the church as all his life he had been used to observe
them, as all his countrymen had always observed them — as they
had got them from St. Patrick. "Better comfort us poor strangers,
than go on disturbing us," he writes to the bishops, when vexed by
their continued annoyances — for they had now summoned him to a
Council to answer for his crime of continuing to observe the Irish
Easter. And as he knows that these bishops, who persecute him
for his lack of a letter observance, have been themselves eminently
lax in observing the spirit of many church ordinances, and that
they have been more than lax in neglecting to hold Councils, when
matters of far graver moment than his persecution calls for them,
his Irish sarcasm comes into play. So he answers, congratulating
them on the fact that they are going to hold a Council — and wishes
that they would comply with the Canons and hold them oftener.
The saint is all his life a typical Irishman, again and again display-
ing the Irish qualities. He is frank and fearless; he never shrinks
from a fight ; he can be fierce as a lion, and gentle as the white dove
that gave him his name. By his loving persuasiveness he could
win alike the highest and the humblest. And by his terrible de-
nunciation he made the tyrant tremble on his throne. He was
possessed of infinite sweetness, and of infinite sarcasm; and to com-
plete his Irishism he was undoubtedly gifted with that insinuating
Irish quality which in recent days is dubbed blarney. For we find
him when writing to Pope Gregory to defend himself against the
bishops, taking occasion to compliment Gregory upon a recent pas-
toral, and begging from him a copy of his commentary on Ezechiel
— compliments which, coming from a notable scholar, admittedly
more able than Gregory himself or any of the scholars of that day,
must have left His Holiness in that pleasant frame of mind which
premises a sympathetic consideration of the complimenter's case.
Perhaps Gregory had not forgotten that Columbanus was a man of
eminently good literary judgment when, on the Saint's going to
visit him, in 599, he ordered the bells of Rome to ring for him,
and he and his clergy did all the honours to the exiled Irishman.

Columbanus' other quarrel was with the notorious Queen Brune-
hilde, who then ruled that kingdom for her young grandson, Theod-
oric, still in his minority. That wicked queen's love of ruling and
of power, induced her to indulge and encourage the young king in
all vicious pleasures, which should weaken and keep him subser-
vient to her, and wean him from desire to take his rightful place.
Now the young king, for all his weakness, loved and admired the
Irish apostle, and would do anything to serve him. To the chagrin

THE IRISH MISSIONARIES ABROAD 241

of Brunehilde, Columbanus endeavoured to reform him — and in-
deed succeeded several times in drawing him from his vicious
courses, and setting him in the straight path. But the wily old
queen-mother could always craftily undo whatever the saint did.
Openly and unfearingly Columbanus, when he saw the absolute
necessity for it, publicly thundered at the wicked king and at the
still more wicked queen, his grand-mother. And her before whom
some of the boldest trembled, this Irish wanderer threatened, re-
buked, and denounced. And no royal threats in return could silence

him.

Once, when Theodoric had relapsed, Columbanus followed him
to Epoisses, to reprimand him before his unworthy associates there.
The Irishman stood without the castle gate, and demanded that
the king should come to him. He indignantly rejected the invita-
tion of Theodoric to enter and enjoy the castle's hospitality. And
when then a rich feast was carried out to him Columbanus scat-
tered the feast, and smashed the plates upon the gates of the castle.

He finally succeeded in bringing the wicked pair, the old and
the young, to repentance — or apparent repentance — and apology
for their wicked conduct.

But after a time they lapsed again and Columbanus now thrust
them from the church — excommunicated both. Then they turned
upon him. They forced him from under the roof of his monastery,
and banished him to Besangon. The prison at Besangon was filled,
and overflowed, with condemned criminals, most of them the vilest
of the nation. To these Columbanus preached, and converted the
most hardened, confessed them, bathed their feet, and freed them.
And soon the city which he had entered as an outcast bowed to
him as its master, and hailed him as its saviour.

But his heart was torn for his poor fatherless community at
Luxeuil. And at length, one morning, with Dogmael, one of his
Irish disciples, he stole out of Besangon, and made his way again
to Luxeuil. And, oh, the unbounded joy with which he was there
greeted! by the long-time grieving monks, his afflicted children.
And his joy to be once more with the community he loved — in the
hallowed structure whose walls, cemented by sweat and blood, he
had reared— outdid the joy of his fellows 1

But not long was he left to his enjoyment, for when Brunehilde
and Theodoric heard of his return they were enraged, and ordered
him to be seized and sent back to his native country. Accordingly,
he was taken away forcibly and carried to Nantes, where he was
put aboard a ship that was sailing for Ireland. The hand of God,
however, intervened. The ship, after reaching the ocean, was

242 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

driven back upon the land, and he and his companions were dis-
embarked by the sailors who considered that the mishap to the ship
was caused by their carrying these holy ones away. He returned
to Nantes, where he stayed for a short time, quickly becoming a
hero to the people, who came to admire and to venerate him. Then
he journeyed into Clothair's kingdom, but turned a deaf ear to
Clothair's entreaty that he should settle down there under his pat-
ronage. He passed on to the kingdom of Theodobert, where
again he was joyfully received, and where Theodobert's nobles
begged him to remain and to make their kingdom holy, learned,
and famous. But he passed on, and went up the Rhine to Switzer-
land, where, after journeying and sojourning and preaching for
some time, and founding a monastery, he left behind him his dis-
ciple Gall, and went into Italy.

Arriving at Milan, the welcoming king, Agiluilph (whom he
converted) of the Lombards, was proud and joyous to have this
man honour his kingdom. He entreated Columbanus to settle in
his dominion, and to choose where he would for his monastery.

In Milan, Columbanus engaged in the Arian controversy that
was then threatening to split the church. He preached against
Arianism and wrote against it — hurled at it both oratorical and
literary thunders. He now wrote a daring letter to Pope Boniface
the Fourth, who was accused of harbouring Nestorians; and civilly
but firmly upbraided His Holiness for the religious apathy he
found among Italian Christians, contrasting it most unfavourably
with the religious fervour that held his own people, the Irish.
Furthermore, in this letter he says: "We Irish, though dwelling
at the far ends of the earth, are all disciples of St. Peter and St.
Paul . . . neither heretic nor Jew nor schismatic has ever been
among us ; but the Catholic faith just as it was first delivered to us
by yourselves as successors to the apostles, is held by us unchanged."

In that same year he settled down in Bobbio, and there erected
his monastery, which became a centre of holiness and learning and
a Gospel- fount which should bestow the knowledge of God on the
heathen and the ignorant, and was to be far famed through long cen-
turies to come.

Clothair the Second, who in common with the other Gallic
kings hungered to have the honour and the profit of this great
saint settling under him, now sent a mission to Columbanus in-
viting him back to Gaul, and offering gold to pay the expenses of
his journey, and promising lavish gifts and endowments for his
undertakings, should he return. Although Columbanus had to re-
ject the offer, thanking Clothair and asking him to bestow all fa-

THE IRISH MISSIONARIES ABROAD 243

vours he had upon his loved monks at Luxeuil, it was a joy to him
to receive the ambassador, who was no other than Eustatius, a
friend and disciple, and now abbot of Luxeuil. It rejoiced him
to get long-wished-for news of the monastery and the community he
loved, of the monks and of the students and of the people.

Here in Bobbio, in his very advanced years, Columbanus ended
a fruitful and a notable life.*

Even before his death, disciples and followers and students
of Columbanus had gone forth to many parts, founding monas-
teries of his rule. They spread rapidly and became very numer-
ous; in northern France, eastern France, southwestern France, in
Austrasia, along the Rhine, in Germany, in Switzerland, and in
the northern part of Italy — so that for centuries after his death,
in many lands and in many tongues, memorial prayers for this
saint were, as a perpetual incense, ever mounting up to heaven.'

As abbots, as bishops, as evangelisers and saints, many of Co-
lumbanus' Irish disciples and followers became famous on their
own account. As St. Magnus (Magnoald) who founded two
famous abbeys in Germany, that were richly endowed by King
Pepin. And St. Deicol (Desle) who, patronised and endowed by
King Clothair,* founded a celebrated monastery at Lure, not far
from Luxeuil, where his memory is honoured on the fifteenth of
February — "who was renowned," says the Gallican Martyrology
of Laussoius, "for his many virtues, and the splendour of his
miracles." At Lure Miss Margaret Stokes saw St. Desle's cup
reverently preserved, and found his memory still ardently vener-
ated. And above all, St. Gall, who with Columbanus' parting

* Bobtio was suppressed by the French in 1803. There are still St Columbanus'
chapel, and his cave, and the holy well of Columbanus, to which the faithful resort
for cures.

It may be mentioned as a striking coincidence that, as in the case of so many
of the Irish saints at home, Columbanus is said by the foreign legends to hare been
on the most intimate terms with all living things around him. Birds nestled in
the palm of his hand ; doves came to shelter in his cowl — and squirrels, too. When
he sang his psalms, the wild birds joyously sang with him. And beasts of prey
turned harmless in his presence.

'Works of Columbanus still extant are the Monastic Rule, a Book of daily
penances for monks, seventeen sermons, a book on the eight vices, Latin verses,
and epistles, two to Boniface, two to Gregory, and one to the members of the
Gallican Synod, and one to the monks of Luxeuil.

Lannigan says of him: "He was a superior and very elegant genius, deeply
versed not only in every branch of ecclesiastical learning, but likewise in classical
studies, both Latin and Greek."

•While Deicol had only a little cell in a marsh, where afterwards he erected
a great monastery, he was sitting at his door one day, when a wild boar hunted by
K.mg Qothair rushed up and took refuge with him, while he turned away the blood-
thirsty hounds and saved the animal's life. Qothair granted him the lands for his
monastery, and endowed it by granting to him also the town of Bredana.

244 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

words in his ear, "May the almighty God, for whose sake we left
our native land, grant that we meet before his face in heaven" —
settled on Lake Constance, and built his monastery there, around
which sprang the city still known by the name of St. Gall. This
saint did great things for the evangelising of that part of Switzer-
land. He refused the bishopric of Constance, putting forward in
his stead his deacon and disciple, John (most probably an Irish-
man, also) who was elected. He also refused the Abbacy of
Luxeuil, though a deputation of six Irish monks travelled to Con-
stance to entreat him. In the year 635, at the age of ninety-five he
died, renowned. King Sigebert the Second richly endowed his
monastery, and the abbot of St. Gall was raised to the rank of a
prince of the Empire. For many centuries after his death this
abbey was noted as a centre of Irish activities.

Though St. Gall did much for his part of Switzerland, of course
the apostle of Switzerland was that other Irishman, St. Fridolin,
who brought the faith there almost in the lifetime of St. Patrick —
and who was buried in the Island of Seeking in the Rhine in 514 —
Fridolinus the Wanderer, as he is called by Possevin and other
Continental writers. They say he was a son of royalty in Ireland.
He wandered much over both Germany and France at the time
of Clovis, preaching wherever he went. He founded monasteries
in Upper Saxony, in Alsace, Strasburg, and on the frontiers of
Switzerland. Colgan in his Acta Sanctorum names eight of his
foundations. Baltherus, a monk and canon of Seeking the most
ancient author of St. Fridolin's life, expressly states that he was an
Irishman.

Peter Canisius in his Life of St. Fridolin says: "Old historians
are agreed upon this, that Fridolin was of royal descent — that he
was born in Lower Scotia, called Ireland." And Guillimanus, in
his work on Swiss affairs, says : "Under Clovis, first Christian king
of the Franks, Fridolinus, an Irishman by birth, and of royal line-
age, spent a long time in Switzerland, and planted in it the name
and faith of Christ, where he likewise performed many miracles."
Possevin says he died in 595; some others say 574. It is recorded
that Fridolin was a councillor at one time to King Clovis. He re-
built the great basilica of St. Hilary, at Poitiers. His portrait
is in the Blason of the Canton of Glarus, Switzerland.

After Columbanus the most famous of Irish saints who laboured
to spread the faith in France was Fursey, or Fursa, whom Bade
st^^led "the Sublime" — ^who was a nephew of Brendan the Naviga-
tor, and educated under him. He came to France about forty
years later than Columbanus. He had laboured in the conversion

THE IRISH MISSIONARIES ABROAD 245

of Picts and Saxons after he left Ireland and before he came to
France. He was a favourite of Sigebert, King of the East Saxons,
whom he induced to resign the throne for a monk's cell, and under
whose patronage he founded the abbey of Cnobersburg, now called
Burghcastle in Suffolk. In France, Clovis the Second gave Fursa
a place' at Lagny on the Marne, where he founded his famous mon-
astery, and drew to him many disciples from his beloved Galway.
Erchinwald, Mayor of the Palace, Fursa's first Gallic patron, had
tried in vain to hold him at Peronne; but Clovis' wife, Bathilde,
it was who succeeded in making him accept Clovis' offer to settle at
Lagny. Memory of Fursa's marvellous miracles still survive in
that part of France — as also the miracles of his Irish disciples and
followers who spread themselves over the country, bringing the
people to Christ — especially Saints Algeis, Eto and Gobin (the
latter endowed by Clothair II), who are the respective patron
saints of the towns of St. Algia, St. Avesnes and St. Gobin. To the
holy well of St. Gobin still come the French pilgrims. Even of
Fursa's servant, St. Maguille, the memory is honoured at St.
Riquier, where is his holy well, and where, more than four centuries
after, and again four centuries after that, his body was enshrined in
a very precious shrine, and re-enshrined with ecclesiastical honours.

Lamented through the breadth and length, of northern France,
St. Fursa passed away in 648. And the city of Peronne which had
contended for him in life, contended for him again in death — this
time successfully. His body lay in state for thirty days, under a
tent of precious tapestry, in their unfinished church. And the legend
persists in Peronne that for generations afterward, the pious who
flocked to the hallowed spot where his embalmed body had lain,
were sensible of the sweet odour of spices, lingering there. His
church in Peronne grew very rich, from the wealth bestowed on it
by the crowds of pilgrims who for centuries thronged to the shrine
of the famous Irishman. Fursa is the patron of Peronne and his
figure is in the city banner.

After returning from the first crusade, St. Louis of France went
to Peronne in 1256, to be present at the translation of the body of
Fursa, to a new shrine — a most beaudful one specially prepared
for the body by St. Eloi.

He was called Fursa of the Visions. He had wonderful visions
of the other world — ^which were printed and reprinted in all lan-
guages throughout the continent of Europe — and which are said
by many to have been the original source from which Dante first
got the ideas for his Divine Comedy. Sir Francis Palgrave, for
instance, in his History of Normandy and England says: "We

246 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

have no difficulty in deducing the poetic genealogy of Dante's In-
ferno from the Milesian Fursaeus."

St. Foilan and St. Ultan (said to be brothers of Fursa) were
brought from Ireland by St. Gertrude, the Abbess of Neville in Bra-
bant. Both of them worked for Christ, in the Netherlands. The
original cause of her bringing them — along with other Irish teachers
— from Ireland, was to expound the Holy Scriptures, and instruct
her nuns, as well as to preach the Word of God to the people.
The Breviary of Paris thus refers to the fact:

"Rome at that time took care to have the relics of the saints and
holy books brought to her [Gertrude] ; she sent to Ireland for
learned men to expound to herself and to her people the canticles of
the holy law, which the Irish had almost by heart. The monastery
of Vossuensis was built on the banks of the Sambre for receiving the
saints Fullanus and Ultanus, brothers of St. Furseus." '

In France also still another of the many Irish saints who
preached and taught the heathen there, is honoured in the vehicle
the fiacre — called after the Irishman, St. Fiacre, who was Bishop
of Meaux and who flourished in the early, seventh, century and
had his cell in the forest of Meaux. He was of noble birth in
Ireland, and went abroad with his train of disciples. His austere
life and many miracles made him an object of much veneration.
After his death an office of nine lessons in his honour was inserted
in most of the breviaries in France, the first of which reads:

"Ireland is dignified by the lustre of a new lamp: that island
glitters, to the Meldi, by the presence of so great a light The
former sent Fiacrius; Meaux received the ray which was sent. The
joy of both is in common; the latter possesses a father, the former
a son."

Such was the recourse of pilgrims to his grave for centuries
after, that the special kind of conveyance in use in that part of

' In November 1920, Cardinal Mercier and his Belgian Bishops, in the course
of their reply to the cry of the Irish bishops against the terrible atrocities then be-
ing wrought in Ireland by the English soldiery, say:

"Does not Belgium herself owe the signal grace of belonging to Christ largely
to the first pioneers of Christian civilisation from Ireland? The names of the
Irish missionaries who in the Merovingian period evangelised the north of Gaol-
Saints Columban, Foillan, Ultan, Livianus and many others — ^are familiar to us.
More than 30 Belgian churches have been dedicated to saints who were natives of
Ireland.

"Ireland, won to the faith in the fifth century, seems to have received from
Divine Providence a special mission for the Apostolate.

"What, then, is your history but a long Calvary of a people incessantly bej
trayed, despoiled, starved, but ever unfailing in its faith and its passion for liberty?

TH£: IRISH MISSIONARIES ABROAD 247

the country, which used to carry the pilgrims to the grave, came
to be called fiacre — and retains that name to-day.

St. Gibrien, after whom is named the village of Gibrien near
Chalons-sur-Mer, was, "one of seven brothers and three sisters
from Ireland on pilgrimage for the love of Christ." They dwelt
on the Marne, and there lived a life of labour united with won-
derful holiness, and constant prayer, which won for them great
love among the natives of the country. And another ancient French
writer says that "they instructed the people and formed in them
the habits of faith, piety and morality." St. Gibrien*s relics were
enshrined in the church of St. Remi in Rheims.

June third is the festival of two other Irish saints, Caidoc
and Fricor, who, with twelve companions, landing at the mouth
of the Somme in the latter part of the sixth century, there preached
and taught. They converted the heathen noble who was to become
St. Riquier. They afterwards spread the Gospel in Picardy. Their
relics were enshrined with those of MaguiUe by St. Jervinus in
1070.

The Irishman, St. Rumald — ^whose church in Malines (of which
city he is patron) is now the metropolitan church of the Low
Countries, and holds his relics in a beautiful silver shrine — came
from Leinster. He was bishop of Malines in Brabant, where
Count Ado induced him to settle. Another Leinsterman, Livinus,
who was a Latin poet, was martyred in Flanders in 663, after he
had preached the Gospel there, and converted many. His relics
are preserved in the church of St. Babo in Ghent.

John D'Alton refers to the fact that Vernutaeus in his work
on the spread of the Christian faith in Belgium, by the Irish saints,
tells how, even at the time that the Danes were ravaging their
own country, they were successfully spreading Christianity from
Mechlin, Brabant, Flanders, Artois, Namur, Leyden, Gilderland,
Holland, Friesland and Luxemburg.

Authberte, bishop of Cambrai, an Irish missionary who con-
verted Hannonia, is styled the apostle of Flanders. The old
church of St. Dympna, a king's daughter from Monaghan (in the
seventh century), is still to be seen at Gheel. She is honoured as
the patron of the insane. Fedegond converted the people of Ant-
werp, where his name is still revered. St. Briccus, from whom is
named the town of Brieux in Brittany, is said to have been a na-
tive of Cork.

These are but a few of the hundreds of Irish saints, to whom,
i» those early ages, France and civilisation owe a debt which they
can never repay.

248 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Italy owes to Ireland a St. Bridget and her brother St. An-
drew, St. Donatus, St. Cummian and St. Cathaldus — and many
unrecorded missionaries.

Philip, a Florentine, who was an ambassador of Pope Boniface
in 1^90, wrote the life of Andrew who is patron of San Martino
a Mensola — "a holy man from the Island of Ireland," says Philip,
"more generally called Scotia" — and of Bridget, patroness of San
Martino a Lobaca. The tomb of the eighth century St. Cummian
who, a bishop in Ireland, became a humble monk at Bobbio, is
still to be seen at the latter place. St. Ursus founded a church in
the Val d'Osta, in the first half of the sixth century. Pellegrinus,
from Ireland, in the time of Columbanus settled down in the Ap-
ennines at Garfagnana. The tomb of the Irish St. Siloa is to
be seen at Lucca, where he died in the sixth century.

St. Donatus settled in Tuscany in the beginning of the ninth
century. He became bishop of Fiesole. He was a poet and author
of several works. Colgan quotes a few lines from a Latin poem
of his in which he describes his native Ireland. Donatus was
much celebrated for his virtues as well as for his intellectual
ability.

Donatus is said to have been a brother of the most famous
Italian Irish saint Cathaldus (Cathal) — after whom is named the
city of San Cataldo in southern Italy. Cathaldus is the patron
saint of Tarentum, and his festival is celebrated there with much
pomp, on March eighth. He became bishop of Tarentum and
rescued all that country from the paganism into which it had re-
lapsed after the Gospel had been g^ven to it by the Apostles Peter
and Mark.

In this connection, Usher quotes from Joannes Juvenis:

"The Tarentines returning to the worship of idols, as a dog to
his vomit, the holy Cathaldus born in Ireland brought them back to
the andcnt faith."

That was in all probability in the sixth century, though his
Italian biographers, the brothers Moron, claim that he came there
some centuries before that. Bonaventura Moron's poem on St.
Cathaldus' life begins:

"The icy leme bewails that so great an ornament of the West,
second to none in piety, celebrated in the ancient laws of Phalantus,
should be sent to foreign nations."

And from the office sung in honour of Cathaldus at the Church
of Tarentum is the following, quoted by Usher:

THE IRISH MISSIONARIES ABROAD 249

"Rejoice, O happy Ireland, for being the country of so fair an
offspring! But thou, Tarentum, rejoice still more, which endosest
(within a tomb) so great a treasure!"

This office says that when Cathaldus taught in Ireland (prob-
ably at Lismore), Gauls, Angles, Scots and pupils from other coun-
tries studied under him.

In 1 150 Archbishop Giraldus had Cathaldus' relics shrined in
a silver shrine decorated with gold and jewels. The ancient mar-
ble tomb which had held the body is by the high altar in the
church. There also is a large silver statue of the saint.

With the possible exception of France, there is no country on
the Continent, that owes so much to the Irish missionaries as Ger-
many. For at least six hundred years, from the sixth to the twelfth
century, the holy men from Ireland were to be met with in almost
every part of the Germanic countries; and their establishments
became the centres of enlightenment for the vast populations which
they so materially helped to lead out of the night of barbarism.

"Near the end of the seventh century and the beginning of the
eighth," says Zimmer, "a long series of these (Irish) missionary
establishments extended from the mouths of the Meuse and Rhine
to the Rhone and the Alps, and many others founded by the Ger-
mans are the offsprings of Irish monks. And throughout the chron-
icles and Lives of the Saints the purely Irish are constantly found."

But, for long centuries after, their activities in Germany de-
creased not.

The following words are from a tribute paid to Ireland and
her missionaries in an address which the heads of German col-
leges presented to Daniel O'Connell in 1844:

"We never can forget to look upon your beloved country as our
mother in religion, that already, at the remotest periods of the Chris-
tian era, commiserated our people, and readily sent forth her spirit'
ual sons to rescue our pagan ancestors from idolatry and to entail
upon them the blessings of the Christian faith."

Dr. Ferdinand Keller of Zurich, in his Illuminations and Fac-
similes from Irish manuscripts in the Libraries of Switzerland,
says: "The eleventh and twelfth centuries were the greatest for
the Irish monks on the Continent. Communities of Scotic monks
were formed in almost every large city in southern Germany."
And it was only the results of the Norman invasion of Ireland
which even then put practical end to their Continental activities.

250 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

And of the latter part of the period indicated we may quote
the testimony of Dr. Wattenbach in his Congregations of the
Monasteries of the Scotic:

"The most prosperous time of Irish odbnks was in the twelfth
century. They were examples of rigid abstemiousness, and filled
with ardent faith that incited them to go afar. Even in Bulgaria
the Emperor Barbarossa, going on crusade, fell in with an Irish abbot
at the casde of Scribentium. His monastery probably served as a
hospice for pilgrims to Jerusalem."

A few of the Irish saints in the Germanic countries are here
set down.

St. Gunifort, descended of noble parents in Ireland, preached
in Germany at a very early time — some think before St. Patrick's
era. His festival is kept at Pavia in Italy on the 22nd of August.
The festival of his sister, St. Dardaluch, who went to Germany
with him, is observed at Pressing in Bavaria. Usher records these
two Irish saints.

St. Arbogast, who converted large numbers in Alsace, became
bishop of Strasburg in 646 — appointed thereto by King Dago-
bert. By his dying request Arbogast was interred in the place of
public execution called Mont Michel, where a monastery dedicated
to his name was founded long afterward.

The honoured apostle of Franconia is St. Kilian. He had
gone on a pilgrimage to Rome, and so favourably did he impress
Pope Conan for his wisdom and sacred learning, that he sent him
to evangelise Franconia. There he converted Duke Gosbert and
many of his subjects. But because, following the bold example of
most of these remarkable Irish missionaries, whose fearlessness
in attacking both ecclesiastics and kings is noted by Dr. Wattenbadi
he persisted in commanding Gosbert to put away an unlawful
wife, that woman, incensed, had him martyred on 8th of July,
689. Kilian's bible is still preserved, and on his feast-day it is
exposed on the high-altar in the Cathedral church of Wurtzburg.

St. Tuban, an Irish bishop, founded a monastery on an island
in the Rhine at Honau in 720, which was patronised by King Pepin
and Charlemagne. There is still extant the confirmation grant
"ad pauperis et peregreno gentis Scotorum" attested by the signa-
tures of the abbot, the bishop and one presbyter of this monastery
— all of them Irish names.

Disenberg, formerly Mont Disibod, in the Lower Palatinate
takes its name from Disibod "an Irish noble of profound erudi*

THE IRISH MISSIONARIES ABROAD 251

tion," who preached the Gospel for seven years, in different part»
of Germany, and founded a monastery on Mont Disibod.

In 742 Album (better known to the Germans as Wittan) went
to Thuringia, where he converted great numbers, and was made
bishop of Tritzlar by the Pope — and by Arnold Wion is styled
apostle of the Thuringians.

St. Virgilius (Fergal) who did good missionary work in Ger-
many, and was famous for his scholarship, was made bishop of
Salsburg, in the late seventh or early eighth century. More will
be said of him in a succeeding chapter.

St. Willlbrord who was apostle of the Batavians and the Fries-
landers, although of Saxon descent, was educated in Ireland. Al-
culn, who wrote his life, says: "Becaifte he heard that scholastic
erudition flourished in Ireland, and was roused by his intercourse
with holy men who had been taught there, he studied during
twelve years among Ireland's most pious and religious masters
that he might become a preacher to many people."

St. Finan "of the Celestial Visions" founded the monastery
of RIchenau, at the end of the eighth or beginning of the ninth
century. He was son of a Leinster prince and had been captive
of the Danes in Ireland before leaving it to go to Rome — ^and
thence went into Germany, where he preached for many years.

St. Colman, who is the patron saint of Lower Austria and
whose festival is on October thirteenth, was martyred between
two robbers, in the year 10 12. The Martyrology of Donegal
says that he was the son of Malachi Mor, Ard-RIgh of Ireland.
This is uncorroborated by any other testimony.

The martyr, John, who came to Germany in 1057 accompany-
ing Marianus Scotus, worked among the Slavonians at the re-
quest of Prince Gothescale — and was martyred by them. Five
years after reaching Germany from Ireland he became bishop of
Mecklenburg.

Marianus Scotus, the author of The Chronicles of the World,
lived a life of wonderful holiness — ^first at Fulda and later at
Mayence, and won great fame and esteem among the German
people. ^ He produced several works, but his Chronicle of the
World is that by which he is inmiortallsed.

In a book entitled Bavaria Sancta there is listed, .by the Bava-
nan author, a bishop, the names of Irish saints who contributed
to the evangelisation of that one country. He gives them as:
^gilus, Marinus, Anianas, Magnus, Columbanus, Erhardus, Alto,
virgilius, Marinus the Younger, Thedanus, Fridolinus, Kilian,

252 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Colman, Salust, Amor, Arno (who was brother to Alcuin, the
great scholar), Murcherel (or, as some call him, Muricheroda-
chus), Vimius, ZImius and Martinus.

In many respects one of the most remarkable of Irish workers
for the faith in Germany was the Holy Marianus Scotus of Done-
gal— ^whose correct name was Muiredach MacRorty, a native of
Tyrhugh in Donegal — ^who arrived in Germany only eleven years
after Marianus the Chronicler, and" who in 1076 founded a mon-
astery which was to become famous, at Ratisbon — from which
his Irish followers (who for ages after continued thronging there
from Ireland) branched out and built many other notable monas-
teries in Germany and Austria — all of them under the jurisdiction
of the Irish Monastery at Ratisbon. Some of these Irish sister
monasteries were the monastery of Wurtzburg, Nuremberg, Con-
stance, St. George in Vienna, Si. Mary in Vienna and Eichstadt.

The Bavarian annalist, Aventinus, talking of Marianus and
his companions and successors, says:

"By their devotion to the strictest religious exercises, and self-
denial, by their writing and teaching, they earned unbounded respect,
and became well approved patterns of piety. They were favourites
of everybody. And with one mouth the whole people spoke loudly
in their praise; kings and nobles built monasteries for them, and in-
vited them east and west."

Strange to say, the Irish monastery at Ratisbon came to have
jurisdiction over not only the many other Irish mona'steries of
Germany, but also over many priories in Ireland, as is proved by
two briefs on the subject by Innocent the Second. No less than
twelve Irish monasteries in Germany were formally placed under
the authority of the St. James* Monastery of Ratisbon by the Lat-
eran Council of 12 15.

The monastery of St. Mary of Vienna was founded by Henry,
Duke of Austria in 11 61. In the charter of this monastery he
makes only Scots (Irish) eligible for admission "because of their
long and acknowledged piety."

"Well trained in all human and divine knowledge was Ma-
rianus, when he came from Ireland," says the monk of St. James
who was his biographer. . "He was a poet as well as a theologian."
One of his prized works is his Commentaries on the Psalms; his
most valued one is his Commentary on St. Paul's Epistles. This,
written in the form of marginal and interlineary notes is still pre-
served in the Imperial Library of Vienna. In it his wide reading
is shown by the fact that he quotes Jerome, Augustine, Gregory.

THE IRISH MISSIONARIES ABROAD 253

Origen, Alcuin, Cassian, and many such. Before he established
his own monastery at Ratisbon, and while he still occupied a cell
there, under the patronage of Abbess Emma, he employed himself
constantly, without cease, writing and giving away books; these
being chiefly copies of the Scriptures, and of various religious
works. His biographer pictures him at this work all day long,
while the two companions who had journeyed with him from Ire-
land, John and Candidus, prepared for him as fast as they could,
parchment, and pens, and ink. And as fast as he turned oH his
books he gave them out gratis to the abbess, to her nuns, to monks,
to poor widows, to everybody! This Irishman wanderer who,
for sake of religion and learning, had exiled himself to far, strange
lands, a man of brilliant parts, of vast reading, and deep learning,
toiled, thus, day and night with his pen, to bestow the products of
it upon the hundreds of these people who so hungered for what
he had to give ! What wonder that when this man decided finally
to settle down in Ratisbon, "his determination was hailed with
joy, by the whole population." And the abbess gave him the
church of St. Peter, with an adjacent plot.

"This holy man wrote from beginning to end, with his own hand,
the Old and New Testament, with explanatory comments on the
same; and that not once or twice, but over and over again, with a
view to the eternal reward — all the while clad in sorry garb, living
on slender diet, attended and aided by his brethren both in the upper
and lower monasteries, who prepared the parchments for his use; be-
sides, he also wrote many smaller books and manuals, psalters for
distressed widows and poor clerics of the same city, towards the
health of his soul without any prospect of earthly gain. Further-
more, through the grace of God, many congregations of the monastic
order, which in faith and charity and imitation of the blessed
Marianus, are derived from the aforesaid Ireland, and inhabit Ba-
varia and Franconia, are sustained by the writings of the blessed
Marianus."

He died on the ninth of February, 1088. Marianus' imme-
diate successors in the abbacy built, and afterwards enlarged and
beautified, the new monastery of St. James (first founded in 1090,
two years after Marianus' death). It was done almost entirely
with money obtained from Irish royalties, especially from Conor
O'Brien, King of Munster, and again from King Murtach O'Brien.
The old chronicle of Ratisbon says:

"Now be it known, that neither before nor since was there a
more noble monastery, such magnificent towers, walls, pillars, and

254 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

roofs, so rapidly erected, so perfectly finished, as in this monasteiy,
because of the wealth and money tent by the kings and princes of
Ireland."

Yet the monks sought and got aid for their monastery from
many quarters. One of these Irishmen penetrated even to Kiev,
and from thenco brought back a load of furs, contributed by the
King of Russia.

And some of these Irish monks were signally honoured by
royalty. Gregory and Carus, from St. Peter's, became chaplains
for the Emperor Conrad, and the Empress Gertrude, who be-
stowed on them the church of St. Aegedlus at Nuremberg. And
Dedan, who succeeded them there, was made chaplain to the
Emperor Frederick.

The abbot of the Irish monastery of St. James was granted,
by King Henry in 1225 the right of bearing in his coat of arms
one-half of the eagle — ^which meant that he was elevated to the
rank of one of the princes of the realm.

Dr. Wattenbach in his Congregation of the Monasteries of
the Scots, describes for us how the bands of Irish missionaries
travelled wide over Europe, seeking the fresh fields to which God
urged them. "In this way we find them always wandering in large
and small companies. Their outward appearance was most strik-
ing, the more so as they were still in the habit of painting their
eyelids. Their whole outfit consisted of a pilgrim's staff, a
leathern water-bottle, a wallet, and a case of some relics. In this
guise they appeared before the people, addressing themselves to
them everywhere with the whole power of their native eloquence —
some (as Gallus) in the language of the country — ^the rest employ-
ing an interpreter before the people, but to ecclesiastics speaking
in the common language of the Latin Church.

It was probably because of their Continental reputation for
fearlessness and fight that the Abbot Sampson of St. Edmund's,
in journeying to Pope Alexander in 11 61 — ^when Italy was ex-
cited by schism — ^being attacked and mobbed by a populace who
were against Alexander, acted in the way he picturesquely de-
scribes: "I pretended to be a Scot, and having adopted the Scot-
tish dress and behaviour, I shook my staff at those who scoffed
at me, crying aloud at them, after the manner of the Scots." In
this account it is also interesting to note that he says, "I carried
my old shoes on my shoulders after the manner of the Scots"— a
custom which still exists among the mountains of Ireland. The

THE IRISH MISSIONARIES ABROAD 255

Abbot's account of his strange experience is quoted by Watten-
bach, from Cronica Johannes de Brakelonda.

Of all the hundreds of holy men who in those centuries exiled
themselves from Ireland for the purpose of carrying Christ to
the still darkened nations and peoples of Europe, we, joining with
the Irish monk of Ratisbon who wrote the life of Marianus, may
well say:

"And now my brothers if you ask me what will be the reward
of Marianus and the pilgrims like him who left the sweet soil of
their native land, free from obnoxious beast and worm, with its
mountains and hills, its valleys and groves, so well suited for the
chase, the picturesque expanses of its rivers, its green iields and its
streams swelling up from purest fountains, and like children of
Abraham the Patriarch came without hesitation unto the land God
pointed out to them, this is my answer: They will dwell in the
house of the Lord with the Angels and Archangels forever: they
will behold in Sion the God of Gods, to whom be honour and glory
for endless ages."

Concannon, Helen: Columbanus.

Keller, Dr. Ferdinand: Essay on "Illuminations and Facsimiles from An-
cient Irish MSS. in the Libraries of Switzerland." Translated from
German with Introductory Remarks by the Rev. Wm. Reeves, D.D.,
in Ulster Joum. of Archaeol. VIII.

Wattenbach: "Die Kongregation der Schottenkloster in Deutschland."
Translated by Dr. Reeves, with notes, in the Ulster Journal of Arch-
aeology, vol. VII.

Stokes, Miss Margaret: Three Months in the Forests of France: A Pil-
grimage in Search of Vestiges of Irish Saints in France.

Six Months in the Apennines: A Pilgrimage in Search of Vestiges

of Irish Saints in Italy.

Lightfoot, Dr. J. B., Bishop of Durham: Leaders in the Northern Church.

CHAPTER XXIX

IRISH SCHOLARS ABROAD

Learning, like religion, had its hosts of Irish missionaries, who
spread themselves afar, eager to lead to the light benighted peo-
ples over the Continent, as well as in the neighbouring isles. When
the Saxon, Aldhelm, who, it will be remembered, was a pupil of
the Irishman Maeldubh, founder of the school of Malmesbury,
wrote to his fellow-countryman, Eadfride ("who had given six
years to philosophy in Ireland, and enriched his mind with the
treasures of the Scotic hive") — "Ireland is a fertile and blooming
nursery of letters: one might as soon reckon the stars of heaven,
as enumerate her students and literature" — ^many of these Irish
literary men were then eagerly pursuing their task of love among
Aldhelm's fellow countrymen in all corners of Britain. But many
others, too, were working in Continental fields, dispelling the dark-
ness of distant lands with the bright torch which they bore from
the beacon-fires of learning that glowed on every hill in Eirinn.

"These Irish torch-bearers founded," says John D'Alton in
his R. I. A. Essay on Irish History, "the most flourishing schools
of Christian Europe. And to them the world is indebted for the
introduction of scholastic divinity and the application of philo-
sophical reasoning to illustrate the doctrines of theology."

And Zimmer testifies: "They laid the corner-stone of west-
ern culture on the Continent, the rich result of which Germany
shares and enjoys to-day, in common with all other civilised na-
tions."

O'Halloran, illustrating their feeling of superiority over the
Continentals, quotes from the life of the Irish Kilian, apostle of
Franconia, how when his fellow countryman, St. Fiacre, encoun-
tered him in Gaul, he asked Kilian: "Quid te charissime frater,
ad has barbaras, gentes deduxit?" ("What has brought you,
dearest brother, to these barbarous people?") And Columbanus
in one of his epistles tells the Continental scholars that the Irish
schoolmen regarded some of their boasted Continental philosphers

with indulgent tolerance.

256

IRISH SCHOLARS ABROAD 257

Of Irish scholars on the Continent we have already referred
to the brilliant genius, Celestius, who is claimed for Ireland. But
the claims of another very early and very brilliant genius, Coelius
Sedulius, who, as was mentioned, flourished in the time of Theodo-
sius, and dedicated a book to him, are better substantiated. Arch-
bishop Usher quotes from Trithemius:

"Sedulius, a presbyter, a native of Scotia (Ireland), was a dis-
ciple from his earliest youth of Heidelbertus, Archbishop of the Scots.
He was conversant in divine learning, and very skilled in profane
literature. He excelled in poetry and prose, and leaving Scotia, for
the sake of informing himself, came to France. After this he trav-
ersed Italy, Asia, Achaia, from thence he proceeded to Rome, where
he became illustrious for his erudition."

Corroborative proof of Sedulius being an Irishman is adduced
from the fact that the celebrated eighth century Irish geographer,
Dicuil, refers to him as "noster Sedulius."

And a very ancient copy of Sedulius' Pauline commentaries,
published by John Sichard, which was preserved in the abbey of
Fulda, shows on the title page, "Sedulii Scoti Hibemiensis." This
occurs also in another edition of his works published at Basle.

Sedulius' works were many and varied. Usher enumerates
them thus — fourteen books on the epistles of Paul, two books on
the miracles of Christ, a book on Priscianus, a book on Donatus,
a book of epistles to various people, four volumes dedicated to
the abbot of Macedonia, a volume dedicated to the Emperor Theo-
dosius, many hymns, and his famous poem, Carmen Paschale. Se-
dulius composed some of the most beautiful hymns in the Catholic
service, such as A Solis Otis Cardine. In the twelfth century,
seven hundred years after his death, a council of seventy bishops
in Rome recommended to the faithful his paschal poem, which
had won him the title of the Christian Virgil.

Another very remarkable Irishman, who. In distant time, and
distant field, had the identity of his nationality almost lost, was
Augustine, a monk in Carthage — already referred to — ^who, in
the seventh century, was the author of the remarkable work The
Difficulties of Scripture. This Is a book In which, with extraordi-
nary Ingenuity he tried to reconcile science and Scripture, upon
such knotty points as the falling of the walls of Jericho, the stand-
ing of the sun at Joshua's command, the speaking of Balaam's
ass, the turning of Lot's wife Into a pillar of salt and so forth.
He essays In each case with astonishing cleverness to demonstrate
that the apparent miracles were, in reality, developments of some

258 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

pre-existing natural law. Stokes says that the work discloses a
scholar deeply versed in books, and widely experienced in travel.

And Reeves, in an article on Augustine (in Proc. R. I. A. 1862)
says of this work that it is a most creditable monument of learning
and religious feeling, at a period when the Irish church was notable
for its learning.

Augustine mentions the death in Ireland of an Irishman of
some note, Manicheas the Wise, in 652. And in this he is borne
out by the evidence of the Annals of Tighernach and the Annals
of Ulster, which record at that time the death of St. Manchan of
Lemanchan. In the book he enumerates the animals of Ireland,
as wolves, deer, wild boars, foxes, badgers, bears, rabbits, and
offers sound geological reason for their existence on this island,
which he shows had been an integral part of Europe, in a remote
age, but was cut off from it by a cataclysm.

The period of most marked activity of Irish scholars on the
Continent of Europe was probably during the Carlovingian dynasty
— ^when, it has been said, almost every school in Europe was taught
by an Irishman — and furthermore that every scholar who knew
Greek was either an Irishman or the pupil of an Irishman. In
the preceding period, that is during the Merovingian time, Co-
lumbanus, with whom we have dealt, was the most noted example
of Irish scholarship in Europe. The great Charlemagne and
his successors, ardent patrons of learning, drew to them the choic-
est flowers of Irish scholarship, and then bestowed their fragrance
as a blessing upon many lands.

Usher says: "From Ireland Charles transferred the wisdom
of Greece and of Latium. And from her he obtained the doctors
and instructors of the uninstructed youth."

"In schools and monasteries all over France," says Zimmer,
"the Carlovingian king employed Irish monks as teachers of writ-
ing, grammar, logic, rhetoric, astronomy, and arithmetic." And
in another place the same authority refers to "the long list of Irish
scholars who laboured under Charlemagne, his son, and grand-
son, on French and German soil. A knowledge of Christianity
and secular science emanated at that time from Ireland alone of
the whole western world, and established itself at many different
points: Clement, Dicuil, Johannes, and Scotus Erigina, at the
court school, Dungall at Pavia, Scdulius Scotus at Liege, Virgil
at Salsburg, and Mocngal at St. Gall." And he quotes from
HIeric, in his Biography of St. Germanus, where In his dedication
of the book to the Emperor Charles the Bald this ancient writer
(who was himself probably a product of Irish teaching) says:

IRISH SCHOLARS ABROAD 259

"Need I remind Ireland that she sent troops of philosophers over
land and sea, to our distant shores, and that her most learned sons
offered their gifts of wisdom of their own free will in the service
of our learned king, our Solomon."

A quarter of a century earlier, in 849, we have in the writings
of Walahfred Strabo a striking illustration of the fact that these
Irish wanderers over the Continent, were everywhere looked up
to as the exponents of higher learning. Talking of Errebald, a
German abbot of noble birth, who recently died, Strabo says,
"After being instructed in theology at Reichenau (St. Finian's
monastery) he was afterwards sent in the company of some learned
men, to an Irish instructor to enjoy the privilege of his training
in secular branches of science and the arts." And this bears out
the fact, mentioned by O'Halloran and many others, that it became
a sort of proverb on the Continent to say of any ambitious one
who was for a time missed from his regular haunts, Amandatus
est ad disciplinam in Hibernia.

About the year 800 Cambrai was a celebrated rallying ground
of the Irish. "Not only Cambrai but also Rheims, Poissons, Laon,
and Liege, had at one and the same period colonies of Irishmen,"
says M. Gougand (Les chretiennes Celtiques). "If we consult
the evidence given by their contemporaries concerning the learned
men that had come amongst them out of Ireland, we must acknowl-
edge that they all show they are conscious of being greatly in their
debt for the progress realised in their studies. Irish knowledge
is in their eyes something apart from all else, and worthy of their
most pompous encomiums."

At this same time, Zimmer tells us, Ratgar, abbot of Fulda,
was sending scholarly monks to the Irish Clement, to complete
their higher secular education. This Clement is, in the official
roster of Charlemagne's household, set down as "Instructor to the
Imperial Court."

The first coming of Clement and of another noted Irish scholar
of the time, Albinus, and their strange introduction to the Conti-
nental world, and to Charlemagne, are thus set down by Notker
le Begue himself :

"When Charles began to reign alone in the West, and that learn-
ing had almost everywhere become extinct, it happened that two
Scots from Ireland arrived on the shores of Gaul, with some Brit-
ish merchants; these two men were incomparably skilled in sacred
and profane learning. While they displayed nothing for sale, they
cried out to those who came to purchase, *If any one be desirous of
wisdom, let him come to receive it* TTiey were invited to the

26o

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

presence of Charles, who questioned them, and was overjoyed after
they were examined : he kept them for some time with him. Charles,
soon after this, being obliged to go to war, ordered the one named
Clement to reside in Gaul. He recommended to them some very
noble youths, some of the middle classes, and several of the lowest
ranks ; it was also ordered- by the king, that everything necessary for
their support should be supplied to them, and convenient houses for
their accommodation were provided. The other, named Albinus, was
sent to Italy, where the monastery of St. Augustin, near the city of
Ticinus, was given him, that all who wished to be instructed might
come to learn."

The brilliancy of Clement and the work accomplished by him,
caused a fourteenth century writer, Luopoldus Bebenburglus, to
say, "The French may be compared to the Romans and the Athe-
nians on account of the works of Clement, an Irishman."

There are several authorities cited by Colgan, including Luo-
poldus and Vincent Daubais, who hold that Clement, not Alcuin,
founded the royal school of Paris.

Clement died at Wurtzburg in 826 on a pilgrimage to the tomb
of his fellow-countryman, Kilian. His old companion Albinus
died in Pavia — ^where Charlemagne had sent him to conduct the
important school there.

Shortly after the death of Albinus, another illustrious Irish-
man was appointed to succeed him, by Lothaire, the grandson of
Charlemagne. This was the astronomer Dungall who is believed
to have studied at Bangor. According to Mosheim he was teach-
ing philosophy and astronomy in a French monastery when, in
811, he first came into prominence by preparing for Charlemagne
a scientific explanation of two eclipses of the sun, which had oc-
curred the previous year, and which had terrified Charlemagne's
subjects. This document, still in existence, betrays the hand and
the mind of a master. Zimmer tells us that in Pavia pupils came
to Dungall from Milan, Brescia, Lodi, Bergamo, Versalli, Genoa,
and Como. While there Dungall won for himself lasting fame
by a noted controversy on Iconoclasm in which he engaged, and,
it is said, defeated, the Spanish Claudius. It was a controversy
that drew world-wide attention. And Zimmer says it was remark-
able also as being the meeting on foreign soil of two learned rep-
resentatives of the only two countries which had maintained and
fostered Greco-Roman culture during the barbaric cataclysm-
Dungall was not only distinguished as astronomer and theologian,
but also as a deep classical scholar. To end his days Dungall re-
tired to the Irish foundation of Bobbio, among the Apennines, to

IRISH SCHOLARS ABROAD 261

the Library of which monastery he presented forty of his books.
The handwriting of that distinguished man is still to be seen upon
some of these volumes — now preserved in the Ambrosian Library
at Milan/

Another of the many distinguished Irish whom Charlemagne
had gathered around him was Dicuil — a grammarian, geometri-
cian, astronomer, and geographer. In the year 816 he published
a treatise on astronomy, and in 825 his most famous work, De
Mensura Provinciarum Orbis Terrae*

This remarkable work, which was evidently a standard Con-
tinental geographical work in those days, was discovered by M.
Letronne, the Egyptologist, in the French National Library, in
1812, and was then published in Paris. It proved Dicuil to be
the earliest geographer giving account of the Faroe Islands, and
Iceland — of which latter it mentioned that during a great portion
of the year its sun never set.

Letronne was delighted to find in this ancient work "a descrip-
tion of the pyramids, and measurements of them which exactly
tallied with his own." Dicuil told, moreover, of a canal connect-
ing the Nile with the Red Sea — ^which was at first believed to be
a grievous slip on the part of the geographer — ^until the discovery
of the fact that a canal long since filled up, and lost to memory,
had actually been constructed from the Nile to the Red Sea, by
Hadrian.

In his work Dicuil quotes Pomponius Mela, Orosius, Isadore
of Seville, and Priscian the grammarian. And Professor Stokes,
comparing the Irishman's geography with that of John Malalas
of Antioch, says : "Antioch about A. D. 600 was a centre of
Greek culture and erudition, and the chronicle of Malalas a mine
of information on many questions, but compared with the Irish
work of Dicuil, its mistakes are laughable.'*

This geography of Dicuil's incidentally affords one of the many
evidences of the far wanderings of the Irish in those days, inas-
much as he states that he got his information about Iceland on the
one hand, and the Hadrian canal on the other, from Irish monks
who witnessed what they told him. His Egyptian information he
got from a Brother FIdells, who Dicuil says "told in my presence
to my master Siubhne (Sweeney) that he, Fidells, was one of an

*.Many manuscripts of the Irish monks of Bobbio are now scattered among
ine libraries of Italy. The Ambrosian library in Milan, the University library of
Turin, and the Real Bibliotica Borbonica in Naples, are all enriched by some of
these treasures,

J For much information about Dicuil see Reeve's paper in the Ulster Journal
"t Archaeology, volume seven.

262 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Irish company who sailed up the Nile and through the canal into
the Red Sea" — after they had completed a Jerusalem pilgrimage.

Under Charles the Bald, Sedulius Scotus another famous Irish-
man— ^who is not to be confounded with the older (Coelius) Sedu-
lius— taught the school at Liege. He was a Scripturian, theolo-
g^an, grammarian, poet, political writer, and classical scholar. He
seems to have been deeply versed in Greek, and even Hebrew.
The French Thurot, writing about the works of Sedulius which
are still extant (in manuscript, in French libraries) says, "he
makes a parade of his Greek knowledge." In 1825 a work of his
upon the Gospels showing his Greek and Hebrew scholarship,
was published by Cardinal Mai — from the manuscript in the Vati-
can Library. There is a Greek psalter of his in one of the li-
braries at Paris — and also a compilation on the Gospel of St.
Matthew. One of his poems indicates that there were at Liege
at the same time as himself, other Irishmen who were learned
grammarians — one of whom, Cruinmel, left a grammatical trea-
tise of importance.

Usher, in discussing Sedulius' Scripture commentaries says:

"As for the edition of the Scriptures used in Ireland at those
times, the Latin translation was so received into common use by the
learned that the principal authority was still reserved to the original
fountain. The efforts of Sedulius in the Old Testament commend
to us the Hebrew verity, and in the New, correct oftentimes the
vulgar Latin according to the truth of the Greek copies"

— a remarkable compliment both to the learning of the man, and
the learning of the Irish schools of that age.

In poetry Sedulius was versatile as* well as prolific — ranging
from humorous verse, through idyllic, up to stately odes. Of one
of his poems, the Contest of the Rose and the Lily, Dr. Sigerson
says : "It might, for conception and treatment, be one of Moore's,
it is so light, graceful, and harmonious. It leads the way to the
lighter poetic literature of Europe. Mingled with the measured
thread of its hexameters, one hears the musical Irish chimes."

Virgilius (Fergal), celebrated as a pioneer geometer of his
day and who was noted for his learning before he left Ireland,
was a protege of King Pepin, through whom he was, in 772, ap-
pointed Bishop of Salsburg — ^while his Irish companion Dobda
became a teacher there. In that city he rebuilt, -in splendid man-
ner, the monastery of St. Peter. For Chetimar the Duke of Carin-
thia, he penetrated the forest wilds of that country, preaching and

IRISH SCHOLARS ABROAD 263

converting, and ordaining priests — as far as the junction of the
Drave and the Danube.

He is described by Gaspard Bruschius as a man of extraordi-
nary piety and learning, and again by another writer, as a subtle
philosopher and aSle mathematician. He astonished the scholars
by teaching that the earth instead of being flat was a globe, and
that human beings like those around them probably lived on the
opposite side of it. The Saxon Boniface, who was then converting
Germany and who quarrelled with Fergal and other Irish mission-
aries, brought complaint to Rome against him, accusing him of
heresy — e^ddently misunderstanding or misinterpreting Virgilius*
doctrine. Virgilius had previously had a noted theological con-
troversy over infant baptism with Boniface, which when it had
been referred to Pope Zachary, was decided in Virgilius' favour.
On this new dispute, however. Pope Zachary replied to Boniface:
"If Virgilius maintains that there is another world, and other
men, another sun and another moon, he must be suspended from
the council, the church, and the priesthood."

It is significant, however, that he was neither excommunicated
nor suspended — from which it may be inferred that he explained
his doctrine in its true light to Zachary. In 1233 Virgilius was
canonised by Gregory the Ninth.

In the middle of the ninth century it was that Moengal, return-
ing from Rome with the Irish Bishop Marcus, his uncle, settled
at the Irish foundation of St. Gall on Lake Constance: — ^to which
monastery his uncle bequeathed his books. Moengal by his learn-
ing was destined to make still more famous this monastery to
which many of his countrymen before him had brought fame. It
had become, it is said, the most venerated monastery in the in-
terior of Europe, and for three hundred years was looked upon
as a chief nursery of lore. Dr. Ferdinand Keller says that it was
the Irish teachers there who "by their instructions in Greek,
rhetoric, and other subjects contributed not a little to the forma-
tion of the scientific character which distinguished this monastery."

Moengal here taught theology and sacred science. Zimmer
says he excelled in these subjects, "as well as in every other branch
of knowledge." He furthermore made St. Gall famous for its
musical teaching, to which Moengal seems to have devoted special
attention. Three famous pupils of his were Notker le Begue,
Rappcrt, and Tuotillo, men who held foremost places in their
century — famous as musicians, and famous along other lines. The
versatile Tuotillo was an orator, sculptor, painter, architect, gold-
Mnith, composer and player on all kinds of instruments.

264 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Of this man Moengal, Zimmer says: "In my opinion there
were few men, who, in the middle of the ninth century, exerted a
more beneficent influence on the German mind, in the cultivation
of the higher arts and sciences, than Moengal and his followers."
And Wattenbach says of Moengal and the other Irish teachers
here: "We may judge of their industry by the study of Greek,
the love of music, and the skill in various arts, which distinguishes
the monastery of St. Gall above all others."

It is practically agreed by all authorities that the most remark-
able scholar known to Europe in the ninth century, whom wor-
shipping Continental scholars called "the Master," was John Sco-
tus Erigina (John the Scot, from Eirinn), philosopher, theologian,
linguist, logician, mathematician, and poet, whom King Charles
the Bald made head of the Royal school in Paris. He was a genius
of such brilliancy as dawns upon the world only once in any cen-
tury. Zimmer says of him: "He was the greatest thinker of his
age, and his philosophic works mark an epoch in the world's
literature." And Archbishop Healy, talking of his five books, De
Divisione Naturae, which he pronounces "profound, original and
learned," says : "No other scholar of western Europe, in any age,
was so filled with the spirit of the philosophy and theology of
the Greeks, and his mind was closely akin to the mind of Greece."

He was a distinguished controversialist. And on the two
great problems which were agitating and dividing the theological
world at that time. Predestination and the Real Presence, he
jumped into the forefront of the fight, and laid about him with true
Irish vim and skill. His book on Predestination caused a sensa-
tion which could hardly be said to be allayed for generations. The
doctrine which he expounded on the Real Presence, which he held
to be both a memorial and a reality, almost brought him under a
cloud: for enemies stressed the memorial side of his argument,
and gave to the world the impression that he taught it was a
memorial only.

The cloud darkened his career later, when, without getting
the usual apostolic sanction required in such cases, he translated
from the Greek, and published, the writings of the pseudo Diony-
sius, who was alleged to have preached and died in France. The
Pope reprimanded his patron. King Charles the Bald, and ordered
him to send John away. He must have recovered his standing
though4.for, only some years later, Anastasius, the Papal librarian
— who had declared himself amazed by the brilliancy with which
John had translated Dionysius — says in a letter to Charles the

IRISH SCHOLARS ABROAD 265

Bald, written in March, 875, that John was a man eminent for
his sanctity, holy, learned, and humble. And he says he must have
been influenced by the spirit of God in making his wonderful trans-
lation.

D'Arbois de Jubainville says of John:

"He was a disciple of Plato, whose Timaeus he appears to have
read in the original. And he has founded on the doctrines of that
celebrated Greek writer, a system of philosophy as astonishing for
its time, as it is dangerous for its temerity." ^

Of him and his patron Charles, it is told that once, at the royal
dinner-table, when the king felt prompted to dazzle his courtiers
by a sharpening of his wit upon the Scot, he asked John, across
the table, what was the difference between a Scot and a sot — ^to
which Scotus replied: "Only the table, sire."

The Cathedral school in Wurtzburg late in the eleventh cen-
tury was taught by the Irish savant, David, who became chaplain
and historian to the Emperor Henry V and accompanied the
emperor to Rome in iioo.

The scholarship of holy Marianus Scotus of Donegal has
already been referred to. There was another Irish Marianus,
tutor of Pope Adrian, who taught in the royal school in Paris,
about the same time that Marianus Scotus was doing his good
work in Ratisbon. And this latter Marianus only accidentally es-
capes the oblivion to which hundreds and thousands of his exiled
learned countrymen were consigned. He seems to have retired in
his old age to the monastery of his namesake at Ratisbon. And
when Abbot Gregory, who was a successor of Holy Marianus,
visited Adrian in Rome, that Pope paid a wonderful tribute to
Marianus the Master. The Incident is set down in the Chronicles
of Ratisbon, which says: "A distinguished Irish ecclesiastic, Ma-
rianus, entered St. James's, who had long taught the seven liberal
and other arts in Paris. When Gregory was at Rome, Pope
Adrian inquired about his old preceptor, and Gregory answered,
'He Is well, and with us at Ratisbon.' Said Adrian: *God be
praised ! I know not in the Catholic Church another abbot [than
you, Gregory] who has under him a man so excellent in wisdom,
discretion, genius, eloquence, than this same Marianus.' "

'Usher says that Erigina translated the ethics of Aristotle into Chaldaic,
Arabic, and Latin— but the Continental writers who have written upon Erigina
do not corroborate him in recording this remarkable feat.

266 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

These we have touched on arc but a few of the galaxy of Irish
scholars whose brilliancy dispelled the darkness, which, in those
centuries had threatened to overwhelm Europe.

Same books as for preceding two chapters, and:

Reeves, The Rev. Wm., D.D.: On Augustin, an Irish Writer of the Sev-
enth Century. Proc R. I. A, 1861.

CHAPTER XXX

THE VIKINGS IN IRELAND

The history of the Viking period, which began in the eighth cen-
tury and lasted for about four hundred years, reads like a fairy
tale. There were two impelling motives which led to the emigra-
tion of the Vikings, or "men of the bays," for such is the meaning
of the name by which they have made themselves famous. These
were the inadequate economic resources of their country, due to
over-population, and a desire to seek warmer and more fruitful
lands. Coupled with this was a spirit of adventure.

At first the Vikings confined themselves to their native fiords
whence, in their long open boats, they would dart out and pounce
upon some passing vessel. But they soon extended the field of
their operations and undertook expeditions to more remote and
less known regions, which they laid waste and plundered. Piracy
in those days was not regarded as an ignoble profession. About
the year 850, they made their way over the stormy north sea to
Iceland, where, intrepid sailors as they were, they learned that
Irish monks had been there before them. Thence they sailed to
Greenland, to Vinland the Good and even reached the coasts of
North America. In the east and south, they were no less enter-
prising and successful.

In the tenth century we find these adventurous sea-rovers mak-
ing permanent settlements on the continent of Europe. Bands of
them sailed down the coast and forced the king of France to yield
to them the fair province ever afterwards known by their name,
the Duchy of Normandy. More of them went up the Rhine, the
Loire, and the Gironde, and fought the Moors on the banks of
the Guadalquivir. Others of them pushed on past the Pillars of
Hercules into the Mediterranean and built a powerful kingdom
in Italy. Still others even found their way to Greece and the
Black Sea. They planted colonies on the coast of Prussia, rounded
the North Cape and discovered a route by water to the White Sea.
By way of the Dnieper, the Dniester, the Volgp and the northern
stretches of the Dvina, their enterprising hucksters and freebooters

267

268 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

penetrated into the interior of Russia, and in the year 862 laid
the foundations, at Novgorod, of the kingdom out of which has
grown the modern Russia. Still more of them sailed down the
Volga to the Caspian and, by the Dnieper, entered the Bosphorus
and nearly succeeded in capturing the capital of the Sultan.

At the other extreme end of Europe more than half of Britain
was already in their power. The kingdom of Alfred the Great
was threatened and shaken to its foundation, and the outlyino
islands were entirely occupied by them. They placed a Danish
sovereign on the throne of England. Indeed at one time, that is
about the middle of the ninth century, it looked as if the Vikings
were on the point of becoming masters of the greater part of
northern and western Europe. But their victorious career was
stopped for all time and the western world saved from becoming
Norse by the final defeat which they met with in Ireland.

Intercourse between the northern lands and Ireland must have
begun at a very early date. It was only a few days' journey, and,
as the Viking vessels were galleys propelled by oars as well as
by sails, they were independent of the weather. The Irish traded
and married with them a century before the invasion. Even in
the old Irish epic of the heroic period, there is mention of war-
riors from Norway, "the Northern Way," and of Irish chieftains
who were levjring tribute on the Shetlands, the Orkneys, and the
Faroes. The first acceptedly correct information of the Norsemen
in "the Isles of the Foreigners," as the western islands were called,
dates from the early part of the seventh century. In the year
617 they burned the cloister of Eig, slew the Abbot Donnan and
fifty-two of his companions, and, using the western islands as step-
ping stones, they robbed and ravaged their way down as far as the
Isle of Man. It was perhaps in the same year that they laid
waste Tory Island oflf the coast of Donegal. These attacks lasted
some four or five years, and were followed by more than a cen-
tury and a half of peace, during which the Norse and Irish mingled
and settled down on friendly terms.

In the year 794 occurred the first powerful Norse attacks in
Irish waters, when the sea-robbers landed on Rechru, now Lam-
bay, off Howth, which they devastated, and some other small
islands north of Dublin, and simultaneously they launched attacks
at such distant points as the Isle of Skye and Glamorganshire in
South Wales. These Vikings had no difficulty in landing, plunder-
ing, and getting away to their ships, but they brought away what
was still more valuable to those who followed them in their pro-
fession, namely, tales of bright green fields, of rich fertile soil,

THE VIKINGS IN IRELAND 269

in a word, of a land that was well worth fighting for. Such re-
ports brought Vikings in more frequent bands and in greater and
greater numbers to Ireland. As yet, however, they were only
reconnoitring parties who confined themselves to the islands and
forelands and did not interfere with the internal affairs of the
country. Sometimes they showed poor judgment in choosing their
points of attack, as in the year 823 when they scaled the almost
inaccessible Scellc Michil (the Skelligs), far out in the Atlantic,
and carried off the hermit Etgal, perhaps in spite at finding no
treasure on that barren, wind-swept rock. During the next two
or three years, among other misdeeds, they burned Bangor, an
easy prey because of its proximity to the sea, murdered its monks
and scholars and violated the sanctuary.

At the confluence of the Liffey and a small stream called thfc
Poddle, was a village which the Irish had founded at least two
centuries earlier and which they called, and still call, Ath Cliath,
"the Ford of the Hurdles." It was also named Dubhlinn, "Black-
pool," from the dark colour of the water under the bog. The
Norsemen were struck by the excellent location of the village and,
consequently, about the year 837, they threw up a strong earthen
fort on the hill where now stands the Castle, and for nearly two
hundred years Dublin remained an exclusively Norwegian or Dan-
ish city and the capital and headquarters of the Vikings in west-
ern Europe. The Irish, however, still regarded Armagh as their
national capital.

When, about the year 832, the Norse felt ready to make their
first great attack on Ireland in force, they had the advantage of
having as their leader one of the most extraordinary and capable
figures in Nordic history. This was the famous Norwegian war-
rior Tuirgeis. Tuirgeis, like most of his race who came after
him, was filled with ambition to establish a great pagan empire
and to make himself lord of Ireland, as his countrymen had made
themselves masters of England and Normandy. He came with a
great fleet of 120 ships, which held some ten thousand or twelve
thousand picked men, and which he divided Into two divisions.
One squadron of sixty ships entered the Liffey, while Turgeis
himself with the other sailed up the Boyne. From these points
small bands of invaders entered into the interior of the country,
carrying their boats overland with them when necessary, spread
here and there and made the first permanent Norse settlements in
Ireland. Turgeis confined his operations to the north. He pitched
his headquarters at the southern extremity of Lough Ree, near
where Athlone now stands, and threw up earthworks along the

270

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

upper courses of the Shannon and a line of forts across the coun-
try from Carllngford Bay to Connacht. He even got some sup-
port from the Irish and for a time it looked as if the whole north-
ern portion of the island might speedily fall under his sway.

His design included the supplanting of Christianity by the
heathenism of his own country. With that end in view he took
possession, some years previously, of Armagh, Ireland's Holy City,
which contained the staff which Christ himself was said to have
given to St. Patrick, and where the Abbot, who was regarded as
the spiritual head of Ireland, resided. Turgeis drove away "the
Follower of St. Patrick," converted the church into a pagan temple
and made himself high priest of the new religion. As if that
sacrilege was not sufficient to arouse the special anger of the Irish,
he is said to have enthroned his wife Otta upon the high altar of
the principal church at Clonmacnois, the next, most holy place in
Ireland, situated on the eastern bank of the Shannon in the midst
of the meadows. From that sacred seat Otta, who seems to have
been a sibyl as well as a priestess, delivered oracles in magic
strains to the people.

These things took place in or about the year 845, and for
some years all the foreigners in Ireland recognised .Turgeis as
their sovereign, though it could hardly be said that he had founded
a kingdom. His ablest opponent among the native chieftains was
Niall, provincial king of Ulster. Shortly afterwards, or about
the year 845, he was, somehow, taken prisoner by Maelsechlainn
(Malachy) king of Meath, and drowned in Loch Owel, either as
a criminal or by the miracles of the saints, or, according to the
legends, through a stratagem of Maelsechlainn's daughter who,
accompanied by fifteen young Irish warriors disguised as maidens,
kept tryst with him, and fifteen of his captains. After his death,
the Norsemen abandoned their settlements on Lough Ree, moved
up the Shannon and fought their way along the rivers and lakes
to the Sligo coast where a fleet had assembled to carry them home.

Thereafter the tide of victory turned for a while in favour of
the Irish, and a new epoch began in the history of the Scandina-
vian invasion of Ireland. Hitherto the Vikings, like their great
leader Turgeis, were all of Norwegian stock, but with a few Danes
and Swedes among them. During the tenth and eleventh cen-
turies, however, the Danes, a people of distinct origin, who at
that time were ravaging the southern and western coasts of £ng'
land, took the lead in Viking activitiies. They were better organ-
ised than the Norse and had a more centralised government, and
they could always fall back on their kingdom in Northumbria,

THE VIKINGS IN IRELAND 271

ith its capital at York. They were jealous of the succtsses which
le Norwegians had met with in Ireland and they soon proceeded
) deprive them of the fruits of their victories, so that it was not
rimarily owing to a desire to attack the Irish but purely by acci-
ent that the Danes came to Ireland and made it the battleground
n which to settle their differences with their cousins from Nor-
ay. In the words of the annalist (847), "they disturbed Ire-
ind between them." At first the Irish called all these northern
ilders indiscriminately Genti, "the heathen," or Gaill "the
xangers," or Lochlannaigh. Later, however, when Irish writers
;lt the need of making a clear distinction between the two waves ^

f invasion, they either limited the name Lochlannaigh to the Nor-
egians and applied the name Danair to the Danes, or, more
3mmonly, they called the Vikings of Norwegian descent white
eathens, while those of Danish descent they called black heathens.*
The year 847 marks the first sudden descent of the Danes,
in seven score ships," upon the eastern shores of Ireland. They
t once proceeded to attack the Norwegians and to contest the
ossession of the coast settlements with them. In that year the
lorwegian chieftain Earl Tomar was slain in the battle of Sciath-
fechtin. In 850 the "Blacks" seized and plundered Dublin and
I the following year they defeated the "Whites" decisively at
!arlingford Lough. The battle was a fierce one and is said to
ave continued three days and three nights. At first the Norwe-
ians were successful, but finally the Danes, it is said, by calling
pon St. Patrick for help, were victorious. After the battle they
emembered their promise and sent a huge vat filled with silver
nd gold to the shrine of the Apostle. Maelsechlainn (Malachy) I,
'ho was king of Ireland at that time, dispatched an embassy to

^ This was not due to the colour of the hair or complexion, for the overwhelm-
ig mass of the foreig^ners, whether Norwegians or Danes, must have been all
lir and ruddy. It is to be found only in the fact that the Danes were clad in
)dy armour. The Irish themselves fought in their ordinary dress and mantles,
ccept in combats of special danger when they donned breastplates and aprons of
ather. They used light javelins for throwing and longer and stouter spears for
irusting, and swords, and carried a shield of wicker work to defend the body,
he first comers among the Norwegians likewise wore only a tunic of leather,
it the Danes wore dark metal coats of mail, helmets and vizors, and were partial
' the battle-axe. As they were the first mail-clad warriors the Irish had ever •
*n, it is no wonder if they seemed to them to be "dark blue" or "blue-green,"
' they called them. There are many references in the old Irish chronicles and
^gas to the mail-clad armour and battl«-axe« of the foreigners and to the black
lips in which they came to Ireland. "For the bodies and skins and hearts of the
^*ot champions of Munster were quickly pierced through the fine linen garments,
*a meir v«ry sharp blades took no effect" This advantage which the Danes pos-
-58«d helps to explain the successes which they met witii in the early years of
'«r mvasions. But the Irish soon learned in the hard school of experience how
> imitate the superior weapons, armour and science of warfare of the enemy.

272 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

the victors. Five thousand Norwegians with their kings lay dead
on the field. The messengers arrived just as the Danes were pre-
paring their evening meal. They had their kettles set up on stakes
driven into the bodies of the slain and the corpses crackled with
the heat. The Irish envoys expressed their horror at the awful
sight and reproached the Danes for their barbarity, but the Danes
replied that the Norwegians would have treated them in the same
manner had they won the battle.

The next year (852), the Norwegians rallied, and a new
warlord arrived to take command over them. This was Olafr
enn hviti, "Olaf the White," as he is known in Icelandic history,
or Amhlaobh, in the Irish records, a man of royal descent and
belonging to the same race as the famous Turgeis. In the follow-
ing year (853) he and his countryman Ivar assumed joint king-
ship over the foreigners In Ireland and set up their capital at
Dublin. From there the Norwegians gradually gained ground
and established vassal states and a string of trading posts and
stations for their fleets along the coast. Many of these setde-
ments bear Scandinavian names from fiords, Strangford and Car-
Hngford, in the north and Wexford and Waterford in the south,
for example. The last of these towns was originally called Port
Lairge (Portlaw), by the Irish, but the foreigners renamed it
Vedrafiordhr, "Weatherhaven."

The most important artery reaching into the heart of Ireland
is the River Shannon. On its banks the Vikings, who were most
probably Danes, founded and fortified. In the second half of the
ninth century, a city which they called Limerick, "Limerick of the
mighty ships," as one of the old chroniclers calls it. The city
flourished and exerted an influence over all Munster. There was
close connection between it and the distant Hebrides, and it was
not long before it became a dangerous rival even of the Norwe-
gian kingdom at Dublin, and for a long time there was enmity
between them. The two parties engaged in raidings and hostlngs,
just like the native clansmen. Now one side and now the other
invited the Irish to help them, and Irish chieftains in turn. In their
internecine wars, sought the aid of the foreigners. The first Irish
Icing who is said to have made such an alliance was Aed Finn-
Hath, father of Niall Glundubh, king of Ulster in the middle of
the ninth century. But, indeed, from the time of the first coming
of the Northmen to their final defeat, there probably never was
a war in which they and the Irish were not, to some degree, banded
together.

Irish literature of a thousand years ago is obsessed with the

THE VIKINGS IN IRELAND 273

•

spectre of the Norse occupation of Ireland, and, if we are to be-
lieve the native annalists, a night of misery had really ssttled down
on the country with the coming of the Vikings. On the occasion
of a raid, villages were burned and sacked and there was whole-
sale slaughter and enslavement of men, women and children. The
foreign soldiers were billeted on the Irish farmers and a heavy
tax was laid upon all the people. In default of paying the tax,
"nose-money" (a custom which they had brought from their own
country), that is, the loss of the nose, was exacted. In the words
of one of the old chroniclers, "even though a man had but one
cow, he might not milk it for a child one night old, nor for a sick
person, but he had to keep it for the tax collector and the foreign
soldiers."

There were no walled towns in those days in Ireland and but
few and scattered villages. The population of the country was
comparatively sparse. Life, except at the courts of chiefs, was
simple and primitive. The people were mostly engaged in cattle
raising, and their wealth consisted chiefly of flocks and herds and
wearing apparel. The nation was broken up into numerous clans,
which of course stood in the way of national union.

By the end of the ninth century there were frequent alliances
by marriage between the two peoples. According to legendary
history, such marriages had taken place as early as the second
century. Naturally the annalists tell of such marriages only in
the case of Irish ladies of high degree and Viking chieftains but
they must have been even more common among the people. The
first historical instance of such marriages was that of larnkne to
Muirgel, daughter of Maelsechlainn (Malachy) I, Emperor of
Ireland about the middle of the ninth century. About the same
time Amhlaobh, son of the king of Norway, married the daughter
of Aed mac Neill. It scarcely ever appears that the wishes of
the ladies most concerned were consulted and, as an old Irish poet
remarks, "by no means was it happy for them." Some of these
women settled down with their husbands in Ireland. Others fol-
lowed them to Norway or Iceland, and many other Irish women,
even of the highest class of society, were carried away as slaves.
Thus, inter-marriage and the adoption of Christianity by the ma-
jority of the Norsemen, were strong helps towards the assimila-
tion of the invader.

Another help was the custom of fosterage, in vogue among
both peoples, according to which Irish children were sometimes
adopted even into families of their country's enemies. Some of
these children, who had been adopted at the most impressionable

274

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

age, forsook the nationality and religion of their parents and em-
braced that of their fosterers. These apostate Irish, together with
companies of mixed Irish and foreigners and Gaelic speaking
Norsemen from the Hebrides and other western islands, became
bandits, scourged the country and plundered the Irish and Norse
indiscriminately. The Chronicles call them Gaill-Gaedhel, "the
foreign Irish," but the people knew them as "the sons of death,"
because of their ferociousness. They were especially numerous
and active about the middle of the ninth century and their most
conspicuous leader was Caitill Finn, "Ketil the White," a man of
Norse descent. Finally the Irish chieftains and the Norwegian
kings of Dublin joined forces to destroy them and, in the year
857, Ketil was killed by King Amhlaobh of Dublin, who com-
manded a troop of independent Norsemen in the south of Ireland.

As in some other countries, France, for example, up to the
ninth century, the warrior-churchman was a conspicuous figure in
Ireland in the ninth-tenth centuries. The most celebrated of all
the priest-warriors was the Abbot-Archbishop Cormac mac Cuilen-
nain, who reigned as king of Munster from 901 to 908. He was
also an accomplished scribe and scholar. Besides his native Gaelic
he knew Latin, Welsh, Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, and some Greek
and Hebrew, and he compiled the Psalter of Cashel and the Sanas
Cormaic, "Cormac's Glossary,'' the very first comparative ver-
nacular dictionary in any language in modern Europe. In the
words of an old annalist, "he was the most learned of all who
came or shall come of the men of Erin forever." Cormac was a
man of peace and would, no doubt, have preferred to devote him-
self to the quiet pursuits of the student, but, unfortunately for
himself, he followed the advice of his turbulent and warlike coun-
sellor, Flaithbhertach (Flaherty), Abbot of Scattery island in
the Shannon, who instigated the king to go to war with the men
of Leinster. A pitched battle was fought in the year 908 at Belach
Mugna (Ballaghmoon), in Kildare, a couple of miles north of
Carlow. It was a hopeless attack for the men of Munster and
ended in their complete rout and destruction. Clergy and laity
were slaughtered without distinction. Cormac himself was thrown
from his horse which slipped on the blood soaked ground and his
neck broken. The enemy thrust spears into his body and cut off
his head. And thus, in the words of the Four Masters, fell "the
bishop, the father confessor, the renowned illustrious doctor, King
of Cashel, King of larmumha; O Godl Alas for Cormac I"

A son of the romantic Gormlaith — ^who had been betrothed to
Cormac before he became a religious — ^was Muirchertach (Mur-

THE VIKINGS IN IRELAND 275

togh), a soldier of the first rank and heir to the throne of Ireland.
He seems to have sworn to avenge his father's death, and from
918 to 943 he carried on the war victoriously against the Danes
of Dublin and attacked their oversea settlements in the Hebrides
and on the north coast of Scotland. In the depth of the winter
of 941, when he was least expected by his enemies, he made a
hostage-levying circuit of Ireland at the head of a thousand picked
men whom he had clad in leather cloaks, whence he is known as
"Muirchertach of the Leather Cloaks." He, too, was finally de-
feated by the foreigners.

During the first half of the tenth century the Danes gained
possession of large parts of the interior of the country. In 914
strong reinforcements arrived at Waterford. They again sailed
up the Shannon in a great fleet and into Lough Ree where they
plundered the islands and burned Clonmacnois. Their leader this
time was Tomrair, king, or son of the king, of Denmark, who,
in the words of the annalist, under the year 922, is reported to
have gone "to hell with his pains, as he deserved." By the middle
of the century, however, fortune again turned in favour of the Irish.
They had learned how to build warships and to employ naval tac-
tics after the manner of the Northmen. The most celebrated of
the naval battles in which they engaged is connected with the name
of Cellachan of Cashel, who began to reign in 934 and who won
back Cashel and most of Munster from the Danes. He was after-
wards taken prisoner but was rescued in the course of the famous
sea fight, which took place in 950-951 in the bay of Dundalk, the
foreigners being under the command of Sitric, who was drowned
in the battle. After the fight, Cellachan entered Dublin, collected
great stores of cattle, gold, silver and other treasures, burned the
town and departed.

The most famous hero of the Danish period in Ireland and
one of the most famous in all Irish history was the celebrated
Brian mac Cenneidigh, son of Kennedy, chief of Thomond, in-
cluding the eastern portion of the present county of Clare, and
hereditary ruler of North Munster. He was born probably about
the year 941 and Is known to history as Brian Boru, which he
took from the name of the town of Borime, near Killaloe, on the
right bank of the Shannon. He was the youngest of twelve
brothers, all of whom fell in battle, except Marcan who was a
religious and head of the clergy of Munster, and Anluan who died
of a severe illness.

Brian's eldest brother was Mathghamhain (Mahon) who suc-
ceeded his father, and in 968 became king of Munster. Mahon

276 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

was engaged almost constantly in war with the Danes and with the
Leinstermen who, as a rule, were in alliance with them, "for there
were many Gael who stood by him (Sitric of Limerick), not so
much through love of him as through hatred of the Dal Cais (the
Dalcassians, the family to which Kennedy belonged)." In 959
Mahon and the Munstermen plundered Clonmacnois. In 965 they
destroyed Limerick, and in 968 they fought a decisive battle with
the Irish-Norse at Sulchoid, about two and a half miles northwest
of Tipperary. The battle lasted from sunrise till midday and
ended in the complete rout of the allies. The prisoners were then
collected on the hill of Saingel, near Limerick, and "every one
that was fit for war was put to death and every one that was fit
for a slave was enslaved." In 976 Mahon was betrayed, some
say by an Irish prince, and treacherously put to death by his Norse
and Irish enemies. Brian, then thirty-five years of age, became
king of Munster and took quick vengeance on the assassins. In
three years' time he was the undisputed king of the southern half
of Ireland.

In 980 Maelsechlainn (Malachy) II, surnamed Mor, "the
Great," king of Meath, became emperor of Ireland, and in the
same year he won a victory over the Danes at the battle of Tara.
Somewhere about that time Brian became the bitter rival of Mal-
achy and made up his mind to dispute the throne with him. In
985, with a great fleet, he sailed up the Shannon to Lough Ree,
raided Meath, and did great damage to Connacht. For a few
years there was show of friendship between the two kings, and
in 998 they came to an understanding, and made a truce accord-
ing to which, on certain conditions, Malachy was limited as sole
sovereign of the northern, and Brian, of the southern half, of
Ireland. Thereupon the Leinstermen allied themselves with the
Dublin Danes and revolted. Brian and Malachy united their
forces, "to the great joy of the Irish," as the Four Masters say,
and, in 999, defeated them "with red slaughter" at Glenmama,
near Dunlavin, County Wicklow. Seven thousand Danes are said
to have fallen in the battle. The Irish then marched to Dublin
which they sacked of its accumulated treasures, ravaged Leinster
and expelled King Sitric, with whom Brian himself was afterwards
to make peace and alliance.

The two Irish kings soon quarrelled again, and in the year
1002, Malachy, finding that there was defection in his ranks, was
compelled to resign his supremacy to the superior force of Brian
and to step down to the position of a provincial king. The fact
is Brian violated the treaty. As Tighernach, the annalist, says

[THE VIKINGS IN IRELAND 277

this was the first "treacherous turning of Brian against Malachy."

Both Malachy and Brian were extraordinary men and it would
seem as if Ireland was not big enough for both of them. Of the
two, Malachy played the nobler part. He was generous, whole-
hearted, and loyal to his promises, and Brlan^s superior in un-
selfish patriotism and in readiness to sacrifice personal pride and
personal rights to the welfare and interests of his country. On
the other hand, Brian was the more forceful, energetic and ca-
pable. He was clearly a usurper and filled with ambition. Yet
had he not done what he did, which, after all, is condoned by mod-
ern statecraft and was no more treacherous than what has hap-
pened hundreds of times in the history of other countries, Malachy
or some other rival would undoubtedly have attempted to over-
reach him. Had he begun his career at an earlier age and had he
not had to contend with foreign invasion, he would no doubt have
succeeded in welding the Irish clans into a strongly centralised and
compact empire. That design probably never entered into his
calculations. As it was, he did achieve that result to a certain ex-
tent and his reign was remarkably successful, prosperous and happy.

He had his royal seat at Kincora, a well situated place near
Killaloe, on the Shannon, where he ruled with a steady hand, es-
tablished his power and authority on a firm basis, enforced law
and order, imparted rigid and impartial justice, and dispensed a
royal hospitality. Though much of his time was given to prepara-
tion for war, in which, whenever occasion offered, he always proved
himself to be a good soldier, a brave warrior and a skilful strate-
gist, he still found time to build forts, roads and churches. He
founded schools and encouraged learning, dispatched agents
abroad to buy books, and during his reign the bardic schools be-
gan to rise again. He had difficulties with his own people, and
indeed his title as emperor was never admitted by the north. Nor
were the Leinstermen any too friendly and he had to maintain
permanent garrisons in parts of Munster.

On one of several royal progresses which he made through
the country, about the year 1004, he invaded Ulster and visited
Armagh where he gave alms of a golden ring in which were twenty
ounces of gold and where his official secretary and counsellor, and
former instructor Maelsuthain O Cearbhaill (O'CarroU), of Loch
Lein, reputed to be the best scholar in Ireland, inscribed in the
Book of Armagh these words in Latin: "I, Maelsuthain, write
this in the presence of Brian, Emperor of the Irish."

Brian even attempted to extend his power beyond the limits
of Ireland. In the year 1005 he fitted out a fleet manned by

278 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Norsemen from Dublin, Waterford, and Wexford and Irish and
pillaged the shores and levied tribute on the inhabitants of north-
ern and western Britain. He did not extirpate the Danes who
were domiciled in Ireland or banish them from the kingdom, but
treated them with the utmost leniency, and recognised the element
of strength they would add to promote commerce and develop the
resources of the country. In return for the Dublin Danes bind-
ing themselves to follow him in his wars, he was obliged to guar-
antee them and the other foreigners possession of their territory
in Ireland.

In furtherance of this policy or of his personal ambition, he
found it to his interest to bind this peace by ties of marriage even
with those who so lately were his bitterest enemies. A few months
after Glenmama he gave his own daughter by his first wife in mar-
riage to Sigtryggr (Sitric), his former opponent and king of Dub-
lin, while he himself, Brian, married, as his second wife, Sitric's
mother, Gormlaith, a beautiful, powerful and intriguing Irish
woman. Like her namesake, the gentle and unfortunate poet-
Queen who lived sixty years before her, Gormlaith had a stormy
life and her marriage to Brian was her third matrimonial venture.
She was first married to Malachy the Great, then to Olafr kvaran
(Amhlaobh "the Shoe"), Danish king of Dublin (celebrated in
the history of England), by whom she had a son, the Sitric men-
tioned above; and finally she was married to Brian Boru, and
was prepared to marry, if one can speak of these connections as
legal matrimony, for the fourth time, as we shall see later. In
the words of the sagaman, "Gormlaith was the fairest of all
women, and I5est gifted in everything that was not in her own
power, but it was the talk of men that she did all things ill over
which she had any power."

It was through Gormlaith's machinations and deadly hatred
that Brian lost his life, and the last act in the long Dano-Irish
drama was effected. A series of petty family quarrels precipitated
the denouement. One day, it was in the year 1013, the Leinster
prince Maolmordha (Molloy), who was Gormlaith's brother and
consequently Brian's brother-in-law, and in alliance with the Dub-
lin Danes, was bringing three large pine masts for shipping, prob-
ably as a tribute, to Brian at Kincora. As his men were climbing
a boggy hill near Roscrea a quarrel broke out between them and
other clansmen, and Maolmordha, giving a hand«to support one
of the masts, tore a silver button from a tunic which Brian had
given him. On arriving at Kincora he asked his sister to mend
the tunic for him, but instead she threw it into the fire, saying he

THE VIKINGS IN IRELAND 279

ought to be ashamed to accept any gift from Brian and thus admit
his subjection to him, an indignity, she said, which neither his
father nor grandfather would ever have suffered. The taunt left
a rankling wound in the heart of Maolmordha. On another day
Maolmordha, looking on while Brian's eldest son, Murchadh
(Morrough) and his cousin Conang were playing chess at Kin-
cora, suggested a move which lost Murchadh the game. Then
Murchadh angrily exclaimed, "That was like the advice you gave
the Danes which lost them the battle of Glenmama" — to which
Maolmordha replied, "Yes, and I will give them advice again,
and this time they will not be defeated."

One word led to another, and the men parted in anger. When
Brian heard of the altercation, he sent a man post-haste after
Maolmordha with gifts to appease him and to invite him back
to Kincora. The messenger overtook him on the bridge of Killa-
loe, but Maolmordha broke the man's head and kept on his way
till he reached home where he made known to his people the great
insult he had received from Brian's son. He then joined forces
with O'Neill, O'Ruarc, Sitric of Dublin and others and attacked
Brian's ally, Malachy, near Sord (Swords) a few miles north of
Dublin, and defeated him. Malachy appealed to Brian to come
to his aid, but Brian was short of supplies and could furnish no
assistance.

In the meantime Brian had put away Gormlaith, who was then
free to vent all her spleen on him. She was especially anxious to
win the help of Sigurd, Earl of the Orkneys. Sigurd, who was
Irish on his mother's side, promised to come, provided, in case
of success, he should be king of Ireland and have the hand of
Gormlaith, For he had ambition to establish a Danish dynasty
similar to the one which his countrymen, Svein, and his son, Cnut,
had shortly before founded in England. Though his mother wove
for him a "raven banner" with mighty spells which was to bring
victory to the host before whom it was flown but death to the
man who bore it, it was against his own forebodings and those
of his men that Sigurd was induced to take part in the expedition.
Sitric next sought help from two Viking brothers who lived on
the west coast of the Isle of Man. Ospak was a heathen and
Brodar had been a Christian but apostatised, and was regarded
as a kind of magician. He was a very tall man with long black
hair which he wore tucked in under his belt, and he was clad in a
coat of mail "which no steel could bite." He too stipulated that
he would come with twenty ships provided he should wed Gorm-
laith and become king of Ireland. As Sitric was under instructions

280 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

to get help at any price, he made no scruple to accept the terms
on condition that the agreement was to be kept secret. Ospak,
who was dissatisfied with the arrangement, escaped from his
brother during the night with his ten ships, sailed round Ireland
and up the Shannon where he joined Brian and became his ally.

By Palm Sunday in the year 1014, a great host of the massed
forces of the Norselands assembled on the shore of Clontarf, a
few miles north of Dublin. It consisted of 1,000 mail-clad Norse-
men under Brodar, Vikings from Normandy, Flanders, England
and Cornwall, and, above all, fierce fighting men from the Ork-
neys, Shetlands, Hebrides, and other islands off the west coast
of Scotland, all picked men and most conspicuous for valour of
the men of their time. With them also were the men of their race
who had settled in and around Dublin, and the Ui Cinnselaigh
(Kinsellas) from Wexford and the men of Leinster. These lat-
ter were under the command of their king Maolmordha. On the
side of Brian and Ireland were, besides his own people from
Munster, the men of Connacht and Meath and the Christianised
Norsemen He also had an auxiliary force from Scotland under
Domhnall, Great Steward of Mar, but he got no help from Ulster.

In spite of his seventy-three years of age, Brian wished to lead
his army in person, but his advisers persuaded him to retire to a
tent not far from the field and there to await the issue. The real
commander of the Irish forces was Brian's son, Murchadh, a
captain of outstanding ability, who stationed himself with a select
corps of troops from Desmond and Thomond facing Brodar's
mail-clad warriors.

On the night before the battle, the Norse said, their old god
of war, Woden himself, rode up through the dusk on a dapple-
grey horse, halberd in hand, to take counsel with his champions;
and there were other portents. Brian was unwilling to fight on
Good Friday, but it had been prophesied to the Danes that if the
battle was fought on that day Brian would certainly be slain, but,
if they fought on any other day, all would fall who were against
him. So they forced the battle on Good Friday, which fell that
year on April 23. The combat began at sunrise, when the tide
was at full, and raged till sunset. This celebrated battle is known
as the Battle of Brian, or the Battle of the Weir of Clontarf.
But, as a matter of fact, the scene of the battle was not at Clon-
tarf at all, but near Clonliffe, between the Liffey and the Tolka,
in what are now the outlying districts of Dublin north of the Lif-
fey. In those days the tide flowed over the plain now occupied
by Merrion Square, College Green and up to the very walls of

THE VIKINGS IN IRELAND

281

the Casde. The Norse battle-line extended roughly from the
Four Courts, Rutland Square and Montjoy Square. It was a
faulty position, for all retreat was cut off by Tomar's Wood, a
part of which is the Phoenix Park, stretching from Drumcondra
towards the Liffey. The Irish lay to the north, their right flank
at Drumcondra and their left in Clontarf. Both armies are esti-
mated at about 20,000 men, but the Danes were the better armed,
many of them being clad in shirts of mail, while most of the Irish
fought in tunics. Before the battle, Brian is said to have mounted
his charger and, with a golden-hilted sword in one hand and a
crucifix in the other, urged on his men to meet the enemy.

Sitric does not appear to have taken part in the battle, but to
have held the garrison in reserve behind the walls on the hill of
the city, where the Danish women, among them Brian's daughter,
looked on from the battlements; and it appeared to them "that
not more numerous would be the sheaves floating over a great
company reaping a field of oats, even though two or three battal-
ions were working at it, than the hair flying with the wind from
them, cut away by heavy gleaming axes and by bright flaming
swords."

At the first onset, Brian's men came in contact with the mail-
clad men in the Danish centre and were cut to pieces. But the
enemy's success was not lasting, and towards evening the efforts
of the Irish were crowned with success and the day was saved by
the arrival of Malachy's men who were fresh and unwearied.

Part of the enemy fled to their ships at Clontarf, but the re-
turning tide had carried away the boats and prevented the escape
of most of them. Great numbers were drowned in the sea and
heaps of them lay dead on the ground. Four thousand of them
are said to have fallen on Brian's side and 7,000 on his oppo-
nent's. Both parties lost most of their leaders, including the brave
Earl Sigurd.

During the battle Brian was guarded in his tent at Magduma,
near Tomar's wood, by a "fence of shields," or "skjaldborg," as
the Danes called it, composed of chosen warriors who sur-
rounded him with their shields locked together. The king is said
to have knelt on a cushion with his psalm-book open before him.
News was falsely brought to him that his son had fallen. Then a
spy or traitor in the Irish camp, said to be Tadhg O Ceallaigh
(O'Kelly), king of Ui Maine (Hy-many, counties Galway and
Roscommon) , who afterwards fell in the battle, pointed out Brian's
position to Brodar. The guard was overcome and, according to
one account, Brian took his sword, slew the Norse invader and

282 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

then killed himself; but the Norse account is that Brian was slain
by a blow from Brodar who was slain in turn by an unknown hand.

It was a costly victory for the Irish; the king himself, the
heir-apparent (his brave son Murchadh), and the heir apparent's
heir (Turlough), all fell in the battle. The bodies of the two
former were brought to Armagh and interred honourably in a
tomb nearby the sanctuary of Saint Patrick. On the conclusion
of the battle the troops disbanded, each clan going to its own ter.
ritory, and Donchadh, Brian's son, who had been away on a forag-
ing expedition and had taken no part in the battle, took command.

But the days of Ireland's glory were departed. In the words
of his eulogist, "Brian was the last man in Erin who was a match
for a hundred. He was the last man who killed a hundred in one
day. His was the last step that true valour ever took in Erin!"
He was a sovereign of whom any nation might justly be proud
and one of the world's greatest monarchs. Had he or his family
lived, the chance is that with the prestige of his name and the
great victory at Clontarf, they would have founded an hereditary
monarchy which would have put an end to disunion and demoral-
isation and provided one of the strongest bulwarks against the
Norman invasion which was soon to fall upon the country.

But his death and that of his eldest son brought about the
displacement of the Dalcassians and the restoration of Malachy
to the throne. In the year after Clontarf, 1015, Malachy led an
army against Dublin and suppressed the last attempts of the for-
eigners. He reigned eight years and died in 1022. Brave, mag-
nanimous, and inspired by a lofty patriotism and chivalry, he was
the last Irish king to reign without opposition.

After him, as a consequence of Brian's unfortunate violation
of the law of the realm, there were few Irish kings who had not
to fight for the t»hrone instead of being chosen to it according to
custom. Frequently two or more claimants assumed the title at
the same time and desolated and distracted the country. These
men, who are known for the most part as "kings with opposition,"
because they were unable to secure general obedience to their ad-
ministration of affairs, were weaker than their predecessors and
their worthless and futile careers only emphasise the greatness of
Brian and Malachy. For twenty years after Malachy's death,
the chief government was vested in the hands of two men, neither
of whom was a king, one being Cuan O Lochan, the king's chief
poet, and the other a religious of Lismore named Corcran.

The battle of the Weir of Clontarf was one of the decisive
battles of history, for it not only warded off Danish rule from

THE VIKINGS IN IRELAND

283

Ireland but it probably even altered the whole subsequent history
of Europe. Had the Danes been victorious and gotten possession
of Ireland, they would doubtless have founded there a kingdom
which would have been the greatest step towards the formation
of a far-flung northern empire, with its centre at London. For
three centuries they strove desperately for possession of the prize,
but they were unable to accomplish in those three hundred years
in Ireland as much as they had accomplished in one year in north-
ern France and in England.

After Clontarf the Danes who were left in Ireland settled
down and became as Irish as the Irish themselves, but nearly 100
years after the battle the foreigners made a final attempt to get
control of Ireland. In the year 1098 the famous Norwegian king
Magnus Barelegs, so called because he dressed in the Irish fash-
ion, who fills a large place in the romantic history of the period,
came to Ireland with a mighty force. He had conquered the Heb-
rides and Man and had already made many visits to Ireland, and
was more than half Irish in feeling and culture. He used Irish
in his poems and was in love, as he says, with "the Irish girl whom
I love better than myself." According to the Manx Chronicle, he
sent his shoes to Muirchertach, Emperor of Ireland, and ordered
him to wear them on his shoulders on Christmas day in the pres-
ence of his ambassador, as a token of submission, and Muircher-
tach obeyed the command. Other old chronicles say that Magnus
married Muirchertach' s daughter and that afterwards he sent her
back to her father. When he was killed in battle in Ulster, in the
year 1103, he left a son, afterwards King Harald Gille, who was
born, either in Ireland or the Hebrides, of an Irish mother.

The Viking age was by no means a starless night in Ireland,
nor was society so horribly disorganised as is generally believed.
It was a period marked by the lives of Irish chiefs of outstanding
ability, of some of the greatest figures in Nordic history, and of
women of unusual personality. Even in those days of terror and
danger from foreign invasion, when an enemy fleet stood in every
port and soldiers were encamped in many parts of the country,
Ireland was still in the full current of European life. Though
internecine feuds and battles with the Danes took up much of the
chieftains* time, other things besides spears and swords were ex-
changed between the Irish and the invader. In no other land in
which these two peoples of such different culture came together
aid each learn so much from the other as in Ireland. In matters
of agriculture and cattle raising the Irish were the teachers of
the Norsemen, but in other purely material pursuits the civilisation

284 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

•

of the Norse was superior to that of the Irish. Though by the
middle of the seventh century, in the pre-Viking period, Ireland
had made considerable progress in the art of ship construction, it
was above all from the hardy sailors of the north that they learned
to build and sail great ships and to organise fleets, to use iron
armour, to fight on horseback and no longer from chariots or on
foot, to build stone forts and bridges, and to live in fortified cities
surrounded by walls. By the middle of the tenth century, Dublin,
Limerick, Cork, Waterford, all Viking establishments, were strong
walled places.

Nor were the Vikings mere sea robbers; they were merchants
as well. Since they controlled the seas, for a long time all trade
and shipping between Limerick and other Irish ports and the west
of France and Spain was in their hands. They exported Ireland's
products and imported all that Ireland wanted, as wheat, wine,
costly silks, and fine leather, and they helped to introduce foreign
fashions into Ireland. The first Irish coins that were struck in
Ireland were minted by Norse kings who held court in Dublin;
they have been found in Norway and elsewhere, and point to the
trade carried on between the two countries. The Irish probably
also adopted the northern system of weights and measures.

How much Irish society and domestic life were influenced by
Norse occupation is seen in the Irish language itself, in which there
is scarcely a word meaning a large ship or its parts or markets
or trade that is not borrowed from the Norse, if it is not from
the Latin. Even the name by which, in English, we call Erin, is
from the Old Norse Iraland, and the English names of three of
the present-day provinces, Munster, Leinster and Ulster, have a
Norse termination, stadr, "place," added to the Gaelic stem. Don-
egal (Dun na Gall), "the Fort of the Foreigners," got its name
from a fort built by the Vikings. But these are the exceptions.
There are scarcely more than a dozen Norse place names on the
whole map of Ireland and these are mostly on or near the sea
coast, while there are over a thousand in middle and northern
England. This is one of the surest signs that there was no real
conquest or occupation of the country. The Norse and the Irish
had to understand each other to some appreciable extent, and it
was the language of the invader that gave way to that of the in-
vaded.

As a result of intermarriage, there was an exchange of Irish
and Scandinavian personal names, and such typical Irish names
as Cormac, Patrick, Dubthach (Duffy), are found in Norse sagas.

THE VIKINGS IN IRELAND 285

The children of these marriages were called Mael-Muire, Gilla
Patraic, and other Christian names. On the other hand, some
Norse personal names such as Somhairle (MacSorley), Raghnall
(MacRanald), Amhlaobh (MacAuliffe), Dubhghall (Doyle),
Maghnus (MacManus), lomhar (Maclvors), have become popu-
lar and important surnames.

Though the Viking invasions checked the normal development
of Irish civilisation, undid what the efforts of successive centuries
had realised, and gave Ireland such a shock that learning scarcely
ever fully recovered from it, a brilliant intellectual life prevailed
during that period and, in all the things that pertained to the mind,
the Irish were far superior to their invaders and Irish genius made
itself felt upon them. The names of Norse students are found
among those who attended Ireland's most celebrated university,
Clonmacnois, in the first half of the eleventh century. Streams
of professors, students and missionaries continued to flow to the
continent, some of them no doubt fleeing from the Vikings.

Irish sculpture, building, metal work, art, and ornament, flour-
ished and influenced the art of the Scandinavians. The most im-
portant and most beautifully illuminated manuscripts, both in Latin
and Irish, date from that period, and some of the greatest poets
in Irish literature, such as Flann MacLonain, "the Vergil of the
Gael," Cinaed ua Hartacain, Eochaid O Flinn, Cormacan Eces,
MacLiag, the court bard of Brian Boru, and many others flour-
ished in it. It was Irish scholars who introduced the literature of
Greece and Rome to the men of the north. At the Norwegian
court of "Dublin of the Festal Drinking Horns," Icelandic skalds
and Irish bards composed and sang their poems, and Irish and
Icelandic sagamen, the best story tellers in the world, told their
stories. The Irish influence on the early literature of Iceland is
unmistakable. Indeed, the Norse were the imitators of the Irish,
and certain northern types, motives and forms of style are clearly
of Irish origin or have been developed through Irish influence.
The Irish were also of considerable influence in softening the wild
manners of the Norsemen with whom they came in contact, and,
above all, it is to the Irish that they owe their Christianity. For
at least two generations before Clontarf, Christianity had taken
deep root among the Norse in Ireland, and, by the end of the
tenth or beginning of the eleventh century, Dublin was a complete
Christian city with churches and cloisters and was known as Ath
Cliath na cloc, "Dublin, rich in bells," Ath Cliath na land 's na
lecht, "Dublin the city of churches and graveyards."

286 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Besides the general histories of Ireland and works in German and the

Scandinavian languages (which give the best account of the period), the

following books are recommended:

C. F. Keary: The Vikings in Western Christendom, London, 1891.

George Henderson : The Norse Influence on Celtic Scotland, Glasgow, 1910.

Eleanor Hull : Irish Episodes of Icelandic History, Saga Book of the Viking
Club, Vol. Ill, 1908.

Alice Stopford Green: Irish Nationality, Chap. IV, New York, 1911.

Eoin MacNeill: Phases of Irish History, Chap. IX, Dublin, 1919.

Alexander Bugge: Contributions to the History of the Norsemen in Ireland,
Christiania, 1900.

Charles Haliday: The Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublm, Dublin, 1884.

James H. Todd: Edit., The War of the Gaedhil and the Gaill, or the In-
vasions of Ireland by the Danes and other Norsemen, London, Rolls
Series, 1867.

The New Ireland Review, Vols. XXIII, XXIV, XXXIII.

The Ivernian Journal, Vol. IV, pp. 73-87.

CHAPTER XXXI

HOSPITALITY IN ANCIENT IRELAND

A CHARACTERISTIC of the Irish race for which it has been noted
through the ages is its hospitality. In pre-Christian days this qual-
ity shone as much as it did in later time. But in later time the
virtue was given a sublimely Christian turn. "Christ is in the
person of every guest," and "every stranger is Christ," were the
sentiments that came to consecrate hospitality. The attitude of
the Irish people on the subject is well expressed in one of their
ancient poems (translated by Kuno Meyer) :

Oh King of stars!

Whether my house be dark or bright,
Never shall it be closed against any one,
Lest Christ close His house against me.

If there be a guest in your house

And you conceal aught from him,

'Tis not the guest that will be without it,

But Jesus, Mary's Son.

As with the Arab, so with the Irish, any one who had partaken
of food in one's house, was thereby sacred against harm or hurt
from all members of the family. A person of rank had to enter-
tain any stranger without enquiring who or what he was or the
wherefore of his coming. Against the coming of unknown guests
his door must be open,^ and his fire must always have on it the
coire ainsec, undry cauldron.

A guest came when he liked, stayed while he would, and left

* When, in comparatively recent days, the Connaught princess Grainne O'Malley
was returning from the state visit which she paid Elizabeth of England, she landed
at Howth, and finding Lord Howth's castle-gate closed — as the family and house-
hold were at dinner — she, incensed by such Saxon churlishness picked up from a
nurse outside the gates and carried off with her to Connaught Lord Howth's child.
The Howth family had to pay a goodly ransom for their child — ^and thereby taught
a proper lesson in Irish hospitality. Ever after, when they went to dinner their
gates and doors were thrown wide open.

287

288 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

when he wished. No matter how many the guests that thronged
one's house, or how lengthy their sojourn, under no conceivable
circumstances could it be intimated to them that they should de-
part. And, furthermore, under no circumstances, in those times,
could or would a guest, departing from any house howsoever poor,
so far forget the respect due his host, as to offer any kind of com-
pensation. There is a Munster story of a rude, wild mountaineer,
who visited England, four or five centuries ago, and who, among
the many wonderful tales of Saxonland which, on his return, he
had to tell, had none more extraordinary, more unbelievable, than
that the English people actually charged for the food, liquor, and
bed, which they provided for a stranger 1

The Irishman, who, on the arrival of travellers, discovered
that he had not food and drink in the house with which instantly
to regale them, suffered keen disgrace. This applied to all ranks,
including royalty itself. If the disgrace was incurred, not through
wilful negligence on the part of the host, but by the defection of
one who had contracted to supply him with provisions, the latter
was, then, rendered liable by law to pay to the disgraced one a
blush fine, enech-ruice.

In the old Irish poets and writers we find a man reckoned
wealthy not by what he has but by what he gives. And the right
hand of the generous man was often said to have grown longer
than his left.

It will be remembered that in the time of the Tuatha De Da-
nann, their king, Breas, was deposed because he lacked the first
essential, hospitality: "Breas did not grease their knives. In
vain they came to visit Breas. Their breath did not smell of ale
at the banquet."

In the early days, because in many districts people might be
too poor, or travellers too many, for satisfactory private hospital-
ity, there were, at various points throughout the land, public houses
of hospitality called bruideans (breens). And the honoured offi-
cials who were entrusted with these houses were called brughaids
(brewys). A bruidean was always set at the junction of several
roads, frequently the junction of six. It had open doors facing

A century or so ago the MacSweeneys of Cork had a stone erected on the
highway near their home to notify all travellers that they were expected to call at
the MacSweeney home for entertainment.

In the last century the famous Dick Martin of Connemara (who, by the way,
was the first man to promote a law against cruelty to animals) used to have a
servant awaiting the coming of the long-car to the village some miles off (which
was the end of the public conveyance route) whose duty it was to extend the
hospitality of his master's house to strangers who arrived on the car.

HOSPITALITY IN ANCIENT IRELAND

289

every road — and a man stationed on each road to make sure that
no one passed unentertained. It had a light burning on the lawn
all night. A full cauldron was always boiling on the fire. It was
stocked with provisions of all kinds in plenty.

The esteem in which was held the virtue of hospitality is ex-
emplified by the fact that the public brughaid was, by law, per-
mitted the same number of attendants, and given the same pro-
tection, as the king of a territory. His hospice was endowed with
land, and with other allowances. The brughaid had a magistrate's
jurisdiction for arbitration of agrarian cases. His house, too, was
the house of assembly for election of officers of the territory.

As the brughaid was required to welcome, at all times, every
company and every face, his bruidean must always be stocked with
three boiled fleshes, three red fleshes (i. e., uncooked) and three
living fleshes. The three fleshes were those of an ox, a wether,
and a hog. The three living fleshes must be at hand, fattened,
and ready for immediate killing; the three red fleshes dressing in
the kitchen; the three boiled fleshes in the boilers, ready for in-
stant serving.

Every brughaid was required to have at least a hundred of
each kind of animal grazing on his fields — and a hundred servants
in his house. He was called a brughaid ceadach, meaning a hun-
dred brughaid. There was a brughaid leitech, two hundred bru-
ghaid, who had two hundred of each kind of cattle, and a hundred
beds for guests. The good brughaid was expected to have in his
house the three miachs (sacks) — a miach of malt to make refresh-
ment for wayfarers, a miach of wheat to give them food, and a
miach of salt, to improve the food's taste. Also the three cheers,
the cheer of the strainers straining ale, the cheer of the servitors
over the cauldron, and the cheer of the young men over the chess-
board, winning games from one another.

The six chief bruideans of Ireland were asylums of refuge for
homicides — like the six Jewish cities of refuge. Keating estimated
the total number of such houses of hospitality in Ireland, as being
oyer four hundred. He says there were ninety in Connaught,
ninety in Ulster, ninety-three in Leinster, and a hundred and thirty
in Munster.

The Small Primer (Brehon Laws) says:

"He is no brughaid who is not possessed of hundreds. He warns
off no individual of whatever shape. He refuses not any company.
He keeps no account against a person, though often he come. Such
is the brughaid who has dire with the king of a territory."

290 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

The Irish monks and missionaries on the Continent carried
with them to Europe the Irish idea of the House of Hospitality —
and established regular lines of these in France, and through Ger-
many, for entertaining the crowds of pilgrims who journeyed to
Rome on the one hand, and to Jerusalem on the other'^ including,
of course, the crusaders.

The same idea of providing for those who needed It material-
ised in other directions — as in the case of the very old and de-
pendent. In each territory was an officer called uaithne (signify-
ing pillar), whose duty it was to provide for such as had not any
of their own kin to do so. The law provided the uaithne with
power to levy a rate for the maintenance of these dependent ones.
He was called uaithne because the law tract describes him as "a
pillar of endurance and attendance."

If the dependent did have kin but did not choose to live as
one of them, the uaithne was to see that a house was provided for
him that must be at least seventeen feet long, have two doors, a
chest at one side, a bed at the other, and a kitchen or storehouse.
Also that he was supplied with a prescribed amount of food, of
milk, and of attendance. His head was to be washed every Satur-
day, and his body every twentieth night. There is displayed a
true knowledge of human nature, and a praiseworthy indulgence
of the crankiness and abusiveness of the old and dependent, in the
wise provision of this law which rules that, contrary to universal
custom, the uaithne can suffer the reddening of his face without
disgrace to himself or to his kin.

The stories told of a certain seventh century king of Con-
naught, Guaire the Hospitable, illustrate the very high regard in
which hospitality and generosity were held. Once, being beaten
in battle by one of the kings Diarmuid, Guaire, in token of sub-
mission, had to kneel in front of Diarmuid and take in his teeth
the point of the victor's sword. When he was in this humiliating
position, Diarmuid, to test whether his famed generosity was sin-
cere or ostentatious, had, first, one of his Druids ask of Guaire a
gift in honour of learning — to which request the humiliated Guaire
paid no heed: and then a leper ask an alms for God's sake, to
whom Guaire, with teeth still closed upon the sword point, gave
the gold brooch from his mantle. At the secret instigation of the
king, one of his people forced the brooch from the leper, who at

* Throughout early Irish history and story, the several references to pilgrims
to Jerusalem are made so casually as to suggest the confident inference that great
numbers were constantly going. The pilgrimage to Rome seems to have been very
common.

HOSPITALITY IN ANCIENT IRELAND 291

ice complained of his loss to the kneeling one. Guaire imme-
ately unlinked the golden girdle that bound his waist, and reached
to the leper. This gift was instantly also taken from the poor
an, when, with sore complaint the leper came a third time to
uaire. Realising the poor man's distress, and knowing that he
id nothing more to give, Guaire's tears ran from his eyes in a
ream.
"Arise, Guaire," said Dlarmuid, "and do homage only to

odi"

Diarmuid then brought his late foe with him to the great fair
f Taillte. As was usual with him, Guaire brought to the gather-
ig a sack of silver to make presents to the nien of Ireland. Diar-
luid, however, had secretly ordered that none should ask or ac-
;pt a gift from his royal guest. When he had been two days at
le fair, he sent for a bishop to ^ve him the last rites of the
lurch. Diarmuid and his friends, alarmed, asked why he sought
le last rites. "Because," answered Guaire, "I have seen the men
f Ireland for two days assembled together in one spot, without
ly of them asking me for a bounty. Surely it is the end."

Then Diarmuid lifted the ban, and Guaire was happy once
lore. In the presence of the men of Ireland, the peace was rati-
ed between the two kings, who kept it ever after.

If Guaire was generous, his enemy, Diarmuid, was considerate,
or when the latter, marching to give battle, was met by a mes-
;nger with the request that as Guaire was not yet fully prepared
) give him battle, he should not cross the river for another twen-
^four hours — "I gladly grant his request," said Diarmuid, "and
^ould have granted him a much greater, had he asked it."'

'The ancient historical and poetic accounts are full of instances of this kind
[ battle chivalry — showing that usually a leader considered it disgraceful to attack
1 unprepared foe.

It will be recalled that Gol MacMorna could not be induced to surprise an
lemy by attacking before daybreak.

We have a fine sample of this chivalry in the Agallam na Seanorach. When
aoilte, with the lute player and the man of beauty, was visiting Bo-bind of the
uatha de Danann at Assaroe, to get cured of a spear-thrust in the calf of his
g, on a night of revelry there,^ the alarm was raised that a fleet of marauding
)reigners (Fomorians) had sailed into the harbour. Caoilte was appealed to
>r his advice in the face of impending disaster, and answered: Let them be
sked for a truce till the Tuatha de Danann make a gathering and a muster. "And
lus it was done," adds the poet narrator, with naive simplicity.

The most notable historical instance of this kind of chivalry occurred in the
ear 1001 or 1002 when Brian Boru demanded from the then Ard Righ, Malachi,
iibinission and hostages — "The latter replied to Brian's ambassadors," says Keat-
'8. "by saying that if Brian would grant him a respite of one month in order _

lat he might have time to summon around him the army of Leth-Cuin, he would,
t the end of the period, either give battle or send hostages to the king of Leth-
logha." But when Aod O'Neill, king of Ailech, refused to support him, Malachi,
t the end of the month journeyed to Brian, and told him frankly that he was not

292 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Furthermore, Guaire's messenger, having thoroughly viewed
Diarmuid's army, disparaged it to the king for the smalUiess of
their numbers and the poorness of their appearance — to which
Diarmuid answered: "Knowest thou not that neither by num-
bers nor by brave apparel is a battle won, but by the will of God,
and a truthful cause. And though thou sayest our host is msan to
look upon it is not fair forms but hardy hearts that win a fight."*

Joyce, P. W.: Social History of Ancient Ireland.
O'Curry, Eugene: Manuscript Materials of Irish History.

Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish.

Hyde, Douglas, LL.D. : A Literary History of Ireland, from the earliest

times to the present day.
Keating's History of Ireland.

able to get the backing he wished, and consequently regretted he would have to
give hostages and submit. Brian, however, instead of at once accepting, entreated
Malachi to take a respite of one year to see if in that time he might not do better.
In the meantime he himself would ask the submission of Aod O'Neill — and also
of the King of Ulidia — "that I may learn what kind of answer they make to me;
and then, should they g^ve me battle, thou mayest help them against me if thou
wilt." But Malachi refused, declaring that he would not fight against him after
any such manner.

Let us imagine, if we can, some of our noble kings and generals in this twen-
tieth century civilisation emulating in chivalry the old Irish "barbarians."

* While considering signal virtues of men in tliose days, it is not inappropriate
to set down here a sample of the chivalry and the great boldness of another king
of Connaught, Ailill. Ailill was a wanton and a sinful king, who often and reck-
lessly warred upon his enemies. But there came at length a battle in which he
was overwhelmingly defeated. As he fled afar from the bloody field, he called
upon his charioteer:

"Look behind and see whether the slaying is great, and are the slayers near us."

The charioteer looked behind him, and what he said was: "The slaying with
which your people are slain is unendurable."

"Not then their own guilt falls on them, but the g^uilt of my pride and un-
truthfulness," said the king. "Turn thou the chariot toward the enemy, for my
slaying will be the saving of a multitude."

And he faced the pursuers and gave his life to stay the slaughter. And King
Ailill, a monster of wickedness living, in dying won the peace of God.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE TRIBE

^HERE were nearly two hundred tuaths or territories, in Ireland,
ach occupied by a tribe, under its chief who was oftentimes desig-
ated king of a tuath.

The subdivisions of a tuath were ballybetaighs of which there
I'cre usually thirty to each tuath. The ballybetaigh was again
ubdivided into twelve seasreachs, each of one ploughland or about
me hundred and twenty acres. The ballybetaigh was supposed
0 be of extent to supply grazing for four herds of seventy-five
ows each, "without one cow touching another."

In general, the whole of the lands of the territory belonged
0 all the tribe. But there was a limited circle, including the kingj
he nobles, and a few of the leading professional men, each of
vhom had private rights in a certain portion of the land — the
ight to use those lands for the benefit of himself and family, but
lot to transfer them to any person outside the tribe.

The foregoing refers only to special portions of the tribal land,
rhe greater part of the tribal land was free for the use of all the
Jeople of the tribe.

These privileged ones who had exclusive rights to the use of
:ertain lands, usually rented large portion in parcels to the ceiles
(tenants) — who formed the feine, or general body of the people.

The privileged person usually also rented to the ceile cattle
for stocking the land. The ceile who owned his own stock, or who
had to borrow but little, was of much higher standing than the
ceile who had to borrow or rent all his stock. The former was-
called a free ceile, and the latter an unfree because he was bound
to those above him by so many obligations.

The stock borrowed from a noble (or from a certain dass
netween the noble and the ceile called ho-aire, who had stock to
rent) was returned, it or its equivalent, at the end of seven years.

Below the ceiles — ^the feine, or general body of the people of
the tribe — ^were two classes usually rated as non-free. One of

293

294 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

them was the bothach and sencleithe, who were labourers, horse-
boys, herdsmen, and hangers-on, supported by particular families
to which they were attached, and wfeo were considered members
of the tribe, but had neither property rights nor any voice in the
tribal council. The other, the fuidir, were strangers, fugitives,
war captives, condemned criminals or people who had to give up
their freedom in order to work out a debt or fine that they could
not pay. These latter, were not of the tribe, only belonged to it,
and were serfs, pure and simple. Only, they had the right of
renting a little land and gradually acquiring property — till, in the
course of a certain number of years, having accumulated some
substance, and having proved to the tribe that they were people
pf character, they could, by the general voice of the tribe, be re-
ceived into the fold, and become of the feine. Of course the
bothach and sencleithe were privileged to raise themselves even
more easily than the fuidir. The very humblest might, by inherent
worth, work his way up to be eventually among the noblest. So,
the class system in Ireland was not a caste system.

It was only the fuidir, the mere flotsam and jetsam of the na-
tion, who were in the state of semi-servitude. The feudal system,
the system of the lord and the serf, which was the rule through-
out almost all the countries of Europe then, was never known in
Ireland — at least not until the English, after they had established
footing there, endeavoured to introduce from their own country
a form of it. The system in Ireland was something more like the
patriarchal system of the east. The tribe resolved itself into fam-
ily groups called derb-fine * centring around one leading family
from whom the chief was always chosen.

The law of inheritance in ancient Ireland was not that of
primogeniture, but of gavel-kind — that is, instead of the eldest son
inheriting all the father's property, it was divided, cattle and land,
among all the sons. But the eldest son got, with his share, the
house and offices and household effects. Special responsibilities
fell to him as guardian of his sisters, and of his brothers under
age, and as the representative of the family in all cases of stress
or need.

The laws protected every one, including the base fuidir. They
were especially framed to protect the weak against the strong-
"No person," says the law, "shall be oppressed in his difficulty."
And the law forbade the rent-payer to give service or rent to one

*Four generations sprung from one man usually went to each derb-fine— s"
that in each succeeding generation the groups had to be re-arranged.

THE TRIBE 295

who would exact unjustly. The greedy oppressor had to repent
and pay a fine before his ceile should resume giving him either
rent or service.

The ceile contributed to the head of the tribe a certain amount
of labour, a portion of the household needs, and a certain number
of days military service, which was demanded when the need arose.

But the chief, or king of the territory — as well as the provin-
cial king and the Ard-Righ — ^kept about him a number of paid
permanent troops — his household troops composed of his own
people, and a small standing army usually composed of merce-
naries. And the strongest, most powerful man was chosen as the
king's airechta, champion or avenger.

The king of the tuath paid tribute to the provincial king, who
in turn paid tribute to the Ard-Righ. And on the other hand,
each of the higher kings paid back to his tributary a small courtesy
tribute called tuarastal. The Book of Rights specifies in full, and
curious detail, the cis, or amounts of the tribute in cattle, in cloaks,
in swords, etc., due from each inferior king to his superior — and
likewise the tuarastal from the superior to his inferior.

The headship (whether chief or king) was hereditary only to
the extent that the ruler was always chosen by the people, from
within one family. From the righ-damna (king material) that is,
the royal uncles, brothers, sons, nephews, grand-sons and grand-
nephews, the people chose whatever male member of the fam-
ily would make the wisest, bravest, and best ruler. In later cen-
turies, in order to avoid the evils of disputed succession, the king's
successor was always chosen during the king's lifetime — and this
king-elect was called tanaiste. He had to be without physical
blemish or deformity. When elected he had to swear to observe
the law, and to govern in accordance with the law and the ancient
customs. At the inauguration the oUam, in presence of the people,
read to him the laws that he must swear to observe, and the an-
cient customs that he must swear to maintain. And for non-ob-
servance of these, he was liable to be, at any time, deposed.

Same books as for preceding chapter, together with :

Sullivan, W. K., Ph.D. : Introduction to O'Curry's Manners and Customs
of the Ancient Irish.

CHAPTER XXXIII

MANNER OF LIVING IN ANCIENT IRELAND

In very early Ireland practically all residences were of wood or
of wicker-work, and most of them were in circular form. They
were usually thatched with straw, rushes, or sedge. Stone was
very seldom used in building residences before the eighth century.
The wooden and wicker-work houses were washed with lime on
the outside — lime in its natural white state, or coloured with pig-
ments. The older stories and poems show that houses of the bet-
ter kind had windows that were shuttered. These early resi-
dences were seldom divided into apartments — ^though the stories
show that compartments for sleepers were often made along the
walls of a large building.

Linen sheets and ornamented coverlets were in use. Small
low tables for serving meals were supplied with knives (no forks),
with cups, jugs, drinking horns, methers, sometimes with goblets
of glass (a precious rarity, however), goblets of silver, flagons
of bronze or copper — and occasionally napkins. Cooks wore flat
white caps and linen aprons. Wheat meal, oat-meal, eggs, meat,
milk and honey, with some vegetables and a very few fruits, sup-
plied the table. Light was furnished by candles of tallow or of
beeswax, rushlights, spalls of bog fir, and sometimes oil lamps.
The lights were stuck on the walls, stood on the tables, were held
by attendants, or hung from above.

The residence of one of the higher ranks was either on a lios
(a raised mound of earth), or a rath (a lios protected by a sur-
rounding wall, usually of earth), or, in case of a chief or king, a
dun, which was a fortified rath having a couple of surrounding
walls with a water-filled ditch between.

All of the better class houses had basins for bathing. And
the select few had scented oils and fragrant herbs, as accompani-
ments of the bath. After their day's exertion, and before taking
their evening meal, hunters and warriors treated themselves to a

296

MANNER OF LIVING IN ANCIENT IRELAND 297

bath. And a bath was always a common courtesy to which to
treat a newly arrived guest.

The women had mirrors made of highly polished metal. They
used cosmetics, and had combs which were often beautifully
wrought, and embossed cior-bolgs (comb bags) in which they car-
ried comb, veil, and personal ornaments. Both sexes devoted the
greatest attention to the care of their hair, which was often elabo-
rately curled, and often also plaited in several long plaits the
ends of which were fastened by little golden balls — one or two
large ones on the heads of the men, and six or seven small ones on
women's heads. Both women and men (of noble rank) wore beau-
tifully wrought brooches, for fastening their mantle, and beauti-
fully wrought girdles, also. Other ornaments were bracelets,
rings, neck torques, diadems, crescents, of gold and silver — ^beau-
tiful specimens of all which may be seen in the National Museum
in Dublin and in the British Museum. Veils and gloves were in
use — and sandals likewise.

The chief articles of dress were, in the case of the women, one
long robe that reached to the ankles, and of the men a short jacket
combined with a sort of kilt. Over these both sexes frequently
wore a cloak or mantle. The substance of the dress was usually
either of linen or wool. But sometimes it was of silk or satin,
imported.

The cloak or mantle was a distinctive and prized article of
dress, the one to which most thought was given, and on which
most value was expended. In details of gifts and tributes told of
in the old stories, and in accounts of beautiful cavalcades, the
mantle gets prominent place. For instance, the Book of Rights
detailing the tuarastal payable from the king to subordinate kings
says :

"Seven mantles with wreaths of gold,
And seven cups for social drinking,
Seven steeds not accustomed to falter,
To the king of Kerry of the combats.

"The prosperous king of Rathlenn is entitled
To the stipend of a brave great man ;
Ten swords, and ten drinking horns,
Ten red cloaks, ten blue cloaks.

"The king of Ara of beauty is entitled

From the king of Eire of the comely face,
To six swords, six praised shields.
And six mantles of deep crimson."

298 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

In the poem of the Bruidean da Derga, the Saxon chief Ing.
eel, in describing King Conaire Mor as he saw him in the Bruidean,
gives a glorified description of a king's dress in the early days:

"I saw his many-hued red cloak of lustrous silk,

With its gorgeous ornamentation of precious gold bespangled

upon its surface,
With its flowing capes dexterously embroidered.

"I saw in it a great large brooch,
The long pin was of pure gold;
Bright shining like a full-moon
Was its ring, all around — a crimson gemmed circlet
Of round sparkling pebbles —
Filling the fine front of his noble breast
Atwixt his well proportioned fair shoulders.

"I saw his splendid linen kilt,

With its striped silken borders, —
A face-reflecting mirror of various hues,
The coveted of the eyes of oxany, —
Ehnbradng his noble neck — enriching its beauty.
An embroidery of gold upon the lustrous silk —
(Extended) from his bosom to his noble knees."

The law prescribed that sons of kings in fosterage were co
have satin mantles, of scarlet, purple, or blue; scabbards for their
little swords, ornamented with silver. Sons of the higher kings
were to have their mantles fastened with a brooch ornamented
with gold. A son of a king of a tuath, a brooch ornamented with
silver.

Mantles and capes were sometimes trimmed with furs of na-
tive animals, seals, badgers, otters and foxes.

In welcoming a guest the usual courtesy was for the house-
hold to arise to their feet. Sometimes also the host greeted him
with a kiss on each cheek. At larger assemblies, as for instance
at the king's court, the visitor was sometimes received "with clap-
ping of hands." The custom of the hand-shake was not used or
known.

The guest was feasted with the best that could be had, and
he was entertained with story and with poem, with music of the
harp, the pipe, or the tympan. Chess was the game always pro-
vided— the great and universal game, in which the Irish were
highly skilled.

Another entertainment, which however was peculiar to Courts,

MANNER OF LIVING IN ANCIENT IRELAND 299

was that provided by professional jesters and jugglers, buffoons
and druiths. The same Ingcel whom we just quoted describes
Conari Mor's three court jesters:

"I saw there," said he, "three jesters at the fire. They wore
three dark grey cloaks; and if all the men of Eirinn were in one
place, and though the body of the father or the mother of each man
was lying dead before him, not one could refrain from laughing at
them."

And of Tultinne, the king's juggler, Ingcel says:

"He had ear-clasps of gold in his ears; and a speckled white cloak
upon him. He had nine swords in his hand, and nine silvery shields,
and nine balls of gold. He throws every one of them up (into the
air), and none of them falls to the ground, and there is but one of
them at a time upon his palm; and like the buzzing of bees on a
beautiful day, was the motion of each passing the other."

The drulth Is often Interpreted to be a buffoon — ^but he must
have been of an entirely different and indeed far superior order,
when we recall the druith Ua Maighlinne (who belonged to the
court, at Ailech, of Fergal the son of Maelduin, in the begin-
ning of the eighth century). On the eve of the great battle of
Almain (Allen) he entertained the northern warriors by narrating
the battles and triumphs of these northmen, and also of their
enemies the Leinstermen, from the earliest time down to the time
that was then present. And this Ua Maighlinne, taken prisoner
in the battle and about to be beheaded, was asked to give the Geim
Druath, or druith's cry, before he died. And so loud, beautiful,
and melodious was this peculiar cry that for three days and three
nights after his death the enchanting soft echoes of it were still
reverberating about the spot.

The description given of that other wonderful and versatile
entertainer, Donnbo, who went on the same expedition, and lost
his life in the same battle, may well describe the druith. And,
because of Its dramatic beauty, we shall make room for it here :

"And there was not in all Eirinn one more comely, or of better
shape or face, or more graceful symmetry, than he; he was the best
at singing amusing verses and telling of royal stories in the world;
he was the best to equip horses, and to mount spears, and to plait
hair; and his was the best mind in acuteness of intellect and in
honour,"

300

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

So famed and so popular was the clever and witty Donnbo
that when Fergal summoned the men of Leth Cuinn to go with
him upon this expedition, what each of them answered was: "If
Donnbo go upon the expedition, I will."

And on the night that was the eve of the battle, on the hill of
Allen, when Ua Maighlinne told them the stories, it was Donnbo
who had been asked to amuse them, but had refused because his
heart was weighted with sad prescience of the morrow's disaster.
But he promised that if Ua Maighlinne amused them to-night he
would make amusement for his royal master, wheresoever he
should be, on the next night. On the next night his royal master
and thousands of his devoted ones, not only warriors, but pipers
and trumpeters, and harpers, were dead upon the field of carnage.
And Donnbo, like his royal master, had had his head SM^ered from
his body. A warrior of Murchad, the victorious King of Leinster,
who, on a dare from his king came alone to the battlefield at dead
of night to bear from it a trophy, heard a voice in the air above
the battlefield, calling upon Donnbo, in the name of the King of
the Seven Heavens to make amusement to-night, as he had prom-
ised, for Fergal the son of Maelduin. And in answer the warrior
first heard the dead singers and trumpeters and harpers make
music the like of which he never heard before or after. And
next, from a cluster of rushes, he heard the head of Donnbo raise
the dord-fiansaf the sweetest of all the world's music: for Donnbo
was keeping his promise to amuse the king. The warrior wished
to take back the head of Donnbo to amuse the Leinster king, but
Donnbo's head said: "I prefer that nothing whatever should
carry me away unless Christ, the son of God, should take me.
And thou must give the guarantee of Christ that thou wilt bring
me back to my body again." The warrior, giving the guarantee,
carried to his king's camp the head of Donnbo.

"Pity thy fate, O Donnbo," said Murchad and his company,
"comely was thy face. Make amusement for us, this night, the same
as thou didst for thy lord, yesterday." That it should be the darker
for him Donnbo turned his face to the wall, and raised the dord-
fiansa on high. "And it was the sweetest of all music ever heard
on all the surface of the earth! So that the host were all crying
and lamenting with the plaintiveness and softness of the melody.

Same books as for preceding chapter, together with:
Carbery, Ethna: In the Celtic Past.

CHAPTER XXXIV

STRUCTURAL ANTIQUITIES

The structural antiquities which we can still observe in Ireland
arrange themselves under five heads: cromlechs, tumuli, the great
duns of the west, ancient churches, and round towers.

The cromlechs, sometimes called dolmen, are each composed
of three great standing stones, ten or twelve feet high with a great
flat slab resting on top of them, and always inclined toward the
east. Sometimes these are surrounded by a wide circle of stand-
ing stones. The cromlechs are of such very remote antiquity —
ancient, at the beginning of the Christian era — that all legends
of them are lost. The invariable inclination to the east of the
covering slab suggests altars dedicated to sun-worship. The name
cromlech may mean either bent slab or the slab of the god Crom.
And this latter derivation suggests to some that they were sacri-
ficial altars used in the very ancient worship of that god.

But some of the best authorities have concluded that they were
tombstones — ^because beneath every one of them under which ex-
cavations were made, were found the bones, or the urns and dust,
of the dead. From this, however, we cannot necessarily conclude
that they were erected as tombstones — any more than we should
conclude that the various Christian temples and altars under which
honoured ones have been interred were only Intended as monu-
ments to the dead beneath them.

Excavations made beneath many cromlechs have turned up,
besides urns and bones of the dead, tools of flint and stone, axes,
hammers, chisels, spear-heads, knives, and also rings of shale and
jet — thus showing that the cromlechs were erected in the far-away
Stone Age. And, as Miss Margaret Stokes points out, an ad-
vanced religious condition for such age is evidenced by the fact
that they then celebrated funeral rights in tombs of imposing
grandeur, with cremation, and sometimes urn burial.

The tumuli or enormous burial mounds found in the Boyne
section of eastern Ireland show the race in a much more advanced
stage of civilisation. These tumuli, as proved by the decorative

301 '

302

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

designs carved upon their walls, were erected at least before the
Christian era — and maybe many centuries before it. They are
great stone roofed royal sepulchres, buried under vast regularly
shaped, artificial mounds. Every one of the tumuli so far explored
has shown urn burial. These urns of the tumuli are a marked
advance upon those of the cromlechs. Some of them are beauti-
fully formed, and delicately ornamented. Many urns may be
found in the same tumulus. Sometimes they are set with one
large one in the centre and other small ones circling around it.
The walls of the sepulchral chamber, in the interior of these
mounds, are oftentimes decorated with carvings, made with chisel
or punch, and scraper. The patterns are the circle, semi-circle,
half-moon, concentric circle, spiral, zig-zag, stars, and leaves.
The double divergent spiral or trumpet pattern, which was intro-
duced into Celtic ornament just prior to the Christian era, has
not yet appeared in the tumuli.

The greatest, most beautiful, of these wonderful royal tombs
are those at Knowth, Dowth, and New Grange, on the Boyne.

After the tumuli, the next structures in order of time are the
great duns of the west coast, such as Dun Angus, and Dun Conor,
on the Aran islands in Galway Bay. The great duns were erected
sometime during the first three centuries of the Christian era.
They consist of enormously thick walls, of stone, which, though
built before the discovery of any kind of cement, are of marvel-
lously fine, firm, and impregnable construction. These great walls,
in the interior of which are sometimes chambers and passages,
surround an amphitheatre of about a thousand feet in diameter.
In the amphitheatre are stone huts, the residences of the dun —
some of them of bee-hive shape, some of them of the shape of an
upturned boat. Tradition says that these great duns were erected
by the Firbolgs who maintained themselves along the western
fringe for long centuries after the Milesians possessed themselves
of the land. Moreover, in the second century of the Christian
era a new colony of Firbolgs is said to have arrived in Aran; a
tribe led by Angus, who, in that century, coming from the western
islands of Scotland (to which they had been driven long centuries
before) first settled in Meath, but, fleeing from an exacting king
there, went westward, and finally settled in Aran and on adjoining
portions of the mainland.

About the round towers, their origin and use, a more bitter
controversy has waged than about any other ancient Irish remains.
It had been the opinion of many, sustained by the researches of

STRUCTURAL ANTIQUITIES 303

some noted antiquarians, that the round towers were of oriental
ori^n, that they were temples of the sun-worship of ancient Ire-
land, and that they were erected long before the introduction of
Christianity. But the antiquarians now are pretty generally agreed
that they are of Christian origin always built as adjuncts to
churches, and erected after the marauding Danes had shown the
harassed ecclesiastics the need of some immediate, strong, and
easily defended, place of refuge for themselves, and of safety for
the sacred objects, and the rich objects of church art which the
Northmen constantly sought. The round towers of Ireland range
in height from about a hundred to a hundred and twenty feet ; they
are from twelve to twenty feet in external diameter at the base,
and a Httle narrower at the top. They are of six or seven storeys
high; with one window usually to each story — except in the upper-
most story which has four. The lowermost of these openings is
always about ten feet or more from the ground — giving good ad-
vantage over attackers. The walls are usually three and a half
to four feet thick.

There are still eighty round towers In Ireland, twenty of them
perfect. They are always found in connection with churches —
and almost invariably situated about twenty feet from the north-
west corner of the church — and with the door or lowermost win-
dow facing the church entrance.

The antiquarians to-day conclude that round towers began to
be erected at the end of the ninth and beginning o^ the tenth cen-
tury— in the period of peace that followed the death of the Dan-
ish king Turgesius, and the temporary loss of the Danish grip
upon Ireland. The first reference in the annals to a round tower
is in the year 950. It is upon the inference to be derived from
this fact, taken in connection with the activities of the Danes —
and that to be derived from the relation of the round towers to
the churches — ^that is built the now accepted theory of the Danish-
time origin of the round towers, as places of ecclesiastical refuge.

Almost all of the earliest Irish churches were of wood. The
Venerable Bede talks of the Irishman, St. Finan, erecting on the
English island of Lindisfarne, "a church entirely of wood, after
the manner of the Scots." Rarely indeed in the first few centuries
of Christianity in Ireland was any such building erected of stone —
the exceptions being the cases of small oratories or chapels, which,
like the oratory of Gallerus (in Kerry) were built of uncemented
stone with side walls gradually converging till they were joined by
a single stone at the top. It is in the seventh and eighth centuries

304 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

that the use of mortar and of dressed or partly dressed stone
shows in the erection of the occasional small chapels for which
stone was yet used.

It was practically in the tenth century that the use of stone for
building the large churches began. And it was only in the eleventh
and twelfth centuries that it became general. In these last-named
centuries the Romanesque style was introduced, and some beauti-
ful churches erected, like that of St. Caimin at Inniscaltra by Brian
Boru, and Cormac's chapel at Cashel.

In the Life of St. Malachy, written by his friend, the conti-
nental St. Bernard, we incidentally learn how rare, in some parts
of the island, were stone churches even then, in the twelfth cen-
tury. After Malachy had taken charge of Bangor — ^the old foun-
dation of St. Comgall — he first built a chapel "made indeed of
planed timber," says St. Bernard, "but well-jointed and compactly
put together, and for a Scottish work elegant enough." And later,
more ambitious, he astounded the territory by starting to build
a stone church. The ubiquitous pessimist was there to help Ma-
lachy along. St. Bernard describes the rude country-fellow turn-
ing up to laugh to scorn the idea of building a church of stone!
"What has come over you," says the fellow, "to undertake such
a novelty in this country? We are Scots, not Gauls. How are
you, a poor man, to finish it? Who will live to see it perfected?"
And so on, in the usual strain of the helpful hurler on the fence.

The handsome stone churches which began to be erected in
the early eleventh century — as soon as the country had been freed
from the scourging Danes — and which engrafted the Roman
arched style upon the Irish horizontal form, with the primitive
Irish inclined jambs, was well established when the Anglo-Nor-
mans invaded the country in the late twelfth century. And from
that time forward, for some centuries (till the Reformation be-
gan to make itself felt in Ireland) the Anglo-Norman barons and
the Irish chieftains vied with each other in the erection of many
magnificent churches and abbeys, the ruins of which are impres-
sive.

In the decorating of doorways and windows^ sculpture began
to show in the churches of the tenth century. But Irish sculpture
is best exemplified probably on the high crosses of the tenth,
eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries. There are some forty-
five of these high crosses still remaining, most of them very beau-
tiful. There was an Irish cross, now called the Celtic cross, de-
veloped about the tenth century, a compromise between the Latin
cross and the Greek cross, having the circle of the Greek cross

STRUCTURAL ANTIQUITIES 305

placed upon the shafts of the Latin. The sculpture on the high
crosses included carvings of the saints, scriptural scenes, judgment
scenes, royal processions, hunting scenes, stags at bay, horsemen,
chariots, etc.

The sculpture of the Irish at this period was infinitely superior
to that produced by their neighbours, the Welsh, the Anglo-Saxons,
and the Scottish. With these sculpture was a mere harsh, me-
chanical imitation. But the soul of the artist breathed through
the work of the Irish sculptor. Miss Margaret Stokes well de-
fines the difference :

"So total a dissimilarity of spirit and feeling for Art exists in the
works of these different countries, that it becomes impossible to con-
ceive their productions as belonging to the same school. It would
be difficult to find two works of Art more different in character than
the simple form of the Cross of Ualla in Clonmacnois, and the bar-
barous extravagance of the Scotch slab at Halkirk in Caithness.
Something more than archaeology is required to perceive this, and
to perceive the qualities which form the essential elements of the
individuality of Irish Art. It is not in the quantity, it is not even
in the nature of ornamental detail, that true merit lies; it is in its
use, and in that indefinable quality which, for want of better word,
we term feeling. It is unreasonable to call sculpture, however perfect,
which is merely encrusted on any object, ornament. Decoration is
beautiful only when found in its right place, when adding to the
effect of the fundamental form to be adorned; and when held in
subordination and subjection to the primary idea, a noble reserve of
power is felt to exist, which comes forth at the right time, and in
the right place, to aid in the expression of the essential elements of
the subject, emphasising its important points, and adding clearness
to the beauty of its outline.

"It is in such qualities that the Manx, Welsh, and some of the
Scottish stones are so deficient, as compared with the work upon the
sepulchral slabs of Clonmacnois, and Durrow, and other Christian
cemeteries in Ireland ; and the conclusion our experience would point
to is that such Art out of Ireland belongs to much the same date as
that seen in this country, but is in no essential element Irish, and
merely belongs to a style which overspread the three countries in
the ninth and tenth centuries, and which attained a more beautiful
result in Ireland, because in the hands of a people possessed of a fine
artistic instinct."

Petrie, Geo., LL.D. : The Origin and Uses of the Round Towers of Ire-
land.

■ Ecclesiastical Arch, of Ireland.

Stokes, Miss Margt. : Early Christian Art in Ireland.

3o6 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Early Christian Architecture in Ireland.

Joyce, P. W. : Social History of Ancient Ireland.
O'Curry, Eugene: Manuscript Materials of Irish History.

Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish.

Wakeman, Wm. F.: Handbook of Irish Antiquities, Pagan and Christian.
Ware's Works.

CHAPTER XXXV

VARIOUS ARTS OF ANCIENT IRELAND

Save that of the scribe, there was no other art in ancient Ire-
land carried to such beautiful perfection as that of the metal
worker. And we have, still remaining, hundreds of beautiful pieces
of this work.

Those remaining are in gold, silver, copper, bronze, findruine
(a kind of white bronze) and brass. Of Irish gold-wrought ob-
jects alone, there are in the National Museum of Dublin twelve
times the weight of all the ancient gold objects from. England,
Scotland and Wales, collected in the British Museum.

These ancient objects are of various kinds; articles of personal
adornment, bell-shrines, cumdachs or shrines for books, croziers,
etc.

Among the personal ornaments we have brooches, bracelets,
rings, necklaces, torques (twisted ribbons of gold or silver) for
wearing around the neck, minns or diadems, crowns, amulets, ear-
rings, beads, balls, crescents, gorgets, the niam-lann (a flexible
plate of burnished gold, silver, or findruine worn around the fore-
head), et cetera — a lavish wealth of beautiful ornaments exqui-
sitely wrought, which, after a long count of centuries, in some cases
thirteen, fifteen and twenty, tell us the story of the rarely skilled,
noble artificers of Ireland, whose genius in metal was not only
unsurpassed, but even unequalled, in western Europe. Of a bronze
ornament two thousand years old and of which there are some
fragments in the Petrie Museum, Kemble (in Horae Ferales)
says: "For beauty of design and execution they may challenge
comparison with any specimen of cast bronze work that it has
ever been my fortune to see." We have many beautiful bronzes
of the pre-Christian period, which, in their way, rival the beauty
of the gold and silver work of several centuries later.

And of the very ancient gorgets wrought in gold. Dr. Joyce
says: "They are so astonishingly fine, and show such extraordi-
nary skill of manipulation, that it is difficult to understand how
they could hav^ been produced by mere handwork, by moulds,

307

3o8 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

hammers, and punches. Yet they must have been done in that
way." He quotes Sir William Wilde as pronouncing of them:

"It may safely be asserted that for both design and execution, they
are undoubtedly the most gorgeous and magnificent speciitiens of gold
work discovered in any part of the world."

In a country in which, in faraway pre-Christian times, such
rarely beautiful ornaments were wrought, surely it needed little
poetic license for the old file, when describing Maine, the son of
Ailill and Medb, setting out to seek the hand of the beautiful Ferb
of Ulster, thus to picture it:

"There were seven greyhounds attending his (Prince Maine's)
chariot, in chains of silver, with balls of gold upon each chain, so
that the tingling of the balls against the chains would be music suf-
ficient (for the march). There was no known colour that was not
to be seen upon these greyhounds. There were seven Cornaire
(trumpeters), with corna (horns) of gold and of silver, wearing
clothes of many colours, and all having fair-yellow hair. Three
druids also went in front of them, who wore minda (diadems) of
silver upon their heads and speckled cloaks over their dresses, and
who carried shields of bronze ornamented with red copper. Three
Cruitire (harpers) accompanied them; each of kingly aspect, and
arrayed in a crimson cloak. It was so they arrived on the green
of Cruachan."

Or for the ancient seanachie, telling us that in Tara there
were "one hundred and fifty drinking vessels, ornamented with
gold, silver, and carmogal" (possibly enamel).

After studying the wonderful specimens of the ancient metal-
work which we possess, we can well understand why it was that
nobles and saints oftentimes devoted themselves to the profession
of metal-working, and also why it was that the laws rank all fol-
lowers of the profession with nobles. And, it is worth noting in
this connection, that it was from Irish ideas, springing from Irish
minds, and by Irish hands in Ireland, that the rare articles in gold
and silver were rarely wrought. In corroboration of their native
conception and origin. Dr. Joyce in his Social History of Ireland
quotes the decision of a Continental expert, M. Solomon Reinach,
who had studied the Irish gold ornaments in the National Mu-
seum: "Of objects of gold, attesting imitation of Greek and
Roman models, there is no trace."

The objects that are of pre-Christian origin are in general

VARIOUS ARTS OF ANCIENT IRELAND 309

easily distinguished from those of Christian Ireland by the dif-
ference in pattern. The ornamentation in pagan days consisted
chiefly of the circle, spiral, lozenge, and parallels. Under the
hand of the Christian artist there developed new patterns the most
characteristic being the divergent spiral or trumpet pattern, knot-
ting and interlacing.

Of all the many beautiful articles of personal adornment that
remain to us from those ancient times in Ireland, probably the
most luxurious, and very frequently the most beautiful (though
far from being the most ancient) are the delgs, or brooches — ^the
size and costliness of some of which may be judged from the Dal
Riada brooch, which, accidentally dug up in an Antrim field in the
middle of the last century, contained two and one-third ounces of
pure gold, was five inches long, and two and an eighth inches in
diameter.

But for beauty, none of them all equals the Tara brooch. This
brooch, found by a child on the strand near Drogheda, is of white
bronze. Both the face of the brooch and the back are overlaid
with beautiful patterns, wrought in an Irish filigree or formed by
amber, glass and enamel. These patterns of which there are no
less than seventy-six different kinds in this single article are
wrought in such minute perfection that a powerful lens is needed
to perceive and appreciate the wonderful perfection of detail. All
of the many designs are in perfect harmony; and the beauty of
the whole can only be realised by actual sight and study of the
remarkable object itself. There are many other handsome an-
cient brooches, such as the Ardagh brooch, the Roscrea brooch,
et cetera — each with peculiar beauties of its own, showing some
point or points of superiority to the Tara brooch, but none of them
equalling it in total effect.

Only by a very different kind of object, the celebrated Ardagh
chalice, is the Tara brooch surpassed in richness and beauty of
workmanship. A partial description of this celebrated chalice is"
here extracted from Miss Stokes' detailed description in her
"Early Christian Art in Ireland" : -

"This Irish chalice combines classic beauty of form with the
most exquisite examples of almost every variety of Celtic ornamenta-
tion. The cup is composed of the following metals: gold, silver,
bronze, brass, copper, and lead. The ornaments cut on the silver
bowl consist of an inscription, interlaced patterns terminating in
dogs* heads, and at the bottom a circular band of the Greek pat-
tern. The mode of ornamentation is peculiar to this cup, being done
with a chisel and hammer, as indicated by the lines being raised at

310 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

each side, which could only be produced in die manner described.
Round the cup runs a band composed of two semi-cylindrical rings
of silver, ornamented with small annular dots punched out with a
hollow punch. The space between the rings is filled by twelve
plaques of gold repousse work, with a very beautiful ornamentation
of fine filigree wire-work wrought on the front of the repousse
ground, and carrying out, in its most delicate execution, the inter-
laced pattern associated with the art of this country. Between the
plaques are twelve round enamelled beads.

"The handles of this chalice are composed of enamels (similar to
those in the borders) and plaques of gold filigree work of the same
style, but different in design. Each handle has four circular pieces
of blue glass, underneath which the rivets are secured which fasten
the handles to the bowl. Round the enamels was a circle of amber,
divided into eight spaces by pieces of bronze, which has been eaten
away. One of the enamels has a circle of gold grains at the top,
which has been pressed in while the glass was in fusion. The two
circular ornaments on the side of the bowl are of gold filigree work
of the very finest kind, with an enamelled boss in the centre; the
frames which hold them are of silver. There are four settings at
equal distances, which are receivers of the rivets rfiat secure it to
the bowl. In the settings were two pieces of blue glass (the same
as in the handles), and two pieces of amber, which have fallen out.

"The stem and supports of the bowl are of bronze metal, gilt,
beautifully carved in interlaced and knotted patterns. They are at-
tached to the bowl by a bronze gilt ball, with a strong square tang,
and most ingeniously fastened by an iron bolt, which secures all to-
gether.

"The foot is of silver, circular, with a framework on the outer
rim, having eight spaces, which are filled alternately with gold and
bronze gilt plaques of open work; behind them pieces of mica are
inserted, which throw out more clearly the very beautiful pierced
designs with which these plaques are ornamented. The interme-
diate spaces contain enamels (inferior to those in the upper part of
the bowl), set in bronze.

"In the inside of the foot of the bowl is a circular crystal, round
which there has been a circle of amber, divided into twelve tablets,
with a bronze division between each tablet; surrounding this is a
circle in gold filigree of the same style and workmanship as those
already described. The next circle had tablets of amber, but they
have all fallen out. In the space between this and the silver is a
circular bronze plate, highly carved and gilt, in which are fine
enamels in green.

"The extreme outer edge, like the reverse side, is divided into
eight spaces, in which are pieces somewhat similar to the gold plaques
on the opposite side, with this difference, that six are in silver, and
two in copper; two of the silver pieces are of the most beautiful

VARIOUS ARTS OF ANCIENT IRELAND 311

plated wire-work I have ever met with. Between those spaces arc
square pieces of blue glass, underneath which are ornamented pieces
of wrought silver, which give them a brilliant appearance when in
strong light. Between the circles which form the upper and under
surfaces of the rim of the foot are plates of lead to secure and give
weight to the whole. The enamels on the foot of the cup are of a
coarse kind, the pattern being impressed in the glass, and the enamel
melted into it. The number of pieces of which the cup is composed
amounts to 354, including 20 rivets.

"The ornamental designs upon this cup belong to the Celtic
School of Art, which, according to Dr. Petrie, reached its highest
perfection as regards metal-work in this country in the tenth and
eleventh centuries. Of these designs there are about forty different
varieties, all showing a freedom of inventive power and play of fancy
only to be equalled by the work upon the so-called Tara brooch.

"There are two varieties of birds, vdth heads, necks, and legs
elongated, and interlaced; and also animal forms interlaced. There
are four dragons* heads, with sharp teeth which bear a strong re-
semblance to drawings of similar objects in the 'Book of Armagh':
also dogs, whose long protruding tongues form a knot above their
heads.

"Besides these ornamental designs there are two pieces of plaited
silver wire, bearing a strong resemblance to Trichinopoli work."

In the remains of beautiful metal work which we have, rep-
resentative of various parts of the early ages, there seems to be,
strange to say, a gap, when we come to the early Christian cen-
turies of Irish history. We have the magnificent bronzes of the
various pre-Christian ages, and again the truly extraordinary work,
the brooches, et cetera, of the gold and silver smiths of the tenth to
the twelfth centuries — ^but little or nothing between. Dr. Petrie,
in considering the absence of ecclesiastical shrines, representative
of those early Christian centuries, concludes — and other author-
ities agree with him — that the raiding of the Danes may account
for this. Before the coming of the raiders he thinks there were
few of the churches without beautiful shrines. Both directly and
indirectly the Danish raiding might also account for the lack of
profane objects of art, representative of those centuries — ^the tran-
sition period between that which is distinctively of the pagan time
and that which is distinctively of the Christian. During the Dan-
ish time the annals are filled with such suggestive references as,
for instance, they "devastated Clonmacnois and took therefrom
great spoil of gold and silver, and many precious ornaments."
(Annals of Ulster.)

Of the latter span there are in existence many wonderful bell

312 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

shrines, like that of St. Patrick's bell, St. Cualanus' bell — and
shrines like the shrine of St. Mogue, the cross of Cong, the crozier
of St. Dympna, the crozier of Liosmor, the crozier of Clonmac-
nois, et cetera, all of them exquisitely displaying the extraordinarily
beautiful work of the artists of those days. The shrine of the
bell of St. Patrick, studded with gems, has silver plates ornamented
with scrolls, and has handsome golden filigree knot-work. Animal
forms on the sides are drawn out fantastically and doubled and
twisted into interlaced scrolls.

The making of beautiful shrines called cumdachs, for prized
books, rarely occurred in any part of the world except Ireland,
where it was comparatively common.

These book shrines, made for particularly prized and valu-
able books which had sacred association, were tastefully wrought,
and richly ornamented — usually by saintly artificers. In the Mar-
tyrology of Donegal, for instance, it is said of St. Ernin whose
festival is on August i8th: "Ernin, i. e., Mernog, of Fotharta of
Leinster, a celebrated artificer. It was he who made 150 bells,
100 croziers, and cumdachs for 60 gospels."

The cumdachs were being made from the eighth century to
the late twelfth, and even later. Some of the finest and most
celebrated cumdachs are those of the Book of Kells, the Book
of Armagh, the Book of Durrow, the Domnach Airgid (contain-
ing St. Patrick's Gospels), the Cathach or Battlebook of the
O'Donnells (containing St. Colm Cille's Psalter), Dimma's book,
the Book of St. Moling, the Stowe Missal, and of St. Molaise's
Gospels.

Ordinarily the books of those days were carefully kept in
leathern satchels upon the embossing of which, in rare patterns,
the plentiful artists of those days bestowed much thought and
time and skill.

But the first of the artists and probably the rarest of them, the
man who blazed the way for both the leather worker and the
metal artificer, was the scribe, who, in copying the sacred books
was in the habit of ornamenting their pages and decorating their
margins with the Irish knotted and interlaced patterns, and also
of beginning the chapters with an initial of elaborate and Intricate
design, frequently illuminated in colours that time does not fade.
In decorating and illuminating the old manuscript books of Ire-
land he exhibited skill and genius unparalleled In the world else-
where.

The work of these artist scribes was such as to compel Giraldus
Cambrensis — ^who would rather libel Ireland than laud her — to

VARIOUS ARTS OF ANCIENT IRELAND 313

write of an Irish manuscript volume which he saw in Kildare, that
it seemed to him more like the work of angels than of men. He

says :

**If you look closely with all acuteness of sight you can command,
and examine the inmost secrets of that wondrous art, you discover
such subtle, such fine and closely wrought lines, twisted and inter-
woven in such intricate knots, and adorned with such fresh and
brilliant colours, that you will readily acknowledge the whole to be
result of angelic rather than human skill. The more frequently I
behold it, the more diligently I examine it, the more numerous are
the beauties I discover in it, the more I am lost in renewed admira-
tion of it. Neither could Apelles himself execute the like: and in-
deed they rather seem formed and painted by a hand not mortal."

The Irish scribes in the sixth, the seventh, and the eighth cen-
turies carried their art to a perfection which to-day surprises, and
sometimes amazes, artists, scholars and critics of all nations. An
eminent German authority upon such work. Dr. Waagen, Con-
servator of the Royal Museum of Berlin, speaking of the old
seventh century Irish Book of Kells says:

"The ornamental pages, borders, and initial letters exhibit sudi
a rich variety of beautiful and peculiar designs, so admirable a taste
in the arrangement of the colours, and such an uncommon perfec-
tion of detail, that one feels absolutely struck with amazement."

And the English authority, Westwood, in his Palaeographia
Sacra Pictoria says of this Irish art:

"At a period when the pictorial art may be said to have been
almost extinct in Italy and Greece, and indeed scarcely to have existed
in other parts .of Europe — ^namely, from the fifth to the end of the
eighth century — a style of art had been originated, cultivated, and
brought to a marvellous state of perfection, in these islands, absolutely
distinct from that of any other part of the civilised world — and
which having been carried abroad by numerous Irish and Anglo-
Saxon missionaries — was adopted and imitated in the schools founded
by Charlemagne and in the monasteries established or visited by the
former, many of which in after ages were the most famous seats of
learning."

Furthermore, Westwood quotes on the same subject the words
of Digby Watt (whom he styles "one of the most accomplished
living artists") :

314 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

"In delicacy of handling and minute but faultless execution the
whole range of palaeography offers nothing comparable to these early
Irish manuscripts and those produced in the same style in England—
the latter being the work of Irish monks, or Saxon pupils of those
monks."

The Irish manuscript books of the early ages — ^both those in
Ireland and the many treasured in a score of the great libraries
of Europe — eloquently tell to these late ages not merely the mar-
vellous skill of the Irish scribes, at home in Ireland and wander-
ing everywhere over the Continent, but likewise tell of the highly
advanced state of culture (of which this was the flowering) that
obtained in Ireland fourteen hundred years ago. And they, fur-
thermore, prove the certainty of preceding centuries of culture
needful to account for such perfect efflorescence.

Great were the numbers of learned and pious men who de-
voted their lives then to the making of beautiful books, copying
them in that penmanship whose perfection was, not merely un-
equalled, but even unapproached, by any other people — and which
throughout foreign countries made Ireland, already remarkable,
for her learning, pre-eminently so for her caligraphy. For sev-
eral centuries it was the Irish style of caligraphy, introduced by
the Irish teachers, which obtained throughout the European
countries.

Ferdinand Keller says that the high degree of cultivation at-
tained in Irish penmanship was not the result of mere individual
excellence, but of the emulation of numerous schools of writing,
backed by the improvements of many generations.

The activity in copying books then, and the number of scribes
engaged in the work, must have been enormous. When we find
recorded in the Four Masters' chronicle of one century (the eighth)
the deaths of no less than forty scribes so pre-eminent as to find
place in a nation's annals nine hundred years later, we may in
some measure imagine how vast must have been the ranks of ordi-
nary workers. And as a corollary from that we may, to some
extent, conceive of the multitude of the books of ancient Eirinn.

Miss Stokes accounts for the style of ornamentation and illu-
mination of these books by an art wave which she says originally
came out of the southeast of Europe, and swept over the Continent
northwestward, finally breaking upon the shores of Ireland — and
remaining with Ireland when all traces of it had vanished in the
countries over which it had passed. And in the Carlovingian
period, when Irish monks and teachers were thronging abroad,
the wave, reversing itself, rolled backward over its former course.

VARIOUS ARTS OF ANCIENT IRELAND 315

Traces of this peculiar Irish art, knotwork, and interlaced pat-
terns, most suggestive of the Irish designs, may be found in the
very oldest churches in Lombardy, she says, and in the second and
third century churches of Syria and Georgia. She acknowledges,
however, that if her theory be correct, Ireland so modified the
character of this eastern wave of art, as to evolve from it some-
thing distinctively Irish.

Dr. Ferdinand Keller as a result of his study of the subject
came to the conclusion that because of striking similarity of tech-
nique and peculiarities of colouring, Egypt was the cradle of Irish
art. We know that early Irish holy men were in Egypt, and some
of the old records show that Egyptian monks came to Ireland; the
Irish monasteries, Keller says, were framed precisely after the
model of the Egyptian ones, even the habit of the hermits dwell-
ing in caves was brought therefrom. The productions of Alexan-
drian artists, he says, found their way to Irish monasteries. And
the serpentine band found in this Irish art work appears in the
very oldest Egyptian and Ethiopian manuscripts, "with similarity
of colour and combination, truly astonishing." He finds, more-
over, that the spirit of the Irish work is not the spirit of the west:
"In all these ornaments there breathes a peculiar spirit foreign
to the people of the west: in them is something mysterious which
imparts to the eye a certain feeling of uneasiness and suspense
which must have originated in the east and could not possibly
have been the creation of a fancy which derived its nourishment
and stimulus from natural objects so devoid of colour and form
as present themselves in northern Ireland and the rocky isles of
western Scotland.

Romilly Allen's opinion (in his work on Celtic Art) would
sustain Miss Stokes and Dr. Keller in their theory that Irish Art,
so called, did not originate in Ireland. He holds that the Celt
never originated his art ideas, but had a genius for attaching the
ideas of others, and giving them such a strong Celtic tinge as en-
tirely changed the outward character and produced something
apparently original.

Though many of the ancient Irish manuscripts are lit up with
truly wonderful examples of the illuminating art, there is not in
all of them, anything finer or more wonderful, nor is there to be
found in any of the ancient books of the world anything more
beautiful, than the famous monogram of Christ in the Book of
Kells.

That monogram, which occupies a full page, is preceded by
five illuminated pages, introducing the Gospel of St. Matthew,

3i6 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

every one of which is in itself of much beauty. The series is
crowned by this one expressing the name of Christ. Miss Stokes
puts It:

"In these six pages there is a gradual increase of splendour, the
culminating point of which is reached in this monogram of Christ,
and upon it is lavished, with all the fervent devotion of the Irish
scribe every variety of design to be found in Celtic art, so that the
name which is the epitome of his (the artist's) faith is also the
epitome of his country's art."

In examining this remarkable monogram a powerful micro-
scope is needed to bring out all the beauties that are difficult of
discovery to the naked eye, and to follow the magic pen of the
artist, through all his minute, intricate, elaborate windings, twist-
ings and knottings. This will be appreciated when it is mentioned
that on one piece of a ribbon pattern of this work, in a space three
quarters of an inch by half an inch, Westwood counted no less
than one hundred and fifty-eight interfacings I

Of the superiority of early Irish music, something has already
been said in these pages. Giraldus Cambrensis who was acquainted
with the music of various nations, said, as a result of his study of
the Irish music, "Its melody is filled up, and Its harmony Is pro-
duced by a rapidity so sweet, by so unequalled a parity of sound,
and by so discordant a concord." And of the Irish musicians:

"They are incomparably skilful beyond all other nations I have
ever seen. For their manner of playing on these instruments, unlike
that of the Britons (Welsh) to which I am accustomed, is not slow
and harsh, but lively and rapid, while the melody is both sweet and
sprightly. It is astonishing that in so complex and rapid a move-
ment of the fingers the musical proportions (as to time) can be pre-
served; and that throughout the difficult modulations on their va-
rious instruments, the harmony is completed with such a sweet ra-
pidity. They enter into a movement and conclude it in so delicate
a manner, and tinkle the little strings so sportively under the deeper
tones of the bass strings — they delight so delicately, and soothe with
such gentleness, that the perfection of their art appears in the con-
cealment of art," The Welshman, Powell, tells us that in 1078
Gryffith ap Conan, king of Wales, "brought over with him from
Ireland divers cunning musicians into Wales, who devised in a man-
ner the instrumental music now used there."

The Danes borrowed their harp music from Ireland. Ire-
land was, in the earliest ages, the school of music for Scotland.

VARIOUS ARTS OF ANCIENT IRELAND 317

It continued to be down till a recent period. The Scotchman,
Jamieson, writing in the last century, says:

**Within the memory of persons still living, the school for higher
poetry and music was Ireland. And thither professional men were
sent to be accomplished in these arts."

Walker in his Irish Bards quotes Vincentio Gallilei as stating
that Dante said the harp was first introduced to Italy from Ire-
land. A Continental writer on the Crusades is quoted as testify-
ing: "We may well think that all the concert of Christendom in
these wars would have been as discord, had the Irish harp been
absent."

And from Bacon, Walker quotes: "No harp hath a sound so
melting, and so prolonged as the Irish harp." It is quite prob-
able that Moengal, at St. Gall, had the Irish harp taught to Tuo-
tllo and others, when he was making that school famous for its
music.

Geminiami, says D' Alton, found no music as original as the
Irish "on this side of the Alps." And Handel who called our
bard Carolan the Irish Orpheus, said he would rather be the au-
thor of Eihlin a run (Eileen aroon) than all the music he ever
composed.

The high esteem in which music was held in very early Ireland
is shown in a thousand legends: among others, in that one which
has already been told of how St. Patrick, after Cas Corach the
son of Bobd Derg had enchanted him on his Cran Ciuil, prom-
ised that the professors of his art should be at all times the bed-
fellows of kings.

The musical instruments were only a less esteemed and a little
less adoringly cared for than the musicians. In the story of the
Tain, when Fraech goes to court Findabar, daughter of Medb,
the three harpers that went with him were the three sons of the
famous Uaithne, harper of the Tuatha De Danann.

"This was the condition of their harp. There were harpbags of
the skins of otters about them, ornamented with coral, with an orna-
mentation of gold and of silver over that, lined inside with snow-
white roebuck skins; and these again overlaid with black-grey strips
(of skin) ; and linen cloths, as white as the swan's coat, wrapped
around the strings. Harps of gold, silver, and findruine, with fig-
ures of serpents, and birds, and greyhounds upon them. These
figures were made of gold and silver. According as the strings vi-
brated (these figures) ran around the men."

3i8 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Stokes, Miss Margt. : Early Christian Art in Ireland.

Joyce, P. W. : Social History of Ireland.

O'Curry, Eugene: Manners and Customs of Ancient Ireland.

■ Manuscript Materials of Irish History.

D'Alton, Jno.: Prize Essay on Irish History (Proc R. I. A.).

Irish Caligraphy (Ulster Jnl. of Arch.).

Gilbert, Sir Jno.: Facsimiles of the Natl. MSS. of Ireland.

Keller, Dr. Ferdinand: Illumination and Facsimiles from Ancient Irish

MSS. in the Libraries of Switzerland.
Wattenbach: "Die Kongregation der Schottenklostef in Deutschland."

Translated by Dr. Reeves, with notes, in the Ulster Journal of Archaeol.,

voL VII.
Westwood: Palaeographia Sacra Pictoria.
Petric, Geo.: The Ancient Music of Ireland.
Walker's Irish Bards.

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE ENGLISH INVASION

It was In 117 1 that Henry the Second Invaded Ireland.

Seventeen years earlier he projected an invasion. And from
the newly elected English Pope, Nicholas Breakspeare, Adrian the
Fourth, he had then received an approving Bull. He had repre-
sented to Adrian that in Ireland morals had become corrupt, and
religion almost extinct, and his purpose was to bring the barbarous
nation within the fold of the faith and under church discipline.*

But first the opposition of his mother, and then political com-
plications, caused Henry to postpone his project.

For centuries now, dispute unending has raged around the
two questions whether Ireland had lapsed into irreligion as rep-
resented, and whether the Papal Bull was genuine. Undoubtedly,
the centuries of the Danish terror had had disastrous effect upon
religion in the Island — and the question arises how far had reli-
gious Ireland recovered itself in the century and a half since the
Danish power was broken. Those whose duty It was to sustain
Henry's claim paint a discouraging picture. But Irish defenders
say their picture Is purposely false. In reply they point to the

^To which Pope Adrian replied:

"Adrian, bishop and servant of the servants of God, to the most dear son in
Christ, the illustrious king of England, greeting, health, and apostolical benediction.

"Thy greatness, as is becoming a Catholic prince, is laudably and successfully
employed in thought and intention, to propagate a glorious name upon earth, and
lay up in heaven the rewards of a happy eternity, by extending the boundaries of
the church, and making known to nations which are uninstructed, and still ignorant
of the Qiristian faith, its truths and doctrine, by rooting up the seeds of vice from
the land of the Lord and to perform this more efficaciously, thou seekest the coun-
sel and protection of the Apostolical See, in which undertaking, the more exalted
thy design will be, united with prudence, the more propitious, we trust, will be
thy progress under a benign Providence, since a happy issue and end are always
the result of what has been undertaken from an ardour of faith, and a love of
religion.^

"It is not, indeed, to be doubted, that the kingdom of Ireland, and every island
upon which Christ the sun of justice hath shone, and which has received the prin-
ciples of the Christian faith, belong of right to St Peter and to the holy Roman
church (which thy majesty likewise admits), from whence we the more fully im-
plant in them the seed of faith, that seed which is acceptable to God, and to which
we, after a minute investigation, consider that a conformity should be required by
us the more rigidly. Thou, dearest son in Christ, hast likewise signified to us,

319

320 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

wonderful work done during this period for the rehabilitation of
religion, by the great Primates Cellach, Malachi, and Gelasius;
and also the holy St. Lawrence O'Toole; to the synods that were
held; to the many beautiful churches and abbeys that were being
erected; and to the number of Irish kings, who, resigning their
thrones entered monasteries and devoted themselves to God.
Many were the princes who went on pilgrimage then. Holy men
devoted to the religious life were also flocking abroad to join the
noted Irish communities in Germany, that were propagating the
faith over Central Europe.

That the standard of learning in the schools was held high is
evident from the fact that Primate Gelasius and twenty-six bishops,
at the Synod of Clonard a few years before the English invasion,
decreed that only graduates of the University of Armagh (which
was directly under Gelasius) should be appointed professors of
theology in the schools of Ireland. And it will be recalled how
that Adrian the Fourth himself heaped eulogy upon his Irish tutor
in the University of Paris, the holy and learned Irishman, Mari-
anus, Professor of the Liberal Arts there. And any one who im-
partially studies the subject can hardly avoid the conclusion that
religion in Ireland in the twelfth century, though very far from
occupying the shining place that it did before the coming of the
Danes, must again have become a living issue.

A most convincing piece of evidence in point is the admission
of Giraldus Cambrensis, tutor or secretary of Prince John, a man
not only in the employ of the conquerors, but notoriously pos-
sessed of much anti-Irish prejudice, a man too who travelled over
a third of Ireland and must have known whereof he spoke. Cam-
that for the purpose of subjecting the people of Ireland to laws, and eradicating
vice from among them, thou art desirous of entering that island ; and also of pay-
ing for each house an annual tribute of one penny to St. Peter; and of preserving
the privileges of its churches pure and undefiled. We, therefore, with approving
and favourable views commend thy pious and laudable desire, and to aid thy under-
taking, we give to thy petition our grateful and willing consent, that for the ex-
tending the boundaries of the church, and restraining the prevalence of vice, the
improvement of morals, the implanting of virtue, and propagation of the Christian
religion, thou enter that island, and pursue those things which shall tend to the
honour of God, and salvation of his people; and that they may receive thee vvith
honour, and revere thee as their lord; the privilege of their churches continuing
pure and unrestrained, and the annual tribute of one penny from each house re-
maining secure to St. Peter and the holy Roman Church. If thou therefore deem
what thou hast projected in mind, possible to be completed, study to instil good
morals into that people, and act so that thou thyself, and such persons as thou
wilt judge competent from their faith, words, and actions, to be instrumental in
advancing the honour of the Irish church, propagate and promote religion, and
the faith of Christ, to advance thereby the honour of God, and salvation of souls,
that thou mayest merit an everlasting reward of happiness hereafter, and establish
on earth a name of glory, which shall last for ages to come.**

THE ENGLISH INVASION 321

brensis says : "The clergy of that country are highly to be praised
for their religion and among other virtues with which they are
endowed, their chastity forms a peculiar feature. Those who are
entrusted with the divine service do not leave the church but apply
themselves wholly to the reciting of psalms, prayers and readings.
They are extremely temperate in their food, and never eat till
towards evening when their Office is ended." When the clergy of
a country draw from an invading enemy such remarkable testi-
mony to their religious ardour, it is difficult to believe that the
people from whom these clergy were drawn, wallowed in the mire
of irreligion.*

But if we supposed Ireland to be irreligious then, strange in-
deed would be the choice of an apostle in Henry, a man of vicious
life, a supporter of anti-Popes, and reasonably suspected of, and
all but excommunicated for, instigating the murder of the holy
Thomas a Becket.

Those who contend that the Bull was an English fabrication
for impressing the irreligious Irish and making easy their conquest
point to the fact (among other assumed proofs) that the most
ancient copies of the document discovered lack both date and sig-
nature. They say that both Adrian's "Bull" and the later con-
firmatory letter ascribed to Pope Alexander the Third,' exhibit
evidence of being fabricated by the same hand — just as they were
published at the same time, namely, at the Synod, in 1173, con-
voked by order of Henry. But the arguments of those who con-
tend that these were forgeries seem to crumble when met by the
fact that they were published in the lifetime of Alexander, and
were not then disowned or contradicted.

On Dervorgilla, the wife of TIghernan O'Rourke, prince of
Breffni, is placed the indirect, and on Diarmuid MacMurrough,
king of Leinster, the direct, odium of bringing in the English.

* A while later, after the island had been wasted by wars, the British Stanihurst
bears this testimony: "The tnajority of the Irish are very religious. Their priests
are dignified, and by their wholesome admonition, the consciences of the people who
are docile and respectful are very easily worked upon."

'"Alexander, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his most dear son in
Christ, the illustrious king of England, health and apostolic benediction.

"Forasmuch as those things which are known to have been reasonably granted
by our predecessors, deserve to be confirmed in lasting stability, we, adhering to
the footsteps of Pope Adrian, and regarding the result of our gift to you (the
annual tax of one penny from each house being secured to St. Peter and the holy
Roman church), confirm and ratify the same, considering that its impurities being'
cleansed, that barbarous nation which bears the name of Christian, may by your
grace, assume the comeliness of morality, and that a system of discipline being
introduced into her heretofore unregulated church, she may, through you, effeo
tually attain with the name the benefits of Christianity."

322 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Dervorgilla eloped with MacMurrough — when both were of ages
not usual to the principals in such escapade, for she was over forty
and he over sixty at the time. The tradition is that Dervorgilla
invited MacMurrough to carry her off, on occasion when her hus-
band had gone on pilgrimage to St. Patrick's Purgatory in Loch
Dearg (Tir-Conaill), and MacMurrough quickly complied.*

Some however say that MacMurrough forced her off against
her will. Anyhow, when being carried off she cried out and
screamed, either in seeming or real protest. It was in 1152 that
this abduction occurred. In the following year O'Rourke was
able to move the Ard-Righ, Roderick O'Connor of Connaught,
to go against MacMurrough, which he did, punishing his prov-
ince, and bringing away from him Dervorgilla.^

Again, thirteen years later, when MacMurrough's strong

■* Moore imbeds the tradition, in one of his songs :

The valley lay smiling before me,

Where lately I left her behind;
Yet I trembled and something hung o'er me

That sadden'd the joy of mind.
I look'd for the lamp which, she told me,

Should shine when her pilgrim return'd ;
But, though darkness began to enfold me,

No lamp from the battlements burn'd.

I flew to her chamber — 'twas lonely,

As if the loved tenant lay dead ; —
Ah, would it were death, and death only!

But no, the young false one had fled.
And there hung the lute that could soften

My very worst pains into bliss.
While the hand that had waked it so often

Now throbb'd to a proud rival's kiss.

There was a time, falsest of women !

When Breffni's good sword would have sought
That man, through a million of foemen,

Who dared but to wrong thee in thought!
While now — O degenerate daughter

Of Erin, how fallen is thy fame !
And through ages of bondage and slaughter

Our country shall bleed for thy shame.

Already the curse is upon her.

And strangers her valleys profane;
They come to divide — ^to dishonour.

And tyrants they long will remain.
But onward I — the green banner rearing.

Go, flesh every sword to the hilt ;
On our side is Virtue and Erin,

On theirs is the Saxon and Guilt.

■5 She afterwards entered the Convent at Mellefont and devoted the remainder
of a long life to the service of God.

THE ENGLISH INVASION 323

northern ally O'Loughlin of Tir-Eoghan died, the injured
O'Rourke with Ard-Righ Roderick, the king of the Danes of
Dublin, and many Leinster chiefs who hated MacMurrough for
his tyranny, went once more against MacMurrOugh, overcame,
and banished him. He fled oversea to Britain, and rested not
till he reached Henry II of England who was then fighting in
Aquitaine. This king he entreated to aid him in Ireland. The
English king, who could not then comply, gave Diarmuid letters
authorising any of Henry's subjects who so wished to go to Ire-
land to aid him. MacMurrough had these letters publicly read
in the market-place in Bristol. Richard de Clare the Norman-
Welsh Earl of Pembroke popularly known as Strongbow, a bold
and daring warrior, but also a spendthrift now nursing broken
fortunes, was interested in the prospect of repairing his fortunes
in Ireland. MacMurrough tempted him with the offer of his beau-
tiful daughter Aoife in marriage, and the heirship of the Leinster
kingdom. Strongbow, however, being then in disfavour with
Henry, feared to go until he had got express permission and ap-
proval from his monarch. But in the meantime he recommended
that some of his close relatives should help MacMurrough. And
de Clare's half-brothers, the knights Robert Fitz Stephen and
Maurice Fitz Gerald, undertaking to go to his aid in the spring,
MacMurrough now quietly returned and spent the winter in the
Monastery of St. Madog at Ferns.

In May, 11 69, with a small but efficient body of thirty knights
in full armour, sixty horsemen in half armour, and three hundred
archers, Fitz Stephen (and his Uncle Herve de Mont Maurice)
landed at Bannow, Wexford — and another Knight Maurice de
Prendergast with a company of about three hundred. The main
body of the common fighters were Flemings. On receiving the
news of their landing, MacMurrough raised a body of five hun-
dred from among his Leinster subjects and joined them. And
together they marched against the Danish city of Wexford, which,
after repulsing two assaults, capitulated to the strange army with
Its armoured horses and horsemen and its wonderfully skilled and
disciplined soldiers. MacMurrough bestowed the city upon Fitz
Stephen, and settled near-by lands upon de Prendergast and de
Mont Maurice.

Surrounding princes heard with dismay the news of the new
kind of fighters that MacMurrough had brought In, and the won-
derful skill and discipline which made three of them as good as a
hundred. To make matters worse MacMurrough added to his

324 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

army some two thousand soldiers who were in the capitulated city.
Yet this did not deter his enemy MacGioUa Padraic, king of Os-
sory, against whom MacMurrough now marched, putting up a
struggle from which MacMurrough and the Norman-Welsh and
their Flemings had much difficulty winning out. But the Chiefs of
Diarmuid's own Leinster met him with submission — excepting only
O'Toole and O'Faelan, whom he went against and wasted and
spoiled — before he again rested at Ferns.

The Ard-Righ and princes of the other provinces looked on
inactive. The Four Masters say, "And they set nothing by the
Flemings." In almost every century of Ireland's history merce-
naries had been brought in from abroad by one prince or another
to help in his battles against a neighbouring Irish enemy. And
now every prince, occupied as usual with his own problems, was
not much concerned about what did not immediately affect his own
territory.

Diarmuid went against the Danish city of Dublin, but had
to content him with getting hostages and lavish presents of gold
and silver.

Roderick O'Connor at length took alarm, gathered an army
and marched against MacMurrough, and his mercenaries. Mac-
Murrough and Fitz Stephen, however, met him with offer of nego-
tiation instead of battle. Roderick commanded that MacMur-
rough should make submission and that the foreigners should at
once depart for Britain. MacMurrough readily accepted the first
condition, giving his own son as hostage — ^but only secretly agreed
(or rather pretended to agree) that he would manage to get the
foreigners out of the country quietly and leisurely. Then Rod-
erick acknowledged MacMurrough as King of Leinster.

MacMurrough having got needed peace, pursued his own plan.
He was now fired with ambition to be High-King. He got a
fresh accession of strength in the arrival of Maurice Fitz Gerald
and another body of troops from Wales. He instigated to rebel
against Roderick his son-in-law, O'Brien of Desmond — who, with
the help of Fitz Stephen defeated the High-King. Diarmuid sent
again to Strongbow pleading with him to come over. But the
latter, having not yet received Henry's permission, sent over a
small body of men under Raymond le Gros, who on landing, be-
ing joined by Mont Maurice, won (by clever strategy) a signal
victory over an attacking army composed of the Waterford men,
the men of Ossory, and O'Faelan's men, at Dundonald, near Wa-
terford. Of forty prisoners whom they took, they broke the limbs
and flung them from the cliffs into the sea — giving Ireland the first

THE ENGLISH INVASION 325

taste of the conqueror's savagery that was henceforth to fill the
centuries.

Strongbow followed, in a few months, with two hundred
knights and a thousand men, and joining le Gros and Mont Mau-
rice, twice attacked the important city of Waterford, and was twice
repulsed. Then, when it seemed unlikely they could succeed, le
Gros had the good luck to discover that one of the city houses
projecting through an angle of the wall, had its projecting corner
supported by timbers. Cutting away the supports, the house fell,
giving a breach in the wall through which the attackers poured,
overcame the surprised garrison, slaughtered the inhabitants, and
put the two Danish rulers of this Danish city to death, and held
Waterford for their own.

On hearing of Strongbow's landing, Diarmuid, with the fair
Aoife hurried south to join him. And the marriage of himself
and Aoife was celebrated amid the still bloody scenes in Water-
ford.

Then, to punish O'Rourke they marched into Meath and
Breffni, laying everything waste as they went. Roderick, weak-
ling that he was, and not able to command the support of his sub-
ordinate princes, sent warning to MacMurrough to desist — and
got insulting reply that when O'Rourke was finished with, Rod-
erick and his own province of Connaught would receive their at-
tention. Diarmuid's death, that winter, put an end to an inglori-
ous career.

Then Strongbow would assert his right to the throne of Lein-
ster, much of whose lands he divided amongst his followers. But
the Leinster chiefs refused to have him. Moreover, Henry, hear-
ing of his successes in Ireland, had grown jealous, and fearful of
Strongbow establishing his independence. He now peremptorily
summoned Strongbow and all his subjects to return to England,
forthwith.

Strongbow readily found reasons for refusal and delay. By
a brilliant feat of arms he saved Dublin from capture by the
combined forces of Roderick and his princes with thirty thousand
men on land, and Godred, Danish king of Man, with thirty ships
In the bay — ^not only saved the city but completely broke and scat-
tered the army of Roderick, and captured great booty and pro-
visions. Then he wasted Meath and Breffni, and- afterward hur-
ried south to Wexford, where Fitz Stephen was besieged by the
Irish — ^but arrived too late to save the city. Then in response to
another summons from his royal master, he hastened to Henry,
very humbly laid his conquests, cities and territories, at his angry

3^6

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

monarch's feet — only begging that he might be made Henry's
tributary from Leinster.*

Strongbow's report upon the goodliness of the prize beyond
the Channel, stimulated Henry now to go to the winning of it.
And he went — with five hundred knights and four thousand horse
and foot soldiers, in four hundred ships — landing at Waterford,
October, 1171. His conquest of the southeast of the island was
little more than a triumphal march; for the Irish princes and
chiefs of the south and east thronged in to do homage to the great
man. Without question the extraordinary skill of the Normans
in the art of war, their effective system and wonderful discipline,
their eminently superior equipment, their armour against which
the 'weapons of the Irish were of little use — all had telling effect
upon the minds of the chiefs. Besides, they knew that there was
not, and had not been, the cohesion amongst them that would en-
able them to maintain a united front against an invader with such
powerful army. Of course they only considered it in the light of
minor kings giving a kind of formal acknowledgment to the might
of a greater — a thing which they had always been used doing to-
ward the greater one of their own. The acknowledgment of a
greater, the giving of hostages, and even paying of tribute to
him, had never affected and had never been meant to affect, their
own independence, and the independence of their own territory.
Yet well they must have known the vast difference between sub-
mission to one of their own, and to a foreign invader. It shows
lamentable demoralisation, and stamps their memory with lasting
shame.

MacCarthy of Desmond first came in and made submission
at Waterford. He was followed by O'Brien of Thomond, at
Lismore, then O'Faelan of the Deisi, MacGillapatrick of Ossory,
and other Leinster chiefs as Henry marched to Dublin. In Dub-
lin came to meet him and pay homage, O'Rourke of Breftni,
O'Carroll of Oriel, and O'Mellaghlin of Meath.

None of the northern chiefs came in, nor of the western. Nor
did Roderick, the Ard-Righ — but he contemplated, with growing
alarm, the successive submissions of the various princes, and finally
sent messengers to Dublin inviting a parley at the Shannon. To
the rendezvous came Henry's envoys — ^with the result that Rod-

• While Strongbow was absent Dublin was again attacked, this time by its
Danish king Hasculf MacTurkell, who had escaped to Norway when the city was
first taken, and now returned with ships and armies from Scandinavia, Denmark,
the Western Isles of Scotland and the Isle of Man — ten thousand men under John
the Dane. Again, the clever strategy of the Normans, now under Miles and
Richard dc Cogan, defeated and destroyed the great attacking army.

THE ENGLISH INVASION 327

crick O'Connor, through these envoys, made peace and friendship
with Henry, as one king with another, and also an act of submis-
sion to one whom he acknowledged to be greater than he.

During that winter Henry made still more progress in win-
ning and securing to himself the fealty of the princes. In a Dub-
lin palace which he had constructed of osiers he kept court and
entertained lavishly all the winter long. With the choicest repasts,
prepared by the best Norman cooks, he won through their stom-
achs to the hearts of the chiefs — this supplemented by his own
gracious suavity, in contrast to the bluntness, sometimes brutality,
of the Norman-Welsh who had preceded him. The adroit Henry's
affability and politeness, and apparently real friendship and af-
fection, had far more compelling force in winning fealty than
would have had the shock of his army.

Then he won Rome, too. He had a synod of the Irish eccle-
siastics— all but the Primate Gelasius, and the other northerns —
called at Cashel, where, following the example of their chiefs,
the Bishops acknowledged Henry as lord supreme in Ireland. At
this synod they passed decrees for the bettering of church discipline,
which, being sent to Rome, confirmed the fact that Henry was
carrying out his undertaking, and reforming morals in the land,
and evoked from Alexander the Third the letter confirmatory of
Adrian's Bull.

At Easter Henry had to return in haste to England, carrying
with him the undisputed lordship of Leinster, Meath and the
cities of Dublin, Wexford and Waterford. Meath he gave in
trust to De Lacey — who had the governorship of Dublin also.
The city of Dublin was given to the occupation of the merchants
and people of Bristol. Strongbow was left in possession of Lein-
ster.

The strange mesmerism which the presence of Henry seemed
to have wrought on the Irish princes was dissipated on his going.
They awoke to the rude reality that they had welcomed an invader
and meekly accepted him. From the various quarters they began
to rise up against the enemy, harass him, and endeavour to drive
him out. Now more familiar with, and therefore less daunted
by, Norman discipline and equipment, the Irish princes set strategy '
against skill, and discovered that the Normans were not omnipo-
tent. O'Brien of Thomond inflicted a big defeat upon them at
Thurles — not the only big defeat that he was to give them.
Strongbow the mighty was beaten back in the south and bottled
up in Waterford in imminent danger of capture. And, only that
the redoubtable le Gros hurried back from Wales to release him

328 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

he would have been overthrown. Roderick O'Connor with the
help of O'Neill, O'Mellaghlin, O'CarroU, MacDunleavy of
Uladh, and an army of twenty thousand overran Meath, and set
out for Dublin which he might easily have captured but for his
vacillation. He soon after thought it to be to his advantage to
make treaty with Henry. He sent to England for that purpose
Concord, Abbot of Clonfert, Catholicus, Archbishop of Tuam,
and Archbishop Lawrence O'Toole of Dublin. This treaty, known
as the Treaty of Windsor, acknowledged Henry's right to the
lordship of Leinster, Meath, and the other few places and cities
then occupied by him. He was also acknowledged as the overlord
to whom Roderick should pay formal tribute. On the other hand
it acknowledged Roderick's right to the high-kingship of five-
sixths of Ireland.

But such pacts had little effect either In securing peace or in-
suring the rights of either party. Every Norman chief warred
on his own account, for purpose of extending his power and pos-
sessions. And of course every Irish chief and prince, when oppor-
tunity offered, warred against the invader.

But such demoralisation set in, that in short time not only was
Irish chief warring upon Norman baron, but Irish chief was war-
ring with Irish chief, Norman baron warring with Norman baron,
and a Norman-Irish alliance would be warring against Normans,
or against Irish, or against another combination of both.

The Normans not only marked their progress by much slaugh-
ter and many barbarities, but signalised themselves by robbing and
burning churches and monasteries, and oftentimes slaughtering
the inmates.^

They harried, robbed, ravished, and destroyed wheresoever
they went. And against one another, in their own feuds, they
oftentimes exercised as much barbarity as against the Irish. Fear-
fully true is the Four Masters' word that MacMurrough's treach-
erous act "made of Ireland a trembling sod."

After a time Milo de Cogan and Robert Fitz Stephen won
territory for themselves in Munster. John de Courcy won the an-
cient territory of Ulster — Down and Antrim — and established
himself at Downpatrick. Cardinal Vivian, the Pope's legate, saw
de Courcy, on his entrance thereto, slaughtering the people on the

' Giraldus complains to John, "The poor clergy are reduced to beggary, the
Cathedral churches which were rich, endowed with broad lands by the piety of the
faithful in olden times, now echo with lamentations for the loss of their possessions
of which they have been robbed by these men and others who came over with, and
after them ; so that to uphold the Church is turned into spoiling and robbing it."

THE ENGLISH INVASION 329

street. Connaught (despite the Treaty of Windsor) was granted
to De Burgho (Burke). But it was a long time after it was
granted to him before he was enabled— with the help of some of
Connaught's own — to find a foothold there.

Prince John, whom Henry had appointed Lord of Ireland,
came over in 11 85, when he was nineteen years of age, and made
himself most beneficial to the country by reason that he, with the
crowd of young libertines who formed his court, made mock of
and insulted such Irish chieftains as hastened to pay him homage.
His attitude and actions during the short time he was permitted
to remain in the country were proving splendidly disastrous to
English prospects there and magnificently helpful to Irish.

Only a few years later John de Courcy, the conqueror of Ul-
ster, and the very strongest figure among those Normans, was
overwhelmingly defeated in an attempt to conquer Connaught, and
his army almost annihilated. And the Irish princes had recovered
enough proper pride and national spirit to form a compact, under
Connor of Maenmagh, son of Roderick, for driving out the Eng-
lish— ^which might now have been easily accomplished. But be-
fore their plans were perfected Connor was slain, and the grow-
ing compact dissolved. Indeed had they at any time after Henry's
leaving been able to combine and strike together, the English, de-'
spite the great advantage of discipline, skill, and equipment, could
have been driven into the sea. The key of the arch, however,
which should have been the strongest stone was the weakest —
ever ready to crumble. This was Ard-Righ Roderick, who not
only lost Ireland but eventually lost Connaught. His own sons
warred against him and warred against one another as well. He
was deposed, exiled, recalled, travelled — a kind of royal begfear
— to princes who had been tributary to him, entreating them to
put him on the throne again. With an Ard-Righ thus disobeyed
and disrespected by his own, and his kingdom, which should have
been the dominant one, warring within itself, the fates were with
the foreigner, and they precariously held their own in the east,
occasionally making effective plunges into the independent prov-
inces that surrounded them, and occasionally too having their own
insecure possessions lunged into by the Irish enemy.

The English royal house was in worse condition even than the
Irish royal house. Henry died cursing his sons, and his sons may
be said to have lived and died cursing one another. John, who
had essayed to oust his worthier brother Richard — ^while the lat-
ter was on the Crusade — and also while he was languishing in a
German prison — ^began to reign over England in the last year of

330 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

the twelfth century, very shortly after Donal MacCarthy of Des-
mond defeated the English of Munster and drove them out of
Limerick. The great northern prince, Flaherty O'Muldory of Tir-
Conaill, had just then passed away. And also just then had passed
unfortunate Roderick O'Connor — ^who died where he had spent
his last days, in the Abbey of Cong in Mayo — and was buried in
the ancient cemetery of Clonmacnois.

CHAPTER XXXVII

NORMAN AND GAEL

The Norman Kings used the Church for all purposes of statecraft,
its higher officers were checks and spies upon popular movements,
while its ablest bishops, neglecting their spiritual offices, were wholly
absorbed in temporal administration. The episcopate was thor-
oughly secularised and the character of the bishops became very
bad. The pious chroniclers in England have left us lurid pictures
of the moral degradation of their greater Churchmen of these
ages. Their passage to Ireland brought no access of sanctity.
They acted as viceroys for the King of England. The Irish Church
was treated with great cruelty and the direst oppression. Its
bishops were driven from their sees, the canons from their cathe-
drals, the priests from their parishes. A Gaelic monk could not
be harboured in a monastery, or an Irish nun in a convent, in any
district where their writ ran. From the pulpits they thundered:
"It is no offence against God to kill any Irish human being." They
displayed real ability and amazing zeal in leading their troops in
the field and in building mighty castles at all strategical points,
throughout the land. The sword of Mars, God of War, was their
sceptre, not the Cross of the Prince of Peace. They extended the
long arm of excommunication against our race; rarely did they
uplift the hand of benediction. In their complaint to Pope John
XXII, Donald O'Neill, King of Ulster, and the other princes
of the Gael (131 8) declared: "As it very constantly happens,
whenever any Englishman, by perfidy or craft, kills an Irishman,
however noble, or however innocent, be he clergyman or layman
• . . nay, even if an Irish prelate were to be slain, there is no
penalty or correction enforced against the person who may be guilty
of such wicked murder, but rather the more eminent the person
killed, and the higher the rank which he holds among his own
people, so much the more is the murderer honoured and rewarded
by the English, and not merely by the people at large, but also by
the religious and bishops, of the English race, and, above all, by

331

332 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

those on whom devolves officially the duty of inflicting on such male,
factors a just reward and equitable correction for their evil deeds."

Henry of London was typical of his race and class. At once
King John's Viceroy of Ireland and Archbishop of Dublin, he spent
more time in hunting the red deer than in seeking out lost souls.
He had a passion for other people's money. He flayed the hum-
bler English, as well as the Irish, under his jurisdiction. To build
the notorious Dublin castle, he pulled down several churches. By
wiping out the Gaelic See of Glendalough, in Wicklow, hallowed
by the sanctity, and famed for the Greek, Latin, and Irish learn-
ing, of Saint Kevin and his successors, he erected St. Patrick's
Church into a cathedral. He gave the people their first experience
of foreign landlordism in Irish history and received the title of
Scorch-Villain or Burn-Bill in return. On being installed Arch-
bishop he summoned his tenant farmers to arrange their rents,
telling them to bring their title deeds with them. "Mistrusting
nothing," they placed their parchments in his hands, which, before
their faces, he cast into the fire. Before they recovered from the
shock and amazement their title deeds were turned to ashes. It
was then the turn of the men of Glendalough to blaze and burn:
"Thou, an archbishop ! Nay, thou art a Burn-Bill, a Scorch Vil-
lainy Another drew his weapon and cried: "As good for me to
kill him as to be killed, for when my title deeds are burned and my
living taken away, I am killed." The prelate, thoroughly fright-
ened, escaped by a back door, but his officials and bailiffs were well
beaten, and some of them "left for dead." The outraged tenants
even threatened to burn the palace, and would have done so if their
just wrath had not been appeased by "fair promises that all should
be to their content."

The process of reducing Ireland by incastellation — or castle-
building — ^was pursued with restless enthusiasm; and so successful
was it that in less than seventy years three-fourths of the country
was under Anglo-Norman sway. The contemporary Gaelic
historian lamented that the Irish, who wore no armour, were no
match for their foes "in one mass of iron." The Normans were
well supplied with the most efficient and the most deadly war weap-
ons of the Europe of that day, and were much better organised than
the Irish.

Yet the remarkable fact remains that the Gaels were not driven
back upon any one part of the kingdom, but remained scattered,
yet unconquered, among the foreigners. The Normans in great
strength occupied the present Counties of Antrim and Down in
Ulster; in Leinster, Louth, Meath, Dublin and Kildare, with the

NORMAN AND GAEL 333

greater part of Westmeath, were densely held by Normans, and
by their allies, Flemings, Welsh and Saxons. They had a firm hold
of Limerick and the adjoining districts; their stone fortresses
stretched to the very mouth of the Shannon. In Connaught the
rule of De Burgo extended from Galway northward and eastward
over the western plain and communicated through Athlone with
their allies in Leinster. On the other hand, the remainder of
Ulster and the adjoining districts were stoutly maintained by the
O'Neills, O'Donnells, O'Farrells, O'Reillys, and O'Rourkes. In
the Central Plain of Leinster, the O' Conors of Offaly, the
O'Mores of Leix, and the O'Carrols of Ely, sat tight on their
ancestral lands, in spite of the foreigners' efforts to dislodge
them. In the mountainous parts of Wicklow, along the uplands
of Carlow and Kilkenny, the Gaels kept undisputed rule. In
Munster, MacCarthy More reigned in Muskerry and preserved
the title of King of Desmond; Thomond, in great part, retained the
royal sway of the O'Briens. Along the western coast, beyond
Lough Corrib, the fierce O'Flahertys continued to live free men,
and the north-east of Connacht still elected its own sovereign as
The O' Conor. The Normans recognised the O' Conors as Kings
of Connacht.

Surveying with not a little pride and much vainglory the re-
sults achieved by the invaders, Giraldus Cambrensis gave to his
Latin story of the events the title "Hibernia Expugnata" — "Ire-
land fought to a finish." But he did not understand, nor did his
successors down the ages understand, the amazing vitality of the
Gaels' power of recuperation, mental and physical. Beaten they
have been, time and again, but never conquered. The spirit of
exaltation of our manhood, the intense prayerfulness of our spir-
itual-minded, white-souled, indomitable womankind, have mocked
at Despair, laughed in the face of Misfortune itself. And when
the race was thought to have been prostrated forever it arose and
rang out its triumphant battle-cry I

Neither then, nor ever after, did the foreign invader come to
understand Ireland's soul. Spenser, in Elizabeth's days, vainly
tried to solve the problem of the resurgent spirit of Irish nation-
ality. Why did not the Gaels acknowledge defeat? "Yet surely,"
he allows, "they are very valiant and hardy, for the most part great
endurers of cold, labour and all hardiness, very active and strong
of hand, very swift of foot, very vigilant and circumspect in their
enterprises, very present in perils, very great scorners of death."
The resurrection of thirteenth century Ireland, and its subtle con-
quering of the conqueror, has been a source of wonder to English-

334 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Irish historians who have tried to explain it in many futile ways.
The truth is that the free-hearted, culture-loving, gracious comity
of the Gaels and of Gaelic civilisation irresistibly insinuated itself
into the mind and soul of the Norman French — and won from them
eager capitulation.

In their darkest hour of affliction the princes of the three great-
est Gaelic clans — almost all that possibly could assemble — met at
Caol Uisage near the Belleek on the river Erne (in 1258) to knit
the country into one body to withstand the foreigner. The men of
Connacht, under Felim O'Conor and the warriors of Thomond
under O'Brien, cheerfully elected Brian O'Neill of Tir-Owen King
of Ireland. This menace was met by the treacherous capture and
the poisoning of O'Neill by De Courcy, who defeated the combined
forces at the battle of Downpatrick (1260). The lesson of this
disaster by which "Eire was left an orphan" was most fruitful.
The Irish were "clad in fine linen garments, the foreigners in one
mass of iron": as the contemporary Gael narrates. Hence was
seen the need of better means of defence against the common foe.
The epochal advent of the gall-oglach (gallowglass) into Ireland's
armies resulted.

From the Western Isles of Scotland were invited the heavy-
armed, mail-clad, battle-axe-bearing gall-oglach to aid in the cause.
These stalwarts were the descendants of the Ulster Gaels who had
migrated there and intermarried with the Norse. Like their fore-
bears they, too, were "very great scorners of death." Later, the
princes throughout Ireland raised and similarly equipped regular
field troops. In fact, Eire saw the form and spirit of her ancient
Fianna or national militia, come to life again. By this new factor
the tide of foreign conquest was turned. No longer did the Nor-
man cavaliers "in one mass of iron" inspire terror, no more were
their castles regarded as impregnable fortresses. O'More of Leix
levelled eight such strongholds in one day. Sir Henry Savage, the
Norman, expressed his views pithily on this altered condition of
warfare. "Never shall I, by the grace of God," he declared,
"cumber myself with dead walls: my fort shall be where young
bloods are stirring and where I have room to fight. Better is a
castle of bones than a castle of stones." The Norman policy of
conquest by incastellation was defeated by the gall-oglach enter-
prise, so quickly adopted now by all the leading Irish chiefs.

To quicken the tide of liberation Donal O'Neill and the other
Gaelic lords invited Edward Bruce, brother of the King of Scot-
land, to the throne of Ireland. The winning, in rapid succession,
of eighteen victories, made the gallant Bruce reckless, so engaging

NORMAN AND GAEL

33?

a vastly superior force at Faughart, near Dundalk (1318), he was
slain. His Connacht allies, the O' Conors, were routed at Athenry.
But after a temporary ebb success after success again followed the
banners of the intrepid Irish. Even the English rulers in Dublin
were brought under subjection. MacMurrough Kavanagh, King of
Leinster, became virtually King of Dublin, and received from the
city an annual tribute. When Murrough O'Brien, King of Munster,
burst upon the English assembled at Castle Dermot in Kildare they
were so terrified that they would not fight; they gave him vast
sums of money, war-horses, and other equipment to buy peace. As
the fourteenth century approached its end the English everywhere
trembled.

To remedy this state of affairs, Richard II, of England, landed
in Ireland with an immense army and swore a mighty oath that he
would not leave the country until he had taken Art MacMurrough
alive or dead.

Art was a true Irish King. The chroniclers record that "he
held in his fair hand the sovereignty and the charters of the province
of Leinster. At his approach the whole (of the English of) Lein-
ster trembled." Again, "he was replete with hospitality, knowl-
edge and chivalry; the prosperous and kingly enricher of churches
and monasteries, with his alms and offerings," Art barred Rich-
ard's way. Even his 30,000 men were no match for the Irish.
The French author who has left us a record of this invasion de-
dares that the Gaels were utterly fearless, were "as bold as lions."
In contest after contest the English were shattered. In this French-
man's opinion the Irish could not be conquered "while the leaves
were on the trees." So with a heavy heart Richard hied him back
home a sad, broken man, to be deprived of his crown and kingdom
by the Duke of Lancaster. He was the last English monarch until
the seventeenth century who tried the impossible task of conquering
Ireland. MacMurrough was poisoned by an agent of the English
Government. The final result of the Irish rally was that English
rule was cooped within the Pale — a palisaded district stretching
some thirty miles around Dublin — and it held shadowy sway in a
few of the walled towns, which were, in reality, little Republics.
Almost all Ireland was independent early in the fifteenth century.

Irishwomen have been famed, and wooed, in all ages and in
"lany lands for their chastity, wit, vivacity, tenderness, intelligence,
^nd beauty. Intermarriages with the British, or Welsh, princes
went on from the twilight of history. Many Saxon lords, too,
sought wives in Ireland. Even before the Invasion the Norman
tarl of Shrewsbury ( 1 100) sent an ambassador to crave a princess

■1

336 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

of the House of O'Brien in wedlock: but Magnus, King of Den-
mark, secured her for his own son, Sitric, King of Man. On the
day when the victorious Richard, Earl of Pembroke, surnamed
Strongbow, married Eva, daughter of Dermot MacMurrough,
King of Leinster, on the blood-soaked battlefield of Waterford
(1170), the Irish conquest of the Norman conquerors was begun.
For marrying the Lady Rose O' Conor, daughter of Rury, King
of Connacht, the elder Hugh de Lacy roused the ire of Henry II,
and won dismissal from his post as chief Governor of Ireland.
The second Hugh de Lacy took unto wife the daughter of Alan,
Lord of Galloway, grandson of King Baliol of Scotland. The re-
nowned Richard de Burgh, the mighty "Red Earl" of Ulster,
espoused Una, daughter of Prince Hugh O'Conor. Their daugh-
ter married into the Royal house of Scotland. Hence the Bruces,
through the female line, were descended from MacMurrough,
King of Leinster, and Robert's wife, Ellen, Queen of Scots, daugh-
ter of the "Red Earl," came of the royal lineage of the O'Conors
of Connacht. William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, the ablest
soldier of his day, wedded Isabella, daughter of Eva and Strong-
bow. Their eldest son, William, was the husband of Eleanor
Plantagenet, sister of Henry III of England. On his death, she
became the wife of the famous Simon de Montfort, Earl of Lei-
cester. The King of Scotland took another of her sisters to wife.
The daughter of the last Earl of Ulster married Lionel, Duke of
Clarence, brother to Edward III of England. The seed of
MacCarthy More, King of Cork, and of Petronilla de Bloet,
passed into the House of Stuart and fructified in the person of the
Sixth James of Scotland (First James of England). As generation
succeeded generation all the Irish clans, in the five-fifths of Eirinn,
were united in ties of blood with, and helped to conquer to Gael-
dom, all the Norman families.

With Scotland, north of the Grampians, Gaelic Scotland, there
was no break in relationship adown the ages. It is no exaggera-
tion to say that intermarriage and community of language, customs
and interests, made the north and west of Ireland and Argyll and
the western Scottish Isles one family estate. Inverness was the
capital of Gaeldom in the Middle Ages. The Scottish Kings
made commercial treaties and social compacts in favour of the
Irish of Ireland and to the detriment of the English of Ireland.

The result of the blending of the two races, Irish and Anglo-
Norman-French — Gaels and Sean Ghalls — ^was an enriching and
deepening of national life in every department — ^paralleling like

NORMAN AND GAEL

337

happenings in England and Scotland. The absorption of the in-
vaders occurred earlier in the Green Isle.

"If the speech is Irish the heart is also Irish," as an English
official bitterly declared. So long as the Irish retained their native
culture and language, their power of assimilating what was best
in other resident races was marvellous. The Sean Ghalls (old
foreigners) became "more Irish than the Irish themselves." They
donned the Irish national dress, used the Irish tongue, fostered
Irish literature and music, ruled their subjects by the Brehon laws,
and because they thus became essentially Irish they won the devo-
tion and fidelity of the people. They even discarded their own
Norman names in favour of Irish names. Sir John Davies, in the
reign of James I of England, deplored their conduct: "As they did
not only forget the English language and scorned the use thereof,
but grew to be ashamed of their very English names, though they
were noble and of great antiquity, and took Irish surnames and
nicknames." The De Burghs were transformed, first into Burkes,
then into MacWilliams. The De Birminghams became MacYoris ;
the Dexecesters, Macjordans; the De Angulo family was hence-
forth known as MacCostello. "In Munster, of the great families
of the Geraldines planted there, one was called MacMorice, chief
of the House of Lixnaw; and another MacGibbon, who was also
called the White Knight." . . . "And they did this in contempt
and hatred of the English name and nation whereof these degen-
erate families became more mortal enemies" to England than the
Gaels.

Because they fell under the spell of the wide culture of the
Gaels, with its deep humanities, its kindly, genial atmosphere, there
was "utter ruin" to English interests. Perhaps in no other race
was the doctrine of the equality of man so well understood as among
the Gaels. The meanest clansman of an O'Neill or a MacDonnell
stood on an equal footing with his chieftain. When Art MacMur-
rough and three other Irish kings visited Richard II in Dublin the
English were horrified to see the royal guests sitting down to table
with their minstrels and whole retinue. "They told me this was a
praiseworthy custom of their country," records the official scribe,
but such democratic conduct would not be allowed by this feudal
master of ceremonies. So they were separated — the kings were
sequestered at one table, the retinue at another. "The Kings
looked at each other and refused to eat, saying I had deprived them
of their old custom in which they had been brought up." But the
boorish "allotted tutor in manners" informed them that it was not

^38 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

decent or suitable to their rank, "for now they must conform to the
manners of the English." "With the dignity of courteous guests"
they yielded. When Sir John Harington visited O'Neill he found
him seated in the open surrounded by his clansmen. In such a
position he averred he would rather be "The O'Neill than the
King of Spain." Harington marvelled at the love and admiration
the Gaels exhibited toward their lord. "With what charm such a
master makes them love him I know not : but if he bid come they
come; if go, they do go; if he say do this, they do it."

The habit of the Normans fostering their children with mothers
of the Gael and having them to act as sponsors in baptism for their
children, was hateful to the English Government. "Both of which,"
adds Davies, "have ever been of greater estimation among this peo-
ple than with any other nation in the Christian world. . . . Foster-
ing hath always been a stronger alliance than blood, and foster-
children do love and are beloved of their foster fathers and their
sept more than of their natural parents and kindred, and do par-
ticipate of their means more frankly, and do adhere unto them in
all fortunes with more affection and constancy."

England bitterly bewailed the "degenerate" fate in Ireland of
its own original conquerors — the Norman-French. On the other
hand, the Gaels, with truer insight, declared that these Sean Ghalls
(Old Foreigners) "gave up their foreignness for a pure mind,
their surliness for good manners, their stubbornness for sweet mild-
ness, and their perverseness for hospitality."

Drastic steps were taken to prevent the amalgamation of the
races, to blight the bloom of Gaelic-Anglo-Norman civilisation.
The notorious Statute of Kilkenny (1367) was but one of a long
series of legislative acts designed for this purpose. It begins thus:
"Many of the English of Ireland discarding the English tongue,
manners, style of riding, laws and usages, lived and governed them-
selves according to the mode, fashion and language of the 'Irish
enemies,' and also made divers marriages between themselves and
the Irish, whereby the said lands and the liege people thereof, the
English language, the allegiance due to their lord the King of Eng-
land, and the English laws, were put in subjection and decayed, and
the Irish enemies exalted and raised up, contrary to reason." So it
declared any such alliance high treason.^ It declared war on gos-
sipred, on fostering, on the Irish language, on Irish culture, on
Irish music and its professors, on Irish law and its judges, on Irish

^The godfathers and godmothers of the same child were gossips. The ch''-
dren nursed by the same mother were fosters. Two boys nursed on the same n*'"'
were foster-brothers.

NORMAN AND GAEL 339

games and pastimes, on the Irish clergy, on Irish manners and
customs, on Irish trade and commerce. The English born in Eng-
land were no longer to be dubbed "English churls or clowns," nor
were the English born in Ireland to be called "Irish dogs." To
crown all, the English Archbishops and Bishops pronounced sen-
tence of excommunication against all who disobeyed the statute.

Love mocked at such penal laws. The wedding bells continued
to ring down the corridor of the centuries. The prospect of being
hanged, drawn, disembowelled, and quartered — ^the legal penalty —
had no terrors for the Irish, New or Old, Sean GhaUs or Gaels.*
Every avenue of tyranny and of terror was explored to find means
of arresting the irresistible tide of Gaelicism. If a wayfarer was
seen either riding in the Irish fashion, or dressed in Gaelic costume,
or not wearing "a civil English cap," it was "advisable and lawful"
to murder the offender. Even the sporting of a moustache after
the Irish fashion (the fashion on the Continent then also) and not
having a shaven upper lip like the English, was denounced by Act
of Parliament (25 Henry VI, 1447) as deserving of death, and the
delinquent's estate was to be forfeited to the Crown.

' "I would not give my Irish wife for all the dames of the Saxon land ;
I would not give my Irish wife for the Queen of France's hand;
For she to me is dearer than castles strong, or lands, or life —
An outlaw — so I'm near her, to love till death my Irish wife.

"I knew the law forbade the banns— I knew my king abhorred her race —
Who never bent before their clans must bow before their ladies' grace.
Take all my forfeited domain, I cannot wage with kinsmen strife-
Take knightly gear and noble name, and I will keep my Irish wife."

CHAPTER XXXVIII

TRADE IN MEDLEVAL IRELAND

The risen waters of a common Irish life flooded even the walled
towns. At the first Invasion the King of England had banished all
the Irish, who were not granted "English liberty," from these
urban communities, and replaced them with his own subjects, allow-
ing, however, the numerous Portuguese, Spanish, French-Norse
and Flemish merchants and traders to abide therein. From that
time onward it had been an accepted principle that no Irishman
should be allowed to engage in trade or commerce, or accepted as
an apprentice to any handicraft where English power was felt.
Then, with delicious irony, their writers derided our people as
"idlers, hating honest business." By letters of denization, by peace-
ful penetration, by intermarriage, the Gaelic clansmen, by the fif-
teenth century, formed the bulk of the Craft Gilds, even in Dublin,
and made not a little headway in obtaining a foothold in the Mer-
chant Gilds. The town merchants, from the very beginning, had
to journey into the country to buy the far-famed Irish woollens,
rugs, mantles, and linens, to bargain for hides and beautiful peltries,
flax, beef, and corn. So in time, partnerships were formed with
the Clans, and Irish law in the Irish tongue was pleaded in the
town courts. The merchants, like the Norman lords, dressed
themselves in the banned national costume, spoke, even in Dublin
and Waterford, the Irish tongue, and took part in all the inhib-
ited festivities of the Gael. If proof were needed that these mer-
chants were not, as is so often stated, English, it will be found in
the fact, attested by the records in Continental archives, that whilst
English traders and factors in Spain, Portugal, Oporto, Italy, the
Hansa Towns, Flanders, Russia and elsewhere, used their own, or
the French language, in commercial transactions, the Irish and the
Scots employed Latin only. Latin was spoken by all educated peo-
ple throughout Gaeldom. Moreover, in nearly all commercial
treaties the foreign potentates describe our merchants as of "the
Irish Nation." In Spain and Portugal, "the noble Irish," as they

340

TRADE IN MEDIAEVAL IRELAND 341

were there known, obtained more valuable privileges than the Eng-
lish. So great was the commercial intercourse with the Peninsula, of
the O'Sullivans, MacCarthys, Desmonds, O'Driscolls, O'Flahertys,
O'Malleys, and of the merchants from the seaports from Water-
ford to Sligo, that the waters which lapped the southern and west-
ern coasts of Ireland were designated by map-makers "The Spanish
Seas." "Portingal" became a proper name in Southern Ireland.
Men of that race were elected as Mayors of our towns. "Spain"
yet survives as a surname in our land. The great Italian financial
houses, the bankers of Lucca, the Ricardi, the Friscobaldi, the
Mozzi and the Bardi of Florence, were active agents in Mediaeval
Ireland. The wine trade, as shown by the Pipe Roll accounts, and
other sources, was of great dimensions, with Clan and Town. Bor-
deaux, Dordogne, Libourne, St. Emilian, besides Spain, Portugal
and Oporto, traded direct with the Irish ports.

With France the records of our trade go back to the days of
St. Patrick. Rouen was the chief port of Normandy and obtained
from Henry II the "monopoly of Irish trade." Bordeaux had a
colony of Irish merchants — as had St. Omer, Marseilles, Bayonne,
St. Malo, La .Rochelle, Nantes and other ports — ^who were im-
porters of Irish wool, skins, hides, fish, woollen cloth, fine linen,
leather* and corn, and they sent to Ireland their own manufactures
and products.

The enterprising Flemings were stationed in many of the Irish
ports. Their influence on maritime and inland trade was as benefi-
cent here as it was in England. In Kilkenny, Youghal, Cork,
Waterford and New Ross they were most numerous. On the
other hand, Irish merchants had their own settlements in all the
leading ports of Flanders. In the old records of Bruges, Ireland,
as distinct frorh England, is mentioned as one of the seventeen
nations whose corporations added to the fame of that port. It
had its own commercial houses there — ^two bore the proud name,
"Ireland," and the third "St. Patrick," "a lofty and beautiful
edifice." This last was a sixteenth century foundation. In 1399
Philippe le Hardi made Ecluse (Sluys) a staple town for Irish
mantles and cloths. This duke's safe-conducts to Irish merchants
in 1387 and in other years have been printed. In all trading char-
ters to Englishmen, Irishmen are specifically mentioned likewise.
With a view to encourage the home manufacture of wool the Duke
of Flanders (1496-7) forbade the importation of foreign cloths.
Thereupon a clamour arose from the populace to be allowed still
to buy the cheaper Irish cloth and linens, Irish cloaks and Scottish
kerseys ; and Archduke Philippe gave orders that such goods from

342 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Ireland and Scotland should continue to be imported and sold
"according to the old custom." A Flemish writer of the sixteenth
century, lamenting the decay of Bruges, its rival Antwerp, obtain-
ing all its commerce, tells us that the Irish merchants in his own
time held two fairs a year at Bruges where they exposed for sale
their friezes, mantles, serges, and great quantities of furs and skins.
He laments their loss because the Irish friezes and serges were of
such stout material and so cheap that they were largely used by
the working men and the poorer classes. Irish leather goods were
renowned throughout Europe, so it is not a matter of surprise that
Irish names should figure on the Tanners* Gild of Liege, then the
most extensive and famous body of this craft on the Continent. At
Brabant fairs Irishmen were busy also. Their corporation retail-
ing, not merely all varieties of furs, skins, "beautiful leather goods,"
but also rough cloth and high class serges. Antwerp, too, had its
Irish trade, linen being mentioned, amongst other items. Lubeck
had commercial intercourse with Ireland, and Irish woollens were
carried down the Rhine : Cologne being one of the marts. Through
the Hansa Towns Irish commerce flowed on to Russia.

The Irish had a hospital at Genoa, before the Norman Inva-
sion, circa 1160. In 1398, there is record of Patrick Galway, a
member of an opulent mercantile family in Cork, trading there in
copper, tin, linen cloth, and "innumerable other things," "wools and
merchandise." As yet little concerning the commerce between
mediaeval England, Ireland and Italy is known. Bonifazio del
Uberti, in his poem, Dittamondi, tells us that "Ireland is worthy
of fame for the woollen stuffs she sends us." Irish serge was used
in Naples as trimmings for the robes of the king and queen. Its
presence in Florence, Genoa, Como, and Bologna, is known to all
students of Commerce in the Middle Ages. Irish mantles were
heirlooms in the families of many wealthy Italian merchants. It
was worn by the fashionable ladies of that luxurious town, Flor-
ence. Machiavel declares that woollen manufacture was the prin-
cipal industry in this city, and maintained the majority of its op-
erative classes. In that opulent emporium of European and Asiatic
trade, the Florence of 1350, the "noble stuffs" of Ireland were
eagerly sought for by the haughty dames of the princes of Com-
merce and Finance. In 1382 the Pope's envoy obtained the privi-
lege of bringing with him to Italy, duty free, a number of artitles
in which figure "Five mantles of Irish cloth — one lined with green.
One russet garment lined with Irish cloth."

Irish silk is mentioned in the wardrobe accounts of Queen Clem-
ence of Hungary. She had two robes of this material, the one

TRADE IN MEDIiEVAL IRELAND

343

violet and the other without indication of colour. The dearer must
have been a most expensive article, for it is priced twenty Parisian
pounds (probably £400 of our money). Our "silk" is mentioned
in many French accounts during the Middle Ages. Its fame at-
tracted the cupidity of the London mercers, evidently, for in a six-
teenth century lawsuit, there is a claim for some London silk stolen
"called Irish silk." Whether this was a superfine linen or the srol
mentioned in the ancient Irish MS. I cannot decide.

Irish cloth, mantles, rugs and serges were highly esteemed in
Spain and Portugal, likewise. "At this time," writes Macpherson,
"there were some considerable manufactures in Ireland. The stuffs
called sayes (serges) made in that country were in such request,
that they were imitated by the manufacturers of Catalonia, who
were in the practice of making the finest woollen goods of every
kind." The Irish merchants traded with the Canaries and pushed
their way into the Land of the Moors. Prince Henry the Nav-
igator had his own agent in Galway, to whom he sent an African
lion, one of the earliest seen in Europe, knowing that "never be-
fore had such a beast been seen in that part."

One of the most famous legends in the Middle Ages was the
"Voyages of St. Brendan." This saintly old mariner of Ardfert,
Co. Kerry, was said to have been the first discoverer of "Great
Ireland," as the Icelanders of the tenth and eleventh centuries
called North and Central America. Washington Irving in his
"Life of Columbus" narrates that "during the time that Columbus
was making his proposition to the Court of Portugal, an inhabitant
of the Canaries applied to King John II for a vessel to go in search
of the island. The name of St. Brendan was from time immemorial
given to this imaginary island, for when the rumOur circulated of
such a place being seen from the Canaries, which always eluded
the search, the legends of St. Brendan were revired, and applied
to this unapproachable land." "It is a well known fact," avers
the Rev. D. O'Donoghue in his learned work, "St. Brendan the
Voyager," that Columbus while maturing his plans for his great
expedition, visited Ireland as well as Iceland in quest of information
bearing on his theories. He was assisted in his researches by an
Irish gentleman named Patrick Maguire, who accompanied hira
also on his great voyage of discovery. There are other Irish names
on the roster of the ship's crew, preserved in the archives of Ma-
drid; but by Father Tornitori, an Italian priest, in the seventeenth
century it is specially recorded that Patrick Maguire was the first
to set foot on American soil. He says that on the eventful morn-
ing of the landing the boats bearing Columbus and some of his

344 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

crew were launched ; but approaching the land, the water shallowed,
and Patrick Maguire jumped out to lighten the boat, and then
waded ashore.

Space forbids the recital of the interesting history of the com-
mercial fame of Irish horses, hawks, and of the great wolf hounds
which were eagerly sought for by the crowned heads of the Con-
tinent of mediaeval Europe.

Only a brief reference can be made to the widespread commer-
cial intercourse with England. The records of trade with Bristol
and the Welsh ports go back to the fringe of mythological times.
Irish weavers emigrated in large numbers to Bristol, where they
acquired great power. They were represented on that town's
Corporation. Its Coopers' Gild had many Gaels among its mem-
bers. From Ireland came more than seventy per cent of its trade.
Irish commercial activity aroused the jealousy of the merchants of
Canterbury against such "alien Irishmen." Gloucester, Chester,
Runcorn, Cambridge, Coventry, Oxford, Preston, Winchester, Lon-
don, Hereford, Southampton, and St. Albans are some of the towns
where Irish manufactures were sold and Irish merchants busy.
There was bitter contention and long strife between Gloucester and
Bristol, Bristol and Chester, Chester and Runcorn, over the monop-
oly of Irish trade. In 148 1, Edward IV issued a proclamation
that every Irish ship charged with goods for Runcorn, or any other
place in Cheshire, should first discharge at Chester. Yet, in this
very year, one Edward Walshe obtained a license to sail his ship
direct from Runcorn to Ireland. In 1439 an ordinance was made
that no Irishman born "shall henceforth be elected on the Council
of Bristol by the Mayor under a penalty of £20 each from the
Mayor and from the Irishman." The Coopers' Gild shut down its
doors "from henceforeard" against Irishmen, "rebels against our
liege lord the king." "These strangers and aliens not born under
the king's obedience . . . but rebellious . . . were put in occupation
of the craft of weavers; . . . and have so greatly multiplied and
increased within the town of Bristol that the king's liege people
within the town and other parts were vagrant and unoccupied, and
may not have their labour for their living." Withal these enact-
ments would seem to have become a dead letter, for in Tudor days
Irish was spoken there, and its Irish residents numerous.

There is unimpeachable evidence that agriculture was skilfully
and extensively pursued from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century.
The exportation of enormous quantities of wheat, oats, barleyi
rye and of other cereals, and of flax (besides what was used for
the big home consumption of linen), of beef, mutton, and other

TRADE IN MEDIAEVAL IRELAND

345

food stuffs, as well as of wool, point to intensive land cultivation
and stock raising. To a modem Irishman the quantities of these
products exported to France, Scotland, Flanders and England, as
recorded in official and other documents, seem incredible. This was
when England was ruled by the first three Edwards (i 272-1377).
The Editor of the Calendar of Documents, Scotland, is of opinion
that Ireland must have been a veritable Land of Goshen then, and
truly adds that no merchants would go there to seek corn to-day.
In the fifteenth century London Corn Market Irish wheat was sold.
English agents reported that "Ireland fed Spain and Portugal with
corn."

CHAPTER XXXIX

LEARNING IN MEDIiEVAL IRELAND

After the crushing defeat of the Norsemen by King Brian at the
Battle of Clontarf (1014) there was a flowering of the National
Mind in literature. So the political freedom of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries saw a re-birth of intellectual, as well as of agri-
cultural and commercial activity in Ireland It was a Golden Age
of Gaelic Literature.

As the wider gates of Ireland's commerce opened on the South
and West coasts, so her scholars, pilgrims, clerics and craftsmen
followed in the wake of her merchants, through the Gaulish seas
into France and Italy, and "over the brief ocean" into Spain and
Portugal, to drink at the fountains of knowledge there. The uni-
versities of these Romance lands knew a long succession of our
brilliant scholars. The congregation of Irish and Scottish students
at the University of Piris ( 1 300-1 600) was greater than even the
number who enriched their minds at Oxford. "The Latin educa-
tion of Ireland," observes the erudite Scotch Professor Ker, "be-
gan earlier, and was better maintained there than elsewhere" in
Europe. The reason whereof may be found in the truth that the
culture and refinement of these Romance or Latin lands made a
more lively appeal to the Gaelic mind and soul than did the civil-
isation of England. The restless ebb and flow of the Irish of the
Middle Ages from Eirinn to the Continent, carried with it much
that was noblest in literature, in civility, and in manners. It is in-
teresting to note the most popular Irish translations made by these
scholars of the Greek and Latin classics. For the delectation of
their readers and auditors they gave admirable adaptations,
amongst others, of the Tale of Troy, the Saga of Alexander the
Great and Philip of Macedon, The Wanderings of Ulysses, The
Theban War, and the JEndd. Some of the Greek stories were ren-
dered through the Latin versions. It would be idle to conjecture,
at the present stage of our enlightenment, how far the famed
knowledge of Greek of eighth and ninth century Ireland was main-

346

LEARNING IN MEDIAEVAL IRELAND 347

tamed and carried to and through the fifteenth century. Such of
these translations as have been brought to light indicate how ex-
pert and how original was Gaelic scholarship. The Irish used
their authorities as Shakespeare used his, transforming them into
virtually new works. They gave us transmutations rather than
translations. The infinite tenderness of the Gaelic heart, the loving
minuteness of observation of the Irish eye, is e^denced by the ex-
quisite Nature touches in their verse and prose — for they were
enamoured of the blue sky, the rhythm of the rustling leaves, the
subde magical lure of Spring's annual awakening. The exquisite
song of the stars, the haunting music of running waters, the mys-
terious tongue of boughs shaken by the wind, were wine to their
veins. They talked to the joyous birds, to the frisking rabbits, and
even to the shy fishes, as though they were their brothers, sisters
and lovers. Strangely enough, these literary men eliminated all ref-
erences to supernatural agencies, found in the classical texts. The
tales became Irish sagas, in spirit and in truth, with the foreign
names alone standing for their national heroes. Like all peoples
who have passed through seas of sorrow, through "the seven
waves of tribulation I" they abounded in mercy. Tenderness and
Chivalry, quite unknown to the classical originals, are commingled,
with the texture of the tales whenever possible. But the most re-
markable fact lies in the emergence of the Love Story, pure and
simple. This form of narrative is one of the glories of early
Irish literature, wherein feminine influence sheds a glow of sweet-
ness and dignity, of benignity, chastity and refinement. From Eng-
lish literature the Irish made many notable translations. Thus Fin-
gin O'Mahony, "a wise man skilled in Latin, English and Irish,"
gave us a fine interpretation of Sir John Maundeville's "Travels"
(1475). "Guy of Warwick," "Bevis of Hampton," and Turpin*s
"Chronicles" are among the present known translations, which
have escaped the ravages of time. As might be expected, Spanish
and French romances were turned into Irish for the entertainment
of the people. The extent of the learning of these days is known,
in small part only, to archivists. It awaits generations of Irish
and Scottish scholars to glean, garner and elucidate, so that the
ordinary student may realise its depth, comprehensiveness and
grandeur.

In the knowledge of Astronomy mediaeval Ireland was in ad-
vance of most European lands. All the greater Lords of the Gaels
and Sean Ghalls had their official astronomers. It was but natural
that a nation of rovers and travellers should have maintained a
sound standard of geographical learning in their schools. In med-

348 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

icine, Europe could teach the Gaels but little. The King of £ng.
land had not better pharmaceutical lore or more adept surgical
skill at his command than the O'Briens in Munster or The Mac-
Cailim Mor in the Western Isles of Scotland. Only a very tiny
portion of a world of medical Gaelic MSS. has been edited and
translated by experts. An O'Shiel, clan doctor to O'Neill, ban-
ished from Ulster into the Low Countries by the cruel hand of per-
secution, becomes at the Court of Brussels European-famed, there-
by justifying the Four Masters* epithet, "The Eagle of Physicians."
The contemporary Spaniards and Portuguese praised the skill and
acquirements of the medical Doctors of Gaeldom. It is worthy
of remembrance that Lionel, Duke of Clarence, brother to Edward
III, King of England, and promulgator of the Statute of Kilkenny,
employed none but Irish physicians for himself and his court. In
science, in architecture, in the chan^ng fashions of the goldsmiths'
art, we see how the Irish were influenced by the skill and the refine-
ment of the European Continent.

The Irish Brehon Law Code goes back to a much earlier epoch
than the days of St. Patrick. Its interpreters were deeply rever-
enced by the Irish people because of their even-handed justice.
There is not a single instance in recorded history of a brehon (a
Gaelic judge) accepting a bribe, or being deflected a hair's breadth
from the dictates of equity through personal bias or family inter-
ests. The refined attention of Gaelic law to the minutix of the
rights of property has won praise from its bitterest foes. Every
chieftain had his own Brehon "to decide the causes of that coun-
try." "Three doors," declared the Irish, "through which truth is
recognised: a patient answer, a firm pleading, appealing to wit-
nesses. Three glories of a gathering: a judge without perturba-
tion, a decision without reviling, terms agreed upon without fraud."
English oflicials exhausted the vocabulary of abuse in condemna-
tion of the Brehon Law, "hateful alike to God and Man," as they
said. Yet they were amazed how cheerfully, how uprightly, the
Gaels obeyed its decisions. Even their traducer. Sir John Da vies,
was fain to pay this tribute: "There is no people under the sun
that doth love equal and indifferent (impartial) justice better than
the Irish, or will rest better satisfied with the execution thereof,
although it be against themselves, as they may have the protection
and benefit of the law upon which just cause they do desire it."
Chief Baron Finglas has left the valuable testimony that his coun-
trymen, who were loudest in jibing at the Irish law, did not obey
their own laws. "Yet divers Irishmen doth observe and keep such
laws which they make upon hills in their country, firm and stable.

LEARNING IN MEDIiEVAL IRELAND 349

without breaking them for any fear of favour." Lfet another Eng-
lish official give jiist judgment. Payne says Gaelic government was
"done with such wisdom, equity, and justice as to be worthy of all
praise." "For I myself," he continues, "have seen in several places
within their jurisdiction well nearly twenty cases decided at one sit-
ting, with such indifference (impartiality) that for the most part
both plaintiff and defendant hath departed contented." This bal-
anced justice displeased such of his countrymen as "live by blood,"
hence "they utterly mislike this or any other good thing that the
poor Irish man doth." "The Irish keep their promise faithfully
and are more desirous of peace than the English ; nothing is more
pleasing to them than good justice."

The Irish brehons were men of deep learning, of wide influence
and of riches. Three signs marked their abodes, so said the peo-
ple, "wisdom, information, intellect." In the Annals we read of
many of them being professors of new and old laws, Civil and
Canon law.

If the English hated Brehon laws, the Irish had comedies, which
were played in the open air, burlesquing English law and its
judges.

A contemporary author ( 1351) gives a vivid and joyous picture
of the intellectual gatherings in mediaeval Ireland, wherein clan
feuds and distinctions were forgotten and the spirit of a common
nati(Miality supplanted the passion of war by the nobler craving
for peace. Liam O'Kelly, Lord of Hy-Many in Connacht, in that
year invited all tliat was best in the mind and the hand of Gaeldom,
as well as the professors of fun and merriment, to his castle. For
it was the lofty privilege of lords, chieftains and of the wealthy,
to foster such assemblies. "The company that read all books, they
of the Church and of the poets both: such of these as shall be per-
fect in knowledge, forsake not thou their intimacy ever" — such
was the admonition given to their rulers by the people. "The
chroniclers of comely Ireland," says our authority, "it is a gather-
ing of a mighty host, the company is in the town ; where is the street
of the chroniclers?"

O'Kelly, chief poet, in a fine description of the gathering, com-
pared the streets of tents that lodged the learned to the letters in
a manuscript, and his princess* banner-decked castle to the illumi-
nated capital letter.*

*"The fair, generous-hearted host provides another spacious avenue of white
nouses for the bardic companies and the jugglers. Such is the arrangement of
*nem, ample avenues between, even as letters in their lines. Each thread, bare,
smooth, straight, firm, is contained within two threads of smooth^ conical-roofed
nouses. The ridge of the bright furrowed slope is a plain lined with houses.

350 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Nearly a century later the lofty-souled Mairgret O' Carroll,
princess of Offaly, presided over another such gathering. "She was
the only woman," narrate the Annalists, "that made the most of re-
pairing the highways and creating bridges, churches and Mass
books, and of all manner of things profitable to serve God and her
soul, and, while the world stands, her many gifts to the Irish and
Scottish nations shall never be numbered."

"It is she," runs the ancient account, "that twice in one year pro-
claimed to and commonly invited (i.e., in the dark days of the year,
to wit on the feast day of Da Sinchell — ^26th March — in Killachy) all
persons, both Irish and Scottish, to two general feasts of bestowing
both meat and moneys, with all manner of gifts, whereunto gathered
to receive the gifts the matter of 2,700 persons, besides gamesters
and poor men, as it was recorded in a Roll to that purpose, and that
accompt was made thus, ut vidimus — ^viz., the chief kins of each
famUy of the learned Irish was by Gilla-na-naemh MacEgan's hand,
the chief judge to O'Conor, written in the roll, and his adherents
and kinsmen, so that the aforesaid number of 2,700 was listed in
that Roll with the Arts of Dan, or poetry, Music and Antiquity.
And Maelin O'Maelconry, one of the chief learned of Connacbt,
was the first written in that Roll, and first paid and dieted, or set
to supper, and those of his name after him and so forth, every one
as he was paid he was written in that Roll, for fear of mistake, and
set down to eat afterwards. And Margaret, on the steps of the
great church of Da Sinchell, clad in cloth of gold, her dearest friends
about her, her clergy and Judges too. Calvagh (her husband) him-
self on horseback by the Church's outward side, to the end that all
things might be done orderly, and each one served successively. And
first of all she gave two chalices of gold as offerings that day on the
Altar to God Almighty, and she also caused to nurse or foster two
young orphans. But so it was, we never saw nor heard neither the
like of that day nor comparable to its glory and solace. And she gave

"OTCelly's castle, as it were, a capital letter, a star-like mass of stone, its outer
smoothness like vellum — a castle which was the standard of a mighty chieftain;
bright is the stone thereof, ruddy its colour. The work is a triumph of art. There
is much artistic iron-work upon the shining timber. On the smooth part of ejkch
brown oaken beam workmen are carving animal figures. C_v

"The bardic companies of pheasant-meadowed Fola (Ireland) and those of
Scotland — a distant journey — will be acquainted with one another after arriving in
O'Kelly's lofty stone castle.

"Herein will come the seven grades who form the shape of genuine poetry;
the seven true orders of poets. ...

"Men coming to the son of Donnchadh from the north no less from the south,
an assembly of scholars : a billeting from west and east ...

"There will be jurists of weighty decisions, wizards; the writers of Ireland,
those who compose the battle rolls, will be in his dwelling.

"The musicians of Ireland — vast the flock — the followers of every craft m
general, the flood of companies side by side — ^the tryst of all is to one house."

LEARNING IN MEDIiEVAL IRELAND 351

the second inviting (1443) proclamation (tp every one that came
not that day) on the feast day of the Assumption of our Blessed
Lady Mary in harvest, at or in the Rath-Imayn, and so we have
been informed that that second day in Rath-Imayn was nothing in-
ferior to the first day."

In state-craft and in peace-making she was equally distinguished.
Her sanctity became proverbial. Like all Irish women of noble
repute she led the men folk with the subtle liens of purity and of
prayer — led them so surely and so unobtrusively that they believed
they went forward of their own free will. She announced her in-
tention of visiting the shrine of St. James of Campostella in fair
Spain and forthwith a big gathering of warriors, hardened war-
dogs in holy Ireland's cause, led by MacGeoghagan, wished to ac-
company her (1445). They went together. The flood of Irish
pilgrims to their own Saints' shrines as well as to the Holy Land, to
Rome, to St. James of Campostella, to the tomb of Thomas a
Becket at Canterbury, went on unceasingly through the Middle
Ages. These pilgrimages need a modern historian — ^the material is
by no means scanty. When Mairgret paid the debt of mortality
(1451) the Annalists wrote: "A gracious year this year was,
though the glory and solace of the Irish was set but the glory of
heaven was amplified and extolled therein." "The best woman of
her time in Ireland" — such was the Irish verdict on this lofty and
magnanimous soul. "God's blessing, the blessing of all saints and
every other blessing from Jerusalem to Inis Gluair be on her going
to Heaven, and blessed be he that will read and hear this for bless-
ing her soul."

Her daughter Finola — "the most beautiful and stately, the most
renowned and illustrious of her time, her own mother alone ex-
cepted," blessed with "the blessing of guests and strangers, of poets
and philosopiiers" — ^married O'Donnell, Lord of Tir-Chonnail.
When O'Neill, aided by MacDonnell and his gall-oglach, invaded
her territory, she "after the fashion of the strong-hearted and in-
dependent women of Ireland," met them at Iniihowen, and "made
peace without leave from O'Donnell." Finola, the fairest and
most famous woman in Ireland beside her own mother," after the
death of O'Donnell in an English prison, married the golden-haired
Hugh O'Neill, "who was thought to be King of Ireland," "the most
renowned, hospitable and valorous of the princes of his time, and
who had planted more of the English in despite of them than any
other man of his day.'* He died on Spy-Wednesday (1444) "and
we never heard since Christ was betrayed on such a day, of a better

352

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

man." Three years later Finola, "renouncing all worldly vanity,
betook herself into the austere devout life in the monastery of Kil.
leigh ; and the blessing of guests and strangers, and poor and rich,
and both of poet-philosophers and archi-poet-philosophers be on her
in that life."

In history Ireland's fame stands high. She was justly styled a
"Nation of Annalists." Each sept, each province, had its own
genealogist and chronicler whose business it was to record the deeds
of the clan and its princes, and the deaths of its leading personages,
lay and ecclesiastical. Truth and accuracy were regarded as of
paramount importance. "To conceal the Truth of History," ran
one saying, "is the blackest of infamies." The scribes travelled
throughout the whole country to verify their references and their
facts. The Philosophy of History was unknown in these ages.
Many of the entries in the Annals are aggravatingly brief and bald.
But as the poets celebrated in ample verse the fame and exploits of
the popular heroes and heroines, the chronicler must have believed
that brevity was the soul of discretion. The course of study the
aspiring recorders underwent was long, arduous and specialised.
They were trained in the bardic schools or under some well-known
tutor. They handed on from age to age the traditions of their sept.
The office of scribe and genealogist was usually continued in certain
families, the son succeeding his father, as a matter of course. The
Annalists were held in the highest esteem, ranking next to the head
of the clan ; they fed at his table and were supported by his bounty.
No important public business was conducted without their presence
and their directing influence. The greater portion of the existing
annals have been the resultant of the Revival of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries.

CHAPTER XL

THE GERALDINES

The history of the Gaellcised Fitzgeralds (the Geraldines) is in a
sense, the history of the fortunes of Southern Ireland for an ex-
tensive period. The poet says, "They channelled deep old Ire-
land's heart by constancy and worth." * In Desmond, South Mun-
ster, and the lands adjoining, they ruled as absolute monarchs over a
hundred miles of territory.

"They made barons and knights,*' records Sir Jdin Davies, "did
exercise high justice on all points within their territories; erected
courts for criminal and civil cases, and for their'revenues, in the same
form as the King's courts were established at Dublin; made their
own judges, seneschals, sheriffs, coroners and escheators; so the King's
writ did not run in those counties. . . . These great undertakers
were not tied to any form of planatation, but all was left to their

1 While our scholarly contributor, "Sean Ghall," is permitted to diatint the
psan of the very brave Geraldines in these pages, it is at the same time proper to
remind readers that though they were with fair thoroughness Gaelicised (both in
manners and in blood) these usurpers always retained, in their subconsciousness,
memory of the fact that it was England who had placed them in the seat of U>e
displaced GaeL And so long as England properly respected their sovereign rigiits
in their dominion — which should not be theirs — they were in turn willing to respect
England's suzerainty over Ireland in general — and even act as her Deputies.
It is true that, openly or secretly, they hated England with a holy hate — England
and the later English. And they hated English tryanny to the extent of boom-
ing chronic rebels against England— even when they were nominally serving her.
It was their hatred of England, and resentment of English interference, rather than
the higher principle of Ireland's nationality, that kept them in rebellion.

True, the real Irish chieftains had, at times, diplomatically pretended to re-
sign the principle of Irish nationality; but with them it was always pretence —
shameful pretence to be sure. The principle, for all that, was kept warm in their
hearts — and as soon as occasion presented itself, blossomed vigorously forth again.

The Geraldines were the cream of the sean-Ghall. They were as good as could
be expected. But no better. When O'Neill was marching to Kinsale he asked
who owned a castle that took his attention in passing — and when told that the
O'^ner's name was Barry, he heartily cursed him. "But, interrupted his informant,
nes a Catholic whose family has been here four hundred years." "No matter,"
retorted O'Neill, "I hate the robber as though he came yesterday." And indeed till
ONeill's day (and later) there was far more than a grain of reason bdiind the
exasperation of the GaeL It was not till newer usurpers robbed them of that

which they themselves had usurped that the sean-Ghall became flawlessly Irish. —

o. M. .

353

354 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

discretion and pleasure, and although they builded castles and made
freeholders, yet there were no tenures or services reserved to die
Crown, but the lords drew all respect and dependency of the com>
mon people unto themselves."

The Geraldines of Kildare held the entire county of Kildare,
with parts of Meath, Dublin, and Carlow, while their castles
stretched beyond Strangford Lough on the coast of Down, to Adare,
a few miles from the town of Limerick. They had their own fleet
to patrol the seas. Intermarriages with the great houses in England
and with Norman and Gaelic families in Ireland were, at first, a
settled part of Geraldine policy.

When they tasted of the pure milk of Gaelicism they never for-
got its savour, so they became kindly Irish of the Irish, root and
branch. Irish culture refined the Normans. There were no
scholars, no poets or authors, among the first invaders. Yet when
Jenico Savage, the descendant of the warrior who preferred "a
castle of bones to a casde of stones" died (1374), the Annalists
lamented that the learned of Ireland "were left an orphan by his
death." The higher refinement of native civilisation altered the
Normans* very nature. Mrs. J. R. Green says:

"There remains a token of how the lords of Athenry had thrown
themselves into Irish life, in the shrine made by Thomas de Birming-
ham (1374) for St. Patrick's tooth, the most venerated relic in
Connacht — a shrine of silver, decorated with raised figures in sil-
ver and settings of crystals, coloured glass, and amber with spiral
and interlaced work of Celtic art. Nugents and Cusacks and Eng-
lishes, and other foreign names, were entered on the roll of Iri^
poets. In the ardour of Irish studies a Fitzgerald, even a Buder,
was not behind a MacCarthy or an O'Sullivan. But it is to the
Geraldines we must look for the highest union of the culture of
(Norman) England and Ireland. By a fine custom the Irish chiefs,
'heroes who reject not men of learning,* were in their own houses
'the sheltering tree of the learned,* and of the whole countryside.
When a noble made a set feast or 'ushering' there flocked to it all
the retainers and many a visitor, the mighty and the needy — a gay
and free democracy of hearers and critics, with *a welcome for every
first-rate and free-hearted man that is refined and intelligent, affable
and hilarious.* '*

The Geraldines afford the most numerous instances of mere men
of blood, apostles of the sword, turning, under the influence of
Gaeldom, into gentle sages and wise scholars. Thus, Gerald the
Rhymer," as his subjects named him, fourth Earl of Desmond

THE GERALDINES 355

(1359-98), was known as "the Poet." His learning was so deep
and his acquirements so wide, that he was regarded as a magician.
His son, James, was fostered and reared by the O'Briens of
Thomond, the Statute of Kilkenny notwithstanding. This Fitz-
gerald is described as a nobleman of wonderful bounty, mirth,
cheerfulness in conversation, charitable in his deeds, easy of access,
a witty and ingenious composer of Irish poetry, a learned and pro-
found chronicler. He excelled all the English and many of the
Irish in the knowledge of the Irish language, poetry and history,
and other learning. This Earl lived long in Irish legendary lore.
Once in every seven years he is said to revisit his Castle of Gur,
near Limerick.

The eighth Earl of Desmond was the flower of the Southern
Geraldlne stock. The Irish people have taken this Thomas Fitz-
gerald to their hearts, and enshrined him there as a ^'Martyr of
Christ." He was the first of a long and fine line of Sean Ghalls to
be martyred in the cause of Irish freedom. He was an affable,
eloquent, hospitable man ; kind and munificent to the poets and anti-
quaries of the Irish race. "Educate that you may be free." Acting
on this maxim Earl Thomas founded the famous College of St.
Mary at Youghal (1464). The foreigners had destroyed the
glorious University oiF Armagh ( 1 133-1202) with its 3,000 scholars
and Its famed tutors, presided over by Florence O'Gorman, who
spent over a generation in acquiring knowledge in the universities
of France and England. Armagh had been regarded as the Na-
tional University for all the "Irish and Scots," and Rury O' Conor,
the High King of Ireland, had given to it the first (1169) an-
nual grant to maintain professors for the whole of the Irish race
— in Scotland as well as Ireland. Thomas of Desmond tried to re-
establish a National University, and for that purpose had an Act of
Parliament passed at Drogheda ( 1466). By precept and by prac-
tice he had endeavoured to unify the two races in Ireland. He was
a promoter and a patron of trade and commerce between Ireland
and the Continent. The English hated him for such fruitful and
healing activities — "Enormities" they called them. His marriage
with an Irish lady, in despite of the Statute of Kilkenny, was a
crowning infamy. "Who dare say to Geraldlne, *Thy Irish wife
discard'?" For Thomas Desmond, when he was murdered in
Drogheda by the Earl of Worcester, afterwards known as "The
Butcher," all Ireland went into the deepest mourning.*

'For his cultured daughter Katherine, wife of MacCarthy Reagh (1450-1500),
the famous Book of Lismore was made from the now lost Book of Monasterboice.

356 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Gerald, the eighth Earl of Kildare ( 1477-15 13), was named by
Ireland "Geralt Mor" — Gerald the Great. He had the fine stature,
the manly beauty and goodly presence of his race ; his liberality and
his merciful deeds passed current as household words. He was a
man of strict piety. His mild just government drew the hearts of
his people to him in passionate devotedness. During the fifty years
which preceded the Reformation, the ofiice of Lord Deputy of Ire-
land, was filled, with a few broken intervals, by this Fitzgerald and
by his son. They pursued a National policy and so incurred the
hatred of the permanent English officials.

By liens of blood-relationship he obtained great Influence
amongst the great Irish houses. Old and New. So powerful Jiad he
become that he retained the deputy-governorship of Ireland in
despite of King Edward IV and his nominee.

He ruled it wisely and justly. A knight he was in valour —
princely and religious in his word and judgments. His daughters,
Eleanor and Margaret, were unquestionably two of the most re-
markable women of their age and country. In vain endeavour to
join in amity the rival houses of Kildare and Ormond (Geraldine
and Butler) the Earl married Margaret to Piers Butler, Earl of
Ormond. She founded the famous school of Kilkenny. Ormond
was ably seconded by her In his efforts to promote more advanced
methods of agriculture. Whilst Sir Piers Is forgotten, "Magheen"
or "Little Margaret" Fitzgerald's deeds are recounted beside the
fire of many a peasant's cot In the Kilkenny of to-day.

Gerait Og, "Gerald the Younger," ninth Earl of Kildare ( 1487-
1534), although educated in England was even more Irish than
his father. He continued the policy of intermarriage with the
Irish, and so consolidated the power of his house. Maynooth,
under him, was one of the richest earls' houses of that time. "His
whole policy was union in his county, and Ireland for the Irish."
He was first appointed Lord Deputy by his cousin, Henry VIII, In
1513. After seven years' rule he was removed, charged by the
English with "seditious practices, conspiracies, and subtle drifts."
The people were gladdened when a few years later he re-assumed
the post.

His cousin, the Earl of Desmond, had entered into a solemn
league and covenant with Francis I, King of France (1523), to
drive the English out of Ireland, whilst Scotland was to render
assistance to the cause by invading England. But the heart of the
leader of the Scottish army, the Duke of Albany, failed him at the
last moment and the gallant Scots dejectedly turned homewards
(20th May, 1525). All Ireland's hopes were again shattered.

THE GERALDINES 357

Kildare was summoned (1526) to England by Cardinal Wolsey to
answer the charge of complicity in the plot. His brilliant wit, subtle
brain and eloquent tongue alone saved his head from the block.
Wolsey denounced Kildare as a traitor. In his six years' deten-
tion in the Tower of London, Kildare's Irish friends convinced
Henry VIII that Gerald's release was the most politic course,
for the moment. So he was re-instated (1532). Henry's plans
for the pulling down of the House of Kildare and the extermina-
tion of the Desmonds were not yet ripe. So, until his final im-
prisonment and death, Gerald Og continued to rule as a God-
fearing, just, wise man. When he took the ordnance from the
royal castles and placed them in his own it was a portent to the
country that he had secretly thrown in his lot with Desmond, who
had not given up the hope of obtaining French, Scottish and Spanish
aid. He was of a deep piety. His confidence in the goodness and
mercy of God was unbounded. As a patron of learning he endowed
a college on the lands assigned by his father for that purpose. This
building was erected in 15 18 "in a most beautiful form," it was
called "The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Maynooth."
It was razed with the ground when the beneficent Geraldine's rule
was ended (1538). O'Mulconry was his oUav, "man full of the
grace of God and of learning." Gerald had "The Red Book of
Kildare," now in the British Museum, compiled for him. Philip
Flattesbury, his secretary, likewise drew up "divers chronicles of
Ireland." He possessed an excellent library of Latin, Irish, French
and English books — 122 in all. Almost all the classics were in-
cluded in this collection, which would compare favourably with the
finest private library in any English nobleman's castle. Kildare was
a man of culture, and was well read not only in the ancients but also
in the literature of his day. His fame was European. "His
hospitality is to this day rather of each man commended, than of
any man followed."

Such a man's doom was certain. The Dublin Castle officials
soon made up a bill of charges against his Irish rule, and Kildare
found himself back in the Tower of London for the last time

(1534).

Before his departure from Dublin he appointed as vice-Deputy
his son, a boy of twenty, the famous Silken Thomas. Disregarding
nis father's advice to be guided by his elders, young Thomas fell
an easy prey to the veteran English intriguers of Dublin Castle,
who had been secretly mining the foundations of the House of Kil-
dare for generations. A forged letter was shown round in official
circles in Dublin alleging that the Earl's neck "was already cut

358 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

shorter" |n the Tower of London, "as his issue presently should
be." Lord Thomas, "rash and headlong and assuming himself that
the knot of all Ireland was twisted under his girdle," having con-
suited with the young bloods, inopportunely raised the standard of
revolt — against the entreaties of all the wisest heads. His enemies
rejoiced; his well-wishers were in despair. On nth June, 1534,
he rode through Dublin, attended by a guard of 140 horsemen in
coats of mail, with silken fringes on their helmets, on which account
he became known as "Silken Thomas." On reaching St. Mary's
Abbey where the Council of State was assembled, his bard chaunt-
ing the ancient glories of the Geraldines adding fuel to his ardour,
Thomas flung the Sword of State "the English churls among."
"This sword," he declared, "was already bathed in Geraldine blood
and now newly whetted in hope of a further destruction. I am
none of Henry's Deputy. I am his foe. I have more mind to con-
quer than to govern, to meet him in the field than to serve him in
office."

At first Lord Thomas swept all before him. Then England
poured troops lavishly into Ireland — accompanied by the new in-
vention, the cannon, which proved the young leader's undoing.

The impetuous valour of Geraldine and his skilful leadership
won many battles. The fall of Maynooth Castle, the mightiest
stronghold in the land, after ten days' battering with "great guns,"
was heard throughout Ireland. "Fooboon on the foreign grey
gun" cursed the Irish. It was a portent that Silken Thomas's
victories would avail him nothing. The eagerly awaited French
army arrived not. After several reverses the iron tongue of the
cannon told him further resistance was useless. He submitted and
was sent to the Tower of London — ^where his father had already
died of a broken heart, on learning of Thomas's insurrection. Here
the young "rebel" was treated with the utmost cruelty. Finally, he
was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn (1537). With him
perished his five uncles, the half-brothers of his father, and the
near kinsmen of Henry VIII. Three of these nobles, gentle,
scholarly men, had failed to aid the rebellion. The other two
having actually helped to suppress it, were, in requital of their serv-
ice to England's crown, seized at a banquet to which they had been
invited by the English Lord Deputy. But the troublesome house
of Kildare must be wiped out for good. Two children, however,
escaped from the butchery. The blotting out of the very name,
the uprooting of the seed of the Leinster Geraldines, became the
policy of the subsequent three years. Whilst Gerald, a boy of 12
years, remained free, the "extirpation" of the race was incomplete.

THE GERALDINES

359

Lady Eleanor Fitzgerald, widow of MacCarthy Reagh, and
aunt of the orphan Gerald, had leamt with grief and horror of the
six outraged corpses of her kinsmen at Tyburn. She had seen the
deeds of the English soldiers and officials in the Geraldine country
who came to wean the people, so they said, "from the inordinate
tyranny of their Irish lords" and "to teach them the sweets of civil
English order." She had heard the wail of the ravished maidens,
of the erstwhile gentlefolk lamenting beside heaps of ruins, once
stately dwellinghouses ; she saw the charred harvest fields, the
"slaughter heaps" of youth and age. The churches and the schools,
the abodes of the men of culture and refinement, had gone the way
of the cot of the peasant. Such "sweets" were gall and wormwood
to her compassionate soul. The Act of Parliament (1537) decreed
all the Geraldine countries to be forfeited to the Crown. Her
nephew Gerald was being nursed in illness by his sister. Lady Mary
O'Conor, wife of the chieftain of Offaly, whilst the English people
held the confident belief that the House of Kildare had ceased to
be. Through this Lady Eleanor's amazing energy, dauntless
courage, and exquisite tact, all the great families were united in a
vast confederacy against the English government. Everywhere lo-
cal feuds and personal enmities were sacrificed on the altar of Na-
tionality. All Ireland, Old and New, Gael and Sean Ghall, took
the boy under its protection. In spite of all political divisions and
tribal distrusts, Ireland was essentially a nation to the seventeenth
century : one in soul and mind, though not in body — one in language
and in literature, one in manners and customs, one in religion and
in'spiritual feeling, one in the nobler and more gentle arts of human
fellowship, rooted in the soil of sufferings, kindred, fosterage,
marriage and death.'

' The only family of the "Old Foreigners" the Anglo-French-Norman, to be
artificially kept outside the influence of Gaelicism, was the Butlers of the House
of Ormond. The Butlers had not become Gaelicised, because for nearly two hun-
dred years its wards were minors, and so reared and trained by the Kings of
England as Englishmen. Their policy and outlook was anti-Irish. But James
Butler, the ninth Earl, broke away from the traditional family policy. He, the
son of "Magheen" Fitzgerald, the renowned Countess of Ormond, could not but
regard Ireland as his first lave. The pervading spirit of a common Irish life per-
vaded him as it had filled all the land outside ofiicial Dublin. Though the de-
struction of the rival House of Kildare added enormously to the Ormond estates,
yet Butler was horrified at the Tyburn butchery. Hardened soldier though he was,
Ormond played the woman openly, "tears pouring down his cheeks" when he pic-
tured the six stark Geraldine corpses. Intermarriage with the Powers, the O'Briens,
*nd the MacGillapatricks, established the Butlers power. By an alliance with a
daughter of James, eleventh Earl of Desmond, James Butler united the southern
peraldines to his interests. This brought down upon him the vengeance of Eng-
land whose policy was to divide and conquer. On the death of Desmond, Ormond
Claimed the Earldom. The union of the two families would have made Butler
uu °* ^'"'ost the whole of Southern Ireland. Henry VIII took up Ormond's
cnaUenge. At a supper given at Limehouse, London, the whole of Lord Butler's

36o THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Through her marriage with the scholarly author, wise politician
and stout warrior, Manus O'Donnell, Lady Eleanor healed an age-
long animosity between Tir-Eoghan and Tir-Chonaill. The news
caused consternation at Dublin Castle and so in England. "Never
was I in despair of Ireland until now," exclaimed the Lord Deputy;
another official added that their trust was "by the aid of the North
of Ireland and of Scotland" to make war. O'Neill and O'Donnell
"by the procurement of the said Eleanor" had taken a solemn oath
to take one part with the said Gerald against the Englishry
(1538). For security the boy was conveyed to France, via the
territory of O'Donnell. And, savage at being robbed of his
precious prey, Henry VIII sent Lord Leonard Grey, his Deputy of
Ireland, to the scaffold, for not having effected Gerald's capture.

Lady Eleanor unified the whole country. The French king and
the Emperor Charles V promised their aid, once again, and Scot-
land's weight was to turn the balance in Ireland's favour. O'Neill
was to be proclaimed High King at Tara. Once again foreign aid
was illusory. The Earl of Desmond began by the invasion of the
English districts of Tipperary; and the Northern chieftains "in-
vaded the Pale" (1539). Against the field of the new English
artillery, "the great grey guns," they had no adequate defence, so
Irish hopes were once more futile.

But hope never yet died in the Irish breast. The name of the
exiled young Gerald Fitzgerald became a source of inspiration and
of hope to his countrymen at home. He had had a royal recep-
tion in France, in the Lowlands, in Italy and was acclaimed "King
of Ireland" by the people who denounced Henry VIII as a mere
usurper. He was followed by cheering crowds whenever he ap-
peared in public. Kings and princes, the Emperor Charles, and
the Pope vied with one another in honouring and aiding him.
In Italy the Bishop of Verona and of Mantua provided him with
the best education the Peninsula afforded. The Duke of Milan
pensioned him. Cosmo de Medici pensioned him. In the service
of the Knights of Malta he fought the Turks. He afterwards
became Master of the Horse to the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

France concluded to use Gerald in uniting Scotland and Ire-
land. Lady Eleanor Fitzgerald had guaranteed the support of the
MacCarthys' land of Carbery; the O'Neills and O'Donnells "who
had the whole North hanging on their sleeves," would give the

retinue, fifty, sickened, •seventeen dying of the poison. The Earl himself was car-
ried to Ely House, Holbom, where he succumbed after some days' suffering. Iris"
writers blame Henry and his Deputy for this atrocity. Others accuse the Earl
of Northumberland, "a rare poisoner (1550).

THE GERALDINES

361

French a glad welcome. Irish ambassadors were passing to and
fro from the lands of the Gael and Sean Ghall to the French King.
The English believed that there would be a universal rising as soon
as the French and Gerald made their appearance. Irish monks and
friars carried the fiery cross of revolt from Malin Head to Cape
Clear — from North to South. A large French fleet had assembled
at Brest, and 15,000 veteran soldiers were ready to embark.

But, at the last moment, the patching up of the quarrel between
France and the Empire led to a change of plans. The French went
direct to Scotland, from thence intending to invade Ireland. The
English, wishing the beautiful and fascinating child, afterwards
the world-famed Mary Queen of Scots, as a wife for Edward VI, to
unite the two countries, sent an army to enforce their demand. The
armies of Scotland and England met at Pinkie (loth Sept., 1547).
The defeat of the Scots and their French and Irish allies was the
result of the contest.

In Ireland, however, the O'Donnells and 15,000 Scots kept the
flame alight in the North. The Geraldines and the O' Conors were
ravaging the English Pale. The Earl of Desmond had all ready to
join the oft-expected French. It was at this juncture that French
opinion favoured the marriage of Gerald Fitzgerald with Mary
of Scots. English agents in Scotland reported that when the Ger-
aldine landed at Dumbarton "Gerald of Kildare should marry the
Scottish queen and array all Ireland in their party against England."
But the death of Francis I and the accession of Henry II, who
wished Mary for his own son, altered all these plans. Scotland
and Ireland found themselves but pawns on the Continental chess-
board. Realising that all hope of freeing Ireland by the help of
foreign princes was but as idle wind, Gerald, at the instance of his
aunt, Lady Eleanor, made his submission to the English Queen and
was restored to a portion of his lands and his title "legitimatised"

(1554).

Though, even "legitimatised" he settled down to become the
willing centre of endless, — and alas I fruitless — "rebellious" in-
trigue. The Irish chieftains, the Scots, the French, and the Spanish,
plotted for Ireland's freeing — ever with the young Geraldine as
the hero around whom the hosts should rally.

CHAPTER XLI

HENRY Vni'S POLICIES

From the beginning of his reign (15 15) Henry VIII undertook
to destroy the basis of Irish resistance. With this object in view he
issued "most secret" instructions to his officials to capture our trade
and commerce, by every subtle device. All the laws against Irish
civilisation, against marriage, fosterage and gossipred, against the
use of native literature and its language, against every phase and
aspect of National life, were re-enacted. By a Parliament (May
1536]^ composed of English colonists only, and convened by fraud,
corruption, and terror, Henry was acknowledged as Head of
Church and State; and the Catholic religion, with its ritual and
teachings,, declared null aiid void, "corrupt for ever." Five years
later the same body proclaimed Henry "King of Ireland."

"Irishmen," wrote one of the would-be exterminators in the
light of sad later experience, "will never be conquered by war. They
can suffer so much hardness to lie in the field, to live on roots and
water continually, and be so light, ever at their advantage to flee
or fight ; so that a great army were but a charge in vain and would
make victuals dear. . . . The Irishmen have pregnant subtle
wits, eloquent and marvellous natural in comynaunce. They must
be instructed that the King intendeth not to exile, banish, or destroy
them, but would be content that every one of them should enjoy
his possessions taking* the same of the king . . . and become his
true subjects, obedient to his laws, forsaking their Irish laws, habits
and customs, setting their children to learn English" (Cowley's
Plan for the Reformation of Ireland, 1541 STATE PAPERS).

The IwOrd Deputy, St. Leger, preached and acted on this Gospel.
The unfortunate result was the submission of O'Neill, O'Donneli,
O'Brien, the MacCarthy, the Burkes, and all the rules of the
Irish, Old and New. They went through the form of acknowl-
edging Henry as King of Ireland, as Head of Church and State in
Ireland, and promised to substitute English for Brehon law, and
English manners, and customs for Irish. "They have turned, and
sad is the deed, their back to the inheritance of their fathers.

362

HENRY VlirS POLICIES 363

Yet In spite of "doing knee-homage, they would not get from the
King of England for Ireland a respite from misery. There is not
one of them in the shape of a man in Ireland af this time. O mis-
guided, withered host, say henceforth nothing but Fooboon I" The
people, faithful to Ireland in woe as in weal, resented, lamented,
and even cursed their "diplomatic" chiefs.

The fate and fortunes of any one of the compromisers is typical
of all. Take -O'Neill for example. When Con O'Neill, Lord of
Tir-Eoghan, submitted to Henry VIII at Greenwich (24th Sept.,
1542), he renounced the title "The O'Neill," and was created Earl
of Tyrone instead. A sturdy adventurer "called an O'Neill,"
Mathew Kelly, the son of a Dundalk blacksmith, selected by the
English Government to disintegrate Tir-Eoghan, received thejtitle
of Baron of Dungannon, and so Con's successor by feudal law.
O'Neill then acknowledged Henry as Head of Church and State,
and undertook to substitute English for Irish civilisation. All the
legal incidents of feudaliun were to replace those of the Brehon
law. The number of his soldiers was to be determined by the Lord
Deputy, whom he was to accompany in all warlike expeditions
against "rebels." A mansion and lands in the Pale were to be
bestowed upon him, when he attended the English Parliament in
Dublin. Though "he received the mocks of all men" for his con-
version to Anglicisation he tried to fulfil his side of the shameful
bargain. When Henry II of France ami the Sovereign of
Scotland sent letters and ambassadors to O'Neill inviting him to
join the Catholic League against England, he forwarded the letters
to London as a proof of his loyalty. Yet England had no intention
of allowing any Irish lord to rule his people as his peers in England
ruled theirs. Slowly it dawned on the victimised Con that her real
aim was the seizure of his lands and the extermination of his people.
Nicholas Bagenal, who had fled from justice for man-killing in
England, was appointed Marshal of the North. He began an in-
discriminate slaughter of O'Neill's subjects, burning even the very
grass^ killing every living thing on four legs, destroying habitations
and churches. The recreant Con's letters of protest against such
barbarity to England's King and the Privy Council, were returned
unopened or disregarded. The "Baron of Dungannon" was main-
tained against him — "borne up by the chin" by the English Govern-
ment. Daring to arrest one of the ravishers of his country, he was
imprisoned in Dublin by the Governor till he was enforced to deliver
the plunderer (1550). When he performed his duty of visiting
the Deputy in the Pale he was told by that huntane dignitary were
It not that he was old he would have off his head and see his blood

364 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

poured in a basin. After a victory to which O'Neill's troops con-
tributed, he provided a banquet for his companion in arms, the
Lord Deputy, the latter, "leaving the banquet unconsumed for
haste," at Armagh "did imprison the said Earl O'Neill and took
him prisoner to Dublin, and sent a garrison to Armagh and to Dun-
gannon, his chief manor, since which time the country was im-
poverished" (1552). Vainly did he try to obtain a reason for this
treatment. Con's letters describing the horrors his people endured
by the acts of English soldiery, whilst he was "a true and faithful
subject to the King's Majesty" make bitter reading.

After seventeen years as an English Earl Con lay on his dying
bed, a broken, dispirited man, despised by his subjects. He called
his people to him and pronounced malediction on all his descendants
who should trust in English faith or g^ve credence to English
promises. He cursed those who would speak the English tongue,
"for language bred confusion;" who built houses after the English
fashion, "to be beaten out by the hawk;" who grew corn in the
open, unfortified country, "to nourish the ravishers and destroyers."
Yet he suffered no more than any other of the confiding
chieftains who had put their trust in English faith, in its policy of
•'Conciliation."

Throughout disillusioned Ireland the fighting men deserted the
English-made lords. They flocked to the standards of the chieftains
selected in the way their forebears had elected them for more than
a thousand years. The Penal Laws against Irish Civilisation made
the people love it the more passionately.

Another of Henry's devices for the conquest of Ireland was
the kidnapping of noblemen's sons and having them reared and
educated in England, hostile to every tradition and instinct of their
nationality. "Politic practices," said Henry, "would serve till such
time as the strength of the Irish should be diminished, their leaders
taken away from them, and division put among themselves so that
they join not together." A modern historian thus passes judgment
on Tudor policy : "If there had been any truth or consideration for
Ireland in the royal compact some hope of compromise and con-
ciliation might have opened. But the whole scheme was rooted and
grounded in falsehood, and Ireland had yet to learn how far suffer-
ings by the quibble and devices of law might exceed the disasters
of open war. Chiefs could be ensnared one by one in misleading
contracts, practically void. A false claimant could be put on a
territory and supported by English soldiers in a civil war, till the
actual chief was exiled or yielded the land to the King's ownership-
No chief, true or fahe, had power to give away the people*s land,

HENRY VlirS POLICIES 365

and the king was face to face with an indignant people, who refused
to admit an illegal bargain. Then came a march of soldiers over
the district, hanging, burning, shooting, 'the rebels,' casting the
peasants out on the hillsides. There was also the way of 'conquest.'
The whole of the inhabitants were to be exiled, and the countries
made vacant and waste for English peopling: the sovereign's rule
would be immediate and peremptory over those whom he had thus
planted by his sole will, and Ireland would" be kept in a way un-
known in England ; then 'the King might say Ireland was clearly
won, and after he would be at little cost and receive great profits,
and men and money at pleasure.' . . . Henceforth it became a
fixed policy to 'exterminate and exile the country people of the
Irishry.' Whether they submitted or not the king was 'to inhabit
their cqjuntry' with English blood."

Henry hoped to have a royal army of Ireland as "a sword and
a flay" to his subjects in England and to his enemie^s abroad. His
dream seemed to be realised when Earl Con O'Neill and other
Irish lords, in the full flush of faith and confidence in English
justice, sent an army to aid Henry's troops against Francis I, King
of France — Ireland's best Continental friend — at the siege of
Boulogne (1544). The false, disillusioned Irish did not repeat
this experiment.

Also, Henry believed he could raise a big revenue out of Ire-
land's pockets for his sensualities and his political objects. But this
likewise failed, because his "cormorants and caterpillars" (as one
of their number happily described his fellow officials in Dublin
Castle) were too busy amassing wealth for themselves.

The introduction of the Protestant Reformation principles
added sources of fresh outrages, new oppressions. In Ireland
Protestantism was not given a chance to appeal to the pibplc by
any ethical, religious, or political ideals. The licentious unpaid
English soldiery who had to maintain themselves by plunder and
rapine, were accompanied by incendiariefe who left not a homestead,
not a blade of corn, standing; these apostles were followed by
ministers of the Gospel, with hangmen and escheators in their train.
So, amidst an orgy of slaughters and executions, in which neither
age nor sex, neither the infirm nor the strong were spared, and of
burnings, the true teachings of the Prince of Peace were supposed
to be inculcated. The soul of Ireland, resurrected through the
crucifixion of her body, became the most devoted daughter of the
Catholic Church. The destruction of monasteries, churches and
schools, became a passion. Even the possession of a manuscript on
^ny subject whatever incurred the death penalty. Poets and his-

366 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

torians were put to the sword, and their books and genealogies
burned, so that no man "might know his own grandfather." All
Irishmen, Old and New, were to be confounded in the same
ignorance and abasement, all glories gone and all rights lost. The
great object of the English Government was to purge the land of
Ireland of its rightful sons, to destroy the National tradition, to
wipe out Gaelic memories, and to begin a new English life.

Henry's well-defined policies were religiously pursued by his
successors, Edward and Mary.

The ministers of his son, Edward VI, intensified the vigour of
his religious crusade. Religion was to be made swe^t to the
heretical Irish — "with the Bible in one hand, in the other the
Sword." The English Liturgy in English was to be "rammed
down the rebels' throats." Edward's sister, "Bloody Mary," who
at Smithfield set alight the pyre, to burn those who dared to worship
the God of Truth, the God of Mercy, in a way different from hers,
in Ireland, amid great rejoicings, restored the Catholic religion.
Religious bigotry has not — to the credit of the Irish Catholics be
it proclaimed — ever found favour in Eirinn. Hence it is not sur-
prising to find history record that the Reformers were nowhere
per;3ecuted when the long-suffering Irish Church was now restored
to its own.

Mary's political policy did not differ from that of her father.
Her Irish rule was no less merciless than that of her two pred-
ecessors. Catholic England, Protestant England — both were, to
Ireland, as one in savage tyranny.

The O' Conors of Offaly and the O' Mores of Leix having
dared to defend their lands against the English invaders were out-
lawed and their countries forfeited to the Crown. A long and
bloody warfare, conducted with terrible ferocity, was the result.
"Cival" English people and licentious soldiery were "planted" on
the O'Conors' and O'Mores' lands; their owners being "rooted
up by the sword" and burnt out by the torch. This "godly re-
formation" being achieved, these clan districts were named King's
and Queen's County in honour of Mary and her Spanish husband,
King Philip. The remnants of the broken clans were to be allowed
to inhabit the boglands provided they became English in every
sense of the word. Even in Ireland there is nothing so heroic, so
persistent, so indefatigable as the efforts made by these two gallant
clans to recover their homes and altars. The struggle was main-
tained for generations. Like storm-beaten birds in crannied nooks
they emerged at every lull in the National storm and carried fire
and sword among the "planters." Even to this day O'More and

HENRY VlirS POLICIES 367

O'Conor are the principal families in the district, where their
forefathers ruled as just, munificent princes.

VoR THE NORMAN PERIOD IN IRISH HISTORY READ IN
ADDITION TO USUAL IRISH HISTORIES:

Davies: the Reason Why Ireknd was Never Entirely Subdued.

Richey: Lectures on Irish History.

Green, Mrs. A. S. : The Making of Ireland and Its Undoing.

Hull, Eleanor: History of Irish Literature (vol. ii).

Hyde, Douglas: A Literary History of Ireland.

Gilbert: History of the Irish Viceroys.

MacNeill, Eoin : Phases of Irish History.

CHAPTER XLII

SHANE THE PROUD ^

Dublin Castle, the seat of English power in Ireland, stands on
the site of the fortress of Haskulf the Dane. Before its first stone
root struck into the ground, while the newly arrived Norman ad-
venturers held Dublin, Haskulf came sailing back with fifty ships
manned by men in ringed hauberks, with red painted shields, of
iron hearts, of iron hands, says the chronicler, to win back his home.
He was defeated, his men put to the sword, and he, for a brave

1 SHANE O'NEILL

On thy wild and windy upland, Tornamona,

High above the tossing Moyle,
Lies in slumber, deep and dreamless now, a warrior

Weary-worn with battle-toil.
On his mighty breast the little canna blossoms.

And the scented bog-bines trail;
While the winds from Lurigaiden whisper hush-songs

Round the bed of Shane O'Neill.

Time was once, O haughty Warrior, when you slept not

To the crooning of the wind;
There was once a Shane whom daisies could not smother,

And whom bog-weeds could not bind —
Once a Shane with death-shafts from his fierce eye flashing.

With dismay in fist of mail —
Shane, whose throbbing pulses sang with singing lightning —

Shane, our Shane, proud Shane O'Neill !

Him the hungry Scot knew, and the thieving Saxon,

Traitorous Eireannach as well ;
For their mailed throats often gurgled in his grasping.

As he hurled their souls to hell.
Sassenach, now, and flouting Scot, and Irish traitor,

Breathe his name and turn not pale.
Set their heel upon the warrior's breast, nor tremble —

God ! the breast of Shane O'Neill I

Will you never, O our Chieftain, snap the sleep-cords?

Never rise in thunderous wrath —
Through the knaves and slaves that bring a blight on Uladh,

Sweeping far a dread red swath?
O'er the surges shout, O you on Tornamona,

Hark, the soul-shout of the Gael !
"Rise, O Chief, and lead us from our bitter bondage —

Rise, in God's name, Shane O'Neill."

— Seumas MacManus.
368

SHANE THE PROUD 369

defiant word, had his old bald head shorn from his shoulders.

Thus on the site of feasting was now a tradition of blood. The
new justiciary carried up the walls; and by the time the story of
Ireland reached the sixteenth century the castle was a large quad-
rangular building with towers, high walls, and strong defences. It
was fortress, a Parliament House, a Council Chamber, a Prison.
It was the very heart of English rule in Ireland. That heart had
been beating there four hundred years and, if an old prophecy is
true, it had yet to beat three hundred more. Then it would cease.

In 1567 a gift was brought to a group of gentlemen in the
Castle's Council Chamber. The bearer was handsomely rewarded
from the public Treasury, and the gift put in its place. Tarred,
stuck on a pole thrust horizontally from the north-west gateway,
it was left there for all Dublin to see. The Lord Deputy hastened
to write to Elizabeth of England to tell her the good news. For
that gift had brought her statesmen a step further in the conquest
of Ireland.

It was the head of Shane O'Neill, captain and chief of North-
west Ulster. Shane was a bad man in private life, but a born
soldier, a sagacious ruler, and a believer in his rights. When Conn,
the Lame, his father, accepted an English title, and became Baron
of Dungannon, Shane went into rebellion. On his father's death,
he slew his half brother, the next baron, and was inaugurated the
O'Neill. Shane the Proud, Ulster called him. He stood across
England's advance into the province. Wherever he set up his
tent, the great King-Candle before it, thicker than a man's body,
shining there in the night, his battle-axe guard at the door, the
trained soldiers of his territory, the hired Scottish gall-oglach
around, victory generally fell to his side. Elizabeth and her Lord
Deputies tried to cajole him, to deceive him, to defeat him, to
capture him, to murder him. Then when his soldiers had pierced
to the Pale, they recognised him as the O'Neill.

Once Sussex, the Lord Deputy, sent a force into his territory.
The English general seized Armagh, left men there, gathered spoil,
and set homeward.

O'Neill heard, followed, slew the spoilers, and recaptured the
booty. The Lord Deputy wished to make terms. O'Neill answered
that he would make no terms till the English soldiers were with-
drawn from Armagh. The Deputy temporised, applied to Eng-
land for soldiers, got them, and marched a great army into North-
east Ulster. But he struck at the air; O'Neill withdrew his men
into the forests and mountains, and sent an envoy to France to ask
for six thousand men.

370 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Then Elizabeth bade her Deputy win him over with promises,
with offers of friendship. He was won, or appeared to be. She
invited him to London. So he went, taking his retinue with him,
being not only chief of Tyrone, but a prince with far descended
rights.

London stared. He brought a company of gall-oglach. They
were picked and selected men "of great and mighty bodies, men
choosing rather to die than to yield." They wore shirts of mail,
iron caps, bright coloured trews to the knees, leggings of leather.
Their arms were swords by their sides, battle-axes in their hands.
The company being on an embassy of peace, in courtesy to a queen,
marched with bare heads. An English writer saw them, wondered,
marvelled with London and the court at their uncivilised mode of
wearing their hair. Long on their necks it hung; dose-cut in
front above the eyes. And such eyes as must have looked out
from under the combed unparted glib, proud, wondering, think-
ing of the spoil, no doubt, that the big foreign city could give. And
Elizabeth, favourable to all well made men, received their Chief in
honour, bestowing her friendship and gifts upon him; for which
friendship and gifts, and the recognition of his Chieftainship, he
paid her allegiance and promised to drive brave Sorley Boy Mc-
Donnell and his Scottish soldiers out of Antrim. So they parted,
Lady paramount, and semi-independent prince.

But it was not her policy nor the policy of her statesmen to
let such a man live. He was dangerous as an O'Neill who might
try to recover full independence, a man also who remembered his
direct descent from the High Kings of Ireland. He went home,
the Proud, with what thoughts in his mind who shall say? But he
had passed his word; remembered his honour; made war on Sorley
Boy and his Scots, defeated them and captured McDonnell. For
two years he lived in state, ruling justly. Every day he put aside
the first dish from his table for the poor. "We serve Christ first,"
he said. Sinner, soldier, chieftain, he was a strong figure in the
century.

These great dynastic houses maintained large retinues. Many,
since the Invasion, had lived and ruled as if no England existed.
They sent embassies and heralds to one another, proclaimed war or
peace ; collected their tribute. The point of England's sword had
entered the nation's body, but the wound was scorned or forgotten.
Each House had its hereditary officials: a marshal of forces; a
master of the horse; chief doorkeeper; chief butler; superintendent
of banquets; an immediate guard; keeper of treasure and chess-
board; keeper of arms and dresses; answerer of challenges from

SHANE THE PROUD 37;g

outside territories; avengers of insult; chief steward; keeper of
hounds; inaugurator and deposer; rearer of horses; carriers of
wine from harbour to the court ; builders and erectors of buildings ;
stewards of rent and tribute; hereditary historians and poets, men
highly trained in the schools.

Shane's territory was now supposed to be safe from English
interference or invasion. He and England's queen were friends.
Sussex, the Lord Deputy, wrote offering him his sister in marriage
with a safe conduct to Dublin. His intention was to capture
Shane. Later he sent him a present of wine. Elizabeth knew of
the gift; knew what was in it.

Shane and his household drank of the wine^ — and just escaped
death. The poisoner was unskilled. But Shane knew now for-
ever with whom he had to deal. It was the second attempt that
English statesmen had secretly made to assassinate him. There
is a State paper, a letter from Sussex to Elizabeth in which he tells
of his efforts to get Shane murdered.

Shane flung off his allegiance. Allegiance sat on these Irish
nobles like a red saddle loosely girt. After that draught of wine
he thought his sword his best security. He won a victory notable
for its name. Strange poppies lay among the harvest of the slain
reaped by his gall-oglach. They were three hundred English
soldiers, not in buff but in scarlet coats. The clansmen counted
and wondered at the new uniform of their foes. So that battle
was called the battle of the red coats.

But hard were the strokes of his enemies — "Queen's"
O'Donnels, "Queen's" O'Neills, Elizabeth's forces — and the Proud
was left the choice of submission or an appeal to the Scots mer-
cenaries. He chose the latter, freed Sorley Boy McDonnell, and
went to a banquet they gave. To that banquet also went a man
whom the Lord Deputy had maintained privately In Tyrone when
he and Shane were In friendship and peace. The spy waited till
the wine had made men drunk and think of their wrongs. Then
O'Neill was slain. The spy hastened to Dublin Castle and received
from Sir Henry Sidney a thousand marks from the public treasury.
So Shane's head went upon the north-west gate of Dublin.^

^ Our Irish poet, John Savage, wrote a fine poem entitled "Shane's Head" — in
which a clansman of Shane standing outside the wall of Dublin Castle is apostro-
phising the head— from which poem are taken the following stanzas :

Is it thus, O Shane the haughty I Shane the valiant! that we meet —

Have my eyes been lit by Heaven but to guide me to defeat?

Have / no chief, or you no clan, to give us both defence?

^ must I, too, be statued here with thy cold eloquence?

^ny ghastly head grins scorn upon old Dublin's Castle-tower,

372 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Thy shaggy hair is wind-tossed, and thy brow seems rough with power ;
Thy wrathful lips, like sentinels, by foulest treachery stiuig,
Look rage upon the world of wrong, but chain thy fiery tongue.

That tongue, whose Ulster accent woke the gh«st of Colm Cille,
Whose warrior words fenced round with spears the oaks of Derry Hill;
Whose reckless tones gave life and death to vassals and to knaves.
And hunted hordes of Saxons into holy Irish graves.
The Scotch marauders whitened when his war-cry met their ears.
And the death-bird, like a vengeance, poised above his stormy spears;
Ay, Shane, across liie thundering sea, out-chanting it, your tongue
Flung wild un-Saxon war-whoopings the Saxon Court among.

Just think, O Shane 1 the same moon shines on Liffey as on Foyle,
And lights the ruthless knaves on both, our kinsmen to despoil ;
And you the hope, voice, battle-axe, the shield of us and ours,
A murdered, trunkless, blinding sight above these Dublin towers!
Thy face is paler than the moon ; my heart is paler still — ■
My heart? I had no heart — 'twas yours, 'twas yours! to ^ceep or kill.
And you kept it saf« for Ireland, Chief — your fife, your soul, your pride ;
But tney sought it in thy bosom, Shane — with proud O'Neill it died.

CHAPTER XLIII

ELIZABETH CONTINUES THE CONQUEST

The conquest of Ireland had been going on for four centuries. The
rock against which every attempt to complete it had broken was the
immemorial laws of Ireland, the Brehon Laws. These bound
Irishmen within the four seas to one social and legal rule. All at-
tempts to plant the feudal system in Ireland by England went down
before them.

Their land system was the chief evil in the eyes of the invaders.
The clan owned the land as well as the chief. He had a life interest
in the chief's portion; but he could not sell the clan-lands or eject
free owners. This was a hindrance to confiscation. Now, the Irish
laws were declared barbarous. During four centuries the am-
bulatory Parliament of the Pale passed laws against it. These
laws reached just as far as English swords could carry them. The
Parliament had now not to discuss, but to pass, the commands of
Her Highness. They were two, to be carried out by all methods.
Ireland was to be brought completely under her authority, each
chief's territory admitting English law : and the Protestant religion
was to be firmly established. These two cardinal commands each
Lord Deputy was to enforce upon Ireland.

The time had arrived when the two civilisations stood at last
fully face to face. The one represented by feudalism — feudalism
unshackling itself — and the one represented by the Brehon Laws.*
The first had long denounced the other as barbarous. Irish dress,
Irish customs, were the dress and customs of savages.* England's

,*Dr. Sigerson says of the early Brehon Laws, "I assert, that, speaking bio-
logically, such laws could not emanate from any race whose brains have not been
subject to the quickening influence of education for many generations."

^ In the first century of the Invasion the vehement Norman-Welsh Archdeacon,
Giraldus Cambrensis, exclaims, "Verily a wild and inhospitable race! Yet Nature
tails not to rear and mould them through infancy and childhood, until in the fulness
of time she leads each to man's estate conspicuous for a tall and handsome form,
regular features, and a fresh complexion. But though adorned to the full with
such natural gifts as these, still the barbarous fashion of their garments, and their
|8norance, reveal the utter savage. They apparel themselves in small closely fit-
nng hoods extending over the shoulders and down to the elbow, generally made

373

374 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

wish, often expressed in the four hundred years, was to civilise Ir^
land. If that were impossible, then extermination.

The other objective, besides the Irish laws, was now the religion
of the people. The Reformation had rolled back from the shores
of Ireland. To the devout soul of the race it was blasphemy to
call Henry VIII, or Elizabeth, the Head of the Church. Strona
measures were now used. Abbeys were suppressed and destroyed;
churches seized; Protestant ministers supplanted the priests. But
no real headway was made. The Irish-Norman nobles, the Des-
nionds and others, held to the Catholic Faith; the clans and their
chiefs did the same. Fiercer measures followed. The Dublin
Parliament enacted that the lives of priests were forfeited. They
were to be hanged, cut down when half dead, disembowelled and
burnt, and their heads impaled in some public place. Any one she!-
tering a priest was to be hanged, and his lands confiscated. The
Act only ran where England's arm reached. In free Tirconnel, in
free Tyrone, in the Desmond country, in the O'Rourke's of Bref-
finy, in hundreds of places in Ireland it had no effect. Priests min-
istered to their flocks openly; learned monks wrote in their mon-
asteries. But here and there the hands reached, struck, and cap-
tured. It captured the Archbishop of Cashel, played with him
for a while, as a cat with a mouse, then finding him inflexible tor-
tured him and put him to death. Other priests were seized and
tortured and hanged.

The strongest Norman house in Irish history was the Gerald-
ines. They must be suppressed. The Ormonds were Castle men,
guardians of English authority. The Black Earl of Ormond seized
Gerald, Earl of Desmond, and sent him to London, and Elizabeth
sent him to the Tower. A little later his brother was seized and
sent there too. Their cousin, James Fitzmaurice, drew his sword
to protest against the seizures. "Spirited youths" joined him, and
held the Desmond country. They won victories; they routed a
queen's army. Then Elizabeth made peace with Fitzmaurice. And
she then directed a plot for the treacherous murder of himself,
his brothers and cousins — ^which, by discovering in time, he escaped.

of parti-colour scraps sewn together. Under this instead of a coat they wear »
gown. Woolen trews complete that attire, being breeches and hose in one, usually
dyed some tint. The "barbarians" honoured learning. The Leinster prince who
invited the Normans to Ireland could write, and not only write but quote Ovii
Most of the Norman chivalry had to employ clerics to read and write their !«*'
ters. We read of banquets and tournaments in other countries where yoon?
laiights showed their prowess in the saddle, their skill with the lance: but we do
not read of banquets and tournaments given to learned men where the contest was
not steel against steel, but epic against epic, song against song, harp against harp-
such as those arranged by Liam O'Kelly and the Lady Mairgret of Offaly.

ELIZABETH CONTINUES THE CONQUEST 375

After a time the new Earl had to fly to Spain for safety and

succour.

He visited Rome, too, got Italian mercenaries, fourscore
Spaniards, a promise of more, and returned to Ireland, where he
vanished out of life in a skirmish. Spain remembered her promise.
Eight hundred Spaniards landed on the coast of Kerry. They
fortified themselves on the Golden Island, 2 rock connected with the
land by a narrow neck. The Lord Deputy, Gray, hastened to at-
tack them, and invested the rock by sea and land. But no breech
was made ; the Golden fort was impregnable ; winter was approach-
ing. Gray sent in a flag of truce and offered honourable terms if
the Spaniards would surrender. The Spanish commander accepted
the terms, and his men laid down their arms. Then Gray sent in
his soldiers and massacred seven hundred men. The massacre,
note well, was directed by Sir Walter Raleigh and an officer named
Wingfield.

The Earl and his kinsmen, fighting now for their religion and
their homes, joined hands with the MacCarthys, the O'SuUivans
and other Munster chiefs. Carew, a Devonshire knight, claimed
Desmond territory, and brought an army to seize it and "pacify"
the province. The Desmond war lasted three more years, alto-
gether five. When it terminated the "pacification" was continued.
The Earl, finally defeated, after wandering through woods and bogs
and in the ravines of the mountains, was at last captured and be-
headed. At Elizabeth's request his head was sent to London and
impaled in an iron cage on the Tower. English adventurers flung
themselves on the confiscated lands. Sir Walter Raleigh raided over
the thousands of acres assigned to him, and smoked the "Virginia
weed" in Youghal after work that would discredit a savage chief.

There is a gigantic preternatural Figure in Irish Myth; the Red
Swineherd. Where it passes, where it lays its foot, smoke and
flames and blood and death and destruction are there. It comes
out of some antique past, some dread forgotten ritual. The Figure
of the Myth was upon Munster. Beneath it the little figures of men
move; the mail-clad gall-oglachf the swift running Kerne, the red-
coated, iron-plated soldiers; Irish nobles and chiefs, the marshals
of England's forces. Away from all these, from Irish and Norman
chiefs, the MacCarthys, the Desmonds, the O'SuUivans, all the
princelings, away from the English Deputies, marshals and ad-
venturers thirsting for Munster soil, away from all those that storm
across this page of Irish history — glance at the unnamed people.
Munster was the fairest province in Ireland. It had fifteen hun-
dred schools. When the Munster wars were ended, when Elizabeth

376 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

sent her thanks to Sir George Perrin.' For the "pacification" of
the province, the schools had been wiped out. The storm of battles
and skirmishes, of sieges, of intrigues, of massacres is the shifting
blood-red veil above the homes of thousands. That was no bar-
barous land where scholars filled the schools, where science and
the classics were taught; where the pride of youth was stimulated,
the imagination fired by the Hero-Tales of Ireland. It is a
psychological fact that the Elizabethan Englishmen, many of them
brave, gallant and chivalrous, became barbarians in their contact
with Ireland. The old Greeks explain the reason for the fall. It
is Pride and Injustice; these things bring moral death. In their
attempt to conquer Ireland the avenging Furies fell upon them.

Carew in his Pacata Hibernia writes that English soldiers
entered an Irish camp, "found none but hurt and sick men, whose
pains and lives they soon determined." And again that he having
burnt all the houses and corn and taken great prey diverted his
forces into another place, "and harrowing the country, killed all
mankind that were found therein for a terror to those who would
give relief to runagate traitors." He passed into Arleagh woods
"where we did the like, not leaving behind us man or beast, corne or
cattle.i' The slaughter continued after the war had ended. "Those
whom the sword could not reach were deliberately given a prey to
famine."

"The English nation," says Froude, "was shuddering over the
atrocities of the Duke of Alva. Yet Alva's bloody sword never
touched the young, the defenceless. ... Sir Peter Carew has
been seen murdering women and children and babies that had
scarcely left the breast."

Spenser, the English poet, to whom Raleigh had given a few
acres of the forty thousand he had seized, saw still living creatures
"creeping out of every corner of the woods and glens on their hands,
for their legs would not bear them. They did eat the dead carrion
where they could find them, yea, and one another soon after." He
thinks English rule can never be secure till the Irish race is ex-
terminated. The gentle English idyllist suggests a way. The
people are not to be allowed to till their land or pasture their cat-
tle next season, then "they will quickly consume themselves and
devour one another."

English Law had made a breach in Connacht. A Lord Presi-
dent was appointed, and a court held. From Sligo to Limerick

» Perrin reported that he had "left neither corn, nor horn, nor house unburnt,
between the two ends of Munster.

ELIZABETH CONTINUES THE CONQUEST 377

men were to be netted and brought before it. The head of the
Burkes, Clanrickard, a "queen's" man, was seized and sent to
Dublin. Then all the Burkes loosened their swords in their scab-
bards and sprang into rebellion. The rebellion grew and strength-
ened, before the "strong measures" of the Lord President. The
Lord Deputy, Fitzwilliam, an old man, afflicted by ills of the body,
crafty, cautious, treacherous, freed Clanrickard, and sent him down
to make terms. The bloody hand was stayed ; for a moment there
was peace in Connacht. Soon, the disarmed Catholics were taken
and hanged. Surrendered garrisons were put to the sword ; a search
for "rebels" in West Connacht saw women, and boys and old men,
and all who came in Bingham's way, slain.

Into Leinster, too, English Law had driven a wedge. Mary of
England's Deputies had seized Offaly and Leix, the territories of
the 0' Conors and the O' Mores. They had planted English
settlers there; abolished the ancient territorial names and in Irish
blood rechristened them King's and Queen's counties. The dis-
possessed chiefs and their clansmen bided their time. A noble boy
grew up among them, and in manhood became an avenging sword.
This was Ruari Og O'More. He attacked the homes of the Eng-
lish settlers; burnt their towns; took the governor of Leix and a
Priv}^ Councillor prisoners ; made truces and kept them. After six
years of successful guerilla warfare he fell when reconnoitring a
force brought against him. His soldiers avenged his death and put
the army to flight. His name remained an inspiration to oppressed
Irish, down to the present day. "God, and Our Lady, and Rory
O'More I"

The English troops were commanded in Leix and Offaly by a
Sir Francis Cosby. This man gave a banquet in the Rath of
MuUaghmast in Kildare. And he stretched out friendly hands to
the 0' Conors and O' Mores and their followers. He invited them
to the banquet. He gave it in the Queen's name ; he promised her
protection. They went. One gentleman, arriving late, suspected
something, and paused. Guests went in, he saw, but none came out.
Advancing, he reconnoitred, beheld slaughtered bodies, and being
now attacked himself, cut his way through and escaped. Of the
O'Mores alone, one hundred and eighty were murdered. Cosby
lived at Strabally. A tall tree with spreading branches grew before
his door, upon which he hanged men and women and children. If
he hanged a mother and an infant he hanged the child in the
mother's long hair.*

* Ireland under Elisabeth. O'SuUivan Beare. 1621.

378

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

But a day of reckoning came. In the battle of Glenmalure
Cosby fell in the rout when the soldiers of Feach O' Byrne cut down
the flying forces of Lord Gray. O' Byrne, there, in the Wicklow
mountains, had held his country against all attempts of the English
to seize it. Gray, newly arrived in Dublin, thought at one stroke to
break O'Byrne's power. He gathered a great army and marched
into Wicklow. He believed he had trapped O' Byrne. The glen
was deep; its sides dark wooded heights and rocks; a shallow
stream with a rugged bed flowed through. He raised an earthwork
across the mouth that the flying Irish might be trapped and cut down
there. To see that flight and slaughter he went up on a height, he
and his courtiers and staff. His soldiers entered the glen, mo\ang
up it in silence, a long array in mail and buff and scarlet, gunsmen
and horse. No sight of the foe; silence save for the tramp of their
marching feet. The watchers on the height began to laugh. The
game had broken away," they jested. "The old fox had run to
earth." Then as the ranks of the column loosened on the broken
course, the silence of the wood was shattered and the bullets of the
Irish swept the line. O' Byrne's men sprang from the tree-clad
slopes, leapt over the rocks, and threw themselves upon the flanks
of the foe. Gray and his jesters fled. Of the great force with
which he had marched out of Dublin, but a few broken companies
returned.

CHAPTER XLIV

RED HUGH

In the North the smouldering fire had flamed forth again. Two
things rekindled it. One: The predestined boy had come whose
advent a Tir-Conaill seer had long ago foretold. Young Hugh
O'Donnell, Aod Ruad, the golden-haired, minatory, deadly foe to
England; who was to stride through the history of the last years
of the sixteenth century — the boy whose fame and renown was
noised through the five provinces of Eirinn even before he reached
the age of manhood, as being conspicuous for wisdom, understand-
ing, personal beauty, and noble deeds.

The fame and renown of him had reached the ears of Lord
Deputy Perrot, illegitimate son of Henry VIII. Where a strong
and ruthless hand, or treachery, was necessary to advance his
Queen's Interests in Ireland Perrot used either, as suited the
occasion. He would have the boy.

The dreaded lad was being fostered by MacSwIney, Lord of
Fanat on the Northern sea's verge. When the boy was fourteen
an innocent looking merchant ship once sailed into Loch Swilly, and
anchored under the white stone castle of MacSwiney. The
courteous captain had wine for sale. The courteous captain in-
vited visitors aboard the ship. The courteous captain would like
MacSwIney and his retinue and friends to do him the honour of
a visit aboard, and to partake of some rare wine. They came —
and with them the noble boy, erect and eagle-eyed, bright, proud
and confident, "of a countenance so alluring that none could look
at him without loving him." When the guests sat them down to
wine in the captain's state cabin, they suddenly found themselves en-
trapped and captured by fifty soldiers who were conjured out of
the ship's bowels. MacSwiney and the others were released, and
given hostages, but the boy's release could not be purchased. It
was for him the ship had come. Red Hugh was carried away to
Dublin and placed, a prisoner, in the Birmingham tower of the
castle. In Fanat, throughout all Tir-ConalU, and Indeed through
Eirinn there was weeping, wrath, shame and anger. In Donegal

379

38o THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Castle the boy's mother, the dauntless Inghm Dubh, "Dark Daugh.
ter" of MacDonnell of the Isles, now devoted her life to keep Tir-
Conaill for the boy. She negotiated and plotted for his release-
in vain.

After three years the boy made a wonderful and daring escape
on a December night — ^but alas I was retaken. After another year,
this time spent in irons, in company with Henry and Art, the sons
of Shane O'Neill, both in irons also, he made another daring at-
tempt — and this time succeeded in freeing all three.

A file had been passed in to him. It was Christmas Eve, 1591,
a dark snowy evening. Christmas cheer was flowing among the
jailers and guards. Now, the boys thought I Outside the Castle,
in a friend's stable, four horses bitted and saddled have stood for
three nights. The faithful horse-boy is waiting. While the feast
was being celebrated with wine and jollity by the Elizabethan
Soldiers in the Castle, the boy industriously worked the file. "Link
after link yielded to the fierce attrition and the hungry gnawings
of the sharp toothed steel, and Red Hugh stood forth free I Free,
and the guard giving no sign I Henry O'Neill stretched out his
hands, while Art held the lamp. Swiftly the good file did its work,
and Henry, unfettered, snatched the lamp from his brother's hands.
Art was the last freed, and Hugh, youngest of the three, did all
the filing with his own sinewy untiring hands." (Standish
O'Grady.)

Free now, unshackled, swift hands tore down the hangings of
the bed, knotted them together, and the rope was ready. The hang-
ings secured, Henry went first, then Red Hugh, and last of all
Art, who in his descent loosened a stone which fell and struck
him. They flung their cloaks from them when they reached the
open air, stole to the moat, and entered the icy water. The snow
was still falling; waiting on the bank, whitened, listening for the
strokes of the swimmers, the horse-boy stood. He carried three
pairs of strong shoes; their horses had unfortunately been taken
away. Swiftly their guide led them through the dark streets and
alleys to the outer rampart. And there Henry O'Neill was miss-
ing, having fallen behind and lost his way. There was no time to
return; to look for him. The Castle and death were behind.*

They were over it; out into the deeper darkness; past the out-
skirts of the city; into the open country, on towards Slieve Ruadh,
the Three Rock Mountain; snow everywhere. They passed over

1 Henry O'Neill succeeded in getting to Ulster and was imprisoned by tne
Earl of Tyrone, who considered him a rival as the son of Shane who had slain tne
Earl's father.

RED HUGH 381

bogs glimmering white, through ravines ; up among the snow drifts
on the slope, the hardy tireless horse-boy leading, Red Hugh's pace
"vigorous and swift." But Art — his strength and wind had given
way — dropped behind. The swift-paced Red Hugh fell bade to
his side, supported and cheered him; kept slow step with his slow
step. Soon Art could only limp, and moved haltingly along, with
an arm'on Red Hugh's shoulder and another on the horse-boy's.
Dawn came r Christmas Day; in the city bells were heralding the
Birth; in the Castle there was wrath and fear — and hot pursuit.
Then Art could walk no longer. Red Hugh and the horse-boy
carried him. Red Hugh himself with blistered feet and his own
strength failing. All day they were on the white mountains, linger-
ing, resting, advancing, till at last Red Hugh could go no further,
and the horse-boy left them, hastening if he might to save them and
bring help from Feach O' Byrne. Between the two loughs, Dan
and Glendalough, under a rock, or in an open cave, it is thought,
the boys waited. They slept heavily that night, and awoke in
the morning to a second day of cold and hunger. For forty hours
they had eaten no food. Their cloaks were gone, shed by the
Castle moat; they had only their doublets and hose.

The day passed, the helpless boys waiting in the snow, and the
furious foe engirdling the white mountains. When the morning
of the third day came Art was dying. Red Hugh ate leaves, and
brought some to Art. "Eat something, no matter what," he said.
"See the brute animals. Art, they feed on leaves and grass. True,
we are rational, yet also we are animals."

But Art was beyond such food, beyond any food indeed. White
death there by the rock was numbing body and brain. The snow
began to fall again. Evening came. Red Hugh lay down by Art's
side; the boys clasped their arms about each other. The snow
covered them.

In the closing twilight Feach's soldiers found them in that
embrace. Not at once, so hidden were they under the snow. By
the light of their lanthorns the four soldiers groped about, finding
the search not easy. "So overlaid were they with the snow as if
with blanket which had congealed around them, and frozen to
them their skirts of fine linen, and their moistened shoes and leather
covering of their feet, and they themselves were completely covered
with snow and there was also no life in their members, but they
were as dead."

Their arms were disentwined, their bodies chafed, spirits put be-
^een their lips, "the men deeply grieving as they uncovered the
white faces, and the limp motionless limbs of the noblest born

382 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

youths In all the land, the heir of Tir-Conaill and the son of Shane."
Art passed away. Red Hugh revived, spoke, asked for his dying
friend. Passionately he wept when, all saving efforts failing, Art
died. He refused to eat or drink; he himself, famishing, cold, just
snatched from Death. For a time the men respected his grief, then
removed Art's body from his sight, persuaded him with kindly in.
sistence to eat and drink a little. They wrapped him in their cloaks,
made a litter of their spears, and bore him "within the rim of the
broad shield extended over that region" — the shield of Feach — his
feet swollen within the horse-boy's shoes, and brought him to Feach's
house; Feach, of whom Spenser wrote that he "overcrowded high
mountains and dictated terms of peace to mighty potentates."

Red Hugh's escape sent a thrill through Ireland. Messengers
rode north and south and east and west with the joyous word.

After hairbreadth escapes the boy eventually reached the North.
On a grey of speed and endurance Red Hugh rode with yellow-
haired Turlough Boy O'Hagan into Dungaimon — ^to Hugh O'Neill,
"Earl" of Tir-Owen. An alliance was made between him and the
earl, he, the boy of eighteen, who had been so deeply injured, and
the grave sagacious man, who foresaw that the English State was
working secretly for his overthrow; to whom the time must come
when he would have to defend his life, his territory, his people.
That alliance buried forever clan-diplomacies and feuds between the
two great houses.

O'Neill sent him on to the Lord of Fermanagh, Hugh Maguire,
a very tall, handsome, gay-spirited young man, valiant in arms,
who when a lord Deputy proposed to send a sheriff into Fermanagh,
suggested to the Viceroy that he had better let him know the price of
the sheriff's head first. Accompanied by a fleet of boats, Red Hugh
was carried in Maguire's state barge in triumphal processsion down
the Erne to a point on the western shore. There gentlemen of Tir-
Conaill met him, and he went to his own castle of Ballyshannon.
There was joy in its hall; feasting, the music of war-pipes; vows
to follow him; men's courage renewed. He was laid on a "bed of
healing," with swollen feet — one permanently lamed by those nights
in the snow. But not long did he lie there. Bingham's captain was
besieging Donegal castle. Within it his brave mother, Inghjn,
Dubh,^ waited for succour. The captain had gathered much spoil,
intending, the castle taken, to bring those beeves to Connacht and
Bingham. Red Hugh rose, laughed at his surgeons, called out his
men, and nlarched to Donegal. He recovered the spoil, freed the

2 Literally Dark Daughter.

RED HUGH

3^3

castle and the Dark Daughter, and drove the captahi and his
soldiers out of Tir-Conaill. What a meeting then between him and
his dauntless mother. For the four years of his captivity, aided
faithfully by MacSwiney of the Battle Axes^ she had never ceased
to try to obtain his release and keep the chieftaincy for him.

On a May day the lad was made The O'Donnell. Sir Hugh,
his father, gladly gave place to a son so fit to rule. A weak,
hesitating man, he had let his wife, the Dark Daughter, strike the
blows for her stolen son. ' Now a mild old man, tired of a vexatious
world where treachery and dark ways prevailed, he was about to
seek the goal of old war-worn Irish princes, the rest and shelter of
a monastery.

Therefore on that May day, young, valiant, beautiful, but lame
in one foot — ^the mark of his captivity — the boy with gifts of mind
and body that had made men look to him as the hope of Ireland,
stood on the Rock of Doone, the immemorial throne of the O'Don-
nells, the white wand in his hand, symbol of Authority and of what
his rule must be, white and straight ; and turning thrice from left to
right, and thrice from right to left, in honour of the Holy Trinity,
he viewed from every point his territory. Then as he stood still,
erect and kingly, the maugurator called "O'DonnelU" giving
him a title higher than any the foreigners could give, the ancient
tide of his ancestors, the princes of Tir-Conaill. And each man
among the high officials, according to rank, cried out "O'Don-
nell!" and the voices of hundreds of clansmen carried "O'Don-
nell I" far into the distance. Thus Red Hugh's star rose and shone
high in the north over Ireland; and still shines in the dark sky of
her history.

The Nine Years' War had begun. A spear darted through Tir-
Conaill. The invader was driven out; chiefs who had given their
allegiance to the foreigner were taught that the O'Donnell was
their chief and prince. He swept through Ulster, and drove out
the English sheriffs. He entered Connacht and hurled Bingham's
forces before him. Hugh O'Neill watched events ; waited, held his
hand, still uncertain ; could he and those like him live under English
rule or not? He visited London, answered to the queen the charges
made against him and won her favour for the time. But his destruc-
tion was decided upon. He was to be inveigled to Dublin to explain
certain fresh charges, a safe conduct being given him. Then, by
Elizabeth's order, he was to be seized. It was feared he might not
come. But he came, walking into the Council Chamber as a man
who had nothing to dread. He would have been arrested had not
the Black Earl of Ormond declared thafhe "would not use treachery

384 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

to any man." Later he warned O'Neill to leave Dublin that night as
the Deputy was preparing to prevent his getting away from the
city.

So the issue of an independent Ireland or a conquered country
was now to be put to the sword. Almost for the first time since
the invasion Ireland had a statesman who saw the root of her weak-
ness, and who placed the politics of the nation before the politics
of the clan.

CHAPTER XLV

THE NINE years' WAR

The war was not only one of Independence but a religious war as
well. Men looked to Spain, the great Catholic country ; would she
help? Messengers crossed and re-crossed the seas. On one side
was the entire power of England aided by her Irish auxiliaries.
That fact, the Irish auxiliaries, had kept the English forces from
being driven out of Ireland. Another, the Irish during the cen-
turies had not realised (maintaining as so many of them did their
own independence) that the invasion, and the subsequent colonies,
were calculated and unswerving attempts to shatter the whole fab-
ric of Irish civilisation, and supplant it by an alien one. In the six-
teenth century the mass of the people had not fully realised it yet.
They were but beginning to do so.

And those auxiliaries — Irishmen ranked with Henry's or Eliza-
beth's troops, winning victories over their countrymen, let the fact
explain itself. I think it explains itself primarily by clan-politics,
which had so often guided the actions of the chiefs. The policy of
centralisation, attempted by one or two of the Irish kings, had
never developed. "Despotism tends to centralisation, freedom of
the people to decentralise," says Eoin MacNeill. And he says,
"among the Celts as among the Greeks of antiquity and the Italians
of the Middle Ages, the Instinct of local freedom usually prevailed
over the policy of centralisation, and what we may call neighbour-
hoods, in which the people knew all about each other, so to speak,
formed themselves Into states for the regulation of their own af-
fairs. The principle was the same as that which measures the
areas of local district councils in our time, but the district council
of antiquity had all but sovereign powers."

The Instinct of local freedom had gathered round the Norman
houses In Ireland during the centuries. Thus Irish soldiers, always
true to their leaders, marched with the Earl of Ormond, or the
Earl of Klldare, or other Norman lord who paid allegiance to
England; or followed the "queen's" O'Reilly, or "queen's" Mac-
Mahon, or other chief, as affection, or the love of warfare, or the

385

386 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

pay of the mercenary, Induced them. But local freedom was only
the skin of the nation. The heart was true to nationality. The
bards voiced its beat. They wrote not only in praise of their own
tuath and chief, of Offaly, or Thomond, or Tir-Owen, or other
portions of Ireland, but of Ireland as a whole, as a national unit.^

O'Neill cast off the title of Earl, and was proclaimed The
O'Neill. Ulster was already organised; a Northern Confeder-
acy was formed. His weapon was ready. Those companies whom
he had trained were keen steel fit for use. Seven miles from his
castle a fortress was held by the English. It stood by the Abhainn-
Mor. The great river, Ulster called it ; the Blackwater, the English.
Men said they gave it that name, not because of its turgid waters
but because they had so often met disaster and defeat on its banks.
O'Neill's men stormed the fortress, drove out the English garrison,
levelled the fort, and burnt the bridge. The queen's forces held
Monaghan. He marched thither; gave battle to Norris, the Eng-
lish general, who was advancing to its relief, and defeated him.
Hugh Maguire, finest horseman m Ireland, twice rode down with
his cavalry on the English musketeers, and twice broke them.
Monaghan fell ; the English commander was allowed to go free.

England proclaimed O'Neill an enemy and a traitor. Armies
were sent against him. He evaded or defeated the armies. He
showed generalship of a high order. She recalled her best soldiers
from the Spanish war in Belgium, and flung them into Ireland. She
sent skilful commanders against him, Norris and Russell and.Bag-
enal. Generals and soldiers failed to break his power. Then
Elizabeth opened negotiations, offering fair and honourable terms.
O'Neill knew how to meet them; how much to trust. A message
came from Spain : Fight on 1 Spanish soldiers are coming. O'Neill
broke off the negotiations and the war was renewed. Sligo had
fallen, taken by Red Hugh; Bingham's army was in retreat fol-
lowed by O'Donnell who "harried it with missiles." Norris and
his veterans marched out of Athlone to meet and crush Red Hugh.

Here are moving pictures, snatched out of the Nine Years'
War. A river in Mayo, a village; on the south bank an army of
ten thousand horse and foot; men in scarlet or buff, tunics, with
puffed sleeves, and iron breast-plates and backs; forests of weapons;
bright pennants, and the banner of Saint George. A great and
well ordered army. The general in shining steel, wide ruff, and

1 "The names of Erin, Banba, Fodhla, the Land of Conn, are in their mouths
every moment, and to the last they persisted in their efforts to combine the Gael
against the Gall." Literary History oj Ireland. Hyde.

For this reason Spenser hated them. "They are tending for the most part to
hurt the English, for the maintenance of their own lewde libertie," he says.

THE NINE YEARS' WAR

387

plumed helmet; officers in shining steel and feathered caps. The
general is Sir John Norrls, who in France and Belgium had earned
a great name, come out of those countries to clear Ulster and
Connacht of the rebels, his laurels now a little draggled by his late
encounters with O'Neill. On the other bank are the Irish horse
and foot, about five thousand men. The boy who had broken
England's gyves from his wrists is there; the army is his; every-
where he has led it to victory. His cavalry are armed with head
pieces, shirts of mail, a sword, a skian, a spear. Very skilful horse-
men, who ride upon saddles without stirrups, and who carry the
lances not under the arm when riding to the charge, but by the
middle, above the arm. And his infantry — ^those picked and
selected men of mighty bodies, the "greatest force of the battle" —
they are the gall-oglach (gallowglasses), "great scorners of death,"
men choosing to die rather than yield, "so that when it came to
handy blows they are quickly slain or win the field." And his light
infantry, the ceitherne (Kernes), with targets of wood, barbed
darts and muskets : and the horse-boys, "not less serviceable in the
meating and dressing of horses, than hurtful to the enemy with
their darts." The Robe flows between; along its banks there is
fighting for a day and a night. A pause; Norris's drums beat a
parley; the boy and the veteran meet. There is a truce all day;
every day; but fierce fighting at night, attacks on each other's camps;
captures of out-posts and scouts; hand to hand encounters. And
each day till sun-down the truce lasts ; and Red Hugh and his chiefs
and his friend, "the ever valiant Maguire," the gay young Lord
of Fermanagh who is heart and soul in the war, discuss terms of
peace with Norris. Did ever boy commander and experienced
general meet thus as equal peers in war before ? A month passes,
and the terms come to nothing. A messenger gallops into the Irish
camp; he brings news; a Spanish ship Is in RathmuUan Bay; Spain
has promised help. Norris raises his camp and retires, rear and
wing harassed by the swift-following ceitherne. But to neither
wing nor rear does he send help. Behold that high hedge in front;
he will entrap the pursuers across, then turn and cut them down.
Young falcon eye sees the danger. That is Red Hugh on that
galloping horse. He holds in the men; he bids none cross. So
Norris, baulked of his plan, continues his retreat in wrath, utter-
ing terrible imprecations against fate which had condemned him
to lose in Ireland, the smallest speck of the wide world, that
^ame which his valour and military skill had earned for him in
France and Belgium."

Red Hugh went like a flame through the west. He scattered

388 (THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

his enemies, and drove Bingham before him. He re-captured Sligo
castle ; defeated Clifford, the English governor of Connacht, in the
Curlew pass; brought the Burkes — ^the turbulent haughty Norman
clan — ^to his standard and to accept his right to choose and in-
augurate their chief; and for every day of his captivity he paid
by the stroke of his sword.

The war spread to Leinster; for young Eolny O'More, son of
Rory O'More, had returned to Leix, a boy men thought "not yet
of an age for war." Faithful friends had brought him when a
, little child to Feach O' Byrne who had guarded him in his Wicklow
fortress. But Feach could no longer protect him for Feach was
dead, killed in an ambush, and his sons, Felim and Raymond,
gallant young men fighting the enemy, could not take care of a boy
considered too young for arms. So he was sent back to Leix.
There he declared he was a man and would lead men. His father's
clan gathered round him, rejoiced, and made him their chief. Tlie
English governor of Leix sent a force to seize him. They were
beaten with the loss of fifty men. "A stirring youth who hath
lately taken weapon," wrote old Fitzwilliam to London, "the
O'Mores look to him to be their captain." Before he was of age
Eoiny had won a name for skill and daring. He recognised
O'Neill's authority; visited the north, and received his consent to
strike a blow at the English forces in Munster. With eight hundred
foot and a handful of horse the boy darted into the province.
Ormond, in command of the queen's troops, was too late to oppose
him. Eoiny and his men shot past. There was alarm; rapid
musterings. The Lord President Thomas collected soldiers in
haste and waited at Mallow to beat the audacious Leinster lad.
The lad came up very readily. A herald rode to the gate and
handed in a letter. Eoiny O'More challenged the Lord President
to bring out his army and give battle. He wrote several "bold
letters." Norris took counsel; left a small garrison in MalloTv
and retreated to Cork followed by Eoiny whose light-armed men
skirmished with his rear. That retreat rang through Munster.
Men enrolled; leaders and captains were found; messages were
sent to O'Neill. The boy's dart-like stroke had re-kindled the
war in the province.

In the North a beautiful woman flits Into the war scene — ar
English girl, a beauty of nineteen. Her name was Mabel Bagenal
Her father, one Nicholas Bagenal, having killed a man of positior
in England, had sought refuge in Ireland. The earl's grandfather
Conn the Lame, had befriended him, and had obtained his pardor
from Henry VIII. Bagenal got large grants of forfeited lands

THE NINE YEARS' WAR 389

became a foe of O'Neill's and died Marshal of Elizabeth's forces
in Ireland.

In the summer of 1591, Hugh O'Neill, still in friendship with
the queen and her Deputy, met the beauty, and they fell in love with
each other. Her friends approved. The marriage was a great
one for the girl. Up there in Tyrone she would be a countess and
something more. But she had a brother. Sir Henry Bagenal,
Marshal of Ireland, O'Neill's secret enemy. When the earl asked
for her hand, not directly refusing, he raised difficulties about the
"incivilities" of the earl's country. By "incivilities" he meant bar-
barism, the word so frequently used by the English when the two
civilisations met. He sent her to her sister, living near Dublin,
who encouraged the lovers. Their betrothal took place, and O'Neill
gave the girl a gold necklace of great value. A month later O'Neill
went to a dinner at this sister's house with a retinue of English
friends. People dined at noon. In the long August afternoon
when the feast was over, the guests wandered on the lawns and
played at games. But the girl slipped out of the house to where a
pinioned horse and a gentleman of O'Neill's suite were waiting.
There was a swift ride to a friend's house. O'Neill followed. The
Bishop of Meath, the "queen's" bishop married them, and the earl
took his bride north, built a fine house for her, and "furnished it out
of London."

Bagenal was now his mortal enemy. The beautiful girl lived
to see her husband throw off his English title and unfurl the banner
with the Red Hand of O'Neill. A little change of fate — and she
might have been a queen. She became a Catholic, and died in 1596.

Two years later O'Neill and Bagenal met. Not alone. To
that encounter each brought an army. Bagenal at the head of
the queen's forces had been sent to crush a prince who aimed at an
independent Ireland. So far O'Neill had been the victor in Ulster.
So victorious had he been that several attempts at negotiation had
been made by the English. He had refused to meet the queen's
commissioners except at the head of his army. Once he had dictated
terms; the Catholic Church was to be left undisturbed; no sheriff
admitted into Irish territories; and payment made to him of his
wife's dowry which Bagenal had kept. While he was moving thus
triumphantly through Ulster "every blow he dealt was re-echoed by
Red Hugh in Connacht."

It was 1598, the sixth year of the war; the month August.
Bagenal was to relieve Portmore, held by a queen's garrison, now
starving, and wipe "the rebels" out of existence. He had already
made a successful stroke. He had got provisions into Armagh,

390 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

occupied by queen^s troops, and had surprised O'Neill's camp.
From the latter he had been quickly dislodged, and fell back on
Armagh.

Before sunrise he marched out of that city to attack O'Neill.
His English soldiers were veterans who had fought in France, or
had been picked from Belgian garrisons. His Irish auxiliaries were
mercenaries who had given proof of their valour. The son of the
"queen's" O'Reilly was with them; a young man so extremely hand-
some, of splendid figure, called the "Fair." This battle, the big.
gest of the war in the North, is called the Battle of the Yellow
Ford.

Bagenal went out, his horse and foot sheathed in mail, heavily
armed. It was an army gleaming with crested plumes, silken
sashes, military ornaments. Brass cannon it had, mounted on
wheels, drawn by horses. These made the army formidable.

In the Irish camp a council of war was held. The stars had
not waned when the leaders met. Before the tent a guard was
drawn; around it were gathered high-bom faces, "the youth of the
nobility of Ulster," and "young Connachtmen of by no means
ignoble birth." The lines of the camp, covering the field, stretched
far in the dim dawn; men standing to their horses; close-knit ranks
of gall-oglach; light armed foot; all waiting for the command; to
accept battle or to retire.

For patrols had brought O'Neill information of the heavy
muskets carried by Bagenal soldiers; of the veterans trained on
the continent; of the disciplined Irish mercenaries; of the brass
cannon. Was it right to risk a battle? Red Hugh was with him.
He had marched up from Connacht with three thousand men, one
thousand Connacians, two thousand Ultonians. And there was
Angus MacDonnell, Red Hugh's cousin, son of the famous Sorley
Boy whom Shane the Proud had once taken prisoner. And Hugh
Maguire, lord of Fermanagh, first cavalry ofiicer in Ireland. As
O'Neill hesitated a man stood up. He was a high official, Feareasa
O'Clery, hereditary historian of Tir-Conaill. He held a vellum
in his hand, centuries old. Why did the great O'Neill doubt, the
descendant of many kings, he asked; why the noble O'Donnell,
his prince, son, too, of kings ; why the Maguire, the high-born and
generous; why MacDonnell of the Isles; why the captains, sons
of heroes, gathered at that council? Listen to the words of Ber-
chan, one of the four prophets of Ireland. And the men listened.
To Berchan, nme centuries before had been given a vision flung far
in time. He had caught the sounds of a battle as he walked by the
Yellow Ford; strange thunderings; battle-shouts of men; the

THE NINE YEARS' WAR 391

cla^ of arms; the charge of horse. And on him had come the
spirit of prophecy; whereupon he wrote down that there far in the
future the men of Erin would meet and defeat their foes.

This decided O'Neill. The prophecy was read to the men;
none doubted its fulfilment that day. O'Neill made them a speech

one sentence golden : "Victory lies not in senseless armour, nor

in the vain din of cannon, but in living and courageous souls."

He awaited battle on the ground on which the army stood.
Across the plain that lay before the camp a deep trench had been
dug and an embankment four feet high made. Bogs lay on each
side of the plain, and a muddy yellow stream flowed into the trench.
Beyond the plain was a scattered wood of hawthorns and junipers.
Beyond this again pits had been dug and covered with hay and
brambles. A body of light armed troops were stationed in the
wood, "beardless youths," about five hundred, armed with muskets.
Bagenal had to pass through the wood. The August morning
was bright and fine. By seven his vanguard, musketeers and horse,
was seen marching up the road. In the main body — pikemen in
three columns formed the centre; cavalry and a second division of
musketeers the rear. The "beardless youths," posted among the
trees, fired on the van. Then they darted from tree to tree firing
repeatedly from snaphance or matchlock. The van could not
charge; could not dislodge them. Bagenal galloped up; tried to
keep his men steady; tried to clear the wood. But the smooth bold
young faces mocked his efforts. "Very angry," says the historian,
"were Bagenal and his veterans at being attacked and harassed by
such boyish and silly sort of men."

In time he extricated his troops, and got on the plain. The
beardless ones held the ground in front. Bagenal ordered his
cavalry to charge. Men and horses fell into the pits, and the boys
fired on those who came to their rescue. There were skirmishes,
retirements, charges, advances of fresh battalions, but it was not
till eleven o'clock, four hours after he had entered the wood, that
Bagenal's army found itself in front of O'Neill's camp.

There was the ditch. It was lined by O'Neill's men. The
battle raged here. The brass cannon soon made a breach; three
of Bagenal's di^sions got over. The Irish pikemen who had
retired in disorder before the cannon re-formed and rushed upon
the musketeers. Bagenal, oppressed by the weight of his armour
and the heat of the fight, raised his visor. A bullet, then entering,
ended his career. The Irish horse charged; the queen's musketeers
hroke and fled; their cavalry joined in the flight. A number were
cut down as they tried to re-cross the ditch. The three divisions

392 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

were panic-stricken, broken and flying. Nothing could stop the
helter-skelter. The Yellow Ford was fought and won. Portmore
and Armagh surrendered to O'Neill.

The brilliant victory freed Ulster. It made an immense sen-
sation in England. It was talked of on the continent. "The gen.
eral voice," says the English contemporary historian, Moryson,
"was of Tyrone after the defeat of the Blackwater, as of Hannibal
among the Romans after the defeat at Cannae."

O'Neill's authority was recognised over the greater part of
Ireland. He strengthened his defences, appointed or dismissed
officials, nominated chiefs, acted with justice and wisdom. No
English forces could stand before him. The confederation of the
chiefs seemed firmly knit. Ireland appeared about to achieve
her freedom.

For a time the question was alone put to the sword. Elizabeth,
an old woman now, with the levity of youth among her courtiers,
an ungovernable temper when roused, sent Essex, her favourite,
to re-conquer Ireland. He came with the largest army yet sent to
the country. O'Neill outwitted him at every move; beat his troops;
reduced him to impotency. Once they had an interview on the
banks of the Lagan. O'Neill learnt his ambitions, mastered his
thoughts; turned his mind practically inside out. He dictated
terms; Essex accepted them as far as he could without royal
authority. When the enraged Elizabeth heard of them she re-
called Essex, whose head went to the block.

Then O'Neill made something like a royal progress from the
north to the south. The southern noblemen and gentlemen visited
him on the banks of the Lee. He issued a proclamation styling
himself Defender of the Faith. He showed himself a statesman
and soldier. When he returned to the North his power was con-
firmed.

If the sword failed there were other methods for England to use.
Mountjoy and George Carew were sent to Ireland. These men
were to break up the confederation. Craft, treachery, offers of
friendship (not to be kept), gold, bribes, were their weapons.
Letters of betrayal were forged purporting to come from a member
of the confederation. In time these methods succeeded. The
confederation was weakened. There were serious defections, and
O'Neill and O'Donnell were eventually left to carry on the fight in
Ulster. This they did heroically. O'Donnell held the coast lines
on the north against an English force that had landed there ; O'Neill
the southern frontier. "They fought as it were back to back against

THE NINE YEARS' WAR

393

the opposite lines of attack." Through the spring and summer of
1 60 1 that fight went on. By September little had been gained by
the English except in Munster. Then came the long promised aid
from Spain; three thousand men were landed at Kinsale — instead
of the five thousand which O'Neill had warned must be the minimum,
if landing was made in the south. The English troops were at
once concentrated in the south, and Kinsale invested by an English
fleet. The general in command of the Spaniards* was unfit for the
work; an ill-tempered, impatient man with no grasp of generalship.
He was dismayed and angry at finding himself besieged instead of
meeting friends. Sorely against their will he forced the Northern
Chiefs to march and fight their way south to him. And then, again
contrary to O'Neill's expert advice, forced them to attack his
besiegers (under Carew) when it were wiser to besiege them. A
series of fatal mistakes, aggravating d'Aquila's bad generalship,
lost them a battle that they could have won — and which, being won,
would, in all probability, have left Ireland an independent king-
dom.

By error and accident it was lost. A council was held that
night. Though O'Neill wished to continue the war in Munster,
as some of the northern chiefs for private reasons decided to return
to their own territories, Hugh O'Neill was forced to fall back on
Ulster. O'Donnell sailed for Spain to see the king, and ask for
further help. After bright promises, delays, disappointments he
fell ill on his way to see the King again, died, and was buried with
princely honours in the Cathedral of St. Francis, Valladolid.

For three hundred years his death was supposed to be from
natural cause. Then, by chance, it was discovered in an English
State paper that Carew with Mountjoy's approval had sent an
agent to Spain to poison Red Hugh. He was twenty-eight when
he died. His captivity when a boy, his escape, his brilliancy as a
commander, his many victories, his unalterable hatred of the in-
vader, his loyalty to O'Neill, the whole romance of his story has
attracted Irish hearts to him through the centuries since his death.
"He was the sword, as O'Neill was the brain, of the Ulster con-
federation.'* His voice was sweet and musical. He loved jus-
tice and was faithful to his promises. He showed courage and
resource in the presence of difficulties; was quick to seize oppor-
tunities; maintained rigid discipline in his army; was patient in
hardships; courteous and affable in manner; absolutely open and
smcere. He never married; his private life was without a stain.
One who knew him said "he was a great despiser of the world."

394 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Noble, generous, with tireless activity, daring, with his handsome
person, his splendid spirit, as one of the last of Ireland's princes,
his name has been a star in the nation's memory.

Three strongholds remained for the Irish in Munster after
d'Aquila had capitulated, getting off safe with his men. They held
out, hoping for new aid from Spain. Each was isolated. In time
they fell. The defence of Dunboy castle by Donal O'SuUivan and
his captain, MacGeoghegan, and, when it fell, of O'SuUivan's march
with one thousand persons including women and children from
Kerry to O'Rourke's castle in Leitrim, is a great epic, unknown
outside Ireland. It has all the elements of the great Tragedies;
indomitable souled men; defiance of fate ;• encounters with foes;
encounters with the elements, with storm and frost and snow; men
with dying bodies and unquenchable spirit, battling, marching,
praying. Of the company scarce one hundred reached O'Rourke's
country.

O'Neill fought his way up to Ulster, fought there, held his own
for months. When news came of O'Donnell's death and he knew
the cause was lost, he accepted terms offered him by the Lord
Deputy. His territories were to be restored to him; the Catholic
religion given free exercise within them; a fresh patent of earldom
drawn out. Red Hugh's younger brother, Ruari O'Donnell, had
already submitted, obtained terms, and was made Earl of Tir-
Conaill.

Before the treaty was signed Elizabeth died — a maniac. James
of Scotland, who succeeded her, formed a plan for planting Ulster
with Scotch and English settlers. But the two Earls were in the
way. It was necessary to destroy them. The method was the old
one. They were to be charged with a plot. An anonymous letter
found by the Council Chamber in Dublin Castle revealed the plot.
According to it O'Neill intended to seize the Castle, slay the
Deputy, and start another rebellion.

The letter really emanated from London. It was devised by
Cecil, the Secretary of State; St. Lawrence, Lord Howth, was to
carry out the plot and to inveigle O'Neill and O'Donnell to a meet-
ing in his house. It was sufficient. They were cited to appear
in London to answer the charge. With his perfect knowledge of
the English Government's craft, and aware that the planters were
waiting for the word to fall upon O'Donnell's and his own terri-
tories, O'Neill knew that their destruction had been decided upon.
Their case was desperate. Safety alone was in flight. Yet the
thought filled them with bitter sorrow.

Into exile they must go. There were those who would wel-

THE NINE YEARS' WAR

395

come them on the continent; the Archdukes in Brussels; the King
of Spain; the Pope in Rome. And there were Irish swordsmen
in the continental armies. A chance might arise. If O'Neill was
old, he was yet unbroken; and there were his sons, Hugh and
Shane and Brian, and his nephew Art; to them, or to one of them,
might be given the task to take up that sword that he had laid
down, when he accepted Mountjoy's terms.

A French ship entered, anchored in. Lough Swilly. O'Neill
journeying northward at the news, stayed at a friend's house on
the way "wept abundantly when he took his leave, giving every
child and every servant in the house a solemn farewell, which made
them all marvel, because in general it was not his manner to use
such compliments." He remained two nights in his own home,
Dungannon castle. There must have been anguish in his soul.
Statesman, soldier, victorious general he had been; now all was
over. On the border of old age, beset with cruel enemies, what
fate might await him? And Ireland — ^Tyrone? The wolves were
out, the bitter planters, the greedy adventurers; who could resist
them?

It was 1607. He journeyed to Lough Swilly with his wife
Catherine, daughter of MacGuiness, Lord of Iveagh, his three
sons, other relations and attendants. Ruari O'Donnell was al-
ready there with his two brothers, his sister Nuala, his hereditary
bard and attendants. And there was Conor Maguire, brother of
Hugh now dead; fifty persons in all in the flight. The Flight of
the Earls it is called in Irish history. It stirred darkly the hearts
of the Irish. The ominous news went from province to province.
The bards dirged it. Men knew that the last bulwark against the
Saxon sheriff and the Saxon Law had fallen. "It is certain that
the sea has not borne, and the wind has not wafted in modern
times," wrote the Four Masters nearly thirty years later, "a num-
ber of persons in one ship more eminent, illustrious, noble in point
of genealogy, heroic deeds, valour, feats of arms, and brave
achievements than they. Would God had permitted them to re-
main in their inheritance." ^

3 THE PRINCES OF THE NORTH

BY ETHNA CARBERY

Summer and winter the long years have flown
Since you looked your last for ever on the hills of Tyrone;
On the vales of Tsrrconnell, on the faces strained that night
To watch you, Hugh and Rory, over waves in your flight

Not in Uladh of your kindred your beds hath been made,

Where the holy earth laps them and the quicken-tree gives shade ;

396 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

After a fearfully perilous voyage they landed in France. They
visited different courts, in time settling in Rome where the Pope
gave them a handsome pension. O^Donnell died within a year;
O'Neill in 1616. English spies surrounded him till his death.
Their reports mention that in the evenings, after dining, O'Neill
had but one topic : "his face would glow, he would strike the table,
he would say that they would yet have a good day in Ireland." On
his death every honour paid to royalty was paid to him. He was
buried in the Franciscan Church of San Pietro di Montorio, on
the Janiculum hill. One of his sons had died before him; and an*
other, Brian, page to the Archdukes in Brussels, was murdered by
agents of the English Government.

The Nine Years' War was the last stand that Ireland as a na-
tion under her own laws made against England and English laws.
After the battle of Kinsale the new rule rushed in. Not every
thing native went down at first; the schools for a time continued.
Wherever breathing space was found they arose and flourished.
They kept the learning and the traditions of the past. They pro-
duced a generation of scholars who saved from utter destruction
the records of Irish civilisation and Irish history. "During the
first half of the seventeenth century, the Irish, heavily handicapped
as they were, and deprived of the power of printing, nevertheless
made tremendous efforts to keep abreast of the rest of Europe in

But your dust lies afar, where Rome hath given space
To the tanist of O'Donnell, and the Prince of Nial's race.

O, sad in green Tyrone when you left us, Hugh O'Neill,

In our grief and bitter need, to the spoiler's cruel steel I

And sad in Donegal when you went, O ! Rory Ban,

From your father's rugged towers and the wailing of your clan I

Our hearts had bled to hear of that dastard deed in Spain ;
We wept our Eaglet, in his pride by Saxon vileness slain;
And, girded for revenge, we waited but the call of war
To bring us like a headlong wave from heathery height and scaur.

Ochon and ochonf when the tidings travelled forth

That our chiefs had sailed in sorrow from the glens of the North ;

Ochon and ochon! how our souls grew sore afraid.

And our love followed after in the track your keel had made 1

And yet in green Tyrone they keep your memory still.
And tell you never fled afar, but sleep in Aileach Hill-—
In stony sleep, with sword in hand and stony steed beside.
Until the Call shall waken you — ^the rock gate open wide.

Will you come again, O Hugh, in all your olden power.

In all the strength and skill we knew, with Rory, in that hour

When the Sword leaps from its scabbard, and the Night hath passed away,

And Banba's battle-cry rings loud at Dawning of the Day?

—From "The Four Winds of Eirinn.

THE NINE YEARS' WAR

397

science and literature. It was indeed an age of national scholar-
ship which has never since been equalled. It was this century that
produced in rapid succession Geoffrey Keating, the Four Masters,
and Duald MacFirbis, men of whom any age or country might
be proud, men who amid the war, the rapine, and conflagration
that rolled through the country with the English soldiers, still strove
to save from the general wreck those records of their country which
to-day make the name of Ireland honourable for her antiquities,
traditions, and history, in the eyes of the scholars of Europe." *

Not till the end of the seventeenth century were these schools
finally crushed. The hedge-schools were their shadowy children.
While the Irish language was the language of the mass of the peo-
ple the history and traditions of the country were familiar to them.
To the 1 8th century belong the majority of those manuscripts writ-
ten in beautiful script, on coarse paper stained brown by turf-smoke,
bound in untanned sheep-skin covers, which re-tell the Heroic Tales
and folklore of Ireland. And so vivid and strong was oral tradi-
tion enshrined in the language that a poor blind wandering poet in
the early years of the 19th century can relate in verse after verse
the history of his country from the mythic invasions to the Tithe-
war of his own day.

At the end of the Elizabethan wars the conquest of Ireland
appeared completed. The beginning of the 17th century saw the
overthrow of the clan and communal system, the destruction of
the great Gaelic Houses, and the establishment of centralisation
by a despotic power. The centralisation, carried out rigorously,
placed the government, patronage, power, and the ownership of
the land in the hands of the English colonists. The standing fact,
however, is that the conquest was not completed. It was surface
deep, no more. On that surface the English Law ran, and her
armed forces moved. But the soul of Ireland was unconquered.
For two centuries after the conclusion of the Elizabethan wars the
great bulwark of Irish nationality was the Irish language. Eng-
land recognised this; she made every effort to destroy it. The
memory of the Brehon Laws survived to the 19th century, and
showed itself in the Land League and the people's claims. Ire-
land's body was in chains, but her soul and mind were free.

FOR THE ELIZABETHAN PERIOD:

Carew's Manuscripts.

Dymmok's Treatise.

Hyde's Literary History of Ireland.

* Douglas Hyde, "Literary History of Ireland."

398 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Sir John Davies' Letters.

Mountjoy's Report to English Privy Council.

Rev. C. P. Meehan, M. R. I. A., Irish Franciscan Monasteries.

O'Clery's Life of O'DonnelL

Edmund Spenser's View of the State of Ireland.

Don Philip 0'Sullivan*s History of the Catholic War in Ireland.

Pacata Hibemia.

Fynes Morryson.

Sir William Stanley's Letters.

CHAPTER XLVI

SUPPRESSING THE RACE

Through these many dread centuries England's energies were con-
centrated upon an effort, seemingly, to annihilate the Irish race.

Says Edmund Burke (Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe) :
"All the penal laws of that unparalleled code of oppression were
manifestly the effects of national hatred and scorn towards a con-
quered people whom the victors delighted to trample upon and
were not at all afraid to provoke. They were not the effect of
their fears, but of their security . . . whilst that temper pre-
vailed, and it prevailed in all its force to a time within our mem-
ory, every measure was pleasing and popular just in proportion
as it tended to harass and ruin a set of people who were looked
upon as enemies to God and man; indeed, as a race of savages
who were a disgrace to human nature itself."

Yet with that sublime disregard of humour which is the privi-
lege of an elect people, one old English historian and champion
piously exclaims anent "how much Ireland is beholden to God for
suffering them to be conquered, whereby many of their enmities
were cured — and more might be, were themselves only pliable."

Differing from most other conquered peoples the Irish have
been made to suffer through the centuries not only from the con-
queror's dreadful sword but perhaps even more from the con-
queror's far more dreadful "justice." The laws imposed upon
Ireland from the Norman's first coming, down till to-day or yes-
terday, far surpassed in ferocity any of the repressive systems
temporarily imposed upon any other of the sorest suffering con-
quered ones of the world.

For many cruel centuries British law in Ireland only took no-
tice of the native as a subject on which to exercise its repressive
or exterminating power. We have record of a trial In Waterford
as early as 1310— when the British law was still new to the nation
ui which Robert le Waleys, a Briton, was charged with the mur-
der of John, the son of Ivor MacGillemory. The defence taken
^as that while admitting the prisoner had killed John, yet it was

399

400

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

no murder, since the slain one was only an Irishman I To m
this effective line of defence the public prosecutor contended tl
the man killed was not Irish but Ostman (Dane). In the sa
era we find Donal O'Neill, in his remonstrance addressed to Pc
John XX, stating that the murder of an Irishman was not a felo
and "it is no more sin say even some of their religious to kill
Irishman than to kill a dog." "They were out of the protect
of the law," says Sir John Davies, "so that every Englishn
might oppresse, spoile, and kill them without controulement." ■

And Sir Richard Cox, himself one of the elect, records: '
an Englishman be damnified by an Irishman not amenable to 1;
he may reprise himself on the whole tribe or nation."

Says the English historian Leland: "Every inconsidera
party, who, under pretence of loyalty, received the king's cc
mission to repel the adversary in some particular district, beca
pestilent enemies to the inhabitants. Their properties, their li^
the chastity of their families, were all exposed to barbarians, \^
sought only to glut their brutal passions, and by their horrible
cesses, saith the annalist, purchased the curse of God and ma

The solemn and well considered statutes of the realm w
likewise well designed to make smooth the lot of English ex
among the wild Irishrie. "It shall be lawful," says one of th
statutes (5 Ed. IV) "to all manner of men that find any thie
robbing by day or by night, or going or coming to rob or st<
having no faithful man of good name in their company, in E
lish apparel, upon any of the liege people of the king, to take i
kill them, and to cut off their heads, without any impeachment
our sovereign lord the king, his heirs, officers, or ministers, or
any others." In plain language this empowered any of the Brit
in Ireland to kill at sight any Irishman whom he wished to ki

In the reign of the third Edward was passed the famous Stat
of Kilkenny for reclaiming or preserving the English in Ireh
from Irish witchery. Although the beneficent laws had bran(
Irishmen outlaws in their own country, and the rulers had p
claimed them savages, barbarians, it was noticed that their m
ners, their customs, their dress, their ways, their language, I

* Davies, in his "Discoverie," said that the plagues of Egypt were short,
the plagues of Ireland lasted four hundred years. It was three hundred years
that Davies wrote this when the said plagues were only beginning to get the st
which carried them through centuries after with ever-increasing impetus. Dai
then, had just aided in imposing on the stricken country one of the worst of
plagues — the British Undertaker on whom was bestowed the lands of which
master, James the First, robbed the Ulstermen.

SUPPRESSING THE RACE

401

uncanny attraction for the Anglo-Norman settlers who quickly
became Irish in all these things; so the Statute of Kilkenny was
in 1367 considered necessary. This Statute made it high treason
to adopt the Irish dress, speak the Irish language, practise the
Irish customs, avail of the Irish laws (which were "wicked and
damnable"), follow Irish fosterage or gossipred, or intermarry
with the Irish. Yet, despite this Statute, and many others to
the same purport passed again and again in later generations, the
^ays — and the women — of the outlawed "barbarian" still be-
witched and won the hearts of the Anglo-Normans, till at length
they became — in the historic phrase used in the English complaint
"ipsis Hibernicis Hiberniores" — more Irish than the Irish them-
selves. They had become savage of the savage, adopting all the
"savage" manners, customs, dress, language.

Languages it should be said, for the Irish "savages" spoke
Irish and Latin indifferently. Sir Richard Cox complained that
"every cowboy in Ireland" tried his tongue at Latin. Sir John
Perrott (1585) reported of' one of "the degenerate English" —
the term applied to those who had voluntarily resigned their Eng-
lish heritage, and assimilated with the Irish — "I found MacWil-
liam verie sensible, and though wanting the English tongue yet
understanding the Latin."

When the De Burghos renounced England to become Irish in
all things (under the name of MacWilliam) they came before the
English Castle at Athenry, and in sight of the garrison there,
threw oflf their English dress, and donned the Irish costume.

In 1569 one of the Galway English, Dominick Linche, makes
complaint to the English Privy Council that "the brothers of the
erle of clan-Rickerde, yea, and one of his uncles, and he a byeshop
(bishop) can neither speak nor understand anything of the Eng-
lish language." Their languages, like that of the Irish of their
class, were Irish and Latin. In 1535 a Welsh officer marching
in the South with Lord Butler, wrote in surprise of the type of
"degenerate English" which he met. One of them, a brother-in-
law of Lord Butler, whose name, had he not fallen away, would
nave been FitzGerald, but who now wore the Irish name of Mac-
Shean, could speak never a word of English, "but he made the
troops good cheer in the gentlest fashion that could be." Refine*
nient and gentility, in a man who scorned the English language,
were amazing to find !

And in 1589, after Munster had been successively devastated
''y first ruthless war, then famine, and then planted with English

402

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

undertakers, one of the latter, Robert Paine, writing from Lii
ick to his partners in England, says that "English is being tai
to Irish pupils there through the medium of Latin." (Pal
"Brief Description of Ireland in 1589.")

"The verie English of birth," complains Campion, "com
ant with the brutish sort of that people [the Irish] become
generate in short space, and quite altered into the first ranke
Irish rogues." Yet, elsewhere we discover from Campion
garding these brutish Irish: "They speake Latine like a vul
tongue, learned in their common schools of leachcraft and ]
whereat they begin children, and hold on sixteene or twentie y(
conning by roate the aphorisms of Hypocrates, and the C
Institutions."*

After the new religion had been introduced to Ireland :
doors were open for the persecution of the Irish Race, and fi
inspiration for the work was supplied. By virtue of Henry's \
rant, the churches and monasteries were robbed of their ric
shrines were defiled, sacred relics were burned or scattered, b(
tiful statues were smashed, orders of religious were expelled f]
hundreds of their houses — ^which went to enrich his minions —
beautiful churches were wrested from the people.

And as the Reformation progressed in age^ its ingenious m
ods for bringing the knowledge of the true God to the pe(
progressed likewise. Some of the subjects chosen for indue
of religion Into, "were burned before a slow fire; some were
on the rack and tortured to death; whilst others, like Ambi
Cahill and James O'Reilly, were not only slain with the grea
cruelty, but their inanimate bodies were torn into fragments,
scattered before the wind." The fate of the gentle and sai
Archbishop Plunkett is only too well known: "His speech en
and the cap drawn over his eyes, Oliver Plunkett again rec
mended his happy soul, with raptures of devotion into the ha
of Jesus, his Saviour, for whose sake he died — till the cart
drawn from under him. Thus then he hung betwixt Heaven
earth, an open sacrifice to God for innocence and religion;
as soon as he expired the executioner ripped his body open

2 And the prejudiced Campion admits of these savages: "The people
thus inclined; religfious, franke, amorous, irefull, sufferable of paines infinite,
•glorious, great grivers, passing in hospitalitie ; the lewder sort are sensual,
reformed, are such mirrours of holinesse and austeritie, that other nations r(
but a shewe or shadow of devotion in comparison of them. Abstinence
fasting is to them a familiar kind of chastisement. They are sharp-witted, lo
of learning, capable of any studie whereunto they bend themselves, constan
travaile, adventurous, intractable, kinde-hearted, secret in displeasure."

SUPPRESSING THE RACE

403

pulled out his heart and bowels, and threw them in the fire already
kindled near the gallows for that purpose.'"

Under Elizabeth it was enacted that every Romish priest found
in Ireland after a certain date should be deemed guilty of re-
bellion, that he should be hanged till dead, then his head taken off,
his bowels taken out and burned, and his head fixed on a pole in
some public place.

Keating tells us how Bishop Patrick O'Healy and Cornelius
O'Rourke were put to the rack, had their hands and feet broken
by hammers, needles thrust under their nails, and were finally
hanged and quartered.

It was under Elizabeth that the price fixed on the head of a
priest was made uniform with that on the head of a wolf.* And
under her was passed the law of Recusancy fixing heavy penalties
upon all delinquents who refused to attend Sabbath services in the
church of the new religion.

It was not alone the religion of the Irish people that was then
sought to be wiped out, but their very life. Her armies with torch
and sword, converted a smiling fruitful country into a fearful
desert. Edmund Spenser in his "View of the State of Ireland"
thus graphically pictures a little of what Elizabeth accomplished:
"Notwithstanding that the same was a most rich and plentiful
country, full of come and cattel, yet, ere one yeare and a half,
they were brought to such wretchedness as that any stony heart
would rue the same. Out of every corner of the woods and glenns,
they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could
not bear them; they looked like anatomies of death; they spake
like ghosts crying out of their graves; they did eate the dead

*The following are a few samples of the tens of thousands of such efforts
for the reforming of the Irish. — ^Two Franciscans were taken and thrown into
the sea, and another was trampled to death hy horses. Three laymen, at Smer-
wick, had their legs and arms broken with hammers, and then were hanged, and
similar torture was inflicted on the abbot of Boyle. Three Franciscans, at Abbey-
leix, were first beaten with sticks, then scourged with whips until the blood came,
and finally were hanged. One Roche was taken to London and flogged publicly
through tne streets, and then tortured in prison until, he died ; another being
flogged, had salt and vinegar rubbed into his wounds, and then was placed on
the rack and tortured to death. And Collins, a priest at Cork, was first tortured,
then hanged, and whilst he yet breathed, his heart was cut out and held up,
soldiers around crying out in exultation, Long live the Queen. — From "Our
Martyrs," quoted by E. A. D' Alton in his "History of Ireland."

*Five pounds was the usual price for both — ^but Burton's Parliamentary Diary
°» June 10th, 1567, records the words of Major Morgan, M.P for Wicklow — ^who
was protesting in Parliament against striking more taxes on Ireland — "We have
three beasts to destroy that lay burdens upon us ; the first is a wolf upon whom
^e lay five pounds; the second beast is a priest on whom we lay ten pounds— ^f
ne be eminent, more ; the third beast is a Tory," etc.

404 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

carrions, happy where they could finde them ; yea, and one another
soone after; insomuch as the very carcasses they spared not to
scrape out of their graves, and, if they found a plot of water-
cresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time;
yet, not able to continue there withal; that in shorte space, there
was none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful countrey
suddainlie left voyde of man and beast."

Lecky in the preface to his History of Ireland in the Eighteenth
Century says: "The slaughter of Irishmen was looked upon as
literally the slaughter of wild beasts. Not only men, but even
women and children who fell into the hands of the English, were
deliberately and systematically butchered. Bands of soldiers tra-
versed great tracts of country, slaying every living thing they met."
And he also says: "The suppression of the native race was car-
ried on with a ferocity which surpassed that of Alva in the Nether-
lands, and which has seldom been exceeded in the pages of his-
tory."

The honest Scottish Protestant Dr. Smiles sums up the Eliza-
bethan work in Ireland, "Men, women and children wherever
found were put indiscriminately to death. The soldiery was mad
for blood. Priests were murdered at the altar, children at their
mother's breast. The beauty of woman, the venerableness of age,
the innocence of youth was no protection against these sanguinary
demons in human form."

The Protestant Rev. Dr. Taylor, in his History of the Ci\nl
War in Ireland, bears testimony to the fact that these Irish bar-
barians, when opportunity offered for avenging themselves on
their persecutors, took their revenge in a manner that would have
done credit to a civilised people — say, to the gentle English. He
tells how, when in the reign of Queen Mary the persecutors of the
Catholics found their occupation gone, "The restoration of the
old religion was effected without violence: no persecution of the
Protestants was attempted; and several of the English, who fled
from the furious zeal of Mary's inquisitors, found a safe retreat
among the Catholics of Ireland. It is but justice to this maligned
body to add that they never injured a single person in life or limb
for professing a religion different from their own. They had
suffered persecution and learned mercy, as they showed in the
reign of Mary, and in the wars from 1641 to 1648.""

5 For more light upon the subject of this Chapter see the later Chapter on
Cromwell.

CHAPTER XLVII

THE ULSTER PLANTATION

Within a decade after the "Flight of the Earls" came the Ulster
Plantation — a scheme of fatal and far-reaching consequence for
the Island ever since.

It was the Sixth James of Scotland who, after he became James
I of England, perpetrated this crime. The land-greedy and gain-
greedy among his Scotic fellow-countrymen, and among the Eng-
lish, were the instigators. Upon Ireland the covetous eyes of such
people were ever turned. The flight of the Earls proved a wel-
come excuse for the wholesale robbing of the clans. It was a very
simple matter to find that all the Northern chiefs had been con-
spiring to rebel — against England. Hence they were "traitors"
— to England I And naturally their estates were forfeit and for
distribution among James' hungry followers.

That the dan-lands did not then, or ever at any time, belong
to the chieftain, but to the whole clan community, was a matter of
no consequence. According to English law and custom it should be-
long to the people's lords (chiefs). And if "civilised" law did
not obtain in Ireland, it must be imposed wheresoever British
profit could be reaped from such imposition.

The English Lord Lieutenant, Sir Arthur Chichester, and the
Attorney General, Sir John Davies, were the instruments, under
James, for ^ving effect to the great Plantation. The lands of
the six counties of Donegal, Derry (then called Coleraine), Ty-
rone, Fermanagh, Cavan and Armagh — four million acres — ^were
confiscated. (The lands of the three remaining Ulster counties,
Antrim, Down and Monaghan were bestowed upon Britons at
other times. ) The true owners, the natives, were driven like wild
fowl or beasts, from the rich and fertile valleys of Ulster, which
nad been theirs from time immemorial, to the bogs and the moors
and the barren crags — ^where it was hoped that they might starve
and perish. English and Scotch Undertakers (as they were
called), and Servitors of the Crown, scrambled for the fertile
lands which were given to them in parcels of one thousand, one

405

4o6 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

thousand five hundred, and two thousand acres. The County ol
Coleraine (Derry) was divided up among the London trade
Guilds, the drapers, fishmongers, vintners, haberdashers, etc.—
who had financed the Plantation scheme. The Church termor
lands were bestowed upon the Protestant bishops. And thus a
new nation was planted upon the fair face of Ireland's proudesl
quarter.

The new nation was meant to be the permanent nation there.
The written conditions upon which the new people got their lands
specifically bound them to repress and abhor the Irish natives-
conditions which through hundreds of years since the new people
have faithfully endeavoured to carry out. They were bound never
to alien the lands to Irish, to admit no Irish customs, not to inter-
marry with the Irish, not to permit any Irish other than menials
to exist on or near their lands. And they were bound to build
castles and bawns, and keep many armed British retainers — ^thus
constituting a permanent British garrison which would help to
tame if not exterminate the Irish race. Sir John Davies, the Scotic
king's very faithful servant, assures us that his master did tame
the whole race. In his book, "A Discoverie of the True Causes
why Ireland was never Subdued and Brought under Obedience to
the Crowne of England until the Beginning of His Majestie's
Happie Reign," he says, "The multitude having been brayed as it
were in a mortar with sword, pestilence and famine, altogether
became admirers of the Crowne of England."

And when they were made true admirers of the Crown of
England it was that their fertile possessions were given to the
stranger, and they sent to co-habit with the snipe and the badger
among the rocks and heather. And the faithful servant. Sir John,
a pious Puritan rogue who strained his powers to rob and wrong
the natives even far beyond the sweeping robbery powers which
the "law" provided to his hand — this Saint, in the traditional
British fashion, tells us: "This transplanting of the natives is
made by his Majestic like a father, rather than a lord or monarch.
... So as his Majestic doth in this imitate the skilful husband-
man who doth remove his fruit trees, not on purpose to extirpate
and destroy, but the rather that they may bring forth better and
sweeter fruit I'* And when the starving one, from his perch among
the rocks, glanced over the smiling valleys from which James had
transplanted him for his own betterment, it is easy to conceive
the depth of feeling with which he appreciated that kind father's
solicitude.

The character of the Planters who were given the lands oi

THE ULSTER PLANTATION

407

the hunted ones Is recorded for us by the son of one of them, and
also by a later one of their own descendants. Reid in his "His-
tory of the Irish Presbyterians" says: "Among those whom divine
Providence did send to Ireland . . . the most part were such as
either poverty or scandalous lives had forced hither."

And Stewart, the son of a Presbyterian minister who was one
of the Planters, writes: "From Scotland came many, and from
England not a few, yet all of them generally the scum of both
nations, who from debt, or breaking, or fleeing justice, or seeking
shelter, came hither hoping to be without fear of man's justice."

Sore indeed was the lot of the poor Irish in the woods, and
mountains, and moors. Thousands of them perished of starva-
tion. Other many thousands sailed away under leaders to enlist
In the Continental armies. To far Sweden alone went no less than
six thousand swordsmen. But the lot of those who lived and re-
mained was sorer far than of those who went either to exile or to
death.*

Hill's Plantation of Ulster.
Sir John Davies* Irish Tracts.
MacNevin's Ulster Plantation.

^The great wrong inflicted upon those who were robbed of their all, to en-
rich James' Scots and English, is well exemplified in an incident related by the
Loyalist Ehichess of Buckingham (married to the Earl of Antrim), who, when
she was taking a thousand men southward, to strengthen the cause of Charles,
went aside at Limavady to see the wife of O'Cathain, late chieftain of that coun-
try. In the ruined hall of the O'Cathain castle — once the frequent scene of light-
hearted revelry, but whose window-casements now were stuffed with straw — was
huddled CyCathain's lady whose beauty and whose bounty had evoked sweet tunes
from many harps, and inspired many a minstrel's lay. Wrapt in an old blanket.
she was seated on her hams on the hearth, cowering over a miserable fire of
brambles which she had laboriously gathered from the woods.

CHAPTER XLVIII

^ THE RISING OF 164I

But the Irish were not content to starve and die upon the moors
while they watched the usurper wax fat upon their fathers' fertil
plains. As their suffering and starvation were prolonged an
increased, their wrath against the foreign robber daily grew greate
also ; and ere a generation had elapsed, it burst in a fierce red floo
that swept the terrorised Undertakers before it — and just nai
rowly missed sweeping them from Ulster forever.

The Rising of 1641 was the natural outcome of the grea
wrong of the generation before. And the reader can easily m
derstand the frenzied fury with which this rebellion overswep
northern Ireland, and the swift vengeance wreaked by the frei
zied ones upon the callous robber and oppressor — a vengeana
however, lacking the calculated savagery, and unspeakable bruta
ity, which, in return the Scottish and English troops visited upo
the native population, of both sexes and all ages, during the feai
ful decade that followed.

To Rory O'Moore,* of the Offaly family of the O'Moore

iRORY O'MOORE

(An Ulster Ballad of the Rising)

On the green hills of Ulster the white cross waves high,
And the beacon of war throws its flames to the sky ;
Now the taunt and the threat let the coward endure.
Our hope is in God and in Rory O'Moore I

Do you ask why the beacon and banner of war
On the mountains of Ulster are seen from afar?
Tis the signal our rights to regain and secure.
Through God and our Lady and Rory O'Moore 1

For the merciless Scots, with their creed and their swords,
With war in their bosoms, and peace in their words.
Have sworn the bright light of our faith to obscure,
But our hope is in God and Rory O'Moore.

Oh! lives there a traitor who'd shrink from the strife
Who, to add to the length of a forfeited life.
His country, his kindred, his faith would abjure?
No ! we'll strike for our God and for Rory O'Moore !

408

THE RISING OF 1641

409

a cultured and travelled gentleman, is chiefly due the credit for
that great resurgence of the Irish race. For years he patiently
worked both among the leading Irish families at home, Irish Gen-
erals in the Continental armies, and other representative Irish
exiles and sympathisers in' the European countries — to bring about
the overthrow of the British power in Ireland. And, plans being
all matured, the Rising broke in Ulster on the night of the 21st
October, 1641.

The Rising of that memorable night was a wonderfully drama-
tic coup. Leaders of the old Ulster families — Phelim O'Neill,
Magennis, O'Hanlon, O'Hagan, MacMahon, McGuire, O'Quinn,
O'Farrell, O'Reilly — at the head of their cohorts, staunch, wild-
eyed, long repressed, burst from their fastnesses in the hills and
the woods with one loud, long, strong, victory shout that might
well have been heard by the straining exiles on the Continent —
and in a few hours made Ulster their own again. Practically in
one night they may be said to have reconquered their province,
having sent the Planters scurrying into the few Ulster cities that
they still could hold — Enniskillen, Derry, Coleraine, Belfast. Out-
side these few places Ulster was Ireland's again, as far south as,
and including, the city of Dundalk. And in a few days Phelim
O'Neill was proclaimed head of a numerous Ulster army of 30,000
men — of whom, however, two-thirds were, for want of arms, in-
effective.^

It was Ulster only that had risen that night. The other quar-
ters remained quiescent because of a miscarriage of plans. The
seizing of Dublin Castle, which was to be their rising signal, was
frustrated — through a traitor, Connelly. MacMahon and Mc-
Guire who (with O'Moore) were to have taken the Castle, were

^ Joy! joy the day is come at last, the day of hope and pride,
And seel our crackling bonfires light old Banna's joyful tide,
And gladsome bell, and bugle horn, from Inbhar's captured towers.
Hark ! how they tell the Saxon swine, this land is ours, is ours !

Glory to God ! my eyes have seen the ransomed fields of Down,
My ears have drunk the joyful news, "Stout Phelim hath his own."
Oh ! may they see and hear no more, oh ! may they rot to clay.
When they forget to triumph in the conquests of to-day.

Now, now well teach the shameless Scot to purge his thievish maw.
Now, now the courts may fall to pray, for justice is the law.
Now shall the Undertaker square for once his loose accounts.
We'll strike, brave boys, a fair result from all his fake amounts.

Our standard flies o'er fifty towers, o'er twice ten thousand men ;

Down have we plucked the pirate Red, never to rise again ;

The Green alone shall stream above our native field and flood —

The spotless Green, save where its folds are gemmed with Saxon blood!

410

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

themselves taken. But O'Moore fortunately escaped. It \
some months before Leinster and Munster took up arms for 1
land. And later still when Connacht joined.

For purpose, now, of inciting the English at home to wipe (
the Irish — and thus provide more estates for the covetous
Britain, there was invented a story of a fearful massacre of aim
all the Protestants of Ireland, on the night of the Rising. ^
only did the eager English readily believe it, but after a whi
the parties in Ireland who started the story almost came to
lieve it themselves. And many thousands of good, sincere Ir
Protestants, and many thousands of ardent English, to this d
believe, the tale of a wild and indiscriminate massacre. So i
went this effort to lay unbridled savagery at the doors of the Iri
people, and so far succeeded, that many earnest and sincere li
torians, accepting 'the carefully prepared "facts" put upon recc
for the purpose, themselves believed, and through succeeding g(
erations and centuries perpetuated the memory of, "the gn
Popish Massacre." Many ludicrous estimates of the numbers
thousands and hundreds of thousands of Protestants massacr
in Ulster on the night of 2ist October, 1641, were, in succeed!
decades, given to the world by both innocent and crafty Englii
men and Anglo-Irish. But it was left to the magnifying mind
the great Milton (when he was Cromwell's secretary) to give
Europe the astounding information that the savage Irish papii
had massacred 610,000 Irish Protestants in the great massacre
a prodigious feat surely for the Papists, seeing that in all Irela
at that time, there were, as the English authorities afterwards a
mitted, less than 200,000 Protestants altogether.

The Rev. Ferdinand Warner, Protestant minister, in Ws "H
tory of the Irish Rebellion" written shortly after the event, sa)
"It is easy enough to demonstrate the falsehood of the relation
every English historian of the rebellion" — and ne calculates th
4,028 Protestants were killed within the first two years of t
war, and 8,000 died of ill-usage. But the Cromwellian comm
sion appointed after the war to investigate all murders and i

Down from the sacred hills whereon a Saint communed with God.
Up from the vsAc where Bagnall's blood manured the reeking sod,
Out from the stately woods of Truagh, M'Kenna's plundered home.
Like Malin's waves, as fierce and fast, our faithful clansmen come.

Then, brethren, on! — O'Neill's dear shade would frown to see our pause —
Our banished Hugh, our martyred Hugh, he's watching o'er your cause —
His gen'rous error lost the land — ^he deem'd the Norman true,
Oh, forward I friends, it must not lose the land again in you !

— Chasles Gavan Duffv.

THE RISING OF 1641

411

juries inflicted upon all the British settlers in Ireland, during the
whole ten years' war — a commission animated by plenty of healthy
prejudice, and eager to accept anything in the shape of evidence
against the Irish — found 2,109 murders in the ten years of war.
And it has been since shown that in this number the same murder,
dressed up in various ways, was counted several times.'

After the legend of "the great Popish Massacre" was once
started it grew with the rapidity of a rolling snow-ball — till, at the
hearings of the Commission ten years later, excited and imagina-
tive witnesses, including Dr. Maxwell the Protestant rector of
Tynan, made oath to the fantastic happenings which make those
records a source of entertainment to the curious, ever since.*

Finally this long cherished and widely advertised great Popish

sThe reports of the Lords Justices to the English Parliament, and other state
documents of the end of October and beginning of November, ten to twelve days
after "the massacre," make no mention of the tremendous killing— for the good
reason that the clever propagandists who originated the idea, had not yet been
inspired to its conception as a fine means of spurring English to the extirpation
of the Irish — and quieting the conscience of Europe during the extirpation.

In December the Lords Justices issued a commission to the Dean of Kilmore
and seven other Protestant clergymen to make diligent inquiry about Protestants
who were "robbed and plundered." There is no mention of any of them being
murdered.

Six days after the Rising, Lord Lieutenant Chichester wrote to the King:
"They took four considerable towns, and have but killed one man." The Scot-
tish settlers, in particular, were, strange to say, spared. One of the Irish proclama-
tions of the time decreed the penalty of death to any native who should molest
a Scotsman "in body, goods, or land.s." The historian, Leland, says: "In the
beginning of the rebellion it was determined by the Irish that the enterprise should
be conducted in every quarter with as little bloodshed as possible." The Bishops'
Synod at Kells in the following March condemned all acts of private vengeance
and all who usurped other mens estates. And the Irish National Synod in May
went so far as to issue a decree of excommunication against any such guilty one.

*Tlie Rev. Dr. Maxwell, Rector of Tynan (afterwards the Bishop of Kilmore),
swore to apparitions, "by day and bjr night walking upon the river, sometimes
brandishing their swords, sometimes singing psalms, and at times shrieking in a
most fearful and hideous manner. I never heard any man so much as doubt the
truth thereof."

Catherine, the relict of William Coote, late of County Armagh, a carpenter
"being duly sworn and examined, saith : About the twentieth December she saw
the vision of a man stand upright in the river, with hands uplifted to heaven, etc.,
etc" The English army and her husband also saw ft. The fervent ghost was
standing in that trying position, testifieth said Deposition, "from the 20th Decem-
ber to the end of Lent"!

Elizabeth, wife of Captain Price of Armagh, "deposeth and saith that she
and other women went unto the aforesaid bridge at twilight in the evening, and
»w a woman standing out of the water, waist high, crying out: 'Revenge!
Revenge!' Whereat this deponent and th« rest, being touched to a strong amaze-
ment and fright, walked from the place." Out of respect for the ghost they
showed no indecent haste.

The Rev. Mr. Creighton of Virginia, in Cavan, "deposeth that women brought
{nto his house a young woman almost naked whom the rogues had attempted to
•"11. She had said: ^ou can't kill me unless God gives you leave.' And al-
tn9ugh one, I think, ran his sword through her three times, she was not hurt— ie,
^?>ng much confounded, went away." If the demonstration had not confounded
">"», we might well conclude that he was a difficult subject.

412

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

H I

It!

Massacre may be disposed of in the words of the zealous,
time, Protestant historian. Rev. Dr. Taylor (in his "Civil W
of Ireland") : "The Irish massacre of 1641 has been a phi
so often repeated even in books of education that one can scar
conceal his surprise when he learns that the tale is apocrypha
the wildest fiction of romance." He also says: "The stories
massacre and of horrid cruelty were circulated in England becj
it was to the interest of the patriot party in Parliament to pre
gate such delusion."

The Scottish troops and Scottish planters are on the other h
accused by the Irish of sallying out from Carrickfergus and d
ing Irish women and children, variously estimated at 1,000
at several thousand, to dreadful death over the fearful Gobi
cliffs on the peninsula called Island Magee.'^

5 The present writer is unable to say how much truth, if any, is in this cha
The pro and con have been as hotly disputed as those of "the Great Po
Massacre."

The singer of Ireland's woes and Ireland's joys, Ethna Carbery, believing
truth of it, sang a fierce song of it —

BRIAN BOY MAGEE

I am Brian Boy Magee — ^my father was Eoghan Ban —

I was wakened from happy dreams by the shouts of my startled clan ;

And I saw through the leaping glare that marked where our homestead stoo

My mother swing by her hair — and my brothers lie in their blood.

In the creepy cold of the night the pitiless wolves came down —

Scotch troops from that Castle grim guarding Knockf ergus Town ;

And they hacked and lashed and hewed, with musket and rope and sword,

Till my murdered kin lay thick in pools by the Slaughter Ford.

I fought by my father's side, and when we were fighting sore
We saw a line of their steel, with our shieking women before.
TTie red-coats drove them on to the verge of the Gobbins grey,
Hurried them — God ! the sight ! as the sea foamed up for its prey.

Oh, tall were the Gobbins cliffs, and sharp were the rocks, my woe 1
And tender the limbs that met such terrible death below ;
Mother and babe and maid they clutched at the empty air.
With eyeballs widened in fright, that hour of despair.

(Sleep soft in your heaving bed. 0 little fair love of my heart!
The Sitter oath I have sworn shall be of my life a Part;
And for every piteous prayer you prayed on your way to die.
May I hear an enemy plead while I laugh and deny.)

In the dawn that was gold and red, ay, red as the blood-choked stream,
I crept to the perilous brink — great Christ 1 was the night a dream?
In all the Island of Gloom I onlv had life that day-
Death covered the green hill-sides, and tossed in the Bay.

I have vowed by the pride of my sires— by my mother's wandering ghost-
By my kinsfolk's shattered bones hurled on the cruel coast —
By the sweet dead face of my love, and the wound in her gentle breast-
To follow that murderous band, a sleuth-hound that knows no rest.

THE RISING OF 1641

413

The fearful cruelties perpetrated by Sir Charles Coote, leader
of the English army in Leinster, and by St. Leger, English com-
mander in Munster, it was, combined with fear for themselves and
their estates, that at length drove the Anglo-Irish Catholic lords
of the Pale and their fellows of Munster, leisurely to join in the
Rebellion — after the great success in Ulster gave them confidence
of a like success elsewhere. Connacht was for a much longer
time restrained from casting its lot with the rest of Ireland —
mainly through the influence of the leading and loyal Catholic
lord there, Clanrickarde (British Deputy), the head of the Burke
family.

When the Lords Justices Parson and Borlase sent out Coote
to ravage Wicklow he was ordered to spare none above a span
high. And it is related by various historians that when his soldiers
caught Irish babes upon their spears for sport, he said he "liked
such frolics."*

The Irish army of Leinster securely held for Ireland almost
all of that province except Dublin and a little radius around it,
which Ormond and Coote were enabled to raid. Philip O'Dwyer

I shall go to Phelim O'Neill with my sorrowful tale, and crave

A blue-bright blade of Spain, in the ranks of his soldiers tkrave,

And God grant me the strength to wield that shining avenger well —

When the Gael shall sweep his foe through the yawning gates of Hell.

I am Brian Boy Magee ! And my creed is a creed of hate ;

Love, Peace, I have cast aside— but Vengeance, Vengeance I wait !

Till I pay back the four-fold debt for the horrors I witnessed there,

When my brothers moaned in their blood, and my mother swung by her hair.

'From Dublin, under date 25th February, 1642, the Government issued for
the guidance of its generals, the very clear and explicit command, "to wound,
kill, slay' and destroy by all the ways and means you may. all the rebels and
adherents and relievers; and bum, spoil, waste, consume and demolish all places,
towns and houses, where the said rebels are or have been relieved and harboured,
and all hay and corn there, and kill and destroy all the men inhabiting, able to
bear arms." (Carte's "Ormond.")

Sir Charles Coote, typical of the English generals in this war, employed rack
and dungeon and roasting to death, for appeasing of the turbulent natives. He
stopped at nothing— even hanging women with child.

Lord Qarendon, in his narrative of the events of the time, records how, after
Coote plundered and burned the town of Qontarf, "he massacred townpeople, men,
and women, and three suclding infants." And in that same week, says Qarendon,
tnen, women and children of the village of Bullock frightened of the fate of
Clontarf, went to sea to shun the fury of the soldiers who came from Ehiblin
under Colonel Clifford. But being pursued by the soldiers in boats and over-
taken, they were all thrown overboard — and drowned."

Coote and Clifford were not better or worse than the average of the pacifiers
0^ Ireland. One could quote here more instances of the blood-freezing kind than
would fill a large book. But for our purpose one or two samples are as good
as a thousand. Castlehaven sets down an incident characteristic of the humanity
of the English troopers. He tells how Sir Arthur Loftus, Governor of Naas,
jnarched out wilh a party of horse, and being joined by a party sent out by
Ormond from Dublin: "They both together killed such of the Irish as they

414 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

in the south had taken Cashel. And when the nobility arose there,
they easily held the greater part of the province, driving St.
Leger, the English Deputy, back into Cork. The greater part
of Connacht was, soon after, under control of the Irish rebels.

And when the great and historic Synod met in Kilkenny in May
of '42, and nobility, gentry and lay leaders, foregathered with the
ecclesiastics of the country, and formed the Confederation of
Kilkenny, the Irish practically owned Ireland, English power
merely clinging by its teeth to some outer corners of the country.

met . . . but the most considerable slaughter occurred in a great strait of furze,
situated on a hill, where the people of several villages had fled for shelter." Sir
Arthur surrounded the hill, fired the furze, and at the point of the sword drove
back into the^ flames the burning, men, women and children whcr tried to* emerge—
till the last child was burned to a crisp. Says Castlehaven in his Memoirs, "I
saw the bodies — and the furze still burning."

It should be particularly noted that the suckling infant sometimes aroused in
the British soldiers the same blood-thirst that did the fighting rebel. The butcher-
ing of infants was more diligently attended to during this period than in any
previous or" subsequent English excursion through* Ireland. It is matter of rec-
ord that in the presence and with the toleration, of their officers — in at least one
case with the hearty approval of a leader — the common soldiers engaged in the
sport of tossing Irish babes upon their spears. The old English historian, Dr.
Nalson, in his history of the Civil Wars (Introduction to his second volume)
states — "I have heard a relation of my own, who was a* captain in that service (in
Ireland) relate that . . . little children were promiscuously sufferers with the
guilty, and that when any one who had some grains of compassion reprehended
the soldiers for this unchristian inhumanity, they would scoffingly reply, 'Why?
nits will be lice V and so despatch them."

CHAPTER XLIX

THE WAR OF THE 'FORTIES

The Confederation of Kilkenny proved to be perhaps more of a
curse than blessing to Ireland. The establishing of the Confed-
eration was the establishing of a Parliament for Ireland. As, to
please the Catholic Anglo-Irish (the "New Irish") lords and gen-
try, the Confederation proclaimed its stand "for faith, country,
and king" — meaning King Charles of England — so also to please
the same party the susceptibilities of their king was supposed to
be saved from hurt, by naming it a Confederation instead of a
Parliament.

In England Charles and his Parliamentary Government were
now at bitter odds — beginning the great civil conflict there. Most
of the Anglo-Irish, including all of the Catholic Anglo-Irish,
espoused King Charles' cause. And though to appease his Puri-
tan opponents he loudly proclaimed his hostility to popery, and
refused to relax the anti-popery laws, the Catholic Anglo-Irish —
whose affections for English royalty could seldom be shaken —
held, not him, but the minions of the Parliamentary party, respon-
sible for all of Ireland's woes. And they fostered the belief that
Charles was a friend of Ireland and of the Catholic faith. It
was the same absurd loyalty, which, crossing Ireland's national
claims, was, for centuries before, handed down through all gen-
erations of this particular portion of the Irish public.

A portion of the Old Irish, the real Irish, now, as always, tak-
ing this absurd loyalty by contagion, believed also in a crossed
fealty. But the vast majority of these wasted no love and no rever-
ence upon a foreign king who held them by force. Yet for unity's
sakie they yielded the point to the New Irish, and subscribed to
the battle-cry "for faith, for country, and for king."

The Confederation of Kilkenny then, which might have been
a great blessing to Ireland, eventually proved to be Ireland's curse
— in this, the country's greatest, fiercest struggle. Not entirely
because the New Irish in it were given their way from the start;
but more because a clique of the most unnational and reactionary

415

41 6 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

of them secured inside control — ^the control of the Supreme Coun-
cil of the Confederation's General Assembly.

Ormond, the head of the main branch of the Butler family,
who was then the chief power in Ireland standing for King against
Parliament, found this clique to be his ready tool — even though
he was a bitter hater of popery and opponent of all concessions
to popery. He was reared in England, a ward of the British Gov-
ernment— reared Protestant, and imbued with the deepest animus
against the religion to which the Butler family had hitherto clung.
The President of the Supreme Council, Lord Mountgarrett, was
kinsman to Ormond — being head of the Kilkenny family of the
Butlers. Consequently, Ormond, while bitterly hating Irishism
and Catholicism, was able to work this Irish Catholic Parliament
to his own and England's advantage. And through the cruel wars
of the 'Forties the protest of the great majority of the Assembly
who were truly Irish, and of the great bodies of truly Irish fight-
ing men in the field, could but seldom counteract the prejudicial
machinations of the Ormondite faction.

When Father Peter Scarampi, envoy of the Pope, came there
with moral and material help for the Irish rebels, the Ormondist,
pro-British, faction quickly disgusted him, and put him on the side
of the Irish Nationalists. And the same happened, when, in suc-
cession to the envoy came the Papal Nuncio, Rinuccini, who even-
tually had to break openly with the Ormondist faction, leave them
in disgust, and denounce them.

As matters got more and more critical for King Charles in
Britain and his following there .lost power, he was more and more
willing to court the Kilkenny Confederation through his repre-
sentative Ormond. And the Kilkenny Supreme Council was al-
ways eager to act the part of the willing coy maiden whenever
Ormond whispered — even though his anti-Catholic bias made him
presume to tone down each grud^ng little concession that his mas-
ter would yield. They were again and again right heartily willing
to accept from Charles bare toleration for their religion — without
actual repeal of the anti-popery laws — and a mere modicum of
their other liberties as Irishmen. As was ever the case with the
New Irish, if their property and their religion were left unmolested
they were tolerably content to be ruled by England as England
wished. Now they were content to let England hold the Irish
church lands for use of her foreign church, and hold Ireland in
the fetters of Poyning's law.*

iThis famous (or infamous) law established the supremacy of the English
Parliament over the Irish Parliament within the four seas of Ireland, forbidding

THE WAR OF THE 'FORTIES

417

The Supreme Council wasted the energies of Ireland and damp-
ened the spirits of the fighters by years of futile negotiation with
Ormond and his king, and practically threw away in a truce two
valuable years of the middle 'Forties. And at times when they
were pushed to positive action, they took action that was misguided.
They never for an instant forgot that they, the Anglo-Irish, were
the elect. Their forefathers had been set over the Old Irish, the
mere Irish ; and now the mere Irish — ^who were of course the bulk
and backbone of this war — should be content to take a subordinate
position in guiding the war. And armies of Old Irish, led by Old
Irish generals, must not be permitted to take too much of the
glory from their own pet Anglo-Irish commanders.

Altogether their snobbery, their bias, and oftentimes their fool-
ish trustingness — verging on stupidity — ^in Charles and his min-
ions, combined to make a mess of Ireland's case, and to render
fruitless long and sore years of struggle, which, without this Old
Man of the Mountain upon the nation's neck, might have been
crowned by complete success.

They manacled, and thwarted, the great Irish figure of the
'Forties, him who, but for them, could have been Ireland's saviour
— ^the truly admirable man and signally great military leader,
Owen Roe O'Neill. With Owen Roe's coming arose Ireland's
bright star of hope — and with his passing, that star set.

Owen Roe was a nephew of Hugh O'Neill, "Earl of Tyrone,"
who fled at the century's beginning, and had died abroad. Owen
Roe was a young man at time of the Flight of the Earls, had
fought in that last disastrous fight at Kinsale, and going abroad
also, had won signal distinction as a military commander in the
Spanish Netherlands — especially in his brilliant defence of Arras
where he successfully held three armies at bay. He had never
ceased to hope that he would yet be the means of freeing his
Fatherland. And through the years in which his sword had been
in the service of Spain, his heart was ever with Ireland. He came
to his own North, when, close following its first bright burst the
clouds of despair had come down, and begun to sit heavy on it
again.

For the Ulster army did not maintain its first successes. Its
leader, Phelim O'Neill, was only a lawyer, not a military com-
mander. After Ulster had been won for him, he wasted his army

?* ^^^^f *° begin legislating on any Irish subject without first getting permission
"om the former to do so, and giving the former absolute and unquestioned veto
f^^every enactment of the latter— thus making the Irish "Parliament" an Irish

41 8 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

sitting long before Drogheda, which, without siege guns, he could
not take. And when eventually he raised the siege, and faced an
enemy army that had been forming in the North, his own wasted
force was not only defeated, but almost wiped out. Then were
the Irish of Ulster overwhelmed with despair, and considering
making the best of the bad terms which they could now get from
the enemy, when suddenly, from the Boyne to the sea, the province
quivered with a magic thrill as from mouth to mouth was passed
the word "Owen Roe is come I"*

On the 6th July, 1642, with a hundred officers in his company,
the long-wished for saviour stepped off a ship at the old castle of
MacSwiney, at Doe, in the North of Donegal. At Charlemont
he was given command of the Northern army — the little that was
left of it. And he proceeded at once to build it up, and train it
into fighting form. So potent was the name and fame of Owen
Roe that even while his army was still in embryo. Lord Levin,
from Scotland, at the head of twenty thousand men refused to
meet such a formidable battler and strategist.

Though the name of O'Neill helped to keep the enemy at bay
while he built up his army and trained them on the plateau of
Southern Leitrim — from which he made an occasional sally to
whip some body of the enemy, and refresh their respect for him
— ^the Supreme Council at Kilkenny, jealous of the popularity of

2 THE COMING OF OWEN ROE

Ho ! Phelim, rouse your sorrowing soul, and raise your head once more 1
Glad news, glad news for aching hearts comes from the northern shore !
Magennis and Maguire, come each from out your 'leagured tower.
And spit upon their Saxon laws — defy their Saxon power I
O'Reilly and O'Hanlon come into the light of day !

Come forth, come forth, and chase the gloom that wraps your souls awayl
Ho! fling the Sunburst to the winds — sound trumpet loud, and drum!
Ho 1 ring thy echoes, Ulster, out, Owen Roe, Owen Roe is come 1

To North and South, to East and West, speed with the joyous news,
Press Heaven's own winds into your cause the tidings to diffuse ;
On, on, o'er mountain, moor, and march — ^through wood, and brake, and fell-
On, on, as though pursued by all the vengeful powers of hell !
On, on, nor sleep, nor bait, nor pause, till starts from sleep the land,
And hope has gleamed in every neart, and steel in every hand.
And eyes are fired that erst shone meek, and tongues loosed that were dumb—
Till Heaven is rent with thunders of Owen Roe, Owen Roe is come !

Ho ! proud and haughty Sassenach, look to your powder now !
Look to your spoils, O robber ! for, sore need you have, I trow ;
Look to your lives, ye sleuth-hounds false ! for naught shall us withstand.
Since Owen Roe, oui own beloved, with Vengeance is at hand;
Hoi Saxons, tyrants, spoilers, by Liffey, Foyle, or Maigue,
Where'er you're found, Owen's heavy hand shall scourge ye as a plague !
Oh, hellish memories steel our hearts, our mercy-sense benumb !
Up Gadsl Up Gaels! Revenge! Revenge! Owen Roe, Owen Roe is come!

— Seumas MacManus.

THE WAR OF THE 'FORTIES

419

the great Irishman, sometimes stooped to hamper when they should
have helped him, and at length went so far as to slight and curb
him by appointing over him as commander in chief, one of their
own, Lord Castlehaven. But Owen Roe went steadily forward
with the work that lay to his hand. And in June '46 fought and
won his great pitched battle, the famous victory of Benburb. Here
he met and smashed the Scottish General Monroe, who then held
the British command in Ulster.

In this battle, O'Neill had five thousand men and no artillery
whatsoever. Monroe had six thousand men and a good field of
artillery. Monroe took position in the angle formed by the junc-
tion of the River Oonah and the Black Water, adjacent to the
village of Benburb. He drew up his army that morning, with five
divisions on the front line and four divisions in the second line.
O'Neill's seven divisions were placed, four in the first line and
three supporting divisions behind. Monroe awaited the attack.
His men were fresh, and he had the sun in his favor. O'Neill,
who had sent his cavalry northward to intercept assistance coming
thence to his enemy, took pains to disappoint Monroe, and to
keep his nerves and the nerves of his troops on edge for many
mortal hours, while he merely engaged in skirmishing. By these
tactics he not only got the accession of his cavalry (after their
successful Northern sally) and tired out Monroe's army, but he
also got the westering sun in their eyes. Then, everything being
favourable, he gave the word, "Sancta Maria I" and in the name
of the Trinity launched an impetuous whirlwind attack of such
mighty momentum that nothing could withstand it. His cavalry
captured the enemy's guns. His infantry overswept and over-
whelmed the legions of Monroe, cut most of them down in masses,
and hurled the remainder into the river — in one brief hour wip-
ing out a splendid and well-equipped army that had been the hope
of the British in Ulster I

Thirty-two standards were taken. Lord Ardes, with thirty-
two Scottish officers were captured. Cannon, baggage, two months'
provisions, and 1,500 draft horses were bagged; 3,300 of the
enemy lay dead on the field. Many more were drowned in the
river and killed in the pursuit. While Owen Roe's loss was seventy
men killed and a hundred wounded.

All remaining Scottish forces were, by this signal victory, sent
scurrying into the two strongholds of Derry and Carrickfergus.
The province was Owen Roe's and Ireland's I

So would the whole country soon have been — ^but unfortunately,
the Supreme Council, flinging away the golden opportunity, not

420 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

only signed a peace with Ormond, acting for King Charles, but
went so far as to put under his conunand all of the Confederate
Catholic Army.

It is little wonder that Nuncio Rinuccini and the Bishops rose
up against such traitorous peace — and went so far as to excom-
municate the traitorous peacemakers. Owen Roe hurried south
with his forces to overawe the traitors, and try to counteract the
harm they had done. In the south with an army whose numbers
had now mounted to 12,000 (including 1500 horse) he was joined
by General Preston and his southern Catholic army. Preston,
like Owen Roe himself, had served his military apprenticeship, and
won well-deserved fame for himself on the Continent. He had
landed at Wexford two months after Owen Roe had landed in
Donegal — and, as he was of the New Irish, he was given by the
Confederacy a southern command. The united forces of these
two able commanders might well have counteracted the ill-effect
of the unworthy peace proclaimed by the Supreme Council. But
the ferment of the Old Irish and New Irish jealousy was at work
even in the combined forces. And on top of this, O'Neill discov-
ered that Preston was being tampered with by the Ormond fac-
tion. And Ormond was trying to negotiate a peace with him.
So he rose up and went north with his army again. And the vic-
tory that had seemed almost within Ireland's reach, was snatched
away once more.

The progress of events for the ensuing couple of years, to
the coming of Cromwell, was puzzlingly kaleidoscopic in effect.
And probably never before or since was there such an interminable
tangle in the political affairs of any nation. There were half a
dozen distinct parties and as many distinct armies rending the Na-
tional fabric — the Old Irish Nationalists, the New Irish Nation-
alists, the New Irish Royalists (for Charles), the Anglo-Irish
Parliamentarians, the Scoto-Irish Royalists, and the Scoto-Irish
Parliamentarians. These many parties were uniting in all sorts of
odd combinations, and dividing along the most unlooked for lines.
Although the Parliamentarians in Britain steadily treated all sec-
tions of Irish as if they were, not humans but beasts,' each of the

8 Captain Swanky in '44 seized a ship that was carrying loyalist troops from
Galway to Bristol, picked out from amongst them seventy whom he considered to
be Irish, and threw them overboard. And the Journal of the English House of
Commons for June of that year records — "Captain Swanky was called into the
House of Commons and thanks given to him for his good service, and a chain
of gold of two hundred pounds in value." „

In pursuance of the same admirable policy, Napier in his "Life of Montrose
tells us that, in Scotland, in one day, eighty Irish women and children were thrown
over a bridge, and drowned.

THE WAR OF THE 'FORTIES

421

two sections of the Irish at times united with the bitterest of the
anti-Irish to fight the other.

But, every move made by Owen Roe, and every combination,
was wisely directed toward the great end. At one time, in the
summer of '48 he was bravely standing against the five armies of
five other parties that moved in unison against him. And against
all five this magnificent general was able not merely to hold the
field, but to march south to Kilkenny with 10,000 men — and from
there in safety return to his camp at Belturbet again. From time
to time during these years, while he stood like a rock defying the
storm, he saw one after another of the Catholic commands dis-
astrously defeated, and almost annihilated. He saw the Nuncio
temporarily turn against him, himself declared a rebel, and out
of the range of pardon, by the Confederation !

Yet the noble man held steadily to his task, and when eventu-
ally Cromwell came like an avenging angel Owen Roe was the
one great commanding figure to which the awed and wasted nation
instinctively turned.

But, as by God's will it proved, their turning to him was in

vam.

Qarendon says that when the E^rl of Warwick captured Irish frigates he
"used to tie the Irish sailors back to back, and fling them into the sea."

CHAPTER L

CROMWELL

For, Owen Roe, the hope of Ireland, was not destined to stay the
bloody whirlwind that now entered Ireland for its final devasta-
tion. In face of the fearful disaster that threatened in the com-
ing of Cromwell, Owen Roe not only brought himself to league
with the abhorrent Ormond, but, with characteristic nobility, he,
one of the great military leaders of the era, agreed to subordinate
himself and his army to Ormond' s supreme command.

But on his way south to join Ormond he fell ill in Cavan, and
died — ^to the heartrending sorrow of a woe-stricken nation.
As they poisoned Red Hugh O'Donnell in Spain, a short time be-
fore, the English are accused of poisoning this man whose fight-
ing qualities they feared. One of their agents is said to have pre-
sented him with a pair of poisoned slippers at a ball which he at-
tended in Derry on the eve of his starting south.*

1 LAMENT FOR THE DEATH OF EOGHAN RUADH O'NEILL

"Did they dare, did they dare to slay Eoghan Ruadh O'Neill?"
"Yes, they slew with poison him they feared to meet with steel."
"May God wither up their hearts ! May their blood cease to flow 1
May they walk in living death, who poisoned Eoghan Ruadh I

"Though it break my heart to hear, say again the bitter words."
"From Derry, against Cromwell, he marched to measure swords ;
But the weapon of the Sassanach met him on his way,
And he died at Cloch Uachtar, upon St. Leonard's Day."

"Wail, wail, ye for the Mighty One ! Wail, wail ye for the dead ;
Quench the hearth, and hold the breath,. with ashes strew the head.
How tenderly we loved him! How deeply we deplore!
Holy Saviour 1 but to think we shall never see him more I

"Sagest in the council was he, kindest in the hall ;
Sure we never won a battle — 'twas Eoghan won them all.
Had he lived — had he lived—our dear country had been free;
But he's dead, but he's dead, and 'tis slaves we'll ever be.

"O'Farrell and Clanrickarde, Preston and Red Hugh,
Audley and McMahon — ^ye are valiant, wise and true ;
But — what, what are ye all to our darling who is gone?
The rudder of our ship was he, our castle's cornerstone !

422

CROMWELL 423

The fine and well-trained army of Owen Roe, of which Or-
mond is said to have been jealous, was, after the beloved leader's
death, broken up, and distributed among various commands.

Several months before Cromwell's coming the Papal Nuncio
was declared a rebel by the General Assembly — and, utterly dis-
gusted with the whole horde of Anglo-Irish Catholics whose pres-
ence cursed the country, had shaken the dust of the country from
his feet, and sailed from Galway. The General Assembly having
reaped rich promises — and little else — from King Charles and
Ormond, had in return humbly and dutifully laid Ireland at Charles'
feet. His cause was henceforth their cause.

It was in August of '40 that Cromwell landed in Dublin, with
eight regiments of foot, six of horse, and several troops of dra-
goons— in all seventeen thousand of the flower of the Puritan
army. They were extraordinary men, his Ironsides — Bible-read-
ing, psalm-singing soldiers of God — fearfully daring, fiercely fanat-
ical, papist hating, looking on this land as being assigned to them
the chosen people, by their God. And looking on the inhabitants
as idol-worshipping Canaanites who were cursed of God, and to
be extirpated by the sword. They came with minds inflamed by
the lurid accounts of the "great Popish Massacre," which for
some years now had been, by the Parliamentarians sedulously cir-
culated among the English people.*

To keep the men's venom at the boiling point there were
chosen to travel with the troops, and also to sail with the fleet,
Puritan preachers of the Word distinguished for their almost de-
moniacal hatred of the papistical Irish. Stephen Jerome, Hugh

"Wail, wail him through the Island ! Weep, weep for our pride !
Would that on the battlefield, our gallant chief had died !
Weep the Victor of Beann-borb — weep him, young men and old ;
Weep for him, ye women, your beautiful lies coldl

"We thought you would not die, we were sure you would not go
And leave us in our utmost need to Cromwell's cruel blow.
Sheep without a shepherd when the snow shuts out the sky —
Oh ! why did you leave us, Eoghan ? why did you die ?"

— Thomas Davis.

2 A sample of this literature is the pamphlet published in London in 1647 by
a noted Puritan preacher (and writer) Nathaniel Ward: "I beg upon my hands
and knees that the expedition against them (the Irish) be undertaken while the
hearts and hands of our soldiery are hot ; to whome, I will be bold to say, briefly :
happy be he that shall reward them as they served us, and cursed be he who
shall do the work of the Lord negligently. Cursed be he who holdeth back the
sword from blood : yea cursed be he that maketh not the sword stark drunk with
Irish blood; who doth not recompense them double for their treachery to the
English; but maketh them in heaps on heaps, and their country the dwelling place
of dragons — an astonishment for nations. Let not that eye look for pity, nor
hand be spared, that pities or spares them; and let him be cursed that curseth
them not bitterly."

424 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Peters, and their like, noted for the violence of their invective
against all things Irish and Catholic, preached a war of extermina-
tion in the most startling and fearful manner — in the pulpit in-
voking the curse of God upon those who should hold their hands
from slaying "while man, woman or child of Belial remains alive."
Peters exhorted his hearers to do as did the conquerors of Jericho,
"kill all that were, young men and old, children, and maidens."

The great leader of the grim Ironsides, himself, was destined
to leave behind him in Ireland for all time a name synonymous
with ruthless butchery.'

The first rare taste of the qualities of this agent of God the
Just, and first Friend of the Irish was given to the people at Dro-
gheda. When he took this city he gave it and its inhabitants to
his men for a three days' and three nights' unending orgy of slaugh-
ter. Only thirty men out of a garrison of three thousand escaped
the sword; and it is impossible to compute what other thousands
of non-combatants, men, women, and children, were butchered.
They were slain in the streets, in the lanes, in the yards, in the
gardens, in the cellars, on their own hearthstone. They were slain
in the church tower to which they fled for refuge, in the churches,
on the altar steps, in the market-place — till the city's gutters
ran with red rivulets of blood. In the vaults underneath the
church a great number of the finest women of the city sought
refuge. But hardly one, if one, even of these, was left to tell the
awful tale of unspeakable outrage and murder.*

In his despatch to the Speaker of the House of Commons,

3 No more illuminating light could be thrown upon the extraordinary attitude
adopted by Britain toward Ireland, through all the centuries, than to quote here
the sentiments of the great Englishman Qirlyle upon the coldest-blooded butcher
of all the many butchers by whom Ireland has been in seven centuries afflicted:
"Oliver Cromwell came as a soldier of God the Just, terrible as Death, relentless
as Doom doing God's judgments on the enemies of God. ... It was the first
King's face that poor Ireland ever saw, the first Friend's face." Since thus spoke
one of the very great and noble of the English people, there is no reason for
being astonished at the attitude toward Ireland of the mass of the British people.

♦Arthur Wood, the Historian of Oxford, gives us a narrative compiled from
the account of his brother who was an officer in Cromwell's army, and who had
been through the siege and sack of Drogheda — which throws interesting sidelight
upon the British methods, and the quaint point of view of the most cultured of
them. "Each of the assailants would take up a child and use it as a buckler of
defence to keep him from being shot or brained. After they had killed all in the
church they went into the vaults underneath, where all the choicest of women had
hid themselves. One of these, a most handsome virgin, arrayed in costly and
gorgeous apparel, knelt down to Wood, with tears and prayers begging for her
life; and being stricken with a profound pity, he did take her under his arm for
protection, and went with her out of the church with intention to put her over
the works, to shift for herself, but a soldier, perceiving his intention, ran the
sword through her, whereupon Mr. Wood, seeing her gasping, took away her money,
jewels, etc., and flung her down over the works."

CROMWELL 42s

after Drogheda, Cromwell says: "It has pleased God to bless
our endeavour at Drogheda . . . the enemy were about 3,000
strong in the town. I believe we put to the sword the whole num-
ber. ... This hath been a marvelous great mercy. ... I
wish that all honest hearts may give the glory of this to God alone,
to whom indeed the praise of this mercy belongs." And again,
"In this very place (St. Peter's Church), a thousand of them were
put to the sword, fleeing thither for safety. . . . And now give
me leave to say how this work was wrought. It was set upon some
of our hearts that a great thing should be done, not by power or
might, but by the spirit of God. And is it not so, clearly?"

On October 2, 1649, the English Parliament appointed a na-
tional Thanksgiving Day in celebration of the dreadful slaughter
— and by unanimous vote placed upon the Parliamentary records
— "That the House does approve of the execution done at Dro-
gheda as an act of both justice to them [the butchered ones] and
mercy to others who may be warned by it."

After Drogheda, Cromwell, in quick succession reduced the
other northern strongholds, then turned and swept southward to
Wexford — where he again exhibited to the people the face of the
King and Friend. Two thousand were butchered here. He
thought it a simple act of justice to "the Saints," his soldiers, to
indulge them in the little joy of slaughtering the Canaanites. He
writes : "I thought it not right or good to restrain off the soldiers
from their right of pillage, or from doing execution on the enemy."

Lingard, in his History of England says: "Wexford was
abandoned to the mercy of the assailants. The tragedy recently
enacted at Drogheda was renewed. No distinction was made be-
tween the defenceless inhabitants and the armed soldiers, nor
could the shrieks and prayers of three hundred females who had
gathered round the great Cross In the market-place, preserve them
from the swords of these ruthless barbarians."*

Cromwell reduced the garrisons of Arklow, Inniscorthy and
Ross on the way to Wexford. After Wexford he tried to reduce
Waterford, but failing in his first attempt, and not having time to

5 Nicholas French, Bishop of Wexford who escaped from the dty, and after
terrible suflfering and privation, escaped from the country, records : "On that fatal
day, October 11th, 1649, I lost everything I had. Wexford, my native town, then
abounding in merchandise, ships, and wealth, was taken at the sword's point by
Cromwell, and sacked by an mfuriated soldienr. Before God's altar fell sacred
victims, holy priests of the Lord. Of those who were seized outside the church
some were scoui^ed, some thrown into chains and imprisoned, while others were
hanged or put to death by cruel tortures. The blood of the noblest of our citizens
was shed so that it inundated the streets. There was hardly a house that was not
defiled with carnage and filled with wailing."

426 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

waste besieging it, passed onward — and found the cities of Cork
an easy prey. For, as Lord Inchiquin had garrisoned them with
English Protestants, these garrisons readily sold the cities — and
were later well rewarded with large grants of Irish lands in the
North. He rested at Youghal, getting fresh supplies and money
from England. In January he took the field again, reduced Feth-
ard, Cashel, Carrick, and eventually got Kilkenny by negotiation.

Against his new and powerful cannon, the ancient and crum-
bling defences of the Irish cities were of little avail.

Perhaps the pluckiest fight put up against Cromwell was by
Hugh O'Neill (nephew to Owen Roe) at Clonmel. With his little
garrison of 1500 men he resisted magnificently. He quickly
turned to splendid advantage a treacherous trick by which Crom-
well was to be given entrance to the city — and quietly turning the
tables, entrapped, fought and killed, five hundred of Cromwell's
men. So finely did O'Neill defend the place that Cromwell had
at length to turn the siege into a blockade. Then O'Neill, being
out of provisions, worked a second clever bit of strategy. With
the garrison, he secretly slipped away in the night to Waterford,
after having arranged that when he and his forces had got twelve
miles' start, the Mayor of the town should obtain good terms from
the impatient and unwitting Cromwell. And, as anticipated, Crom-
well was taken in, and eagerly gave fine terms to a town that,
without his knowing it, was completely at his mercy.

The conqueror then — in the end of May — sailed from Youghal
for England, after having in eight months, subdued almost all of
Ireland, destroyed the effective Irish forces, and left the country
prostrate at the feet of the Parliament. Swiftly, terribly, and
effectively he had done his fearful work — "a very handsome spell
of work," says the great minded Carlyle."

•A few sidelights on the "handsome spell of work" (out of thousands which
happened) :

At Cashel, where two thousand were slain, Cromwell's general, Broghill, took
the Bishop of Ross, cut off his hands and feet, and then hanged him. A Domini-
can friar had his fingers and toes cut off before he was slain. And at Clonmel, a
Franciscan was first drawn on the rack and then had his hands and feet burned
off, after which he was hung. The parish priest of Arklow was tied to a wild
horse's tail and dragged to Gorey, where he was hanged.

The attitude adopted by the exterminators towards those whom they were
exterminating, is illumined to us when we know that the most wildly grotesque
stories told of the latter, were greedily accepted by the former. In Nash's edition
of the Hudibras^ it was ^avely stated that when seven hundred Irish had been
put to the sword by Inchiquin, "Among them were found, when stripped divers
that had tails nearly a quarter of a yard long. Forty soldiers, eye-witnesses,
testified the same on their oaths." A Protestant minister with the troops in Mun-
ster wrote home to London that when they had stormed a certain castle, many
of the slain defenders were found to have tails several inches long I

CROMWELL 427

He left in command his general, Ireton, who, on his death soon
after, was to be succeeded by Cromwell's son, Henry.

It took his successors, however, another two years to finish
up the renmant of work that he had left unfinished.

Waterford, Limerick, and Galway still held out. Scattered
bands of fighters here and there, and an army of the North, about
five thousand foot and a thousand horse, under Heber MacMahon,
Bishop of Clogher, kept Ulster resistance still alive.

But MacMahon, very little of a military man, though he swept
the enemy before him at Toome, at Dungannon and Dungiven,
was disastrously defeated near Letterkenny — ^when he had per-
sisted in engaging the enemy under disadvantageous circumstances,
and against the pleadings of military counsellers. There he lost
half his army, and with the remnant of it was overcome at Ennis-
killen. He was hanged, and his head set above Derry gate, as a
warning to "traitors" — ^the term always applied by Englishmen
to such Irish as perversely persist in doing their duty by their
own country instead of their country*s conqueror.

The few towns^ — ^Waterford, Limerick, Galway^ — and the
scattered fighting forces were gradually conquered, or capitulated.
Till on the 12th May, '52, Articles of Kilkenny signed by the Par-
liamentary Commissioners on the one hand and the Earl of West
Meath on the other — ^yet fiercely denounced by the Leinster clergy
— ^practically terminated the longest, the most appallingly dreadful
and inhumane, and the most exhausting, war, with which unfor-
tunate Ireland was ever visited.

' One of Galway's gallant defenders, a young man, Geoffrey Baron, condemned
to the scaffold by the conquerors — for the same crime for which through the ages
since, other thousands of Ireland's young men have made sacred to us the gal-
lows steps — asked and was permitted to dress for his execution. He went to his
room, chose from his wardrobe a suit of white taffetie, and, so garbed, joyously
climbed the gallows stairs and went to his death for Ireland.

Incidentally, let it be here set down that on the day these lines are being penned
I lift the newspaper, read a report of six young men — "rebels" — ^just hanged in
Cork, and of the chaplain, Canon O'Sullivan's announcement, "They went to their
death like school-boys going on a holiday."

The centuries roll on, the struggle grows ancient, but the spirit, proud, glad,
indomitable, weakens not, nor changes ever.

CHAPTER LI

THE CROMWELLIAN SETTLEMENT

But Ireland's sufferings, great and terrible as they had been, were
yet far from ended. True, she had quaffed her chalice to the last
bitter drop, but it was ordained that she must now lap up the
poisoned dregs.

Peace had been proclaimed over the torn land. But peace is
a bitterly ironical term to apply to the state of things in Ireland
now. This may well be realised by reading any description of life
in Ireland during these years. Hear this description of a place in
time of "peace" — taken from Lynch's "Life of Bishop Kirwan" :

"Along with the three scourges of God, famine, plague, and
war, there was another which some called the fourth scourge, to
wit, the weekly exaction of the soldiers' pay, which was extorted
with incredible atrocity, each Saturday — bugles sounding, and drums
beating. On these occasions the soldiers entered the various houses,
and pointing their muskets to the breasts of men and women threat-
ened them with instant death if the sum demanded was not imme-
diately given. Should it have so happened that the continual pay-
ment of these taxes had exhausted the means of the people, bed,
bedding, sheets, table-cloths, dishes, and every description of furni-
ture, nay, the very garments of the women, torn oflf their persons,
were carried to the market-place and sold for a small sum ; so much
so, that each recurring Saturday bore a resemblance to the Day of
Judgment, and the clangour of. the trumpet smote the people with
terror, almost equal to that of doomsday."

When the wars were ended and "peace" had been established
then was the exhausted remnant of the nation condemned to shoul-
der its bitter burden — slavery worse than death, and a terrible
exile, worse than either — the transplanting of all of the Irish race
who were still alive, in Ulster, Leinster and Munster, to the bar-
ren bogs of Connacht; so that the smiling fields of the fertile
three-quarters of Ireland might be divided among the children of

the conqueror. It was the great Cromwellian Settlement.

428

THE CROMWELLIAN SETTLEMENT 429

One of the articles of the peace provided that the Irish sol-
diers could, if they would, enter the army of any foreign power
friendly to England. Thirty-five hundred of them, under Colonel
Edmund O'Dwyer, went to the Prince Conde; five thousand un-
der Lord Muskerry, to the King of Poland; smaller numbers to
other Continental armies; and about thirty thousand to the King
of Spain.

Because by far the greater portion of the Irish who were able
to bear arms had been killed oflf, few young men now remained to
Ireland. And of these few remaining young men, and of the
young women and boys and girls, numbers were, during the fol-
lowing years shipped into slavery to the American colonies and
the West Indies.^ The numbers thus sent to slavery are variously
estimated at between thirty thousand and eighty thousand.*

On the Continent, in almost every country, the exiled Irish
came in course of time to adorn all ranks and all classes. One
historian says, "They became Chancellors of Universities, profes-
sors and high officials in every European state. A Kerryman was

^ There is a tradition that, as a result, on some of the smaller islands of the
West Indies up till a little more than a century ago, the negroes still spoke
Gaelic.

2 Prendergast in his "Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland" names four Bristol
merchants who were the most active of the slave tradinpr agents. For illustrating
the formal legal way in which the horror was commercialised Prendergast quotes
"one instance out of many"-ythe case of Captain John Vernon, who as agent of
the English Commissioners (who then governed Ireland) contracted "under his
hand, of date 14th September, 1653" with Messrs. Sellick and Leader of Bristol
to supplv them with two hundred and fifty women of the Irish nation above twelve
and under forty-five years of age. Also three hundred men between twelve years
and forty-five years of age.

Following the conquest of Jamaica in 1655, after thousands of the Irish had,
through years before, been shipped into slavery, the Governor of that island asked
for a thousand girls from Ireland to be shipped there — ^to the most appalling land
of slavery.

Secretary Thurloe's Correspondence, Vol. 4, gives Henry Cromwell's reply to
this modest request — in his letter of September 11, 1655:

"Concerninge the younge women, although we must use force in takeinge them
up, yet it beinge so much for their owne goode and. likely to be of soe great ad-
vantage to the publique, it is not in the least doubted you may have such number
of them as you thinke fitt to make use upon this account. ... I desire to express
as much zeal in this design as you would wish, and shall be as diligent in prose-
quution of any directiones . . . judgeinge it to be business of publique concern-
ment . . . Blessed be God, I do not finde many discouragements in my worke, and
hope I shall not, soe longe as the Lord is pleased to keep my harte uprighte be-
fore him."

And under date of September 18, 1655, Henry of the Uprighte HartCv writ-
ing from Kilkenny, a^in to Thurloe, says in the course of his letter, "I shall not
neede to repeat anythmge about the girles, not doubtinge but to answer your ex-
pectationes to the full in that; and I think it might be of like advantage to your
affaires there, and to ours heer, if you should thinke fitt to sende 1500 or 2000
young boys of from twelve to fourteen years of age, to the place aforementioned.
We could well spare them, and they would be of use to you ; and who knowes
but that it may be the meanes to make them Englishmen, I mean rather Christians."

Comment upon this— especially the final pithy sentence — would surely spoil it

430 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

physician to Sobieski, King of Poland. A Kerryman was con-
fessor to the Queen of Portugal, and was sent by the King on an
embassy to Louis the Fourteenth. A Donegal man named O'Gla-
can was physician and Privy Chancellor to the King of France,
and a very famed professor of medicine in the Universities of
Tolouse and Bologna."

"There was not a country in Europe, and not an occupation,
where Irishmen were not in the first rank — as Fieldmarshals, Ad-
mirals, Ambassadors, Prime Ministers, Scholars, Physicians, Mer-
chants, Soldiers, and Founders of mining industry."

Of the fearful condition of Ireland now, Prendergast gives us
a terrible picture: "Ireland, in the language of Scripture, lay void
as a wilderness. Five-sixths of her people had perished. Women
and children were found daily perishing in ditches, starved. The
bodies of many wandering orphans, whose fathers had been killed
or exiled, and whose mothers had died of famine, were preyed
upon by wolves. In the years 1652 and 1653 the plague, follow-
ing the desolating wars, had swept away whole counties, so that
one might travel twenty or thirty miles and not see a living crea-
ture! Man, beast and bird were all dead, or had quit those deso-
late places. The troops would tell stories of the place where they
saw a smoke, it was so rare to see either smoke by day, or fire or
candle by night. If two or three cabins were met with, there were
found none but aged men, with women and children; and they,
in the words of the prophet, 'became as a bottle in the smoke,'
their skins black like an oven because of the terrible famine."

In September, 1653, was issued by Parliament the order for
the great transplanting. Then all the fertile fields of the Irish
natives of Ireland were declared to be the property of the British
soldiers who had won them by the sword, and of the English Ad-
venturers who had purchased the sword and financed the expedi-
tion into Ireland — and, under penalty of death, all the ancient
inhabitants were ordered to repair themselves from the ends of
Ireland to the wastes of Connacht, where their lot was to be laid
henceforth. Under penalty of death, no Irish man, woman, or
child, was to let himself, herself, itself, be found east of the River
Shannon, after the ist May, 1654.'

s Edward Hetherington was hung from a tree near his own house while a
placard struck upon his breast, and another upon his back, warned the rest of the
Irish world that this was — "For not transplanting."

Certain artisans and labourers who would be absolutely needed by the British
Settlers were excluded from the edict of banishment There was also a clause —
evidently put in more for effect than for anything else — that people who could
prove themselves innocent of having been rebels or having aided, harboured, or

THE CROMWELLIAN SETTLEMENT 431

To the countless thousands of weak, weary, and starving crea-
tures— worn old men and women, and weakling babes — direct sen-
tence of death would have been ten times more welcome and in-
finitely more merciful. That was a fearful winter of '53-'54;
fearful for the tottering old and the crawling young, who, from
the four ends of Ireland were dragging their skeleton frames over
the hills and the plains, and forcing themselves along every high-
way that headed to the west, to deeper misery, more painful starva-
tion, and slow and painful death. The Lord and the commoner,
the palsied old man and the toddling orphan child, all alike were
driven forth from their homes, and goaded over the blood-stained
flints to their dread Siberia.*

The Barony of Burren in Clare, to which the first batch of
these unfortunates were consigned, was such a God-forsaken re-
gion that it was popularly said to have not wood enough on which
to hang a man, water enough to drown him, nor earth enough to

sympathised with rebels, and who were guiltless of any ofiFences against British
soldiers, settlers, or sympathisers, would be excluded from the edict of banishment.
This was "a concession of mercy" to the Irish nation. And its value may be
estimated by the fact that a fair-minded one of the British Settlers themselves,
Vincent Gookin, in his Vindication of the Irish Transplanting, records his protest
against "the narrowness and straightness of the Parliament's concessions of mercy
to that nation which doth not declare one in five hundred pardonable either for
life or estate."

This same Vincent Gookin in endeavouring to show the vital necessity to the
new colonists of holding back from banishment the working portion of the Irish
people, sheds light for us upon the manual accomplishments of the common Irish
worker then. And his testimony is valuable in view of the constant English as-
sertion that the Irish were in a state vergfing on savagery (which, considering the
circumstances, might well have been the case). Gookin says: "There are few of
the Irish commonalty but are skilful in husbandry, and more exact than any of
the English in the husbandry _ proper to the country. . . . There are few of the
women but are skilful in dressing hemp and flax, and making of linen and woollen
cloth. ... It is believed that to every hundred men there are five or six carpenters
at least of that nation, and these more handy and ready in building ordinary
houses, and more prudent in supplying the defects of instruments and materials,
than English artificers."

*From the Government records, Prendergast gives us samples of the official
description of the migrating Irish, both the high brought low, and the lowly still
lower :

"Sir Nicholas Comjm of Limerick numb on one side of dead palsy, accom-
panied only by his wife, Catherine, aged thirty-five, flaxen hair, of middle stature,
and one maid servant, Honour MacNamara, aged twenty, brown hair, middle
stature — ^having no substance."

"Ignatius Stacpool of Limerick, orphant, eleven years of age, flaxen hair,
full face, low of stature; Catherine, his sister, orphant, age eight, flaxen hair, full
face — ^having no substance."

"James, Lord Dun Boyne in County Tipperary, describes himself as likely to
be accompanied by twenty-one followers, and as having four cows, ten garans, and
two swine."

The grinding of the mills of the gods brought it around that among the mul-
titude of poor creatures who, in pain and suffering, were now driven from Cork
into exile, was the grandson of the poet Edmund Spenser, who in his time had
driven forth the native Irish that he might enjoy the lands of which he robbed
them.

432 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

bury him. Beside it Siberia was Eden. And many of those con-
signed to it returned to face death at the hands of the soldiers.

And it is to be noted that even Connacht was not entirely left
to them. For, not satisfied with obtaining the three more fertile
quarters of Ireland, the covetous eyes of the British followed these
creatures even across the Shannon — and the one fertile county of
Connacht, Sligo, was filched from them, as well as many fruitful
patches that God had granted to the remainder of Connacht.

Sir William Petty, in his Political Anatomy of Ireland, esti-
mated that the wars had reduced the population of Ireland from
1,466,000 in '41 to 616,000 in '52 — so that much more than one-
half of the population of the whole country had been at that time
exterminated. And they were probably dying more thickly during
the terrible transplanting — and in the years immediately after,
when they were cooped up in Connacht, without houses, cattle, or
implements of tillage, striving as it were to live on manna from
heaven.

Petty also tells us that, whereas before 1641 the British in
Ireland were to the Irish as two to eleven, when the Cromwellian
Settlement was effected, three-fourths of the lands, and five-sixths
of the houses belonged to the British Settlers. And when Petty
wrote, in '72 — after a period of twenty years' rest during which
the exiled Irish had got some time to rehabilitate themselves — ^he
records that three-fourths of the population existed upon milk and
potatoes, and lived in cabins that had neither chimney, door, stairs,
nor window — "So," exclaims Sir William, and we can see the
pious and gallant Briton rub his hands for glee, "they will never
rebel again."

Now, as ever In Ireland, the gloom is illumined by a radiance
behind. While things are at their blackest, the people, like driven
animals, agonising most sorely, both learning and religion are
still cherished — cherished not only by those cooped up in Con-
nacht, but by the dispossessed who had remained hewers of wood
and drawers of water for their dispossessors ; and among the thou-
sand who, escaping back from Connacht, were in every corner of
the country insinuating themselves into its life once more. Keep-
ing in mind that these creatures, under the terrible conditions pic-
tured, were just clinging to a life of unparalleled hardship, it is
something noteworthy and characteristic of the indomitable soul
of the race, to find Petty testifying: "The superior learning
among them Is the philosophies of the schools and the genealogies
of their ancestors — both which look like what St. Paul hath con-

THE CROMWELLIAN SETTLEMENT 433

dcmnedl" The superior Briton in Petty makes him set down the
priests as having small learning. But he admits in the next breath :
"They can often outtalk in Latin those who talk with them."

It was shortly before this time that King James' Commis-
sioners— ^the learned Protestant Primate, Archbishop Usher, sad
to say, being one of them — suppressed the classical school con-
ducted in Galway by John Lynch, the noted author of Cambrensis
Eversus — ^praised it and suppressed it, and bound over Lynch in
four hundred pounds "to forbear teaching."

And cooped together in Connacht, or scattered fugitives,
haunting the fields that had once been theirs, they clung to their
religion too, with a perseverance that was sublime. Just before
the Wars the people had been venturing, here and there, to bring
their religion into the open. That good Puritan, Sir William
Brereton, in the record of his journey in Ireland in 1635, ex-
pressed himself shocked at the painful sight that met his eye at
Dundalk — "wherein the Papists boldly dare to go to Mass openly."
And wherever they were, there also, lurking too, was the hunted
priest with price upon his head."

O'Hagan (afterwards .Chief Justice) in his Essay on Irish
History cites one of the edicts of that time: "If any one shall
know where a priest remains concealed, in caves, woods, or cav-
erns, or if by any chance he should meet a priest on the highway,
and not immediately take him into custody and present him before
the next magistrate, such person is to be considered a traitor and
an enemy of the Republic. He is accordingly to be cast into prison,
flogged through the public streets and afterwards have his ears
cut off. But should it appear that he kept up any correspondence
or friendship with a priest, he is to suffer death."

Both the perseverance of the people in their thirst for learn-
ing and religion, and also the hard lot of the hunted priest, then.

5 Here are a few sample disbursements taken from the Government records
for 1657:

"Five pounds to Thomas Gregson, Evan Powell, and Samuel Ally, to be
equally divided upon them, for arresting a Popish priest, Donogh Hagerty, taken
and now secured in the County jail at Qonmel."

"To Lieutenant Edwin Wood, twenty-five pounds for five priests and three
friars apprehended by him — namely, Thomas McGeoghan, Turlough MacGowan,
Hugh Goan, Terence Fitzsimmons, and another — who on examination confessed
themselves to be priests and friars."

"To Humphrey Gibbs and to Corporal Thomas Hill ten pounds for appre-
hending two Popish priests, namely, Maurice Prendergast and Edward Fahy."

"To Arthur Spoilen, Robert Pierce, and John Bruen, five pounds for their
good service performed in apprehending and bringing before the Right Honourable
Chief Justice Pepys on the twenty-first January last, one Popish priest, Edwin
Duhy.'*

434 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

is well pictured for us by a Jesuit, Father Quinn, who, in the early
'fifties, in a Latin report, from Galway, made to his superiors in
Rome (and preserved in St. Isidore's) writes:

"On a spot of ground in the middle of an inmiense bog. Father
James Forde constructed for himself a little hut, whither boys
and youths came and still come to be instructed in the rudiments
of learning, virtue, and faith. Then they go from house to house
and teach parents and neighbours what they learnt in the bogs.

"Our life is therefore daily warfare and living martyrdom.
We never venture to approach any houses of Catholics, but live
generally in the mountains, forests, and inaccessible bogs — where
Cromwellian troopers can not reach us. Thither crowds of poor
Catholics flock to us, whom we refresh by the Word of God and
consolations of the Sacraments. Here in wild mountain tracts, we
preach to them constancy in faith and the mystery of the Cross
of Our Lord." In spite of all precaution taken for the secret ex-
ercises, Cromwellians often discovered it: then the wild beast was
never hunted with more fury, nor tracked with more pertinacity,
through mountains, woods, and bogs, than the priest.

"I cannot omit a lamentable incident which occurred here
lately," says Father Quinn, "three hundred Catholics bound in
chains, were carried to a desolate island — ^where they were aban-
doned. All of them starved to death except two who swam away.
One sank. One reached land."

After the Puritan fury had expended itself, and the native
Irish were everywhere mysteriously springing up again — out of
the bowels of the earth as it seemed — ^we have interesting testi-
mony of the rapid recovery of the race, and revival of its religion,
from the French traveller Janvin de Rochefort, who went through
Ireland in 1668. He found: "Even in Dublin more than twenty
houses where Mass is secretly said, and in about a thousand places,
subterranean vaults and retired spots in the woods." Spending
a Sunday in Drogheda he was told he could hear Mass two miles
outside the city — ^where he found it being celebrated in a poor
chamber in a mean hamlet. He was astonished at the numbers he
saw flocking through the woods and across the mountains to at-
tend. And he adds: "Here I saw, before Mass, fifty who con-
fessed and afterwards communicated with devotion truly Catho-
lic."

Like all the many other English attempts of the like kind, the
Cromwellian Settlement did not settle — and the Cromwellian ex-
tirpation did not extirpate — the perverse race.

THE CROMWELLIAN SETTLEMENT 435

For the wars of the 'Forties and Cromwellian Settlement see the following :
Belling's History of the Irish Confed«ration.
Meehan's Confederation of Kilkenny.
Warner's History of the Rebellion.
Carte's Life of the Duke of Ormond.
Green's Short History of the English People.
Lord Maguire's Narrative.
Murphy's Cromwell in Ireland.
Taylor's Life of Owen Roe.
Leland's History of Ireland.
Lingard's History of England.

CHAPTER LII ;

THE WILLIAMITE WARS

When to England's throne and Ireland's governorship came
James II (1685), his first act was to suspend the Penal Laws
against Catholics and Dissenters — ^whereby he filled the majority of
his English subjects and the Puritan settlers in Ireland with horror.
Furthermore, he decided to effect a reform in the government of
Ireland.

So, he sent over Richard Talbot, later known in Irish history
as the Duke of Tyrconnell. Talbot had been attached to King
Charles's suite since the Restoration. He was an Irishman and a
Catholic; "a large powerful-looking man, brilliant and handsome
in his youth" says Gramont in his "Memoirs," "of nobility, not to
say haughtiness in his manners." It was recorded of him that he
always paid his debts. He was fifty years of age when the king
chose him for the service. A tall cavalry officer of Irish birth, then
in England, captain in Hamilton's dragoons by name Patrick Sars-
field, held an opinion later that Tyrconnell lacked decision and
boldness.

However, on being appointed to the command of the army in
Ireland, and in the following year to the Lord Lieutenancy, he
showed no lack of decision. He had been at the sack of Drogheda,
a boy of sixteen. That memory, and the king's cause to serve,
caused him speedily to make a radical change in the army. The
Puritan element was removed from the ranks; regiments were re-
cruited from Irish Catholics; the Cromwellian officers were replaced
by Irishmen. "I have put the sword in your hands," he is reported
to have said to the Irish Privy Council; and the statement was true.

He went further. The charters of the Corporations, all framed
in favour of the foreigner, the English settler, were called in. He
appointed Catholics as judges and magistrates, and placed Catholics
on his Council. These mere acts of justice appeared crimes to the
settlers. To complete his sins Tyrconnell sent three thousand
Irish soldiers to England as a reinforcement for James's army.
Their arrival was regarded with horror. The English believed
them to be bloodthirsty banditti.

436

THE WILLIAMITE WARS 437

From the Hague a man closely connected by birth and marriage
with the king was watching in silence the march of events. A man
with a high aquiline nose, a pale face, with light brown hair and
penetrating eyes, asthmatic, a slender awkward figure, ungraceful,
taciturn, fond of hunting. Agents began to pass between him and
certain Englishmen. From Versailles Louis XIV watched him
in turn. He bade his ambassador in London warn James against
William of Orange. The warning was resented. Then, shortly
after the birth of the Prince of Wales, the blow fell.

William of Orange landed in England, and James's army
melted away. His cause there became hopeless; the country went
over to William. Deserted by relations and friends, James ordered
his army to be disbanded. He then fled from London, and later
to France. Some jokers, dressed as clowns, entered London and
said the Irish regiments had seized their arms and were slaughtering
all Protestants. The report was believed; a mad panic seized the
citizens; alarm bells were rung; beacons kindled in the adjoining
counties, and the night was known in England as the "Irish night."
It was the 12th of December, 1688. Meanwhile the disbanded
Irish soldiers were getting home as best they could.

William knew men. He offered Sarsfield a colonelcy in his
army, and his favour generally, if he would desert James and act as
William's agent in Ireland. The colonelcy and the favour were
spurned. It became evident now that the issue between James and
William would be decided in Ireland. To some of the Irish, com-
plete independence, with James for king, seemed a not impossible
hope.

As a body the Irish nation declared for him; the English
settlers, Elizabethan and Cromwellian, for William. Tyrconnell
at once set about strengthening the Irish army. He empowered
the Catholic nobility and gentry to raise regiments. Foot and
Horse were soon enrolled. Arms were deficient; for this reason
many of the new levies were of little practical aid.

Within the space of two months fifty thousand Irishmen enlisted
themselves. These men were known as "Tyrconnell' s blackguards"
by the Williamites. Many were ragged; some half naked. Their
fathers had been robbed of all; their oppressors just allowed them
to exist. One of their enemies described their appearance. "Some
had wisps of hay or straw bands about their heads instead of hats.
Others tattered coats or blankets cast over them without any
breeches. Stockings and shoes were strange things. As for shirts
three proved a miracle. However, they mustered." To the cold,
hostile eye they seemed but savages. But there was native learn-

438 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

ing, and poetry, and wonderful oral tradition, wit, generosity,
resource and clever brains among them in spite of the frightful
poverty of their lives, and the grinding cruelties of their oppressors.
They were the material which, later, drilled and armed, was to
form the Irish Brigade in the service of France, and prove the best
fighters in Europe.

War, thus declared, Tyrconnell sent to France to invite James
to Ireland. He came. By a successful war here, he hoped to
recover the crown of England. To him, Ireland was the pawn;
England the prize. He brought gifts from Louis, gold, arms, and
ammunition. He was accompanied by his illegitimate son, the
Duke of Berwick, a boy of nineteen, and by four hundred French
officers and gunners; Scotch and English Jacobites; and as Louis's
agent and ambassador the Count d'Avaux. A Frenchman, de
Rosen, was to command the army that was to advance on Derry
held by the settlers; a man of fierce temper, with little ability.
Another Frenchman, also of the party, was Boisselaux, who proved
his worth at Limerick, and with James came Patrick Sarsfield.

The landing was at Kinsale. It was March 19th, 1689. Tyr-
connell met James at Cork. He aroused foolish enthusiasm
everywhere. All the way to Dublin he was greeted with acclama-
tions of joy. Speeches were made, songs sung; young girls danced
along the road. Men took off their serge coats and laid them in
the mud before his horse's hoofs ; women kissed him as the deliverer
of the country. James bore the kisses for a short time; then
ordered that no more kissers were to be allowed to approach him.

Dublin showed the same delight. It was Palm Sunday when
he entered the city. Embroidered cloths, silks, tapestries hung
from windows; the streets were freshly gravelled; bells rang; royal
salutes were fired. Next day he summoned a council. Five procla-
mations were issued— one, for the summoning of a Parliament.

His next act was to march against Williamite Derry. Negotia-
tions had been opened with Lundy, who was in command of the
defenders. Lundy stipulated that while these negotiations were
going on the Irish army was to remain a distance of four miles
from the city. De Rosen advised James to show himself in force
before the walls. The army was set in motion. News reached
the city; the 'prentice boys closed the gates in the king's face with
shouts of "no surrender I" From that day Derry defended herself
gallantly until she was relieved. It was one of the magnificently
gallant defences of history.

Disgusted at his reception, the king returned to Dublin. On
the 7th of May the Parliament met. He opened It robed and

THE WILLIAMITE WARS 439

crowned.^ It was the first Parliament since the Parliament of the
Pale had been established in the thirteenth century that represented
the Irish nation. It is known as the Patriot Parliament. Its
detractors then, as now, point to it as a specimen of what an Irish
Government would be. "Unruly, rash, rapacious, and bloody"
they call it.

James said he had come to venture his life in defence of Irish
liberties and his own right. The nation, he promised, should
flourish under his rule. He spoke to fifty-four peers and two hun-
dred and twenty-four members of the Commons. Among the peers
were Iveagh, Clare and Mountchashel, whose regiments after-
wards, as part qf the Irish Brigade in the service of France were
to keep the name of Ireland before Europe. Among the seven
prelates was Anthony Dopping, Protestant Bishop of Meath, who
led the opposition, and who, after the last siege of Limerick, urged
in a sermon, the Lord Justices to break the Treaty they had signed.

The Parliament passed in all thirty-five Acts with due deliber-
ation and the advice of counsel. The most memorable are : — ^The
Act that declared the Parliament of England could not bind Ireland,
or that writs or errors of appeal, or the removing of judgments,
decrees, and sentences given in Ireland could not be brought to
England: The Act for the repeal of the Act of Settlement that
had confirmed the Cromwellian settlers in their possession of the
lands they had seized: The Act for liberty of conscience which
repealed "such acts or clauses in any Act of Parliament which was
inconsistent with the same" ; The Act relating to the army, and the
one dealing with the payment of tithes.

The Act of supply for the army is remarkable for its equity
in the distribution of the tax. It empowered the king to raise
£20,000 pounds a month by land tax distributed over the counties
and towns according to their abilities, the two rebellious counties,
Derry and Fermanagh, receiving no heavier tax than the others.
It provided against the oppression of the tenant, as "in these dis-
tracted times," it says, "the tenants might not be able to pay rents,
the tax in such cases was to be paid by the landlord or occupier, who,
where the land was let at its value, was to pay the whole tax (out
of the rent) ; where the land was let at half its value or less, the
tenant was to pay a share." Thomas Davis, commenting on this
Act, asks, "Where, in distracted or quiet times, since, has a Parlia-
ment of landlords in England or Ireland acted with equal liber-
ality?"

1 The crown was made in Ireland.

440 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

The Tithes which had been borne by the Catholics in the Ascend-
ancy Parliaments were adjusted fairly; the Protestants were to
pay tithes to their own church, the Catholics to theirs. No Prot-
estant bishop was to be deprived of stipend or honour. They were
to hold their incomes ; they were to sit in Parliament. The estates,
plundered by the Cromwellians thirty-six years before, were
restored to the previous owners, but compensation was to be given to
all innocent persons. It endeavoured to make a war-navy. It
passed Acts for the relief and release of "poor distressed prisoners
for debts"; for the settling of intestate estates; for delays in the
execution of the laws ; the unnecessary arrests of judgments, and the
prevention of frauds and perjuries. It prohibited the importation of
English, Welsh and Scotch coal. Large sums of money, it declared,
were sent out of the kingdom, which hindered the industry of
labourers in supplying Dublin and other places with fuel, and gave
opportunity to persons importing coal to raise the prices when
they pleased. As, however, occasion might arise when it would
be necessary to import coal the government could issue a license
for its importation then. The Irish coal pits were to be worked.
The owners were not to take dishonest advantage of the law to
raise their prices.

It further passed an Act for the improvement of shipping and
trade. It drew attention to the size and safety of Irish harbours.
"They stand very fit and convenient for trade and commerce with
most Nations, Kingdoms and Plantations; although this trade
and commerce had been hindered by laws, statutes and ordinances
that had prohibited and disabled Irish men from importing or
exporting direct into or from Ireland, all exports and imports
having to pass through England; thus cutting Ireland off from
direct communication with Europe, America, Africa, Plantations
and Colonies." It provided schools of navigation in Dublin, Bel-
fast, Limerick, Cork and Galway, where youths were to be
instructed in Mathematics and Navigation; the instructors to be
paid out of the public revenue.

Such was the Patriot Parliament against which its detractors
hurled the words "bloody" and "rapacious."

Schomberg, William's Dutch general, arrived in Belfast Lough
with twenty thousand men. He took Carrickfergus after a week's
siege ; the garrison were allowed to march out with the honours of
war. Then he formed his camp at Dundalk. It was ill-omened
ground. A year before a Mr. Hamilton "a sober rational man"
riding towards Dundalk one evening saw several little lights in
the air and two large ones. He heard the most dismal groans

THE WILLI AMITE WARS 441

coming from the plain. The sober and rational man was startled,
as were his companions.

The camp soon rang to groans and curses. The autumn rains
fell; the lines were flooded. The plague broke out; six thousand
men died. The living made ghastly revelry; sang ribald songs,
sitting on the dead bodies of their comrades, and drank healths to
the devil. As the patrols came to bury the dead they grumbled
that their seats should be taken away.

When Schomberg struck his camp, de Rosen would have
attacked him. James, again with the army, forbade the attack.
Then, leaving his soldiers to take care of themselves, he returned
to Dublin, where he amused himself with "disgraceful amours."
"There were two frightfully ugly creatures," says the Duchess of
Orleans, "with whom he was on the most intimate terms."

He thought little of Sarsfield. "Sarsfield is a brave fellow,"
he said, "but very scantily supplied with brains." Louis's ambas-
sador, d*Avaux, had another opinion. "Sarsfield has valour," he
wrote to Louis's minister, Louvois — "but, above all, honour and
probity which is proof against any assault." He had "all the trouble
in the world to get him made Brigadier." Tyrconnell had opposed
the promotion. Sarsfield was a very brave man, Tyrconnell said,
but he had no head. d'Avaux carried his point, and Tyrconnell
sent Sarsfield with a handful of men into Connacht. He raised
two thousand more men there on his own credit, and held Connacht.
d'Avaux wished to send him to France. "He is a man who will
always be at the head of his troops," he wrote to the French min-
ister, "and will take great care of them. First class colonels will
obey him when they will not obey another." He had asked the
king for Sarsfield. But the Connacht campaign had changed James's
opinion. He grew Very angry. He walked three times around the
room; he charged d'Avaux with wishing to take his officers away.
"I bore it all meekly," said d'Avaux, "having a good notion of
my own how to get Sarsfield to France." This was to offer him
the chief command of the Irish troops there.

But Sarsfield did not go. His work, he knew, was in Ireland.

Meanwhile, in spite of asthma and a continual cough, William
prepared for his campaign in Ireland. He sent over seven thousand
men to the aid of Schomberg. In the same month, March, seven
thousand French soldiers under the command of the Duke of
Lauzun landed at Kinsale in exchange for five thousand Irishmen
that had been sent to France. Lauzun was a mere courtier ; a man
who made a jest at everything. He did not take the Irish campaign
seriously; nor did many of the French officers.

442 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

But William made no mistake about its importance. He
brought ever3rthing to secure a successful issue. Among his arms
was the prototype of the machine gun. It had been recently in-
vented; a wheel-engine that discharged 150 musket barrels at once,
and on being turned the same number again. The campaign was
opened by Schomberg in the spring. But not till William landed
'in June was the advance made in force. The prince stopped
plundering, and hanged the plunderers. He paid for all he took.
He struck with his own cane a soldier who was robbing a woman,
and had him afterward hanged.

James at once abandoned his advanced post in the north. He
then abandoned every pass. He might have annihilated, certainly
held back, the enemy at the Pass of Moira. Instead he retreated
to the Boyne. He had prepared for his flight. Ships, by his order,
lay ready at Waterford to carry him to France. Reluctantly he
waited his son-in-law on the bank of the river.

The battle of the Boyne was fought on Tuesday, July ist, 1690.'^
It was not the cardinal battle of the war. Aughrim was that.
James had about twenty-six thousand men, many of them raw levies,
and ill armed. He was also short of guns. William had ten
thousand more men — a composite army — Danes, English, Dutch
and French Huguenots, all highly drilled, and well armed. He
had also a strong artillery. By his order his men wore green sprigs
in their hats. The Irish, in compliment to the French, wore the
white cockade.

James had secured his retreat to Dublin. He commanded
Sarsfield to hold a body of horse in the rear. Should the day
go against him, he could gallop back to the city. The command
kept Sarsfield in enforced inaction during the day. Though warned
by his Irish officers that the enemy would probably make a flanking
movement to cross the Boyne at Slane, James heeded not the
warning. At sunrise Schomberg's men were seen along the height
making in that direction. James gave a hasty order. His whole
wing, part of the centre, and his six remaining guns were sent to
meet the flanking division. It was too late; the enemy had crossed.
Other fords remained, were hotly contested. It was low water;
the fords at Oldbridge were attempted by William's men. One
battalion of infantry held the ford at Oldbridge. "For a half a
mile the Boyne was filled with thousands of armed men struggling
to gain the opposite bank." "Schomberg remained opposite to us,"

« Old Calendar. In the New Calendar, July 12th, of course, became the Boyne
anniversary day.

THE WILLIAMITE WARS 443

says the Duke of Berwick in his Memoirs. "He attacked and took
Oldbridge in spite of the resistance of the regiment there. Seven
battalions went down to the help of the infantry. Two battalions
of Irish Guards scattered them; but their cavalry managed to pass
at another ford, and proceeded to fall upon our infantry. I
brought up our cavalry, and thus enabled our battalions to retire."
Berwick and his Horse had a very unequal combat, as the ground
was broken and they were outnumbered. "Nevertheless we charged
again and again ten different times," he says, "and at length the
enemy, confounded by our boldness, halted, and we reformed before
them, and marched at a slow pace to rejoin the king."

The unequal battle raged all day. The miserable James began
to look toward his body-guard. At five in the evening he left the
field. By the end of the day the Irish were forced to retire; the
majority doing so in good order. The battle of the Boyne was
not a decisive victory for the Prince of Orange; it was in reality
a drawn battle.

The king reached Dublin at ten o'clock. He had taken two
hundred men from the body-guard, and rode helter-skelter to the
city. Lady Tyrconnell met him at the Castle-gate. Upstairs she
asked him what he would have for supper. "He then gave her
an account of what a breakfast he had got, which made him have
little stomach for his supper." It is said, when he declared that
the Irish army had run away, she answered, "But your Majesty
won the race."

From the aspect of his men, Dublin expected to see but the
remnant of a broken army pouring into the city. "It was greatly
surprised," says a Person of Quality, "when, an hour or two after,
we heard the whole body of the Irish Horse coming in, in very
good order, with kettle-drums, hautboys, and trumpets; and early
the next morning the French and a great body of the Irish Foot.
These being rested a little, marched out again to meet the enemy,
which was supposed to draw near."

And while the army went out to meet his foes, James railed
at it. He summoned the Lord Mayor and Council. "The Irish
had basely fled the field," he told them; henceforth he determined
never to lead an Irish army again ; "And now he resolved to shift
for himself, as they themselves must do." He advised them to
submit to the Prince of Orange. Then he hurried to Waterford,
took ship to Kinsale, and thence to France.

The army he had deserted and reviled marched west, discom-
fited but not subdued. Deeper hopes than the restoration of the

444 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Stuarts stirred many of the soldiers' hearts. James had gone I
Let him go I He was no true king, no leader I They would defend
Limerick, Galway, Athlone, the passes of the Shannon I

The generals conferred. James's cause was lost, Lauzun said;
the French troops must return to France; favourable terms might
be made with William. Tyrconnell now "grown stout and leth-
argic" was in agreement with Lauzun. But SarsHeld stood firm;
all was not lost; the three towns, the Shannon, could and must be
defended.

Athlone was held by Colonel Grace. Douglas, William's gen-
eral, summoned the town to surrender. Grace fired a pistol.
"These are my terms," he said, "and before I surrender I'll eat
my boots!" So he held Athlone till Sarsfield relieved it. And
now, through the three quarters of Ireland an irregular force was
moving, waging guerilla war. They were undrilled, armed with
half pikes, sgians, scythes, some muskets. Irish history knows
them as the Rapparees. One of them, Hogan, scout and hard-
rider, gallops across a page.

A council, final in its decision, was held at Limerick. William's
army was advancing on the city. Make terms with the Prince of
Orange, Lauzun and Tyrconnell said. And Sarsfield, resolved,
answered, "No terms I" He was supported by the Irish officers.
Lauzun laughed at them. "Why should the English bring cannon
against fortifications," he said, "that could be battered down by
roasted apples!"

But Sarsfield and his supporters won. An agent was sent
to France to let both kings know that the Irish meant to defend
their country. A day or two later, the Irish officers, backed by
the Irish army, declared that Sarsfield should command in chief
next to Tyrconnell. Disapproving of the appointment, Tyrconnell
sent Sarsfield off with a handful of men to watch the enemy. He
returned on William's approach to find that Tyrconnell and Lauzun
had been making every effort to persuade the officers to agree to
a capitulation. Some, who had estates to lose, had been won over.
But the majority stood by Sarsfield.

Lauzun withdrew to Galway. He took his French soldiers,
eight guns, and a quantity of ammunition.

On the 9th of August, William was close to Limerick. Three
regiments guarded the fords. Without consulting his generals,
Tyrconnell drew them off, and taking them with him retired to
Galway. Boisseleaux was appointed Governor of Limerick. The
Duke of Berwick, Sarsfield, Dorrington and thre« Brigadiers had
conmiand of the army.

THE WILLIAMITE WARS 445

There was truth in Lauzun's taunt. Limerick had no fortifi-
cations worth regarding. There was a wall without ramparts, and
"some miserable little towers" without ditches. A covered way
was built before the great gate, horn shaped, and palisaded. Time
was required to strengthen the defences. William was within a
few miles of the city. If he brought up his great guns before this
was done, men might die, but Limerick must fall.

The prince expected little resistance. He looked for an early
capitulation. He knew Tyrconnell's vacillating mind and that
IvEuzun was anxious to get back to France. There was Sarsfield,
unbuyable; but a man of sense would not defend a lost cause.
He would offer fair t^rms; the Irish might practise their religion;
to those who joined him he would give rewards.

So, confident, he drew near. He had left his heavy battering
train at Cashel. Within two miles of Limerick he was attacked
by Irish skirmishers. Retreating from one strong position to
another, they drew his men close to the city walls. Then the Irish
guns opened fire, and the skirmishers re-entered Limerick.

A trumpeter rode forward. He summoned the town. "Open
your gates I Let the King of England in I" "Limerick will not open
her gates; will not surrender I" Boisseleaux answered. William
had laid out his camp. The city guns were trained upon it and
so well served that he had to withdraw both his camp and his light
artillery.

Messengers rode to Cashel: send up the battering train! A
Captain Pulteny conmianded it; heavy guns, mortars; 150 waggons
of ammunition for the artillery; tin boats to cross the Shannon;
provisions; 500 draught horses. A deserter from the camp stole
into Limeridc. He brought word of its approach. Sarsfield acted
at once. He rode out of Limerick and galloped to the cavalry
camp on the Clare side. A swift order; and six hundred men
stood to their horses. A guide was found; Galloping Hogan,
Rapparee, famous rider and scout, who knew every track and
pass.

They rode inland; then wheeled and kept in line with the river.
A Williamite force held Killaloe bridge. A ford, unknown to the
English, lay below Lough Derg. It was a bright night with a
harvest moon. They passed behind the town of Killaloe and the
colunm crossed the river. Then it headed for the Keeper moun-
tain, and lay that night in a fold of its shoulder. The day came.
The convoy trailed out from the southern mountains and along
the plain. Its guard marched at ease. That night it encamped at
Ballyneety. Down from the Keeper rode Sarsfield and his troop-

446 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

ers: scouts had brought them the convoy's watchword — "Sars-
ficldl" — good omen! Moonlight and clouds whitened and dark-
ened the plain in turn. Under the cloak of the clouds the Irish
advanced. A sentry challenged. "Advance and give the wordl"
"Sarsfield! — Sarsfield is the word and Sarsfield is the man I" and
the Irish Horse dashed on the convoy. The startled guards
ran to their picketted horses; were caught in their flight and cut
down ; the camp was captured. Each gun was loaded to the muzzle,
its head sunk in the ground; the tin boats were smashed; stores,
ammunition were heaped together, powder placed round, and a
train laid. Then the Irish gfalloped away; and the roar ©f the
explosion echoed across the Golden Valley to Limerick city and
William's camp.

They were met at Banagher Bridge by some Williamite Horse
sent to intercept them. An Irish Protestant, "a substantial country
gentleman," who had seen the Irish cross at Lough Derg, had gone
to the English camp and told what he had seen. But Sarsfield got
back to Limerick with scarcely any loss. The capture of the guns
had been of the first importance. William's siege operation had
to be delayed till a new battering train arrived. This gave Limerick
a week in which to strengthen herself.

They made the best of the time. When William's heavy guns
were trained on the city and his trenches advanced. Limerick met
and bore the shock. Counter mines were laid; her guns answered.
By the second week, however, her wharfs were on fire, many
houses burnt, parts of her walls levelled. On Tuesday, August
26th, his trenches were within four yards of her counterscarp, and
her palisades had been beaten down. All through the night the
enemy poured in a discharge of shells and red hot balls, and the
breach lay thirty feet wide. But behind that breach a retirade
had been made and a battery of guns planted, while others were
so placed as to take the stormers on both flanks. The bugles rang
at daybreak; drums beat. Men left their trenches as the soldiers
fell in; the butchers armed themselves with their cleavers; the
blacksmiths with their hammers. Women seized bottle and stones,
and followed the men. Limerick was prepared to die rather than
yield.

The morning began dull and cloudy; a thick mist lay on the
Keeper mountain. As the day advanced the sun broke through
the clouds, and the heat became intense. At two o'clock the guns
ceased, and the city was again summoned. For an hour there was
a pause after the confident demand and the resolute answer. Then
three guns were fired from the enemy's camp — a signal I Imme-

THE WILLIAMITE WARS 447

diately the attacking column, ten thousand strong, moved forward
to the assault. The English grenadiers, in their piebald uniform
of red and yellow, leapt out of their trenches, sprang upon the
counterscarp, firing and throwing their grenades. Driving the
defenders before them, they pressed on, reached the breach, and
poured into the city. The masked battery opened upon them,
mowed a wide path through their lines; and, cut off from their
supports, they were overpowered, few escaping back to their
trenches.

The fury of the fight raged at the breach. For three hours
the Irish infantry stood there, filling up again and again their
bloody gaps as regiment after regiment of the foe was brought
up and hurled against them. Slowly, at last, the line was pushed
back, and the stormers once more entered the city. A fierce hand
to hand fight ensued in the streets. Boisseleaux ordered up the
reserves ; those who had been driven from the breach rallied. The
citizens, women as well as men, rushed again to the attack. The
enemy was dislodged and forced back on the gap.

There a deadly struggle followed. William sent forward his
reserves. The Irish met and held them in check; an order was
sent to the Irish Horse to take the foe in the rear. It had been
inactive till then. Now its turn was come.

Galloping across Ball's Bridge, it swept through the streets,
and passed out by the sally port at St. John's Gate into the covered
way which led to the breach. Two regiments of Danish Horse
stood in their path as they emerged. The Irish charged; rode
through them; cut them down; swept on. Galloping up to the
breach, they took the stormers in the rear, made a path through
their ranks, and rode across with crimson sabres and exultant
cheers.

As their suddenness and dash staggered the foe, the mine laid
by the defenders in the Black Battery, blew up, and a number of
men of William's Brandenberg regiment were killed. The Irish
infantry rushed upon his reserves, forced them from the breach,
drove them across the counterscarp, back to the trenches, and fol-
lowed them to their camp. The Horse charged the flying foe;
sabring their disordered ranks.

The assault had failed; Limerick was saved I

William drew off his army, and returned to England. A French
fleet carried Lauzun and his troops back to France. Tyrconnell
followed him there. Lauzun reported the king's cause lost. Tyr-
connell, encouraged by the defence of Limerick, said that there
was a chance of success and asked for money and men. In January

448 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

of the following year he returned with money but no men. The
Irish camp was divided into two parties ; those who wished to carry
on the war ; and those, men with estates, who wished to make peace.
Tyrconnell fostered this party. The campaign of 1690 ended with
the taking of Cork and Kinsale by an English fleet under the com-
mand of Churchill. The Irish army was shut up in Connacht.
Sarsfield, resisting the policy of despair, kept the passes of the
Shannon. Little was done from the closing of the campaign till
the opening of the next one with the arrival of the French general,
St. Ruth, in the following year. Only the indomitable Rapparees
kept up an unceasing guerilla warfare. They harassed the Dutch
general, Ginckel, destroyed his forage, watched for his patrols,
captured numbers of horses.

In May, the French general, St. Ruth, landed in Ireland. He
brought arms, ammunition, clothing and provisions, but no troops.
The man was a real soldier; no jester like Lauzun, but of a haughty
and jealous nature. He knew what Irish troops could do. In the
Piedmont campaign he had seen enough of Irish valour to know
that Irish soldiers were the best missile force in the world. He
let Tyrconnell see. Viceroy as he was, that he, St. Ruth, alone was
to command the army.

The Irish held Athlone. William's generals, Ginckel and
Mackay, with a large and well armed army, marched upon it. St.
Ruth encamped within two miles of the town on the Connacht side ;
occupied the high ground commanding the river, and strengthened
the entrenchments along its bank. Mackay, attempting to cross
at a place further down the river, was driven back. He then
determined to pass by the bridge. The Irish broke the arches.
He spanned them with beams. Every bit of his work was hotly
contested. The siege was nine days old when the bridge was nearly
ready. One link remained for completion. Beams already rested
on the broken arch; planks were being laid across; the Irish, driven
from their last shelter in the trenches, had little power to prevent it.

But one brave man dared to save the town. His name was
Custume, a sergeant of dragoons. He boldly called for ten volun-
teers, with him to break the bridge. He could have had that
number a hundred fold. With breast and back pieces on, the
eleven bold ones, rushed upon the bridge, drove back the carpenters,
began pulling up the planks, breaking down the beams, flinging
them in the river. A tremendous fire from the English wiped out
eleven heroes with the job only half done. Another eleven noble
ones sprang out upon the bridge. Hatchet and axe were plied like

THE WILLIAMITE WARS 449

fury. The last beam floated down the Shannon ; two men returned
alive; twenty wore the martyr's crown.

Ginckel made a covered way to repair the bridge. Three Danes
under the sentence of death were offered their lives if they would
find a ford. They entered the river at three places and were
fired at as if they were deserters. The water was low; they got
across easily. An attempt to storm the town was ordered for the
next morning. Ginckel's men were to cross at three points, the
bridge, the ford, and by a pontoon of boats. St. Ruth heard of
the intended assault. He threw reinforcements into the town;
brought his army from the camp, and awaited the attack by the
river. No attadk was made. The Irish burnt the covered way.
Ginckel, held back so long, was discouraged. He called a Council
of war. He wished to retire. His generals advised him to remain.
In the midst of the debate two deserters were brought in. They
had important news. St. Ruth, confident that the siege was raised,
had marched back to camp, and had left the defence of the town to
his rawest levies. This report decided Ginckel ; he ordered a fresh
attack for six that evening.

Two of the newly enlisted regiments left to defend the town
had no bayonets and but a round or two of ammunition. When
the attack commenced an urgent message was sent to St. Ruth,
who was about to go out shooting, and who made light of it.
"It was impossible," he said. Thus, in half an hour Athlone was
captured after a stout defence of ten days.

The cardinal battle of the war was now to be fought. That
battle decided Ireland's fate. St. Ruth withdrew his army and
encamped on the Galway side of the River Sudc. The position was
admirably chosen. It lay on the side of Kilcommodan Hill, extend-
ing for nearly two miles. At the base of the hill, to the east, a
small stream flowed through boggy ground. His right wing, spread
beyond the hill, rested on firm soil, and faced the river. His left
lay near a half ruined castle protected in front by a bog. The
centre, formed in two lines, was ranked behind breastworks border-
ing the boggy land. The camp was entrenched; two raths on the
hillside were held. The slope of the hill, lined with hedges and
ditches, had openings cut through them for the passage of the
cavalry and foot. The reserve, under Sarsfield, who had received
strict orders not to move, was stationed on the other side of the
hill at a considerable distance from the main body of the army.
There were but two points near the bog by which Ginckel could
advance — ^the Pass of Aughrim and that of Urrachee. The latter

450 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

ran to the right of the Irish camp; the former from Aughrim
Castle to a piece of firm ground bordered by two bogs, and joined
by a narrow strip of land to the firm ground opposite.

On the nth day of July Ginckel reached the hills opposite Kil-
commodan. Seeing the strength of St. Ruth's position, he hesitated
to give battle. He began a cautious advance on the morning of the
1 2th. In the Irish camp at the same time. Mass was celebrated.
A dense fog hung between the two forces. By noon it lifted, and
Ginckel saw the Irish massed in strong positions awaiting his ad-
vance. The Pass of Urrachee was the weakest point in their
front. Yet, there, some guns had been placed. Two outposts had
been stationed on Ginckel's side of the river. He sent a small force
to drive them in. An hour's fighting followed. The Irish posts
were driven back; they recovered their posts. This was but an
affair of the advanced guard. At two o'clock Ginckel's army fell
into position. At three he held a council of war. Should he attack
or not? he asked. For himself, he hesitated. Mackay urged him
to accept battle; propounded a plan. This was to advance on St.
Ruth's left, assault the castle of Aughrim, cross the bog, and attack
the Irish centre. His advice prevailed.

It was near five o'clock. Mackay took command of the divi-
sion that was to force the Pass of Aughrim. Ginckel was to direct
the movement on the Pass of Urrachee; the Duke of Wurtemberg
the centre. Ginckel made a feint attack on St. Ruth's right. He
hoped he would draw off some regiments from his left to support
the threatened wing. The battle commenced with this advance. A
Danish regiment spread out as if to out-flank the Irish right. A
body of Huguenots advanced on the troops beyond the Pass, attack*
ing the Irish through the hedges. The Irish Horse charged them.
After a fierce fight the foe was driven back to the bog. The
attack on this point was renewed again. Mackay hoped that St.
Ruth would draw off troops from his right wing to support his
left. Then the real attack would be made on Aughrim. St. Ruth
did as he wished. The officer to whom he gave the order took
the first line as well. At once Mackay sent cavalry to force the
Pass, while he with the main body commenced the passage of the
bog, supported by two batteries of field pieces. The ground had
been sounded; found possible for foot. Opposite the Irish centre
the ground narrowed, widening out by Aughrim. His troops were
in two divisions; one was to cross the bog and attack the Irish
centre, seize the first hedge row, and halt till Mackay and his
cavalry came to their support.

Protected by the batteries the men reached the base of the hill.

THE WILLIAMITE WARS 451

When within a few yards of the hedge, the Irish opened fire. Their
orders were to draw the enemy up the hill. This they did, then
stood their ground, and the Irish cavalry swept down upon both
flanks of the enemy and threw them into disorder.

While this was happening Mackay's second division was get-
ting through the bog. At the first ditch the Irish met them, and
Mackay's van was broken. His other regiments were hurried up,
but the Irish held their ground. Mackay sent to the officer who
was to force the Pass of Aughrim, ordering him to come to his
help and not attadc the castle. But before the order could be
obeyed Mackay's men were forced back to the bog. This was
the second repulse of the enemy at Aughrim.

Seeing that Mackay could not break his centre, St. Ruth was
now certain of victory. "I shall beat them back to the gates of
Dublin 1" he cried. It was no boast. His troops had successfully
resisted every attack. At all points, save one, Ginckel's army
had been repulsed.

That point was the Pass of Aughrim. The Pass was an old
broken road, narrow, boggy, sixty yards in length. Not more than
two horsemen could ride on it abreast. It was commanded by the
castle, a crumbling building. Two regiments of Foot, under
Colonel Burke, were stationed there. Two guns commanded the
way. The men were armed with French fire-locks. There were
four barrels of gunpowder and ammunition chests in the castle.
When the chests were opened it was found that the bullets were
cast for English muskets and that the cannon balls were two big
for the guns. The soldiers tore the buttons from their coats and
chopped their ramrods into bullets. The enemy came up the Pass
protected by their own guns. The Irish fired their pellets with
little effect. Their guns had no bayonets. The Irish Horse, posted
on the other side of the castle, rode round to the left to check the
advance. They found this way blocked, though St. Ruth had or-
dered it to be kept open. They had to swing round and make a
detour before they could charge. A sharp fight followed; the
enemy's regiment were driven back to the bog.

St. Ruth had watched the attadc on the Pass. Not knowing
that Burke's men had no ammunition, he had been astonished that
the enemy had got up the way. He sent an aide-camp to the cavalry
reserve under Sarsfield. This reserve was stadoned on the other
side of the hill, out of sight of the battle. He ordered that half
of the men were to advance. Sarsfield was not to command it. He
was to remain with the other half. By this act Aughrim was lost.

The detachment came up, reformed before St. Ruth, and he

452 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

placed himself at its head. He rode slowly down the hill. His
brilliant uniform glittered in the evening light. "The day is ours,
boys!" he cried. "They are broken! Let us beat them to some
purpose I"

Then something sped through the air from the enemy's right;
struck him and carried his head away. The dead man's horse
swung round, the body upright in the saddle for a pace or two
before it fell to the ground. A paralysis seized his officers. The
battle was all but won; this charge would have completed the
victory, yet his second in command, de Tesse, a Frenchman, did
not advance. Instead of making that charge for victory, he began
to retire. Ginckel's almost beaten army saw the movement, pressed
forward. Mackay's Horse turned the left flank of the Irish. In
the centre the Irish held the ground till they were caught between
Ginckel's and Mackay's men. Then the rout commenced.

And Sarsfield, waiting for orders on the other side of the
hill, only knew the day was lost as the Irish regiments broke over
the crest. To keep back the foe was now impossible. But cool,
great, he kept his head, and organised the retreat in so masterly a
way that a document in the French annals says — "He performed
miracles, and if he was not killed or taken it was not from any
fault of his own." He led his soldiers in order to Limerick.

The Irish army gathered there. On the 25th of August,
Ginckel invested the city on three sides. William wanted the war
ended; Ginckel was empowered to give favourable terms. A free
pardon was offered to all; the Catholic gentry would be restored
to their estates. The offer created at once a peace party within
the city. It was opposed by, Sarsfield. French aid might come;
the army could defend Limerick again. He won, and Ginckel's
summons was refused. Sixty guns then opened upon the city; an
English fleet bombarded it from the river. But Limerick remained
untaken. Once more she showed the soul of her army and her
citizens. Unable to carry the town by assault, Ginckel turned the
siege into a blockade. Then Luttrel, an Anglo-Irish officer, long
suspected, showed him a pass over the Shannon. One morning
the Irish beheld the foe on the Clare side of the river. Again
Ginckel offered favourable terms.

The peace party said it was folly to refuse. This party, re-
sisted, Sarsfield saw, would attempt to hand over the dty to Ginckel.

Yet Limerick made one more fight. It was September 23rd.
From dawn the bloody struggle lasted. Then a parley was held;
firing ceased. For the third time Ginckel offered his terms. At
last, Sarsfield accepted them. When the soldiers and citizens heard

THE WILLIAMITE WARS 453

that the defence had ended, they uttered loud cries of anger and
grief, many ran to the ramparts and broke their weapons there.
Limerick had capitulated I

The terms were to be signed in the presence of the Lord
Justices. Sarsfield demanded that. They came posting down from
Dublin ; they put their signatures to the treaty. Irish Catholics were
to have the right to exercise their religion; to have the rights of
citizens; to be preserved from all disturbances. By the military
articles, the garrison was to march out with arms and guns, bag-
gage, colours flying, drums beating. Officers and men, Rapparees
and volunteers, who wished to expatriate themselves, were free
to do so, and might depart in companies or parties. If plundered
on the way, William's government was to make good their loss.
Fifty ships were to be provided for their transportation; two men-
of-war for the officers.

Ginckel did not want that fine war material to escape. Would
the Irish regiments join France or William? On the 5th of October
they were to march out of Limerick. That day they were to make
their choice. The royal standards of England and France were
set up in a field. To one standard or the other each regiment was
to turn. Sarsfield, Ginckel and their staffs watched the scene. The
Irish Foot Guards came first, the finest of the regiment, fourteen
hundred strong. They marched to the Standards. Then, without
a pause, the splendid column wheeled to the side of France. That
day of the fourteen thousand men of the Irish army, only one
thousand and forty-six men turned to William's standard.

A few days later a French fleet came up the Shannon. It
brought men, money, arms, ammunition, stores and clothing. The
news reached Sarsfield. Stunned, he remained silent for a few
moments. Then : — "Too late," he said, "the Treaty is signed. Ire-
land's and our honour is pledged. Though one hundred thousand
Frenchmen offered to aid us now, we must keep our word I'*

In his quarters Ginckel heard that the fleet had come. He was
alarmed. Would Sarsfield tear up the Treaty? Would the French
soldiers land? Would the Irish regiments listed for France, men
with their arms, renew the fight? The cautious Dutchman, an
honest brave man, himself, feared.

But his anxiety was soon ended. Sarsfield, the unbuyable —
Sarsfield, the man of honour — had forbidden the French to land.
Instead, their ships were to transport the Irish regiments to
France.

Not a man of these saw Ireland again.

CHAPTER LIII

THE LATER PENAL LAWS

When fire and sword had signally failed to suppress the Irish race,
new means to that end must be found. So the fertile mind of the
conqueror invented the Penal Laws.

Professor Lecky, a Protestant of British blood and ardent Brit-
ish sympathy, says (in his History of Ireland in the 1 8th Century)
that the object of the Penal Laws was threefold :

( 1 ) To deprive the Catholics of all civil life

(2) To reduce them to a condition of most extreme and brutal

ignorance

(3) To dissociate them from the soil.

He might, with absolute justice, have substituted Irish for
Catholics — and added, (4) To extirpate the Race.

"There is no instance," says Dr. Samuel Johnson, "even in the
Ten Persecutions, of such severity as that which the Protestants of
Ireland exercised against the Catholics." *

Like good wine the Penal code improved with age. It was
only in the i8th century that it attained the marvellous perfection
which caused Edmund Burke to describe it as "a machine of wise
and elaborate contrivance, as well fitted for the oppression, im-

1 Dr. Johnson evidently laboured under delusion that these dreadful persecu-
tions were entirely the fault of the Protestants of Ireland, not of the Government
of England. Lecky, however, knew Irish history; and this is what he has to say
of the Penal Code (in his "History of Ireland in the 18th Century") : "It was not
the persecution of a sect, but the degradation of a nation. It was the instrument
employed by a conquering race (the Anglo-Irish) supported by a neighbouring
Power, to crush to the dust the people among whom they were planted. And, in-
deed, when we remember that the greater part of it was in force for nearly a cen-
tury, that its victims formed at least three-fourths of the nation, that its degrading
and dividing influence extended to every field of social, political, professional, in-
tellectual, and even domestic life, and that it was enacted without the provocation
of any rebellion, in defiance of a treaty which distinctly guaranteed the Irish
Catholics from any further oppression on account of their religion, it may be
justly regarded as one of the blackest pages in the history of persecution."

So it is not to be wondered at that in the early part of the 18th century a
foreign observer in Ireland noted that a Catholic could easily be told by his stooped
carriage and subdued manner. Even when Thackeray visited Ireland the Catholic
priests, he noted, had an abashed look. The innocent man wondered why that
was so!

454

THE LATER PENAL LAWS 455

poverishment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement in
them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted
ingenuity of man"— and the French jurist Montesquieu to say of
it that it was "conceived by demons, written in blood, and registered
in HeU."

In the treaty of Limerick the faith and honour of the Crown
were pledged not only that the Irish in Ireland should, in their lives,
liberties and property be equally protected with the British usurpers
in Ireland — ^but it was especially pledged that they should be "pro-
tected in the free and unfettered exercise of their religion." And
this solemn pledge of the British crown by which the Irish were in-
duced to lay down their arms marked the beginning of a national
robbery and national persecution which for cold-blooded systemisa-
tion was hitherto unapproached in the history of Irish persecutions.
Just as the flagrant breaking of the solemn Treaty of Limerick is
hardly paralleled in history.

When the Lords Justice returned to Dublin after signing the
treaty. Dr. Dopping, Protestant Lord Bishop of Meath, preached
before them in Christ Church Cathedral upon the sin of keeping
faith with Papists. All over the country the persecution and plun-
dering of the papist began again, and was soon in full swing. A
million acres of papists' lands were confiscated, and their owners
reduced to beggary.^ The British settlers in Ireland began bom-
barding Parliament with petitions against the Irish papists. If
these people got their liberties it was shown that Ireland would be
no place for decent British people.^

And, just three years after the faith and honour of the British
crown had been pledged for the protection of the papists, the Par-
liament passed its "Act for the Better Securing of the Government
against Papists." Under this Act, no Catholic could henceforth
have "gun, pistol or sword, or any other weapon of offence or de-

2 An ^glish gentleman who received the estate in Cork robbed from the
McCarthy, was in the twilight of a summer day walking in his easily acquired
demesne, when he came on an old man seated under a tree, sobbing heart break-
ingly. He approached the grieved one, and asked the cause of his grief. "These
lands," said the broken old man, "and that castle were mine. This tree under
which I sit was planted by my hand. I came here to water it with my tears, be-
fore sailing to-night for Spain."

' Exempli gratia —

"A petition of one Edward Spragg and others in behalf of themselves and
other Protestant porters in and about the city of Dublin, complains that one Darby
Ryan, a captain under the late King James, and a Papist, buys up whole cargoes
of coals and employs porters of his own persuasion to carry the same to customers,
by which the petitioners are hindered from their small trade and gains. The peti-
tion was referred to the Committee of Grievances to report upon it to the House."
~ (Commons Journals, ii, 699). The impudent villainy of the papist Darby!

456 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

fence, under penalty of fine, imprisonment, pillory, or public whip-
ping." It was provided that any magistrate could visit the house
of any of the Irish, at any hour of the night or day, and ransack
it for concealed weapons. Says John Mitchel of this clause, "It
fared ill with any Catholic who fell under the displeasure of his
formidable neighbours. No papist was safe from suspicion who
had money to pay fines — ^but woe to the papist who had a hand-
some daughter!"

Under the pledged faith and honour of the British crown, which
promised to secure the Irish from any disturbance on account of
their religion, there was passed, next (in the ninth year of Wil-
liam's reign), "An Act for banishing all Papists exercising any
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and regulars of the Popish clergy, out
of this kingdom." This Act provided that "All Popish Arch-
bishops, Bishops, Vicars-General, Deans, Jesuits, Monks, Friars,
and all other regular Popish clergy shall depart out of this king-
dom before the first day of May, 1698" — under penalty of trans-
portation for life if they failed to comply — and under penalty to
those who should dare to return, of being hanged, drawn, and
quartered.*

And by such liberality of the British was the Irish nation
repaid for the generosity it had shown them in its short hour of
triumph. And the new and improved era of persecution which
began under William — whose faith and honour were pledged that
the Irish Catholics should be "protected in the free and unfettered
exercise of their religion" — ^marched onward henceforth with mar-
vellous stride.

Before going on to enumerate the new Penal Laws that were
enacted, and the old that were confirmed, it is worth while to glance
back a couple of years, and note how Irish Catholics, when the rule
of their own country came into their hands, treated their long-time

*Lecky: "In Ireland all Catholic archbishops, bishops, deacons and vica»s-
general were ordered by a certain day to leave the country. If after that date
they were found in it, they were to be first imprisoned and then banished, and if
they returned they were pronounced guilty of high treason and were liable to be
hanged, disembowelled, and quartered. Nor were these idle words. The law of
1709 offered a reward of fifty pounds to any one who sectired the conviction of
any Catholic archbishop, bishop, deacon vicar-general."

Every Irish Catholic could be compelled at any time of the day or night to go
before two Justices of the Peace and_ swear where he heard Mass, who officiated,
and who was present. He was forbidden to harbour a schoolmaster or a priest
imder pain of having all his goods confiscated.

The Anglo-Irish House of Commons of 1719 carried a Bill against Papists in
which it was provided that a captured priest who had been officiating in secret,
should be branded with a red hot iron upon the cheek. The bill was vetoed in
England.

THE LATER PENAL LAWS 457

persecutors. We have seen, in a previous chapter, the toleration
shown by the Irish Catholics to their late persecutors, when Mary
of England re-established the Catholic church and Catholic power.
When the poor creature, James the Second, came to Ireland in
1689, and that the Irish got complete control of their own coun-
try, an Irish Parliament met in Dublin on May 7th of that year.
This was a Catholic Irish Parliament, representing a Catholic Irish
country. The members of it were men summoned together in the
fury of Ci\al War — ^men, too, every one of whom was smarting
from memory of the vilest wrongs ever wrought by conqueror on
conquered. "They were almost all new men animated by resent-
ment of bitterest wrongs," says Lecky — "men most of whom or
of whose fathers had been robbed of their estates." Yet though
they burned with holy indignation for the persecutions that they
and their people and their land had suffered at the hands of the
plunderer and murderer — and though in this their hour of triumph
they held the power of life and death over their wrongers, Lecky
confesses, with evident astonishment, "They established freedom
of reli^on in a moment of excitement and passion." By this Par-
liament of cruelly wronged and persecuted papists was enacted the
golden statute — "We hereby declare that it is the law of this land
that not now, or ever again, shall any man be persecuted for his
religion."

Four Protestant bishops sat in the Upper House. No Catholic
bishop was called to sit there. While fifteen outlawed Catholic
peers were recalled, only five new ones were made. Six Protestant
members sat in the Lower House — almost all the rest of the Prot-
estant members having espoused the cause of William, or fled to
England.

This Parliament established freedom of religion. Says Lecky,
"The Protestant clergy were guaranteed full liberty of professing,
preaching, and teaching their religion."

It established free schools.

Where Catholic Ireland had before been compelled to support
the Protestant Church, this Parliament enacted that Catholics
should pay dues to Catholic pastors, and Protestants should pay
dues to Protestant pastors.**

' The Catholic Bishop Moloney, in writing to the Parliament, went so far as
to recommend that compensation should be provided for all Protestant church
beneficiaries who would now lose the state payments that they had been receiving.

The Protestant William Pamell, member of the Anglo-Irish Parliament at
the end of the eighteenth centtuy, says (and shows) in his historical treatise upon
Ireland: 'The Irish Roman Catholics are the only sect that ever resumed power
without exercising vengeance."

458 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

And thus did these Irish Catholics, in their brief moment of
triumph, to the usurpers who had persecuted and plundered them
till, as one Protestant historian admits "Protestantism came to be
associated in the native mind with spoliation, confiscation, and
massacre."

The Penal Laws enacted or re-enacted in the new era succeed-
ing the siege of Limerick, when under the pledged faith and honour
of the English crown, the Irish Catholics were to be "protected in
the free and unfettered exercise of their religion," provided amongst
other things that:

The Irish Catholic was forbidden the exercise of his religion.

He was forbidden to receive education.

He was forbidden to enter a profession.

He was forbidden to hold public office.

He was forbidden to engage in trade or commerce."

He was forbidden to live in a corporate town or within five
miles thereof.

He was forbidden to own a horse of greater value than five
pounds.'

He was forbidden to purchase land.

He was forbidden to lease land.*

He was forbidden to accept a mortgage on land In security
for a loan.*

He was forbidden to vote.

* "They are not only excluded from all offices in church and state, but are
interdicted from the army and the law, in all its branches. . . . Every barrister,
clerk, attorney, or solicitor is obliged to take a solemn path not to employ persons
of that persuasion; no, not as hackney clerks, at the miserable salary of seven
shillings a week. No tradesman of that persuasion is capable of exercising his
trade freely in any town corporate: so that they trade and work in their own
native towns as aliens, paying, as such, quarterage, and other charges and im-
positions. . . ." — Edmund Burke (Laws Against Popery in Ireland).

"Every franchise, every honour, every trust, every place down to the very low-
est (besides whole professions) is reserved for the master caste." (Burke's letter
to Langrishe.)

^ Standish CGrady tells the story of a Catholic gentleman of the County
Meath who having driven four blood-horses into the assize town was there held
up by a Protestant and tendered twenty pounds for his four valuable horses —
whereupon he drew out a pistol, and shot the animals dead. Ever after, he drove
into town behind six oxen — his mute protest against "law." "Incidents like this,"
says O'Grady, "aroused and fed the indignation which eventually compelled the
annulment of the law."

8 So, a man dead and buried is said, in Ireland, to have "a Frotestaot lease
of the soil."

B"AI1 persons of that persuasion are disabled from taking or purchasing di-
rectly, or by trust, any lease, any mortgage upon land, any rents or profits from
land, any lease, interest, or permit of any land; any annuity for life or lives, or
years; or any estate whatsoever, chargeable upon, or wliicn may in any manner
affect any lease." — Edmund Burke (Laws Against Popery in Ireland).

THE LATER PENAL LAWS

459

He was forbidden to keep any arms for his protection.

He was forbidden to hold a life annuity.

He was forbidden to buy land from a Protestant.

He was forbidden to receive a gift of land from a Protestant.

He was forbidden to inherit land from a Protestant.

He was forbidden to inherit anything from a Protestant.

He was forbidden to rent any land that was worth more
than thirty shillings a year.

He was forbidden to reap from his land any profit exceed-
ing a third of the rent."

He could not be guardian to a child.

He could not, when dying, leave his infant children under
Catholic guardianship.**

He could not attend Catholic worship.

He was compelled by the law to attend Protestant worship.

He could not himself educate his child.

He could not send his child to a CathoHc teacher.

He could not employ a Catholic teacher to come to his child.

He could not send his child abroad to receive education.**

The priest was banned and hunted with bloodhounds. The
school master was banned and hunted with bloodhounds.

If he had an unfaithful wife, she, by going through the form
of adopting the Protestant reli^on compelled from a papist the
heaviest annuity that might be squeezed out of him — and would

1" Lecky says : "If a Catholic leaseholder, by his skill or industry so increased
his profits that they exceeded this proportion, and did not immediately make a
corresponding increase in his rent, his farm passed to the first Protestant who
made the discovery. If a Catholic secretly purchased either his own forfeited
estate, or any other land in the possession of a Protestant, the first Protestant who
informed against him became the proprietor."

To encourage among the Anglo-Irish ardour on behalf of the law, the Anglo-
Irish Parliament in 1705 passed a resolution "that the persecuting of and inform-
ing against a Papist is an hotiourable service."

** Lecky says: "The influence of the code appeared, indeed, omnipresent. It
blasted the prospects of the Catholic in all struggles of active life. It cast its
shadows over the inmost recesses of his home. It darkened the very last hour of
his existence. No Catholic, as I have said, could be guardian to a child; so the
dying person knew that his children must pass under the tutelage of Protestants."

^2 "Popish schoolmasters of every species are proscribed by those acts, and
it is made felony to teach even in a private family. Being sent for education to
any popish school or college abroad, upon conviction, incurs (if the party sent has
any estate or inheritance) a kind of unalterable and perpetual outlawrj'. He is
disabled to sue in law or equity; to be guardian, executor, or administrator; he
is rendered incapable of any legacy or deed or gift; he forfeits all his goods and
chattels forever; and he forfeits for life all his lands, hereditaments, offices, and
estate of freehold, and all trusts, powers, or interests therein. All persons con-
cerned in sending them or maintaining them abroad, by the least assistance of
money or otherwise, are involved in the same disabilities, and subjected to the
same penalties." — Edmund Burke (Laws Against Popery in Ireland).

46o THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

inherit all the property at his death. If he had an unnatural child,
that child by conforming to the Established religion, could compel
from him the highest possible annuity, and inherit all his property
at his death — ^to the total exclusion of all the children who had re-
mained faithful to their father, and their religion.*'

If he was discovered in the act of having his son educated at
home, a ruinous fine and a dungeon awaited him. If he sent his
son to be educated abroad, all his property was confiscated — and
the child so educated was thereby debarred from all rights and
properties in the country, and debarred from inheriting anything.

He was compelled to pay double for the support of the militia.
And he was compelled to make good all damages done to the state
by the privateers of any Catholic power in which the state was at
war.

"After Limerick," says Edmund Burke in his "Tracts" — that
is, after the Irish had, by the faith and honour of the British Crown,
been pledged protection in their lives, liberties, and property, "there
was not a single right of nature or benefit of society which had not
been either totally taken away, or considerably impaired."

The law soon came to recognise an Irishman in Ireland only
for the purpose of repressing him. Till in the reign of George I,
Lord Chancellor Bowes and also Chief Justice Robinson, in their
official capacity, pronounced: "The law does not suppose any
such person to exist as an Irish Roman Catholic."

Lecky says that it was more through rapacity than fanaticism
that the English and Anglo-Irish so ferociously oppressed, re-
pressed, and robbed of both their moral and material rights, the
Irish Catholics."

^* Lecky says: "The undutiful wife, the rebellious and unnatural son, had
only to add to their other crimes the guilt of a sacrilegiouslv vain conversion, in
order to secure both impunity and reward, and to deprive mose whom they had
injured of the management and disposal of their property."

^^One historian says that they were really more anxious to have the soil of
Ireland turn Protestant, than the people.

The insignificant number of Irish who embraced the new religion did so in
practically every case for purpose of holding their property. There was in Ros-
common a celebrated character named Myers who craved for salvation through
the Protestant religion when he found that a rapacious Protestant neighbour was
about to bring against him a Bill of Discover>[ — whereby he would be compelled to
disclose the value of his property, which on its being found to be more than the
few acres that a papist was legally entitled to, would be confiscated to the dis-
coverer. As, before being accepted and baptised, it was necessary to undergo a
period of instruction by a minister of the Eistablished Church and an examination
by one of the ecclesiastics, Mr. Myers, for his theological study, dined every day
for a week with a boon companion, the Protestant rector of Castlerea — after which
a social hour's chat with the Archbishop of Dublin secured for him the certificate
that guaranteed him to be a fit subject for "Baf>tism unto the true Faith." On
the day on which he was received into the Established Church the Archbishop gave

THE LATER PENAL LAWS

461

But Lecky elsewhere admits that fear of the conquered people
ever again taking rank with their conquerors likewise Inspired the
persecutions. His words are: *'It was Intended to make them
poor and to keep them poor, to crush In them every germ of enter-
prise and degrade them Into a servile race who could never hope to
rise to the level of their oppressor." The British traveller, Arthur
Young, in the last quarter of the eighteenth century found "an
Anglo-Irish aristocracy of half a million joying In the triumph of
having two million slaves."

Young tells how he found the gentry for little or no cause, lash
with horsewhip or cane, or break the bones of the people, "and
kill, without apprehension of judge or jury." "The Punishment
Laws," says Young, "are calculated for the meridian of Barbary." ^^

Throughout those dark days the hunted schoolmaster, with
price upon his head, was hidden from house to house. And in
the summer time he gathered his little class, hungering and thirsting
for knowledge, behind a hedge In remote mountain glen — ^where,
while in turn each tattered lad kept watch from the hilltop for the
British soldiers, he fed to his eager pupils the forbidden fruit of
the tree of knowledge.

Latin and Greek were taught to ragged hunted ones under shel-
ter of the hedges — ^whence these teachers were known as "hedge
schoolmasters." A knowledge of Latin was a frequent enough
accomplishment among poor Irish mountaineers In the seventeenth

a dinner in Myer's honour. For the edification of the guests, the good prelate at
suitable moment requested of die spotless neophyte that he would "state to
his fellow-diners his grounds for abjuring the errors of popenr." Promptly re-
plied Myers, "TWenty-five hundred acres of the best grounds in the G)unty
Koscommon."

" It is scarce a century since papists were for the first time permitted to re-
side in some of the walled cities such as Derry in the North, and Bandon in the
South.

On the gates of Bandon was written the legend :

"Enter here, Turk, Jew or atheist,
Any man except a Papist."

Underneath these lines a rascally papist, possessed of some wit and some chalk,
tried his hand at a little "poetry" of his own :

"The man who wrote this wrote it well ;
For the same is writ on the gates of Hell."

On a Government return of 1743 the Provost of Bandon reports, "Neither
priest nor papist was, ever since the hated King James his reign, suffered to reside
within this town. The inhabitants are all Protestants and by our Corporation
Laws no other can live among us."

But the mills of the gods were in motion, all unknown to the pious Provost.
To-day Bandon is an overwhelmingly Cadiolic town. And Derry, the very Mecca
of Orangeism, has a Catholic majority, a Nationalist Corporation, Nationalist
Mayor, and Nationalist representative in the Irish Parliament.

462 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

century — and was spoken by many of them on special occasions.
And it is authoritatively boasted that cows were bought and sold in
Greek, in mountain market-places of Kerry."

Throughout these dreadful centuries, too, the hunted priest —
who in his youth had been smuggled to the Continent of Europe to
receive his training — ^tended the flame of faith. He lurked like a
thief among the hills. On Sundays and feast days he celebrated
Mass at a rock, on a remote mountainside, while the congregation
knelt on the heather of the hillside, under the open heavens.
While he said Mass, faithful sentries watched from all the nearby
hilltops, to give timely warning of the approaching priest-hunter
and his guard of British soldiers. But sometimes the troops came
on them unawares, and the Mass Rock was bespattered with his
blood, — and men, women and children caught in the crime of wor-

i^Dr. Douglas Hyde tells of the famous Munster poet, Owen Roe O'SulHvan,
how, while still a common farm-hand, he amazed his master's son (just returned
from a Continental college) by construing for the latter a Greek passage that had
puzzled him. O'SuUivan was taken from behind the spade then. And after a little
while he opened, near Charleville, a school where he tau^t Latin and Greek.

The present writer had a friend, an old mountaineer in Donegal, who told hirr.
how, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, his father, then a youth, used to
hear at "the Priest's Dinner" in the mountain station house, the priest, the school-
master, and many of the well-to-do mountaineers discourse in Latin.

To these hedge schoolmasters who at the cost of their happiness and risk of
their lives fed the little flame of knowledge among the hills and glens of Ire-
land, throughout Ireland's dread night, Ireland can never repay her debt.

THE HEDGE SCHOOLMASTERS

When the niiht shall lift from Erin's hills, 'twere shame if we forget
One band of unsung heroes whom Freedom owes a debt.
When we brim high cups to brave ones then, their memory let us pledge
Who gathered their ragged classes behind a friendly hedge. i

By stealth they met their pupils in the glen's deep-hidden nook,
And taught them many a lesson was never in English book ;
There was more than wordy logic shown to use in wise debate;
Nor amo was the only verb they gave to conjugate.

When hunted on the heathery hill and through the shadowy wood,

They climbed the cliff, they dared the marsh, they stemmed the tumbling flood ;

Their blanket was the clammy mist, their bed the wind-swept bent ;

In fitful sleep they dreamt the bay of blood-hounds on their scent.

Their lore was not the brightest, nor their store, mayhap, the best,

But they fostered love, undying, in each young Irish breast ;

And through the dread, dread night, and long, that steeped our island then,

The lamps of hope and fires of faith were fed by these brave men.

The grass waves green above them ; soft sleep is theirs for aye ;

The hunt is over, and the cold ; the hunger passed away.

O hold them high and holy 1 and their memory proudly pledge.

Who gathered their ragged classes behind a friendly hedge.— Seumas MacManu.s

THE LATER PENAL LAWS 463

shipping God among the rocks, were frequently slaughtered on the
mountainside.*'

Then, bishops and archbishops, meanly dressed In rough home-
spuns, trudged on foot among their people — and often dwelt, ate
and slept, in holes in the ground."

Thus, in their miserable lairs, In the bogs and barren moun-
tains, whither they were trailed by wolf-hounds and blood-hounds,
were sheltered all that was noble, high, and holy, in Ireland —
while rascal and renegade, silk-and-fine-linen-clad, fattening on the

I'To enable the members of their congregation to baffle the inquisition before
which they were Hable at any time to be compelled to swear when and where they
last attended Mass and who was the priest that officiated, an improvised curtain
was oftentimes hung between the celebrant and the worshippers — so that they could
truthfully swear they did not see the celebrant. With the same object in view,
at the ordination of priests not the bishop alone laid on hands, but several others
together with him.

18 Edmund Spenser, in his day observing all this, "did marvel" how these
hunted priests, foregoing all the comforts and pleasures of life, and inviting both
life and death's fearfulest terrors, pursued their mission "without hope of reward
and richesse."

"Reward and richesse!" exclaims the non-Catholic Mitchel, commenting on
this. "I know the spots within my own part of Ireland where venerable arch-
bishops hid themselves, as it were, in a hole of the rock. . . . Yet it was with full
knowledge of all this, with full resolution to brave all this, that many hundreds of
educated Irishmen, fresh from the colleges of Belgfium or of Spain, pushed to the
Sea Coast at Brest or St. Malo, to find some way of crossing to the land that of-
fered them a life of work and of woe. Imagine a priest ordained at Seville or
Salamanca, a gentleman of high old name, a man of eloquence and genius, who
has sustained disputations in the college halls on questions of literature or theology,
and carried off prizes and crowns — see him on the quays of Brest, bargaining with
some skipper to work his passage. He throws himself on board, does his full
part of the hardest work, neither feeling the cold spray nor the fiercest tempest.
And he knows, too, that the end of it all, for him, may be a row of sugar canes
to hoe under the blazing sun of Barbados. Yet he pushes eagerly to meet his
fate ; for he carries in his hands a sacred deposit, bears in his heart a holy message,
and must tell it or die. See him, at last, springing ashore, and hurrying on to
seek his bishop in some cave, or under some hedge — ^but going with caution by
reason of the priest catcher and the blood-hounds."

In the middle of the seventeenth century the Primate of Ireland lived in a
little farmhouse under the name of "Mr. Ennis." The bishop of Kilmore, who
was a good musician, travelled^ his^ diocese as a Highland bagpiper. And other
ecclesiastics assumed what disguise suited their bent The Archbishop of
Tuam used to address his letters from his (undisclosed) "place of refuge in Conne-
mara."

The learned and saintly Bishop Gallagher (still famed for his sermons), a
noble and beautiful character, had many escapes in his unending peregrinations,
travelling stick in hand, and homespun clad, among his fiock — sleepmg sometimes
in human habitation, sometimes in a hole in the bank and frequently among the
beasts of the field. Once when he had the good fortune to be sheltered under a
poor roof in Donegal, he was aroused in the middle of the night by the alarm tiiat
the priest-hunters were close upon him. Half-clad, he escaped— but the poor man
who had been guilty Of housing him was^ taken out and cruelly done to death.
After this Bishop was translated to the midlands, the Palace of this learned and
truly noble man was a bothy built against a bank in the Bog of Allen I

464 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

fat of an anguished land, languished in the country*8 high seats of
honour I "

From time to time, to satisfy itself that the Penal Laws were
being enforced, the Government called for returns on the subject,
which returns, still preserved with the other State records, throw
interesting side-light upon the Penal activities. The returns, for
instance, of 17 14, made by the High Sheriffs of counties and
Mayors of cities, show the number of priests and schoolmasters
then held in various jails, and in apology for the numbers not be-
ing more impressive, explain that the fugitive priest and school-
master are "difficult to take." A High Sheriff of Longford re-
ports holding in jail: "Patrick Ferrall and John Lennan, con-
victed of being popish schoolmasters, and sentenced to transporta-
tion." The High Sheriff of Dublin holds "two popish school-
masters under sentence of transportation." The Mayors of Gal-
way and Kilkenny have priests awaiting transportation. The High
Sheriff of Wicklow reports the dispersal of "a riotous assembly"
at St. Kevin's in Glendalough — meaning the ancient pilgrimage in
honour of St. Kevin. "We rode all right," he says, "and reached
the scene at 4 A. M. on June 3rd. The rioters inmiediately dis-

1' It is good to record that many and many a time during the centuries of Ire-
land's agony, decent God-fearing, truly Christian Protestants hid the hunted priest
when the bloodhounds, and human hounds, were close upon him, saving the hunted
one's life at the risk of his own.

And many a time, too, the decent Protestant — sometimes a poor man — accepted
legal transfer of the lands of his Catholic neighbour and held them for his
Catholic neighbour's benefit — ^thus saving them from being forfeited to a "Dis-
coverer."

There was a poor Protestant blacksmith in Tipperary in Penal times, who, to
save their property to his Catholic neighbours, was in legal possession of thousands
of acres of land. Yet the brave fellow, with all those broad acres at his mercy,
lived and died in proud poverty.

The late date down to which these persecutions were carried may be judged
from the fact that the present Irish Primate's predecessor. Archbishop McGettigan,
used to tell how, as a lad, at the Mass Rock in the mountain, he acted as sentry,
as acolyte, and as candle-stick (one of the two boys who at either side of the altar-
rock held the lighted candle and shielded it from the wind).

On the occasion, of a recent lecture tour in California, I met, in a valley of
the Sierras, a middle-aged Donegal man, who told me how, when he was a little
boy in Donegal, a man with a much disfigured face came one day to his father's
house, of whom his father told him how he had escaped with only this dis-
figurement from a Mass Rock massacre — when the priest-hunters and soldiers had,
unawares, surprised the congregation in their crime.

Even in recent days, in some of the remote parts of Ireland, often the local
representatives of the governing power, the landlord and magistrate, would not
permit the erection of a Catholic Church within the district of which he was
over-lord. The Church of the famous Father McFadden of Gweedore, had to be
erected on a No-man's land, the dead-line between the possessions of two English
landlords — a gulch which had been the bed of a mountain torrent — now diverted.
On a fatal stormy Sunday in the eighties the torrent, finding: its old way again,
swept down upon the little chapel, packed with its mountam congregation, and
left sad hearts and lone hearths m bleak Gweedore.

THE LATER PENAL LAWS 465

pdrsed : and we pulled down their tents, threw down and demolished
their superstitious crosses, destroyed their wells, and apprehended
and committed one Toole, a popish schoolmaster."

In 1 73 1 the bishops of the Established Church made inter-
esting returns for the "Report of the State of Popery in Ireland."
Sample returns for parishes in the diocese of Clogher will give an
idea of the whole. In one parish, "The papists have one altar
made of earth and stone, uncovered." In another parish, "Mass
is celebrated in ye open fields at two distant places." In a third,
"No Mass house, but two or three altars." And in still another
parish, "No Mass house but ye people meet in ye fields — Owen
O'Gallagher, an old Fryer, instructs a great many popish students."
In another, "Edward McGrath and one Connelly officiate in sev-
eral parts of ye parish, in woods near ye mountains." Henry,
Bishop of Derry, reports: "We are frequently infested with
strolling Fryars and Regulars who say Mass from Parish to Par-
ish as they pass, in ye open fields or ye mountains, and gather
great numbers of people about them. Sometimes a straggling
schoolmaster sets up in some of ye mountains, but upon being
threatened, as they constantly are, with a warrant or a present-
ment by ye church-wardens, they generally think it proper to
withdraw."

And the Bishop of Down and Connor reports: "Dr. Arm-
In this writer's own parish of Inver, a relic of the Penal Days was with us
til! he had reached mature manhood. It was a scalan — a. three-walled thatched
Mass-shed which sheltered the altar and the officiating priest. In front of the
open end, every Sunday morning, the congregation, gathered hither from miles of
moor and mountain, knelt on the bare hillside under the open heavens — often with
miry slush soaking their knees, and pelting rain or driving hail mercilessly lash-
ing their bodies, and whipping their upturned faces. Whether blowing or snowing,
shming or showering, every Sabbath saw there the crowd of devotees from remote
homes — man and woman, boy and girl, barefoot child and crawling old.

In the days when this writer, a light-footed bouchaillin, scudded the moors
to Mass, there mothered England and step-mothered Ireland, a respectable, homely-
minded lady, who had developed a comfortable embonpoint, and fattened a very
large brood of children, at the expense of poor, lean, famished, famine-haunted
Ireland — a worthy enough old lady who represented the power that robbed us of
everything except our hardships, and bestowed on us nothing but our poverty.
About the very time that our scalan congregation would be Imeeling in the mud
on the arctic shoulder of Ardaghey Hill this good old lady and her middling well-
trained children would probably be bogging their knees in the yielding plush of
their prie-dieux, in the magnificent Chapel of Buckingham Palace — or before a
comforting fir^ lang^dly sinking out of one another's sight in the caressing up-
holstery of their Palace drawing-room. And the writer can vividly remember the
queer questioning that started in his boyish mind one fierce February Sunday
when, with the miserable multitude at Mass on that storm-lashed hillside, their knees
sunk in the marrow-freezing mire, their few sorry clothes soaked through and
plastered to their bones by snow-broth, bared heads battered, and faces whipped
and cut by the driving sleet, he heard the sagart (a simple saintly soul) lead in
supplicating the Lord to grant health and happiness to, and shower His manifold
blessings upon, "Her Majesty, the Queen of this Realm, and all the Royal Family"!

466 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

strong*® takes upon him to be bishop, and holds visitations at
which there appear great numbers — the Itinerant Preachers, I sup-
pose, making part of them. There were several of those that have
great concourse about them."

The marvellous spirit that inspired the young Irishmen who
gave their lives for the preserving of their people's faith in these
times of terror, could not be more strikingly illustrated than by
presenting to the reader — from another Parliamentary return —
one of the late date of 1782 — the following list of some of the
many places, far and wide over the Continent of Europe, to which
they penetrated in search of education and ordination. These "reg-
istered" priests (only the smaller portion of the priestly body),
all of them ordained between 1760-80, were educated in:

Toledo, Barcelona, Mechlin, Paris, Brussels, Prague, Como,
Rome, Viterbo, Treves, Compostella, Cremona, Lisbon, Toul, Bor-
deaux, Bazas, Sarlate (France), Lombez (France), Antwerp, Liege,
VaiscMi (France), Avignon, Monte Fiascone, Bagnovea, Orvieto,
Dol, Spire, Toulouse, Sarni, Arezzo (Tuscany), Nepi (Italy), St.
Lizie, St. Papule (France), Pampelona (Spain), Zaragossa, Placence
(Italy), Puy, Ypres, Dizd, Seville, Nantes, Rennes, St. Malo,
Chalons, Vienna, Ageu (France), Orte, Azola, Elvas (Portugal),
Louvain, Milan, Crema (State of Venice), Montpellier, Perpignan,

20 The following few lines from The Will of this Dr. Armstrong (who "takes
upon him to be Bishop") who died in 1739, is an interesting commentary on the
man, his office, his circumstances, and his time. These are some typical extracts
from the whole, as printed in Archivium Hibernicum I (It is to be remembered
that while the will had to be made in English — in compliance with form — this man,
like almost all the learned Irish of his day, probably knew little or nothing of
the English language, while in all likelihood, he could freely converse in French,
Italian, Latin, and perhaps Greek)—

"I order my horse, and my oats, and my pewter, foure chears, and the furr
table, and my six new shirts to be sould in order to defray my funerall expenses
and to pay my just and lawfull details.

"I order John Taylor of Ballyverly thirteen pence.

"I order the G)nvent of Castlewilliam one moydore and the Convent of
Dromenecoil one guinea.

"I order Jon. O'Doherty, my servant, my wearing cloathes, and my mare, and
both my sadels and bridels, my little oake table and my Dixonary.

"I order Patt O'Doharty my bed and bed cloathes, my oveal table, my two pots,
and my gridle, and a grediron.

"I order Neale Armstrong and Mary Donevan my ould lennin and my three
chists and two bed steds. I order Neale the green drogged.

"I order Henry Armstrong my big coat.

"I order the Rev. Mr. Patt Byrne and the Rev. Mr. Edward Jennings my
books.

"I order Meary Doharty fifteen shillings. I order Anne Killin two shillings
and eight pence halfpenny.

"I order the Rev. Mr. Jon. Fitzsimons my vestments, and my hat, and the
shute of doaths that Mrs. Russell gave me, and he to say sixty Masses to her
intention.

"I order Oliver Taylor one shilling and one penny, if my substance win af-
ford it**

THE LATER PENAL LAWS 467

Santiago (Spain), Macoa, Caizo (Naples), Orleans, Clermont, Ca-
serta, Naples, Besangon, Emesenus, Bayeux, Jaen (Spain), Cordova,
Genoa, Nauli (Italy), Segovia, Brabant, Valladolid, St Ildefaro,
Zamora (Spain), Douai (Flanders), Arras, St. Omer, Rheims,
Emaus (Treves), Salamanca."

The Penal Laws were enforced with much rigour till the latter
part of the i8th century. In 1773 the Anglo-Irish Parliament re-
fused to pass a Bill making it legal for papists to lend money on
land mortgage. In 1776 Lord Charlemont threw the House of
Lords into a tumult when he brought in a bill to make it lawful
for a Catholic to lease a cabin and a potato garden. He was
dubbed "papist" and voted out of the chair for such infamous pro-
posal. All uncle of Daniel O'Connell, Arthur O'Leary, was, near
the century's end, shot by a soldier for refusing to sell his beautiful
horse to a Protestant for five pounds. And O'Connell's father,
Morgan, made his first purchase of land through the medium of a
Protestant friend — in whose name the land had to be bought, and
held. O'Connell's grandfather would not let Smith, when he was
writing a history of Kerry, dilate upon the ancient greatness of
the clan Conal. "There has been peace in these remote glens," he
warned Smith. "Do not draw the attention of the authorities to
us."

In 1775 the English traveller, Twiss, was saddened to see
crowds of boys learning writing on the roadside — saddened, be-
cause, to his well-trained English mind, it was "not judicious to
teach the lower orders." In 1776 Arthur Young everywhere met
with schools held aback of a hedge : "I might as well say 'ditch'
for I have seen many a ditch full of scholars," he adds.**

21 There was then (as now) an Irish College at Salamanca. Other Irish Col-
leges were at Lisbon, St. Omer, Louvain, Douai, Tournay, Antwerp, Lauzanne, etc.

In the above report we find, under various parishes such items as, in one par-
ish, "One popish priest who officiates in different parts of y* parish in open air," —
"One popish priest who officiates in y« open fields," — "One popish priest who offi-
ciates in some open field, or some poor cabin," — ^"Several itinerant popish priests
and friars do at some times officiate in this parish."

22 In 1796 the French traveller de Latocnaye tells of seeing the hedge schools.
And at the River Shannon he saw Mass being celebrated among the ruins of an
ancient abbey — and the priests, sitting upon tombstones in a cemetery, hearing Con-
fession, holding little flags to shield the penitents at their knee. In the first quar-
ter of the 19th century Caesar Otway describes one of the outlawed schools which
he saw (on Cape Gear Island). It was a low hut with no chimney, covered with
a network of rope, and hung like a wasp's nest on the side of a cliff. He said he
had to bend double in order to enter, as going through a cavern's mouth. Inside
was a dark, smoky, smelly cave, where he could not at first discern anything.
But when he was able to see he observed twenty children, sitting on stones, hum-
ming like hornets preparing to swarm. Every urchin, he said, had a scrap of paper
or a leaf of a book in his hand.

468 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

In Ireland in these trying times, just as in the more glorloi
days of Ireland's golden age more than a thousand years before
learning and learners were held in high reverence. And the poc
people now (as then) vied with each other in offering share c
the little they possessed to the young students who sojourned amon
them. The Poor Scholar was honoured and loved, and was ente:
tained free of all charge, wherever he went and howsoever Ion
he stayed. Doheny in his introduction to O'Mahony's Keatin
says, "As late as 1820 there were in many counties classical schoo!
in which the English tongue was never heard." The languag(
were Irish, Latin and Greek. Furthermore, down to his own da
(middle of the 19th century),

"Literary hospitality continued unimpaired. The ablest mastei
classical and sdentiHc, have taught thousands of students who f(
years were entertained with the most lavish kindness in the hous
of the farmers in the districts around the schools, of late a barn (
deserted dwelling of mudwall or thatched roof. In Tipperar
Waterford, and Limerick it was usual to have two of these schola
living (free) for four and five consecutive years with a family, ar
treated with extreme courtesy and tenderness. In the first cycle (
this century there was scarcely a farmer of any competency who d
not give one son or all of his sons, a classical education, without sli
reference to intended professions or pursuits."

The Volunteer movement in the 1780's first began to tal
the edge off Protestant prejudice — ^which had been so astonishing
narrow and bitter that Burke states in his letter to Langrish
"There are thousands in Ireland who never conversed with a R
man Catholic in their whole life unless they happened to talk t
their gardeners* workmen, or to ask their way when they had lo
it in their sports." On all occasions, in conversation or in writin
and in all official documents, including the King's speeches ar
Acts of Parliament Catholicism was referred to as popery, ar
Catholics always named either papists or "persons professing tl
popish religion." In 1793 all good Protestants of both Englar
afid Ireland gasped to find the term Catholic employed in a spee(
from the Throne! Revolution was then in the air, and it w;
wisdom and statesmanship to begin to rub the papist with the fu
^ And in that year, of 1793, was passed an Act " relieving the Cat

^ In the debate on that Bill of 1793, it is good to fiqd — standing out frc
among the Protestant bishops, who usually led in hatred of Catholicism — ^the hig
minded Protestant bishop of Killala. In his speech in the House of Lords he e
pressed sentiments that did credit to his Christian heart — "I look upon our Catho

THE LATER PENAL LAWS

465

f olics of many of their disabilities — in theory at least. Another
thirty-six years were to elapse before the next step was taken, un-
der compulsion from the O'Connell agitation, and the Act known
as Catholic Emancipation made law.

Burke's Tract on the Popery Code.
Burke's Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe.
McGee's Protestant Reformation in Ireland.
Simon Butler's Digest of the Popery Laws.
Lecky's History of Ireland in 18th Century.
Scully's Penal Laws.

'brethren as fellow subjects and fellow Christians, believers in the same God, and
I'partners in the same redemption. Speculative differences in some points of faith,

with me are of no account : they and I have but one religion — the religion of Chris-
'tianity. Therefore, as children of the same Father — as travellers on the same
^'road — and seekers of the same salvation, why not love each other as brothers? It

is no part of Protestantism to persecute Catholics; and without justice to the
|'.Catiholics there can be no security of the Protestant establishment. As a friend,

therefore, to the permanency of this establishment, to the prosperity of the country,

and the justice due to my Catholic brethren, I shall cheerfully give my vote that

the Bill be committed."

The Christian character of the papist-hating English appointees who usually

filled the chairs of the Irish Protestant bishoprics, may be guessed at from Dean

Swift's description of them: "Excellent and moral man had been selected upon
^'every occasion of a vacancy, but it unfortunately happened that as these worthy
' divines crossed Hounslow Heath, on their way to Ireland, they were set upon by

highwajTnen, who frequented the Common, robbed and murdered — who sei2ed

tbeir robes and patents, came over to Ireland, and were consecrated bishops in

their stead."

•-:«-'

K^'>.

^■■

P*r

CHAPTER LIV
"the wild geese"

War-battered dogs are we,
Fighters in every clime;
Fillers of trench and of grave,
Mockers bemocked by time.
War-dogs hungry and grey,
Gnawing a naked bone,
Fighters in every clime —
Every cause but our own.

— Emily Lawless, "With the Wild Geese."

"The bright as contrasted with the dark side of the national story,"
O'Callaghan calls his own record of the Irish Brigades in the Ser-
vice of France. "Ormuzd abroad to compensate for Ahriman at
home." * Lecky, too, affirms that it is in the continental Catholic
countries, where the Irish exiles and their children had risen to
posts of the highest dignity and power, and not amid the "outcasts
and pariahs" in the motherland, "the real, history of Irish Catholics
during the first half of the eighteenth century is to be found."

Ireland herself has never taken this view of the question.
Again and again she has caught

"echoing down the wind
Blown backwards from the lips of Fame"

the names of her exiled children: Marshals of France like Lord
Clare, Prime Ministers of Spain like Don Ricardo W^all, creators
of victorious armies like Count Peter Lacy in Russia, mighty war
lords like Field Marshal Brown, in Austria; founders of empire
like Count Lally in India, leaders of European diplomacy like
Tyrconnell, O'Mahony, Lawless and de Lacy. So their titles, loud-
sounding, came to her, borne on the trumpet music of the world's
applause. But Ireland had a name of her own for them. Ran-

1 Ormuzd was in Persian mythology "the good principle" as opposed to Ahriman,
"the bad"

470

"THE WILD GEESE'* 471

sacking all nature for its most desolate image to figure forth her
thought of them, its most desolate cry to render the wailing music
made in her ears by their last farewell, she called them na Geana
Fiadhaine, "the Wild Geese."

"She said : 'Not mine, not mine that fame

Far over sea, far over land

They won it yonder, sword in hand.' "

Not hers in truth that fame. Hardly one of them — field-marshal,
diplomat, prime minister, empire-builder, was able to do for her
the slightest service, or even to win for her the sympathy (much
less the active help) of the nations to which they had given their
all in life and in death. To Ireland, and to those who look at
history through her eyes, the story of the "Wild Geese" is a trag-
edy— stately and stirring, and noble if you will, in its grandiose
setting and majestic movement — ^but almost unredeemed, and the
essence of that tragedy is, like the poignant and vain regret for the
life blood of Sarsfield spilled at Landen, "that this was not for
Ireland." Only one service the "Wild Geese" did for their own
country. Always the hope remained with her that one day they
would return, and avenge her wrongs on her iniquitous oppressor.
And that hope gave her courage to endure. Eighteenth century
Irish poetry is buoyant with it :

"The Wild Geese shall return, and we'll welcome them home

So active, so armed, so flighty,

A flock was ne'er known to this island to come

Since the days of Prince Fionn the mighty.

They will waste and destroy,

Overturn and o'erthrow,

They'll accomplish whate'er may in man be!

Just heaven they will bring
Devastation and woe
On the hosts of the tyrannous Seaghan Buidhe."

Surely, of all Ireland's sorrows, none was greater than seeing
her boys go forth from her, year after year, to serve as cannon-
fodder for foreign princes — their departure as fixed a moment in
the sorrowful calendar of her seasons, as the annual flight of the
wild geese, when even the stubble had withered from her wintry
fields.

Mrs, Morgan John O'Connell gives us, in The Last Colonel
of the Irish Brigade, a lively picture of such a departure from
the coast of Kerry about the year 1761. The flieet little smuggling

472 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

clipper that recently slipped into Derrynane harbour has unloaded
its wines, teas, tobaccos, brandies, its velvets and silks for the ladies,
its gilt mirrors for their parlours, and has taken on its return
carg9, contraband Irish wool. But another portion of its cargo —
more precious, equally contraband — remains to be shipped. "Of
the productions of Ireland, the wool and the men, rendered equally
incapable by law of becoming the great sources of wealth they might
have been at home, were in request for the manufactories and
the armies in France." The skipper would be ill-satisfied with his
run if he were not bearing back with him to France a number of
clean-limbed, gallant Irish lads to fill the ranks of The Brigade.
Here they come: O'Connells, MacCarthies, O'Sullivans,
O'Donoghues, sons of the noblest families of the South; and as
their barque weighs anchor, they hear a voice raised in a sorrowful
song of farewell that might be the voice of Ireland herself. It is
Maire Ni Dhuibh,* mother of one of these young "Wild Geese"
(of him destined afterwards to make history as Count Daniel
O'Connell, "Last Colonel of the Irish Brigade in the French Serv-
ice," and kins-woman of all the others, who is standing there by
the shore singing to a poignant old Gaelic strain, her lament for
the passing of all this youth from Irish soil.

The O'Connell correspondence — ^thanks to Mrs. Morgan John
O'Connell — enables us to follow in some detail the further fortunes
of the young emigrants. We will suppose that the smuggling
craft, built for speed and lightness, has skimmed safely through
the rocks and shallows of the Smuggler's Sound, outraced the
Revenue Cutter in the open seas, and made in safety its destined
port. If she had a recruiting officer of the Brigade • on board
he would take the more mature of his young recruits straight to his
regiment. The other little boys, sons of wealthier households,
were boarded for a time, at their families* expense, with some
retired officer of the Brigade, who made a regular business of
keeping a sort of preparatory school for lads of this class, taught
them languages, and the rudiments of a military education and saw

that they attended classes for the rest And so the years passed
-^C _.^___

« Maire Ni Dhuibh, the grandmother of Dan O'Connell, "The Liberator," was a
poetess of exceptional gift These she transmitted to her children. There is nothing
finer in any literature than the wonderful "Lament" composed by her daughter,
"dark EighUn," for her murdered husband. Art O'Leary.

*Tfae post was one of much danger. Recruiting for the Brigade was punish-
able under English law with death. The most famous victim of this law was Morty
Og O'Sullivan, the hero of the famous caoine, translated by O'Callanan and be-
ginning: "The sun in Iveara no longer shines brightly." Ought after a gallant
defence of his castle he was tied to a boat and dragged dirougfa the sea from
Bearfaaven to Cork, where his head was cut off and affixed on the JaiL

THE WILD GEESE"

473

until the boy was old enough to be enrolled as a subaltern in the
regiment of his choice.

Some well authenticated figures will give us an idea of the
enormous drainage on Irish man power during this period. L'Abbc
MacGeoghegan, the historian, himself a chaplain of the Irish
Brigade in the French Service, established as a result of researches
made at the French War Office, that no less than 450,000 Irish-
men died for France in the half-century between the Fall of Lim-
erick (1691) and the year of Fontenoy (1745). Cardinal Man-
ning states that another half-million shed their blood for her during
the half-century that followed, until the dissolution of the Brigade
(1792). Twenty-thousand Irish soldiers followed Sarsfield to
France and by the date of the Peace of Utrecht ( 1713) less than a
quarter of them remained alive. The five-and-a-half thousand fight-
ing men, who had been sent to France, before King Louis would
consent to despatch a single soldier to Ireland, had been almost
wiped out in the famous campaigns against the Vaudois.

Though French Kings in court and in battlefield, and French
generals in their despatches, were lavish enough in their praises of
the Irish, French historians from Voltaire downward have failed
to do our countrymen justice. You might read through a library
of them without suspecting all that France owes to Ireland. "Mes
braves Irlandais," King Louis called them to Major O'Mahony,
when the latter had been chosen to bear to Versailles the news of
the Irish defence of Cremona (1702), of which he himself was
the hero. After the victory of Marsaglia, Catinat writes enthusi-
astically of the "surprising things" done by the Irish dragoons,
who broke the famous bayonet charge of the Savoyards and drove
them from the field. Marshal Vendome eulogised Irish heroism
after many a combat. From the field of Cassano he praised their
"exemplary valour and intrepidity," and affirmed that they formed
a band "whose zeal and devotion might be relied upon in the most
difficult emergencies of war." He had long before appraised Irish
valour at Barcelona, and Chevalier de Bellerive, writing in 17 10,
records the Marshal's "particular esteem for this warlike nation,
at whose head he had delivered so many combats and gained so
many victories," and his confession of surprise at "the terrible enter-
prises" the Irish had achieved in his presence.

But on the whole, France has taken her obligations to Ireland
lightly enough, and if we would seek a fitting appreciation of
what our poor boys did for her we must turn to a rather unexpected
quarter;5-"a letter to the Right Honourable Sir Robert Sutton, for
Disbanding the Irish Regiments in the Service of France and

474 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Spain," written by the Whig pamphleteer Forman, from Amster-
dam in 1727. He speaks of the Irish regiments "as seasoned to
dangers, and so perfected in the art of war, that not only the
Sergeants and Corporals, but even the private men can make very
good officers. In what part of the army soever they have been
placed, they have always met with success, and upon several occa-
sions, won honour, where the French themselves, warlike as they
are, have received an affront. To their valour, in a great measure,
France owes not only most of what trophies she gained in the late
war, but even her o-wn preservation." He go^ on to enumerate
the Irish services: the victories won against the Duke of Savoy,
the extraordinary affair of Cremona. "They wrested Cremona
out of the hands of Eugene, when by surprise, he had made himself
master of all the town, except the Irish quarters, and saw the
Marshal, Duke de Villeroy, his prisoner, who was taken by Colonel
MacDonnell, an Irishman in the Emperor's service. By that
action, hardly to be paralleled in history, they saved the whole
French army on that side of the Alps. At Spireback, Major-
General Nugent's Regiment of Horse, by a brave charge upon two
regiments of cuirassiers^ brought a complete victory to an army,
upon which Fortune was ju^t turning her back. At Ramillies, the
Allies lost but one pair of colours,* which the Royal Irish in the
service of France took from a German regiment. At Toulon,
Lieutenant-General Dillon distinguished himself,- and chiefly con-
tributed to the preservation of that important place. To the Irish
regiments also, under the conduct of that intrepid and experienced
officer. Count Medavi himself very generously attributed the vic-
tory over the Imperialists in Italy. And the poor Catalans will
for ever have reason to remember the name of Mr. Dillon, for the
great share he had in the famous Siege of Barcelona, so fatal to
their nation. Sir Andrew Lee, Lieutenant-General, showed likewise
how consummate a soldier he was, when he defended Lisle, under
the Due de Boufflers, against those thunderbolts of war, the Prince
of Savoy, and our own invincible Duke of Marlborough."

To the trophies won for France by Irish bravery previous to
the date of this letter (1727) I'Abbe MacGeoghegan, writing in

* This was the celebrated flag long preserved at the Convent of the "Irish Dames
of Ypres" referred to by Davis in his "Clare's Dragoons" :

"When on Ramillies' bloody field,
The baffled French were forced to yield;
The victor Saxon backward reeled.
Before the charge of Clare's Dragoons.
The flags we conquered in that fray
X>ook lone in Ypres' dioir they say," etc.

"THE WILD GEESE"

475

1758, has a long list to add: Having enumerated Neerwinden,
(or Landen), Marsaglia, Barcelona, Cremona, Spires, Castiglione,
Almanza, Villa, Viciosa as "witnesses of their (the Irishmen's) im-
mortal valour," he goes on to recall to them the more recent glories
of Fontenoy (1745), that great day for ever memorable in the
annals of France. "Let me remind you," he says to the Irish
troops to whom he dedicates his History of Ireland, "of the plains
of Fontenoy, so pretious to your glory — ^those plains where, in
concert with chosen French troops, the valiant Count of Tho-
mond being at your head you charged with so much valour an
enemy so formidable. Animated by the presence of the august
sovereign who rules over you, you contributed with so much success
to the gaining of a victory which till then appeared doubtful.
Laufeld beheld you, two years afterwards, in concert with one of
the most illustrious carps of France, force intrenchments which ap-
peared to be impregnable. Menin, Ypres, Tournay saw you crown
yourselvfes with glory under their walls; whilst your countrymen
under the Standards of Spain performed prodigies of valour at
Campo Sancto and at Velletri. But whilst I am addressing you,
a part of your corps (the Regiment of Fitz James) is flying to the
defence of the allies of Louis; another (Count Lally and his regi-
ment) is sailing over the seias to seek amidst the waves, in another
hemisphere, the eternal enemies of his empire — the British"

He did not know, the good Abbe, that the service of Count
Lally, after unheard of labours, the display of the greatest ardour,
disinterestedness, fidelity and perseverance, in the endeavour to
establish a French Empire in India, were to be rewarded by an
imprisonment of nearly four years in the Bastille — and death,
amidst every species of indignity, at the hands of the common exe-
cutioner I

It is hard to imagine how the Irish remained In the French
service after this atrocious treatment of this, their countryman to
whom France owed amongst other' victories, the glory of Fontenoy.
The wonder becomes all the greater when we read in the corre-
spondence of many of them which has come down to us, how disr
satisfied they were with their treatment and prospects. Neverthe-
less, the Irish Brigade still remained on until its dissolution by the
Revolution in. 179 1.

In 1792 the Count de Provence (afterwards Louis XVIII)
presented the remnant of the Brigade with a "farewell banner,"
bearing the de\dce of an Irish Harp embroidered with shamrocks
and fleurs-de-lis. The gift was accompanied by the following
address : —

476 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

"Gentlemen, we acknowledge the inappreciable services that
France has received from the Irish Brigade, in the course of the last
100 years; services that we shall never forget, though imder an im-
pf- possibility of requiting them. Receive this Standard, as a pledge of
our rcfmembrance, a monument of our admiration, and of our respect,
and in future, generous Irishmen, this shall be the motto of your
spotless flag: —

1692—1792
Semper et ubique Fidelis."

Dr. Sigftrson has pointed out the very curious effect which
close connection with "the Brigade" had on Munster at the time
of the *98 Rising. "The fact that Munster did not join generally
in the Insurrection of 1798 has not been understood by writers.
Its quiescence was the result, not of loyalty to the Irish Parliament
or Government, then in the hands of a cabal, but of its Jacobite and
anti-Jacobin principles. Many families had kinsmen in *La Brigade
Irlandaise,' and were Royalists." This observation is quite just,
and explains many things: the fact that Daniel O'Connell's uncle,
old "Hunting Cap," claimed a reward for conveying to the Govern-
ment the first news of the appearance of Wolfe Tone and the
French in Bantry Bay; his nephew, Dan's Whiggery and the de-
plorable pronouncement of many of the Irish Bishops (educated
in France), after the failure of the Rising.

The Irish Officers who threw in their lot with the Revolution,
were mostly Connacht, Ulster and Leinstermen. Among whom
may be named: General O'Moran, Charles Jennings, afterwards
Baron Kilmaine, and the group of Irish officers so often mentioned
in Wolfe Tone's memoirs : Madgett, Clarke, and Shea. The name
of the officer who was the hero of the following dramatic incident
has not come down to us, but his nationality is suffidently in-
dicated : —

A certain Irish Capuchin, Father Donovan of Cork, was a
chaplain of a noble French family in Paris when the Revolution
broke, out. His friends fled, and he, as having been concerned
witlT aristocrats, was thrown into prison. One morning, after he
had spent the night preparing a number of his fellow-prisoners for
death, he was suddenly called out with a batch of condemned and
trundeled off to the guillotine. Just as he was about to get his
foot on the ladder, an officer of the French guard called out In
Irish : "Are there any Gaels among you ?" "Seven," answered
Father Donovan, in the same language. "Then let there not be
any fear on you," shouted the officer, and the seven were saved.

"THE WILD GEESE" 477

Never since the days of Hugh Roe, himself, had the knowledge
of Irish proved such a safeguard.

In truth it was not the "Wild Geese" who forgot the tongue
of the Gael or let it perish. We arc told that the watchwords
and the words of command in the "Brigade" were always in
Irish, and that officers who did not know the language before they
entered the service found themselves of necessity compelled to learn
it. And it was in Irish the famous war cry was composed, to which
the exiles charged at Fontenoy:

"Remember Limerick and Saxon Perfidy."

Many other instances we have of these soldier-exiles' love for
their old tongue, and the old literature. Captain 'Sorley Mac-
Donnell, serving in the Low Countries about 1626, had a copy
made for himself of the Fenian Tales, and to his passion for Irish
hero-lore we owe, as Professor Eoin MacNeill reminds us, "the
preservation of Duanaire Finn." John O'Donovan, in the appendix
of his edition of the Four Masters, has an interesting tale to tell
of a young Charles O'Donnell from County Mayo, who in the
middle of the i8th century went out to seek his fortune in Austria^

|l' where his uncle, Count Henry O'Donnell, the "handsomest man in

§>■ the Austrian service, and an especial favourite with the Empress"
had risen to high rank in the Imperial Army, and won a princess
of the royal house of Cantacuzeno for his bride. Poor Charles

J^ was on the point of being packed home again because he answered
in English when the General addressed him in Irish. The kind
Irish Friar to whom the young man related his discomfiture, advised
him to go back to the General and speak nothing but Irish, and all
would be well. The advice was taken, and the reassuring prophecy

J fulfilled, young Charles in his turn rising to be a Major-General
and a Count. His initial faux-pas was all the less excusable, because
his uncle, writing to his father Manus, had directed him to have
whichever of his sons he intended sending to Austria carefully
educated in the Irish language, for Count Henry desired to have
his nephew's help in instructing his own children in the language of
their ancestors. "The tongue being Irish, the heart must needs be
Ifish, too."'

ik * A century later we find one of the Austrian (yDonnells affirming that "though
\reared in Austria their hearts were none the less Irish." And perhaps one of tie
reasons the Irish in the Austrian service remained so Irish is that, again acting on
a Spenserian prescription, wherever possible, they married Irish girls. Count
Henry's son Joseph and his cousin Theresa were hero and heroine of a very pretty
love-story M wliich the Empress Maria Theresa, herself, played the part of fairy

W-

478 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

((.

The great Field-Marshal, Ulrich Maximilian Count Brown —
whose ashes are every day watered with the tears of the soldiers
to whom he was so dear" (I'Abbe MacGeoghegan) — ^was perhaps
the greatest of the great soldiers Ireland gave to Austria — and
that is saying much. Born in 1705 and educated in Limerick, he
had gone out as a boy to his uncle, George Brown, who commanded
an Infantry Regiment in Hungary. He was present at the Siege
of Belgrade (where his countryman. General O'Dwyer commanded
a division), was made Colonel in 1725 (at the age of twenty) and
in 1730, with his uncle, invested Corsica. In 1739 he was raised
by the Emperor Charles VI. to the dignity of Field-Marshal and
Member of the Council of War. On the accession of Maria
Theresa, she appointed Brown one of her Privy Councillors, and
in 1752 nominated him Generalissimo of all her forces; while the
King of Poland, Elector of Saxony, in the following year, invested
him with the order o.f the White Eagle. At the memorable battle
of Prague in 1757, this hero received a wound of which he expired
in two months.

Field-Marshal Brown was, as we have said, the most famous
of the Irish soldiers in the Imperial Service, but there were many
other distinguished Irishmen in the Austrian Armies, and the Im-
perial Rulers showed the highest appreciation of their qualities.
In a document written by the Emperor Francis I, and found among
his papers after his death, we rwd: — "The more Irish officers
in the Austrian service, the better our troops will always be disci-
plined; an Irish coward is an uncommon character, and even what
the natives of Ireland dislike, they generally perform through a
desire of glory." "Such is our established reputation," said Colonel
O'Shea, a veteran officer of the Austrian army, "that Arch-Duke

God-mother. The Imperial Lady was fond of doing so, and, what is better, showed
herself a real human mother to the Iri^ girls who went out as brides to Officers
in her Majesty's armies. Mrs. Morgan John O'Connell tells a charming story of
the homely way the Empress comforted one of the CGinnell girls, the young wife
of Major O'SulIivan, whom she found one day sobbing out her poor homesick heart
in a dark corner of the Chapel of the Imperial Palace. It may have been the Em-
press who suggested Father Bonaventure O'Brien, guardian of the Irish Franciscan
Convent at Prague, as a suitable matchmaker when "General Brown, son and heir
to the late Marshal of that name," thought of seeking a wife among his Irish kin-
folk? A letter of Father O'Brien's to "Hunting Cap" O'Connell shows the good
will with which Father Bonaventure entered on his mission. It would appear that
Lord Kenmare's daughter was suggested, and Father Bonaventure writes to ask
Maurice O'Connell "how old she was, her humour and other qualities, also her
fortune." The General on his side was a very eligible parti. "He has a charming
estate in this Kingdom, and his post besides, brings him in a thousand a year."

The match did not come off, perhaps for the reason that the little maid was
less than twelve years old when her Austrian cousin sought her hand. She eventually
married the Marquis de Syverac, and brought him an immense fortune, according to
the standard of those days.

"THE WILD GEESE

>»

479

Charles said to me that never was the House of Austria better
served than when possessing so many Irish, of whom at one time
upwards of 30 were Generals." There have been no less than
14 Irish Field-Marshals in the Austrian Service at various times.
On Saint Patrick's Day, in the year 1765, the Spanish Ambassador
to the Court of Vienna, gave a grand entertainment in honour of
the Apostle of Ireland, to which were invited only persons of
Irish descent. The Ambassador himself was an O'Mahony, son
of the hero of Cremona, and the illustrious assembly included
Count de Lacy, President of the Austrian Council of War,
Generals O'Donnell, MacGuire, O'Kelly, Brown, Plunkett and
MacEligott, four Chiefs of the Grand Cross, two Governors,
several Knights Military, six Staff Officers, four Privy Councillors
with the principal Officers of State, who to show their respect for
the Irish Nation, wore crosses in honour of the day, as did the
whole court.

Many of the Irish Officers in Austria had relatives in the Rus-
sian Army, or had served in it themselves. Thus we find in Russia,
Nugents, O'Rourkes, Browns, and de Lacys. Count Peter de
Lacy, born in Limerick, first entered the French service, passed
thence into the Polish, and was presented by the Polish Count de
Croy to Peter the Great, who was then in alliance with Poland.
"The Czar took him into his own service, in which he obtained
a Majority in 1705, and a Lieutenant Colonelcy in the following
year. In 1708 he was promoted to the command of the Siberian
Regiment of Infantry, and joined the Grand Army. He was
wounded at the battle of Pultowa (1709), where he acted as
brigadier. In 17 10 he distinguished himself in the attack on
Riga. In 1737 he was appointed to command an expedition into
the Crimea. This was the General who, according to Ferrer,
taught the Russians to beat the army of the King of Sweden, and
to become from the worst, some of the best soldiers in Europe.
Before the battle of Pultowa, he advised the Czar to send orders
that every soldier should reserve his fire until he came within a
few yards of the enemy, in consequence of which Charles the
Twelfth was there totally defeated, losing in that single action the
advantage of nine campaigns of glory." He died, Governor of
Livonia in 175 1.

The history of the de Lacys would bring us through every
country in Europe. Thus, Count Peter's son, Joseph, died a
Marshal of the Austrian Army; his kinsman, Maurice, entered the
Russian service we are told, at ten years old. He served under
Suwarrow in the Italian campaign, in campaigns against the Turks,

48o THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

and also in the Crimea. The Lacys in Spain were numerous and
important. The most famous was Count de Lacy, General and
Diplomatist. Born in 1731, he commenced his military career as
an Ensign in the Irish Brigade of Ultonia Infantry, was named
Colonel in 1762, and a Commander of Artillery in 1780, when he
was employed at the celebrated Siege of Gibraltar. After the Peace
of Versailles in 1783, he was made Minister Plenipotentiary to both
Sweden and Russia and died at Barcelona in 1792.

The Irish Legion in Spain has a much longer history than that
in the French service, but its records have not been collected into
a convenient form. They go back to the days when Irish soldiers,
recruited by Sir John Perrott, were sent to the Low Countries under
Sir William Stanley, as part of the expeditionary force led by
Leicester to help the Dutch then in revolt against Spain (1586).
Their leader, Stanley, having become a Catholic, surrendered
Deventer, which he held for the Dutch, to the Spaniards, and was
joyfully followed over to the side of the Catholic King by all his
Irish fighting men.

This was the nucleus of the famous Irish Legion in the Low
Countries, which for long years kept the English in continual fear
of an invasion of Ireland. Illustrious names illumine the lists of
officers* Colonel Henry O'Neill, son of the great Hugh; his
younger brother, John; "Don Hugh O'Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnell,
page to the Infanta in Flanders," Don Tomaso Preston, and

"The worthiest warrior of diem all
The princely Owen Roe."

And great deeds of arms illumined its records : at Bois-Ie-Duc,
Dourlen, Amiens, under Pontecarrero and Montenegro, the stu-
pendous defence of Louvain by Preston, the no less stupendous
achievements of Owen Roe and his men at Arras.

The misfortunes of Ireland, her inability to provide for her
young men at home, kept the ranks of this Legion filled. After the
battle of Kinsale, after the confiscation and plantation of Ulster,
the di^ossessed swordsmen trooped to it in countless numbers.
The poignant phrase of the Four Masters paints their sad lot —
"offering themselves for hire as soldiers to foreigners, so that count-
less numbers of the freeborn nobles of Ireland were slain in distant
countries and were buried in strange places and unhereditary
churches." But always the hope remained with them, that one day
they would return and strike a blow for Ireland. As they lay one
night outside the town of Aire, waiting to storm it on the morrow,
their thoughts and feelings were vocal in an Irish sentence which

"THE WILD GEESE"

481

pierced the darkness : — "Tomorrow we are to adventure our lives
for the succouring of a scabbed town of the King of Spain, where
we may lose our lives, and we cannot expect any worse if we go
into our own country and succour it."

And they did "go into their own country," the brave boys, and
"succour it" with Owen Roe O'Neill I

The triumph of Cromwell again drove many thousand trained
soldiers to Spain and other countries — in accordance with a definite
policy, that of "voiding the swordsmen out of the country." It is
estimated that between 1651 and 1654 "40,000 of the most active
spirited men, most acquainted with the dangers and discipline of
war" went out of Ireland to die for Princes and causes that were
none of theirs. Of these Spain received the largest number.

After the fall of Limerick a great number of swordsmen sailed
to Spain, and their numbers were subsequently increased by acces-
sion of Irish soldiers from France during the War of the Spanish
Succession. L'Abbe MacGeoghegan enumerates the names of the
most distinguished: "O'Mahony, MacDonnell, Lawless, the
Lacys, the Burkes, O'Carrolls, Croftons, Comer ford, Gardiners,
and O'Connors crowned themselves with laurels on the shores of
Tagus."

A very remarkable Irishman in the service of Spain was Don
Alexander O'Reilly, "Count Commander of the Spanish Armies,
Field-Marshal, Captain-General at the Havannah; Governor and
Lieut.-General of Louisiana, which he took possession of in 1761,
when surrendered by the French. Born in Ireland 1725, died in
Paris 1794. There can scarcely be found anywhere a more ro-
mantic or exciting career than that of O'Reilly. He fought in
Spain, Italy, Germany, France and America. He saved the King's
life, was at the head of his armies and Government, was in disgrace
and exile, and everywhere and always showed high spirit, the
greatest bravery and the most devoted loyalty to the King."

It is worthy of note that the best officers in the Spanish army
during the War of Independence, bore Irish names. At this time
there were three Irish Regiments in the service of Spain : Hibernia,
Irlanda, and Ultonia. An English historian, Oman, not inclined to
be unduly favourable to Ireland, writes: — "An astounding pro-
I^jprtion of the officers who rose to some note during the war, bore
Irish names, and were hereditary soldiers of fortune, who justified
their existence by the unwavering courage which they always
showed, i|> a time when obstinate perseverance was the main
military virtue. We need only mention Blake, the two O'Donnells,
Lacy, Sarsfield, O'Neill, O'Daly, O'Mahony, O'Donoghue. Their

482 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

constant readiness to fight contrasts very well the behaviour of a
good many of the Spanish Generals. No officer of Irish blood
was ever found among the cowards."

It is related of Don Alexander O'Reilly that it was his delight
to visit a certain Irish College in Spain and tell the boys there that
the dream of his life was to head a Spanish invading force and
land in his own country to set her free. How many of the "Wild
Geese" cherished that dream? Alas I Alas 1 It was never realised.
Only as disembodied spirits was it granted to them to revisit the
land of their hearts' desire. Far, far away from Ireland their
bodies have mingled with foreign earth "and the graves in which
they are buried are unknown." But a poet (Emily Lawless) had
a vision of a company of them "Sailing home together from the
last great fight I Home to Clare from Fontenoy in the morning
light!"

And surely it was not from Fontenoy alone, but from the
thousand European battlefields on which Irish valour asserted itself
that such a "singing company" set forth, and reach the shores of
Ireland at last:

"Mary Mother shield us! Say what men are ye
Sweeping past so swiftly on this morning sea?
Without sails or rowlocks, merrily we glide,
Home to Corca Bascin on the brimming tide.

"Jesus save you gentry! Why are ye so white
Sitting all so strange and still in the misty light?
Nothing ails us brother, joyous souls are we,
Sailing home together on the morning sea." °

O'Callaghan (John Cornelius) : History of the Irish Brigades in the Service

of France.
O'Conor (Matthew) : Military History of the Irish Nation.
O'Connell (Mrs. Morgan John): The Last Colonel of the Irish Brigade.
D'Alton (John) : Illustrations, historical and genealogical of King James's

Irish Army List.
Mitchel : History of Ireland.

« It must not be forgotten that the Irish Brigade in the French service joyously
sent its quota to meet the old enemy of the race on American battlefields. The
regiments of Dillon and Walsh came with Lafayette to strike for American
liberty. And it is recorded that they demanded the right to be the first of the
French service to strike Britain on American soil.

CHAPTER LV

THE SUPPRESSION OF IRISH TRADE

The systematic ruthlessness with which Ireland's trade and in-
dustries were wiped out by England, has, like the Irish Penal
Laws, no parallel in the history of any other subject land. We
shall briefly summarise the extraordinary story.

In the early centuries of the Christian Era the lughly civilised
Celt was slightly inclined to trade and commerce — ^probably
Stimulated thereto by the Phoenicians who carried on a large com-
mercial intercourse with Ireland. The early Irish, the reader will
recollect, were famous for their excellence in the arts and crafts —
particularly for their wonderful work in metals, bronze, silver
and gold. Ten hundred hills and bogs in Ireland constantly yield
Up testimony to this — even if we discarded the testimony of his-
tory, story and poem.

By the beginning of the 14th Century, the trade of Ireland
with the Continent of Europe was important — and trading ships
were constantly sailing between Ireland and the leading ports of
the Continent. Irish merchants were known in the great Conti-
nental markets. And Irish money commanded credit.

This condition of things naturally did not suit commercial Eng-
land. So at an early period she began to stifle Irish industry and
trade.

In 1339 England appointed an admiral whose duty was to
stop traffic between Ireland and the Continent (34 Edward III, c.
17). He must have been but indifferently successful; for a little
more than a century later, Edward the Fourth deplores the pros-
perity of Ireland's trade, and he orders (in 1465) that since fish-
ing vessels from the Continent helped out the traffic with Ireland,
these vessels should not henceforth fish in Irish waters without an
English permit (5 Edwd. IV).

And since even this failed to stop the stubborn Irish, in 1494
an English law was enacted prohibiting the Irish from exporting
any industrial product, except with English permit, and through
an English port, after paying English fees.

This handicap, too, failed. For, we find English merchants

483

484 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

in 1548, unofficially taking a hand at trying to end the traffic — by
fitting out armed vessels to attack and plunder the trading ships
between Ireland and the Continent— commercialised piracy.

But official piracy had to be fallen back upon. Twenty years
after, Elizabeth ordered the seizure of the whole Continental com-
merce of Munster — much more than half of the trade of the
Island — and a fleet under Admiral Winter was despatched to do
the good work. In 1571 she ordered that no cloth or stuff made
in Ireland, should be exported even to England, except by English
men in Ireland, or by merchants approved by the Government.
(Nearly thirty years before, her much married father, Henry, had
forbidden Irish cloths to be exported from Galway.)

And Irish trade was attacked from yet another angle. At the
same time that the pirate admiral was appointed by Edward III,
Irish coinage was forbidden to be received in England. However,
Irish merchants and Irish money had such worthy repute that not
only did they still succeed with it on the Continent, but, one hun-
dred years later, Irish coinage had to be prohibited again in Eng-
land. That was in 1447.

In I477» after imprisoning some Irish merchants who traded
with Irish money in Bristol, the English Government adopted a
radical reform by introducing into Ireland an English coinage de-
based twenty-five per cent below the English standard, and com-
pelled Ireland to accept it as her legal currency.

This accomplished two good objects. English merchants
bought in Ireland by the cheap standard and sold these purchases
abroad by the dear standard. Also England was enabled to pay
her army in Ireland with cheap Irish coin. When Ireland's mer-
chants refused to honour at its face value the debased coinage
tendered by the soldiers, an Act was passed (in 1547) making
such refusal treason.

By reason of their big Continental trade the shipping industry
had in itself become an important one to Irishmen. Hence it was
advisable to extinguish it. The Navigation Act of 1637 provided
thaf'all ships must clear from English ports for foreign trade.
But as this did not sufficiently discourage Ireland, the Act was
amended, in 1663 (15 Charles II, c. 7), to prohibit the use of all
foreign-going ships, except such as were built in England, mastered
and three-fourths manned by English, and cleared from English
ports. Their return cargoes too, must be unladen in England.*

*'TTie conveniency of ports and harbours with which nature had blessed Ire-
land was of no more use than a beautiful prospect to a man shut up in a dungeon."
— Swift.

THE SUPPRESSION OF IRISH TRADE 485

Ireland*s ship-building industry was thus destroyed, and her
Continental trade was practically wiped out.

Yet, Ireland, ever persevering, began, even under such heavy
restriction, to develop a lucrative trade with the Colonies. This
was cured in 1670 by 22 Charles II, c. 26, which forbade Ireland
to export to the Colonies anything except horses, servants, and
victuals I

Then Ireland fell back upon the little profits to be derived
from imports from the Colonies. And England, observing this,
put a bush in the gap (7 & 8 Wm. II, c. 22) decreeing that no
Colonial products should be landed in Ireland — till they had first
been landed in England and paid all English rates and duties.
"Thus," says Newenham, "was Ireland deprived of the direct
lucrative trade of the whole western world."

But England must get credit for repentance. By 4 Geo. II, c.
15, Ireland was permitted to import directly from the Plantations
all goods, etc., of the growth, production or manufacture of the
said Plantations, except sugar, tobacco, indigo, cotton, wool, mo-
lasses, ginger, pitch, turpentine, tar, rice, and nine or ten other
specified items — which, stripped of its facetious verbiage, just means
that she was permitted to import West Indian rum — ^thus aiding
the planters and rum makers of the West Indies,. at the expense
of Irish farmers, distillers, and constitutions.

The foregoing will seem to many readers a good English joke.
But from constant reiteration through the centuries these Eng-
lish jokes proved rather wearing on Ireland's health.

The woollen joke was not the least trying.

At a very early period Ireland had been forbidden to export
her cattle to England, and then, turning to sheep-raising, was, by
8 Eliz. c. 8, forbidden to export sheep. She next essayed woollen
manufactures.

This quickly became a great Irish industry. In the Conti-
nental markets, and even in the British, Irish woollens were in
brisk demand. Consequently this trade should be stopped.
Though, as usual, it took a long time to convince the pig-headed
people who inhabited Ireland that it was for their benefit to stop
it. The good work was, for the good step-mother, a tedious and
^thankless task. But with praiseworthy perseverance, she persisted
■till her good end was accomplished.

The Irish woollen manufacturers began, at an early period, to
rival England's.. So, in 1571 Elizabeth imposed restriction upon
the Irish woollen trade that crippled the large Irish trade with
the Netherlands and other parts of the Continent. Yet half a

486 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

century later Lord Strafford, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,
begs for a little more discouragement. In 1634, he writes to
Charles the First, "That all wisdom advises to keep this (Irish)
kingdom as much subordinate and dependent on England as pos-
sible; and, holding them from the manufacture of wool (which
unless otherwise directed, I shall by all means discourage), and
then enforcing them to fetch their cloth from England, how can
they depart from us without nakedness and beggary?" (Straf-
ford's Letters.)

But it was not until 1660 that was taken the radical step of
forbidding by law the export of woollens from Ireland to Eng-
land. When this blow fell the Irish resorted to exportation of
their raw wool. This was stopped by 12 Charles II, c. 32, and 13
and 14 Charles II, c. 18 — ^which Acts prohibited Ireland from
exporting sheep-wool, wool-fells, mortlings, shortlings, yarn made
of wool and wool-flocks. The Acts were thorough.

In 1673, Sir William Temple (by request of Viceroy Essex)
advised that the Irish would act wisely in giving up altogether
the manufacture of wool (even for home use), because "it tended
to interfere prejudicially with the English woollen trade !"^

Now Ireland was almost completely cured of the bad habit
of exporting both woollens and wool — almost. But a trace of
the habit still lingered. While the British Colonies (possibly by
oversight) had been left open to her, she continued exporting to
them. This needed attention. So, in 1697 an act was introduced
to prohibit Ireland from sending out any of her woollen manu-
factures to any place, whatsoever I*

But it was very soon found that even this Act was incomplete.
It inadvertently left the Irish market open to the Irish wool manu-
facturers— ^which market must, of course, or ought to be the pri-
vate property of the English manufacturers. The mistake must
be remedied. So on June 9th, 1698, both English Houses of Par-
liament addressed King William beseeching him to chide his Irish
subjects for that — in the language of the Lords — "The growth
of the woollen manufactures there hath long been, and ever will

2 This is the same English statesman who pithily put the maxim which England
has always observed in protecting Ireland, and fostering Irish welfare — "Regard
must be had to those points wherein the trade of Ireland comes to interfere with
that of England, in which case Irish trade ought to be declined so as to give way
to the trade of England."

' Swift said : "Ireland is the only kingdom I ever heard or read of either
in ancient or modem story, which was denied the liberty of exporting its native
manufactures and commodities wherever it pleased."

THE SUPPRESSION OF IRISH TRADE 487

be, looked upon with great jealousy by all your subjects of this
kingdom, and if not timely remedied may occasion very strict laws
totally to prohibit and suppress same." The impending punish-
ment for continued wilfulness on the part of the naughty Irish
child was going to give the noble lords more pain than it would
the child, which was being punished for its own good.

And the Commons inlthe course of their address say, "And
therefore we cannot without trouble observe that Ireland, which
is dependent on, and protected by, England, in the enjoyment of
all they have, should of late apply itself to the woollen manufac-
ture, to the great prejudice of the trade of this kingdom . . .
make it your royal care, and enjoin all those whom you employ
in Ireland to make it their care, and to use their utmost diligence,
for discouraging the woollen manufacture of Ireland." And in
token of their solicitude for the country which was "dependent
on, and protected by England in the enjoyment of all they have,"
it was suggested that Irishmen should turn from woollens to hemp
and linen — ^which England had little means of making — and which,
more betoken, Ireland had then less means of making.

King William answered his faithful Lords and Commons, "I
shall do all that in my power lies to discourage the manufacture
of woollens in Ireland." And the king was this time as good as
his word (despite the slanders of Limerick men). In this year
of 1698 he signed an Act to the effect that because these manu-
factures are daily increasing in Ireland (disastrous to relate I),
the exports of wool and woollen manufactured articles from
Ireland are hereby forbidden under pain of forfeiture of the
goods and ships that carried them, and five hundred pounds
fine!

It is worth remembering that though the mere Irish in Ireland
were the workers, earning a subsistence at the trade, it was almost
entirely the Anglo-Irish, the purely British-blooded people of the
Island, who were the manufacturers — the only monied people in
the country — and traders. They, having had the misfortune to
be born and bred in Ireland, were penalised and striven to be
crushed out by their own kin beyond the Irish Sea. That they
richly deserved, however, to be throttled and robbed, is proven by
the fact that they, servile creatures, acting at the behest of William
and their kin beyond the water did, in September, 1698, actually
pass in their own House of Parliament (from which the real Irish
were carefully excluded) an act laying prohibitory duty (four
shillings in the pound) on their own woollen manufactures — "the

488 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

better to enable His Majesty," said they, "to provide for the safety
of his own liege people I"*

Except for a few little items such as coverlids and waddings
which were overlooked in the act of William the Third — ^but care-
fully attended to by his successors — the great Irish woollen manu-
facture was now extinguished forever. But to make assurance
doubly sure, by 5 Geo. II, c. 11, three ships of war and eight or
more armed vessels were appointed to cruise off the coast of Ire-
land with orders to seize all vessels venturing to carry woollens
from Ireland.

The Irish woollen joke was now, at last, concluded. "So
ended," says Lecky, "the fairest promise that Ireland had ever
known of becoming a prosperous and a happy country. The ruin
was absolute and final."

For a long time after this destruction of one of the country's
chief supports, the economic conditions in Ireland were fearful.
Swift, who had stated that "since Scripture says oppression makes
a wise man mad, therefore, consequently speaking, the reason that
some men in Ireland are still not mad is because they are not
wise" — Swift thus describes the pass to which the country was
now brought — "The old and sick are dying and rotting by cold
and famine, and filth and vermin. The younger labourers cannot
get work, and pine away for want of nourishment to such a de-
gree that if at any time they are accidentally hired to commence
labour, they have not the strength to perform It."

When William took from Ireland its woollen manufactures,
he promised to compensate by encouraging in its stead hemp and
linen. And his Lords Justice In their address to the Irish Houses
of Parliament, Sept. 27, 1698, after suavely requesting the coun-
try to commit felo de se by resigning the woollen manufacture,
said: "Amongst these bills there is one for the encouragement
of the linen and hemp manufactures which we recommend to you.
The settlement of those manufactures will contribute much to the
people of this country, and will be found much more advantageous
t(>wdils kingdom than the woollen manufacture, which, being the
staple trade of England, from whence all foreign markets are
supplied, can never be encouraged here for that purpose : whereas,
the linen and hempen manufactures will not only be encouraged
as consistent with the trade of England, but will render the trade
of this kingdom both useful and necessary to England."

* In this connection it is worth comparing the spinelessness of the Anglo-Irish
in 1698 with the spinefulness of their cousins in America, three quarters of a
century later.

THE SUPPRESSION OF IRISH TRADE 489

Now to see how the promises of William and his Lords Jus-
tice were kept. First, the Irish linen manufacture.

In 1705 it was enacted that only the coarsest kinds of undyed
Irish linen should be admitted to the British Colonies. Checked,
striped and dyed Irish linens were excluded. Besides, no Colonial
goods could be brought in return. And Irish linens of every kind
were forbidden to be exported to all other countries with the ex-
ception of Britain. There a thirty per cent duty met it with a
laugh, and turned it home again. And, to the British linen manu-
facturers a bounty was granted on all linen exports!

But English attention followed and sought out the Irish linen
trade even within the four seas of Ireland. When Crommelin,
the Huguenot, who had helped to build up the linen trade in Ulster,
tried to bring the manufacture into Leinster, the fiercest English
opposition blazed up.

Edmund Burke excoriated the English Government for its gross
breach of faith. And the poor, servile, Anglo-Irish Parliament in
1774, addressing the Lord Lieutenant Harwood on the subject
of the linen ruin, said, "The result is the ruin of Ulster and the
flight of the Protestant population to America." So, it was the
ruin of the linen trade by England who "protected them in the
enjoyment of all they have" which helped to give to America her
so-called Scotch-Irish population.

Next, the promised help to the hempen manufacture. Al-
though no Act came to their aid, the Irish went ahead with the
hemp as well as with the linen, and soon developed a considerable
trade in the export of sail-cloth to Britain. Then came the long
promised aid. By 23 Geo. II, c. 33, there was a heavy import duty
placed upon sail-cloth shipped to Britain. And to pursue the beast
to its lair, very soon after British manufacturers were granted a
bounty on sail-cloth exported from Britain to Ireland!

The British had given to the Irish the linen and hempen manu-
factures to play with, while they were carrying off their woollen
trade. And when the woollen was safely got away from them,
they were politely requested to hand over the linen and hempen
manufactures also.

Ireland tried its hand at manufacturing cotton. England met
this move with a twenty-five per cent duty upon Irish cotton im-
\A ported into England. And next (in the reign of Geo. I) forbade
the inhabitants of Great Britain to wear any cotton other than of
British manufacture. So the cotton comedy was ended before it
was welj begun.

From an early period, as before mentioned, the Irish had a

490 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

large trade in the export of cattle to England. This was soon
prohibited. But when England felt need for Irish cattle, they
were admitted once more. In 1665 Irish cattle were no longer
welcome, and an Act of Parliament in that year put a heavy im-
port duty on black cattle and sheep.

The resourceful Irish then began killing their cattle and ex-
porting the dead meat to England. Their equally resourceful pro-
tectors countered with a law (18 Chas. II, c. 2) declaring that
the importation of cattle, sheep, swine and beef from Ireland was
henceforth a common nuisance, and forbidden. And to leave no
little hole without a peg — they added pork and bacon for good
measure.

But the contrary Irish ferreted out a hole to get through.
They developed dairying, and began exporting butter and cheese
from Ireland. Their exasperated protectors had to go to the
trouble of amending the prohibition laws — adding butter and
cheese to the items which the Irish were invited to keep at home.

When both their live cattle, their dead cattle and all the prod-
ucts of cattle were shut out from Britain the Irish again fell back
upon curing the killed meat, and exporting it to the Continent.
They soon developed a highly profitable trade in this line. "And,"
says Newenham, "Ireland became the principal country from which
butchers' meat was exported." At the instigation of the English
contractors, then, the English Parliament began laying embargo on
the exportation of Irish provisions, on pretence of preventing the
enemies of Britain from being supplied therewith ! And the trade
in salted provisions was no more.^

In the middle of the eighteenth century Ireland, developing an
important silk weaving industry, began to disturb the dreams of
English silk weavers. So Britain, which imposed a heavy duty on
Irish silk imported into England, politely requested the Irish Par-
liament to admit British manufactured silk into Ireland free I What
is more, the despicable Anglo-Irish Parliament complied. Within
the next generation the number of silk looms at work in Ireland
was reduced from eight hundred to twenty. "And," says Newen-

" The Irish next killed their cattle and horses for their hides, and began what
soon proved to be a prosperous trade in leather — which was ift demand not only in
England, but on the Continent of Europe. And their vigilant English masters soon
came along with another prohibition bill, which put an end to that business. Be-
fore quitting the cattle drive, however, it is only fair to say that one of EIngland's
most representative commercial writers of the early eighteenth century, Davenant,
pleaded that England should permit Ireland to resume the cattle trade — because it
would hold the Irish from manufactures 1

THE SUPPRESSION OF IRISH TRADE 491

ham, "three thousand persons were thereby driven to beggary or
emigration."

Ireland attempted to develop her tobacco industry. But a law
against its growth was passed in the first year of the reign of
Charles the Second. And again, in 1831, under William the
Fourth, it was enacted that any person found in possession of Irish-
grown tobacco should suffer a heavy penalty. The tobacco trade
was tenderly shown out.

In the latter part of the eighteenth century Ireland began not
only making her own glass, but also making glass for export : and
Irish glass was gaining a name. Then by 4 Geo. II, c. 15, the Irish
were forbidden to export glass to any country whatsoever under
penalty of forfeiting ship, cargo, and ten shillings per pound weight
of cargo. And it was forbidden to import any glass other than
that of English manufacture.

Four and five centuries ago and upward, the Irish fisheries
were the second in importance in Europe. Under careful English
nursing they were, a century and a half ago, brought to the van-
ishing point. Then the independent Irish Parliament at the end
of the eighteenth century saved them. It subsidised and revived
the Irish fisheries — till they were rivalling the British. A few
years after the Union, in 1819, England withdrew the subsidy
from the Irish fisheries — at the same time confirming and aug-
menting the subsidies and grants to the British fishermen — with
the result that, notwithstanding Ireland's possession of the long-
est coastline of almost any European country, it is now possessed
of the most miserable fisheries. Where 150,000 Irish fishermen
in 27,000 Irish boats worked and thrived at the time that the
English Parliament took away the subsidy in 18 19, only 20,000
Irish people get a wretched support from Irish fisheries to-day.
The British fisheries, four centuries ago, about equalled the Irish.
The fisheries of Britain to-day are valued at £9,000,000 annually.
The fisheries of Ireland are worth £300,000. The Irish fish
were, with typical British solicitude, protected into the British net.

Here have been set down only the principal Acts and devices
for the suppression of Irish manufactures and Irish industries,
but yet sufficient to show how England protected her beloved Irish
subjects in the enjoyment of all they have — ^how Ireland pros-
pered under English Rule in a material way — and how England,
in her own step-motherly way, took each toddling Irish industry
by the hand, led its childish footsteps to the brink of the bottom-
less pit, and gave it a push — ^thus ending its troubles forever.

49* THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

And thus is explained in part why Ireland, one of the most
favoured by nature, and one of the most fertile countries in Eu-
rope,' is yet one of the poorest. And why it is that, as recent
statistics show, ninety-eight per cent of the export trade of the
three kingdoms is in the hands of Britain and in Ireland's hands
two per cent.

Even the bitter anti-Irish Froude, in his English in Ireland,
is constrained to confess, "England governed Ireland for what
she deemed her own interest, making her calculations on the gross
balance of her trade ledgers, and leaving her moral obligations
aside, as if right and wrong had been blotted out of the statute
book of the Universe."

Says Lecky, "It would be difficult in the whole range of his-
tory, to find another instance in which various and powerful agen-
cies agreed to degrade the character, and blast the prosperity of
a nation."

And here endeth what may be considered by those who know
not England's way with Ireland an amazing chapter — but quite
commonplace to those who have a bowing acquaintance with Irish
history.

• Hear the testimony, two-edged, of Carew (sixteenth century) : "Would you
had seen the countries we have seen in this our journey, and then you would say
yon had not seen the like, and think it were much pity the same were not in sub-
jection."

And again: "I never, nor no other man that ever I have commimed with, but
saith that for all things it is the goodliest land that they have seen, not only for
pleasure and pastime of a prince, but as well for profit to his Grace and to the
whole realm of England." The final clause is the kernel of the matter.

CHAPTER LM

THE VOLUNTEERS

On Lammas Eve of the year 1778, a certain harassed English
official sat him down In his room In Dublin Castle to pen a letter
to one Mr. Stewart Banks, the Sovereign of Belfast.^ The letter
cannot have been a very pleasant one to write, for It confessed
the utter bankruptcy of the system of government under which
England had held Ireland since the advent of "civil and religious
liberty," with the victory of William III. Such as it is, however,
it is an historic document —

"Dublin Castle, August 14th, 1778.
•*Sir:

"My Lord Lieutenant having received information that there is
reapon to apprehend that three or four privateers in company may in
a few days make an attempt on the northern coast of this kingdom,
by his Excellency's command I give you the earliest acx»unt thereof,
in order that there may be a careful watch, and immediate intelligence
given to the inhabitants of Belfast, in case any party from such ships
should attempt to land. The greatest part of the troops being en-
camped near Clonmel and Kinsale, his Excellency can at pr^nt send
no further military aid to Belfast than a troop or two of horse, or
part of a company of invalids, and his Excellency desires you will ac-
quaint me by express, whether a troop or two of horse can be properly
accommodated in Belfast, so long as it may be proper to continue them
in that town. Richard Heron."

The shrewd Belfast man, who received this letter from Chief
Secretary, Sir Richard Heron, was well able to read between the
lines and Interpret the panic confession of impatience it contained.
He knew-^ione . better — that all over the world the power of
England was at a very low ebb. In America her affairs were
desperate. The surrender of General Burgoyne at Saratoga in
the previous autumn (1777) had been followed in Spring by the
formal adhesion of France to the American cause.

An^nvasion of England or Ireland by the allies was on the

* This office in the smaller town corresponded to that of Mayor in the larjrer.

493

494 THE STOJiY OF THE IRISH RACE

cards — and how easy it would have been, Mr. Stewart Banks and
his fellow townsmen had special reason for knowing; for in April,
1778, John Paul Jones in his saucy "Ranger," after a foray marked
by the capture of Dublin and Wexford merchantmen, the plunder
of Kircudbright, the burning of shipping at Whitehaven, had sailed
boldly into Belfast Bay, in broad daylight, and sunk a British man-
of-war in sight of them all I Here he was back again, it seems,
with new companions "three or four privateers in company" —
and all the pauper Irish Government (which had been refused a
paltry loan of a few thousand pounds a month or two by its own
official bankers) was able to send to oppose him was "a troop or
two of horse, or part of a company of invalids."

Thus, moneyless, soldierless, amid the ruins of the industries
it had deliberately set itself to wreck, amid the starving remnants
of a people it had deliberately set itself to exterminate, the English
power in Ireland stood, a shivering and impotent thing, after a
century during which it had full scope to work its will, and to apply
unopposed its own chosen methods I

What written answer the Sovereign of Belfast sent, in the name
of his town, to the Chief Secretary's amazing document we do not
know. But the real answer of Belfast is a matter of history.

It was the institution of the first corps of volunteers. "England
sowed her laws in dragon's teeth, and they had sprung up in armed
men I"

The example of Belfast was speedily followed over the country,
and within two years the Volunteers numbered 100,000 armed and
disciplined men, officered by the greatest personages in Ireland:
Lord Charlemont, the Duke of Leinster, the Earl of Clanricarde,
Flood, Grattan, Ponsonby, and the elite of the landed aristocracy,
the professions, high finance and politics. Though Catholics were
not admitted to their ranks at first, they supported the movement
from the beginning, and to this circumstance the Volunteers them-
selves are indebted for the achievement which the after-world recog-
nises as the only lasting one to their credit — ^their paternity of the
"United Irishmen."

Government on the other hand looked askance on the Volun-
teers. But the position being described, it had no power to oppose
them openly — and was finally constrained to help to equip them by
turning over to them 16,000 stand of arms intended for the
Militia.

The threat of invasion, though apparently increased when
Spain joined America and France in 1779, did not materialise. But
as the lessons of the American War were pondered by citizen

THE VOLUNTEERS 495

soldiers on their way to the reviews, which soon became a promi-
nent feature in Irish colonial life, or discussed at the banquets which
re-united them in good fellowship afterwards, the determination
materialised in the movement to secure redress for the intolerable
evils under which the British Colonists in Ireland, in common with
the native Irish, were suffering. Of these evils none was more
keenly felt than the trade restrictions, which with their disastrous
consequences, have been discussed in a previous chapter. The
ruin of the centuries old Irish woollen trade, completed by the
third William, was followed, under the third George, by the
destruction of the linen and provision trade, which had, to some
extent, taken its place. The cries of the starving unemployed filled
the land. In Dublin alone, twenty thousand artisans were out of
work, and they and their families were only kept from dying of
hunger by the exertions of charitable institutions. In Cork things
were equally desperate. Ulster was quiet for the moment — ^but it
was the quiet of exhaustion. Her fair countrysides had been
drained of their population by landlord oppressions, and the ruin
of the linen industry — and the flower of her manhood in Wash-
ington's armies was avenging her quenched hearths and wrecked
homes.

The Volunteers therefore needed no special perspicacity to see
that the most formidable enemy even of the English Colony in
Ireland was the English trade interests, to which their advantages
were ruthlessly sacrificed.

The first invasion they set themselves to repel was that of
English manufactured goods.

Starting in Galway a "non-importation" movement spread itself
rapidly through the country. Meetings organised by the Volun-
teers, and supported by the press and scientific societies, as well as
the most influential people in the colony, high sheriffs, grand jury-
men, county magnates, and — ^more important still — the women of
fashion, adopted resolutions pledging themselves to boycott English
manufacture, and to "wear and make use of the manufactures of
this country only." Shopkeepers and merchants who imported
foreign goods, or tried to impose them on their customers as Irish
manufacture, were warned of the consequences. The Volunteers
were there to see that the boycott was duly observed.

When Parliament met in October, 1779, Grattan moved his
celebrated amendment to the Address to the Throne, demanding
Free Trade for Ireland — ^that is the right to import and export
what commodities she pleased, unrestrained by foreign le^slation.
His speech was doubtless very eloquent, as were those of Hussey,

496 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Burgh and Flood, who supported him. But it is safe to say that
the solid ranks of the placemen and "tied" borough members, who
made up the Government's permanent majority in the Irish House
of Commons, would have been as little moved by them, were it not
that, outside in College Green, bold Napper Tandy had bis artil-
lery corps mustered, all in their gallant uniforms of emerald and
scarlet, his cannon trained on the Parliament Houses and placarded
with the inscription "Free Trade or ."

To the pregnant argument of that unwritten alternative, the
prudent placemen yielded. The amended address was carried by
a huge majority, and next day it was borne to the Castle, along
streets lined by Volunteers in full war kit, and thence dispatched
to England marked "urgent."

And as "urgent" the English Prime Minister and the British
Legislature treated it. Acts were rushed through the English
Houses of Parliament in a few weeks which restored to the Irish
the trade rights of which they had been robbed. The embargo
was taken off their export of woollens and glass ; the colonial trade
was thrown open to them; trade between Ireland and the British
settlements in America and Africa was placed on an equal footing
with that between Great Britain and these settlements. Those
Acts were repealed which prohibited the carrying into Ireland of
gold and silver. "The Irish were allowed to import foreign
hops, and to receive a drawback on the duty on British hops. They
were allowed to become members of the Turkey Company, and
to carry on a direct trade between Ireland and the Levant Sea."

But the British Parliament from which Free Trade had thus
been wrung by the Volunteers — and the vivid fear of Ireland fol-
lowing the example of America — still held the Irish Parliament in
bondage. At any moment England might revoke the concessions
she had granted under duress. There still remained on the Statute
Books of the two countries the Acts which gave her this power — •
Poyning's Act, and the Sixth of George I.

Poyning's Act was a piece of suicidal legislation imposed on
th<D''Parliament of the Pale in 1495, ^7 Lord Deputy Sir Edward
Poyning, who was sent over to supersede the Earl of Kildare after
the latter had failed in two attempts to set up a rival kingdom in
Ireland. It bound the Irish Parliament to legislate only as the
British Parliament permitted it. The other provided that all the
"causes and considerations" for calling a Parliament in Ireland,
and all the Bills which were to be brought in during its Session,
must be previously certified to the King by the Chief Governor
and Council of Ireland, and affirmed by the King and his Coundl

THE VOLUNTEERS 497

under the Great Seal of England, and that any proceedings of an
Irish Parliament which had not been so certified and afErmed
before that Parliament was assembled should be null and void.

The "Sixth of George I" called also "the Declaratory Act,"
was passed in the English Houses of Parliament in 17 19, and "de-
clared that the King, with the advice of the Lords and Commons
of England hath had of right, and ought to have, full power and
authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity
to bind the people and the Kingdom of Ireland." It further took
away from the Irish House of Lords its power of appellate juris-
diction.

In April, 1780, Grattan moved in the Irish House of Commons
his "Declaration of Right." There were three resolutions con-
tained in it, and on these was ultimately built the very shaky "Inde-
pendence" with which his name is associated. They were: —

(1) That His Most Excellent Majesty by and with the consent of
the Lords and Commons of Ireland is the only power com-
petent to enact laws to bind Ireland.

(2) That the Crown of Ireland is, and ought to be, inseparably
annexed to the Crown of Great Britain.

(3) That Great Britain and Ireland are inseparably united under
one Sovereign, by the common and indissoluble ties of inter-
est, loyalty and freedom.

Though the stage had been carefully prepared, though the
Volunteers were again mustered in the streets of Dublin, though the
ladies thronged the galleries in their most bewitching gowns, and
the orators of the Opposition had prepared their most eloquent
speeches — ^it was all in vain. "Mr. Flood, who well knew that
the ministerial members were committed to negative the motion if
it came to a division, recommended that no question be put, and
no appearance of the business entered in the journals, to which
Mr. Grattan consented." It was a distinct set-back, not alone for
Grattan, and for those politicians who thought with him, but for
the Volunteers. Fortunately the latter saw the lesson to be learned
from it, so they began not only Improving and consolidating their
organisation, but giving it a national extension by including the
Catholics. Finally, feeling themselves able to speak at last for the
whole Irish nation, they determined to make their voice heard
above that of the corrupt Parliament. The expedient they adopted
for this end was that of provincial conventions. The most famous
of them was the Convention of the Ulster Volunteers, held in
Dungaruion on the 15th of February, 1782.

498 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

It was, however, when all is said and done, the progress of
events in America which ultimately won a hearing for Grattan,
when, in April, 1782, he moved an address to the King, asserting
the principles already embodied in his "Declaration of Right."
On the 19th of October, 1781, Cornwallis surrendered at York-
town, and not only the cause of American Independence, but that
which Grattan called Irish "Independence" was won that day.

The Duke of Portland wrote: — "If you delay, or refuse to
be liberal, Government cannot exist here in its present form, and
the sooner you recall your Lieutenant and renounce all claim to
this country, the better. But, on the contrary, if you can bring
your minds to concede largely and handsomely, I am persuaded that
you may make any use of this people, and of everything they are
worth, that you can wish."

Lord Rockingham and his friends took the hint. They brought
their minds to concede "largely and liberally" — ^that is to say all
that was asked. A Bill repealing the Sixth of George I was intro-
duced at once in the English Parliament and carried rapidly, and
when the Irish Parliament met in May 27th, 1782, the Lord Lieu-
♦ tenant was instructed to announce to it that the King was prepared
to give his unconditional assent "to Acts to prevent the suppressing
of Bills in the Privy Council of this Kingdom, and the alteration
of them anywhere, and to limit the duration of the Mutiny Act
to two years."

The following year, 1783, under pressure from the Volunteers
and Flood a ''Renunciation Bill" was carried through the British
Parliament. It declared that the "right claim by the people of
Ireland to be bound only by laws enacted by His Majesty and the
Parliament of that Kingdom in all cases whatever, and to have all
actions and suits at law, or in equity, which may be instituted in
the Kingdom, decided by His Majesty's courts therein finally, and
without appeal from thence, shall be and is hereby declared to
be established and ascertained for ever, and shall at no time here-
after be questioned or questionable."

How England kept that promise we shall see.

MacNevin : History of the Volunteers of 1 782.
Lecky: Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland.

" History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century.

Davis: The Patriot Parliament.
Grattan's and Flood's Memoirs.
Sir Jonah Barrington : Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation.

CHAPTER LVII

THEOBALD WOLFE TONE

"I HAVE now seen the Parliament of Ireland, the Parliament of
England, the Congress of the United States of America, the Corps
Legislatif of France and the Convention Batave; I have likewise
seen our shabby Volunteer Convention in 1783, and the General
Committee of the Catholics in 1793; so that I have seen, in the
way of deliberative bodies as many I believe as most men; and of
all those I have mentioned, beyond all comparison the most shame-
fully profligate and abandoned of all sense of virtue, principle, or
even common decency, was the legislature of my own unfortunate
country. The scoundrels I I lose my temper every time I think
of them!"

The keen-faced young man in uniform of an Adjutant General
of the French Army, whom we discover writing these angry words
in his Journal on returning to his auberge from visiting to the
Batavian Convention at the Hague in April, 1797, has every claim
to have his opinion of the "Independent" Irish Parliament accepted
as the ultimate verdict of the Irish people on that body. For he
was the first to lay his fingers on what was really wrong with it —
and to show the Irish people the way to remedy it.

This man was registered at his Dutch inn as "J. Smith, Adjutant-
General of the Army of the Sambre and the Meuse." His true
name, written in letters of undying light across the most memorable
page of Irish History, was Theobald Wolfe Tone.

The earlier days, when, though "the untameable desire — ^to
become a soldier^" which was the dominant passion of his boyhood
and young manhood, yet politics seemed the one career open to
him. Young Counsellor Tone used to spend much of his free
time (which a slender law practice left him in abundance) in the
galleries of the Irish House of Commons. There he speedily made
the "Great Discovery," which was to influence not only the whole
course of his own life, but the future direction of Irish History.
Let us hear him state that discovery in his own words: —

"That the influence of England was the radical vice of our Gov-
rrnmentf and that Ireland would never he either free^ prosperous,

499

500 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

or happy, until she was independent, and that independence was
unattainable whilst the connection with England existed."

Other people had felt long before this that the so-called "In-
dependence" which Ireland had won from England in 1782, was
not the genuine article, and that the "Independent" Irish Parlia-
ment was a libel on the name of free institutions. But until Tone
presented a true diagnosis, these others, like unskilled physicians,
went on applying remedies to the symptoms, and neglecting the
root cause of the malady which laid waste the Irish Nation in
sight of all men's eyes. And that root cause was the connection
with England. The defect of the Constitution of 1782 was inherent
in the clause that "united Great Britain and Ireland under one
Sovereign," and "annexed the crown of Ireland inseparably to the
crowii of Great Britain."

It is perhaps not to be wondered at that those who had delib-
erately chosen this constitution were unable to perceive that it was
wrong and unworkable from the start, and that its evils were
inherent in its very essence. But it was hardly in action when they
began to see that there was something the matter with it, and to
look round for a remedy. They imagined if the machinery were
improved it would function satisfactorily.

The two defects that struck everybody were : —

First, that more than three-fourths of the Irish Nation were
totally unrepresented in this "Irish" Parliament; for the Catholics,
who made up more than three millions of the four, which then con-
stituted the population of Ireland, could neither sit in It, nor vote
for a member of it.

Second, that even as the instrument of the Protestant minority
of the nation, it was hopelessly corrupt and unrepresentative. Of
its 300 members, only 64 were returned by counties. The remain-
ing 236 represented "rotten boroughs" (where there were some-
times as many as six voters, sometimes only one)^ and these
boroughs were the property of certain peers and weathy commoners
who trafficked in them most shamelessly. "The price of a seat in
Parliament," said the Belfast Reformers in one of their petitions,
"is as well ascertained as that of the cattle in the fields." ' Of the

iLecky gives an idea of the tariff: "Borough seats were commonly sold for
£2,000 a parliament; and the permanent patronage of a borough for from £8,000
to £10,000. In his examination before the Select Committee of the House of Qrni-
mons (August, 1798) Arthur O'Connor quoted as the common talk of the House
when he himself was a member: 'How much has such a one given for his seat?
From whom did he purchase? Has not such a one sold his borough? Has not
such a peer so many members in this house ? Was not such a member with lie
lord Lieutenant's Secretary to insist on some greater place or pension?'"

THEOBALD WOLFE TONE 501

total number of members more than a third were "placemen and
pensioners" in the direct pay of the English Government.

The true effect of the so-called "grant of Independence" of
1782 has been admirably summed up by Arthur O'Connor. "What
was called the emancipation of the Irish Legislature in 1782 was
nothing more than freeing a set of self-constituted individuals
from the absolute control of the British legislature, that they might
be at liberty to sell themselves to the corrupt control of the British
Ministry."

At first Grattan (who, though a brilliant orator and phrase-
maker, was no statesman) was so delighted with his new toy, that
he could not bear to have it touched or criticised. He accordingly
set himself strenuously against the continuance of the Volunteers,
who under the leadership of Flood, were pressing for the reform
of the Parliament. A great national Convention of the Volunteers
summoned to Dublin for December, 1783, was split on the Catholic
question, boycotted by Grattan, and so "nobbled" by his friend.
Lord Charlemont, that it dispersed ''re infecta*'; and it seemed
for a moment that the Volunteers, as an effective force in Irish
public life, had absolutely disappeared.

The truth was that they were eclipsed for a time, only to emerge
from a temporary obscuring in the form of the United Irishmen.

*P T» f "P ^ ^ T" *I* ^

Up in his place in the gallery of the "House" in College Green,
Theobald Wolfe Tone had at length got his own political theory
clear. "To subvert the tyranny of our execrable government to
break the connection with England, the never failing source of
all our political evils, and to assert the independence of my country,
these were my objects. To unite the whole people of Ireland, to
abolish the memory of all past dissensions, and to substitute the
common name of Irishman in place 6f the denominations of
Protestant, Catholic, and Dissenter — ^these were my means.^

Absolute freedom from England and no absurd theory of
"Sister Kingdoms united by the golden circle of the crown," of
"colonial" independence — absolute union among Irishmen, and no
cutting off of "Pales" or reserved territories — such was the solu-
tion of the "Irish Problem" which presented itself to Theobald
Wolfe Tone a hundred and thirty years ago.

Our Theobald had his theory well defined, when on a memo-
rable day he turned from the contemplation of the antics of the

2 Padraic Pearse considered the whole Gospel of Irish Nationality as contained
in these words, which he paraphrases, "I believe in an Irish Nation and that free and
indivisible."

502 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

"placemen and pensioners" on the floor of the House, to answer
an observation addressed to him by another occupant of the gallery.
Agreeably attracted by the appearance of his interlocutor (whose
name, he presently learned, was Captain Thomas Russell) he
entered into a discussion with him, and before those two left the
gallery, there was laid the foundations of a friendship which was
destined to become one of the supreme motive forces of Irish
history.

Let us look at these two as they clasp hands for the first time —
conscious that we are assisting at one of the great moments in our
country's story. Is there need to describe Tone? Have we not
felt him like a living presence in our midst all through these great,
if sorrowful, days across which we are passing? A "rapid moving
angular man with something of the eagle in nose and eyes, the face
sallow and thin under the close-cropped upstanding hair." And
Thomas Russell? Does he not live for us in the portrait painted
of him by the hand of dear Mary MacCracken, the woman who
loved him to the end, and who claimed as the sole reward of her
years of unrequited devotion the privilege of building for him the
tomb in holy Downpatrick, wherein his martyred body awaits the
Resurrection : the tall black-haired young soldier, built and modelled
like an Apollo, with the fire and pride of his dark eyes and pas-
sionate mouth softened by the sweetness of his soul — ^with his voice
as moving and melodious as that of Red Hugh himself? So we
picture them standing together, and we keep the picture in our
hearts for all time.

Tone was so taken by his new friend that he lost no time in
introducing him to "the little box of a house on the seaside at
Irishtown," where Mrs. Tone and her baby girl were that summer,
installed for the sea bathing. A charming society soon made that
"little box of a house" its rendezvous. Tom Russell frequently
brought his father and his brother, John. William Tone came for
week-ends from his cotton factory at Prosperous, and as often
as not was accompanied by his sister, Mary. They lived a
delicious, picnicky kind of life, where everybody helped with the
cooking and washing-^p, and then spent the long care-free hours
of the afternoon camped out on the seashore, in endless discussions.

What did they talk of? Of everything under the sun — and then
always they came back to the one great subject, Ireland, and how
she too might take up her position in the march of liberated nations
who, with France at their head, were advancing toward the supreme
ideals which the French people in July, 1789, had postulated as
the true basis of human society: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity."

w^:

~'^ -i^'.'^ '

THEOBALD WOLFE TONE 503

For the French Revolution was in these days in its first generous
and soul-stirring phase — ^in that pure dawn of which the poet has
told us

"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive.

But to be young was very heaven."

And all those who gathered round Matilde Tone's board at Irish-
town that summer were young — even seventy-year old Captain
Russell. Here they were

"They who had fed their childhood upon dreams."

And behold! their dreams had become true, and there had sprung
forth

"helpers to their heart's desire
And stuff at hand plastic as they could wish."

Tone has told us the enormous effect produced on the whole people
of Ireland by the French Revolution. "The French Revolution,"
he writes in his Autobiography, "became, in a little time the test of
every man's political creed, and the nation was fairly divided into
two great parties, the Aristocrats and the Democrats."

The "Ascendancy Party" — the British-blooded ones, who,
though only a small fraction of the population, held, "by right of
conquest," five-sixths of the landed property of the country, and
were in possession of all its place, power and patronage — abated the
new manifestations of popular power, which threatened their old
monopoly, and were, in their detestation of "French" principles,
brought more close even than before to England (who was pres-
ently to stand forth as the arch-enemy of these principles, and the
champion of reactionary aristocracy all over Europe). The
Catholics were divided. The bishops, like Dr. Troy, and aristo-
crats like Lord Kenmare, as well as the country people of those
parts of Ireland which had furnished, for generations, recruits for
the "Irish Brigade in France," full of horror at the stories of
Jacobin "atrocities" carefully disseminated, and full of loyalty and
sympathy for the Ancien Regime, were bitterly opposed to the
French Revolution. On the other hand, it was greeted with a warm
welcome by the new class of educated, enlightened and progressive
men among the Catholics: wealthy merchants and manufacturers
like John Keogh and John Sweetman of Dublin, or Luke Teeling
of Lisburn, and young professional men, trained in foreign uni-
versities, like Dr. MacNevin. These recognised that the doctrines
of "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" held in them the salvation

504 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

of the enslaved, debased, and outcast Catholics of Ireland. The
Dissenters of the North, republican both by tradition, and the
genius of their religion, were to a man, enthusiastic admirers of
the French Revolution from the start.

One of the truths presently discovered by the keen minds which
canvassed these things, that summer of 1790 at Irishtown, was
that England, through the instrumentality of the "Protestant As-
cendancy," had kept her hold on Ireland by the deliberate fostering
of religious differences. Ergo it followed that if Dissenters and
Catholics could be persuaded to make common cause, the "Protes-
tant Ascendancy" would not only suffer a rude shock, but the
supremacy of its "owners and inventors," the English Government,
would meet with an immediate downfall. The first task, therefore,
of anyone who wanted to free Ireland was to unite Catholics and
Dissenters.

Their similarity of views on the French Revolution was a first
step to this union — and we shall presently see how skilfully Tone
and his friend, Tom Russell, manoeuvred from it.

Other things we shall see, likewise: how England, and the
servile Irish Parliament, which was the instrument moulded to her
hand, set themselves with demoniac fury to break the union of
Irishmen, making of it a crime punishable by tortures terrible
and fearful deatL

CHAPTER LVIII

THE UNITED IRISHMEN

During the leisure of these days, Tone, who had a ready pen and
an extraordinary gift of convincing exposition, dashed off a pamphlet
addressed to the (Presbyterian) Dissenters, and entitled "An
Argument in behalf of the Catholics of Ireland," in which he dem-
onstrated that Dissenters and Catholics had "but one common
interest and one common enemy: that the depression and slavery
of Ireland was produced and perpetuated by the divisions existing
between them, and that consequently, to assert the independence
of their country and their own individual liberties, it was nicessary
to forget all former feuds to consolidate the whole strength of
the entire nation, and to form for the future but one people."

The pamphlet had an enormous and immediate success, and
though it was signed "A Northern Whig," the identity of its author
was no secret. Presently Counsellor Tone found himself quite a
personage, and he was assiduously cultivated by the two sections of
the people whom it was his object to unite. The leaders of the
advanced party among the Catholics — John Keogh, Byrne,
Braughall, Sweetman, etc., showed their appreciation of his efforts
on their behalf, not only by inviting him to all their splendid social
gatherings but, in a still more practical way, by appointing him
(at a salary counted liberal in those days) to the post of Assistant
Secretary to the Catholic Committee, left vacant by the departure
of Richard Burke, son of the great Edmund.

At the same time the Dissenters of the North were eager to
do him honour — their eagerness to meet the author of the pamphlet
being doubtlessly increased by the encomiums of his friend Captain
Russell, who had, since the close of those pleasant days at Irish-
town, been stationed at Belfast on regimental duty. The Volun-
teers of the Northern capital, "of the first or green company"
paid him the rare compliment of electing him an honorary member
of their corps (a privilege never before extended to any one except
Henry Flood) and they invited him to Belfast, in the words of the
Autobiography, "to assist in forming the first club of United Irish-

men."

The idea of the United Irishmen as a political organisation

505

5o6 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

originated with Samuel Neilson (son of a Presbyterian minister),
a prosperous woollen merchant in Belfast. Some months before
Tone first set foot in the North, he had discussed the matter very
fully with Henry Joy MacCracken and Thomas Russell, and won
over to his views other enlightened Belfast merchants like the
Simmses, MacCabe, Sinclair, MacTier, etc. Tone's services were
sought, probably at the suggestion of Russell, to organise the
Society, frame its declaration, elaborate its constitution, etc.

The first general meeting of the United Irishmen was held on
1 8th of October, 1791, and the following resolutions were proposed
and carried:

( 1 ) That the weight of English influence in the Government
of this country is so great as to require a cordial unipn among all
the people of Ireland, to maintain that balance which is essential
to the preservation of our liberties, and the extension of our
commerce.

(2) That the sole constitutional mode by which this influence
can be opposed is by a complete and radical reform of the represen-
tation of the people in Parliament.

(3) That no reform is just which does not Include Irishmen
of every religious persuasion.

There we have the original programme of the United Irish-
men— no other than the reform programme of the Volunteers,
strengthened by the frank and free adoption of the principles of
religious equality, and united action, among all sections of the
Irish people.

Shortly after its establishment in Belfast, a branch of the Society
was started by Tone in Dublin — his chief adjutant in the business
being that sturdy veteran, Napper Tandy, whose cannon had played
a great, if silent, part in the early successes of the Volunteers.

The new Society went ahead by leaps and bounds, and the
establishment in Belfast early in 1792 of the famous newspaper.
The Northern Star, under the editorship of Samuel Neilson, did
much to spread its principles. Neilson and his friends took the
greatest possible interest in the Catholic Convention, which the
Catholtc Committee, and their energetic Assistant Secretary, Tone,
were organising at the time ; and the union between Dissenters and
Catholics was demonstrated in a dramatic and startling way at
the end of the Convention. The delegates chosen to go to London
to bear to the King of England that assembly's demand for the
complete emancipation of the Catholics chose (for reasons we
can conjecture) to make the journey via Belfast, and their presence
was made the occasion of a unique demonstration. "Upon their

THE UNITED IRISHMEN 507

departure the populace took their horses from their carriages and
dragged them through the streets amid the liveliest shouts of joy
and wishes for their success."

England on the point of war with France found it prudent
to make the Irish Parliament — whose policy she absolutely con-
trolled— ^yield to the Catholic demands, at least in part, and the
Franchise of 1793 was passed/ The concessions were not made
without advertence to the fact that Catholics, having got portion
of their demands, might be detached from the Dissenters, and the
* 'Union" be broken up.

To break up that "Union" — all the weight of England's power
in Ireland was, henceforth, consistently directed. And now begins
one of the most extraordinary struggles of which history has
record. While Tone, Neilson and their friends were doing every-
thing in their power to "found a brotherhood of affection, a com-
munion of right, and a union of power among Irishmen of every
religious persuasion, and thereby to obtain a complete reform of
the legislature founded on the principles of civil, political, and
religious liberty," ^ the Clares, Beresfords, Fosters, Duignans, etc.,
were "exhausting the resources of civilisation" to keep the Irish
nation "a heap of un-cementing sand." The servile Parliament
passed "Convention Acts" and Irishmen were deprived of the right
of public meeting, and magistrates and policemen were given carte
blanche to search houses by day or night, for arms. The "Black
and Tans" of that period smashed up newspaper offices and news-
paper plants, wrecked the houses and business premises of men
suspected of "United" principles with thorough vigour and zest.
The forces of bigotry were invoked in a series of Grand Jury
resolutions, and finally, as a supreme effort, the Orange Order was
established. And while all this was being done the men'who worked
for the union of all Irishmen were persecuted in every possible
way, their properties destroyed, and they themselves clapped into
jail — as often as not a step to the foot of the gallows. Cried the
poet, as he stood by the bloody bier of young William Orr:

"Why cut off in palmy youth?
Truth he spoke and acted truth.
'Countrymen, unite,* he cried,
And died for what our Saviour died."

It became plain to the leaders of the "United Irishmen" that

^This gave Catholics the elective franchise, but not the right to sit in
Parliament.

2 Extract from a Manifesto of the United Irishmen.

5o8 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

if they wanted to effect their purpose they must do more than pass
resolutions. Accordingly, the Society, which had been started as a
purely "constitutional" organisation, after about four years of
existence was remodelled on a new basis — a military one. Govern-
ment had turned down their efforts to reform by peaceful methods,
and now they were determined to fight for their rights.

With the example of America before them, it is natural that
they turned to France for aid. It so happened that France about
the same time was thinking much of Ireland. One Jackson, an
English clergyman, exiled to France on account of his Jacobin prin-
ciples, was sent by the revolutionary authorities in Paris to England
and Ireland on a secret mission. In London he communicated his
plans to an old friend, an English attorney called Cockayne.
Cockayne immediately put the information thus obtained in the
possession of Pitt, who instructed him to accompany Jackson to
Ireland and report all his proceedings. Through the instrumen-
tality of Leonard McNally (then, and for long years afterwards,
posing as a patriot barrister, but in reality a Castle spy) , some of
the United Irishmen, especially Tone, Hamilton Rowan, and Dr.
Reynolds, were implicated with Jackson, and when the case against
the latter was complete and he was put on trial for high treason,
they had to fly the country.

Before Tone left Dublin for America, he promised his friends,
Thomas Russell and Thomas Addis Emmet (a prominent Dublin
barrister) , that he would take the earliest opportunity of Interesting
the French minister to the United States in the cause of an alliance
between France and Ireland, and, furnished if possible with a
recommendation from that official, present himself In Paris to seek
aid from the French Directory. On his way through Belfast he
made a similar engagement with his Republican friends of that
city. On a certain June day in 1795, Tone, in company with Russell,
Nellson, MacCracken, SImms and some others, climbed to the top
of MacArt's Fort on the top of Cave Hill — and there looking
down on the quiet little city, they swore "never to desist from their
efforts until they had subverted the authority of England over their
country, and asserted their independence."

A little more than half a year later, Wolfe Tone was in Paris,
in direct touch with the French Directory, and received as the
representative of the people of Ireland, on a mission for "the
separation of Ireland from England, and her establishment as an
independent Republic in alliance with France." By the following
June, matters had so far advanced that the republicans In Ireland
sent another mission to France, this time consisting of Lord Edward

THE UNITED IRISHMEN 509

Fitzgerald and Arthur O'Connor, and those negotiations were
concluded which led to the great expedition under Hoche in the
winter of 1796 — the "Bantry Bay" expedition, whose story we
shall presently relate.

During the year 1796, events had moved in Ireland with extraor-
dinary rapidity. On the one hand the Government had let loose
on the country a storm of organised terrorism, and on the other the
country, as a measure of self-protection, if nothing else — ^had gone
solidly into the ranks of the "United" men.

It was mentioned that among the sinister measures adopted by
Government to break the "Union," was the establishment of the
Orange Society. Of this association, and its works, it becomes
necessary now to speak.

The Orange Society was established in the village of Lough-
gall, Co. Armagh, on the 21st September, 1795, the evening of the
"Battle of the Diamond." ' Their "test" at that period is said to
have been "In the awful presence of Almighty God, I, A. B., do
solemnly swear that I will to the utmost of my power support the
King and the present government and I do further swear that I
will use my utmost exertions to exterminate all the Catholics of the
Kingdom of Ireland."

The extermination clause was afterwards repudiated, but,
whether the original Orange oath contained it or not, the Orange-
men themselves left no doubt that the raison d'etre of their existence
was the extermination of the Catholics of their neighbourhood.
"They would no longer permit a Catholic to exist in Co. Armagh."
They forced masters to get rid of their Catholic servants and land-
lords of their Catholic tenants. They posted up on the cabins of
the unfortunate Catholic small farmers, and cottiers and weavers,
ill-spelt notices threatening dreadful things if the inmates did not
clear out at once "to Hell or Connacht." If the persons whose
houses were thus "papered" as the phrase went, neglected the warn-
ing, large bodies of armed Orangemen, mad with drink and re-
ligious fanaticism, assembled at night, destroyed the furniture,
broke down the looms, burned the habitations and forced the
ruined families to fly elsewhere for shelter. Several Catholic
chapels were burned, and the disturbances presently extended to
Deny, Down, Antrim and Tyrone. It is estimated that in Co.

8 The "Battle of the DiaRicnd" was fought between the "Peep o' Day Boys,"
fanatical Protestants of the lower order who used to raid Catholic houses for arms
at the break of day, and the "Defenders," Catholics, who had banded themselves
together to resist these outrages. It resulted in the defeat of the "Defenders" who
left many of their number dead on the field.

5IO THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Armagh alone over 7,000 persons were thus left homeless — and
turned out in the dead of winter to die by the wayside, or find
shelter — God only knows where. Those who died were the hap-
piest. As the others wandered from place to place seeking shelter,
they were met by the magistrates and their armed followers — -and
clapped into jail as "vagrants." From the jails the pick of the
young men were press-ganged for the English Fleet I *

What did the Irish Government do to protect the defenceless
Catholics, and to punish their Orange aggressors? The atrocities,
the murders, the extermination campaign against the Catholics,
were all "according to plan," and those who carried them out
were sure of Government protection. It happened, however, that
some of the zealous "law and order" men were too zealous. Lord
Carhampton, for instance, and other magistrates who had ( "acting
with a vigour beyond the law,") been conscripting hundreds of
untried prisoners for the Fleet, had not the slightest sanction of
legality for their proceedings. What did it matter? "Let us,"
said the Irish Parliament, "make their illegalities legal." And
accordingly, that Parliament proceeded to pass the "Insurrection"
and "Indemnity" Acts. The Attorney General, in introducing the
BiUs, explained the former as designed for "preventing insurrec-
tions, tumults and riots in this kingdom,"** and the latter for "indem-
nifying magistrates, and others, who in their exertions for the
preservation of the public tranquillity, might have acted against
the forms and rules of law." But Grattan's famous conmientary
on them explained far more clearly their true inwardness. "A bill
of indemnity went to secure the offending magistrates against the
consequences of their outrages and illegalities; that is to say, in
our humble opinion, the poor were stricken out of the protection
of law, and the rich out of its penalties, and then another bill was
passed to give such lawless proceedings against his Majesty's sub-
jects continuation, namely, a bill to enable magistrates to perpetrate
by law those offences which they had before committed against it ; a
bill to legalise outrage, to barbarise law, and to give the law itself
the caste and colour of outrage. By such a bill the magistrates
were enabled, without legal process, to send on board a tender, his

* If the atrocities of the Orangemen had stopped at house-wrecking they would
have been bad enough. But there were still worse crimes to their account — and
some of these had been collected in a famous pamphlet, praised by Presbyterian
Jamie Hope "as containing more truth than anything ever written of the events
that led up to the Rising of '98."

6 This Act gave magistrates the most unlimited powers to arrest and imprison
pud search houses for arms.

THE UNITED IRISHMEN

Majesty's subjects, and the country was divided into two classes —
his Majesty's magistrates and his Majesty's subjects; the former
without restraint, and the latter without privilege."

Thus deprived of the protection of the laws, the people were
more rapidly driven into the ranks of the "United Irishmen";
and by the end of 1796 the organisation had a membership of half-
a-million, and included men of all classes of the nation: Lord
Edward Fitzgerald (son of the Duke of Leinster), Arthur
O'Connor (nephew of Lord Longueville), Thomas Addis Emmet
the successful barrister, Dr. MacNevin the clever physician, John
Sweetman the wealthy brewer, and innumerable Catholic priests
and Presbyterian clergymen joined the Society in the year. Pres-
ently it was reckoned that 100,000 men were drilling secretly —
ready to take the field when the French should land.

In order to break up the organisation, Government, in 1796,
arrested the best known of the leaders, Samuel Neilson, Thomas
Russell, Henry Joy MacCracken, William MacCracken, etc., in
Belfast; young Charles Teeling in Lisburn, and numerous others
in Dublin. But for every man arrested, ten men sprang forward
to fill his place, and when the message came that the French, with
Tone on board "were on the sea," there was the proud feeling that
the "United Irishmen" were ready to give a good account of
themselves.*

« THE SHAN VAN VOCHT
(A Street Ballad of '98)

Ohl the French are on the sea,
Says the Shan Van Vocht;

The French are on the sea,
Says the Shan Van Vocfat;

Oh 1 the French are in the Bay,

They'll be here without delay.

And the Orange will decay
Says the Shan Van Vodit.

And where will they have their camp?

Says the Shan Van Vocht;
Where will they have their camp?

Says the Shan Van Vocht;
On the Curragh of Kildare
The boys they will be there
With their pikes in good repair

Says the Shan Van VodiL

Then what will the yeomen do?

Says the Shan Van Vocht;
What will the yeomen do?

Says the Shan Van Vocht;

What should the yeomen do.
But throw off the red and blue,
And swear that they'll be true
To the Shan Van Vocht?

And what colour will they wear?

Says the Shan Van Vocht;
What colour will they wear?

Says the Shan Van Vodit;
What colour should be seen
Where our fathers' homes have been,
But our own immortal Green?

Says the Shan Van Vocht

And will Ireland then be free?

Says the Shan Van Vocht;
Will Ireland then be free?

Says the Shan Van Vocht;
Yes! Ireland shall be free.
From the centre to the sea;
Then hurrah for Liberty!

Says the Shan Van Vocht

512 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

When the news of the arrest of his "dear friends, Russell a
Samuel Neilson," reached Tone, he was on his way to Brest
join General Hoche and the great expedition then preparing 1
the invasion of Ireland. A fortnight later, he was giving messaj
for Oliver Bond, Richard MacCormack, etc., to MacSheel
before the latter embarked in a "safe American" vessel to tell t
republicans in Ireland what was forward at Brest.

There is no more dramatic or moving narration in all histo
than that set forth in Tone's "Journals" dealing with the Hoc
expedition. Those vivid pages make us actually live through
the events they commemorate. We share his exasperation at t
unaccountable delays, his exultation when he saw his cherish
dreams at length realised, and on board the "Indomptable" he i
sail for the land of his heart's desire. The expedition consist
of forty-three sail under Admiral Morand de Galles and Bouv
with an army of fifteen thousand men under General Hoche, o
of the greatest generals in Europe, and General Grouchy. It h
on board abundance of stores and artillery, and arms for 45,0
men.

But treachery seems to have been at work from the start, a
if Tone knew some of the things we know now, much that puzzl
him might have been explained to him. Since French ministers a
French generals were tempted by English gold and fell,^ can ^
assume that the virtue of French Admirals was altogether tempi
tion proof. A few very suspicious facts are to be recorded. T
English fleet (though the English Government through its spi
was quite as well informed of the incidents of the expedition as t
promoters themselves) never once showed up to bar its passaj
Was it because it was understood that there was no need? A m]
terious message, the source of which never was traced (but t
purport of which was obvious), reached the Irish leaders short
after MacSheehy's arrival, stating that the expedition was po
poned. The French fleet had only been a day at sea when t
frigate, the "Fraternite," having General Hoche on board, as w
as Admiral Morand de Galles, got separated from its companio
— and by some very curious fatality never reached the Irish cos

"> Barthdlemy, the French minister in Switzerland, with whom, in the summer
1796, Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Arthur O'Connor conducted the negotiatic
which led to the expedition, was a paid a^ent of Pitt. Many of the French Gener
like Pichegru were also in the pay of England. When Doctor MacNevin went
Hamburg as aa envoy of the United Men all his proceedings were carefully retai!
to the English Government and the Memoir he wrote for the French Directc
passed straight into the hands of Pitt who submitted it to the Irish Executive.

THE UNITED IRISHMEN 513

at all — but rejoined its companions, safe and sound, when the
remnants of the expedition returned to Brest in January.* At day-
break on the 2 1st December, Tone was looking once more with
emotions one may not describe on the "fair hills of holy Ireland."
At eight in the morning of the 22nd his ship was at the mouth of
Bantry Bay. "I am now so near the shore," he writes later that
day, "that I can see distinctly two old castles, yet I am utterly
uncertain whether I shall ever set foot on it." The following day,
so desperate was he, that he proposed to head a landing himself
and asked General Cherin to give him "the Legion de France," a
company of the artillerie legere and as many officers as desired to
come as Volunteers in the expedition, with what arms and stores
remained, and to land them in Sligo Bay. The proposal appealed
to the gallantry of the French officers — and on Christmas eve
Grouchy determined to land with the force he had.

What a strange Christmas that must have been for Tone — so
near the land "that he could in a manner touch the sides of Bantry
Bay with his right and left hand," yet conscious how doubtful it
was that he should ever tread again the sacred soil of Ireland.
What thoughts were his, when, wakened by the wind at two o'clock
on Christmas morning, he paced the galley in his great coat "de-
voured by the most gloomy reflections."

That night, at "half after six, in a heavy gale of wind," orders
came to the "Indomptable" from Admiral Bouvet "to cut her
cable and put to sea instantly." "Our first idea," writes Tone,
"was that it might be an English frigate lurking in the bottom
of the bay, which took advantage of the storm and darkness of
the night to make her escape, and wished to separate our squadron
by this stratagem; for it seemed incredible that an Admiral should
cut and run in this manner without any previous signal of any kind
to warn the fleet, and that the first notice we should have of its
intention should be his hailing us in this extraordinary manner with
such unexpected and peremptory orders."

The brave Captain Bedout and officers on board the "In-
domptable" refused at first to accept the orders as genuine, and on
the 27th December, a council of war was held, at which a plan of
Tone's for a landing at the mouth of the Shannon was carefully

8 "I believe," writes Tone, "it is the first instance of an Admiral in a clean
frigate, with moderate weather, and moonlight night, parting company with his
fleet" But he does not seem to have allowed himself to entertain the suspicion we
cannot avoid, viz., that General Hoche was the victim of a trick. Tone blamed him,
however, for not embarking on the flagship with his staff.

514 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

discussed. But a frightful storm that arose the same night made
any further effort impossible and on the morning of the 29th the
Commander made the signal to steer for France.

The Bantry Bay expedition was ended. "England had not
had such an escape since the Spanish Armada."

Wolfe Tone's Autobiography.

Barrington: Personal Sketches.

MacNevin: Pieces of Irish History.

Lecky: History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century.

CHAPTER LIX

THE RISING OF 1 798

After the failure of the "Bantry Bay Expedition" there were
many who thought the United Irishmen ought to take the field
themselves without waiting for foreign aid — and during the course
of 1797 this opinion gained ground, especially in the North. But
the Dublin men, Thomas Addis Emmet, John Keogh, William
Murphy, were opposed to it — and their views prevailed when it
was learned that through the efforts of the indomitable Tone, a new
expedition was being fitted out. This time it was the Dutch, who
claimed for themselves the role of chief helper in the drama of Ire-
land's deliverance.

In the meantime Government was making a desperate attempt
to break up the United Irishmen, or, failing that, to goad the
people into a premature and unsupported rising. In March, Gen-
eral Lake was sent to Ulster to disarm it. The Lord Lieutenant,
Camden, in a letter of instructions, gave Lake to understand that he
was not to be too squeamish about the means he used, "if the
urgency of the case demanded a conduct beyond that which could
be sanctioned by the law, the General was not to suffer the cause of
justice to be frustrated by the delicacy which might possibly actuate
the magistracy."

The hint not to spare "frightfulness" was not lost on General
Lake and the "Yeos," * and "Ancient Britons" and "Essex Fenci-
bles" who formed his army. The burning of peaceful homes, the
slaughter of old men, women and children, the torturing of pris-
oners (picketing and half-hanging were familiar forms), the most
shocking outrages on women, this was what General Lake and
his heroes interpreted as comprehended in the "conduct beyond
that sanctioned by the law," which Viceregal recommendations
favoured. Lecky found in the Government archives a letter from
one John Giffard, an officer in the Dublin militia, to Under-Secre-

^The "Yeos" were Orangemen and other British Colonists armed by Govern-
ment.

515

-5 1 6 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

tary Cooke, describing what happened in one of the raids for arms.
As his damaging testimony cannot under the circumstances be
doubted I select it in preference to other evidence — even that of
Lord Moira in the English House of Lords — to show what was
done during the disarming of Ulster in the summer of 1797. The
scene is laid near Newry where the "Ancient Britons" had their
Headquarters. Giffard tells how the "Britons burned a great
number of houses, and the object of emulation between them and
the Orange Yeomen seems to be who shall do most mischief." He
describes an expedition to the mountains in search of arms. His
party returned to the main body of the Ancient Britons, "to
which," he says, "I was directed by the smoke and flames of burn-
ing houses, and by the dead bodies of boys and old men slain by
the Britons, though no opposition whatever had been given them,
and, as I shall answer to Almighty God, I believe a single gun was
not fired, but by the Britons or Yeomanry. I declare there was
nothing to fire at, old men, women, and children excepted. Six-
teen prisoners were taken and marched to Newry where their cap-
tors were asked why they made any prisoners at all, meaning that
we should have finished them. . . . Two of the Britons desirous
to enter a gentleman's house, the yard gate was opened to them by
a lad, whom for his civility they shot and cut in pieces."

The perfect discipline of the "United Men" kept the people
quiet, and this efifect was the more readily obtained, as it was felt
their time would come speedily. The Dutch were fitting out a great
expedition at the Texel.

It is a sad story, that of the new disappointment caused by the
failure of the Dutch expedition to materialise. In May and June
a great mutiny broke out in the English fleet, the Mutiny of the
Nore. If the Dutch had been ready then — ^with the United Irish-
men in the full perfection of their organisation to co-operate with
them after a landing — the cause of Irish liberty would have been
surely won. Unfortunately the chance was missed, and the defeat
of the Dutch fleet by the English at Camperdown, on the nth
October, put a definite end to the hopes connected with It.

A few weeks previously a blow even heavier fell on the Irish
cause — the death of General Hoche.

The disappointments and the sufferings of the tragic year had a
bad effect on many of the United Irishmen of the North, who, by
this time, were convinced that the cause was doomed to failure,
and that it was the part of wise men to save themselves, and
what they could, from the impending catastrophe. Accordingly,

THE RISING OF 1798 517

we find some of them, to their eternal disgrace, selling themselves
as spies and informers to the Government.* The most noted of
these traitors was one Samuel Turner, of Newry, who had fled to
Hamburg in June, 1797. Here he was in touch with Madame
Matthiessen, a cousin of Lady Edward Fitzgerald (Pamela),
through whom the communications of the United Irishmen with
the French minister at Hamburg, Reinhardt, were conducted. As a
consequence all the plans of the republicans in Ireland and the
efforts of their envoys Levins and MacNevin at Hamburg, were
at once communicated to the English Government. In Ireland, too,
the "battalion of testimony" was numerous and unsuspected. There
was the unspeakable Leonard MacNally, who acted in public the
part of a patriot barrister, shared with Curran the task of defending
the United Irishmen at the trials — and put the knowledge he thus
gained at the service of the Government, whose secret pensioner
he had been for years. There was MacGuckin, the legal adviser of
the Northern leaders, who acted the same part towards his un-
fortunate clients. There was Reynolds, a sworn "United man,"
the friend of Lord Edward, there was Magan, the immaculate
Catholic barrister — the horrible list is too long to finish!

In consequence of information thus received the English Gov-
ernment, early in 1798, arrested Arthur O'Connor and ^Father
Quigley, on their way to France to make a new effort to secure
French aid. O'Connor they kept in prison or Internment until
1 801, but Fr. Quigley they hanged. On the 12th March 1798,
acting on information supplied by Reynolds, the Irish Government
swooped upon a meeting of the Leinster Directory at the house of

2 As it has been a fashion with English and pro-English people falsely to taunt
the Irish that informers could always be procured in any of their movements, it is
worth while adducing a bit of valuable testimony to the contrast between Irish
staunchness and British, in the "United" movement Gamble, an eminently just-
minded man, and an able writer, of British stock, residing in Strabane in the early
part of the eighteenth century, knowing intimately both his own stock and tiie Irish,
and evidently well versed in the local United Irish chronicles, gives in his "Tour in
Ireland" (published in 1825) striking testimony on the matter. On page 271 of
his book he says: "On these occasions the Protestant was almost always the in-
former. The fidelity of the Catholic could rarely be shaken." And on page 272:
"The Government therefore was probably benefited, rather than injured by the
share the Protestant had in the rebellion — hanging, as he often did, a dead-weight
about the neck of his Catholic associate, restraining his efforts and discovering his
plans. * * * Events of that day (at least as far as present generations are
concerned) have placed an everlasting bar between the two — ^the one has no wish to
be trusted ; but if he had, no inducement, I daresay, would prevail on the other to
trust him." However, the latest Irish movement, in which more than a hundred
thousand people have conspired, struggled, fought, without a single individual being
purchasable by all the gold of Eiigland, is the most striking proof of Irish fidelity. —
S. M. M.

5i8 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Oliver Bond, arrested all those present, and seized their papers,
which put them in possession of all their plans. The same day the
authorities arrested Thomas Addis Emmet, John Sweetman, Dr.
Nevin, Oliver Bond, and issued warrants against Lord Edward
Fitzgerald, Richard MacCormack and Sampson — who immediately
went "on the Tun." The two latter escaped to the continent, but
nothing would induce Lord Edward to leave Ireland, though strong
hints were given to his family (by Lord Clare himself) that the
ports were open to him. He knew that the country would rise
now, and he was determined that the Commander-in-Chief should
not be proclaimed a deserter.

The vacant places in the Directory were filled by Henry and
John Sheares, two successful barristers, and Lord Edward, assisted
by his sturdy lieutenant, Sam Neilson, was very active in superin-
tending operations. A new promise came from the French that
they would send an expeditionary force in May.

On the 30th March, Martial Law was proclaimed all through
the country. The most frightful atrocities were committed by the
troops under its shelter, for the purpose avowed by Lord Castle-
reagh himself "to cause a premature rebellion." To the "fright-
fulness" associated with General Lake's conduct in Ulster in 1797,
new terrors were added by the policy of "free quarters." A savage
and undisciplined soldiery, mad with lust and drink, were let
loose in the pure homes of the countryside, and the land was filled
with the cries of ravished women, the shrieks of the victims of
pitch cap and triangle, the lamentations of those who saw their
homes go up in flames. So dreadful was the conduct of the troops,
that their Commander-in-Chief, Sir Ralph Abercrombie, unable to
stomach them any longer, resigned. He had previously declared
the "army was in a state of licentiousness, which must render it
formidable to everyone but the enemy." "Within these twelve
months," he writes, on another occasion, "every crime, every cruelty
that could be committed by Cossacks and Calmucks has been trans-
acted here."

Whether the French came or not the people could hold out
no longer. The insurrection was fixed for the 23rd May, and the
signal was to be the stopping of the mail coaches from Dublin.

Four days before the appointed date Lord Edward was taken
at Murphy's house in Thomas Street, on information supplied by
Magan; and the following day, while he lay in Newgate prison,
wounded to death, the two Sheares were betrayed by Captain
Armstrong.

On the day of Lord Edward's death. Napoleon definitely

THE RISING OF 1798

519

abandoned the Irish cause, and set out on his Egyptian campaign."
The insurrection, long delayed in the hope of the promised
aid from France, now broke out under the worst possible condi-
tions for success. Left without leaders, is it astonishing that it
should have been confined to only a portion of the country, and
that the efforts of the counties that "rose" were speedily sup-
pressed? The astonishing thing is to find what these poorly-armed,
leaderless people could do when they had capable officers. Be-
tween 24th and 27th May there were engagements with the military
at Naas, Clane, Prosperous, KilcuUen and Monasterevin in Kildare,
at Dunboyne and Tara in Meath, at Baltinglass in Wicklow, at
Lucan, Rathfarnham, and Tallaght in Dublin. Though the only
definite success on the insurgents' side was at Prosperous, where
they were capably led by Lieutenant Esmond, they gave such a good
account of themselves that Government was very glad to make
terms. How these "terms" were kept will be long remembered.
Around Gibbet Rath on the Curragh of Kildare, where the assem-
bled insurgents surrendered their arms, having previously obtained
a promise of "pardon and liberty," they were set upon by Lord
Roden, and his mounted "fencibles" and butchered in cold blood I
In the meantime Wexford had "risen," goaded to the step by

»In St Helena Napoleon expressed bitter regret for this act. He intimated
that if he had chosen Ireland instead of Egypt, the current of history could have
been radically changed.

For Lord Edward's death— and the blow it was to Ireland— Ethna Carbery
sings the lament of Mairin-Ni-Cullinan : —

MAIRIN-NI-CULLINAN

(Ireland's Lament for Lord Edward)

Underneath the shrouding stone,
Where you lie in Death alone,

Can you hear me calling, calling.
In a wild hot gush of woe?

Tis for you my tears are falling —
For you, mo Chraoibhin Cnol

When you stood up in the Green
As beseemed the Geraldine,

Slender sword a-glancing, glancing,
Over you the tender skies,

How the warrior- joy kept dancing.
In your brave bright eyes.

"'StSr/' I said, "A stSr ma chroidhe,
Hope of Mine and Hope of Me,

Take our honour to your keeping,
Bare your swift blade to the Dawn.

Freedom's voice hath roused from

sleeiMng
airin-ni-CuTl

Mairin

linan.'

So I dr«imt the Day had come.
Now your ardent lips are dumb.

And the sword is rusty, rusty.
Through a hundred weary years;

All the Mrinds are blowing gusty
With a storm of tears.

"'StSr/* I cry, above your bed,
Where I kneel uncomforted —

"Feel you not the battle-anger
Shake the Nations of the World?

While amid the stress and clangour.
Still my Flag is furled.

"Were you here, O Geraldine,
This oblivion had not been."

Thus I mourn vou pining, pining.
For the gallant heart long gone.

Whose love was as a true star shin-
ing
To Mairin-ni-Cullinan.

520 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

the atrocities of the Yeos and British troops these let loose. The
story of Father John Murphy might stand for the story of Wex-
ford: its efforts for peace, its disinclination to resort to the arbi-
tration of the sword as long as any other choice was left it — and
then its sturdy courage, the extraordinary military ability shown
by its improvised leaders : priests like Father John Murphy himself
or his namesake, Father Michael, Father Philip Roche, and Father
Doyle, young farmers like Edmund Kyan or Myles Byrne. It is
in the vivid narrative of the latter that we must follow the events
of the Wexford campaign — from that Whit Saturday when Father
John Murphy "seeing his chapel and his home, like many others
of the parish on fire, and in several of them the inhabitants con-
sumed in the flames . . . betook himself to the next wood,
where he was soon surrounded by the unfortunate people who had
escaped, all came beseeching his Reverence to tell them what was
to become of them and their poor families. He answered
them abruptly that they had better die courageously in the field
than be butchered in their houses ; that for his own part, if he had
any brave men to join him, he was resolved to sell his life dearly,
and prove to those cruel monsters that they should not continue
their murders and devastations with impunity. All answered and
cried out that they were determined to follow his advice, and to do
whatever he ordered. 'Well, then,' he replied, 'we must, when night
comes, get armed the best way we can, with pitchforks and other
weapons, and attack the Camolin Yeomen cavalry on their way
back to Mountmorris, where they will return to pass the night
after satisfying their savage rage on the defenceless country
people.' "

Father John's plans succeeded — and by the arms taken in the
ambush of the Camolin Yeomen that night, and at Camolin Park
the next day, his men reinforced their pitchforks with more effective
weapons. The following day, Whit Sunday, he won a great victory
with his Pikemen on Oulart Hill and followed it with the capture
in quick succession of Camolin, Ferns, Enniscorthy, and Wexford.
In a few days that whole southeastern country was in the hands
of the insurgents except Duncannon Fort and New Ross.

They had three encampments, one at Three Rocks, one seven
miles west of Gorey, and one at Vinegar Hill, just outside Ennis-
corthy. An attempt was made on New Ross on the 5th June but
it failed after desperate fighting and severe losses on both sides.
A few days later Gorey and Carnew were captured and the way
to Arklow lay open. This town was assaulted on the 9th June,
but by this time strong reinforcements had been sent to the military

THE RISING OF 1798

521

from Dublin. The battle lasted from four in the morning until
late at night, but the death of Father Michael Murphy, ch?rging
bravely at the head of his column, turned what was on the point of
being a success into a defeat.

Government made a huge effort to stamp out the flames, and
General Lake, who had succeeded Abercrombie as Commander-in-
Chief, took the field in person. On June 21st the insurgents were
attacked by overwhelming forces and defeated at their last strong-
hold in Vinegar Hill.

Even Castlereagh was roused to unwilling admiration of the
martial qualities and achievements of the "boys of Wexford."
"He could never have believed," he said, "that untrained peasants
could have fought so well." Compared with their exploits the
Ulstermen, who had been the "backbone" of the United Irish
movement, and its most ardent advocates, made a poor showing.
It was not until the 7th of June that Ulster made any move. The
explanation is that the Ulster leader, Sinmis, got cowardly and
shirked his post. The Rev. Mr. Dickson, who was appointed to
take his place*, was arrested, and only that the gallant Henry Joy
McCracken rose from a bed of illness to step into the gap, Ulster's
disgrace would have been complete. Under McCracken an attack
was made on Antrim town on 7th June, which was retained by the
military after a desperate struggle. A few days later McCracken
was taken prisoner, and after a summary trial, was executed in
Belfast. He, for one, had faithfully kept the oath made on the
bright June day three years earlier when he had stood with Tone
on Cave Hill — and swore to sacrifice everything even life itself
for Ireland's liberty.

The only other important engagements in Ulster were at Saint-
field and Newtownards, where the insurgents were successful, and
at Ballinahinch where Monroe and his United Men were defeated
by General Nugent.

News of those events came in due time to Tone in France, and
made him frantic with anxiety and impatience to be with his com-
rades in Ireland, sharing their desperate fortunes. The last entry
in his Journal, written on the 20th June — his thirty-fifth birthday,
and the eve of the Battle of Vinegar Hill — shows him straining
every nerve to get the dilatory French authorities to hurry forward
the promised aid while the Irish were still in the field. General
Grouchy (who had never forgiven himself for not throwing Bouvet
overboard in Bantry Bay when the latter, opposing the landing,
lost the greatest chance France ever knew) did all he could to
second him; but General Kilmaine was more inclined to take the

522 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Minister of Marine's point of view and defer the expedition until
it could be carried out on "the grand scale," and at a more favour-
able opportunity. Tone pointed out that it was now or never. An
expedition on a "grand scale" was all very well, but "5,000 men
that could be sent were better than 50,000 that could not." The
time to assist the Irish was when they were still fighting; "in three
months it might be too late, and the forces then sent, if the Irish
were overpowered in the meantime, find themselves unsupported,
and in their turn, be overpowered by the English !"

By the beginning of July these arguments had their way with the

the Directory. Tone was called to Paris to consult with the

Ministers of War and Marine in the organisation of a new expe-

• dition. Tone's son explains clearly which were the proposals now

accepted.

The plan adopted was to dispatch small detachments from
several ports, in the hope of keeping up the insurrection, until an
opportunity should be found for landing the main body under
General Kilmaine. General Humbert, with about 1,000 men, was
quartered for this purpose at La Rochelle, General Hardy with
3,000 at Brest, and Kilmaine with 9,000 remained in reserve.

But the preparations were very slow, owing to the poverty of
the French Government; and Humbert, a gallant soldier of fortune,
whose heart was better than his head, fired by the recitals of the
Irish refugees (who came to France in large numbers with awful
tales of Irish suffering) , and urged on by the impetuous old Napper
Tandy, determined to act on his own responsibility. Towards the
end of August he requisitioned money and stores from the mer-
chants and magistrates of La Rochelle, and "embarking on board
a few frigates and transports, with 1,000 men, 1,000 spare mus-
kets, 1,000 guineas, and a few pieces of artillery, he compelled the
Captains to set sail for the most desperate attempt which is perhaps,
recorded in history." Three Irishmen accompanied him : Matthew
Tone, a brother of Theobald, Bartholomew Teeling, and Sullivan.
The little expedition landed at Killala on 22nd August. That town,
as well as Ballina, was taken without difficulty, and on the 27th
of the month the French inflicted a great defeat on the "Red
Coats" of General Lake at Castlebar. So swiftly did the English
soldiers run from the desperate charge of the French and their
Irish allies that the battle is known to this day as "the Races of
Castlebar."

In the meantime Cornwallis had landed in Ireland with im-
mense reinforcements. Hastening to Lake's aid, he met Humbert
at Ballinamuck (8th September), overpowered him by the mere

THE RISING OF 1798 523

force of numbers and compelled his surrender. The French
soldiers taken were treated as prisoners of war. Their Irish
auxiliaries were slaughtered. Matthew Tone and Bartly Teeling
were courtmartialed and hanged.

The Directory were naturally thrown into the greatest per-
plexity by the news of Humbert's proceedings. They determined
to hurry up the dispatch of the force under General Hardy. "But
such was the state of the French navy and arsenals that it was
not until the 20th September that this small expedition, consisting
of one sail of the line, and eight frigates under Commodore
Bompard and 3,000 men under General Hardy were ready for
sailing. Four Irishmen accompanied the expedition : Wolfe Tone,
Corbett, Maguire, and Hamilton.

Tone had absolutely no delusions as to the expedition's chances
of success. But he had said that if the French Government sent
only a corporal's guard he would go with them. Such was the
wretched indiscretion of the Government, that, before his depar-
ture, he read in a Paris newspaper, the Bien Informe, a detailed
account of the whole armament, where his own name was mentioned
in full letters, with the circumstance of his being embarked on board
the Hoche.

The flotilla, which had taken a wide sweep to avoid the English
fleet, met with contrary winds and was scattered. After twenty
days' cruise the Hoche, with two frigates, the Loire and the
Resolue, and one schooner, the Biche, arrived off Loch Swilly.
An English squadron under Sir John Borlace Warren, consisting
of six sail of the line, one Razee of sixty guns, and two frigates,
instantly bore down on them. The Hoche, a large and heavy man-
of-war, had no chance of escape, so Bompard signalled the two
frigates and schooner to make off through the shallow water and
he, himself alone "to honour the flag of his country by a desperate
defence." At that moment a boat came from the Biche for his
last orders. That ship had the best chance to get off. The French
ofiicers all supplicated Tone to embark on board of her. "Our
contest is hopeless," they observed, "we will be prisoners of war,
but what of you?" "Shall it be said," replied he, "that I fled
while the French were fighting the battle of my country?"

And so, through the long hours of that desperate engagement
wherein the Hoche stood up alone to the guns of five heavy British
ships, he commanded one of the batteries, fighting with a courage
which even these brave Frenchmen had never seen equalled.

"During six hours the Hoche sustained the fire of a whole fleet,
till her masts and rigging were swept away, her scuppers flowed

524 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

with blood, her wounded filled the cock-pit, her scattered ribs
yawned at each new stroke and let in five feet of water in the hold,
her rudder was carried off, and she floated a dismantled wreck
on the waters; her sails and cordage hung in shreds, nor could
she reply with a single gun from her dismounted batteries to the
unabating cannonade of the enemy. At length she struck," and
her personnel surrendered.

At first, Tone, who had become in language and appearance a
regular Frenchman, was not recognised among the French officers.
His discovery was the act of a college friend of the old days in
Trinity, one Sir George Hill. Narrowly scanning the features of
the French officers who sat at breakfast at Letterkenny with the
Earl of Cavan, he stopped before one and said, "Mr. Tone, I am
very happy to see you." Cool as ever. Tone rose from his seat
with a courteous: "Sir George, I am happy to see you, how are
Lady Hill and your family?" A moment later he was being put
in irons by military in the next room. The indignity roused him to
a momentary outburst. Flinging off his uniform, he cried, "These
fetters shall never degrade the revered insignia of the free nation
which I have served." Then a new thought struck him — and he
stretched forth his limbs proudly for their chains : "For the cause
which I have embraced, I feel prouder to wear these chains than
if I were decorated with the star and garter of England."

For the credit of human nature one would fain believe that
even the Earl of Cavan and Sir George Hill and their followers
would have been shamed into admiration at his generous and noble
act. Alas I no indignity was spared him — and he was compelled
to make the big journey from Letterkenny to Dublin, on horseback,
with his legs pinioned beneath the horse's belly and his arms
manacled! On reaching Dublin he was thrown to the tender
mercies of Major Sandys In the Provost's prison — whence he was
only taken for his court-martial on the loth November.

He made a gallant figure as he stood before his judges in the
uniform of a French Colonel, making his last profession of faith
in the principles to which he had devoted all that was his to give.
"From my earliest youth I have regarded the connection between
Ireland and Great Britain as the curse of the Irish nation, and felt
convinced, that while It lasted, this country would never be free
or happy. In consequence, I determined to apply all the powers
which my individual efforts could move, in order to separate the
two countries. That Ireland was not able, of herself, to throw off
the yoke, I knew. I therefore sought for aid wherever it was to
be found. . . . Under the flag of the French Republic I origi-

THE RISING OF 1798 525

nally engaged with a view to save and liberate my own country.
For that purpose I have encountered the chances of war amongst
strangers: for that purpose I have repeatedly braved the terrors
of the ocean, covered as I knew it to be with the triumphant fleets
of that Power which it was my glory and my duty to oppose. I
have sacrificed all my views in life; I have courted poverty; I
have left a beloved wife unprotected, and children whom I adored,
fatherless. After such sacrifices, in a cause which I have always
considered as the cause of justice and freedom — ^it is no great
effort at this day to add the sacrifice of my life I"

How that final sacrifice was made all the world knows. He
had made but one request of his foes, that in deference to the
uniform he wore he should be adjudged the death of a soldier.
Even this poor favour was denied him. He was condemned to die
;the death of "a traitor" within forty-eight hours of the promulga-
tion of his sentence. To save himself from that crowning indignity,
while in the winter night the soldiers were erecting the gallows for
him before his window, he inflicted a deep wound across his own
throat with a penknife he had managed to secrete. Of this wound
he died in great agony a week later — 19th November, 1798.

They buried him at dead of night in the old cemetery at
Bodenstown, by the side of his brother, Matthew, who had died
for the same glorious cause a few weeks earlier.

And there, side by side, those two mangled bodies — each broken
so cruelly in the conqueror's murder machine — await the Resur-
rection— in the "green grave" which Ireland cherishes as the most
precious thing she owns.

Autliorities on the 1793-1803 period:
Madden: Lives and Times of the United Irishmen.
Tone: Autobiography of Theobald Wolfe Tone.
Concannon (Mrs. Helena) : Women of *98.
Fitzpatrick: Secret Service under Pitt, and The Sham Squire.
Kavanagh: Rebellion of '98.
Rev. Mr. Gordon: History of the Rebellion.
Mitchel : History of Ireland.
Fitzpatrick: Ireland before the Union.

CHAPTER LX

THE UNION*

Although Ireland was officially conquered to Britain centuries
before, the Island was alleged to have a Parliament of its own,
under the British Crown, up to the year 1 800.

It was, of course, a Parliament of, and for, the Bridsh in
Ireland. The mere Irish had no say in it — except for an insignifi-
cantly brief period. Had no. right even to vote for a member of
it. It was not considered that they whose land this was, and who
constituted six-sevenths of the population of the land, could pre-
sume to take even the humblest part in governing their own country.
The Parliament was for half a million British in Ireland — to
hold three million Irish in subjection. Moreover, of the 300 mem-
bers, only 72 were really elected. Three-fourths of its members
were just appointed by the Borough owners, the British Lords
who owned Irish towns.

It was only at rare intervals that the Anglo-Irish who owned
and ran this Parliament dared assert their right to make it a
Parliament in reality, as well as in name. For centuries it was
held in the stranglehold of Poyning's Law — a law which forbade
it to initiate any legislation— only gave it liberty to legislate under
the direction and command of the English Parliament — to pass into
law whatever the English Parliament recommended — and to refrain
from legislating upon all things that the English Parliament for-
bade it to legislate upon.

Under this state of things naturally Ireland's woes increased
with the years. Just before the Anglo-Irish Parliament, in 1782,
took heart to shake from its shoulders its Old Man of the Sea, the
English Parliament which paralysed it, Hely Hutchinson, speaking
in the Irish House of Commons (in 1779) said: "Can the history
of any other fruitful country on the globe, enjoying peace for eighty
years, and not visited by plague or pestilence, produce so many

1 This chapter, with trifling change, is taken from Ireland's Case, by Seumas
MacManus.

526

THE UNION 527

recorded instances of the poverty and the wretchedness, of the
reiterated want and misery of the lower order of people? There
is no such example in ancient or modern story."

In 1782, as we saw, when Britain's hands were filled with an
American problem, Henry Grattan and the great army of Ireland's
Volunteers, 100,000 strong, demanded the independence of thdr
Parliament. And as they had in their hands, when making the
request, a hundred thousand muskets, their request was graciously
granted. During the succeeding years, this Anglo-Irish Parliament,
acting independently of the British Parliament, was enabled to do
wonderful things for the restoration of Ireland's conmierce and
manufactures. Many of the disabilities of the Irish Catholics, too,
were, under it, removed — and an Irishman was acknowledged to
have some citizen rights.

But, it did not suit England's book to have any body of people
in Ireland, even their own Anglo-Irish kin, running Ireland with
profit to Ireland — and consequently a curtailment of English profit.
So, the mistake must be corrected. And the best way to correct it
was bodily to remove the cause of the trouble. Parliament, both in
reality and in name, must be taken from Ireland altogether. So,
Prime Minister Pitt of England conspired with his good instru-
ments, Comwallis, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and Castlereagh,
the Irish Secretary, to attain the desired end. For this splendidly
corrupt object Pitt fortunately had, in Comwallis and Castlereagh,
a pair of splendidly corrupt tools.

To undermine the prestige of the Irish Parliament and prove
its incompetence for governing Ireland, they first goaded the Irish
people into a premature rebellion. And they then launched their
campaign for giving to the English Parliament the sole right of
directly governing this Island.

That the Anglo-Irish Inhabitants of the Island would not easily
yield their right Pitt and his instruments knew well. But that a
large portion of their representatives was purchasable, they divined.
So they set themselves enthusiastically to the congenial work of
bribing and debasing right and left, and buying men's souls.

Lies, perjury, and fraud were the official stock-in-trade during
all of Britain's connection with Ireland. But there was never
another period in which so much baseness was crowded into so
little time as now, when they were debasing their own kin and rob-
bing them of their "rights.** No other scandal of British admin-
istration, before or since, ever equalled this one of buying the
Union. The Immediate chief instruments, Comwallis and Castle-
reagh, were probably no worse than any other English administra-

528 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

tors in Ireland — only that this large job gave them an exceptional
opportunity to distinguish themselves.*

Cornwallis, through all the vile business, took the superior
stand of the hypocrite who thinks he conceals his hypocrisy beneath
the cloak of frankness. He writes to a friend, "My occupation
is of the most unpleasant nature, bargaining and jobbing with the
most corrupt people under Heaven" (the Anglo-Irish). "I despise
and hate myself for ever engaging in such dirty work." In another
place he confesses that he is "involved in this dirty business beyond
all bearing."

The people were wheedled, coaxed, threatened, and bribed, into
signing petitions in favor of Union with England. Barrington
tells us that, under promise of pardon, felons in the jails were got
to sign the Union petition. Everyone holding a government job
in the country had not only to sign the petition himself, but was
compelled to make his relatives and the relatives of their relatives
sign It likewise.

Not merely those who held positions under the government
were required to do this; but to every man who hoped or dreamt
of ever standing chance of a position under the government, it was
plainly intimated that he and his relatives' relatives must become
petitioners. Mixed bribes and threats were scattered over the land
like seed corn — falling upon, sticking to, and germinating in thou-
sands upon thousands of every rank from the public hangman all the
way up to the Archbishop of the Established Church.

The pro-British historian, Lecky, says, "Obscure men in un-
known political places were dismissed because they or some of their
relatives declined to support it." He says, "The whole force of
Government patronage in all branches was steadily employed. The
formal and authoritative announcement was made, that, though
defeated Session after Session and Parliament after Parliament —
the act of Union would always be reintroduced — and that support
of it would hereafter be considered the main test by which all claims
to government favor would be determined." — "Everything in the
government of the Crown in Ireland," Lecky further states, "in
the church, in the army, in the law, in the revenue, was uniformly
and steadily devoted to the single purpose of carrying the Union.
From the great noblemen who were bought for marqulsates and
ribands; from the (Protestant) Archbishop of Cashel who agreed
to support the Union on being promised the reversion of the See

2 Castlereagh indeed partly redeemed himself by living to cut his throat.

tpr^'

■ - : "-^i

THE UNION 529

of Dublin and a seat in the Imperial House of Lords, the virus
of corruption extended and descended through every rank and title,
and saturated the political system, including even crowds of obscure
men who had it in their power to assist or obstruct addresses on the
subject."

Men who dared be independent and stand for their rights were
hounded and persecuted and dismissed from office. Even the high-
est in rank, such as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a Prime
Sergeant and Privy Chancellor, were kicked out for daring to deny
England's divine right to do wrong.

Men who refused to be bribed were forced out of their seats
in the Irish Parliament by every vile means known to vile men.
Their own instruments, their own official aides, even, were put into
office and put into Parliament for the openly avowed purpose of
voting away Ireland's rights. Englishmen who never before had
given any thought to Ireland, were actually imported to sit as
Irish members of Parliament — and vote away Ireland's Parliament
to England.'

They overawed patriotic people who ventured to make any
protest against the proposed Union. Barrington relates how, on
the occasion of an Anti-Union meeting in King's County, Darley,
the High Sheriff, and Major Rogers (acting of course under in-
structions from Dublin Castle) placed two six pounders, charged
with grape shot, opposite the Court-house where the meeting was
being held — ^bringing England's logic to bear on the misguided ones
who thought they could better know than England, what was for
Ireland's benefit.

The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended.

Martial law was proclaimed.

England stationed in Ireland, 126,000 soldiers.

All constitutional guarantee was annulled.

The use of torture was frequently availed of.

Meetings of the people were dispersed by military force.

Offices and commands were trafficked in.

Every foul device that the most ingeniously mean-minded tools
could contrive was employed against Irish liberty — or Anglo-Irish
liberty.

3 Some of these latter rascals never saw — sometimes hardly knew — ^the name of
the Irish Borougrh for which they sat. When one of them, one day, presented him-
self at the English House of Parliament and requested some privilege that was of
courtesy accorded there to members of the Irish Parliament, he was asked for what
Irish Borough he sat. "By Heaven," he replied, "the name of the devilish place 'as
escaped me. — But if you bring me the Irish Directory I believe I can pick it out,"

530 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

And by use of all conceivable and inconceivable mean devices
they managed, at length, to secure a bare majority in favour of the
Union — 162 out of 303 members. One hundred and sixteen of
these 162 were their own salaried tools — ^placemen.

They carried their "Union." It has been stated that as much
as eight thousand pounds was paid for one vote. Henry Grattan
is authority for it that, of those who voted in favour of the Union
with England, not more than seven were unbribed. Cornwallis had
no illusions about the quality of the men whom he purchased —
knew right well that they could be just as faithless to him, despite
his gold, as they were to their adopted country, despite their duty.
He wrote, "I believe that half of our majority would be as much
delighted as any of our opponents, if the measure could be de-
feated."

Place, title, and gold, were the inducements for sacrificing
Ireland at England^s bidding. As reward for good work done —
or to be done — twenty-eight Irish peerages were created. Six
Irish peers got English peerages. Twenty Irish peers were ele-
vated in rank. New and lucrative jobs, offices, government appoint-
ments, were created — for bestowal on those who rendered
services.

In those days the boroughs in Ireland were "owned" by Lordly
proprietors who put in for them such puppet members of Parlia-
ment as they pleased. In 1782, out of 300 members, only 72 were
really elected — and of course only one-seventh of the people in
Ireland (the British portion) got a chance at electing those. This
ownership came to be recognised by lawl And to compensate
eighty titled Borough owners in Ireland (who owned one hun-
dred and sixty members) an act was passed appropriating for
them £1,260,000 — being at the rate of about £8,000 for each
member.

And, crowning joke of all the grim jokes played upon Ireland
by England, this million and quarter for greasing the groove down
which Ireland's Parliament was to be skidded to England — ^was
added to the Irish National Debt!

Lord Ely, who had at first been opposed to the Union, but
came finally to see the light and voted for it, received £45,000
for his Boroughs.

These moneys were paid as "compensation" for "disturbance"
caused, or to be caused, or in danger of being caused, by the Union.
And not only Anglo-Irishmen but likewise every pocket-picking
Englishman and hungry Scotchman who could get near it, fought

THE UNION 531

and struggled and mauled one another, for the chance of getting
a hand in the Compensation bag/

And this wonderful story of Ireland's eager Union with
England is a fair illustration of England's clean handedness, clean
mindedness, in dealing with the island that was and is "dependent
on and protected by England."

The carrying of the Union reflected nearly as much credit upon
England's nice honour, as did the Treaty of Limerick upon the
pledged faith and honour of the British Crown.

Barrington : The Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation.

" Personal Sketches.

Swift MacNeill: The Irish Parliament.
Lecky: Histoiy of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century.

* Barrington records that even the necessary woman of the English Privy
Council asked "compensation" from Ireland for the extra trouble which the influx
of Irish Privy Councillors would cause in her department!

And the Lord Lieutenant's official rat catcher insisted on the right to get his
paw in the bag as compensation for "decrease of employment" Why the Union
with England should affect this gentleman's employment is not stated— but it is
easy to suppose that he foresaw the certainty of droves of British rats quitting the
sinking ship.

Daniel O'Connell once said, that he could not, under Heaven, apprehend how
it was that they forgot to charge against Ireland the price of the razor with which
Castlereagh afterwards cut bis throat

CHAPTER LXI

ROBERT EMMET

When the Insurgents had laid down their arms, the country was
given over to further horrors. The idea was to break the spirit
so thoroughly, by a calculated campaign of "frightfulness," that
Ireland should never dare to dream of liberty again, or offer the
slightest resistance to the new chains that were being forged for
her in the "Legislative Union" with England.

So all through the bright summer days that followed the day
of "Vinegar Hill" the shrieks of tortured men came from the
Prevot Prison in the Royal Barracks, Dublin, where Major Sandys
had set up his triangles, or from the "riding school" in Marl-
borough Street, where Mr. John Claudius Beresford carried on
his pitch-cappings and picketings, his half hangings and his lacera-
tions. Day after day were court martials, followed immediately
by executions. Day after day the most terrible tales reached the
Capital of the atrocities committed by the militia, the "Yeos" and
the "Hessians" in the districts where they were now supreme. The
statistics preserved by Cloney, for Wexford alone, of women vio-
lated, and then bayoneted or shot, of unarmed folk slaughtered
in the fields and along the roads, of whole families burned alive
in their cabins, of wounded men incinerated in the hospital at Ennis-
corthy (which went ablaze through a mere accident — "the bed
clothes being set on fire by the wadding of the soldiers' guns, who
were shooting the patients in their beds"), represent a degree of
human suffering which even at this distance of time makes us sick
to read of.

What of those who in their prison cells — the State Prisoners
like Thomas Addis Emmet, Thomas Russell, John Sweetman,
Arthur O'Connor, Samuel Neilson — ^were hearing of them from
day to day? Does one wonder that when a proposal came from
Government that these horrors would be stopped, on certain con-
ditions when men of honour could accept, they felt it their duty
to explore the avenues to peace thus indicated? On the initiative
of Mr. Dobbs, acting for the Government, seventy-three prisoners
in Newgate, Kilmainham and Bridewell, put their names to a paper

532

ROBERT EMMET 533

engaging to give every information in their power as to the whole
internal transactions of the United Irishmen, and their negotiations
with foreign states, with the proviso that they were not by naming
or describing to implicate any person whatever. In return the
executions were to be stopped, and the State Prisoners allowed to
emigrate to a country to be agreed upon between them and the
Government.

This agreement was kept with the most scrupulous exactitude
by the State Prisoners. But nobody who knows the Government's
record for tearing up "scraps of paper" will be very much sur-
prised to learn that its conditions were grossly violated by the
Irish Executive — even though one of its own members, Lord Clare,
had thus expressed himself to one among the prisoners, who raised
a doubt as to the Executive's good faith: "Gentlemen, it comes
to this — a Government that breaks faith with you could not stand,
and ought not be allowed to stand."

The ink was hardly dry upon the paper when one of the con-
demned prisoners, Byrne (to save whose life was the immediate
object of the treaty), was, in flagrant violation of its provisions,
led forth to execution. The other, Oliver Bond, was murdered
in prison.

The State Prisoners, themselves, who signed the agreement
were (also in violation of it) kept in prison, or internment in Fort
George, Scotland, during the remaining four years of the war
then raging with France. Worse still — ^though the fact will sur-
prise no one acquainted with the records of English propaganda —
a garbled account of the whole business, very injurious to the
United Irishmen, was sent . forth broadcast ; and the prisoners'
remonstrations were met by a peremptory message from Lord
Lieutenant Cornwallis that if they dared to say another word he
would annul the agreement, and go forward with wholesale
executions.

This breach of faith on the part of Government caused the
State Prisoners to consider the contract null and void on their
side also; and as may readily be surmised, they looked eagerly
around, after their liberation from Fort George in the summer of
1802, JFor a chance to strike a blow once more for Irish Inde-
pendence.

Everybody knew that the war between France and England,
to which the peace of Amiens had put a temporary cessation, would
soon break out again; and it was common belief likewise that
when the war did break out, an invasion by Bonaparte either of
England or Ireland would be attempted.

534 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

The United Irishmen, both on the continent and in Ireland,
therefore (and in spite of all that had happened they were still
numerous and powerful in the homeland) , were prepared to sacrifice
their just resentment against France for her failure to keep her
engagements with them in '98, and enter into a new alliance with
her. They had recruited unexpected allies in Ireland, itself, from
among certain statesmen and politicians, who had formerly been
their bitterest enemies, but who now saw themselves, to an equal
degree, the victims of English intrigue — ^left high and dry by the
"Legislative Union." It is morally certain, indeed, that though
these statesmen kept themselves well and safely in the background
during the events which make 1803 as tragic a memory as 1798,
they took the initiative in the secret negotiations which led to
them. Who were they? Shall we ever know more than Robert
Emmet (who paid the penalty of their deeds) has chosen to tell
us of them as he stood in the dock, making his immoftal appeal to
the yet unborn tribunal of his liberated country's judgment?
"When I came to Ireland I found the business ripe for execution.
I was asked to join in it. I took time to consider, and after mature
deliberation I became one of the Provisional Government; and
there then was my Lords, an agent from the United Irishmen and
Provisional Government in Paris, negotiating with the French Gov-
ernment to obtain from them an aid sufficient to accomplish the
separation of Ireland from Great Britain; the preliminary to
which assistance has been a guarantee to Ireland similar to that
which Franklin obtained for America." And again : "I have been
charged with that importance in the efforts to emancipate my
country as to be considered the keystone of the combination of
Irishmen, or as it has been expressed, 'the life and blood of this
conspiracy.' You do me honour overmuch; you have given to
the subaltern all the credit of the superior. There are men con-
cerned in this conspiracy, who are not only superior to me but even
to your own conceptions of yourself, my lord; men before the
splendour of whose genius and virtues I should bow with respectful
deference, and who would not deign to call you friend — ^who would
not disgrace themselves by shaking your blood-stained hand."

The Agent of the United Irishmen in Paris, referred to above,
was Thomas Addis Emmet, who left Brussels for the French
Capital early in 1803, to act in that capacity on definite instructions
from the Provisional Government in Ireland. We possess in his
diary from the 30th of May, 1803, to the loth of March, 1804,
with its detailed account of his transactions with the French Gov-

ROBERT EMMET 535

ernment, then controlled by Bonaparte and Talleyrand, all the
evidence required to prove that the Rising of 1803, so far from
being, as I^rd Castlereagh estimated it, "the wild and contemptible
project of a young man of heated and enthusiastic imagination"
was the well thought out plan of long-headed men and had a
'priori good reason to promise success.

In the first place there was an absolute promise on the part of
France of a large expeditionary force to aid the Rising in Ireland.
In the second, there was an understanding with, and guarantees of
co-operation from the revolutionary societies in England and
Scotland. In the third, there were pledges from men of the highest
social, military and political standing in Ireland to aid the move-
ment with money, moral and other backing. If ever an effort for
Irish Liberty seemed destined to succeed, it was that to which
Robert Emmet found himself committed when he returned to
Ireland, after his "Grand Tour" on the continent, in the Autumn
of 1802.

His first care, after he became organiser for the Provisional
Government (which, as has been already said, had been formed
before his return) was to get in touch with surviving fighters of '98,
men like Myles Bjrrne of Wexford, and Jimmie Hope of Belfast.
It is to the narratives of these two in particular that we owe our
best knowledge of his aims and hopes, and the methods he adopted
to attain them.

His primary object was to get the country organised and armed,
ready to co-operate with the French landing. The organisation
of the counties was left to tried men of local influence, and as
early as the Autumn of 1802 Emmet was able to assure John Keogh
and John Philpot Curran that "nineteen counties could be relied
upon." Very influential promises of help came from the North
in particular, and the business of procuring arms went briskly for-
ward. Early in 1803 Thomas Russell, his nephew-in-law, Ham-
ilton, and Quigley, came over from France to help, and the greatest
hopes were entertained that Russell's influence in Ulster would
keep it straight this time, at least — though it had failed so griev-
ously in '98.

Emmet*s own work was mainly confined to Dublin, but he was
in close touch with the men of Carlow, Wicklow, Wexford, through
his friends Michael Dwyer and Myles Byrne, and with the men
of Kildare through one Bernard Duggan and others. Alas, Mr.
Bernard Duggan, as we now know, was a paid Castle spy; and
all the preparations for the Rising were faithfully retailed to his

536 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

employer, the Under Secretary Mr. Alexander Marston, who lei
them go forward, having the comfortable assurance that he coulc
circumvent them the moment it suited his own purpose I

On the 1 6th July an explosion took place in a house in Patrid;
Street, which Emmet had taken as a depot for arms and explosives,
This event, which made him regard the discovery of his plans as
imminent, caused him to fix an early date for the Rising without
waiting for the promised French aid. It may have been that
Russell had infected him with his own fears that Bonaparte was
only playing with the Irish, and this may have been an additional
motive for hurrying him on. Assurances came from all over the
country that if Dublin rose the rest of Ireland would speedily
follow.

Saturday, the 23rd of July, was the day arranged for the Rising
in Dublin, in which the VVicklow, Kildare and Wexford men were
to assist. The plans included an attack not only on Dublin Castle,
but on the Pigeon House Fort and the Artillery Barracks at Island
Bridge. But on the day appointed it was discovered that only a
small fraction of the men expetted to help had turned up. "I
expected," Emmet himself tells us, "two thousand to assemble at
Costigan's Mills — the grand place of assembly. The evening be-
fore the Wicklow men failed through their officer. The Kildare
men, who were to act particularly with me, came in, and at five
o'clock went off again, from the canal harbour, on a report from
two of their officers that Dublin would not act.

"In Dublin itself it was given out by some treacherous or cow-
ardly person that it (the Rising) was postponed until Wednesday.
The; time of assembly was from 6 to 9, and at 9 instead of 2,000
there were only 80 men assembled."

The romantic sequel of Robert Enmiet*s story has given to
the occurrences of the 23d of July an importance which the men
who organised the conspiracy of which they were only an incident,
did not recognise. One part of the plan, the Rising in Dublin, had
miscarried, through no fault of Robert Emmet's ; but if the French
had been true to their plighted word the rest of the country would
have risen later, according to plan, and the dream to which the
gallant youth sacrificed fortune, life, and love, might yet have come
true.

But the French failed their Irish allies once more, and Thomai
Addis Emmet, though he still continued for a time his negotiation!
with the agents of the First Consul, and though he actually sa^
an Irish Legion embodied, and Irish colours prepared for ar
expeditionary force, had at length to convince himself that "Bona'

ROBERT EMMET

537

parte was the worst enemy Ireland ever had," a man who played
with her hopes and utilised them for his own purpose. In 1804
Emmet shook the soil of France from his feet forever, and set
sail for the ^reat Western Republic where fame, success and happi-
ness, and in the fubess of time, an honoured tomb were awaiting
him.

As for his brother, Robert, when he saw the blood of Lord
Kil warden stain the stones of that Dublin street, he dispersed his
followers, and sought out Michael Dwyer in the Wicklow hills.
Dwyer and his men (whose failure to be present at the rendezvous
was due to a gross dereliction of duty on the part of the man
charged with the message for them) urged that an attempt should
be made on the neighbouring towns, but Emmet determined to do
nothing more until the promised French aid had arrived. To
expedite its coming he sent Myles Byrne to France with an urgent
message to his brother, Thomas Addis.

Before Myles Byrne had arrived in Paris, Robert had been
arrested by Major Sirr at Harold's Cross, to whose dangerous
neighbourhood he had been drawn by an overpowering desire to
see once more his "bright love" the exquisite Sarah Curran. On
the 19th of September, two days after Byrne had delivered his
message to Thomas Addis, Robert Emmet stood in the dock in
Green Street, uttering that immortal oration which no one who
loves great poetry or high passion can ever read without all that
is best in him flaming up at the contact of its fire. On the 20th
of September the sacrifice was consummated. The brave youth
was publicly beheaded on a Dublin street.

Authorities:
Madden : Lives of the United Irishmen.
Myles B)me*s Memoirs.
Thomas Addis Emmet : The Emmet Family.
O'Donoghue: Life of Robert Emmet
Mitchel: History of Ireland.

CHAPTER LXII

DANIEL O'CONNELL

Throughout almost the first half of the nineteenth century Ire-
land's history is reflected in the life of Daniel O'ConncU.

O'Connell was thirty-three years of age when his national
career began. That was in 1808, when the Catholic Committee,
which sought to get for Catholic citizens their rights, began to be
riven between the aristocratic advocates of "dignified silence," led
by the aged Keogh, and the revolutionary advocates of agitation,
of whom O'Connell assumed the spokesmanship.

The great man was born in Cahirciveen in the southwest of
Kerry. Various biographers of O'Connell give us interesting
glimpses of what life was like on the western seaboard in the lat-
ter part of the eighteenth century. Cut off, as they were, from
the rest of the world by wild m.ountain ranges, the ancient family
of the O'Connells had succeeded in retaining a larger share of
the world's goods than the laws permitted to Papists, though
even for their partial good luck they had to thank strategy as
well as the mountain barriers. O'Connell's father held his lands
for long years by leaving them in the legal possession of his Prot-
estant friend, Hugh Falvey (who had conformed for emolument
sake). From the smuggling trade then common in the whole
west of Ireland, the O'Connell family had long derived a steady
income. Wines, brandies, velvets, and other taxable commodities,
were being constantly imported from the Continent, without get-
ting the gauger's blessing — and circulated inland. The smuggling
smacks which constantly ran these goods into the western bays,
carried away with them miscellaneous export cargoes — "Wild
Geese," young men for the Irish Brigade in France and for other
Continental armies; students for the schools of Spain, Italy, Aus-
tria, France, Flanders; the flannel homespun of the cottage looms;
Irish butter, hides and wool. And the seaweed called slaucan
(sloke) for which the Spanish appetite craved, was exported by
the women to raise spare money for themselves. We are told

that in the O'Connell couhtry — as probably happened in many

538

DANIEL O'CONNELL 539

other western regions — the women used to borrow one another's
cloaks to go to the Spanish market in the smuggling smacks, and
there sell their own slaucan,

0*Connell's uncle, Daniel, was one of the many Wild Geese
which the smuggling smacks carried away to the great world of
war and romance, abroad; and when that man sailed there were
no less than seventeen of the O'Connell kinsmen in foreign service.
He became Count O'Connell, and was the last Colonel of the Irish
Brigade. As he was a royalist, the French Revolution, in time,
threw him back upon England — ^where he became a fine, crusty
old Tory — and bitter opponent of his nephew's Repeal idea.

In O'Connell's infancy the splendid Paul Jones was scouring
the seas off the Kerry headlands, and giving England many un-
comfortable gasps. Then, the banned priest. Father O'Grady
(graduate of Louvain) hidden by the great hills from the Gov-
ernment's eyes and spies (though once tried for the crime of being
a Papist priest, and freed for want of evidence) was teaching
the child Dan his catechism. And the itinerant schoolmaster,
David O'Mahony, likewise banned by the paternal government,
was instructing the child in the complications and combinations
of Cadmus' invention — and while he nursed him and combed his
hair "without hurting," the infant protege, it is recorded, learned
the whole alphabet in an hour and a half. And the child saw
"Cousin Kane," a landless half-sir who was typical of the times,
with his pair of hunters and twelve couples of dogs, circulating
among the gentry of Kerry, and honouring and living off each in
turn.

The O'Connells were a great, strong, long-lived and prolific
family. Though, in those days and in those districts, such was
too common to deserve mention. Dan's immediate parents in-
deed were somewhat exceptional. They had only ten children.
Grandfather O'Connell and his celebrated wife (of the O'Dono-
hue family) Maire Ni Duibh, had twenty-two. The ancient Irish
system of fosterage was still common in the mountains, and Dan's
father and many uncles had all, for the first few years of their
lives, been fostered by neighbours, relatives, friends, tenants.

Young Dan himself was fostered by his Uncle Maurice — "Old
Hunting Cap" as he was known, because to evade the tax upon
gentlemen's beaver hats, Uncle Maurice resolutely lived under a
hunting cap. The unceremoniousness of Old Hunting Cap and
his household is well illustrated by a characteristic incident re-
corded of the country carpenter's shoving his tousled head in at
the dining-room door when the household with their guests had

540 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

well begun upon the plentiful pile that always bent their festive
board.

"Go away, Buckley," said Mrs. O'Connell. 'This is no time
to talk business."

"I'm sorry, ma'am, in troth, but I just only wanted a word of
his honour, about his coffin."

Old Hunting Cap a few days before had given orders that a
coffin should be prepared for him from a loved oak-tree that was
being cut down on the lawn.

"Coffin or no coffin, to-morrow will be a long enough day to
talk of it."

"No, no, bean a'tighe, let us hear what he wants — ^what's the
matter about the coffin, Buckley?" says Old Hunting Cap.

" 'Tis to fix about the measurements that will make your hon-
our comfortable."

Then ensues a wrangle between Old Hunting Cap and the
carpenter regarding the space that should make a coffined man
comfortable — while the diners pause and listen. Old Hunting
Cap objects to the generous measurements that the carpenter in-
sists on allowing him. "You know my height is only six foot
two."

"But your honour forgets that you'll stretch after you're a
Corp."

"That's so, to be sure. You're right, Buckley. Then leave
me three inches for stretching."

"All right, your honour, I'll make it six foot six to the good,
so as to give you no chance of complaint. Good night and ex-
cuse me."

"Good night, Buckley, and thank you."

And while knives and forks begin to ply again. Old Hunting
Cap bravely resumes the discussion in which he had been inter-
rupted by the coffin-maker's intrusion.

After David O'Mahony's fireside teaching, and then some
schooling in Cork, Daniel O'Connell had a short university term
at St. Omer, in Flanders, and then at Douay in France — short,
because of the French Revolution, which closed Douay in the
beginning of 1793 — ^just when he had completed two years of
university study.

What he saw and heard of this revolution made him a Tory.
It might be more correct to say that it confirmed Toryism in him ;
for the O'Connell family, taking example from their friends, the
well-to-do Anglo-Irish county gentry, were always Tory.

And when the French came into Bantry Bay in '96 to assist

DANIEL O'CONNELL 541

the United Irishmen, Uncle Maurice, good loyalist, just missed
being the first to get the intelligence to the English Government.
The man who was first got a fortune. In his diary Dan then wrote
apropos of the French visit (probably recalling his experience of
one revolution) : "Liberty is in my bosom less a principle than
a passion. . . . But Ireland is not yet sufficiently enlightened to
bear the sun of liberty. Freedom would soon dwindle into licen-
tiousness. They would rob; they would murder. The altar of
liberty totters when cemented only with blood, when supported
with carcasses. The liberty I look for is that which would in-
crease the happiness of mankind."*

But Dan's Toryism almost completely fell away from him
when, studying for the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in London in '94 —
for the ban against Papists entering the outer bar, had just been
lifted — ^he attended the trial of Home Tooke, and saw and learnt
at first hand the astounding tyranny and intolerance practised by
the rulers on their own people.

And in Dublin, a few years later, he associated with the United
Irishmen and, it is believed, joined them. Anyhow he shared
their national sentiments. Yet, when the hour of action came,
Daniel O'Connell slipped out of Dublin by sea, and rusticated for
a time in the safety of his Kerry home. There evidently reading
the official accounts of the barbarity of the wicked rebels, whom
the kind Government reluctantly chastised, he grievlngly com-
munes with his diary about the outrages that are committed in
liberty's name I He thinks he sees in Ireland a repetition of what
he knew in France — the unbridled blood-lust of a frenzied and
ignorant populace that had suddenly burst Its bonds.

And when he returned to Dublin he evidently became a good,
pious Tory again. For although he was bitterly anti-Union (like
the great body of the Tories In Ireland) , when the Emmet alarm
burst on the country in 1803, he flew to arms to preserve the Con-
stitution. He was one of the Lawyers' Corps that was then formed
for defence of the realm against the assault of French principles.
In far later days when It was less objectionable to sympathise with
Emmet, O'Connell tried to justify his action by exclaiming:
"Poor Emmet, he meant well I But was ever a madder scheme
conceived outside of Bedlam than that of fadng, with seventy-

1 This is the first indication we have of (yG>nneIl's abject respect for law. It
did not press itself upon him that the foreigner in his country was every year in-
dulging in robbery and murder— even of his own kin. The foreigner did it "legally"
—prescribed robbing and killing by Parliamentary Statute, and hence it shocked
him not

542 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

four men and twelve hundred pounds, King George and one hun-
dred and fifty thousand of the best troops in Europe — with finances
unlimited." *

It was in 1808, as before meritioned, that O'Connell first got
marked prominence in Irish affairs. In that year Fox and Grevilie,
in the British Parliament, had sought to remove a few of the
smaller restrictions under which the banned Catholics laboured.
It was a belated pretence at redeeming the bribe-promise made
them in '99 that after the Union the British Parliament would
emancipate them. But even the very sorry bill of Fox and Gre-
ville, which only emphasised their slavery by essaying to hack
away some of the loose links that dangled from their chains,
aroused a no-popery wave which overswept England, engulfed
Fox, Greville and their Parliament, and put in power a no-popery
party. This dashed the hopes of the Catholic Committee of Ire-
land— a committee which almost entirely represented the aristo-
cratic Catholics, the bishops and the wealthy merchant and pro-
fessional class. It was then that the former Catholic leader, Keogh,
now an old man, recommended as the best policy for the Catholics
"dignified silence." But O'Connell, with the bounding blood of
youth, caught the ear and the mind of the country at large, by
hotly opposing this servile policy, and urging agitation for their
commonest rights. All the more thoroughly did he arouse the
country by hammering on the fact that the aristocrats and their
fellows were willing to give the English government a veto upon
the appointment of Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland in exchange
for the few beggarly crumbs with which Fox had tempted them.

When it was now disclosed that in '99 ten bishop trustees of
Maynooth College had secretly agreed to the veto, O'Connell so
roused the country and evoked such an outburst of wrath as com-
pelled twenty-six bishops in council to repudiate the offer, and
swing into the popular camp. And then the nation, which, since
the cataclysm of 1 798-1 800 had been pitifully drifting, joyfully
hailed a new captain I

But several years were yet to pass before the new captain called
up in his people's hearts the extraordinary confidence and the pride

* This is one of the many instances we have of the astonishing nearsightedness
of a very great man. Emmet's failure in Dublin was a more permanent, more
far-reaching success than Wellington's triumph at Waterloo — for, more than a
hundred years after, the memory of his heroism, his patriotism, and his faith was
enthusing, inspiring, stimulating and sustaining one of the world's smallest nations
in its unending struggle against earth's most powerful Empire. But Daniel O'Con-
nell throughout his wonderful career was always the lawyer or politician, who
could only be convinced by immediate results.

DANIEL O'CONNELL 543

that were to make him the mightiest power in the nation. His
defence of John Magee in '13 was to put him on a unique pedestal,
and| a little later, the tidal wave of enthusiasm created by his
victory over D'Esterre was to sweep him into the popular heart
and there enthrone him.

But before those golden milestones were reached the people
had learnt to know his great qualities as he fought shoulder to
shoulder with them in the Catholic cause. The demure Catholic
Board he turned into a Board of such boldness that the Govern-
ment suppressed it in 1 8 1 1 . And, beginning the legal and political
strategy that was to be, later, his staple manoeuvre, he re-formed
the association under the name of a General Committee of the
Catholics of Ireland. And henceforward, through his career, im-
mediately his organisation under one title was suppressed, he was
ready to re-start it next day under a new name.

But, leading his people in the desert now, he had not only to
fight the oppressor without but also the aristocratic and reactionary
element within. And when in '13 those Protestant champions of
Catholic Emancipation, Grattan and Plunkett, had introduced in
Parliament a Catholic Relief Bill which had every chance of pass-
ing, and which had the approval of the Irish Catholic aristocratic
party and the English Catholics, O'Connell aroused Ireland
against it because it was saddled with the objectionable veto and
also gave to the British the right to supervise all documents pass-
ing between Rome and the Roman Catholic hierarchy in these
islands.

The British Government got Quarantotti, Secretary and Vice-
Prefect of the Sacred College who was then, so to speak, acting
Pope— Pius the Seventh being a prisoner of Napoleon — to ap-
prove the veto and the supervision right, and issue a rescript to
the Irish bishops to that effect. Then was precipitated turmoil in
Ireland. From the altar steps of the chapel of the Friars in Clar-
endon Street, Dublin, O'Connell denounced the rescript to an ex-
cited gathering. He threatened the prelates and threatened the
secular clergy, that, if they signed themselves over to England,
the people, refusing their ministrations, would import poor friars
from the continent of Europe, and willingly revert to the depriva-
tions and sufferings of the worst of the penal days.

And a little later, when the Pope had returned to Rome, and
there were rumours that he was bargaining with England, Dan
boldly rang out his defiance to the Pope himself if he dared to
bargain away Ireland's traditional rights and the national rights
of the Church. "Though I am a Catholic," he thundered, "I am

544 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

no Papist I And I deny temporal rights to the Pope in this island.'*
And prelates who, in synod assembled, had previously sent to
Quarantotti a respectful, very firm, remonstrance, not to say
threat, now for Pius' behoof and warning, unanimously passed
this resolution:

"Though we sincerely venerate the supreme Pontiff as Visible
Head of the church we do not conceive that our apprehensions
for the safety of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland can, or
ought to be, removed by any determination of His Holiness, adopted
or intended to be adopted, not only without our concurrence but
in direct opposition to our repeated behest, and so ably supported
by our deputy, the most Rev. Dr. Murray, who in that quality
was more competent to inform His Holiness of the real state and
interests of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland than any other
with whom he is said to have consulted."

The passion of O'Connell, the people, and the prelates had
the desired effect. The rights of the Irish church were no longer
to be considered a negotiable security at Rome.

CHAPTER LXIII

O'CONNELL THE IDOL

In 1 8 13 occurred the John Magee trial which lifted O'Connell
on a mighty wave of popular favour. Magee, a Dublin Presby-
terian of staunch Irish principle, owned The Evening Post, one of
the only two or three journals (out of a dozen) in Dublin which
the Government could not corrupt. When in May of '13 the Duke
of Richmond resigned the Viceroyalty, he and his administration
left a bad taste in the public mouth; and The Evening Post pub-
lished a scathing article on the occasion. Of various previous ad-
ministrations it said, "They insulted, they oppressed, they mur-
dered— the profligate unprincipled Westmoreland, the cold-hearted
and cruel Camden, the artful treacherous Cornwallis, left Ireland
more depressed and divided than they found her. They increased
coercion and corruption, and uniformly employed them against
the liberties of the people." But bad as they were, he said, "Rich-
mond out-matched the worst of them."

The Government immediately instituted proceedings against
Magee. Attorney General Saurin, a bitter, Irish-hating Orange-
man, had charge of the prosecution. Magee engaged O'Connell
for his chief counsel, and both sides girded themselves for the
battle of the age. But of course Saurin held the cards, and dealt
them unscrupulously. In choosing the jury every man who was
suspected of the possibility of entertaining the most remote regard
for Irish liberties, was set aside. A solidly Orange jury, every
man of them a noted bigot, was picked. The Bench was occupied
by Lord Chief Justice Downes, who was clay in the hands of the
administration, and three other judges of the same quality.

O'Connell, recognising that his clients had as much chance of
escape from the Bench of Tory tools and the Box of bigots, as
would a sparrow in a field of hawks, resolved to use the oppor-
tunity, not to seek justice in a court of manifest injustice, but to
fire the already excited nation by pillorying the mockery of justice
to which the British Government treated them.

In all his career O'Connell made no more popular speech than

545

546 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

his pretended "defence" of Magee — and made few that had more
far-reaching effect. Peel who had come to Ireland as Chief Sec-
retary, and who was present in a court that was crammed and
surrounded by masses of men who could not get near the door-
Peel wrote to the Viceroy that O'Connell's speech was an in-
finitely more atrocious libel upon the Government and the admin-
istration of justice in Ireland than the gross libel which he pro-
fessed to defend. O'Connell browbeat and insulted the jury in
the box, and the judges on the bench, flaying the Chief Justice him-
self more cruelly than any of them; besides arraigning, denounc-
ing, defying, and scarifying the Government and all its works, its
hangers-on and tools, and the whole vulture tribe which formed
the British administration in Ireland. "I have unfeigned respect,"
he said, to the Orange jury, "for the form of Christian faith you
profess. Would that its preaching were deeply impressed on your
mind — that its substance rather than forms and temporal advan-
tages appealed to you. Then should I not address you in the
cheerless and hopeless despondency which now clouds my mind.
I respect and venerate your religion — ^but I despise your preju-
dices as much as the Attorney General has cultivated them. There
are amongst you men of great religious zeal — of much public piety.
Are you sincere? Do you believe what you profess? With all
this zeal, with all this piety, is there any conscience amongst you?
Is there any terror of violating your oaths? Be ye hypocrites, or
does genuine religion inspire you? If you be sincere, if you have
consciences, if your oaths can control your prejudice — ^then Mr.
Magee confidently expects an acquittal. If amongst you there be
cherished one ray of pure religion, if amongst you there glows a
single spark of liberty, if I have alarmed the passion of religious
liberty, or roused the spirit of political freedom in one breast
amongst you, Mr. Magee is safe, his country is served. But if
there be none — if you be slaves and hypocrites, he will await your
verdict and despise it."

With astounding audacity he taunted, mimicked, scoffed to his
face, and whipped, the squirming Lord Chief Justice, cowering
on the bench in his scarlet and his ermine before the inspired man
who spoke for an outraged people. "At some future period, my
lord," he mocked him, "some man may attain the first place on
the Bench by the reputation, which is easily acquired, of a certain
degree of church-wardening piety, added to a great gravity and
maidenly decorum of manners. Such a man may reach the Bench
— for I am putting a purely imaginary case. He may be a man
without passions, and therefore without vices. He may, my lord,

0»CONNELL THE IDOL 547

be a man superfluously rich, and therefore not to be bribed with
money, but amenable to the smile of the masters on whom he
fawns and to whom he is partial by his prejudice* Such a man,
inflated by flattery and bloated in his dignity, may hereafter use
his character for sanctity which has served to promote him, as a
sword to hew down the struggling liberties of his country." And
he told the jury not to stand dictation from this man.

Saurin who, above all others, richly deserved it, he excoriated,
lashing him till almost he yelped, and to his face branding him
an infamous and profligate liar.

A vivid picture of Saurin, under his castigadon, was drawn by
Dennis Scully, in an introduction which he wrote for O'Connell's
speech, published immediately after by The Post, and distributed
in tens of thousands: "How did you feel when Mr. O'Connell
branded you as a libeler before the court, a calumniator in the
face of your country, and in your beard a liar? The sweat tridded
down Saurin's forehead," continues Scully. "His lips were as white
as ashes, his jaws elongated, and his mouth unconsciously open,
while the lava of the indignant orator poured around him with
unsparing tide, and seemed absolutely to dry up and bum the
source of respiration."

O'Connell's speech, by most authorities reckoned his greatest
forensic effort, set the country wild with enthusiasm — and no won-
der, for he had bearded the lion of injustice in his very lair, and
he had lashed him till his roars of rage were heard to the corners
of the land. All the vultures attendant upon the Government of
Ireland were screeching and screaming in discordant chorus, for
the astounding brazenness of a common demagogue attacking and
mocking all sacred things which it had hitherto been considered
most shocking sacrilege to breathe the faintest whisper against.
In their wrath the Government minions went so far as to try to
have O'Connell disrobed or driven from the Bar. But for their
petty persecutions, which went by him as the wind, O'Connell was
repaid a thousandfold by the exuberant gratitude of a prostrate
people arising to the knowledge that they had found, if not a de-
liverer, at least a defender, who feared not to face and defy their
oppressor.^

1 Magee was of course found guilty. He was sentenced to two years' imprison-
ment and a heavy fine, besides having to find securities to be of good behaviour
for seven years. He was, moreover, given another six months' imprisonment, to-
gether with a heavy fine, for a further aggravation of his offence in publishing in
The Evening Post after the trial a resolution from the Irishmen of Kilkenny, con-
demnatory of judges and jury, and the whole carriage of the triaL

548 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

And if anything was now needed to further endear O'Connell
to the people, his duel with D'Esterre supplied it.

D'Esterre was a retired Lieutenant in the English navy, who,
by a most audacious bit of bravery, had escaped hanging at the
hands of the sailors in the Mutiny of the Nore. He was now a
wealthy pork merchant in Dublin, and a member of the Orange
Dublin Corporation. O'Connell, having in one of his speeches
at the Catholic Association abused the "beggarly Corporation,"
D'Esterre, then running for High Sheriff, and so coveting popular
favour, leapt forward as its defender. He wrote O'Connell a
tart letter, demanding to know whether it was true, as reported
in the press, that he had applied the opprobrious term to the Cor-
poration. O'Connell made a characteristic reply, wherein refus-
ing to answer yes or no to a demand impertinently made, he at
the same time assured D'Esterre that "no terms attributed to me,
however reproachful, can exceed the contemptuous feeling I en-
tertain for that body."

O'Connell's reply, evoking from all Dublin another hearty
laugh at the ridiculed Corporation, brought from D'Esterre the
announcement that he was going to chastise the man publicly. He
went about the proceedings elaborately. With horsewhip in hand
he set out at an advertised hour from the Mansion House, accom-
panied by the Lord Mayor and other prominent members and
friends of the Corporation, and followed by a crowd that swelled
as it went, till the Four Courts was reached.

When O'Connell, who was pleading a case In the courts, heard
of the treat that awaited him, he doffed his gown and went out
into the hall. But D'Esterre and his friends now considered that
the fashionable thoroughfare of Grafton Street, through which
the miscreant libeller always passed on his way home, would be a
more fitting place to make a public example and point a moral.
So they set off again, and took position on the steps of a drapery
establishment in the popular street. All Dublin was now agog.
Great was the crowd that jammed the thoroughfare. Beauty and
Rank at all the windows took advantageous and comfortable posi-
tions. And to get satisfactory view of the humiliation of the
meddlesome demagogue whose audacity had been getting on their
nerves, the noblest and most prominent members of the Adminis-
tration got the choicest windows and balconies, right above the
spot where the victim was to dance to the music of the horsewhip.

When O'Connell heard where he was now expected to present
himself for punishment, he took in his fist his good blackthorn,
clapped his hat on his head with the slightly rakish tilt that was

O'CONNELL THE IDOL 549

his wont, and with a trusty friend on either side jauntily set out
to overtake his Nemesis. The sublime seriousness with which
the gentleman in Grafton Street apprehended the situation did not
properly sink into O'Connell's soul; for, as the giant strode along,
he lightly twirled his staff, winked at friends who here and there
studded the crowds that lined the way, and with his jokes kept
his companions in hearty laughter en route.

The crowd that had followed D'Esterre was but a drop in
the ocean to the huzzaing multitude that followed "the Coun-
sellor" (as he was affectionately known to the populace). And
when the cheers were heard, and the Counsellor himself and the
head of his following were seen, at the foot of Grafton Street,
D'Esterre rolled up his horsewhip and retired to a back parlour
for meditation. Tory window-holders who had come to feast upon
the final humiliation of the bad man of Ireland, had, instead, to
endure the deep mortification of seeing him on triumphal march
through Grafton Street, elevated into a favour before undreamt
of.

But of course it did not end there. Whatever might or might
not be D'Esterre's qualifications with the horsewhip, his skill with
the pistol was famous. After first demanding an apology from
O'Connell, and getting instead a hearty laugh, he challenged his
man to a pistol duel — ^which Major MacNamara, O'Connell's
friend, arranged to take place at four o'clock on the afternoon of
the day of the challenge, over the border in Kildare. Though
both sides, with a few friends and surgeons, stole off quietly enough
to the place of combat, the news overswept Dublin like wildfire,
and horses, coaches, traps, gigs, and carts, every vehicle and every
animal of burden that could be secured, flew over the road in O'Con-
nell's wake. And when D'Esterre arrived on the field, half an
hour late, he was surprised to find there a goodly gathering indeed
of all sorts and conditions of Dublin people, in addition to crowds
of Kildare country folk and a throng of citizens from the town
of Naas, a few miles distant.

Major MacNamara won the toss for choice of ground. The
men were placed, the signal was given — ^the dropping of a hand-
kerchief— the two fighters, with pistol points lowered, steadily
watched each other for half a minute. Then D'Esterre stepped
to one side, to confuse his opponent, both pistols came up simul-
taneously, O'Connell's shot rang out first — and laid D'Esterre
upon the ground mortally wounded.

The Dublin Corporation and Tory ascendancy had, in the eyes
of the tense crowd, gone down in the person of the seriously

550 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

wounded D'Esterre — and from the top of the field where the
country people were assembled went up a cheer of triumph that,
it may be said, ceased not, till, twenty-four hours later, it had
reached the four ends of Ireland.

The man who had thrown the Old Man of the Sea, the aris-
tocratic incubus, ofi the shoulders of the Catholic Association, who
had then made the creatures of the administration yelp under his
lash, and made the creatures' masters tremble, had compelled the
hierarchy to the side of their people and broken the intrigues of
Rome, and had finally overthrown hated privilege in the person
of the champion of the most bitterly anti-Irish Orange body that
Ireland knew, was now truly the people's Dan I

CHAPTER LXIV

CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION

O'CONNELL now had complete control of the national mind. And
his voice was the voice of Ireland. The unquestioning faith of his
multitudinous following put in his hands a power which he un-
sparingly wielded to work out the people's emancipation.

And to that end he spared himself not — either physically or
morally, it might be specified. For when George IV of Britain
came to visit Ireland in 1821, the popular leader, in anxiety to
attain his great end, abased himself and through himself the na-
tion. The abasement was not the less humiliating to Ireland even
when we admit that the servile homage which he did George was
as much the genuine homage of one who had an almost supersti-
tious reverence for royalty, as it was the blarney of the Prince of
Blarney.

The man's ever-amazing veneration and love for the royal rep-
resentative of that Empire which trod upon his nation's neck, and
kept himself and his fellows in servitude, will be treated of later
on. Sufficient to say now that to the generations since this has
seemed almost an enigma in O'Connell's nature. But the blarney
Dan always considered a worthy and legitimate instrument, as it
was an effective one, for attaining a good end.

The debauch of debasement in which O'Connell revelled be-
fore George was all the more remarkable because nine years be-
fore he had held him up to ridicule and opprobrium when, as Prince
of Wales, the royal youth had worked maliciously and effectively
against Catholic relief. The Catholic Board, under O'Connell's
direction of course, passed the celebrated "witchery" resolution,
which (between the lines) gave to the scandal-mongering multi-
tude) the tid-bit that it was a bigoted anti-Catholic mistress who
had' compelled the Prince's anti-Irish attitude. The resolution,
and O'Connell's flippant treatment of his quasi-secret heart en-
tanglement, had envenomed George against the Irish leader. This
well-known fact made all the more strange the leader's effusively
enthusiastic humility now. To cap the absurdity, O'Connell was
not more delighted at lavishing servile homage upon his royal
master than the royal master himself was childishly delighted to

receive it.

551

552 THF STORY OF THF IRISH FACF

O'Connell, in organising the reception, so worke(i upon his
faithful people with his lavish eloquence that, arising out to wel
come George with wild delight, the> seethed with enthusiasm dur.
ing every day of his stay. All dissensions of Orange and Green
were drowned in the great draught ot loyalty that both parties
now quaffed. Royal blue, the blend of the two parties' colours,
was by O'Connell's direction, sported by all. The climax was
reached when at Dunleary (whose ancient name was that day
dropped in favour of the glorious new one of Kingstown) O'Con-
nell, on bended knee, presented George with a laurel crown, and
the pledge of the nation's eternal gratitude and loyalty. George
shook the hand of the Great Dan right cordially, and, in the lan-
guage of The London Times correspondent, "noticed Mr. O'Con-
nell in the most marked and condescending manner I" To the
cheering crowds the king said in a voice almost broken with emo-
tion, "May God Almighty bless you all until we meet again."
And on the deck of his ship, when it started, he waved his white
hand to the adoring ones, crying: "Farewell, my beloved Irish
subjects I"

O'Connell, in his joy at discovering the extraordinary devotion
which flowed between British royalty and Irish subjects, proposed
the erection of an Irish royal residence, offering a subscription of
twenty guineas a year from himself. And to commemorate the
occasion of the discovery, and the man, he asked the select of
Dublin, both Green and Orange, to form a Royal Georgian Club,
the members of which, sporting rosettes of blue, should dine six
times a year, and at the festive board help one another to recall
the happy memories of their beloved king's visit.

So touched was George with his reception by his "beloved Irish
subjects," that he bestowed on Lord FIngall, the ranking Catholic
layman, the Order of St. Patrick. And immediately after his re-
turn to England he sent to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland a
message of gratitude, and hope for the bright future of his Irish
people — which assured O'Connell and his followers, if assurance
were needed, that their fondest hopes for religious freedom would
now at length be satisfied.

Bat they had still a weary way to go to their religious free-
dom, many an arduous hill to climb, and many a furious battle to
fight, before the goal was won. And it was destined that In the
agony of the fight the rueful Dan should groan: "I am sorry
to say that the greatest enemy of the people of Ireland is his most
sacred majesty 1"

It Is true that In '21 the English House of Commons passed

CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 553

the Catholic Relief Bill which, while proposing to make Catholics
eligible for Parliament and for offices under the Crown was again
saddled with the impossible veto, and with another equally un-
acceptable condition, namely, that the Roman Catholic clergy should
take oath to elect only bishops who were loyal to the British Crown.
O'Connell, who cursed it as worse than all the penal statutes, fought
this Bill with all his power — and the priests in a solid body backed
him. But, anyhow, the Lords who could not stomach such con-
cession to the Irish, threw it out — and saved Ireland the trouble
of rebelling against it.

O'Connell entering into negotiation with Lord Lieutenant Wel-
lesley — specially sent over to soothe Catholic feeling — agreed to
a compromise form of veto, whereby the questioned loyalty of any
man chosen for a bishopric should be investigated and decided
upon by two bishops. But as the Government absolutely refused
to entertain this proposition, O'Connell had to start from the be-
ginning again.

He found it a particularly good time for agitation because it
was a particularly bad time for the country. The year '22 and
again '23 brought with them much want and hardship to the na-
tion. There was a famine; the French Wars had ended, and a
period of greatly inflated prices intensely aggravated the other
woes under which the people laboured. The secret society of the
Ribbonmen, which terrorised profiteers, bad landlords, Govern-
ment officials, and all enemies of the people, helped to develop
and swell the unrest throughout the island. And the Government
was embarrassingly trying to cope with a difficult situation. It
was the right moment for organising the mass of the people and
giving them a lead. Richard Lalor Shiel, orator and Catholic
leader, who had differed with and separated from O'Connell, now
consented to join forces with him. So O'Connell founded a new
Catholic Association and resolving to bring into politics a new
great power that had never before been systematically enlisted,
namely, the priests, organised the Association by parishes with
the priest in each case as natural leader. To provide the sinews
for the fight a Catholic rent was established, one penny per month
per man — ^to be lifted at the chapel gate on the first Sunday of
each month — ^which small subscription from a vast number of
people soon supplied the Catholic Association with a steady In-
come of more than a thousand pounds a week. So, in a short time
the country was more thoroughly organised than It had ever been
before. The Association, too, was more virile and determined
in its demands. Strange to say the triumphs of the South Amer-

554 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

ican Revolutionaries under Bolivar — to whom Ireland had con-
tributed an Irish brigade, O'Connell's son Morgan one of its of-
ficers— and even also the triumphs of the Greeks over their Turk-
ish enslavers, enthused and emboldened the people. And O'Con-
nell, most loyal of men, grew belligerent — in his speeches at least.
"If the Irish be driven to desperation," he rang out, "they may
wish for a new Bolivar to arise who will call forth the spirit of
the South Americans, the spirit, too, of the Greeks, to animate
the people of Ireland." And the threat was applauded from sea
to sea. So dangerous became the people's attitude that the Eng-
lish Government was forced to take a decisive step. The Catholic
Association was suppressed, and an Emancipation Bill brought in.

The speech of one of the very liberal-minded Parliamentarians,
Plunkett, on the suppression of the Association, illuminates to us
the liberality of the British Constitution as interpreted for Ire-
land. "An Association assuming to . represent the people," said
Plunkett, "and in that capacity to bring about a reform of church
and state is directly opposed to the British Constitution. . . . We
deny that any portion of the subjects of this realm have the right
to give up their suffrages to others — the right to select persons to
speak their sentiments, debate their grievances and devise methods
for their removal, those persons (the committee of the Catholic
Association) not being recognised by law. That is the privilege
alone of the Commons of the United Kingdom." And the re-
former, Channing, endorsed these sentiments!

This Emancipation Bill, of 1825, omitted the veto; but in-
stead there were attached to it two conditions, named the "wings"
— that were to carry it through. They were — payment of priests,
and the disfranchisement of the forty shilling free-holders. Arch-
bishops were to be paid fifteen hundred pounds per year, bishops
a thousand pounds, parish priests two hundred pounds, and curates
sixty pounds. This of course was the bribe that would secure
their loyalty to the British connection for all time. O'Connell
found himself willing to compromise and accept these conditions,
but priests and people rebelled — and Mahomet had to come to
the mountain.

The Bill passed the House of Commons — and in all prob-
ability the House of Lords would have felt compelled to accept it,
but that the Duke of York, brother to George IV, came before
them, threatened, stormed, implored, entreated, and even wept
at the prospect of their becoming traitors to the Established reli-
gion, to the crown, and to God, truckling with, bribing, and sub-
sidising iniquity. The Lords, deeply moved, and emboldened by

CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 555

the fierce harangue, threw out the Bill. An anti-Catholic wave
again overswept Britain, on the crest of which rode the hero of
York, the saviour of his nation and religion. The Parliament
dissolved in a tumult. A general election followed, in which, once
more, no-popery carried the day. And a bitterly anti-Papist Gov-
ernment took up the reins in England.

O'Connell, nothing daunted, started to build anew. When
the Catholic Association was suppressed, he penned a valedictory,
wherein, still strong with irrepressible loyalty, he urged upon the
people "attachment to the British Constitution, and unqualified
loyalty to the kingl" But as he always loved to show defiance to
illegal laws — in a legal manner, however — ^he, to replace the sup-
pressed Catholic Association now founded the New Catholic As-
sociation, "for the purpose of public and private charity and such
other purposes as are not forbidden by the statute of George IV,
cap. 4." And by the simple device of the slightest change of name,
and the definite statement of purposes not forbidden by the recent
Suppression Act, he quickly had his agitation going in as full blast
as if the British Imperial Parliament had only winked at it. And
the intensity of the anti-popery agitation in England, and the suc-
cess of the anti-popery party there, instead of dampening the ar-
dour of the people, gave fresh vigour to the fight.

Though the general election in England went very happily
for the no-popery party, the new no-popery Government was
frightened to discover that the election in Ireland had gone en-
tirely the other way. The mighty power of combined priests and
people was taking form, and the Irish nation now realised the
solidity of their power more surely and more boldly than ever
before.

Lecky says that this election of *26 won Emancipation. It
certainly gave the Government pause, and prepared them for a
salutary change of mind.

But with far more force, it can be said that Emancipation was
won by the epoch-making Clare election. That was the first truly
golden milestone met by the Irish people upon their weary march
from the century's beginning. The Clare election was to Ireland
a joyful surprise, and a fearful one to England.

It will be recalled that Catholics were debarred from sitting
in Parliament. Every member taking the oath had to swear to
his conviction that "the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Invocation
of the Virgin Mary and other saints, as now practised in the
Church of Rome, are infamous and idolatrous." Now, in 1828 a
Parliamentary vacancy was created in County Clare, by reason

556 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

of the member, Fitzgerald (a supporter of Emancipation), tak-
ing office under the Government. Fitzgerald had no doubt what-
soever of his re-election for Clare. It was, like many another* a
family seat. It had been his father's before him, and was now
his. But since he took office under Government it was decided by
the Association that Fitzgerald should be opposed.

O'Connell was trying to pick out a strong, desirable and re-
liable candidate, when there was made to him the startling sug-
gestion, "Why not stand for Clare, yourself?" The audacity of
the idea first took him aback. Then he smiled at it, and finally,
seized by bold resolve, electrified his friends by declaring: "I'll
do it." The news electrified Dublin within an 4iour, and Clare
and all Ireland, within twenty-four hours. It was the most auda-
cious resolve of the generation.

It was then the middle of the week. O'Connell was pleading
in the Dublin Pour Courts most important cases with which he
could not get through before the week's end. The nomination was
to take place in Ennis, the capital of Clare, on the following Mon-
day, and the election began on Tuesday. A party of O'Connell's
ablest and most eloquent friends, including Tom Steele (his Head
Pacificator), Major MacNamara (his second at the D'Esterre
duel), and Father Tom MacGuire, the famous controversialist
from County Leitrim, were at once rushed off to the seat of war.
O'Connell was to follow when he could.

It was the afternoon of Saturday when O'Connell got through
with his cases. He slammed his papers into his bag, threw aside
his wig and gown, rushed out of the Four Courts, and sprang into
a waiting coach, at which four impatient horses were straining —
and amid the huzzas of a throng that had gathered to shower
blessings on him, was tearing along the way to Ennis.

Speeding across Ireland during all of that night and of the
next day, the champion was cheered by the splendid reception ac-
corded him at every important point; in every town and village
masses of men and women waited up to hail the bold chieftain,
and to speed him forward with shouts of encouragement. Crowds
were gathered at cross-roads, and knots at little cabins, all of
whom took up and passed along the tremendous cheer which be-
fore his flying carriage and behind it, rolled all the long way in
accompaniment. Ahead of him, behind, snd alongside, ran swift-
footed men and boys with blazing torches, lighting the way for
him and for Ireland's triumph. In some places bodies of men on
horseback, spur at heel, and crouched in their saddles, lined the
way, awaiting to dash out with the flying coach of the champion,

CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 557

as guards of honour; and ere their horses tired down, other wait-
ing ones on horses fresh sprang out to do their part.

It was two o'clock on Monday morning when O'Connell's
coach dashed into Ennis, which, Mazing with lights, had its streets
even at that nour jammed with the wildly joyous, and frantically
cheering, multitude.

O'Connell and Fitzgerald were that day nominated. And, on
Tuesday morning began the tug of war. The crux of the situa-
tion lay in the voting of the forty shilling freeholders. These
men had been technically given votes which were really meant as
endowment to their landlords. No sane politician ever thought
that they would dare exercise choice as to the candidate for whom
their vote would be cast. They had always voted in platoons un-
der the landlord's orders. Only, in the recent general election,
for the first time in their existence, the Forties as they were called,
had showed unmistakable signs of revolt in places where their
landlords were supporters of the unpopular candidate.

But in this great Clare election, in which every landlord stood
behind Fitzgerald, the Forties finally and completely broke the
shackles of tradition and landlord control, and went cheering to
the polls for O'Connell. Exciting was the scene when they came
into Ennis in bodies, sometimes openly proclaiming their new free-
dom, sometimes seemingly submissive and demure under leader-
ship of their landlord, and herded by his bailiffs and understrap-
pers. But when the suitable moment arrived these demure ones,
breaking away, rent the skies with shouts for O'Connell, and
rushed to the poll, for the first time in their lives to vote as their
hearts prompted. The priests of Clare played a prominent part.
Their sermons on Sunday had been impassioned appeals and heart-
reaching exhortations to their congregations to quit their landlords
for their God, and vote for O'Connell and Catholic Emancipa-
tion. Where they succeeded in driving out of the hearts of their
flock the terror of the landlord, they headed their flocks to Ennis.
In cases where the landlord, still retaining his hold, led in his pla-
toon of voters, they were met at the town's entrance by priests in-
spired with holy zeal, who, with crucifix held aloft, barred the
way and in torrential eloquence urged the people by the suffer-
ings of Him who died for man not to play traitor to their faith in
this supreme hour. And the embittered, deserted, landlord often
had to stand aside and curse, as he beheld his tenants burst their
bonds, and with great shout follow their priest to the polling booth.
The tens of thousanas who thronged there that week not only
filled the streets and the houses but encamped in the meadows,

558 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

and along the roadside, for miles around. There was no drink-
ing, there was no fighting; there was no disorder. The people
had been put on a vow most sacred to bring no disgrace on the
cause, but conduct themselves with the decorum that they would
at church. And in the face of opportunity and provocation before
unequalled, they amazed friend and enemy by exercising a restraint
that was marvellous. The anecdote is told of Sheedy MacNamara,
a man who would welcome a fight more warmly than a fortune,
being openly and most provokingly insulted in the streets by one
of the enemy, and, instead of knocking the fellow down, taking
him gently aside and saying to him in the sweetest way: "I have
just one little pig at home, and I'll promise you the price of it if
you'Jl repeat them same words to me the day after the election."

At the end of the first day of the polling O'Connell was a
little ahead of Fitzgerald. On Wednesday night his lead was
larger, and his majority went on progressing, during Thursday
and Friday. Till on Saturday night, when the poll closed, he
was, by two to one, elected member of Parliament for Clare.

A few months before the Clare election the English Prime
Minister, Sir Robert Peel, had emphatically declared in the House
of Commons: "I can not consent to widen the door of political
power to Roman Catholics. I can not consent to give them the
same civil rights and privileges as those possessed by their Prot-
estant fellow-countrymen." But, a few months after the Clare
election he prepared to pipe to another tune: "In the course of
the last six months England, at peace with the world, has had five-
sixths of her infantry force occupied in maintaining peace in Ire-
land. I consider such a state of things much worse than rebel-
lion." And the king's speech in Parliament in the February fol-
lowing asked his faithful Commons to consider the unrest in Ire-
land and review the laws causing it. County Clare had conquered
England.

Says Lecky: "The population was in ferment, the army itself
was affected. The influerite of the landed aristocracy gave way.
Ministers, feeling further resistance hopeless, brought in the Eman-
cipation Bill confessedly because to withhold it might kindle a
rebellion extending over the length and the breadth of the land."

Lord Wellington, in the Lords, excused his promoting the
Bill on the ground that it might be less evil than civil war, which,
if the bill were refused, would surely be precipitated In Ireland.
Fear of the consequences, not the injustice, was the only reason
offered by any of its English promoters, for pressing the measure.

The Emancipation Bill was brought in — and passed — ^but not

CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 559

without fierce opposition. The Lords also felt constrained to allow
it — though one can easily imagine the bitter aversion with which
they did so. The Duke of Brunswick (brother to King George)
and Lord Eldon, the most violent opponents of the measure, then
went to the king, to entreat, threaten, and coerce him into refusing
his signature. And they succeeded in breaking him down so that
when the Government leaders, Peel of the Commons, and Welling-
ton of the Lords, brought him the Bill, he. would not sign it. They
argued with him for five hours, but with no avail. He alternately
stormed and wept. They handed him their resignations. He
called them back, kissed them, and cried again. When he found
himself unable to form a new ministry, he sent again for Welling-
ton and Peel, signed the bill, and in a fit of rage smashed on the
floor the pen with which he had, as he believed, betrayed his trust
to God and the English people.^

In the House of Lords the Archbishop of Canterbury moved
to reject the bill, and was seconded by the Protestant Primate of
Ireland, Beresford. Every bishop except one. Dr. Lloyd of Ox-
ford, voted against Catholics getting citizen rights in their own
country.

The Emancipation Bill was passed, the commonest citizen
rights from which Irish people had hitherto been debarred, be-
cause they were heretics and idolaters, were now permitted by
law. And civil offices from which they had been, for their crime,
shut out, were supposedly thrown open to them. Technically
these reforms were instituted by the passing of the Act — "The
manacles," said O'Connell, "are riven from our limbs after we
had gone near to breaking them on the heads of our enemies."
But practically speaking Irish Catholics continued, for many de-
cades after, to labour under their former disability. And in many
parts of Ireland, even down to a short generation ago, they were
in practice still shut out from all offices except the most menial.

1 Three months after, when King George at one of his levees caught sight «f
O'Connell, he muttered, "There is O'Connell, G d the scoundrell"

O'Connell did not present himself in the House of Commons until the Bill had
been passed-r-though not yet gone into effect Every member was in his place on
the day and at the hour that O'Connell was expected. In the Strangers' Gallery
were crowded the nobility of England and the diplomats of many foreign countries.
When the objectionable oath was presented to O'Connell he of course refused to
take it He was told by the speakers that under the circumstances he could not
take his seat, and he marched out of the House of Commons again — and went back
to Qare where he was re-elected without opposition.

When the Emancipation Act went into efiect. it of course eliminated tiie objec-
tionable oath ; and the several Catholics who were returned from various parts of
Ireland at the next general election, were permitted to seat diemselves in the House.

CHAPTER LXV

o'connell's power and popularity

Though it was in his character as political leader that he was
greatest to his people, it was undeniably in his capacity as lawyer
that Daniel O'Connell — "Dan" as they affectionately called him
— got nearest to their hearts. They who had always been con-
demned before they were heard, were accorded human rights in
the courts of law after O'Connell had successfully stormed those
citadels of injustice. To the regular Crown prosecutors he made
his name a name of fear. And indeed it was not much less a ter-
ror to those irregular Crown prosecutors who, on the Bench, mas-
queraded as judges.

He was one of the most powerful pleaders that the Bar ever
knew. His enemy. Peel, once said that if he wanted an efficient
and eloquent advocate, he would readily barter all the best of the
English Bar for the Irish O'Connell. In conducting an important
case he called into play all of his wonderful faculties. He went
from grave to gay, from the sublime to the ludicrous. He played
with ease upon every human feeling. He carried away the judge,
the jury, the witness that he was handling, and the very prisoner
himself in the dock. He could in a few minutes' cross-examination
tear the ablest witness to shreds, and show the pitying court the
paltry stuff he was made of. He might at first play his man, go
with him, blarney him, flatter him, convince him that Dan O'Con-
nell had become his most enthusiastic admirer and dearest friend.
And when he had thus taken him off his guard, led him by hand
into a trap, the Counsellor (another of the people's titles for
O'Connell) would come down upon his man with a crash that
stunned and shattered him and left him a piteous victim at the
great cross-examiner's feet. And to judge and jury and the whole
court it was now the witness, not the prisoner in the dock, who
was on trial for his life.

He had a most disconcerting way of passing pungent viva voce
remarks, when the prosecuting lawyer was making his speech or
examining his witness, which provoked the prosecutor to wrath,

560

O'CONNELL'S POWER AND POPULARITY 561

lost him his train of thought, and often spoiled him his case. If
the judges' protection was invoked by the enraged prosecutor, the
wise potentate on the Bench usually considered discretion the bet-
ter part of valour. Baron McClellan trying a case in a Kerry
court was annoyed to find O'Connell interjecting remarks in a case
in which he felt his interest enlisted. "Mr. O'Connell," asked Mc-
Clellan, cuttingly, "are you engaged in this case?" "I am not, my
lord, but I shall be." "When I was at the Bar," said the judge,
in his most crushing manner, "it was not my habit to anticipate
briefs." "When your lordship was at the Bar," answered O'Con-
nell, "I never chose you for a model. And now that you are on
the Bench I shall not submit to your dictation."

Once when O'Connell found himself in possession of abso-
lutely no case, in defending a prisoner who was on trial for his
life before a newly-appointed, timid, and scrupulous judge, O'Con-
nell deliberately proceeded with a line of argument which — as he
intended — compelled reprimands from the judge again and again;
then giving way to an outburst of apparently terrible indignation,
he said: "Since your lordship will not permit me to defend this
man whose life is in the balance, I withdraw from the case, and
throw the prisoner upon the tender mercies of an evidently hostile
court. If he is condemned, on your head, my lord, be his blood."
Then he slammed down his brief and left the court. The fright-
ened judge, finding himself compelled to act the part of Counsel
for the defence, cross-examined for the prisoner, charged for him
' — ^and sent him out of the court a free man.

The Doneraile conspiracy case, in October, 1829, memorably
exemplified O'Connell's power. The Government, making a grand
sweep at Doneraile, gathered in many men charged with conspiracy
to murder savage landlords and unjust magistrates. The greatest
importance was attached to the case. A Special Commission was
sent down to Cork to try the conspirators. "Long John" Do-
herty, the Solicitor-General, a bitterly anti-popular official, went
down himself to prosecute. They were to be tried in batches.
The first four were put forward, found guilty, and sentenced to
be hanged. At this result the remaining prisoners and their as-
sembled friends were thrown into panic. It was then Saturday
afternoon. The next batch would be put on trial on Monday morn-
ing. A cry went up for Dan O'Connell. Dan was then resting
at Derrynane — ninety Irish miles away. That he could be got to
the trial in time, even if he consented to come, was hardly possible.
But in desperation the forlorn hope must be chanced. A messen-
ger, William Burke, set out from Cork on a fast horse, on Satur-

562 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

day evening, and, after a marvellous night ride, on Sunday fore-
noon clattered into Derrynane and threw himself from his horse
at O'Connell's door. The Counsellor, when he learnt the circum-
stances, said: "I'll go."

He rushed Burke off ahead to have fresh horses awaiting him
at certain points, and to carry to the distracted ones the news of
his coming. O'Connell started in the afternoon, and all that eve-
ning and all that night was galloping over the rough, steep, and
broken mountain-roads of Kerry, and then over the plains and
hills of Cork, without pausing to eat, drink, or sleep. At ten
o'clock on Monday morning, one hour after the court-sitting be-
gan, the waiting throngs on the streets of Cork were electrified
by the cry, "The Counsellor's coming I" The wild exultation which
found voice from the waiting ones away beyond the suburbs rolled
onward to the city's heart gathering volume as it went, till it
rocked the court-house, bringing dismay to the prosecutors there,
and genuine displeasure to the judges — all of whom too well knew
what that terrific cheer meant. Through the frantically huzzaing
lines of people O'Connell tore onward, to the courthouse, where,
as he jumped to the ground his horse fell dead!

Attired as he was, and mud-spattered, he tore into the hall
where the State trial was staged, and, to the scowling prosecutors
and the frowning judges, announcing, "I appear for the prisoners
in the dock," sat down at the Counsel's table to a repast of bread
and milk, that had been rushed in after him. While he hastily
bolted his single meal lawyers for the defence were pouring into
his ear the points of the case. He gave one ear to them and one to
Prosecutor "Long John" who was then on his feet addressing the
court. Now and then, between mouthfuls, he would emit a short
sharp comment, objection, or rebuke to the sorely-provoked Do-
herty — spoiling half-a-dozen of the fellow's finest points, by rap-
ping out on the heels of them, "That's not law I" And every
time, the judges had to uphold O'Connell's objection.

"The allegation is made upon false facts," said Doherty, en-
lightening the Judges upon a particular point. "Never was such
a thing as a false fact," snapped O'Connell. "There are false
facts and false men too," sneered the enraged Doherty. "Yes,
your case and yourself," retorted O'Connell.

When Doherty, with his temper and his arguments shattered,
sat dovfTi, O'Connell, now both refreshed and informed, got to
his feet and began his case. The prosecution pursued in this case
the selfsame line of action, produced the selfsame witnesses, and
got the selfsame "proofs" against this second batch of prisoners

O'CONNELL'S POWER AND POPULARITY s^3

a$ against the first — ^but O'Connell's defence made such breaches
in the prosecution's structure that the jury disagreed. And when
the third batch was tried he had so far progressed as to procure
a quick verdict of "Not Guilty." The prosecution was broken.
They would go no further with the trial; all remaining prisoners
were released; the condemned ones were reprieved — and a host
of men who had looked into the noose that awaited their necks,
walked home amid cheering crowds, free men.

O'Connell had some good stories to tell of some of the char-
acters whom his genius had freed. There was a robber whom he
defended on three different occasions — and for whom he won out
every time. On the occasion of the third victory, the fellow grate-
fully grasped his hand, exclaiming: "May the Lord long spare
you to me. Counsellor O'Connell." And a cow-stealer whom he
had defended repaid him with a tip on how to extract the maxi-
mum of profit from a cow raid. "When your Honouf goes to
stale cows," the expert confided to him, "always choose the worst
night that falls from the heavens, because then there'll be no one
about to see you. And, on such a night, too, when you reach the
field, you'll aisily know the fat ones. Don't take any of the
scrawny bunch, your honour, that shoulder one another in the
shelter of the wall. They are the craitures that have nothing on
their bones but a hide. Take them that stands out in the open,
disregardless of the storm, for they're the fat on^s that has noth-
ing to fear from wind, rain, or hail."

For fifteen years before Emancipation, O'Connell was, it
seemed, the greatest man in Ireland. When he achieved Eman-
cipation he became one of the greatest men in Europe — ^in the
world. Such was his universal fame then that there was nothing
surprising about his getting a letter from America beginning
"Awful Sir" — or in the German students' answering the exam-
ination question: "Who is Daniel O'Connell?" with the reply:
"He is the man who discovered Ireland." In the election of a
king for the newly-formed Belgian nation three votes were given
for "le Grand O'Connell." And ten years afterward, in the fer-
vour of the Repeal movement, Dan himself said to his friend,
O'Neill Daunt, "If the Belgian election had waited till now, I
don't doubt but I would have run old Leopold close." In '35 he
was flattered to find himself invited to France to defend the Lyons
Conspirators — which signal honour he had to refuse for want of
fluency in French. His friend Daunt records the pronouncement
of a London stockbroker who was no way partial to O'Connell
or his principles: "Your Daniel O'Connell is one of the Great

564 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Powers of Europe. His movements have a sensible effect on the
Funds."

All over the Continent he was now revered as the greatest
leader of Catholic democracy that the world ever knew. His won-
derful Continental popularity was well pictured by Lord Macaulay
speaking (some years later) in the English House of Commons:
"The position which Mr. O'Connell holds in the eyes of his fel-
low-countrymen is a position such as no popular leader in the
whole history of mankind ever attained. You are mistaken if you
imagine that the interest with which he is regarded is confined only
to these islands. Go where you will on the Continent, visit any
coffee-house, dine at any public table, embark upon any steam-boat,
enter any conveyance — from the moment your accent shows you
to be an Englishman, the very first question asked by your com-
panions, be they what they may — ^physicians, advocates, merchants,
manufacturers, or peasants of the class who are like your yeoman
in this country — is 'What will be done with O'Connell?' " And
his greatness thus inspired Bulwer Lytton's muse:

"Once to my sight the giant thus was given,
Walled by wide air and roofed by boundless heaven ;
Beneath his feet the human ocean lay,
And wave on wave flowed into space away.
Methought no clarion could have sent this sound
E'en to the centre of the hosts around^
And, as I thought, rose a sonorous swell,
As from some church tower swings the silvery bell ;
Aloft and clear from airy tide to tide,
It glided easy as a bird may glide.
To the last verge of that vast audience sent,
It played with each wild passion as it went:
Now stirred the uproar, now the murmurs stilled,
And sobs or laughter answered as it willed.
Then did I know what spell of infinite .choice
To rouse or lull has the sweet human voice.
Then did I leam to seize the sudden clue
To the grand troublous life antique — to view,
Under the rockstand of Demosthenes,
Unstable Athens heave her noisy seas."

After having first viewed the champion at close range — for
he helped to fight him — Gladstone, later looking back at him in
far perspective, pronounced O'Connell one of the greatest popu-
lar leaders the world had ever known.

But it was in the hearts of the Irish people that Dan's great-

O'CONNELL'S POWER AND POPULARITY 565

ness was most truly appreciated, and admiration of him grew
akin to worship.

In the years when he was in his climax his word was to the
Irish people electric, and his power was invincible. With joyous
thrill these long-suffering ones felt that when Dan spoke there
was fearful trembling in the seats of the mighty. In him the na-
tion that was dumb had found a voice. The despised had found
a champion and the cruelly wronged an avenger. He was to them
in the ranks of the gods.

And what less exalted position should an oppressed people
give to him who for the first time in man's memory, stood up in
the court of law, the 'court of Injustice, and made the most awful
of the judges, who dispensed injustice there, cower — faced those
judges* Masters too in their own Parliament and made them
writhe I

It is not to be wondered at, then, that O'Connell should, more
than once, in his speech in defence of a prisoner, get the jury in
the box cheering. An Englishman in a party accompanying O'Con-
nell over a mountain-road was shocked to behold the mourners
at a funeral which they met, burst out cheering for their uncrowned
king. "Arrah, man, dear," O'Connell reassured him, "sure the
corpse in the coffin would have joined in the cheer himself, if he
could only have found his voice." An old crippled beggar woman
when her hand was shaken by the great Dan, threw her crutch
in the air and gave a bound and a whoop that would do credit to
a mountain goat. O'Neill Daunt tells how, at a reception to
O'Connell in Limerick, where a hundred thousand jubilant men
were throwing their hats in the air, an enthusiastic poor woman
tossed up her child.

So affected even were the English by Dan*s greatness that (as
told by himself) two maiden ladies who were at one time his
hostesses in England insisted every night before retiring, on standi
ing up to sing a hynrn in his praise to the air of "God Save the
King."

After Emancipation was won O'Connell abandoned his law
practice to devote himself entirely to the people's cause. To com-
pensate him, the famous Tribute was then started — a popular
nation-wide subscription which gave him an average income of
thirteen thousand pounds a year. Though in Its first year, in spe-
cial gratitude to die man who had wrung the Emancipation Act
from England, fifty thousand pounds were subscribed.

His law pracdce had been netting him about eight thousand
pounds per year. If, foregoing Ireland's cause, he had given all

566 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

his time to the law he might have doubled that sum. It was the
taking of the Tribute, every penny of which was richly earned,
and every penny of which in truth he well spent, that won for him
from his unloving English friends the title of the Big Beggarman.
It was sometimes amusing to him to hear the scornful phrase used
by some English politician who, if he had had half O'Connell's
talent, would not have lent it to any cause, good or bad, for double
the sum. A few of their broader-minded ones, however, frankly
admitted that it was a noble honorarium, nobly earned, nobly
given, and nobly accepted. So large was the scale on which O'Con-
nell had to live, and so great his expenses, that the Tribute to-
gether with the income of his estate was seldom sufficient to keep
hirfi out of debt.

CHAPTER LXVI

THROUGH THE 'THIRTIES

When Emancipation was won, Repeal of the false and corruptly-
purchased "Union" of Ireland with England was the great issue
that the Leader started. It had always been mulling in his mind.
Indeed there were times when he would have preferred to accept
repeal of the Union in preference to repeal of the Penal Laws.
He stated that at the time of the Union, and the wish haunted his
heart every year after.

In 1810 the grand jurors of Dublin, all of them of course
Tories and British-Irish, tried to start the Repeal movement. But
the promises of British politicians who dangled before their eyes
the bait of Emancipation, kept the Catholic party from joining
their Protestant fellow-countrymen on this occasion. Now that
Dan was free to throw himself into the repeal movement, and the
Catholics almost to a man were behind him, no support could be
got from their Protestant fellow-countrymen. There were two
reasons for this — ^the fierceness of the fight for Emancipation had
embittered the Protestants against their Catholic fellows; and be-
sides all the offices and patronage of the country which had been
securely theirs in pre-Emancipation days were getting shaky in
their grasp now that Catholic disabilities were by law removed.
Repeal of the Union would now finally break their monopoly;
so the overwhelming body of the Protestant population was hence-
forth as bitterly anti-Repeal as they had formerly been anti-Union
— and more bitterly than they had been anti-Emancipation.

Strange to say, the famous Bishop Doyle of Limerick, dearly

loving the people whose fearless champion he was, but curiously

lacking the Nationalist instinct, withstood O'Connell on Repeal.

Richard Lalor Shiel was against him, too — though this will not

seem strange to any one who studies the many shallows of Shiel's

nature. And it will surprise some who thought that Tom Moore

was not a mere drawing-room patriot to learn that he too bitterly

resented O'Connell's new national move, saymg that it would

divide the upper, and madden the lower, classes. And his in-

567

568 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

dignation inspired him to write his song: "The dream of those
days when I first saw thee, is o'er."

The Government, not desiring to see the 'Thirties repeat the
debacle of the 'Twenties, took an emphatic grip on Time's fore-
lock, and determinedly set themselves to stamp out his repeal
agitation at its inception. When in 1 830 he started his anti-Union
Association they proclaimed it at once; and from that time for-
ward it was an exciting race between O'Connell and the Govern-
ment— he restarting his repeal movement under a new name each
week, and they, close following, proclaiming it.

He started a weekly Repeal Breakfast, and promised that if
it was suppressed, he would have Repeal Lunches, Repeal Din-
ners, Repeal Suppers in succession. Its next form was a General
Association for Ireland. When that was proclaimed, he started
A Body of Persons, in the Habit of Meeting Weekly for Break-
fast, at a place called Holmes' Hotel. When this was proclaimed
he had A Party Meeting for Dinner at Gray's Tavern. When it
was proclaimed he proposed to make himself the Repeal Associa-
tion, with an assisting council of thirty-one people. He said they
couldn't disperse an individual by proclamation.

But it was never a question of what the Irish Government
could do. Whether they could or could not do a thing they would
do it — and did it. He started his Association under the tide of
the Irish Society for Legal and Legislative Relief; after that, again
the Anti-Union Association; then an Association of Irish Volun-
teers for Repeal of the Union; and, succeeding that, an Associa-
tion of Subscribers to the Parliamentary Intelligence Office.

It was an exciting game of hide-and-seek in which he so pro-
voked and tired the Government that at length they arrested him.
Even then he outwitted them — for he compromised on a plea of
guilty for technical offence against a temporary Act (the Act for
Suppression of Illegal Societies) and contrived to have sentence
postponed until, at the expiration of Parliament, the Act expired,
too.

To help the English Whigs in their great fight for Parlia-
mentary Reform, O'Connell, much against the wish of many wise
ones, slackened the Repeal fight, while he let the popular fight
against tithes forge to the front. And he cast all his weight to
the English Whigs in their Reform struggle.

The Established (Protestant) Church was supported in Ire-
land by the farmers of all religions paying to it tithes, a tenth of
their products. In this way the poorer five-sixths of the Irish

THROUGH THE 'THIRTIES 569

population was mulcted to support the very rich church of the re-
maining one-sixth. In the more Catholic parts of Ireland there
were thousands of parishes from which the Established clergyman
drew an enormous salary for ministering to his own family and
the family of his sexton only. Whether his congregation was few
or entirely non-existent, both he and his church had to be kept
prosperous — ^by a people of another faith, who oftentimes had
not meal for the mouths of their own children. In the year im-
mediately succeeding Emancipation, the smouldering anger against
this injustice leaped up in flame tongues, here and there. Little
more than a year after the passing of Emancipation the yeomanry
killed seventeen people who tried to rescue their seized cattle
from the tithe-proctor at Bunclody in Wexford. The Govern-
ment, after inquiry into the affair, concluded that the arms of the
yeomanry were not effective enough for teaching a needed lesson
to conscienceless people who could be guilty of hindering a tithe-
proctor's purposes. So they granted them new and better equip-
ment.

At Carrickshock in Kilkenny, in November of the same year,
the people fell upon an armed force who guarded two tithe proc-
ess-servers— and killed eighteen or twenty of them. The tithe
war was almost getting out of hand. The Government, goaded
by the suffering church, must make desperate efforts to suppress it.
Twenty-five Carrickshock men were put on trial for murder at the
Kilkenny assizes before a Special Commission sent down by Gov-
ernment. O'Connell went down to defend them, and here gave
another fine example of his quality, most deftly shattering the
Government's case, by breaking, at the first going off, the chief
prop on which it rested. At the very outset of the trial they put
forward their leading witness, a policeman, who gave direct, clean-
cut, and definite testimony, proving home murder against some
of the prisoners. His evidence was so definite in the most minute
details as to be eminently convincing to an average jury. On
cross-examination, he proved to be a rock that O'Connell could
not shake. Things looked dark, almost desperate for the defence,
when there was a little note passed from the body of the court to
Counsellor O'Connell. He glanced at the note in the most casual
manner, and learnt from it that the witness' father was a notorious
and convicted sheep stealer. Apparently paying little attention
to the note, he went on mechanically asking further questions in
such an indifferent way as indicated that the witness' evidence was
unshakable. Before dismissing him he paid the witness a couple

570 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

of compliments on his evidence — which put the fellow in mighty
good humour with himself and the world. Then as the witness
was stepping out of the box, triumphant and elated, O'Connell
said: "Just one minute, my friend" — and in a casual way said
to him, "I suppose you're fond o/ mutton." "Why, yes, Coun-
sellor O'Connell. I wouldn't make strange with a good piece of
mutton." "You don't happen to know any really clever sheep-
stealers, now?" "No, I can't say that I do." "Did you ever
know any sheep-stealers ?" "I never had that pleasure." "You,
of course, never have had any connection with any such person?"
O'Connell spoke in an apologetic way as if he was, under com-
pulsion, asking questions that he was ashamed to ask of a decent
man. He led the witness on to swear over and over again, in the
most solemn and most definite manner, that he had never known
of, associated with, or been related to, any such disreputable per-
son. "Then it was," says Fagan, in his Life of O'Connell, "that
O'Connell pounced upon him. The court rang and echoed again
with the thunders of his voice. The silent-stricken audience looked
on with amaze at the portentous change of voice and manner which
had taken place in the advocate, as well as in the witness; and,
amid the hush of the multitude, the deep breathings of the pris-
oners, and the silent, heartfelt expectations of all present, the man
was obliged to confess that his father had been the expert sheep-
stealer, which, on his oath, he had so solemnly denied knowing
but a few minutes before." And that man's evidence went at
once to the scrap-heap.

The tithe war spread like wildfire. The people refused to
pay the iniquitous imposition. They fought against the seizing
of their cattle. All cows liable to be seized were branded "T"
so that nowhere a purchaser could be found for them. Any one
who paid was ostracised. Thousands of troops were poured into
the country to protect the tithe proctors and process-servers. The
Protestant clergy, unable to collect the tithes, were now in such
real distress that the Government had to provide a Relief Fund
for them. Many parts of Ireland were proclaimed; martial law
was instituted; there were shootings, hangings, transportings. All
meetings were suppressed. The Government assumed the tithe
proctor's business, and after many marchings, countermarchings,
and bloody conflicts, collected (out of hundreds of thousands of
pounds due) twelve thousand pounds at a cost of fifteen thousand!

They finally rested from an impossible task and talked com-
promise. They suggested the reduction of the tithe by a fourth,
and shifting it in its reduced form to the landlord's shoulders —

THROUGH THE 'THIRTIES 571

who should then increase his tenants' rents in proportion. O'Con-
nell wanted the tithe reduced two-fifths. Neither proposition went
into effect, just then. But the Vestry Act and the Church Tem-
poralities Act of '34 made minor reforms and economies in the
Establishment — including the suppression of ten ornamental but
highly lucrative bishoprics, and a tax upon the fatter livings to
help the lean ones. The tithe-war dragged on, in varying inten-
sity, till in '38 was passed the Act which reduced the tithe by a
fourth, and shifted it to the landlord. As almost all landlords
raised the rent to recoup themselves, the people still had to con-
tinue bearing the burden of a foreign church.

In his desire to help the English Whigs in their Reform strug-
gle, O'Connell had put Parliamentary Reform temporarily before
Repeal, worked for it with might and main, and with his Irish
following finally gave the Whigs the margin of majority that car-
ried the Reform Bill. And when the Whigs came into power in
the new Reform Parliament of '34, their first measure was a
Coercion Bill for Ireland! The fiercest, too, of the many such
boons to Ireland since the century's beginning!

Thus did the Irish leader find himself recompensed for shelv-
ing Repeal in the interests of the Whigs. "Six hundred scoun-
drels" was his designation of the Britishers who sat in the Re-
form Parliament. And the king's speech, recommending Coer-
cion, he called "a brutal and bloody speech." In his fiery fight-
ing trim, with the forty Repeal members (including eight mem-
bers of his own family) which the General Election gave him
from Ireland, he went to Westminster to try a fall with the "six
hundred scoundrels" over the Coercion Bill. "The atrocious at-
tempt to extinguish public liberty makes me young again," he
wrote to Edward Dwyer, from London. He was now on the
eve of sixty. "I feel the vigour of youth in the elastic spring of
my hatred of tyranny." But his Reform friends overwhelmed his
opposition, and gave a fresh turn of the screw to his suffering
country.

When in '31 he had been warned against abandoning Irish
Repeal for British Parliamentary Reform, he said to the people:
"Let no one deceive you and say that I have abandoned anti-
Unionism. It is false. But I am decidedly of opinion that it is
only in a reformed Parliament that the question can properly,
truly, and dispassionately, be discussed."

Yet, at the very time he said this, he had put Repeal aside to
save his English friends. In a letter to his Whig friend, Lord
Duncannon, in December, '31, he says: "On my arrival (in Dub-

572 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

lin) I found a formidable anti-Union Association completed, called
the Trade Union, headed by a man of popular qualifications, who
was capable of success. I took his people out of his hands, and
not only turned them, but I can say turned the rest of the country,
from the overpowering question of Repeal to the suitable one of
Reform."

Notwithstanding the Whigs' betrayal of him he returned them
to power again after they had been thrown out, and kept them in
power by the dependable bulk of his following.

Throughout the 'Thirties O'Connell seemed to work in com-
plete forgetfulness of the one big fact which the agitation of the
'Twenties should have stamped indelibly on his mind, namely, that
an Ireland lulled by the opiate of English friendship always proved
to be an Ireland fooled; while an Ireland rebellious was an Ire-
land successful.

The Whigs, now needing his support, made formal alliance
with him, flattered him, promised him, lured him on, gave minor
offices to his friends, tried to tempt himself with office — an idea
that indeed he pleasantly toyed with, but finally dismissed — and
left him in the lurch.

Acting under the opiate, he, in '34, called on the country to
try a six year "experiment" — to let Repeal remain in abeyance for
that time, and see what Ireland's good friend, the Whigs, would
do for her. And such was the faith and the confidence of the
people in O'Connell, that, almost without a murmur they spiked
their own guns on the battlefield, just to prove their trust in a
generous enemy 1 And the poor fools were, of course, repaid ac-
cording to their folly.

And during those years, the "experiment" years, Ireland got
from the Whig Government the Poor Law Act (which O'Con-
nell considered a curse instead of a cure), the Tithes Act which
added three-quarters of that impost to their rent — and on the
strength of which complacent Dan called upon the people to cease
their tithe agitation — an Act forbidding subletting, and an Act to
make ejectments easy. Bishop Doyle approved of the latter two
Acts on the ground that they would help to save Ireland from
poverty, and he was sorry they were not enacted thirty years be-
fore I

It was little wonder that in the late 'Thirties the Whig-befooled
Dan found his popularity waning, got down-hearted, depressed,
discouraged, and in '39 made retreat in Mt. Melleray to regain
his calm. "It mortifies but does not surprise me," he wrote to a

THROUGH THE 'THIRTIES 573

friend, "to find that I have exhausted the bounty of the Irish peo-
ple. God help me I What shall I do?" He talked of retiring
permanently into a monastery.

He came out of his Mount Melleray retreat — ^with a mind
much calmed — able collectedly to review his position and make his
plans. But only a miracle could rehabilitate him.

CHAPTER LXVII

THE GREAT REPEAL FIGHT

But the miracle happened.

And the blessed word that evoked the miracle was Repeal!

When, by a fortunate inspiration, the great man boldly uttered
again the witching word which, for six years forbidden, had been
heard not, or only heard in whispers, it resounded from hill to
hill to the island's uttermost corner. It seemed whisked on the
wings of life, till a million mouths re-echoed it. A land that had
been settling into the silence of mild despair, suddenly burst into
a great song of hope again; and the hero who was falling from
his pedestal, was, by this magic word, now lifted to a pinnacle
that he had never reached before.

In 1840 O'Connell founded the National Association of Ire-
land for repeal. The statements of principle which he wrote were
led in by a true O'Connell flourish of superlative loyalty, pledging
"most dutiful and ever inviolate loyalt)' to our gracious and ever-
beloved sovereign queen, Victoria, her heirs and successors for-
ever"— and by another characteristically O'Connell flourish of
law-worship, spiced with piety: "The total disclaiming of, and
absence from, all physical force, violence, or breach of the law,
or in short, any violation of the laws of man or the ordinances
of the Eternal God whose holy name be ever blessed.** The hero
was getting his old rhetorical stride again.

And in the intensity of his loyalty to his beloved sovereign the
name of the Association was, in '41, improved into the Loyal Na-
tional Repeal Association.

The Repeal movement was undoubtedly popularised — if such
were possible — and materially stimulated by a couple of big hap-
penings in the Dublin Corporation in these years. In *4i was
elected, for the first time in history, a Nationalist corporation in
Dublin. Under the Municipal Reform Act, just obtained, the old
Dublin Corporation, citadel of ultra-Orangeism, was wiped out
and replaced by one that was five-sixths Nationalist. And to the
frenzied delight of Dublin, and all Ireland, Dan O'Connell was
elected the first Nationalist Lord Mayor.

574

THE GREAT REPEAL FIGHT 575

So profound was the respect for Dan's sincerity and broad-
mindedness that the few Orangemen left in the new Corporation
stood up, in company with the Nationalist members, to do him
honour. And Dan, in accepting the office, then said : "I pledge
myself to this, that in my capacity as Lord Mayor no one will be
able to discover my politics from my conduct. — In my capacity as
a man though," he added, "I am a Repealer to my last breath."

When, in response to the myriad cries of the multitude of citi-
zens who surged outside the City Hall, Dan, coming to a window,
showed himself in his robes of office, the dramatic sight of a real
Irishman filling the robes of the Lord Mayor of Dublin, set the
multitude frantic with joy. In that rare sight they saw concrete
token that their fearfully long toil was bearing fruit; and ages of
suffering and striving being crowned by heaven with reward. The
rags were surely falling from the Mother's shoulders, the fetters
from her limbs; she was coming into her own again. With lighter
heart and more hopeful, Ireland bent to the fight for Repeal.

The second stimulus was the great Repeal debate in the Dub-
lin Corporation, where the new Lord Mayor made a Repeal
speech, which, to the eager people who in every corner of the land
devoured the report of it, was one of the most wonderful of his
career. By overwhelming majority was carried a resolution to
present a Repeal petition to Parliament. The great debate, from
its first word to its last reported verbatim in all the papers, and
carried to the farthest remote cabin in the most remote valleys of
the Island, mightily swelled the enthusiasm with which the nation
simmered, and multiplied the people's determination this time to
win their goal.

From the day of his election to the Mayoralty it felt fine to
the people -to address Dan, one of their own, as "Your Lordship"
and "My Lord." And it was all the happier for that the rich
expression, far from having to be said in a frightened or cowering
fashion, could be trolled out in a hail-fellow-well-met tone — ^to a
lordship, who, instead of freezing one with an Arctic token of ac-
knowledgment, answered with a smile that would melt the heart
of a millstone. The mob henceforward delighted to run ahead
of his lordship, on the street, crying to the waiting crowd, "Hats
off, for his lordship I" And woe to the beaver head-covering of
any crusty old Tory who was slow to uncover at the cry!

There was a great scene when, in his rich robes of office, Lord
Mayor O'Connell rode through the streets attended by the Alder-
men in their robes, to the Roman Catholic Cathedral. The very
hardihood of making those robes, so long consecrated to Orange-

576 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

ism, ride to a Roman Catholic Cathedral, was refreshing to the
populace.

But the great man never forgot method in his madness. As,
with truly British ingenuity, the Act which emancipated Catholics
decreed a fine of one hundred pounds for the criminal who would
attend a Papist place of worship in robes of office, Dan got from
under his robes outside the Cathedral door — ^where the Orange
vestments surlily waited on the porch till his lordship returned
from his idolatry.

Now the Repeal movement was in full swing. And O'Connell
filled the land with the agitation. In wonderful speech after
speech bristling with urge, ringing with hope, and thundering with
defiance, he fostered the ferment in which the populace found
itself.

"What good have we obtained from England in the season
of her prosperity?" he thundered in the Association Hall. "She
has made us weep tears of blood. But she may want us yet. Is
there, even now, no hurricane threatening her from the other side
of the Atlantic, careering against the sun, advancing with the
speed of heaven's lightning? Hear we not the rattling of the
hail, the driving of the tempest? Is there no danger that we may
be needed to defend the western possessions of Britain? Look
next at France — is she so kind, so friendly, as she has been? Does
the aspect of the Continent in general promise to England a con-
tinuance of Continental friendship? Then, England's eastern ter-
ritories— are they safe ? Let Afghanistan answer 1 Saw you not
the gallant regiment that passed along the quay a few moments
ago? Whither go they? To India or to China? What signs
are there of peace? From east to west, from north to south, a
storm is lowering — ^through the darkening atmosphere we can hear
the boom of the distant thunder — ^we discern the flashes of the
coming lightning." But then, ever mindful of his loyalty, season-
ing the defiance with the spice of fealty, he continues : "Yet even
in the midst of the tempest may England have safety. She will
need the aid of Irishmen. She shall have that aid. But" — his
loyalty having testified, the politician speaks, "Irishmen require
a bribe. Here am I who want a bribe. I will take a bribe. I must
get a bribe. And my bribe is Repeal of the Union I'*

"Grattan," he told them, again, "sat by the cradle of his coun-
try, and followed its hearse. It has been left to me to sound the
resurrection trumpet, and show that our country was not dead,
but only slept." And by such figures, rung out in the magnificent

THE GREAT REPEAL FIGHT 577

tones of one of the most rousing orators of the age, did he drive
the nation forward in the joyous fight. The leader was in the
finest fettle of his life. He had already forgotten the dark days
when he lost his grip ; his loving people had forgotten them. He
rode on the ridge of his world again — ^lifted infinitely higher than
ever before.

The Repeal organisation grew splendidly systematised and
marvellously complete in every detail, in all corners of Ireland.
Commemorating the three hundred Volunteer representatives in
1782, and the three hundred members of Grattan*s Parliament,
it had a Central Council of three hundred. As, under the Conven-
tion Act of 1793, the people could not elect delegates to represent
them, the members of the Council were men from various parts
of Ireland chosen to carry to the Repeal Treasury in Dublin a
hundred pounds or more from their own neighbours and fellow-
workers. Every parish had its branch of the Repeal Association.
They appointed their Repeal wardens; they organised Arbitra-
tion courts to keep peace among neighbours who must march shoul-
der to shoulder in the great fight. They had their cavalry for
marshalling and leading them at meetings. They had their Repeal
Reading rooms. All faction and all crime was by them sternly
put down. Their Repeal rent was regularly lifted from ready
subscribers — and the whole country, organised and marshalled, was
in finer fighting trim than at any time for forty years gone. They
were ready for anything — peace or war — ^just as the fearless leader
should direct.

But howsoever much he might indulge in the rhetorical storm,
peace was with O'Connell a fetish.

The climax of the great Repeal fight came in '43. That was
the year of the Monster meetings, the year of the sublime hope
and the undaunted resolve, of the mighty welding of two million
men into one solid bulwark of freedom. And yet, alas, it was
the sad year of real defeat 1

To a nation hanging on his every word and implicitly accept-
ing every dictum, he proclaimed '43 "Repeal year" — and the jubi-
lant nation pushed onward, with redoubled vigour, to the blessed
goal. In that great year the fearless leader rode :he whirlwind.
The Repeal rent, flowing from the pockets of the ready people,
multiplied with every succeeding week. His personal tribute that
year mounted to the handsome figure of twenty thousand pounds.
And the people considered it not half enough — and would have
repeated it again and again if they only got the hint.

578 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

AH Ireland was full of fight as well as jubilation, and full of
a new-found confidence in its own power, which all of England's
armies could not down.

The people were full of fight in the literal as well as the fig-
urative sense of the word, and hundreds of thousands of them
cherished the half-concealed belief that if Prime Minister Peel
did not surrender to O'Connell peacefully, their leader, despite
his oft-shoiited warning that freedom was too dearly purchased at
the price of a single drop of blood — would whisper a word which
should thrill the nation to its uttermost headland, and conjure up
a countless, indomitable, army in a single night.

The fighting spirit which stirred the hearts of the people that
year expressed itself at those wonderful gatherings, unique in the
history of nations — the Monster meetings. It is somewhat diffi-
cult for Irishmen, and almost impossible for outsiders, to-day, to
realize that at each of a series of forty meetings held all over the
land, in that memorable year, there gathered one hundred thou-
sand people, two hundred thousand, four hundred thousand, and
upwards to numbers uncountable. Yet such was the fact. A quar-
ter of a million people in attendance came to be considered mod-
erate. The London Times conceded a million to the gathering
on the hill of Tara.

O'Connell, feeling that the hostile English Parliament would
not consent to bow to the will of the Irish people, again and again
in his speeches, which were swaying the multitude, appealed over
the head of Parliament to Royalty. He pointed out that the
Queen of England had the right, of her own accord, to summon a
Parliament in Dublin. And, influenced by his worship of Victoria,
he seems actually to have worked himself into the belief that her
love for the Irish people was such that she might resort to this
extraordinary step.*

The mighty development of the movement in Ireland, the fer-
ment, the astonishing spirit of the people, the organisation, the
gatherings, the speeches, deeply alarmed the English Government.
Prime Minister Peel felt it necessary, publicly and authoritatively
to declare that his Queen's sentiments on the question of Repeal
were the very opposite of what O'Connell had attributed to her.
Peel also declared that if O'Connell forced the issue of civil war

^ He would have got a rude awakening had he Uved to read in his noble hero-
ine's private correspondence, when it came to be published, her letter written to
Leopold of Belgium, after the subsidence of the '48 movement — in which she ex-
pressed her regret that the general uprising had not taken place as planned, "so
that the Irish might be taught a lesson!" The little testimony to royal charitj-
was carefully eliminated from the second and succeeding editions of the book.

THE GREAT REPEAL FIGHT 579

or Repeal, England would without hesitation choose the former.

And, for all his ludicrous loyalty to the crown of England and
for all his oft-sworn antipathy to bloodshed, O'Connell, several
times during this exciting summer, seemed to have caught some-
thing of the undaunted spirit which he had aroused in the breasts
of the people. They had eight million people in Ireland, he warned
Peel, and another million Irish in the United States of America,
and practically said to him: Come on if you dare! "We shall
make no rebellion," O'Connell said. "We wish no civil war. We
shall keep on the ground of the Constitution, as long as we' are
allowed ; but if Peel forces a contest, if he invades the constitu-
tional rights of the people — then vae victis between the contend-
ing parties 1 Where is the coward who would not die for such a
land as Ireland I Let our enemies attack us if they dare. They
shall never trample me under foot!"

And at the great Mallow meeting in June, where four hun-
dred thousand people attended (just a few days after the Kilkenny
meeting with its three hundred thousand) O'Connell waxed so
militant as to quote with intense spirit Moore's words:

"Oh, where's the slave so lowly,
Condemned to chains unholy,
Who could he burst.
His bonds accurst,
Would pine beneath them slowly!"

And he thrilled his audience by thundering out, "I'm not that
slave I"

Then also he launched the famous Mallow defiance, a charac-
teristic O'Connell compound of independence and subserviency,
sedition, and loyalty. "You may soon have the alternative to live
as slaves," he shouted, "or die as freemen. ... If they assailed
us to-morrow, and we should conquer them — as conquer them we
will, some day — our first use of that victory, would be to put the
sceptre in the hands of Victoria. . . . They may trample on me,
but it will be the dead body of me they will trample, not the liv-
ing man 1"

"Ah," said the pleased people, "Dan will now pass the word."
And though the waiting host had not in sight any more effective
arms than pitchforks and iht like, they were willing with them to
try and push the British army into the sea.

But when the Mallow defiance had roused the fighting spirit
and the militant hopes of a million, Dan took the opportunity of
the great Skibbereen meeting, ten days or so later, to lay the mar-

58o THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

tial spirit he had evoked. "It is better," he counselled in Skib-
bcrecn, "to live for Ireland than to die for her." If O'Connell's
inconsistencies this year confused the enemy as much as they did
his owii hosts, there might be something to be said in their favour.

Anyway, England was getting profoundly embarrassed, as well
as frightened. Her enemies and the world were following every
step of the Irish struggle. There was held in New York a great
conference on Ireland, lasting a week — whereat it was counselled
that if England plunged Ireland into civil war, Canada should be
seized. President Tyler said that Ireland should have Repeal.
Some of the French even came forward with offers of money and
of arms and men. British regiments were thrown into Ireland.
The British navy circled it with a chain of warships. Feverish
preparations for the worst were made by the Government.

Meantime the Monster meetings had gone forward, still in-
creasing in numbers and in enthusiasm. One of the most won-
derful things and one of the most pregnant, too, with alarm for
England was, that Ireland, though rocking from shore to shore
with excitement, became absolutely crimeless. This ominous fact
frightened Ireland's governors infinitely more than if crime had
raged over the land. The Monster meetings were signally char-
acterised by an utter absence of both drink and disorder.^ Father
Mathew's Total Abstinence movement had swept the land, and
secured this. The preaching, the teaching, and the drilling of the
parish branches of the Repeal Association, had completed the
good work. Thousands and tens of thousands of men marched
to the meetings in military formation, quick to the word of com-
mand. And many, be it noted, marched a day and a night to the
gathering place.

But the greatest and most memorable of all the great meet-
ings was that at Tara — on Lady Day in August. To the historic
place, crowds had been travelling for days and nights. Immense
were the numbers that arrived at the Hill overnight. On the hill-
side were set up six altars, around which knelt multitudes to hear
Mass in the morning. From daybreak the unending streams of
humanity could be seen, riding, driving, walking — streaming to it
from all points of the compass, every minute augmenting the sea
of humanity that overspread the meeting place. An army of ten
thousand Repeal cavalry rode out the Dublin road to meet 0*Con-

2 Except once, when, it is told, an ardent English enthusiast, who came to help
the work, lost his hat — and likewise his temper. "Damn you people 1" he shouted.
"I came here all the way from England to emancipate you, and you stole my hat."
And he indignantly returned to England without emancipating them.

THE GREAT REPEAL FIGHT 581

nell, and such was the extent and the crush of the great multitude
that when they reached nigh the hill with him, it took them an
hour and a half to steer him a mile through the living sea. Headed
by bands and banners and marshalled by horsemen, no such gath-
ering as that at Tara was ever seen before, and may never be
seen again. While The London Times admitted a million as the
number at the gathering, and the Repealers claimed twelve hun-
dred thousand, if we, in skeptical mood, suppose that, by error,
even the Times overestimated by even doubling the count, the
number would still be so huge as to strain our imagination.*

When his eye swept over that human sea O'Connell himself
must have marvelled at the spirit that animated the nation.
"What," he said, "could England effect against such a people so
thoroughly aroused, if, provoked past endurance, they rose out in
rebellion." The leader was not only elated by the wonderful
things he saw and felt — -but possibly alarmed. For he added:
"While I live such an uprising will never occur."*

One of the last of the big meetings was that at MuUaghmast,
the scene of the famous massacre of Irish chieftains in the time
of Elizabeth of England. Four hundred thousand was the num-
ber said to have assembled there. MuUaghmast was the famous
occasion of O'Connell's accepting a crown prepared for him, and
presented to him by, the sculptor Hogan, the artist MacManus,
and John Cornelius O'Callaghan the historian — ^an incident that
naturally aroused wild enthusiasm, not only in the huge gathering
that watched, but all over Ireland.

The Monster meetings of the year were to culminate and climax
a week after MuUaghmast, on the battleplain of Clontarf, out-
side Dublin, where Brian Boru had broken the foreign invader
and cast him into the sea. And now the Government, thoroughly
aroused to its imminent danger, took desperate resolve. At the
eleventh hour it forbade the Clontarf meeting. Sunday was to
have been the meeting day. At three o'clock on Saturday after-
noon— ^when already, from a hundred distant points, masses of
marching men had started for the morrow's rendezvous — it pa-
pered Dublin with the proclamation. Five regiments of soldiers,
with cannon 'and all the appliances of war, were stationed at van-

'Gavan Duffy would lead us to infer that ail estimates of all the Monster
meetings were ahout double the actual figures.

*The spirit that raised up such a gathering will be all the more appreciated
when it is remembered that on the same day, at less than a hundred miles' dis-
tance, in Gsunty Monaghan, was another gathering, estimated at a quarter of a
million men.

582 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

tage points in and around Clontarf. The gauntlet was thrown
down to O'Connell.

An emergency meeting of the Repeal executive was instantly
summoned. O'Connell, telling them that nothing would justify
his permitting vast masses of unarmed men to be mowed down,
pronounced that there was nothing to do but submit. They of
course agreed. Mounted messengers were instantly sent flying
out of Dublin along every road that led to the Capital. All bodies
of marching men were turned back, and the word sent everywhere
far and wide over the country that no meeting would be on the
morrow.

The Government had taken a dangerous hazard and won.

And they quickly followed up their advantage. On Sunday
morning they arrested O'Connell, his son John, Ray the Repeal
Treasurer, Tom Steele, two priests, and the editors of three Na-
tionalist papers. Gray of The Freeman's Journal, Barrett of The
Pilot, and Duffy of The Nation. These were charged with con-
spiring to change the Constitution by illegal methods, and to ex-
cite disaffection.

The country stood on tip-toe awaiting "the word" from O'Con-
nell— whatever that word might be. And tens of thousands of
eager ones prayed that it might be a bold one. But, Peace was
the word given by the leader.

The people implicitly obeyed. The man who disobeyed the
order would be a traitor to the cause and the country. Even The
Nation, which after a little while was to condemn O'Connell for
lack of boldness, and lead a revolt from him, sternly commanded
that the captain's word must be unquestioningly obeyed.

The Traversers were tried by a packed jury of Tories and
Orangemen. No Catholic was permitted on it. A whole file of
the jury list, containing names of men who could not be welcomed
to the jury by the prosecution, was, before the trial, "lost" from
the sheriff's complete list. The spirit that sat in the British judg-
ment seat then, as in most Irish political trials, was well and
ludicrously exemplified by the presiding Chief Justice, Penne-
father, when in giving an opinion upon a disputed point, he let
slip : "I speak under the correction of the gentlemen of the other
side !"

The Traversers were of course found guilty. O'Connell was
sentenced to twelve months* imprisonment, to pay a fine of two
thousand pounds, and give bail to be of good behaviour for seven
years. The others were given nine months' imprisonment, fifty
pounds' fine, and bail. Between the time of the verdict and the

THE GREAT REPEAL FIGHT

583

senhuce, O'Connell, weakening, re-formed the Repeal Associa-
tion so as to eliminate from it things that had now been estab-
lished as unlawful — including his Arbitration Courts. And he set
the example of closing every meeting by calling for cheers for
England^s Queen 1 It was upon this unwise retreat that The Na-
tion and Young Ireland, violently opposing, began to break with
him.

Yet he held the unhesitating loyalty of the country at large.
And every tyrannical and unjust step of the Government, from the
eve of Clontarf till they put the leader in prison, seemed to
strengthen the people's fight — and, moreover, brought into the
ranks many of the gentry who had hitherto stood outside — includ-
ing Smith O'Brien. The Repeal rent went on increasing. When
the final step of imprisoning him was taken, the Repeal rent
bounded up with a great bound. In the quarter of a year after
O'Connell went into prison, there was taken four times as much
rent as in the quarter of a year preceding. Though the move-
ment had undoubtedly got a rude check, the spirit of the country,
strange to say, was not even feazed.

Yet time proved that on the day of Clontarf was dug the
grave of O'Connell's Repeal.

CHAPTER LXVIII

THE END OF 0*CONNELL

But the movement and the man had an Indian summer.

The great criminal in prison was as a mighty prince holding
court. Deputations from all parts of Ireland, led by mayors of
cities, bishops, and other dignitaries daily arrived to pay him
court. Every word of O'Connell's, going out from his prison
walls, had now double as much weight as had formerly the weighti-
est pronouncement of the free O'Connell, thundered from a plat-
form.

After four months they were released by decision of the Law
Lords of the House of Lords, when these heard the case on appeal.
Two hundred thousand people frantic with joy, on the day of his
release jammed the streets along which rode the Liberator from
the prison to his home, throned in state on the high deck of a spe-
cially made triumphal car. It was one of the proudest days of a
life that had been enriched with a plenitude of proud ones.

And on the second day after, great crowds crammed Con-
ciliation Hall, and the streets surrounding it, to hear the message
of the liberated leader, and get, as they thought, fresh inspiration
for the still further speeding of the struggle.

But Clontarf and its sequel, the trial and imprisonment, had
marked a great turning point in Dan's career; and he now disap-
pointed the nation. While the speech rang as boldly as ever with
denunciations of the Government that had perverted the laws to
imprison him, and with threats of what he would do to them, and
to all their minions, including Pennefather and the other mis-
Judges on the Bench — all of which won the old wild plaudits from
his hearers — he did not suggest a plan or lay a line for carrying
the fight to fruition. He studiously avoided any statement of
future policy — only emphasised, with an emphasis that did not
decrease the people's disappointment, his too-oft reiterated single-
drop-of-blood theory, boasting that he was the first apostle and
founder of that noble political creed whose cardinal doctrine was
that no human revolution was worth the effusion of one red drop.

And without giving the country a lead he went home to Derry-

nane to rest and recuperate — to forget politics for a period, stroll

584

THE END OF O'CONNELL 585

by the white strands of Kerry, and on its mountains hunt the hare.
Afterwards, it was on all sides conceded that the softening of the
brain which was to end his life, had set in during the months of
his imprisonment. He was nevermore the old Dan, the bold Dan,
whose magnetic power had gifted him, by the lifting of a little
finger, to lead a nation.

In the course of a few months he courted Federalism — ^which
a generation later came to be called Home Rule — and he compelled
the Repeal Association to admit into its ranks the Federalists, a
party of Whig country gentlemen for the most part, but having
in their ranks a few progressive intellectual ones like William
Smith O'Brien and the young poet Davis. But he soon found
that Federalism fell flat on the country, even where, as amongst
the thinking ones, it did not actually call up antagonism. And
when he came up to Dublin in May for the great anniversary cele-
bration of his imprisonment, the politician Dan confided to the
people, who had spurned his Federalism, that after having now
given the fullest consideration to Federalism, he considered —
with a snap of the fingers — it wasn't worth that! And during the
minutes of the multitude's frantic applause the astute Dan felt good
reason for pluming himself that he was the peerless leader still.

And indeed in the hearts and thoughts of the vast body of the
people he was. The homage paid him at that anniversary celebra-
tion was almost equal to anything he had before experienced. Let
the bitterly antagonistic Tory Mdil describe it, "While we write
this," says the Mail, "Mr. O'Connell is sitting in autocratic state
in the throne room of the Rotunda, surrounded by his peers, and
receiving the addresses of the authorities, the corporate bodies,
the nobility, clergy and gentry of his peculiar dominion. The
business of the city is at a standstill. Professional duties are in
suspense; tradesmen have closed their shops; the handicrafts have
left their callings ; and, save the great thoroughfares through which
the ovation of the Autocrat is to pass, the streets are deserted,
and as noiseless as a wilderness. In the latter, shops lie open, but
without a customer; in the former the barricaded doors and win-
dows scarce suffice to resist the pressure of the throng. A count-
less multitude, crowding all the avenues leading to the autocrat's
presence, forms dense alleys for the passage of the public bodies,
which, headed by their appointed leaders — some in military cos-
tume, some in their civic robes of office, and all in full dress —
proceed to the music of the bands, with regimental uniformity,
towards the chamber where their self-elected sovereign has ap-
pointed to receive their homage."

586 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

But alas, it was only in the warm hearts of a loving, worship-
ping people that their sovereign's greatness now lived. His old
stamina gone, he could not evolve a new policy or face a fresh
fight. Forgetful of his sad, sad lesson of the 'Thirties, he let him-
self again lean upon the Whigs-— or, maybe it could be said, let
the Whigs lean upon him. In '45 the Whig leader, Lord John
Russell, had become so popular with the Irish leader that we find
Dan threatening to transfer to his brows his own MuUaghmast
crown. And a few months later, in May of '46 — while Ireland
staggered from the first bad blow of the '45 potato blight — ^we
find the uncrowned king. Lord John, with his Whig following,
trooping into the division lobby, shoulder to shoulder with the
Tories, to vote comfort to England's suffering sister in the form
of a vile Coercion Bill. This, on the Bill's first reading. Before
the second reading was reached the Whigs found need for O'Con-
nell and his fellows, enlisted again Dan's alliance to throw out
the Tories — which he enabled them to do — and put their kind
selves in power. And on the old, old and again implicitly be-
lieved promise of remedial measures for Ireland, O'Connell prac-
tically blotted out of his dictionary the word Repeal.

The Nation party, the Young Ireland party, which had its first
serious difference with O'Connell on his Federal fad, led now by
Duffy, Mitchel and Smith O'Brien, were rebelling against him
and the Association (which was controlled by his son John) ; and,
seeking an antidote to the Whigs' opiate, were preaching revolu-
tion to the country. The final split between the old and the new
came when Dan ordered the Association to purge itself by passing
the Peace Resolutions — which would pledge every man within the
Association ranks to the single-drop-of-blood policy. The split
at that meeting of the Association was immediately precipitated
by young Meagher's Sword speech.

John O'Connell made immediate reply to Meagher, "These
sentiments imperil the very existence of our association. Either
Mr. Meagher or I must leave." Thereupon the Young Ireland
leaders, Duffy, Mitchel, O'Brien and Meagher, marched out of
the hall, and out of the Association.

And henceforward to the sincerely grieved Daniel O'Connell
and his lieutenants in the Association, the Young Ireland party,
more than England, were Ireland's enemy.*

* Mitchel (in after years) named O'Connell, "next to the British Government,
the greatest enemy Ireland ever had." It was owing to his influence, Mitchel held,
that the attempted insurrection of '48 ended in failure. In his Jail Journal he, not
without much of the exaggeration of prejudice, exclaims, "Poor old Dan! Won-

THE END OF O'CONNELL 587

And now, day by day, more ardently than ever Dan courted
and flattered the new Whig friends who had come to him, and
more bitterly than ever denounced the Irish friends who had left
him.

Famine now fastened its clutch on the country. The potato
crop of '46, which was eagerly expected to cure the acute distress
produced by the '45 failure, was blighted — and proved a more
overwhelming failure than that of the year before. And the har-
vest of '47 was yet to plunge the people in far deeper distress.

The dreadful sufferings of the poor people now helped to
complete the Liberator's mental breakdown. The heart of him
sank down into sadness. The Tribute which had been paid to
him annually by his faithful people, and which, through recent
years had amounted to about twenty thousand pounds annually,
he now spurned. His friend Fitzpatrick, who had had charge of
the Tribute, was rebuked by him for mentioning it in a time so
pitiful. For though in his necessarily lavish way of living he
needed money now, as always, and could command all he pleased
whenever he pleased, he was never avaricious. And the sugges-
tion of taking money from the people in these times cut him to
the quick.

In the beginning of '47, though feeling sick and worn both in
body and soul, he set out upon the sore week's journey to London
to plead, this time, the material cause of the people. He made his
last appearance, and last speech in Parliament, in February of
that year. It was a pathetic scene, the pitifulness of which affected
some of his bitterest enemies — ^who now saw and heard with pain
the bent and broken giant, in tones weak, shaken, and .indistinct,
plead with them, beg of them, for sake of God and common hu-
manity, to save his perishing people!

All the more heart-breaking for the giant was this trial, since
he felt from sad, long, and bitter experience, that he spoke to ears
that were officially deaf. Howsoever sympathetic they might have
felt individually in response to his plea, these British members of

derf ul, mighty, jovial, and mean old man ! With silver tongue and smile of witchery
and heart of unfathomable fraud! What a royal yet vulgar soul, with the keen
eye and potent sweep of a generous eagle of Cairn Tuathal — with the base servility
of a hound, and the cold cruelty oi a spider ! Think of his speech for John Magee,
the most powerful forensic achievement since before Demosthenes, and then think
of the 'gorgeous and gossamer' theory of moral and peaceful agitation, the most
astounding organon of public swindling since first man bethought him of obtaining
money under false pretence. And after one has thought of all this and more, what
then can a man say? What but pray that Irish earth may lie light on O'Connell's
breast, and that the good God who knew how to create so wondrous a creature may
have mercy upon his soul?"

588 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Parliament were jealous guardians of tradition. And British
tradition always held that it was a serious mistake and setting
unwise precedent ever to extend a helping hand to the perverse
step-child of the Empire.

O'Connell went back to his hotel, and lay down, ill. "Take
me home to Kerry!" No, it was ordered by the physicians — ^who
diagnosed lingering congestion of the brain — ^that his only chance
was to seek sunshine and distraction, under southern skies. He
refused. But he soon compromised with them on the scheme of a
pilgrimage to Rome.

He set out under charge of his youngest son, Daniel, and his
chaplain, Dr. Miley. His sad, slow journey was yet relieved and
made memorable by many proud things. The most noted men
and Societies of the chief Continental cities through which they
passed came to do homage to the famous invalid. Had he not
been suffering from such deep depression, it would have been for
him a truly triumphal journey. Not perhaps since the year Napo-
leon escaped from Elba had the journeying of any man through
France been so widely chronicled on the Continent, so eagerly
read of, caused such profound sensation.

He appeared to brighten, and the cloud over his mind to
lighten, as he progressed south. But at Genoa he was severely
stricken. He could go, would go, no farther. He took to his
bed, there, and sank gradually. The sinking of an exiled monarch
in their midst could not have moved and stirred the good citizens
of Genoa as did that of the Irish Liberator — ^and certainly would
not have evoked a tithe of the pleading prayers, deep and sincere,
that from all classes, high and low, were daily going up for the
dying man.

The great man's end came, calm and painless, on May 15th,
1847. I" accordance with his dying wish, his heart, enshrined
in a silver urn, was taken to Rome, where it was received with
signal honours. The body was carried on the long journey to
Ireland. And city vied with city in doing highest homage to it as
it passed. To the funeral ship on the sea passages the ships of
all nations lowered their flag. When a little Skerries fishing
craft, accidentally encountering the funeral ship on the Irish sea,
learnt that it bore O'Connell, it is recorded that all hands, in-
cluding the helmsman, let go everything, fell upon their knees, and
while their little craft drifted, prayed toward the funeral ship till
they were lost sight of. When the O'Connell ship was entering
Dublin Bay they met, coming out, a big passenger ship, the .5fr-
min^ham, crowded with poor emigrants leaving their beloved land

THE END OF O'CONNELL 589

behind— most of them, forever. The moment these creatures
recognised the funeral ship, they spontaneously dropped on their
knees on the deck, and with hands uplifted to heaven, raised the
wildly sorrowful caoine (keen).

Having been accorded the greatest funeral that Dublin had
ever witnessed, the remains of Daniel O'Connell were laid under
the earth in Glasnevin cemetery on August 5th, 1847 — ^while a
whole nation wept the loss of a leader, than whom no Captain of
any people was ever more widely, more deeply, and, let us say,
on the whole more deservedly beloved.

By his intimate and personal friend, O'Neill Daunt, it was truly
said of O'Connell: **Well may his countrymen feel pride in the
extraordinary man, who, for a series of years, could assail and
defy a hostile and powerful government, who could knit together
a prostrate, divided, and dispirited nation into a resolute and in-
vincible confederacy; who could lead his followers in safety through
the traps and pitfalls that beset their path to freedom; who could
baffle all the artifices of sectarian bigotry; and finally overthrow
the last strongholds of anti-Cathoiic tyranny by the simple might
of public opinion."

For O'Connell and the O'Connell Period read:
Lives of O'Connell by MacDonagh, Fagan, Luby.
Personal Recollections of O'Connell, O'Neill Daunt
Leaders of Public Opinion, Lecky.

CHAPTER LXTX

YOUNG IRELAND

The Young Ireland movement developed naturally from the
O'Connell movement. When any, the best, movement in the world
grows old with its founder, it gradually loses its idealism, inspira-
tion, and progressiveness, follows the line of least resistance and
accepts men measures and methods that in its heyday it would have
scorned.

The O'Connell movement, grown old, was no exception to
the law. We have seen that during the 'Thirties O'Connell fell
far from his earlier high aims, and dragging his movement, bound
but willing, after the Whig chariot, lost it its respect, prestige and
effectiveness. Its strength ebbed, and it was honeycombed with
placehunters. The leader made a bold burst in the early 'For-
ties, resolved to put the movement in its high place again, but
though he was a giant the effort needed more than a giant's strength.
Besides he was now far from being the same moral giant who had
pulled down the pillars of the enemy's temple twenty years before.
True, the magic of his name and the memory of the dauntless
O'Connell that had been, rallied behind him for a time the same
nation in the same solid phalanx as of yore. But the giant leader
now had not the same unflinching determination and unwavering
vision which used to drive and draw him to victory over all ob-
stacles. He did not now so surely feel the lofty ideals which he
voiced, and consequently was not so irresistibly drawn on by them.
In the olden days, in the fight for Emancipation, O'Connell was
supereminently intolerant of any suggestion of compromise, and
as a consequence won out. In these days, however, though he de-
manded as undauntedly and thundered as defiantly as before, he
nursed in the back of his mind the wish to accept a part if he could
not get the whole — occasionally too, let the wish thrust its head
from its hiding-place. Consequently he failed.

The younger men whom he fired by his eloquence in the first
forward move of the 'Forties, and who took his words at their

face value, grew restive when at length they discovered that they

S9C

YOUNG IRELAND 591

had been deceived — and went out from his movement to found
for themselves a more forward one, the Young Ireland move-
ment.

The poet, Thx)mas Davis, was the founder of it He was a
young Protestant barrister from Cork. He was smitten by the en-
thusiasm in the air and drawn into the Repeal Movement. With a
County Monaghan young man, Charles Gavan Duffy, then editing
a national weekly in Belfast, and a young barrister, John Blake
Dillon, he founded The Nation — to support the movement for Re-
peal, to propagate patriotism in the country, and to develop a love
for Irish national literature. The Nation was destined to be a
great power in the land, and to leave behind it a magnificent and
inspiring tradition. The support of these intensely earnest and
eminently able young men, and of their organ, which instantly
leaped into powerful popularity, at first pleased O'Connell. But
when, after a time, they showed that they had minds of their own,
which exquisite blarney could not befog, he grew, first impatient
with, and then resentful of, them. It was the O'Connellites, too,
who in derision — ^because they failed to follow the Leader in every
vagary in which he would indulge — first named them Young Ire-
landers. And that which was first applied to them in opprobrium
came in course of time to be their pride.

With historical essays, patriotic ballads and poems, and virile
national articles, they aroused and enthused the people — especially
the young men, and quickly made for themselves a great follow-
ing. They attracted and gathered around them the finest minds
of the nation — ^till three patriot propagandists soon increased to
thirty-three. Through the medium of the loved Nation, there
blossomed upon Ireland poets, essayists, and patriots, the memory
of most of whom has been an inspiration to succeeding generations
of young Irish men and women, and will be cherished by genera-
tions yet to come. Duffy and Davis themselves gave to the country
some of its most inspiring songs and ballads, and their efforts were
well sustained by Denis Florence McCarthy, Samuel Ferguson,
Michael Doheny, John Fisher Murray, Denny Lane, "Eva,"
"Mary," "Speranza" (Lady Wilde), Drennan, Brennan, Clar-
ence Mangan, Devin Reilly, Barry and D'Arcy McGee.* And two
of their greatest acquisitions undoubtedly were William Smith
O'Brien and John Mitchel.

The death of Davis, young, brave, the hope of the country, in

* Sad to say, in later davs, Barry and also McGee who sang some noble strains
and did, each, a man's work in the Young Ireland movement, lapsed and fell far
from the ideal of their young manhood.

592 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

*45, was a sad blow, and probably a greater disaster than we can
ever definitely realise, not only to Young Ireland but to Ireland.
So loveable and so estimable was he, and so big with promise of
a great future was his young life, that the whole nation wept — ^just
as 0*Connell wept when he learnt the sad news.

O'Brien, who eventually became one of the most prominent fig-
ures in the Young Ireland movement, was a Protestant country
gentleman, studious of habit, who had not shown any national lean-
ings until the O'Connell Repeal movement first won him to nation-
alism. The Young Ireland party gradually won him over from
O'Connell. Their greatest acquisition was John Mitchel, son of
a Unitarian minister, who was practising law in Banbridge when
The Nation inspired him, drew him to Dublin, and into the whirl
of national politics. In turn he drew in his brother-in-law the gen-
tle but firm-willed John Martin.

The Nation gave fresh impetus to those who had already been
inspired by O'Connell, and it awoke in their breasts a new spirit.
O'Connell had deluded the multitude into giving awed respect to
the foreign laws that bound them, marching to Repeal meetings in
their many thousands, that they might cheer his speeches to the
skies, and go home again without breach of law or order — leaving
him and Providence to do the rest. The Nation and the Young
Irelanders, while still giving heartiest help to O'Connell, managed,
at first by suggestion, afterwards by plain precept, to stir the mili-
tant spirit in the people, and to impress on them that platform talk
had to be backed by grim resolve, and that a nation's freedom was
worth fighting and dying for. The militancy of the verse and prose
that every week warmed the cold print, and enlivened the columns,
of The Nation — and then the breasts of the people — hurt O'Con-
nell, and alarmed him — and excited his jealousy, moreover. And
when, in reply to a warning from the English press that the new
Irish railway system afforded effective means for the quick move-
ment of troops against Repealers grown bold, Mitchel, in The
Nation wrote an article showing the people how easily railway
lines could be rendered ineffective, O'Connell was thereby so deeply
incensed that he held both the Repeal Association and himself silent
while The Nation was now being prosecuted for sedition.

Other causes of irritation to Dan were that they had opposed
him on Federalism when he gave way for a time to that weakness—
and upon the propriety of accepting the Queen's Colleges. On this
latter issue he and his Repeal Association opposed them bitterly,
going to such extravagant length as to accuse The Nation of being
a school of infidelity.

YOUNG IRELAND 593

While there was absolutely no ground for this accusation against
the Young Irelanders, they had the best possible ground for being
aggrieved against Dan and his Association for letting itself down
from nationality to sectarianism. Young Ireland had set before
it as one of its prime objects, the winning over to nationalism of
the Protestant elements of the country; and they found the Repeal
Association demonstrating that it was only a Catholic Association,
thus driving the Orange element into its old anti-Irish shell. The
breach between the Old and Young Irelanders widened when Wil-
liam Smith O'Brien, living up to O'Connell's command of *46, that
the Repeal Members of Parliament should remain away from the
British House to work for Ireland in Ireland, and refuse even to
serve upon Special Committees to which Parliament commandeered
them, went to prison in the House for disobedience — ^while O'Con-
nell and his son, forsaking the principle, tamely obeyed the Par-
liamentary order. Young Ireland espoused the cause of O'Brien,
commended him for his devotion to principle and Ireland — and
thereby of course severely censured O'Connell.

Finally, when O'Connell, repeating his grave error of the 'Thir-
ties, not only allied himself with the Whigs, but thus tacitly de-
serted Repeal, he was openly reprimanded by The Nation and
Young Ireland. O'Connell, furious at such flagrant insubordina-
tion in the Repeal ranks resolved to rid it of all mutinous ones.
For this purpose he directed the Repeal Association to reaffirm the
constitutional and peace principles on which the Association was
founded, and make every member subscribe to these principles.
This would automatically rid the movement of the militants. The
Peace Resolutions debate, which it came to be called, was a fierce
one, lasting two days, and reaching its climax when Meagher burst
into his famous sword speech —

"The soldier is proof against an ai^;ument, but he is not proof
against a bullet. The man who will listen to reason let him be rea-
soned with ; but it is the weaponed arm of the patriot that can alone
avail against battalioned despotism. I do not disclaim the use of
arms as immoral, nor do I believe it is the truth to say that the
God of Heaven withholds His sanction from the use of arms. From
the day on which, in the valley of Bethulia, He ne^^'ed the arm of
the Jewish girl to smite the drunken tyrant in his tent, down to the
hour in which He blessed the insurgent chivalry of the Belgian
priests, His Almighty hand hath been stretched forth from His
throne of light, to consecrate the flag of freedom, to bless the
patriots' sword. Be it for the defence, or be it for the assertion, of
a nation's liberty, I look upon the sword as a sacred weapon. And

594 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

a, my lord, it has sometimes reddened the shroud of the oppressor,
like the anointed rod of the high priest, it has, at other times, blos-
somed into flower to deck the free man's brow. Abhor the sword,
and stigmatise the sword? No, my lord, for in the cragged passes
of the Tyrol it cut in pieces the banner of the Bavarian, and won
an immortality for the peasant of Inspruck. Abhor the sword and
stigmatise the sword? No, my lord, for at its blow a giant nation
sprang from the waters of the Atlantic, and by its redeeming magic
the fettered colony became a daring free republic. Abhor the sword
and stigmatise the sword? No, my lord, for it scourged the Dutch
marauders out of the fine towns of Belgium, back into their own
phlegmatic swamps, and knocked their flag, and laws, and sceptre,
and bayonets, into the sluggish waters of the Scheldt. My lord,
I learnt that it was the right of a nation to govern itself, not in
this Hall, but upon the ramparts of Antwerp."

O'Connell's son, John, who now always represented his father
in the Repeal Association, arose from his seat on the platform, In-
terrupting the speaker, and announcing that he could not sit there
and listen to such sentiments. He would leave the hall and leave
the Association if such a speech, in flagrant breach of the Associa-
tion's Constitution, was permitted and approved.

Rather than have John O'Connell leave the Association that
had been founded and fostered by his father, Meagher, Mitchell,
Duflfy, O'Brien, Reilly, Father Meehan, and other Young Ireland-
ers present, got up and walked out — out of the hall and out of the
Repeal Association.

Then the Young Irelanders founded the Confederacy — ^to work
for Ireland's uplifting — at the very beginning of '47. And the
two movements, the constitutional and the flagrantly unconstitu-
tional, went side by side. The Nation had been driven from the
Repeal reading rooms — ^whlch reading rooms, by the way, were
mainly the fruits of Davis' work — and its circulation for a time
materially injured. But the enthusiasm of its supporters soon wid-
ened its field, and compensated for the injury which the Associa-
tion had done it. It now grew more militant than ever, with Mit-
chel ever in a militant lead.

Very great was the enthusiasm for The Nation throughout
mountain and valley of all the land. At the cottage firesides, in
the forge, in the churchyard, at the cross-roads — ^wherever the old
men sat, and the young men met — The Nation, the news in The
Nation, its rousing ballads, its stirring articles, were the inspiring
constant theme. Though money was scarce and newspapers dear
— The Nation costing fivepence — ^the people in the remotest moun-

YOUNG IRELAND 595

tains clubbed their pennies, and paid a smart boy to foot it far over
the hills each Saturday and bring from distant town the coveted
paper — ^which should be read in company on the day of rest. They
gathered to the house of a farmer famed as a fin& reader,
or of a schoolmaster — oftentimes to the house of the tailor or
shoemaker, whose smart daughter, seated on a chair on the table,
read aloud for the delectation of the company the momentous hap-
penings, the wonderful speeches of the week, the articles, the
essays, the inspiring ballads. And the company afterwards dis-
persed, each to carry the great news to the group that waited for
him at his own fireside.

Mitchel kept pushing so far ahead militantly of his fellows in
The Nation group that he eventually parted with them — ^in Feb-
ruary '48. He stood for action — and for precipitating action. He
was impatient of temporising. His fellows on The Nation, and
the general body of the Confederacy, felt, knew, that Ireland was
not yet prepared to rise out against the mighty British Empire,
that their people were neither trained nor equipped. They wanted
to make the most of the Constitutional policy, at the same time
that they proceeded with the ripening of the country for ultimate
revolution, should revolution become necessary. Mitchel felt that
so-called Constitutionalism had had its trial and failed despicably
to do other than demoralise the people who used it — and also felt
that since the famine was mowing down the people in hundreds
of thousands it was infinitely better for Ireland, and nobler far for
themselves, to sell their lives for their country than to throw them
away without return — to fall on the field, facing their nation's foe,
than to wait for the famine to drain their life from them in the
ditches.

When he parted with his colleagues upon the matter of policy,
he founded The United Irishman for purpose of propagating his
principles. The little paper leaped into instant fame, and in wide-
spread circulation soon far outstripped The Nation. He had
Devin Reilly as his active coadjutor. And he had poor faithful
Clarence Mangan, and "Mary" and "Eva" as his warm supporters
and steady contributors. He preached open rebellion; and from
week to week gave instructions in pike practice — ^which awaked
such hearty response throughout the country that The Nation
quickly felt itself called upon to follow suit.

The French Revolution now burst and quickly established the
rule of the people in that nation. Europe was rocking with revolu-
tion. It had got into the people's blood. Their blood rose and
thoughts of freedom fired their souls. All enslaved ones were

596 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

bursting their bonds. Ireland was riper than most of them to
nurture the new spirit. And nurture it Ireland did. The split in
the Confederacy was closed by the new great dynamic impulse
which reached Ireland's shores. Mitchel and Reilly again stood
shoulder to shoulder with their former comrades — all followers of
Young Ireland throughout the nation became as one. The wish
to lift a pike or shoulder a gun nerved the young men. And to
the labourers in the national field prospects were never before so
promising. The good work strode forward magnificently — and it
was foreseen that by the time the people had harvested their crops,
the revolution would be ripe for bursting. '45, '46 and '47 had
seen the great and progressive potato failure. In '47 the worst of
all, the nation staggered at the mouth of a pit — not the most fa-
vourable condition for successful revolution. But things were more
hopeful in '48. And a good harvest, safely gathered, would leave
the country fit. The harvest was a necessity for the success of their
plans. And the time that would elapse before harvest was also a
necessity for the ripening of the plans, the training and equipping
of an army.

But all this calculation was based on the foolish assumption
that the British Government would accommodate them by waiting
their time for rebelling. But the Government was not now grown
any more accommodating to Irish revolutions and revolutionaries,
than it had ever been. In the early summer it moved. It arrested
O'Brien, Meagher and Mitchel on charges of sedition. At the
trials of O'Brien and Meagher they failed to pack their juries with
their usual care— one or two men of independent thought had, in
each of those cases, been permitted to squeeze into the jury box —
with the result that convictions could not be obtained. Before try-
ing Mitchel the Government with its usual ingenuity invented and
patented a new crime, treason-felony, under which an Irishman who
uttered any revolutionary idea, was branded a felon, to be classed
with the most despicable of criminals, and punished by many years'
transportation. Mitchel was tried under the new Act. Moreover,
the prosecution took care not to commit the same mistake it had
made in the trials of O'Brien and Meagher. They did not let on
the jury a single individual of whose verdict they were not certain.
No Catholic, no independent-minded Protestant, was permitted in
the box. Mitchel procured old Robert Holmes, one of the United
Irish Revolutionaries of half a century before — brother-in-law to
Robert Emmet — to defend him. Holmes was a ruggedly honest
Irishman, in whom age had not dulled the edge of resolve, or
smothered the fire of patriotism. In his youth he had taken the

YOUNG IRELAND 597

same bold stand that did John Mitchel now. And after fifty years
of reflection upon the action of his youth, he now, in the winter of
his days, stood up with Mitchel, and to the rage of the prosecu-
tion, and the horror of the court, instead of defending his client
justified him. He told the judges his opinion and emphasised and
repeated it, that Mitchel, statutably guilty, was not morally guilty.

" 'Jailor, put forward John Mitchel,* said the official, whose duty
is to make such orders.

"A grating of bolts, a clanging of chains, were heard. The low
doorway at the back of the dock opened, and between turnkeys
Mitdiel entered.

"Ascending the steps to the front of the dock, and lifting, as
he advanced, the glazed dark cap he wore through his imprisonment,
as gracefully as if he entered a room, he took his stand in a firm
but easy attitude. His appearance was equally removed from bravado
and fear. His features, usually placid and pale, had a rigid clear-
ness about them that day which we can never forget. They seemed,
from their transparency and firmness, like some wondrous imagining
of the artist's chisel, in which the marble, fancying itself human, had
begun to breathe. The face was calm and bright — the mouth, the
feature around which danger loves to play — though easy, motion-
less, and with lips apart, had about it an air of immobility and quiet
scorn, which was not the effect of muscular action, but of nature in
repose. And in his whole appearance, features, attitude and look,
there was a conscious superiority over his opponents, which, though
unpresuming and urbane, seemed to say louder than words — 'I am
victor here to-day.' " ^

Mitchel, to be sure, for the crime of advocating the freedom
of his country, was, under British law found guilty of treason-fel-
ony. And Baron Lefroy, after a hypocritical speech in which he
said that he was indulging in a leniency which the magnitude of the
crime did not countenance, sentenced Mitchel to fourteen years*
trans'^ortation beyond the sea !

Then the prisoner, facing his judges, spoke — ^though to those
present it seemed more like a noble judge in the dock lecturing
miserable convicts on the bench. He defended his "crime," gloried
in it, bade them and their laws an audacious defiance, and pre-
cipitated among his friends in the court such ringing avowal of
"treason" as never before or since startled an English law court.*

2 Doheny's description of Mitchel's arraignment

3 " 'The law has now done its part, and the Queen of England, her crown and
government in Ireland, are secure, pursuant to act of Parliament. I have done my
part also. Three months ago I promised Lord Qarendon and his government,

598 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

The Confederates* Club considered the advisability of letting
the revolution burst, in attempt to rescue Mitchel from his jailers
before they took him from Dublin. But the proposal was eventu-
ally and wisely voted down. For, the soldiery oh the alert and
equipped with all the paraphernalia of war, were in command of
every strategic point ; and thousands would have been mown down
in the streets, and probably the incipient rising smothered in blood,
had they decided to make the wild attempt. Mitchel himself in his
Jail Journal reflects upon them for their decision. He considers

who holds this country for the English, that I would provoke him into his courts
of justice, as places of this kind are called, and that I would force him publicly
and notoriously, to pack a jury against me to convict me, or else that I would
walk a free man out of his court, and provoke him to a contest in another Reld.
My lords, I knew that I was setting my life on that cast; but I knew that, in
either event, victory should be with me — and it is with me. Neither the jury,
nor the judges, nor any other man in this court presumes to imagine that it is a
criminal who stands in this dock (murmurs of applause, which the police en-
deavoured to repress). I have kept my word. I have shown what the law is
made of in Ireland. I have shown that her Majesty's government sustains itself
in Ireland by packed juries — by partisan judges — ^by perjured sheriffs.

" 'What I have now to add is simply this — I have acted all through this busi-
ness, from the first, under a strong sense of duty. I do not repent anything I
have done; and I believe that the course which I have opened is only commenced.
The Roman who saw his hand burning to ashes before the tyrant, promised that
three hundred should follow out his enterprise. Can I not promise for one, for
two, for three?' He indicated as he spoke, Reilly, Martin, and Meagher.

"'Promise for mel' 'And me!' 'And me, Mitchell' rose around him in com-
mingled tones of earnest solemnity, passionate defiance, and fearless devotion,
from his friends and followers.

" 'Ofiicer ! officer ! Remove Mr. Mitchel I' shouted Lef roy.

"A rush was made on the dock, and the foremost ranks sprang from the gal-
leries with outstretched hands to vow with him too. The judges fled in terror
from the benches — ^the turnkeys seized the hero, and in a scene of wild confusion
he half walked, was half-dragged from the dock — and disappeared waving his
hand in farewell. The bolts grated, the gate slammed, and he was seen no more.

'•Men stood in affright, and looked in each other's faces wonderingly. They
had seen a Roman sacrifice in this modem world and they were mute.

"An hour elapsed — ^the excited crowd had passed away; and the partisan
judges, nervous and ill at ease, ventured upon the bench again.

"Then Holmes rose to his feet to add his defiance to that of the convict.
He said:

'"I think I had a perfect right to use the language I did yesterday. I now
wish to state that what I said yesterday as an advocate, I adopt to-day as my own
opinion. I here avow all I have said, and perhaps under late Act of Parliament,
her majesty's Attorney-General, if I have violated the law in anything I said, may
think it his first duty to proceed against me. But I must, with great respect to
the court, assert that I had a perfect right to state what I stated; and now I say
in respect to England and her treatment of this country, those are my sentiments,
and I here openly avow them. The Attorney General is present — I retract noth-
ing— these are my well judged sentiments — ^these are my opinions as to the relative
position of England and Ireland; and if I have, as you seem to insinuate, vio-
lated the law by stating these things, I now deliberately do so again. Let her
majesty's attorney-general do his duty to his government, I have done mine to my
country.'

"Such was the conclusion of the trial of John Mitchel. The brother-in-law
and friend of Robert Emmet, the Republican of our father's days, came to attest
the justice of the republican of Our own, and to vie with him in defying and
scorning, the infamous laws of England."

YOUNG IRELAND 599

that bloody slaughter would have been better than acquiescence.
Under heavy escort, and by a roundabout route, he was secretly
rushed off and conveyed to a ship which, in the Liffy, waited to
carry him away.

John Martin, MitchePs brother-in-law, a quiet Northern gen-
tleman farmer, now felt called upon to step into the breach. To
take the place of the suppressed United Irishman, Martin started
The Felon. He had the assistance of Devin Reilly and of Fintan
Lalor, the latter a Tipperary man, strange and lonely of nature,
with powerful intellect and determination, and almost fanatically
committed to ideas of land ownership far in advance of his time.

Another revolutionary paper. The Tribune, was founded by
Kevin O'Doherty assisted by the poet Richard Dalton Williams.
So the taking away of The United Irishman was almost compen-
sated for. The Felon, The Tribune, and The Nation all three now
worked with a will to rouse and to ripen the country with the har-
vest.

But still the English Government would not be accommodating.
If there must be a revolution it must be forced before it is ready.
Six weeks after Mitchel was convicted, the Government made a
great swoop. The editors of all three papers were arrested, and,
besides, O'Brien and Meagher were sought with warrants. The
Young Irelanders instantly saw that they must at once strike or be
struck. Although they knew that the country was not ready-
neither the harvest ripe, nor the men equipped — ^they desperately
resolved upon rising. O'Brien, Meagher, Doheny, O'Gorman,
Terence Bellew MacManus, Reilly, Dillon and others, spread them-
selves over the south (chiefly). O'Brien, who was looked to as
the leader, should give the signal by striking the first blow.
Through want of preparedness, through O'Brien's exasperating
punctiliousness about when, where, and how, he would strike the
blow, and through the active opposition of the clergy* — part of
whom were in principle against the rising, and part against it be-
cause circumstances were untoward, the people unprepared, and
the harvest not gathered — the rising never materialised. O'Brien,
Meagher, MacManus and others, were run down and arrested —
while Doheny, Reilly, Dillon, O'Gorman escaped the country after
long pursuit.

It was an unfortunate ending to a promising project. The vari-

*A11 of the clergy were not against the movement— evidently not all of the
Hierarchy either. Bishop Maginn of Derry sent a messenger to Duffy, in prison,
to say that if the Rising was deferred until the harvest was gathered, he would
take the field himself, and have with him at least twenty officers in black.

6oo THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

ous accounts of the times, written by the actors themselves, show
that the people were ripe for revolution — full as anxious to take
the field as in '98 — ^more anxious perhaps — even ready, and anxious
to go out unarmed, or with such homemade arms as they could
procure on short notice. But, disastrous as might have been the
fool-hardiness of facing the armies of the British Empire with pikes
and scythes, even that forlorn hope was frustrated by the want of
carefully prepared plans, unified direction, and a bold leader capa-
ble of sweeping aside the small considerations, grasping the big
ones, and acting instantly, and with certitude.'

But consistent with the working of the strange fatality that
through centuries dogged the steps of Ireland's liberators, the fierce
desire of the people was not to eventuate in action.

The captured leaders were put through the usual farcical form
of trial — found guilty of course — as Smith O'Brien convicted, and
sentenced, and stepped out of the box put it to Meagher, "Guilty,
Meagher, of not having sold our country." O'Doherty and Mar-
tin, whose offence was considered less gross since they had been
imprisoned before putting in effect their rebellious purpose, were
sentenced each to ten years' transportation.* Duffy, over whom a
jury twice disagreed, was kept in prison a length of time, and
eventually released because of his failing health. But the leaders
who had been "out," O'Brien, Meagher, MacManus, and O'Don-
oghue got the same savage sentence — slater commuted to life trans-

* Meagher's description of the scene in the little town of Carrick-on-Suir when
the news sped that the leaders had arrived "to give the word," well pictures for
us the tremendous force of the long pent up desire now let loose: "A torrent of
human beings, rushing through lanes and narrow streets, whirling in dizzy circles,
and tossing up its dark waves with sounds of wrath, vengeance, and defiance . . .
eyes red with rage and desperation . . . wild, half-stifled, passionate, frantic
prayers of hope, curses on the red flag; scornful, exulting defiance of death. It
was the Revolution, if we had accepted it."

«John Martin's speech upon being convicted is too beautiful to be omitted —
"My lords, I have no imputation to cast upon the bench, neither have I anything
of unfairness toward myself to charge the jury with. I think the judges desired
to do their duty fairly, as upright judges and men, and that the twelve men who
were put into the box, not to try but to convict me, voted honestly according to
their prejudices. I have no personal enmity against the sheriff, sub-sheriff, or any
other gentleman connected with the arrangements of the jury panel, nor against
the attorney general, or any other person engaged in the proceedings called my
trial. But, my lords, I consider I have not yet been tried! There have been cer-
tain formalities carried on here for three days, but I have not been put upon my
country, according to the constitution said to exist in Ireland I

"Twelve of my countrymen, 'indifferently chosen' have not been put into
the jury box to try me, but twelve men, who, I believe have been selected by the
parties who represent the crown, for the purpose of convicting and not of trying me.

"Every person knows that what I have stated is the fact, and I would repre-
sent to the judges, most respectfully, that they, as honourable judges, and as up-
right citizens, ought to see that the administration of justice in this country is
above suspicion. I have nothing more to say."

YOUNG IRELAND 6oi

portation, to Van DIemen's Land — "That sentence Is that you,
William Smith O'Brien, be taken from hence to the place from
whence you came, and be thence drawn on a hurdle to the place of
execution, and be there hanged by the neck until you are dead ; and
that afterwards your head shall be severed from your body, and
your body divided into four quarters, to be disposed of as Her Ma-
jesty shall think fit. And may the Lord have mercy on your soul."

And so ended in gloom the short bright chapter of Ireland's
history written by the gallant Young Irelanders.

After a period of joyful hope Ireland was prostrate once more
under the conqueror's heel — to do what he would with. Some of
the biggest English minds considered it was proper that it should
be prostrate, that the iron Heel should unmercifully be sunk into
it. The great Carlyle, sad to relate, gave his British mind utter-
ance on the subject thus, "When a mouse comes in the way of an
elephant, what must the elephant do? Squelch it." Prime Min-
ister Peel was evidently of a like mind : for, we are told that he con-
sidered the idea of another Cromwellian clearance of the trouble-
some Celt, and a new Plantation. Queen Victoria, in a letter to
Leopold of Belgium expressed her regret that the Rising had not
materialised and given chance for the British guns to mow down
the young men of Ireland — "to teach the Irish a lesson," as the
gentle lady put it.

Mitchel's Last Conquest.
Doheny's Felon's Track
Gavan DuflFy's Young Ireland.

" " Four Years of Irish History.

CHAPTER LXX

THE GREAT FAMINE

The Great Famine, usually known as the famine of '47, really be-
gan in '45, with the blighting and failure of the potato crop, the
people's chief means of sustenance. The loss that year amounted
to nine million pounds sterling. A worse failure occurred in '46.
But by far the worst was in '47, when the suffering reached its
climax. The terrible famine of '47 and '48 proved to be the most
stunning blow that the Irish nation received in a century. It is
calculated that about a million people died — either of direct starva-
tion, or of the diseases introduced by the famine, and about another
million fled to foreign lands between '46 and '50.*

The sufferings caused by the very first blight, that of '45, were
such that Lord Brougham said: "They surpass anything on the
page of Thucydides — on the canvass of Poussin — in the dismal
chant of Dante." It was a catastrophe that demanded the imme-
diate, energetic, most powerful, help of a country's government.
And it is interesting to note just how those who insisted on govern-
ing this country met the terrible crisis.

Naturally, of course, the first thing that people in power should
do, for a country facing starvation, was to forbid all export of
foodstuffs from Ireland. But, as Englishmen, having this source
of supply cut off, would then have to pay a higher price for their
corn, the British Government, "could not interfere with the natural
course of trade." "But," the Viceroy Lord Heytesbury, reassured
the dying ones, "there is no cause for alarm — the Government is
carefully watching the course of events I"

To relieve the acute situation, their first step was to send over
a shipload of scientists to study the cause of the potato failure.
Their second step was to bring in a new Coercion Bill for Ireland.
The third step was — after they had voted two hundred thousand
pounds to beautify London's Battersea Park — ^to vote one hundred

' The Government returns of emigration for those years are inaccurate. There
were hundreds of little schooners sailing out of almost every bay on the west
coast, weighted down with human cargo, of which no record was ever kept.

602

THE GREAT FAMINE 603

thousand pounds for the relief of the two million Irish people (out
of a total of eight million) who were suffering keen distress — ^which
was the handsome help of twelve pence each person to tide a starv-
ing population over till the next harvest I'*

As they were this year unable to pay rack rent to the absentee
landlord, thousands of the starving ones were thrown out, and
other thousands threatened to be thrown out of their wretched
homes, to perish on the roadside. In consequence frenzied poor
men shot a few of the vilest of the land-agents and landlords. At
the opening of the Parliament in January, '46, Queen Victoria, ad-
dressing her "Lords and Gentlemen" observed, with deep regret,
the fearful situation in Ireland — adding — "It will be our duty to
consider whether any measure can be devised, calculated to give
peace and protection for life there."

The simple reader, who knows not the way of Britain with Ire-
land, would here naturally come to the conclusion that the tender-
hearted gentlewoman, full of sympathy for the thousands who were
dying of starvation, and for the hundreds of thousands who were
daily in danger of dying, was directing her Parliament to try to
save a multitude of lives. But this would be a mistaken conclu-
sion. She was here referring to the handful of Anglo-Irish land-
lords and agents, whose lives must be solicitously protected whilst,
in trying times, they were endeavouring to hack and hew their usual
pound of flesh from the walking skeletons in the bogs and moun-
tains of Ireland. Some of these thoughtless ones were in danger
of slaying a landlord rather than see him slay their famished wife,
or hollow-eyed children. Hence the good Queen advised her
"Lords and Gentlemen" that a stringent Coercion Bill was needed,
and must be provided to relieve the unfortunate conditions prevail-
ing in Ireland.'

2 When the Irish Parliamentary representatives presented the claim of their
suffering country for assistance from the common Exchequer to which their coun-
try contributed millions every year, the British view of their action was fairly
well voiced by the London Times: "There would be something highly ludicrous
in the impudence with which Irish legislators claim English assistance if the cir-
cumstances by which they enforced their claims were not of the most pitiable
kind. The contrast between insolent menace and humble supplication reminds one
forcibly of the Irish characters so popular with the dramatists of the last cen-
tury who hectored through three acts of intermittent brogue, bullying the husband
and making love to the wife."

'Among other benefits which this excellent Bill proposed to confer upon the
suffering people, it rendered liable to fourteen years' transportation any one found
out of his own house after the sun set in the evening and before it arose next
morning. In the operation of this beneficial Act many things occurred, that to an
outsider might seem strange. For instance, John Mitchel records such happen-
ings as that of a quiet, respectable farmer, who on a summer evening, when the
sun was near setting, strolled a short way down the road to pay his working-n«;n,

604 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

In the following year, when the distress grew worse, the Gov-
ernment granted the Labour Rate Act to Ireland — ^permitting the
Irish people to tax themselves to give employment to those of them
who were worse off than the others. And over and above this,
there was contributed from the Imperial Exchequer a hundred thou-
sand pounds for districts that were too utterly destitute to raise
any money under the Act. This Act and Government grant ma-
terially alleviated such polite poverty as existed among the Anglo-
Irish class in Ireland — going chiefly in salaries to many thousands
of these people employed as "Commissioners," "Superintendents of
work," "Inspectors of work," and so forth — a huge staff who were
paid a large part of the small fund for the purpose of administer-
ing the little that remained.*

What did remain was paid in half wages to starving men for
doing work that was unprofitable. This latter was a specific Gov-
ernment condition embodied in the Act. The work must be un-
profitable, non-productive. The money, for instance, could not
be used to build Irish railways — because that would be a discrim-
ination against English railway builders. It could not be used
either for seeding the lands, or reclaiming the millions of acres of
bog — ^because that would be giving the Irish farmer an unfair ad-

and walking back when the sun had just sunk — though it was still broad day
light — was arrested for heinous crime against "the Queen and Constitution of
this realm." At that time the tailor and the shoemaker would, in the late autumn
and early winter, be taken by the big fanners to their houses, and kept there a
week, to make shoes and clothes for the family. One of these tailors was arrested,
on an evening, as he sat at his work in a big farmer's house — where of course he
was spending his nights as well as his days. The villain had literally transgressed
British law. He has been "out of his house" between sunset and sunrise ! Four-
teen years' transportation taught this dangerous criminal that British law was made
to be respected.

Then, too, the Government was not only alert to guard the sacred rights
of life — English landlords' lives, but also the sacred rights of property — Eng-
lish landlords' property. Mitchel, in his "Last Conquest," describes now he
was called upon to defend poor starving creatures on charges of trespass be-
cause they had gone down to gather seaweed below high-water mark — and
poor farmers who were indicted for robbery, because going forth into the sea's
realm — where Britain decrees that the British landlords' rights reach — ^they had
taken limestone from a rock that was uncovered at low-water only, and burnt it
upon their lands, to try to force a little crop. The Cork Examiner of that period
says: "Our town presents nothing but a moving mass of military and police,
conveying to and from the court-house crowds of famine culprits. I attended the
court for a few hours this day. The dock was crowded with the prisoners, not one
of whom, when called up for trial, was able to support himself in front of the
dock. The sentence of the court was received by each prisoner with apparent
satisfaction. Even transportation appeared to many to be a relaxation from their
sufferings."

* In the beginning of '47 there were ten thousand Government servants under
salary for administering what portion of the relief fund their salaries did not
consume. "Some of these gentlemen," says Mitchel, "got more pay than an Ameri-
can Secretary of State."

THE GREAT FAMINE 605

vantage over his English brother, and might enable him to under-
sell the latter in the market. It could only be used — and only was
used — for such benevolent purpose as cutting down roads where
there was no hill, filling in roads where there was no hollow, build-
ing roads where nobody ever travelled — shaving them start any-
where and end nowhere — erecting bridges where no rivers flowed,
and piers where a ship's sail was never seen. There are still to be
viewed in various parts of Ireland, some of these monuments to
British Government wisdom, and solicitude — roads that are only
frequented by the daisy and harebell, and broken bridges and tum-
ble-down piers that stood in solitude for years, before sinking in
despair.

Public committees had been formed in various countries (in-
cluding England) and hundreds of thousands of pounds were col-
lected for the relief of Irish distress — even the Sultan of Turkey
contributing to the starving Irish subjects that the great British
Government could not afford to care for. With the money thus
collected, shiploads of Indian corn were imported to Ireland from
America. As there were in the country hundreds of thousands of
people in want for food, who yet would not accept it in charity, it
was proposed that imported corn should be sold to these people at
reduced price — ^but the paternal Government forbade the irregular
procedure. It was not in accordance with the laws of political
economy, and "there must be no interference with the natural course
of trade." For the same reason the Government still persistently
refused to close the Irish ports against export of foodstuffs. And
it was noted that a ship, laden with relief corn from America, sail-
ing into an Irish harbour, would meet several ships laden with Irish
foodstuffs, sailing out!

At length, when conditions reached their most fearful stage, in
'47, and that the uncofiined dead were being buried in trenches,*
and the world was expressing itself as appalled at the conditions,
the Government advanced a loan of ten million pounds, one-half
to be expended on public works, the other half for outdoor relief.
And this carried with it the helpful proviso that no destitute farmer
could benefit from that windfall unless he had first given up to the
landlord all his farm except a quarter of an acre.

The extent of the want in Ireland, in the spring of '47, can be

5 Some Poor Law Unions, unable to provide coffins for all who died destitute,
hit on the expedient of using one coffin with a hinged bottom. Corpses were often
simply wrapped in straw for burial. Some were buried even without the cover-
ing of straw. People driving after night sometimes drove over the dead who
had dropped on the road and there lay unburied. Dogs, pigs, rats, were fre-
quently found feasting on the neglected dead.

6o6 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

judged from the fact that in March there were no less than 730,000
heads of families engaged on relief works — almost three-quarters
of a million men, who, for sake of earning about six-pence a day,
forsook all work upon the land. Thus, the sagacious statesmanship
of the English ruler in Ireland, sought to relieve want caused by
shortage of crops, by paying men sixpence a day to refrain from
raising further crops — and do work that was guaranteed by the
Government expert not to produce anything for the country's aid.

But to relieve acute distress among the poor absentee landlords
in the gambling hells of Europe, the Government gladly contributed
troops to aid the Absentee's agent and bailiffs in seizing the sheep,
the cow, the oats, the furniture, of the starving people. Some-
times to seize the potatoes that had been donated to them to seed
their land.

But in these terrible times there were thousands of poor people
who, having nothing left to seize, were by the landlord thrown out
with their families on the roadside. These people had two re-
sources open to them. Having no house of their own to be in be-
tween sunset and sunrise (for even the workhouses and hospitals
were long since filled) they could take advantage of the Coercion
Act, and get transported for their crime. Or, their cases were
thoughtfully met by the Vagrancy Act which punished by imprison-
ment with hard labour any one found idly wandering without visible
means of support.'

As the famine sufferings increased, the Government met the
more acute situation by proposing a renewal of the Disarming Act,
increase of police, and several other British remedies.

True, the Government now shipped in Indian corn. But there
was more corn went out of the country in one month than the Gov-
ernment sent in, in a year. And during this time English traders

•To some who do not know the quaint ways of English laws with Irish peo-
ple this will seem to be a joke. Alas, it is a grrim truth. Many of the broken and
broken-hearted creatures — of the half-million people evicted in one year — were
sent to the prison stone-piles in punishment for vagrancy.

In this black year of '47 m which the potato crop failed a third time — a
total failure this time — in which far more than half a million died of famine
and of plague begotten by famine, and far more than a quarter million fled tiie
country, Larcom (the Government Commissioner) estimated at forty-five million
pounds the value of the food-crops produced. The greater portion of these crops
crossed the channel — sold to satisfy the landlord and tax-gatherer. "Travellers
were often appalled when they came upon some lonely village by the western coast,
with the people all skeletons on their own hearths. . . . Priests, after going their
rounds all day, administering Extreme Unction, often themselves went supperless
to bed." And the Protestant clergy, too, be it noted, worked nobly for the suf-
ferers. One brave Protestant minister took off his shirt, and put it on a fever
patient. Some few signally noble-hearted ones among the landlords lived on In-
dian meal, in order to spare more for the starving — some of whom were eating
grass and turf.

THE GREAT FAMINE 607

were speculating In Irish corn, importing or exporting it, as called
for by variations in the market. And while tens of thousands were
dropping dead for want of food, in the fields, and on the roads,
and in the streets of Irish cities, the shiploads of Irish corn in
which these traders were speculating were crossing and recrossing
the Channel, in furtherance of their gamble. It is recorded that,
in the time of direst need, certain cargoes of corn crossed the Irish
sea four times I

Things had now come to a dreadful pass. And the nation was
in the throes of despair. Mitchel gives a harrowing account of the
sights that he then saw on a journey to Galway through the fertile
centre of a fertile island :

"We saw sights that will never wholly leave the eyes that be-
held them, cowering wretches almost naked in the savage weather,
prowling in turnip fields, and endeavouring to grub up roots which
had been left, but running to hide as the mailcoach rolled by : groups
and families, sitting or wandering on the highroad, with failing
steps, and dim, patient eyes, gazing hopelessly into infinite darkness
and despair; parties of tall, brawny men, once the flower of Meath
and Galway, stalking by with a fierce but vacant scowl : as if they
realised that all this ought not to be, but knew not whom to blame,
saw none whom they could rend in their wrath. Sometimes, I could
see, in front of the cottages, little children leaning against a fence
when the sun shone out — for they could not stand — their limbs
lleshless, their bodies half-naked, their faces bloated yet wrinkled,
and of a pale greenish hue — children who would never, it was too
plain, grow up to be men and women."'

'The Mayo Constitution in the month of March reported: "The land is one
vast waste: a soul is not to be seen working on the holdings of the poor farmers
throughout the country: and those who have had the prudence to plough or dig
the ground are in fear of throwing in the seed."

The Dublin Evening Mail recorded: "A gentleman travelling from Borris-in-
Ossory_ to Kilkenny one bright Spring morning, counts on both sides of the road,
in a jistance of twenty- four miles, 'nine men and four ploughs,' occupied in the
fields; but sees multitudes of wan labourers, "beyond the power of computation by
a mail-car passenger,' labouring to destroy the road he was travelling upon. It
was 'public work.' "

A sample report from an agent of a Society which, more than any other, de-
serves eternal gratitude from Irishmen for the great and noble work it did to
mitigate the horrors of that horrible time — ^the Society of Friends — ^reads: "One
poor woman whose cabin I had visited said, 'There will be nothing for us but to
lie down and die.' I tried to give her hope in English aid. But alas ! her prophecy
has been too true. Out of a population of two hundred and forty I found thirteen
already dead from want. TTie survivors were like walking skeletons — the men
gaunt and haggard, stamped with the livid mark of hunger, the children crying
with pain — ^the women in some of the cabins too weak to stand. All the sheep
were gone — ^all the cows — all the poultry killed — only one pig left — ^the very dogs
which had barked at me before, had disappeared. No potatoes — no oats."

An item from a Dublin newspaper of '47 — ^just a few lines casually set down

6o8 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Yet the Government and the law of the land were not remain-
ing idle in this time of terror. Toward the end of that year, when
hope seemed forever to have fled the country, the English Parlia-
ment, to meet the exigency, called for another Coercion Act I

In the summer of '47, when things were very bad indeed, and
the living were trying — ^but oftentimes failing — to bury the dead,
the Government, to relieve the distress, sent sixty agricultural lec-
turers over the country. Some of those who went into the West,
came back reporting that they could find no one to lecture to.
Others who found living people, could not lecture to them because
there was not going to be any means of putting their wise principles
into practice. One of the lecturers reports: "It is always the
same excuse with them. They could not get seed, or anything to
live on, meantime." Another reports: "All I met told me they
were going to give up their land, for they had neither food nor
strength to till it."*

In those terrible years the people began flocking from the
stricken land in tens and hundreds of thousands — to America, and
to the earth's ends. The little bays of Ireland were floating out
human cargoes upon the bosom of every tide — till within five years'
time a million despairing refugees had fled the land.®

in the ordinary way of news — nothing at all startling in a time when people could
not any more be startled by anything so commonplace — reads: "Upwards of one
hundred and fifty ass hides have been delivered in Dublin from the County Mayo,
for exportation to Liverpool. The carcasses, owing to the scarcity of provisions,
had been used as food."

8 As a further means of helping the dread situation the Government, through
its Lord Lieutenant, Lord Clarendon, hired a creature named Birch, publisher of
a sheet that he called The World, to invent and print the foulest slanders the
creature's filthy imagination could conceive, about the people's leaders, the Young
Irelanders — and then gratuitously circulated, his lying sheet. It was only when
Birch eventually sued his employer. Lord Qarendon, for more wages — black-mail.
Clarendon called it — ^that the whole odious transaction came into the light of day.

»The great Exodus of the race, which then began, continued thence forward
till, in a half a century, Ireland, which had almost nine million people in '46,
lost one-half its population. On this sad subject Ethna Carbery penned her well
Imown poem —

THE PASSING OF THE GAEL

They are goin^, going, going from the valleys and the hills.

They are leaving far behind them heathery moor and mountain rills.

All tht wealth of hawthorn hedges where the brown thrush sways and thrills.

They are going, shy-eyed cailins, and lads so straight and tall,
From the purple peaks of Kerry, from the crags of wild Imaal,
From the greening plains of Mayo, and the glens of Donegal.

They are leaving pleasant places, shores with snowy sands outspread;
Blue and lonely lakes a-stirring when the wind stirs overhead;
Tender living hearts that love them, and the graves of kindred dead.

THE GREAT FAMINE 609

And in the famine exodus, thousands and thousands carried
their load of famine fever with them aboard the little ships, or de-
veloped famine fever on the voyage. And thousands upon thou-
sands, fleeing from Ireland, for the Promised Land beyond the
Sea, never saw that land, but left their bones to whiten on the Ocean
bed. And still other thousands and thousands reached the Promised
Land only to see it, and die.

Along the Canadian shore, to which their little ships came, the
famine-stricken ones were quarantined in droves, died in piles, and
in heaps were buried.

This writer once visited Patridge Island at the mouth of the
St. John River, in the company of a very old man, a doctor, who
as a boy saw the "coffin ships" arrive at St. John. He gave har-
rowing pictures of the appearance of the unfed, unclad creatures,
who were dumped there by the shipload in those years — some of
them clad only in straw — and showed the great furrows on the
island, which mark the trenches wherein myriads were buried.

Six thousand of these poor creatures perished on Grosse Island,
In the St. Lawrence — and other many thousands along its banks.
A report of the Montreal Emigrant Society says : "From Grosse
Island, the great charnel-house of victimised humanity, up to Port
Sarnia, and along the borders of our magnificent river, upon the

They shall carry to the distant land a tear-drop in the eye
And some shall go uncomforted — their days an endless sigh
For Kathaleen Ni Houlihan's sad face, until they die.

Oh, Kathaleen Ni Houlihan, your road's a thorny way.

And 'tis a faithful soul would walk the flints with you for aye.

Would walk the sharp and cruel flints until his locks grew grey.

So some must wander to the East, and some must wander West ;
Some seek the white wastes of the North, and some a Southern nest;
Yet never shall they sleep so sweet as on your mother breast.

Within the city streets, hot, hurried, full of care,

A sudden dream shall bring them a whiff of Irish air — T^

A cool air, faintly-scented, blown soft from otherwhere.

Oh, the cabins long-deserted! — Olden memories awake —

Oh, the pleasant, pleasant places! — Hush! the blackbird in the brake!

Oh, the dear and kindly voices! — Now their hearts are fain to ache.

They may win a golden store — sure the whins were golden too ;
And no foreign skies hold beauty like the rainy skies they knew ;
Nor any night-wind cool the brow as did the foggy dew.

• ••**••••

They are going, going, going, and we cannot bid them stay ;

Their fields are now the stranger's, where the stranger's cattle stray.

Oh! Kathaleen Ni Houlihan, your way's a thorny way!

—From Ethna Carbery's "The Four Winds of Eirinn.**

6io THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

shores of Lakes Ontario and Erie — ^wherever the tide of emigra-
tion has extended — are to be found the final resting places of the
sons and daughters of Erin, an unbroken chain of graves, where
repose fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, in one commingled
heap, without a tear bedewing the soil, or a stone marking the spot.
Twenty thousand and upwards thus went down to their graves.""

Of a certain ninety thousand only, of the emigrants to Canada
in '47, of which accurate account was kept, it is recorded that 6,100
died on the voyage; 4,100 died on arrival; 5,200 died in hospitals,
and 1,900 soon died in the towns to which they repaired.

Here is sample of the reports for a few of the individual ships
in '47: The Larch, carrying 440 passengers, had 108 deaths; the
Queen, carrying 493 passengers, had 137 deaths; the Avon, carry-
ing 552 passengers, had 236 deaths; the Virginius, carrying 476
passengers, had 267 deaths. William Henry Smith, an English
civil engineer, who was employed on public works in Connaught in
'47, records that on one vessel carrying 600 emigrants not a hundred
survived.

And thus was the flower of one of the finest nations on the face
of the earth in swaths mowed down, and thus in wind-rows did they
wither from off earth's face — ^under the aegis of British rule."

John Mitchel, Last Conquest of Ireland (Perhaps).
O'Rorke's History of the Famine.
The Halliday Pamphlets.

10 One Englishman with a man's heart, the naturalist, Waterton, travelled
from Quebec to Montreal on an American steamboat, on which there were five
hundred Irish emigrants, — and in his "Wanderings" speaJcs thus beautifully of them :

"They were going, they hardly knew whither, far away from dear Ireland.
It made one's heart ache to see them all huddled together, without expectation of
ever revisiting their native soil. We feared that the sorrow of leaving home for
ever, the miserable accommodation on board the ship which had brought them
awav, and the tossing of the angry ocean, in a long and dreary voyage, would have
rendered them callous to good behaviour. But it was quite otherwise. They con-
ducted themselves with great propriety. Every American on board seemed to
feel for them. And, then, they were full of wretchedness. Need and oppression
stared within their eyes; upon their backs hung ragged misery. The world was
not their friend. 'Poor dear Ireland,' exclaimed an aged female, as I was talking
to her, *I shall never see it any more !' "

^^It was all for the advancement of civilisation, cour wise and humane Eng-
lish rulers and friends assured us. Their mouthpiece, The London Times, which,
when the exodus was most pitiful, screamed with delight in one of its editorials,
"They are going ! They are going 1 The Irish are going with a vengeance. Soon
a Celt will be as rare m Ireland as a Red Indian on the shores of Manhattan" —
this, their mouthpiece, comfortably informed the Imperial English world, "Law
has ridden through Ireland: it has been taught with bayonets, and interpreted
with ruin. Townships levelled with the ground, straggling columns of exiles,
workhouses multiplied, and still crowded, express the determination of the legis-
lature to rescue Ireland from its slovenly old barbarism, and to plant there the
institutions of this more civilised land."

CHAPTER LXXI

THE FENIANS

When the day of the fiery and forward Young Irelanders had
passed, the political reactionaries had their day. In 1850 reduc-
ing the issue from a national to a mere agrarian one, the Irish
Tenant Right League was formed, to remedy the farmers' griev-
ances. With this organisation as their instrument — though it had
some good men in it, like Lucas, Gray, and even Gavan Duffy mod-
erated in his Nationalism — and with another known as the Catholic
Defence Association, the Whigg^sh element of the country took
control of Irish affairs, and the time-servers jostled their way to
the front. This deplorable state of affairs reached its climax when
the Catholic Defence leaders, John Sadleir and William Keogh,
trusted, honoured, lauded to the skies by both lay and ecclesiastical
sponsors, and triumphantly contrasted with the base misleaders
(Young Ireland) of the decade before — duped and betrayed their
supporters, and sold the people and the cause for political place.
Sadleir, later found to be a forger and swindler on a gigantic scale,
fell with a sensational crash, leaving thousands of trusting poor
Irish people financially ruined — and committed suicide. Keogh
lived on, thinking that the Judge's ermine which was his price hid
his shame.^

^Sadleir's price, when he sold out to the British Government, was the Lord-
ship of the Treasury. Keogh's price was the Solicitor-Generalship. Sadleir was
an able business man who had made much money. After he was made Lord of
the Treasury, he soared into the dizziest realms of finance. All his ventures pros-
pered. Everything he touched turned to gold. He became one of the very great
ones in the London banking world. But, as his success, extraordinary and dazzling,
was based upon rottenness and a people's betrayal, God's curse finally brought him
down. Providence seemed to have helped him to a dizzy pinnacle in order that
his fall might be the more tremendous. The corruption by which he felt it neces-
sary to force himself upon the electors of Carlow, after he had betrayed them,
was the means of setting his feet upon the downward path. Hurriedly upon the
heels of this exposure, he had to resort to gigantic schemes of forgery, robbery,
fraud, in vain endeavour to keep from toppling off his pinnacle. But he fell with
a crash that shook the financial world. And finally a bottle of prussic acid taken
on Hampstead Heath ended the betrayer's career.

Keo^h, in his great days as joint leader (with Sadleir) of the Irish people,
had agam and again sworn in the most solemn and impressive manner— calling
upon tat Almighty God to witness his sincerity— that no bribe in the possession of

611

6i2 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

But however deeply it be buried, and however long it be covered
by the snows of misfortune, the germ of nationality never expires
in Ireland. Now it found its spring and woke again under the sun
of Fenianism.

Fenianism began in Ireland at the end of the 'Fifties — and at
the same time in America. James Stephens, who had been a very
young man in the '48 movement, and who had since been a tutor
both in Paris and in Kerry, was the founder and great organiser
of Fenianism. On St. Patrick's Day, 1858, in a back room in Dub-
lin, Stephens swore in his friend Thomas Clarke Luby, and Luby
swore in Stephens.*

And from that modest beginning sprang, at first slowly, but
after a few years with a rapidity that was magical, one of the great-
est of Irish movements, with far reaching consequences. For,
though to the near-sighted and superficial the movement seemed to
end in disastrous failure, the spirit which got rebirth in that little
back room on that fateful St. Patrick's Day, far from being broken
by the so-called Fenian failure has ever since gone steadily march-
ing onward, and been the motive power behind all various succeed-
ing national organisations down to the present greatest Irish
struggle.

At the same time that it was started in Ireland by Stephens and
Luby — with Charles Kickham' and John O'Leary as their co-

the British Government would or could buy him. From the frequency with which
he had invoked God to witness the sincerity of his oath, he was nick-named
"So-help-me-God Keogh." With Sadleir, he sold out at the very first opportunity
that offered. And he was soon comfortably seated upon the Judges' bench, grin-
ning at the dupes whom he had betrayed, and glad of the opportunity to send into
transportation, or on to the gallows, the "foolish" ones who preferred to give
up their lives in preference to giving up Liberty and Ireland. This scoundrel's
name became a by- word for rottenness. He lived long to enjoy the place and pelf
for whicli he sold his soul, and to be the despised and the scorned of his country-
men.

2 The Fenian oath (as quoted* by John O'Leary) ran: I, A B, do solemnly
swear, in the presence of Almighty God, that I will do my utmost, at every risk,
while life lasts, to make Ireland an independent democratic Republic; that I will
yield implicit obedience, in all things not contrary to the law of God, to the cc«n-
mands of my superior officers, and that I shall preserve inviolable secrecy re-
garding all transactions of this secret society that may be confided to me. So
help me Godl Amen.

Fenianism was more strictly the American title of the movement. It was
John O'Mahony, reader, scholar, poet, who conceived the title "Fenian" for the
organisation which Stephens in Ireland called the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
The Fenians, or Fianna, it will be remembered, were the famed national militia,
commanded by Fionn MacCumhal. The title was at first resisted by O'Mahony's
friends and followers, but he forced it on them. And it proved to be a happy one.

^Kickham, one of the finest, ablest, noblest of the Fenian leaders, and cer-
tainly the most lovable, is best known to-day as the Irish novelist who wrote the
finest story of Irish home life, "Knocknagow, or the Homes of Tipperary"— and

THE FENIANS 613

workers, John O'Mahoney and Michael Doheny (both of them
'Forty-eighters also) gave it to America.

The American movement, from the beginning, affiliated with
the movement at home. Stephens, immediately after starting the
movement in Ireland, went to the United States, travelled and suc-
cessfully spread Fenianism there, collected £600 to carry on the
work at home, and made O'Mahoney the American head of the

the writer also who wrote a few of the finest of our ballads. Such as the beau-
tiful Fenian ballad:

RORY OF THE HILLS

**rhat rake up near the rafters, why leave it there so long?

Its handle, of the best of ash, is smooth and straight and strong;

And, mother, will you tell me, why did my father frown

When to make the hay, in summertime I climbed to take it down ?"

She looked into her husband's eyes, while her own with light did fill,

"You'll shortly know the reason, boy 1" said Rory of the Hill.

The midnight moon is lighting up the slopes of Sliav-na-man, —
Whose foot affrights the startled hares so long before the dawn?
He stopped just where the Anner's stream winds up the woods, anear.
Then whistled low and looked around to see the coast was clear.
The shieling door flew open — ^in he stepped with right good-will —
"God save all here and bless your WORK I" said Rory of the Hill.

Right hearty was the welcome thit greeted him, I ween.

For years gone by he fully proved how well he loved the Green ;

And there was one amongst them who grasped him by the hand —

One who through all that weary time roamed on a foreign strand ;

He brought them news from gallant friends that made their heart-strings thrill —

"My sowl ! I never doubted them !" said Rory of the Hill.

They sat around the humble board till dawning of the day,
And yet not song nor shout I heard, no revelers were they ;
Some brows flushed red with gladness, while some were grimly pale ;
But pale or red, from out those eyes flashed souls that never quail !
"And sing us now about the vow, they swore for to fulfil" —
"You'W read it yet in history," said Rory of the HilL

Next day the ashen handle he took down from where it hung,

The toothed rake, full scornfully, into the fire he flung;

And in its stead a shining blade is gleaming once again —

COhl for a hundred thousand of such weapons and such men!)

Right soldierly he wielded it, and — going through his drill —

"Attention — charge — front point — ^advance !" cried Rory of the Hill.

She looked at him with woman's pride, with pride and woman's fears;
She flew to him, she clung to him, and dried away her tears ;
He feels her pulse beat truly, while her arms around him twine —
"Now God be praised for your stojut heart, brave little wife of mine."
He swung his first born in the air, while joy his heart did fill—
"You'U be a FREE MAN yet, my boy I" said Rory of the Hill.

Oh ! knowledge is a wondrous power, and stronger than the wind ;

And thrones shall fall, and despots bow, before the might of mind;

The poet and the orator the heart of man can sway.

And would to the kind heavens that Wolfe Tone were here to-day

Yet trust me, friends, dear Ireland's strength— her truest strength is still

The rough and ready roving boys, like Rory of the Hill 1

6i4 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

movement. Strangely and unfortunately John Mitchel — and with
him Meagher — refused to have anything to do with the new move-
ment, which, except for O'Mahoney and Doheny, had to find its
strength among new men. The same v/as the case at home, where
Smith O'Brien, Dillon, and others of the Young Irelanders, rest-
ing on their now fading laurels, fairly set their faces against Fe-
nianism.*

Stephens was a singularly strong and dominant character, a
man who combined intellectual powers with high idealism, extraor-
dinary self-confidence — which sometimes became intolerant ego-
tism— and a hypnotic optimism. While he was commonplace as a
writer and orator, he was great as an organiser, having a mesmeric
power over men in the intimacy of personal discourse, and a won-
derful faculty of infecting them with his own extraordinary optim-
ism, inspiring them with his own extraordinary confidence, and win-
ning them as enthusiastic disciples, and apostles. Now, especially,
that he had the American money to finance him, he travelled east
and west over Ireland, from town to town, from village to village,
and it might be said, from farm to farm, laying the warp and weft
of the organisation, winning men by the thousand, and swearing
them in fealty to Ireland.

But the movement got its vastest impetus from the funeral of
MacManus. Terence Bellew MacManus, one of the singularly
noble and self-sacrificing of the Young Irelanders, sent into penal
servitude in Australia, escaped therefrom to America, and in '6i
died in San Francisco — ^living and dying steadfast and true to his
principles. The American Fenians, deciding that the body of this
true man should rest in Irish earth, arranged to bring him home
and lay him in Glasnevin. The funeral was one great demonstra-
tion all the way across the American Continent. In New York it
assumed remarkable proportions. Wonderful was the reception
given to it in Cork; and thence along the way to Dublin. It was
not the funeral of a failure going to his grave, but the triumphal
march of a conqueror coming to his own. The enthusiasm with
which the triumphal coming of MacManus was hailed, grew and
swelled across the country. At railway stations through which the
funeral train passed vast crowds of reverent ones dropped upon
their knees and prayed, while tears of mingled grief and joy rolled
down their cheeks.

*This strange attitude of many of the Young Ireland leaders was in part at
least due to the natural jealousy of older leaders, grown stale, against the impetuous
and virile young ones who come over tfie horizon threatening to fill the places
which those elders long had graced.

THE FENIANS 615

In Dublin (where the anti-national Archbishop CuUen' had
closed all his church doors against the remains of the people's idol),
the climax was reached. During the week that the body lay in the
Mechanics' Institute, endless thousands of ardent ones, in continu-
ous lines filed passed, praying for a patriot who lived and who died
true to a true Irishman's ideal. And the day on which MacManus
was to be laid under the earth witnessed such a funeral demonstra-
tion as perhaps Dublin never knew before or since. Following
the hearse, through lanes of people numbering hundreds of thou-
sands, marched fifty thousand men, who thereby consecrated them-
selves to live, and to strive, and to die as nobly as did he whose
spirit brooded ovei and inspired the vast throng. And the great
silent resolve of the marching myriads found just expression in a
sentence of Captain Smith's oration at the grave side, " *Is there
any hope?' " he said, quoting a question often asked about Ireland
by MacManus in his last illness, " 'Is there any hope?' That cof-
fin speaks of more than hope to-day, for it gives us faith and firm
resolve to do the work for which MacManus died."*

8 Archbishop Cullen of Dublin banned the body, and blamed the life, of him
whom Archbishop Hughes of New York only a few weeks before had blessed.

Once, Archbishop Cullen, eulogising the British rule to which he commanded
the docility of the Irish people, said that wherever the British flag floated there
were to be found Irishmen lifting the standard of the church He intimated that
England deserved blessing rather than cursing for driving forth the Irish people
over every country of the globe This dispersal of the race was a dispensation
of God for spreading the Faith. And he evidently desired it to be understood
that England as the chosen instrument for the dispersal, was deserving of high
credit I

• Thomas Qarke Luby, describing the funeral procession (in O'Leary's Recol-
lections) says:

"But I had myself as yet no adequate notion of the magnitude of this un-
paralleled demonstration. It was only when about to turn into Britain Street that
I first ventured to look back. Then, indeed, I was over-awed I saw the whole
ol Gardiner Street filled with dense masses of men, and fresh masses, endlessly
as it seemed, still defiling intc it from the direction of Abbey Street. I speak the
truth when t tell you that I gasped for breath and felt my chest heave; I could
have sobbed and cried. I felt as I never felt before or since, the grandeur, the
magnetism, of an immense crowd of human beings, when all are, for the time
being, gloriously animated with one and the same noble aspiration and convic-
tion. ... At length the head of the procession reached Thomas Street; and now
something truly im.pressive took place Spontaneously, as the foremost files passed
by Githerine's Church (where Robert Emmet died on the scaffold) every man
uncovered his head. As slowly the dense black column moves along in funeral
pomp the generous impulse runs down the entire line. Not a man but passes the
sacred spot bare-headed. ... I think it is no exaggeration to say that the funeral
seems to me something in its kind unparalleled, or, at least, only to be compared
with the second burial of the great Napoleon. But, in the last named pageant,
the power and resources of a great nation were called into action, while the
MacManus funeral was the tmaided effort of a populace trampled on or ex-
patriated."

O'Leary himself says that the funeral of C^ambetta, organised by a great
nation, was probably the only funeral which in point of ntimbers and impressive-
ness surpassed MacManus's

6i6 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

That November day in '6i, when MacManus made his last
journey, was the greatest day for young Fenianism, conquering for
^it the hearts of hundreds of thousands of Irishmen whom, erst-
while it had not won.

Unfortunately, the great body of the Irish Bishops, and, in gen-
eral, of the church in Ireland, conservatively following the CuUen
lead denounced Fenians and Fenianism, and strove to stifle a move-
ment which was sweeping Ireland like wildfire, and putting new
hope in the hearts of the men of the country/

The Irish People, the Fenian organ, was founded in '63 with
John O'Leary as editor — assisted by Charles Kickham and Luby.
Kickham, by far the finest and ablest writer of them all, did a lion's
share of the virile writing which quickly popularised the paper.

The Irish People obtained a large circulation — but not so great
as did The Nation of Young Ireland days. Its coming, every week,
was longingly looked forward to by the folk in remote corners of
the country, who eagerly bought and avidly read and digested it.
And by its brightness and its virility the spread of the movement
was vastly accelerated.

In autumn '65 the Government suddenly delivered a great coup
— seizing The Irish People, its editors, Stephens, and many of the
leading figures in the movement in various parts of the country.*

This was truly a disaster, removing as it did from the direction
of the movement some of the wisest heads that guided it. And
every one of the hundreds of thousands of the rank and file severely
felt the sad blow — from which indeed the movement never recov-
ered— even though Stephens was given back to them.

For Stephens was given back. After defying the court before
which he was arraigned — announcing to it, "I deliberately and
conscientiously repudiate the existence of British law in Ireland,
and I defy and despise any punishment it may inflict on me" — he
was, with other leading prisoners, confined in Richmond jail — ^un-
der special and careful guard. On an evening in November, the
warders, going their rounds, saw that every man of the Fenian
prisoners was safe in his cell — blocked and double-locked. And

' It would be painful to set down here the intemperate, unpatriotic denunciations
of Fenianism, by several Bishops and pastors who strove to array both heaven
and hell on the side of Britain, against Fenianism and Ireland. Enough to record
Bishop Moriarty's thundering agamst the Fenian organisers that Hell was not hot
enough nor Eternity long enough to mete adequate punishment to such miscreants 1

B After most of the other leaders were arrested Stephens, while the country
was being searched for him, continued for more than a month living an easy
and quiet existence, watering his flowers, and tending his garden, in the outskirts
of Dublin.

THE FENIANS 617

early next morning the prison was in uproar. James Stephens' cell
was open — and empty!

There were two tables, one on top of the other, against the
yard-wall of the prison — and everything else was mystery absolute
and complete ! Locks had been opened, gates unbarred, walls sur-
mounted— ^by a poor prisoner who had no instrument or implement
left to him in his barred and bolted double-lodced cell. The bird
had flown. His jailers were dazed. The Government was fren-
zied. England was infuriated. The world was sensated. The
extraordinary and mysterious escape of Stephens was the sensa-
tion of the decade.'

After remaining quiet for several weeks in a Dublin home,
while almost every nook and cranny in England, Ireland, Scotland
and Wales was being searched for him, every railway train and
every ship and boat, Stephens one day entered a magnificent coach
drawn by four spanking horses, a liveried driver on the seat and
liveried foot-men behind (each "flunkey" being an armed Fenian),
and drove through the streets of Dublin to the sea-coast near Bal-
briggan, where he entered a boat that took him to a lugger in the
offing, which in turn bore him safely to France. From thence the
Chief made his way easily to America.

The other Fenian leaders were tried in December on a charge
of high treason — ^by the usual bitterly biased judges and packed
juries — found guilty, of course, and sentenced— O' Donovan Rossa
for life, Kickham, Luby, O'Leary, and the others, to twenty years'
penal servitude.

*Like many mysteries, that of Stephens* escape was, after all, one of the
simplest. Fenianism had permeated not only every part of the country but also
every class and every callin|^ — including Government cohorts. The Giovenunent
without knowing it, was placing Fenian prisoners in the hands of Fenian jailers.
In Richmond jail, a hospitably superintendent, Jno. J. Breslin, and a night watch-
man, Joseph Byrne, two trusty Fenians, procured duplicate keys and made the
other arrangements to convey their distinguished prisoner and Chief outside the
walls. A decade later, Breslin, abroad in America, was a chief man in freeing
from their Australian penal servitude the Fenian prisoners there.

The army in Ireland was honey-combed with Fenianism — and the police force
likewise. The army was so Fenian that many regiments were entirely unreliable
from the British point of view. Thousands of the men had taken the Fenian oath.
The work was begun by O'Donovan Rossa who swore in a soldier named Sullivan,
a native of his own Koscarbery — and this soldier swore in another, and so on.
But it was the remarkable character. Pagan O'Leary, who, tackling the work
some months after Rossa had begun it, made the big success of it John Devoy
and William Rowantree stepped into the gap and continued the work, when
O'Leary, betrayed by a soldier at Athlone, was sent into penal servitude.

10 O'Donovan Rossa got a life sentence because it was his second conviction.
In '58 he was convicted of treasonable conspiracy in his native Skibbereen. But.
anyhow, probably his judges would have considered him deserving of a double
dose, by reason that, having insisted upon conducting his own defence, he gave
judges, jury, and prosecutors many weary hours. As extracts from The Irish

6i8 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

The movement had received a staggering blow — from which,
however, it would have recovered were not further and greater
misfortunes to follow. The country, eager for action, was disap-
pointed that Stephens did not give the word in this year. They
were infinitely more disappointed, discouraged, and embittered
when, having solemnly pledged himself to give the word next year,
he failed them again. Among their brethren in America — ^upon
whose help great reliance had been placed — impatience gave way
to criticism, and criticism to dissension. The great majority there

People were put in evidence against the prisoners, O'Donovan Rossa insisted
that if any portion of the papers was placed before the Court, every word in
every paper, for every week of the paper's existence, must be read. When the
judges and prosecutors gasped at the fearful prospect, he sought to comfort them
by a generous leniency — he would not insist upon reading the advertisements.
Before he lifted from their hearts the load of dread he had placed there, he gave
them upwards of eight hours' straight reading beginning with the first word at
the top of the left-hand corner of the first number and continuing straight forward,
conscientiously, without the omission of article or particle!

Fearful indeed was the life — ^the living death, rather — that Irish political
prisoners had to face in English jails. O'Donovan Rossa, with hands chained be-
hind his back for weeks together, had to feed himself as a dog would, by lapping
it up. Michael Davitt tells how, when the keeper was not looking, prisoners
would snatch a candle end out of the garbage, and save it to feast upon — also,
how, to get a mouthful of air for which in their vile dungeons they were perishing,
they would lie down upon the floor and through the crack at the bottom of the
door, greedily suck in the already vitiated air of the corridor. In '77 O'Connor
Power, in the House of Commons, demanding inquiry into the horrors to which
Irish political prisoners were subjected, read a letter from Michael Davitt in
Dartmoor prison, describing the sufferings of some of his fellow-prisoners there —
from which is extracted a portion, about one of them: "In June or July 1868,
Chambers received 'no grounds' as an answer to a petition that he had sent to
the Secretary of State, begging to be allowed to attend his religrious obligations,
a privilege of which he was deprived, by a 'moral and religious' director for six
months. At present he is daily driven in and out of chapel by officers brandish-
ing bludgeons and shouting like cattle drovers. Even in chapel he is not free
from their rudeness. Dozens of times those officers have stripped him naked in
presence of thieves and subjected him to insults too di^^usting to describe. He
is made to open his clothes five times a day while an officer feels over his body.
He has been several times separated from other political prisoners — ^although our
being together was within the rules — and forced to associate with picked ruffians.
He has been for six months in constant contact with lunatics. He has been
forced to mop up filthy dens of dirt with a small piece of rag, to carry a portable
water-closet on the public road and across the fields for the use of common male-
factors. He has often been sick, but, except on a few occasions, was not taken
to hospital. On one occasion he was sent to the dungeons for applying for re-
lief after he had met with a severe hurt by falling from the gangway of a build-
ing. Last year while laid up with rheumatism, they kept him sixteen days on
ten ounces of food daily, two months on half diet, and then put him out of hos-
pital far worse than when he was taken in. He is weekly forced to act as char-
woman to a lot of dirty creatures. He has had punishment diet (16 ounces of
bread and water), penal class diet, and dungeons — dark, wet, cold and dirty in
abundance. A smile, a movement of the lips — ay, even a glance of the eye — is
often deemed a crime in Dartmoor. We have been frequently insulted by thieves
and even struck by them. Chambers has been held by one jailer while another
jailer was ill-using him. Worthy sons of worthy sires who once shot down the
poor prisoners of war here I"

THE FENIANS 619

set aside O'Mahony and Stephens, and their too long delayed (im-
possible) plan of invading Ireland, and chose Colonel Roberts for
their leader, and an invasion of Canada for their plan.

The invasion of Canada, which would undoubtedly have been
a successful move, and a severe blow to England, was stopped by
the unexpected action of the American Government, which, having
tacitly encouraged the scheme, and permitted the plans to be ripened,
stepped in at the last moment to prevent it.

The American Government sold to the Fenians vast quantities
of ammunition and other military supplies, winked at the gather-
ing of the Fenian hosts from all corners of the country, and even
permitted the crossing of the border (near Buffalo) by General
John O'Neill at the head of the first body of Fenian soldiers.
From over the British Fort Erie O'Neill hauled down the English
colours and ran up the Irish, on the 31st May, '66.

And next morning, at Ridgeway, he encountered the enemy in
numbers far superior to his own force, disastrously routed them,
capturing standards and large supplies — to the frantic joy of the
Irish race throughout the world. It was then that America stepped
in, forbidding the passage of any more Fenian forces over the bor-
der, and completely cutting off O'Neill's supplies — ^thus stopping
his victorious career, and compelling him to fall back upon Amer-
ican soil — ^where he and his forces were placed under technical ar-
rest— and the ambitious scheme ended.

In Ireland, where Stephens had been superseded by Colonel
John Kelly, the Rising, arranged for March 5th, '67, was frus-
trated by a combination of circumstances. The informer, Cory-
don, betrayed the plans; and, strangely, a great snow storm, one
of the wildest and most protracted, with which the country was
ever visited, beginning on the night of March 6th and abating not
for twelve days and twelve nights, made absolutely impossible not
only all communications, but all movements of men.

One of the greatest Irish movements of the century ended ap-
parently in complete failure. Apparently only, for though there
was not success of arms, other kinds of success began to show im-
mediately. Within two years after, that terrible incubus upon Ire-
land, the Established (English) Church was disestablished, and
within three years the first Land Act of the century, the Act of
'70, was made law. And Prime Minister Gladstone afterwards
confessed that it was the healthy fear instilled in him by the aston-
ishing spirit of the Fenian movement, which forced him to these
actions.

620 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Moreover, the spirit begotten by Fenianism went forward, for
future triumph.

John O'Leary, Recollections of Fenians and Fenianism.
Joseph Deneiffe, Personal Narrative.
A. M. Sullivan's New Ireland.

CHAPTER LXXII

CHARLES STEWART PARNELL

From i 865-1 870 the English Courts in Ireland were kept busy
with the trial of the Fenian Prisoners. Courts-martial were also
working at high pressure dealing with alleged sedition on the part
of Irish soldiers. The barrack yards of Dublin ran red with the
blood, and re-echoed the shrieks, of soldiers condemned to the lash.
In many cases with all the breath left in their mangled bodies, these
soldiers, after their inhuman torture raised a cheer for Ireland.
The leading counsel for the defence of the prisoners was Isaac
Butt, Q. C, one of the most able and eloquent lawyers at the Bar.
In this capacity Butt had exceptional opportunities of learning a
great deal about the ideals of the Fenians. He saw that they were
men who had taken risks, and who were prepared to take punish-
ment, be it the scaffold or the cell. He found none of them pre-
pared for compromise, cowardice or surrender. The result was
that the Tory M. P. for Trinity College, honest man that he was,
became an advocate of the cause of Irish Independence.

True, Butt's definition of independence was not that of the
Fenians. He invented a new term "Home Rule." The first meet-
ing of the "Home Government Association," afterwards re-named
the "Home Rule League," was held in a Dublin hotel in 1870. A
resolution was passed "that the true remedy for the evils of Ire-
land is the establishment of an Irish Parliament with full control
over our domestic affairs." Vague enough, in sooth, but probably
as strong as Butt dared to make it in an assemblage comprised of
landlords, Tories, "moderate" Nationalists, and some Feniansi —
the latter being present chiefly to take notes. The old demand for
Repeal of the Union was dropped, and the demand for "Home
Rule" — ^which might mean anything — ^took its place. Probably
Butt could riot have done better in the circumstances, and his action
must be judged by his circumstances. It was not then as clear as
it now is that one of the chief devices for the consolidation of Brit-
ish power in Ireland is the exploitation of what is known as "mod-
erate opinion."

621

622 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

In 1874 came a General Election, and to the surprise of the
'nation the Home Rulers carried thirty-nine seats, and later four
Fenians were returned. The bulk of the members of "the Party,"
however, were Home Rulers in name, using their position for their
own ends, pledged to vote right on Home Rule motions, but other-
wise free to follow their own sweet will.

Charles Stewart Parnell was the squire of Avondale, County
Wicklow. He was, on the paternal side, of English descent, one
of his ancestors having purchased the Avondale property in the
reign of Charles the Second. His great-grandfather was Sir
John Parnell, Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer, who forfeited his
position rather than vote for the Union. The poet, Thomas Par-
nell, was of his family. His mother was the daughter of Commo-
dore Stewart of the U. S. Navy. During the war with England
in the beginning of the nineteenth century the Commodore mar-
ried, and almost immediately was detailed for active service.
"What present shall I bring you home?" he asked his bride. Her
reply was, "A British Frigate." "I shall bring you two," he said,
— and he did. The mother of Charles Stewart Parnell hated Eng-
land and the English and was probably a potent influence in de-
termining his career and outlook on life.

Parnell i^as educated in English schools, jRnishing at the Uni-
versity of Cambridge. He gained some repute as a mathemati-
cian, but, generally speaking, he was neither very brilliant nor very
assiduous. He left Cambridge without a degree, and not of his
own volition. His biographers pass over the matter lightly — ^they
generally refer to it as an ordinary Town and Gown row. His
sister, Mrs. Monroe Dickinson, is more explicit. In "A Patriot's
Mistake" she clearly brings out that Parnell, aged nineteen, had
engaged the affections of a young girl in the neighbourhood, who
was subsequently found drowned. Parnell was distracted over the
affair, and only the care of his estate and his hunting saved him
from a nervous collapse. His father, by his will, had made him
master of Avondale, excluding his elder brother, John Howard,
who was given the portion of a younger son. The explanation of
this seems to be that Parnell's father was under the impression that
John Howard was to be his uncle's heir, and, therefore, had al-
lotted Avondale to Charles Stewart. John went to America, and
was there visited by Charles Stewart, who promptly fell in love
with a reigning beauty who had society at her feet. Tiring of
American life she left for Rome. Parnell followed her, proposed
and was accepted. Then one day she told him she could not marry
him as "he had no name." "No name," exclaimed Parnell, "why

CHARLES STEWART PARNELL 623

I have one of the oldest in Ireland." The beauty explained that
she wanted to marry a self-made man who had made his mark —
"not a rusty old Irish name." Parnell promised to make a name,
on condition that she married him when he had done so. He made
his name, laid it at the feet of his beloved ; in a short space she was
married to another.

"He came forth," says his sister, "strengthened and ennobled
by the fiery ordeal. . . . Thus, Ireland, for the devotion and sac-
rifice of Charles's life . . . had to thank the faithlessness and
fickleness of a woman." "The work," continues Mrs. Didcinson,
"which he had first undertaken for love of a woman he afterwards
continued with unabated ardour from patriotic feeling."

To get elected to Parliament, he made two trials — one in Wick-
low, another in Dublin, and was on both occasions defeated. Then
in 1875 he replaced John Martin in Meath. He was regarded as
a nice, gentlemanly fellow, who would create no sensation in the
House of Conunons, — ^who might make one speech, but never an-
other.

The night that Parnell took his seat at Westminster hre noted
that there were two policies operating. One was that of Butt, who
addressed the House of Commons as he might an impartial jury in
the Four Courts, Dublin. Parnell missed the impartial jury.
There was no such thing in the House of Commons, where every-
thing seemed to be regulated by party interests. The other was
that of Joseph Giles Biggar — called "Joe" — and this was to out-
rage the House of Commons in every possible way. It so hap-
pened that on the very night of Pamell's entry "Joe" had been told
off to obstruct a coerdon bill. He did. He was not a man of
words, but he had provided himself with a copious stock of litera-
ture— Government Blue-books, newspapers and documents of all
kinds from which he read extracts until he had thoroughly ex-
hausted the patience of the House. The Speaker at his wit's end,
at length declared that the orator was no longer heard at the chair.
"Joe" declared that he was sorry that his ordinary position in the
House placed him at a disadvantage, but, with permission, he would
move up nearer to the chair. He then moved his file of documents
up to the table and read from them for four hours in a tone and
accent that might possibly be intelligible, even attractive in Belfast,
but certainly not elsewhere.

Parnell remained a while a spectator, not quite sure which
course to pursue. After consideration he decided to adopt Big-
gar's. But Pamell's obstruction was of a new brand. It was not
just wanton like Biggar's ; it was scientific The system was this :

^24 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

propose an amendment to practically every clause of every measure
introduced by the Government, and then discuss each amendment
fully, his friends forming relays to keep the discussion going. But
Pamell could hardly ever be accused of deliberate obstruction.
His amendments were generally worth consideration on their merits.
Thus, he put an end to flogging in the British Army. He gained
his end of obstructing the business of the House of Commons by
amendments admittedly reasonable. In 1877 Isaac Butt was called
into the House to reprove Pamell. He did so. Pamell disposed
of him in one short sentence. Pamell and Butt were obviously
coming to blows.

And the blows were going to be hard ones for Butt. Pamell
intimated to his adherents that if he was to be of any use in Parlia-
ment something striking should be done. The hint was promptly
taken. On September ist, 1877, the Home Rule Federation of
Great Britain held their annual meeting at Liverpool. Pamell was
elected president instead of Butt. Butt was annoyed and made no
secret of the fact. Everybody felt for him but in politics sym-
pathy has no place. Pamell, an onlooker says, was there "looking
like a piece of granite."

To understand the rise of Pamell to power and fame, certain
popular misconceptions have to be removed. From the literature
which has grown up about him it might be inferred that he was a
poor speaker. While he was never an orator in the accepted sense
of the word, while he was not a ready speaker, and often had
trouble in finding the word that exactly expressed his meaning, he
waited till he had found it, and then it was evident to his hearers
that his hesitation was justified. He was never very keen on speak-
ing, but when he had to speak he spoke in telling, and often in
memorable phrases which sunk into the public mind and which are
still on men's lips as part of the gospel of nationality. He was not
a very original man; he often borrowed the ideas of others after
due consideration; but once started on a certain line of action he
worked to his goal with dogged persistence. Thus, the idea of
obstmction did not originate in the brain of the most skilful of all
the obstmctionists ; it was the suggestion of Joseph Ronayne of
Cork and was already being operated by Biggar, when Pamell en-
tered Parliament. He was a thoughtful rather than a leamed man.
But he was not ignorant and had a good knowledge of what inter-
ested him. His biographer, Mr. Barry O'Brien, records the opin-
ion formed of him by careful and critical observers. The most
remarkable thing about him was his silence. He let others do
the talking. His main object was to unite all elements — Fenians,

CHARLES STEWART PARNELL 625

Constitutionalists, Clerics — all, in one grand rally for Ireland. He
did not think that the struggle on constitutional, lines could be a
long one. It was to be "short, sharp and decisive." "Ireland,"
he said, "cannot afford to lose the services of a single man."

In 1880 — after Mr. Shaw had temporarily succeeded Butt —
he was elected leader of the Irish Party. Explanations of his rise
to power are somewhat contradictory. There were clever men in
the Party — orators like A. M. Sullivan, business-men like Thomas
Sexton, literary men like Justin McCarthy. There are two words
common to all explanations of his selection — character and per-
sonality.

Parnell had only a limited belief in the efficiency of parliamen-
tarianism. He was of opinion that without a well organised pub-
lic opinion in Ireland his power in Parliament would be slight. He
publicly advised the Irish people to keep a keen watch on the con-
duct of their representatives in the House of Commons. He pub*-,
licly stated that long association with the House of Commons would
destroy the integrity of any Irish Party. He saw nothing but dis-
aster in the policy of conciliating the English. "We will never gain
anything from England," he said, "unless we tread on her toes; we
will never gain a sixpenny worth from her by conciliation."

Parnell's wish for an energetic movement at home was gratified
in an unexpected manner. Michael Da\dtt was released from
prison on the 19th December, 1877, on "ticket of leave" after serv-
ing seven years and seven months of a fifteen year sentence for
Fenianism. Parnell and others met Davitt and his •fellow-pris-
oners. Sergeant McCarthy, Chambers and O'Brien, at Kingstown,
and on a later date entertained them to breakfast at Morrison's
Hotel, Dublin. The rejoicing natural to such an occasion came
to a tragic termination. Poor McCarthy had a wife and children
down south to whom he was passionately attached and from whom
he had been separated by an informer who had gained his con-
fidence while enjoying his hospitality and playing with his little chil-
dren. He was never to enjoy their embraces again. His heart
collapsed and he died in Davitt's arms. He had taken the patriot's
risk and consummated the patriot's sacrifice.

The name of Michael Davitt brings up the Land Question.
Even in Ireland, to-day, it is difficult to understand the condition
of affairs in bygone days. The Landlord was "the master." He
could raise rents at will, he could evict, whether rent was paid or
not; if the tenant improved his holding he could be taxed for doing
so — ^the rent went up — ^if he defended the chastity of .his daughters,
or they did so, he was liable to eviction. The landlord owned his

626 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

tenant, and his tenant's land, and his tenant's vote, and, as he
thought, sometimes even his tenant's women-folk.* Michael Davitt
had good reason to know the conditions of land tenure in Ireland.
At the age of five years he was thrown with his father, mother and
two sisters on the roadside, and their little home, before their eyes,
razed to the ground. The father was a hard-working, intelligent
man who, having somehow survived the famine, and was hoping
for a little comfort, was flung with his wife and babes on the
world's highway while the landlord took over the fruit of years of
toil without a cent of compensation. In time he crossed with his
family to Lancashire and obtained employment as an Insurance
Agent. Michael, while only a child, was sent to work in a mill.
One day, when he was about twelve, he was told off to work on a
machine which he was too young and inexperienced to manage.
He protested, but in vain. His overseer thought more of output
than of the danger to life or limb of an operative, and young
Davitt was roughly hurled to his task. Soon his right arm got en-
tangled in the machinery and was so severely injured that it had
to be amputated. It can be imagined that he had very little school-
ing, but he was a bright, industrious lad, who, though self-taught,
developed into an able writer, and an acute thinker with a good
store of ready information.' At an early age he joined the Irish
Republican Brotherhood, but escaped the fate of so many of his
comrades in the "Black Assize" of the later .sixties. His turn
came in 1870. He was an arms agent for the Irish Republican
Brotherhood in the guise of a commercial traveller, and was caught
in the toils by the too great secrecy of a fellow conspirator. A
"centre" in Waterford was apprised of a consignment of arms to
his order, and he alone knew the way the material was to be sent.
He took fever and died. In the goods depot at Waterford was a
box which was "to be kept till called for," but as time passed and
no call was coming, the baggage-master, an ex-policeman, opened
the box and informed the British Government of its contents. The
arms were traced to a Birmingham manufacturer, Mr. Wilson.
Davitt and Wilson were arrested. Davitt was sentenced to fifteen
years' penal servitude, Wilson to seven years. Davitt, with true

* An old neighbour of my own told me that he was evicted from the land he
and his fathers held, in return for which was given a piece of bog-land; that
often when he opened the door of the cabin in which I found him the snipe and
wild duck took wing from before his door. When, by the sweat of his brow, he
had made something like land of the bog-holding, the landlord made him pay rent
for it. He was fool enough to do so — with money obtained from relatives in
America. One Christmas night, after paying the landlord, with money earned in
another continent, his wife and children and himself sat hungry by the fireside.

CHARLES STEWART PARNELL 627

Irish pluck, asked to be allowed to serve both sentences. The re-
quest was not unnaturally refused, Wilson must have known where
the arms were going. He was an Englishman and should have
been as loyal to his country as Da\dtt to his own. But note the
difference in the sentences I If Wilson was a traitor to England
his crime was greater than that of Davitt. If not, he should have
been acquitted. When Davitt emerged from prison there were
various conjectures as to his future course of action. Of course,
he rejoined the Fenians, but his object now was the conjunction of
all bodies, Fenian and Home Ruler in a struggle to assert that the
land of Ireland belonged to the Irish people. Landlordism should
go for ever.

"But," said the extremist group, "make the farmers secure and
they will throw over the National Movement altogether." "No 1"
said Davitt, and time has proved him right. The farmers of Ire-
land, fortunately, under better conditions, have not grown selfish.
They were selfish only when they were fighting for their lives. In
1878 Davitt sailed for America where his mother now resided.
He took up the Irish problem with the leaders of the advanced
party. John Devoy, the Fenian leader, agreed with his policy,
while Kickham and the great majority of the leaders opposed what
had come to be called "the new departure." Finally, however, in-
dividual officers of the advanced organisation were left free to use
their discretion. Devoy and Davitt came to Ireland, they met
Parnell, who characteristically came to no terms, neither praised
nor dispraised the revolutionary movement, but asked to be let
alone to see what he could get out of the parliamentary machine,
while admitting that the advanced party had a right to try out their
own devices.

During the years '76-*79 the distress of the Irish tenantry
touched the line of famine. The rents were not reduced. The
landlord demanded payment for land which the land never earned.
England's Parliament would do nothing to remedy matters. Every
motion in that direction was rejected with scorn. Between 1870
and 1876 fourteen attempts to amend the Land Laws failed.
What wonder that the Irish people got restive. By 1876 their
patience was giving out. That year a land agent was shot at in
County Cork. The shot, unfortunately, hit his driver. Joe Big-
gar afterwards remarked that he disapproved of shooting at land-
lords because innocent people were sometimes shot by accident.
In 1878 Lord Leitrim, whose reputation for rack-renting — and
worse — ^was notorious, was shot in Donegal. Donegal men were
jealous of their women's honour. His slayers were never dis-

628 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

covered, though the whole population was supposed to know who
they were.

Rack-renting, however, went on, even for land that was literally
the product of the tenant's labour. The evicted tenant who made
his home on a strip of waste bog was rented, when with the sweat
of his bones, he had converted it into land so called.

Mayo was one of the worst counties in respect of rack-rent and
evictions. In Mayo, therefore, it was proper that the first organ-
ised assault on landlordism should be made. One Walter Burke
bought a small estate, doubled the rent and put a fine of half a
year's rent on the tenants. The terms were: pay or quit. Mr.
Burke died, and his executor was the Reverend Canon Burke. The
exaction of the last farthing of rent and arrears from the unfor-
tunate tenants was insisted on. This was the case with which
Michael Davitt chose to open his campaign. A great public meet-
ing was held at Irishtown, organised by P. W. Nally and other
Mayo men, and addressed by Thomas Brennan of Dublin, O'Con-
nor Power, John Ferguson of Glasgow and others.

The keynote of the speech was "the land for the people." The
speakers in advocating peasant proprietary broke away notably
from the more moderate land policy of Butt, "the three F's," viz. :
Fixity of Tenure, Fair Rents, and Free Sale. A land revolution
was in progress. The meeting was unprecedented. Seven thou-
sand people were present; five hundred men on horseback acted
as the bodyguard of the speakers. An immediate sequel was that
the rents were reduced by twenty-five per cent. The Land Act of
1 88 1 reduced them by a further forty per cent. What must they
have been before 1879!

Parnell was, naturally, interested in this new movement. Here
was a purely social revolution independent of parliamentary effort.
He foresaw great risks. If he identified himself with the new
agitation certain things would happen for which he would be held
responsible. Butt had already warned him against the dangers
latent in widespread organisations. He decided, however, to take
the risk. He agreed to speak at a meeting in Westport. The risk
was even greater than he had foreseen. The meeting — and the
movement generally — ^were condemned by no less a man rfian John
MacHale, Archbishop of Tuam, whose patriotism and public spirit
none dared question. Parnell was not abashed. He had prom-
ised to attend and attend he would. That personal pride, which
had such a part in his making and his undoing, sustained hfm. He
attended. He spoke a few memorable sentences in his own pecu-
liarly lucid style.

CHARLES STEWART PARNELL 629

"A fair rent is a rent the tenant can pay according to the times,
but in bad times a tenant cannot be expected to pay as much as he
did in good times. ... If such rents are insisted on . . . what
must we do in order to Induce the landlords to see the position?
You must show them that you intend to hold a firm grip of your
homesteads and lands. . . ."

That phrase stuck. "Hold a firm grip of your homesteads"
became a rallying cry. Mayo was ablaze. The year 1879 vi-
talised the tenants. The crop of 1879 was a failure. Parnell's
declaration was translated into "No Rent." Meeting succeeded
meeting. There was a particularly successful one at Milltown,
County Galway. The speeches were fairly violent. A question in
regard to them was asked in the London House of Commons.
Mr. James Lowther, then Tory Chief Secretary for Ireland, re-
plied. He was inclined to be facetious. This is part of his reply:
"One of the resolutions proposed at the meeting was moved by a
clerk in a commercial house in Dublin (Mr. Brennan), and sec-
onded by a person who was described as a discharged school-master
(Mr. M. O'Sullivan). Another resolution was moved by a con-
vict at large on ticket-of-leave (Mr. Davitt), (loud laughter and
cheers), and the same resolution was seconded by a person who
was stated to be the representative of a local newspaper." (Mr.
James Daly.) '^

That was the spirit In which the English Government of the
day regarded the land agitation In Ireland. The insinuation is
obvious. The farmers were not In the movement at all : the whole
thing was the work of landless agitators, criminals, and journalists.
Mr. Lowther's jibes soon came home to roost. The "National
Land League" was established at Castlebar. The Imminent dan-
ger of famine supplied the movement with momentum. Two
American journals, the Irish JVorld edited by Patrick Ford, and
the Boston Pilot edited by John Boyle O'Reilly, enlisted American
sympathy and financial support. John Devoy granted aid from
what was known as the "skirmishing fund," a collection in aid of
revolutionary action against England, but Davitt paid all the money
back when It had served Its purpose.

Parnell finally agreed to recognise the "National Land League,"
and to become its president. Mr. Davitt, A. J. Kettle and Thomas
Brennan were appointed honorary secretaries. Mr. Biggar, Pat-
rick Egan and W. H. Sullivan were appointed treasurers. Parnell
entered Into no compact. He did not interfere in the plans of the
Irish Republican Brotherhood, neither did he give himself away.
He had espoused Parliamentarianism and was determined to see

630

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

what could be got out of it. Any outside help was all to the good.
On Sunday, November 2nd, a great meeting was held at Gur-
teen, County Siigo. Davitt was there and John Dillon, Mr. Daly
of Castlebar, Mr. Killeen, a Belfast Barrister, and others. There
was also a Government reporter. Davitt, Daly, and Killeen were
immediately lodged in Sligo jail. Parnell at once got active. He
organised a great meeting of protest for the Rotunda, Dublin. He
went down himself to Balla in the County Mayo, and addressed a
great meeting there in connection with a threatened eviction, and
was certainly as seditious as the others. Meanwhile, Davitt and
his companions were returned for trial in Sligo.

CHAPTER LXXIII

THE LAND STRUGGLE BEGINS

Davitt and his compatriots were duly arraigned in Sligo. The
trial was a prolonged political meeting, with brass bands, fiery
speeches, processions, and every manner of demonstration. The
traversers were ordered to attend the Assizes in Carrick-on-
Shannon. They turned up the day before their trial and held a
public meeting at which they repeated all the language for which
they were indicted. The trials were removed to Dublin, and sub-
sequently dropped. For the moment the League had won.

Parnell and Dillon, having postponed their visit for the trials,
set sail for America from Cove on the 27th December, 1879.
They had a fine reception everywhere, and Parnell had the unusual
distinction of addressing Congress, and delivered a cogent and
striking address. Meanwhile relief money was coming from
America and from other sources. The landlords ignored the dis-
tress. They wanted their rents, whether the land earned them or
not. The League was just as determined. No process-server
could travel without drawing a crowd; evicted families were a
charge on the funds of the League; if a farm was evicted nobody
dared to take it; if anybody did he was unfit for social intercourse;
finally the League decided to defend cases in the English courts,
thus piling expense on the landlord.

The first big battle with the process-server occurred at Car-
raroe. County Galway, on January ist, 1880. The processes for
the forthcoming sessions should be served before January 6th.
The parties affected and their neighbours had made up their minds
that they should not. Carraroe is in the heart of South Conne-
mara where from any point of vantage nothing but moor and
granite strikes the eye. Cuan an Fhir Mhoir (Great Man's Bay)
divides this region into a number of islands now joined by the road,
the creeks being so narrow that it is only gradually the traveller
becomes aware of the fact that he is crossing from island to island.
Not a tree or shrub relieves the desolation which is emphasised by
the gaunt telegraph poles along the white winding road which links
up the islands. As might be expected, the bulk of the populace —
mostly the descendants of people who in former days took refuge

631

632 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

from British extermination in this remote hinterland — are miser-
ably poor. Their plight is a blot on the administration of any
government of a civilised country.

A tenant's son in Carraroe made up his mind to marry without
consulting the landlord or his agent. The rent of the holding was
raised five pounds as a fine. Two sons of another tenant got mar-
ried and were allotted an outhouse to live in. With perfect con-
sistency the fine in this case was ten pounds. Another tenant —
Andrew Conneely — paying five pounds a year had his rent doubled.
His brother who had an adjoining holding was, through adverse
circumstances, a defaulter for one year's rent; Andrew got the op-
tion of paying his brother's ten pounds in addition to his own or
of being evicted. These and many other hardships, combined with
bad harvests, maddened the flannel-coated men and women of Con-
nemara to revolt.

Roads were cut up, barricades raised, and men, women and
children massed. The process-server emerged from the barrack
and the first intended victim was a Mrs. Maickle. As the official
approached her house with his escort he was assailed by the women
and children, his "process" was torn up, and he was in danger of
bodily hurt. The "force" approached Mrs. Maickle's, who had
prepared for them a big burning turf with which she hit the Dis-
trict Inspector of Police. A bayonet charge followed; many
women and children were wounded; the men, who had up to now
been spectators, joined in the fray, and the police were routed.
This was on Friday. Extra forces were called in, totalling finally
about two hundred and fifty. The people also exerted themselves,
and on Monday some two thousand men were assembled, with
others near by in reserve. The police were in a trap. Had they
persisted in their effort to enable the process-server to deliver his
notices the bridges would have been cut and return to their head-
quarters would have been impossible. Armed with weapons of
precision, they might have done considerable slaughter of the un-
armed peasantry before being annihilated, but, fortunately, matters
were not forced to a bloody issue. While the "force" remained
they had a hungry time of it. Needy as were the people, no sum
of money could purchase food or service for the police.

Legal methods were adopted in other cases. The League sup-
plied the funds for the defence of the tenants: the whole facts of
the case — rent, valuation and other circumstances were brought out
in public, and very often the landlord lost in law more than he could
possibly gain in rent. The League saw to it that after an eviction
took place the land would remain tenantless and profitless. The

THE LAND STRUGGLE BEGINS . 633

policy was to pay the rent for one holding in a district and on this
consolidate the evicted, who would, thus, have some scanty sub-
sistence and be near at hand to repel any attempt to grab their
holdings.

An interesting meeting was held at Straide, County Mayo, on
February ist, 1880. The platform was erected on the very site
of Davitt's home from which he was cast on the roadside at the
age of five. In the course of a powerful address, Davitt said:
*'Can a more eloquent denunciation of an accursed land code be
found than what is witnessed here in this depopulated district? In
the memory of many now listening to my words that peaceful little
stream which meanders by the outskirts of this multitude sang back
the merry voices of happy children and wended its way through
a once populous and prosperous village. Now, however, the merry
sounds are gone, the busy hum of hamlet life is hushed in sad deso-
lation, for the hands of the home-destroyers have been here and
performed their hellish work, leaving Straide but a name to mark
the place where happy homesteads once stood, and whence an in-
offensive people were driven to the four corners of the earth by the
ruthless decree of landlordism. How often in a strange land has
my boyhood's ear drunk in the tale of outrage and wrong and in-
famy perpetrated here in the name of English laws, and in the
interest of territorial greed; in listening to the accounts of famine
and sorrow, of deaths by starvation, of coffinless graves, of scenes

"On highway side, where oft was seen
The wild dog and the vulture keen
Tug for the limbs and gnaw the face
Of some starved child of our Irish race.

. . . "It is no little consolation to know, however, that we are here
to-day doing battle against a doomed monopoly, and that the power
which has so long domineered over Ireland and its people is
brought to its knees at last, and on the point of being crushed for
ever, and if I am standing to-day upon a platform erected over the
ruins of my levelled home, I may yet have the satisfaction of tram-
pling on the ruins of Irish landlordism."

English statesmanship has never regarded any Irish question
other than as a possible electioneering device. Disraeli wrote in
1874:

"Neither liberty of the press nor liberty of the person exists in
Ireland. Arrests are at all times liable. It is a fact that at any
time in Ireland the police may enter into your house, examine your
papers to see if there is any resemblance between the writing and

634 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

that of some anonymous letter that has been sent to a third person.
In Ireland, if a man writes an article in a newspaper, and it offends
the Government, he has a warning, and if he repeats the offence his
paper may be suppressed. They say Ireland is peaceful. Yes, but
she is so, not because she is contented, but because she is held under
by coercive laws. These laws may be necessary. I am not here
objecting to them. I am a Tory, and as such I might favour
severer laws myself. But I say it isn't honest in the Liberals, while
denouncing us, to imitate our ways."

Already he had written in 1 844 :

"I want to see a public man come forward and say what the
Irish question is. One says it is a physical question; another a
spiritual. Now it is the absence of the aristocracy; now the absence
of railways. It is the Pope one day and potatoes the next. A
dense population in extreme distress inhabit an island where there
is an established church which is not their church ; and a territorial
aristocracy, the richest of whom live in a distant capital. Thus
they have a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, an alien
church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world. Well,
what then would honourable gentlemen say if they were reading of a
country in that position? They would say at once, 'The remedy is
revolution.' But the Irish could not have a revolution, and why?
Because Ireland is connected with another and more powerful coun-
try. Then what is the consequence? The connection with Eng-
land became the cause of the present state of Ireland. If the con-
nection with England prevented a revolution, and a revolution was
the only remedy, England logically is in the odious position of be-
ing the cause of all the misery of Ireland. What, then, is the duty
of an English minister? To effect by his policy all those changes
which a revolution would do by force. That is the Irish question
in its entirety."

Disraeli was twice premier in the meantime. In 1880 as Lord
Beaconsfield he made Ireland, then more unsettled than ever, the
basis of his appeal to the electorate. "The arts of agitators," he
wrote, "which represented that England instead of being the gen-
erous and sympathising friend, was indifferent to the dangers and
sufferings of Ireland, have been defeated by the measures, at once
liberal and prudent, which Parliament have almost unanimously
sanctioned."

Of a thousand answers to this manifesto we just pause to give
one. Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics gives the details year by
year (taken from official British sources) of the number of Irish
families evicted from 1849 to 1882; and the thirty-three years'

THE LAND STRUGGLE BEGINS

635

total of officially reported evictions (which fall far short of the
full number) is 482,000 families. Since a low average for each
family in the mountain districts of Ireland would be father, mother
and six children, this represents the appalling total of 3,856,000
creatures cast out to starve or die in a third of a century.

And the measures "at once liberal and prudent" during the half
century from Catholic Emancipation 1829 to 1879 (the year be-
fore that in which Lord Beaconsfield spoke) are detailed in Michael
Davitt's "Fall of Feudalism in Ireland." First are given the
ameliorative measures offered in the British Parliament in Ireland's
behalf — and next the measures that she received. Summing up
the first it is shown that of the forty-nine ameliorative measures
put forward in the fifty years, five were withdrawn, seven were re-
jected, twenty-one were dropped, fifteen proved abortive — and the
grand total of one of the forty-nine was passed!

Then, the following is a list of acts "at once liberal and pru-
dent" which the British Parliament, with "almost unanimous sanc-
tion," did bestow upon Ireland in those years :

1830 Importation of Arms Act. 1848

1831 Whiteboy Act. 1849

1831 Stanley's Arms Act. 1850

1832 Arms and Gunpowder Act. 1851

1833 Suppression of Disturbance. 1853

1833 Change of Venue Act. 1854

1834 Disturbances Amendment 1855

and Continuance. 1856

1834 Arms and Gunpowder Act 1858

1835 Public Peace Act. I860

1836 Another Arms Act. 1862

1838 Another Arms Act. 1862

1839 Unlawful Oaths Act. 1865

1840 Another Arms Act. 1866

1841 Outrages Act.

1841 Another Arms Act. 1866

1843 Another Arms Act. 1867

1843 Act Consolidating all Previ- 1868

ous Coercion Acts. 1870

1844 Unlawful Oaths Act. 1871

1845 Unlawful Oaths Act.

1846 Constabulary Enlargement. 1871

1847 Crime and Outrage Act 1873

1848 Treason Amendment Act. 1875
1848 Removal of Arms Act. 1875
1848 Su^ension of Habeas Corpus.

Another Oaths Act.
Suspension of Habeas Corpus.
Crime and Outrage Act
Unlawful Oaths Act
Crime and Outrage Act
Crime and Outrage Act
Crime and Outrage Act
Peace Preservation Act
Peace Preservation Act
Peace Preservation Act
Peace Preservation Act
Unlawful Oaths Act
Peace Preservation Act
Suspension of Habeas Corpus

Act (August).
Suspension of Habeas Corpus.
Suspension of Habeas Corpus.
Suspension of Habeas Corpus.
Peace Preservation Act
Protection of Life and Prop-
erty.
Peace Preservation Con.
Peace Preservation Act
Peace Preservation Act
Unlawful Oaths Act (lasting
untU 1879).

CHAPTER LXXIV

THE LAND LEAGUE

The funds of the Land League and of other organisations enabled
the Western people to put in good seed in 1880, and there was
every prospect of a good harvest. Suddenly, in March, the Tory
Government resigned. Parnell hurried from America where he
had founded the American Land League, leaving Dillon behind to
attend to details. No man could have worked harder than Parnell
during the elections. He was ubiquitous. The constituencies,
Meath, Mayo and Cork City, vied for the honour of having him as
representative. His nomination for Cork City was a piece of
"political strategy." Parnell was wired to in the name of a friend
asking him to accept nomination. Two hundred and fifty pounds
was handed to his friend, Mr. Horgan, for expenses, and this sum
was supposed to have been sent by Parnell. Mr. Horgan promptly
paid fifty pounds of this sum to the sheriff. Parnell arrived in
Cork. Then the plot was made manifest. The Tories wished to
defeat the Whigs by a split vote. The tables were turned on them
when Mr. T. M. Healy suggested that the two hundred pounds
would go some way towards Parnell's election expenses. To the
great disgust of the Tories Parnell was elected, and his election ex-
penses defrayed in great part by their own money. He then got
Mr. A. J. Kettle elected for Cork County, and followed up this
triumph by success all over Ireland. Sixty-four Nationalists were
elected. Of these Parnell was leader of thirty-six, who instead of
joining the Liberals took their seats on the Opposition Benches. A
Bill was introduced by Mr. O'Connor Power to compel landlords
to compensate tenants for disturbance. This was taken up by Mr.
Gladstone's new Liberal Chief Secretary, Mr. Forster, was watered
down, made a Government measure, passed through the House of
Commons, and contemptuously rejected by the Lords. Mean-
while, things had been moving in Ireland. "Hold the Harvest"
had become a rallying cry. Mr. James Redpath, an American
journalist, who had already risked life and fortune in the cause of
human freedom, outlined at Claremorris the system afterwards

636

THE LAND LEAGUE 637

known as Boycotting. The landlord who oppressed his tenants,
the man who took a farm from which another tenant had been
evicted, and all who had intercourse with the like, were to be made
social outcasts. A little later Parnell preached the same doctrine.
His sister, Fanny Parnell, sent a ringing song from America. A
few verses will suffice to show its import:

' "Keep the law, oh, keep it well — ^keep it as your rulers do !

Be not righteous overmuch — ^when they break it so can you!

As they rend their pledge and bond, rend you, too, their legal thongs ;

When they crush your chartered rights, tread you down your char-
tered wrongs.

Help them on, and help them aye, help them as true brethren should,
boys;

All that's right and good for them, sure for you is right and good,
boys.

"Hold the rent and hold the crops, boys.
Pass the word from town to town,
Pull away the props, boys,
So you'll pull coercion down."

Mr. Forster, a well intentioned man, was entering on the ordeal
of every Chief Secretary for Ireland. He felt that things were
getting out of hand. An indictment of most of the prominent
members of the League was prepared. The charge was that of
conspiracy, under which any member could be found guilty of any
utterance if any man definitely proved to be associated with the
League. Meanwhile, the policy advocated by Redpath and Par-
nell was being carried out. The first victim was one Captain Boy-
cott, agent for Lord Erne, who lived at Lough Mask House in
County Mayo. He had dismissed his labourers owing to a dispute
over wages. No others appeared to take their places. The Cap-
tain waxed angry. Thereafter he would grant no abatements of
rent. Processes were duly obtained — there was no one to serve
them. The blacksmith was too busy to shoe the Captain's horses.
The herds found the climate unhealthy. The baker ran out of
flour. The postman was liable to overlook Lough Mask House,
unless his missives for the Captain were unmistakably bills. The
Captain's crops were ripening with no one to reap them. But re-
lief was coming.

Fifty northern Orangemen escorted by two thousand soldiers
arrived in Mayo to assist Captain Boycott. There was not a car
in Claremorris fit for the job of transporting any of them. There

638 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

was not a horse that had not a loose shoe, spavins, rickets or house-
maid'« knee. The labourers and their escort had to walk from
Claremorris — fifteen miles — and it rained. Somehow and some-
time they reached Lough Mask House. The formidable force en-
camped on the Captain's lawn. They had not made provision for
their subsistence; if they were doing the Captain's work they pre-
sumed that they were to be fed at the Captain's expense. They
ate his turkeys, geese, piglings, goslings, ducklings and all other of
the most succulent part of his possessions. It was estimated that
— apart from the Captain's losses — it cost the country ten pounds
for every pound's worth of crop reaped on his land.

At last they departed. An interested spectator of the scene
was Father John G'Malley of the Neale. There was another,
an old woman. She wished, as woman will, to see the passage of
troops. Father John advanced on her with menace; "Did I not
warn you to let the British Army alone? How dare you come
here to intimidate Her Majesty's troops?"

Mr. Forster was on the whole about as unfortunate as any
other Chief Secretary for Ireland. He meant well, so do they all.
Mr. Forster on the second reading of O'Connor Power's Bill gave
some interesting figures. In the West Riding of Galway alone he
had employed the following forces for protecting process-servers
and carrying out evictions 4,049 soldiers — all, in a single district,
paid by the Irish people for their own extermination.

The Land League went ahead. Huts were erected for evicted
tenants. Relief works were started. We cannot well say how
many emigrated, and how many died on their way to a foreign
shore; the dead do not talk. We know that there was a big toll
of lives.*

A debate took place m 1880 on the conduct of the Royal Irish
Constabulary at evictions. Mr. Forster was their champion. He
admitted that ball cartridges should not be supplied to police in
close contact with excited people — hence they should get buckshot.
Even if loaded with only snipe-shot, a shotgun is more treacherous

* John Mitchel in talking of the evicting horror, gives a terse and terrible sum-
mary of the happenings upon one estate as the result of one eviction crop :

"At an eviction in 1854, on a property under the management of Marcus Keane,
James O'Gorman, one of the tenants evicted, died on the roadside. His wife and
children were sent to the workhouse, where they died shortly afterwards.

"John Corbet, a tenant on another townland, was evicted by the same agent.
He died on the roadside. His wife had died previous to the eviction; his ten
children were sent into the workhouse and there died.

"Michael McMahon, evicted at the same time, was dragged out of bed, to the
roadside, where he died of want the next day. His wife died of want previous
to the eviction, and his children, eight in number, died in a few years in the work-
house.**

THE LAND LEAGUE 639

when discharged on a crowd than a rifle. His name in Ireland,
first shouted across the floor of the House, has ever since been
"Buckshot Forster."

Forster proceeded in the traditional way to pacify Ireland.
All the leaders and organisers were arrested. The whole Irish na-
tion was constituted by statute an illegal assembly. A conspiracy
act was framed under which every individual in the League could
be held accountable for the action or speech of any one.

The state trial opened in Dublin in December, 1880. There
were three judges and a formidable array of counsel; seven for
the Crown, nine for the traversers, exclusive of solicitors. One of
the most interesting interludes was the production by Mr. Tom
Brennan, the League's secretary, of some hundred evicted tenants
from the Castlebar workhouse, who, however, were not heard, be-
cause of a change in tactics of the prosecution. They were seen,
however, and were quite sufficient evidence of the necessity of the
Land League organisation. Meanwhile Parnell and his colleagues
crossed to London for the opening of the session of Parliament,
letting the court do what it pleased. The jury disagreed after a
trial of thirty days. There was a touch of farce about the whole
proceeding. The Crown case broke down. Davitt's ticket-of-
leave was immediately cancelled. He was sent back to prison.
He had, however, laid his lines well. He had established the
"Ladies' Land League." He had relied on the women of Ireland
to carry on, even if all the leaders were in prison.^

'The following verses from a poem of Miss Fanny Parnell show the spirit
of the women :

"Now, are jrou men, or are you kine, ye tillers of the soil ?
Would you be free, or evermore the rich man's cattle toil?
The shadow on the dial hangs that points the fatal hour —
Now hold your own! or branded slaves, for ever cringe and cower.

"The serpent's curse upon you lies — ^ye writhe within the dust.
Ye fill your mouths with beggars' swill, ye grovel for a crust ;
Your lords have set their blood-stained heels upon your shameful heads,
Yet they are kind— they leave you still their ditches for your beds!

"Oh, by the God who made us all — the seignior and the serf —
Rise up and swear this day to hold your own green Irish turf;
Rise up and plant your feet as men where now you crawl as slaves,
And make your harvest-fields your camps, or make of them your graves.

"Three hundred years your crops have sprung, by murdered corpses fed :
Your butchered sires, your famished sires, your ghastly compost spread ;
Their bones have fertilised your fields, their blood has fall'n like rain;
They died that ye might eat and live — God ! have they died in vain ?

"The hour has struck, Fate holds the dice, we stand with bated breath ;
Now who shall have your harvests fair — 'tis Life that plays with Death;

'640 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Miss Anna Parnell was president of the Ladies' Land League.
When Miss Parnell and her associates took up work they did it
in no half-hearted fashion. They were all that Davitt expected of
them — and more. They were not very restrained or very scrupu-
lous. There was no reason why they should. Davitt had been
sent back to penal servitude on the 3rd February, 1881. Next day
Parnell and all his followers were suspended, and forcibly ejected
out of the London House of Commons. Gladstone introduced a
measure which made, practically, an end of obstruction. But home
in Ireland Parnell was a much more dangerous force than he had
been in Westminster. Land League Courts were held before which
offenders were arraigned. Boycotting went on effectually. How
effectually is shown by the case of Jones of Clonakilty. He tried
to sell grain at Bandon. The League picketted his produce. He
tried to send cattle to England — ^no ship at a southern port would
carry them. He sent them by rail to Dublin : the mariners would
not sail with them; they were ultimately got to Liverpool in Liver-
pool boats: no Irish salesman would offer them for sale. At the
end, a private sale of them, at a loss, was all Jones could effect.

Arrests were frequent. This fact intensified the agitation. A
grabber was shot occasionally — showing Mr. Forster that two
parties could operate outside the common law. The landlords wel-
comed coercion, and under its shield process-serving for rent went
forward with a bound. Then, as now, forty years later, the idea
was to rush matters, and have all the trouble over in a couple of
months. Then, as now, an extension of time for the subjugation
of the Irish was necessary. A bad conflict between civilians and
police, guarding a process-server, occurred at Monasteraden,
County Sligo, in April. The police fired on a crowd of people
who blocked the way to the houses of those on whom the notices
were to be served. Two men were slain. Sergeant Armstrong,
who gave the order to fire, was immediately steeped in gore and
died. His men escaped a like fate by flight.

Then, at last, it began to dawn on the English Liberal Govern-
ment that there must be something wrong in Ireland. There are
two things that always go hand in hand in Ireland, coercion and
benevolent legislation. Coercion is strong, harsh, ineffective. All

Now who shall have our Motherland? 'tis Right that plays with Might;
The peasant's arms were weak, indeed, in such unequal fight I

"But God is on the peasant's side, the God that loves the poor;
His angels stand with flaming swords on every mount and moor.
They guard the poor man's flocks and herds, they guard his ripening grain ;
The robber sinks beneath their curse beside his ill-got gain."

THE LAND LEAGUE 641

English Governments — Liberal and Tory alike— come to us with a
whip in one hand and a "concession" in the other.

Gladstone had to face facts and bring in a Land Bill for Ire-
land. It was considered at a convention of the Land League in
Dublin in April, 1881. Parnell was for its acceptance with such
amendments as might be possible ; John Dillon and Secretary Bren-
nan were opposed. The majority supported Parnell. Dillon was
arrested on the 30th April and lodged in Kilmainham jail. Bren-
nan was arrested soon after. It was hoped that this would create
an atmosphere for the new Land Bill. It did. There were men
forthcoming to fill all vacandes that Gladstone and Forster might
create. And then there were the women.

Coercion bore its usual fruits: arrests, evictions, outrages.
The people defied a law that defied the people. The Irish have
never been willing slaves.

The Gladstone Land Act of 1881 was the usual compromise.
The tenants were allowed for their improvements — if they could
prove them in court of law. It was well known that the landlords
made no improvements. If a man bought a farm he had to pay
for it as it stood, drains, fences and all. If a man inherited a
farm he had to prove what improvements were made, and by whom,
and when, and if he could not procure witnesses he was non-suited
in claiming a fair rent. If the farm was at the seaside, the tenant
was considered not to be entitled to normal reduction of rent be-
cause he could cut seaweed at the risk of his life; if he set up a
mill, grew fruit or otherwise improved the holding, at his own ex-
pense, that was set against him. If he built "too good a house,"
again at his own expense, that prejudiced his claim to a fair rent.
If he set up a shop, that also, in practice, went against him; the
value of the holding went up.

The tenant was discouraged from doing anything to improve
his place. The worse it looked the safer he was. Even though
the Act was good in principle it proved to be what Dillon prophe-
sied it would be : "a milch cow for the lawyers."

Forster succeeded in making Ireland what is called in official
documents to-day "an appropriate hell" for those who disagreed
with him. Men were imprisoned without trial, grabbers and other
offenders were severely dealt with; men were shot dead: Priests
were arrested, including Father Eugene Sheehy of Limerick, a
veteran who lived to be present at the inauguration of the Irish
Volunteers in 19 13.

Parnell denounced the conduct of the English Government
in Parliament. He was suspended for a vigorous attack on Glad-

642 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

stone, and immediately crossed to Ireland where his operations
made the Government bitterly regret his suspension. He and his
followers had shown that they had no responsibility for the Land
Act, by leaving the House of Conmions before the division on both
the Second and Third Readings. He endeavoured to get the best
Bill he could, but was anxious to make it clear that it was not his
Bill, or one he approved of. One of his first actions in Ireland
was to propose and carry at a Land League convention in Dublin
a resolution that the Land Act be tested in Court by specially
selected cases, and that other tenants should wait to see how things
would go in these cases. This adroit move simply meant that the
Land Act would be held up indefinitely, and that a chance, based on
the results of proceedings in the courts might arise for its radical
emendation. It was one of the most politic moves of Parnell's
whole career. But it was foiled. Let Michael Davitt tell the
story :

"A class of Ulster tenants who had given no help to the Land
League movement rushed into the land courts and set an example,
baited with an average twenty per cent reduction of old rents. . . .
Those tenants, however, who acted thus precipitately and unwisely
were to live to regret that they had not followed Mr. Parnell's
advice."

Then came another of these little incidents which play such a
part in the relations of the English Government with Ireland. A
Parnellite candidate was beaten by a Liberal in Tyrone. Glad-
stone was delighted. He wrote Mr. Forster: "The unexpected
victory in Tyrone is an event of importance, and I own it increases
my desire to meet the remarkable Irish manifestation and discom-
fiture both of Parnell and the Tories with some initial act of
clemency, in view especially of the coming election for Monaghan.
I do not know whether the release of the priest (Father Sheehy)
would be a reasonable beginning. . . . To reduce the following of
Parnell by drawing away from him all well inclined men seems to
me the key of Irish politics for the moment. . . ."

But Mr. Forster was adamant. Instead of inclining to an "act
of clemency" he advised Gladstone, in a forthcoming speech at
Leeds, to denounce Parnell's "action and policy." "Parnell's re-
ply to you," he said, "may be a treasonable outburst." Mr. Glad-
stone took his secretary's advice. He denounced Parnell. He
declared that "the resources of civilisation were not exhausted."
Parnell's reply at Wexford, whether treasonable or not, was cor-
rosive. He dissected the "Grand Old Man" mercilessly. He
compared him to a schoolboy going past a graveyard, whistling

THE LAND LEAGUE 643

to keep up his courage. And he concluded with the stinging
phrases :

"I trust as the result of this great movement we shall see that,
just as Gladstone by the Act of 1881 has eaten all his own words,
has departed from all his formerly declared principles, now we
shall see that these brave words of the EngHsh Prime Minister will
be scattered like chaff before the united and advancing determina-
tion of the Irish people to regain for themselves their lost land
and their legislative independence." His friends rightly felt that
now his arrest was certain. At length one of them plucked up
courage to ask him: ''Suppose they arrest you, Mr. Parnell . . .
who will take your place?" "Captain Moonlight," ' replied
ParnelL

'The resolute ones who took guns and went after tyrannical landlords—
and tyrants — were known as Moonlighters.

CHAPTER LXXV

THE ladies' land LEAGUE

Meanwhile, United Ireland was founded on the ruins of a paper
called the Flag of Ireland bought from one Richard Piggott, of
which more will be heard later. William O'Brien became its edi-
tor and gave admirable service to the cause. The No Rent
manifesto was issued, signed by Pamell, Kettle, Davitt, Brennan,
Dillon, Sexton, Patrick Egan — all in prison except Egan who
was in Paris to safeguard the funds. The purport was that no
rents were to be paid under any circumstances until the Govern-
ment abandoned terrorism and restored the constitutional rights
of the people.

This was a bold and dangerous policy. Had It been tried
earlier, as Da\ntt had suggested, it might have shaken the Govern-
ment and secured a better Land Act. But now the leaders were
all in prison. The Land Act would soon be law, and the harassed
tenants were likely to accept any relief that it offered. The mani-
festo was written by William O'Brien, and only with much dif-
fidence signed by Parnell, Dillon, and the others. Forster's coun-
ter-move was not delayed. Two days later the Land League was
proclaimed an illegal association, and it was announced that all its
meetings would be, if necessary, dispersed by force.

The Ladies' Land League took matters in hand and Mr. For-
ster began to realise that he had possibly blundered. He had some
1,083 '"^^ ^" prison,^ including the most upright and sensible men
in the movement, and how was he to rule a country directed by a
few women in Dublin? They had plenty of money, partly supplied
from America, partly from Paris by Mr. Patrick Egan. Relief
and help were given according to the amount of activity displayed
in a district. Boycotting Increased. Any agrarian crime was de-
fended from the funds of the Ladies' Land League. If a grabber
was left in quiet possession of a farm there was not a farthing avall-

* These men were never faced with any charges. They were "suspects."
Habeas corpus then — as often before and since — was suspended.

644

THE LADIES' LAND LEAGUE 645

able for the district in which he lived. Anybody going into the
Land Courts was condemned and intimidated. Hunting by the
"gentry" was stopped. The situation day by day became more
and more chaotic.

Mr. Forster thought the matter over, and hoped that if he had
some of these women arrested it might ease the situation. He had
about half a dozen arrested and was not pleased with the result.
He found he was only lashing public opinion into fury. He found
that there was hardly a girl in Ireland who would not joyfully go
to prison for the cause. In fact they were inviting arrest.

Needless to say, the "outrages" were not all on one side. For-
ster's Buckshot Brigade loyally and zealously carried out their mas-
ter's orders. In addition to the buckshot, the peelers were pro-
vided with a more* deadly type of bayonet. A few examples will
suffice to show how the orders to break the spirit of the people
were carried out. At Grawhill, near BelmuUet in October 1881,
a crowd assembled, chiefly composed of women and children. The
officer in charge of the crown forces gave orders to fire a volley of
buckshot into the crowd and then charge with the bayonet. Num-
bers were wounded ; the crowd rushed away in shrieking panic, the
police freely using their bayonets indiscriminately on all they came
up with. Mrs. Mary Deane, a widowed mother, was shot dead;
a young girl, Ellen McDonagh, was stabbed to death. On May
5th, 1882, a band of lads of twelve years and under paraded in
Ballina, County Mayo, with tin whistles and cans to celebrate Par-
nell's release. They were assailed with a hail of buckshot, chased
and stabbed. One poor lad, Patrick Melody, fell dead at his
father's feet on the threshold of his home.

Poor Mr. Forster stuck it out bravely. He asked Gladstone
for further powers, but Gladstone was getting nervous. Money
was pouring in from America, where T. P. O'Connor, T. M. Healy
and Father Sheehy were now operating, and the "Grand Old Man"
was becoming alarmed. In his alarm he had recourse to Rome,
conveniently forgetting a pamphlet he had written a short time
previously on Vaticanism. He was successful — ^to a certain extent.
Through diplomacy — ^which could also be called another name —
he secured a condemnation of the Land League and its policy in
January, 1882, though the League had passed out of legal exist-
ence by Mr. Forster's edict in October, 1881. This condemnation
had no effect on the struggle.

The Ladies' Land League became daily more active in relieving
distress and keeping up the agitation. Forster was being worsted.
He was prepared to propose a system of provincial councils for

646 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Ireland with limited autonomy, hoping that a bribe might weaken
the opposition. However, a dramatic change in the situation soon
took place.

Pamell was released on parole to attend the funeral of a
nephew in Paris. On his way through London he saw Justin Mc-
Carthy and explained to him a project he had in his mind for the
amendment of the Land Act by the cancellation of arrears thereby
bringing under its provisions a vast number of tenants who were at
present excluded. The prisoners should be released, the No-Rent
manifesto withdrawn, and the agitation, generally, slowed down.
Captain O'Shea was selected as his envoy to break this to Glad-
stone and Chamberlain. The message was delivered. Gladstone
was delighted. "On the whole," he wrote to Forster, "Parnell's
letter is the most extraordinary I ever read. I cannot help feeling
indebted to O'Shea."

Parnell returned to prison, but his release was now only a mat-
ter of time. Gladstone was sick of coercion. Chamberlain, on
his own admission, would have liked to succeed Forster as Chief
Secretary for Ireland. Rather than consent to Parnell's release,
Earl Cowper and Forster resigned. The very day before Parnell's
proposals reached Gladstone the latter had written to Forster giv-
ing dim outlines for Land reform and self-government. "It is lib-
erty," he said, "that makes men fit for liberty. This proposition
has its bounds but it is far safer than the counter-doctrine — ^wait
till they are fit." Parnell's proposals contained no mention of self-
government. Neither had he consulted his colleagues concerning
them. A new and different Parnell was developing.

On May 4th, 1882, Forster was explaining his position to the
House of Commons. He had had a bad time of It in Ireland; he
had shown himself a plucky fighter and he had been beaten, beaten
by the Irish, and that was sufficient to win him the sympathy of
the house. He was In the middle of his speech, denouncing the
League, denouncing Parnell, when suddenly he was Interrupted by
a storm of cheers from the Irish benches. Parnell, dignified and
haughty as of old, triumph depicted on his handsome features, had
entered the House. He went to his seat, folded his arms, and
gazed with cold scorn at his jailer, now in disgrace. He could not
but rejoice that he had done to England what English Governments
have always sought to do in Ireland — divide the forces of the oppo-
sition. Here were Gladstone and Forster at loggerheads: Glad-
stone on his feet to answer his ex-Chlef-Secretary at whose bidding
he had invoked the "resources of civilisation," and defending the
man against whom they had been invoked. Gladstone replied

THE LADIES' LAND LEAGUE 647

quietly that the circumstances which warranted the arrest no longer
existed, and that he was assured that, if the Government settled
the question of arrears, the three released members would be on
the side of law and order.

This was open to the interpretation that Parnell had stipulated
for the release as part of the treaty. Parnell, who next spoke, de-
clared that never in speech or writing had he made the release of
himself and his colleagues a condition of their action, but that the
settlement of the arrears question — arrears through three bad sea-
sons— ^would have a great effect on the restoration of law and order.
He was not going to be fettered.

Davitt was released on the 6th May. He was met by Parnell,
Dillon and O'Kelly and escorted to London. It was evident from
Parnell's talk and demeanour that he meant to slow down the
agitation, and was already making a be^nning. He spoke of the
amount of crime and outrage that had occurred during his im-
prisonment, and of the amount of money expended by the Ladies'
Land League ; Davitt drew his attention to the fact that the Ladies
had broken Forster, killed coercion and released Parnell and his
colleagues. However, expectations and discussions of policy faded
into the background when the news came that night from Dublin
that Lord Cavendish, who had only arrived that day, had been
slain that evening in the Phoenix Park by members of a secret so-
ciety called the "Invincibles." Parnell, ever so helpful in a crisis,
collapsed. He wished to resign at once. He told his friends of
his resolve to retire from public life for ever, and wrote to Glad-
stone and asking his opinion in relation to his leadership. All of
them advised him to stay on. The Arrears Act was passed and
Parnell was bent more than ever on slowing down the agitation.
It transpired from O' Shea's evidence at the Times Commission
that he was thinking of this as early as June 1881. The Ladies'
Land League languished for lack of funds which Parnell refused
to supply. On the other hand the landlords were as greedy for
their pound of flesh as ever. Mr. George Trevelyan, the new Chief
Secretary, admitted in Parliament that in three days one hundred
and fifty families, numbering seven hundred and fifty persons, were
evicted in one district alone, for arrears of the bad years — ^which
they were no more able to pay than they were to pay the National
Debt.

There was now no National Organisation, and so the "Na-
tional League" was founded, with Home Rule, land reform, local
self-government, parliamentary and municipal reform as the planks
in its platform. As the new League was to pursue a parliamentary

648 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

policy it followed that it would be under Parnell's control. The
party could not quarrel with its leader in face of the enemy, and
there was no question of any other leader. His dictatorship, about
which so much ink has been spilled, was forced on him by his per-
sonality, by the admiration of his followers, and the circumstances
of the fight. And until 1881, at least, 4ie acted in consultation
with his colleagues on matters of importance, and of his own
initiative in matters of emergency, when none other could so thor-
oughly grasp the facts of a situation and act so promptly and
effectively as himself.

The Phoenix Park tragedy led to further coercion. A Crimes
Bill was introduced. Trial by Jury In certain specified cases was
abolished. In proclaimed districts any dwelling might be entered
and searched at any hour of day or night. Secret courts of en-
quiry were instituted, newspapers might be suppressed, meetings
banned and dispersed by force.

There were many murders and other outrages in 1882, an
exceptionally bad one at Maamtrasna on the borders of Mayo and
Galway where a whole family, with the exception of one son, was
destroyed. One of those accused of complicity In this crime,
Myles Joyce, died protesting his Innocence, and later the Informer
who swore his life away admitted to Doctor MacEvilly, Arch-
bishop of Tuam, that Joyce was Innocent. The Government,
however, was deaf to all requests to grant an enquiry to clear the
memory of an innocent man.

The arrest and trial. In the beginning of 1883, of .persons sup-
posed to have been implicated In the Phoenix Park murders gave
Forster what he considered a fine opportunity of turning the tables
on Parnell. They were arrested in January and the enquiry began
in February. One of them, James Carey, was wiled by detective
Mallon Into turning Queen's evidence. He was given to think
that others had given information. His wife helped to entrap
him by some facts she communicated to Mallon in order to secure
his release. Five of the conspirators were hanged and others
sent Into penal servitude. Carey was sent abroad, was Identified
on the high seas by a fellow-passenger, Patrick O'Donnell of Done-
gal, and shot dead. O'Donnell was taken to England and hanged.

Various details of the evidence gave hope that a case might
be made convicting Parnell of complicity In the crime. Carey was
a Home Ruler. An official of the National League of England,
was Implicated. The knives with which the deed was done had
been secreted in the London office of the National League and
brought to Dublin by this man's wife. These "revelations," ex-

THE LADIES' LAND LEAGUE 649

plolted In the London press, gave Forster his chance which he
was not slow to take.

In February, '83, there was a debate on Irish policy. Mr.
Forster made an able speech showing that crime had followed
the footsteps of the Land League and holding Parnell responsible
for them, not for having personally planned or perpetrated out-
rage or murder but for having connived at them or at least for not
having used his influence to stop them.

The House was agog with excitement to hear Parnell's reply
to this terrible indictment. There was no reply. Parnell held
his seat as if nothing had happened ; he was the one unexcited man
in the Assembly. He was called on loudly from all parts of the
House ; his own colleagues were amazed ; and begged him to re-
ply. Parnell refused. The debate was kept going by an EngHsh
member's intervention. Grudgingly Parnell yielded at length to
the entreaties of his followers and moved the adjournment.

The following day he replied to Forster in a memorable speech
in which he scorned to defend himself to England and an English
Parliament. In the course of it he said : "I have been accustomed
during my political life to rely upon the public opinion of those
whom I have desired to help, and with whose aid I have worked
for the cause of prosperity and freedom in Ireland, and the utmost
I desire to do in the very few words I shall address to the House
is to make my position clear to the Irish people at home and
abroad."

There spoke the real Parnell. He scorned to defend himself
before an English tribunal. The Irish people and they alone
should be the judges of his policy and of his actions. His sole
power as leader was based on the driving force of organised Irish
opinion. With that behind him he could deal independently with
either Liberals or Tories.

From 1882 Parnell was frequently absent for long periods
from the House of Commons, so much so as to mystify his fol-
lowers who at times of great stress did not know where to find
him. There were many reasons for this. One — the least power-
ful, perhaps — was failing health. Another was that events In Ire-
land and the Increase in the number of outrages and the growth of
secret societies made him feel that It was necessary that Ireland
after her fierce struggle should be allowed to settle down. He
was true to his plighted word given in the Kilmainham Treaty
that he would help to "slow down" the agitation. But there was
a third and incomparably more potent cause than either of these;
the unhappy love entanglement which was to work the ruin of his

650 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

career when he had attained the zenith of his power and triumphed
over enemies who had used every endeavour open and occult to
undermine his influence.

It is not necessary to go into the details of this intrigue except
in so far as is necessary to illuminate some otherwise dark comers
in Parnell's public life. Captain O'Shea, elected for Clare in
1880, had in that same year been introduced to Parnell. Soon
after, Parnell met Mrs. O'Shea under circumstances about which
accounts differ. A love affair soon developed between them which
was sensed by O'Shea in '81. A challenge came from O'Shea
and was accepted by Parnell, but Mrs. O'Shea intervened, and
persuaded her husband that all was right, and the incident was
apparently amicably settled.

In the beginning of '83 it became known that Parnell's prop-
erty was heavily mortgaged. A subscription list was opened, and
a grateful country subscribed generously. Once again English
intrigue became busy at Rome. A letter was issued forbidding
ecclesiastics to promote the Parnell Testimonial Fund. The testi-
monial, however, was a great success and reached a total of close
on forty thousand pounds.

A Bill amending the Land Act of 1881 was introduced by
Parnell soon after his duel with Forster, but was rejected by two
hundred and fifty Liberal and Tory votes to sixty-three.

Invited to attend a convention in Philadelphia to establish the
National League in America, he replied that his presence in the
House of Commons was necessary just then, and respectfully
asked that the platform of the American League should be so
formed that help might be received from America without giving
the English Government a pretext to suppress the League in Ire-
land.

The contest in Monaghan at which Gladstone had hoped a
blow would be struck at Parnell's prestige took place in the sum-
mer of '83. Parnell put T. M. Healy forward for the seat. Mr.
Healy won. It was not a tame election. The Orangemen arose
in their might, there was much marching and drumming and the
Orange leaders advised their followers to drive the rebel con-
spirators across the Boyne. "We are not an aggressive party,"
said Mr. Murray Ker, D.L. "Let there be no revolver practice.
My advice to you about revolvers is, never use a revolver except
you are firing at someone^

At this time Parnell was much annoyed by the policy pro-
claimed in Patrick Ford's Irish World advocating the use of dyna-

THE LADIES' LAND LEAGUE 651

mite. Several public buildings, bridges, and railway stations were
attadced. The Government and the English people were seriously
alarmed. A less courageous leader, would, to save his reputation
with the English, have dissociated himself from a policy he de-
tested. He did nothing of the kind. He cared nothing about
English opinion. Said Lord Randolph Churchill to him on one
occasion, "I suppose you would object to having a bomb thrown
into the House of Commons; you would not like to be blown up
even by an Irishman." "I am not so sure of that," replied Par-
nell, *'i/ there were a call of the Housed''

In 1884 Parnell began to show occasional signs of his former
activity and influence. After the Monaghan election he was in
practical retirement until in April 1884 he attended a meeting at
Drogheda where, without the slightest discourtesy to Davitt, he
denounced his policy of Land Nationalisation, and disposed of
any chance it might have of gaining a following.

In 1885 the General Election was imminent. Parnell became
mildly active. At Cork in January he made the famous declara-
tion which is inseparably connected with his name, and in part
inscribed on his monument in O'Connell Street, Dublin:

"We cannot ask for less than the restitution of Grattan's Par-
liament, with its important privileges and wide, far-reaching con-
stitution. We cannot, under the British constitution, ask for more
than the restitution of Grattan's Parliament. But no man has a
right to fix a boundary to the march of a nation. No man has a
right to say, *Thus far shalt thou go, and no further.' We have
never attempted to fix the ne plus ultra to the progress of Ireland's
nationhood, and we never shall."

He visited Cork, Ennis and a few other places in Ireland. In
April the Prince and Princess of Wales were to visit Ireland.
Parnell defined in United Ireland the duty of Nationalists with
regard to the reception they should receive. It was to let them
come and go without allowing the hospitable nature and cordial
disposition of the Irish people to carry them into any attitude
which might be taken as one of condonation for the past, or satis-
faction for the present state, of Irish affairs. Nor did he fail to
point out the indecency of using royalty as an electioneering dodge,
not against a party but against the Irish nation. By sending over
Wales it was sought to free whichever English party was returned
to power from their obligations to Ireland. If Wales got an en-
thusiastic reception, then Ireland, apart from a few anarchists
here and there, was contented; if a hostile, then the Irish were

652 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

a people whom no measure would content; who after the settle-
ment of the land question would dare to insult the future king, who,
of course, is above politics. And so forth.

Parnell in 1885 had his powers as a politician taxed to the
utmost. He decided to play three men against one another —
Gladstone, Lord Randolph Churchill — a free-lance Tory — and
Chamberlain — a free-lance Liberal. He hoped nothing from any
English party or politician, except in so far as there was an axe
to grind which could be ground only on the Irish question. He
decided to beat the Liberals with the Irish vote and succeeded on
a taxation question. Gladstone resigned. Without a dissolution
of Parliament the Tories came into power, Lord Salisbury as
Prime Minister.

The Tories, in their ticklish position, were like cooing doves
toward the Irish question. The Crimes Act which was due for
renewal, and which Gladstone had intended to renew, was dropped.
A new Land Act was introduced by Lord Ashbourne in the House
of Lords. It was a fairly good Act, providing £5,000,000 for
advances to tenants to buy their holdings, principal and interest
at 4% to be paid in forty-nine years. Lord Carnarvon, the newly
appointed Lord Lieutenant, had private interviews with Parnell
and Sir Charles Gavan Duffy in which he declared himself per-
sonally in favour of Irish self-government. Parnell assumed that
this was the feeling, also, of the Tory Cabinet. In that, it trans-
pired later, he was mistaken. While Carnarvon, personally, may
have been sincere, he was the envoy of an English party with an
election pending. The dissolution was fixed for November 1885.

On July 29th Lord Salisbury made overtures for the Irish
vote. There was no further reason for coercion in Ireland. The
voice of the people should be heard.

A week later Parnell opened his campaign in statesmanlike
fashion, declaring for Home Rule and it alone. On August 24th
at Dublin he said:

"I say that each and all of us have only looked upon the Acts
we have been able to wring from an unwilling Parliament as a
means to an end ... I hope that it may not be necessary for us
m the new Parliament to devote our attention to subsidiary meas-
ures, and that it may be possible for us to have a programme and
a platform with only one plank, and that one plank National In-
dependence."

It was a clever stroke. Now the rival statesmen must declare
their colours. The first to do so was Lord Hartington, the Liberal.
He declared that all England would unite to resist "so fatal and

THE LADIES' LAND LEAGUE 653

mischievous a proposal." Parnell replied that many similar mis-
chievous proposals had become law, and that Ireland would have
self-government or England would have to govern her as a Crown
Colony. Lord Randolph Churchill spoke soon after. He was
mute regarding Parnell's ultimatum. Next came Chamberlain,
"Speaking for myself," he said, "if these and these alone are the
terms on which Mr. Parnell's support is to be obtained, I will not
enter into competition for it." John Morley followed with a sug-
gestion of Home Rule on the Canadian system. Gladstone then
came along with the Hawarden manifesto :

"In my opinion, not now for the first time delivered, the limit
is clear within which the desires of Ireland, constitutionally ascer-
tained, may, and beyond which they cannot, receive the assent of
Parliament. To maintain the supremacy of the Crown, the unity
of the Empire, and all the authority of Parliament necessary for
the conservation of that unity, is the first duty of every representa-
tive of the people. Subject to this governing principle, every grant
to portions of the country of enlarged powers for the manage-
ment of their own affairs is, in my view, not a source of danger,
but a means of averting it, and is in the nature of a new guarantee
for increased cohesion, happiness and strength. I believe history
and posterity will consign to disgrace the memory of every man,
be he who he may, on whichever side of the channel he may dwell,
that, having the power to aid in an equitable arrangement between
Ireland and Great Britain, shall use the power, not to aid, but
to prevent or retard it."

Lord Salisbury was next with an ambiguous statement which
left one wondering what his attitude was. Then Mr. Childers,
Gladstone's friend, gave his views:

"He was ready, he said, to give Ireland a large measure of
local self-government. He would have her to legislate for herself,
reserving Imperial rights over foreign policy, military organisa-
tion, external trade (including customs duties), the post office,
the currency, the national debt, and the court of ultimate appeal."

Parnell felt that this last statement represented Gladstone's
views. He resolved to make sure. But Gladstone refused to be
drawn. So Parnell, having listened long enough to the bidding,
brought down the hammer in favour of the Tories.

The result of the election was :

Liberals 335

Tories 249

Liberal Majority 86

6s4 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Pamell had a following of 86. He could give the Liberals a
majority of 172 if they did his bidding. If not they went out of
power. He had won.

The Parliament of 1886 opened with the Tories still in power.
The Queen's speech showed how hollow had been the Tory pro-
fessions of sympathy with Ireland's aspirations. There was not
a word in the speech about Home Rule, but there was a promise
of further coercion. Lord Salisbury in 1885 sang a hymn of peace;
now, having gained Parnell's support at the recent elections he
intoned a note of menace. This was a shortsighted policy. That
very night Parnell drove him from office.

Mr. Gladstone assumed power once more. Allied with the
Irish party he would have a possible one hundred and seventy-two
majority. But it was evident also that there would be dissension
in his own ranks on the Home Rule question. Hope was mingled
with doubt.

John Morley became Chief Secretary for Ireland. A consist-
ent opponent of coercion, his appointment was welcome, and he
was a Home Ruler in conviction, the Irish demand having been
made overwhelmingly clear.

Gladstone lost no time in framing his Home Rule Bill. It
was anything but a satisfactory solution of the Irish question. The
financial clauses in particular were unjust to Ireland. There were
frequent negotiations between Parnell and Gladstone on this point,
but Gladstone held his ground. Chamberlain was a possible dan-
ger. Gladstone had frequent discussions with him but neither
could Chamberlain convert Gladstone to his scheme of local coun-
cils nor could Gladstone be persuaded to depart from the principle
of an Irish Government. Parnell was not enthusiastic about the
measure, but finally the Irish party decided to support it.

While the negotiations were in progress an event occurred
which shows us the might of Parnell's personality and the mean
subterfuge to which a guilty secret may reduce a proud and haughty
character.

At the election of 1885 Parnell had taken the extraordinary
step of running candidates for three seats in Liverpool. Only in
one could he hope to win, in the Scotland division which was T. P.
O'Connor's preserve. He nominated John Redmond for a second
division, and he, himself, offered to contest a third. At the last
moment Parnell retired, and so, for reasons unexplained, did the
Liberal candidate. Captain O'Shea was nominated for the seat,
and lost by a few votes. Parnell who had just denounced the Lib-
erals in vitriolic terms, had worked might and main for this par-

THE LADIES* LAND LEAGUE 655

ticular Liberal. But stranger things were to follow. T. P. O'Con-
nor had been elected for Galway, as well as for the Liverpool seat,
and had resigned his seat in Galway. Parnell's nominee was Cap-
tain O'Shea I

A Whig for an Irish constituenqr I O'Connor, whom Parnell
had interviewed, and who knew of his intentions, rushed across
to Ireland hoping to have a local candidate nominated before Par-
nell had taken action. On reaching Dublin he found to his con-
sternation that Parnell had forestalled him. What was he to do?
He consulted the other members then in Dublin, and all agreed
with him that it would be treachery to Ireland, at that moment of
crisis, to oppose Parnell. Healy and Biggar, however, believed
in straight dealing, and had taken the first train to Galway. A
local candidate was put up^a Mr. Lynch — and during the follow-
ing week the two members lashed the temper of Galway into fury.
With Northern directness, and in the plainest of language, Biggar
laid bare the sordid secret supposed to underlie Parnell's action.
Parnell all this time made no move. Wires to his parliamentary
rooms remained unanswered. Nobody knew his private address.
When it pleased him he came over.

Accompanied by O'Connor, O'Kelly and Sexton he set out for
Galway. AH except himself were in a fever of apprehension. He
showed no feeling. Galway elections have always been pretty hot
affairs, and this occasion was exceptional. The scene at the Gal-
way station exceeded the worst anticipations. A howling, groan-
ing populace crowded all the approaches to the Station. Mr.
Lynch was delivering an impassioned address from the steps of
the Railway Hotel. Parnell coolly went to his room, washed and
dressed. Then he met Healy, Biggar and the others. Healy, not
without passion, explained his position. Parnell listened quietly.
Some reference to Parnell's leadership had been raised. "I have
no intention of resigning my position," he said. "I would not re-
sign it if the people of Galway were to kick me through the streets
to-day." Healy capitulated. Biggar then felt he had been badly
let down. Healy had deserted him. The local candidate was
called in, and told what had happened. A public meeting was held.
Parnell faced an audience whose hostility was unmistakable. In
the course of a powerful speech he said: "I have a parliament
for College Green within the hollow of my hand." He referred
to the possible rejection of O'Shea: "There will rise a shout,"
he said, "from all the enemies of Ireland : Tarnell is beaten, Ire-
land has no longer a leader.* *' The day was won; O'Shea was
elected.

6s6 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Parnell, however, was mistaken. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill
was defeated by three hundred and forty-three to three hundred
and thirteen votes, and once more a general election followed.
Parnell and the Liberals, who were at daggers drawn in December,
1885, were now going forward hand in hand. The election was
soon over giving the Tories a majority over Irish and Liberals of
one hundred and eighteen.

Lord Salisbury was again in power and would like to score over
the Liberals by showing that where Gladstone had failed he could
rule Ireland without coercion.

In the end of 1886 the Plan of Campaign was launched by
William O'Brien and John Dillon. Parnell was ill, and was not
consulted abou^ it; when it was expounded to him he did not like
it. The basis of the plan was as follows : A Managing Commit-
tee was to be elected for each district. The tenants should offer
the landlord a fair rent: if this was refused the total fair rents
should be banked with the Committee, and the Committee should
deal with the landlords. If the landlords refused to come to terms
the money should be used to support evicted tenants, and for gen-
eral purposes of the agitation.

All the turmoil of the early 'eighties was renewed and continued
during 1887, 1888, 1889. Lord Salisbury was convinced in 1886
that revision of judicial rents fixed under the Act of 1881 would
be "neither honest nor expedient." In 1887 he passed a Land
Act allowing the revision of these judicial rents. Parnell was pres-
ent and enjoyed this somersault of the Tory party. His own Bill
on similar lines had been contemptuously rejected the previous
year. His sensible and moderate measure had been rejected; then
came the Plan of Campaign; and then the Tories began to take
notice. Herein we have an epitome of the history of all ameliora-
tive legislation by England for Ireland.

But, of course, the Land Bill only came after a stringent Coer-
don Bill. This gave Gladstone and the Liberals a fine opportunity
of poking fun at Salisbury, the pacifist of 1885. Mr. Arthur
Balfour, nephew of the Prime Minister, had by this time become
Chief Secretary. He ably supported the Bill which became law,
and made himself responsible for carrying it out, and right loyally
did he execute his task. He proclaimed the National League a
month after the Act was passed. League rooms were entered,
literature and accounts carried away, meetings and newspapers
suppressed. Resident Magistrates alone sat on the bench, political
prisoners were treated as ordinary criminals, police and military
in enormous numbers were disposed through the country, with

THE LADIES' LAND LEAGUE 657

orders "not to hesitate to shoot." Priests identified with the move-
ment could not go on a sick call without being tracked by police
spies. Collisions occurred in all parts of the country, with casual-
ties on both sides, but naturally the unarmed people were at a
disadvantage, and there were several civilian deaths from stabbing
and gunshot. A boy was sent to prison for grinning at a police-
man; a girl of twelve for conspiracy to obstruct the sheriff's
officers ; a man for winking in the market place, at the pig of a boy-
cotted one. The worst case was that of Mitchelstown in Septem-
ber, 1887. A public meeting was held. English as well as Irish
speakers, including Mr. Dillon, were present. A Government re-
porter arriving late, with a police escort, tried to force his way
through the crowd. The peaceful people were jostled about, and
exasperated by this attack on free speech, attacked their assailants
with sticks. The latter retired to barracks and from this vantage
ground deliberately fired on the multitude. Three men were killed
and a verdict of wilful murder was returned against the police at
the coroner's inquest, but no action was taken. John Mandeville
of Mitchelstown died as a result of brutal treatment in prison.
Thus, in Ireland, was celebrated the Jubilee Year of the Queen
of England's reign.

United Ireland In those days was spicy reading. Those of us
who were children at the time enjoyed weekly the cartoons of Bal-
four, who was presented to us spider-legged, malevolent, and
waspish in appearance. It came as a surprise to us in later years
to learn that Balfour, brutal as he proved himself in practice, was
a philosopher of parts and had written books!

Balfour, having imprisoned at least three distinguished priests
— Canon Keller of Youghal, Father Matt Ryan of Tipperary,
and Father McFadden of Gweedore, appealed for assistance to
the Pope. Cardinal Persico was sent to Ireland. In 1888 was
issued a Papal Rescript condemning the Plan of Campaign. Car-
dinal Persico was, of course, blamed for this; but truth will out.
The Persico letters have been since published, and It Is now known
that he was blameless. The Rescript was the result of English
diplomacy at Rome.

But worse things were coming. A sinister plot to ruin Parnell
was started In England. In the spring of 1887 a series of articles
In the London Times appeared under the heading Parnellism and
Crime. Alleged letters of Parnell were used for the purpose of
connecting him with the Phoenix Park murders, and the physical
force movement generally. Parnell at last demanded a select
committee of the House of Commons to Inquire into the matter.

658 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Instead, the Government appointed a special commission of three
judges to make the enquiry. The commission was given carie
blanche to open up the whole conduct of the agitation in Ireland.
Not Parnell alone but all Ireland was in the dock.

Witnesses came in droves. Spies, policemen, officials, farmers,
agents, informers — all were baited with gold into the net of the
Times,

Time dragged wearily on until in February 1889 Richard Pig-
gott entered the witness chair. He was well known as an impecu-
nious journalist, always "on the make." In 1888 he applied to
Forster offering to assist the Government for a trifle of £1,500
down, and then to Patrick Egan offering to assist the League on
similar terms. But let his variegated career pass. He went into
the witness-box, gave his evidence, and then Sir Charles Russell,
Parnell's Counsel, took him in hands. Handing him pen and paper
Russell put him through a spelling exercise. The last word dic-
tated was "hesitancy." Piggott spelled it "hesitency." So was it
spelled in one of the alleged facsimile letters! But Russell had
another rod in pickle. Four days before the letters appeared in
the Times Piggott had written to Doctor Walsh, Archbishop of
Dublin, saying that a plot was laid for Parnell, that certain in-
criminatory letters were to be published, and how should he warn
the National leaders? Piggott fell to pieces. He contradicted
himself hopelessly. Everything was clear. Copies of Archbishop
Walsh's replies to him were produced in Court.

The unfortunate man cleared the country at once and was traced
to Madrid. Here at his hotel a Spanish Inspector of Police called.
Piggott retired to his room, took up a pistol and blew out his
brains. Interest in the commission was now at an end. When
it resumed its adjourned session Mr. Biggar addressed the judges.
He spoke for some twenty minutes, not wishing to occupy their
time as his friend, Mr. Davitt, wished to make a few observations.
Mr. Davitt's remarks only occupied five daysl

One interesting question remains. It is this. Who paid for
Piggott's passage and expenses to Madrid?

CHAPTER LXXVI

TALL OF PARNELL AND OF PARLIAMENTARIANISM

Parnell was now the man of the hour. He had triumphed over
all who had crossed his path. He had broken Forster; he had
humbled even Gladstone. He had beaten the most elaborate con-
spiracy ever launched against a politician and supported by one
of the greatest newspaper syndicates in the world. Again and
again he had changed the tune of the Government from "the Gov-
ernment will" to "the Government must." He was feted and
lionised; he was entertained by exclusive clubs, and was the guest
of honour at such society functions as he would attend. He was
presented with the freedom of the city of Edinburgh. His recep-
tion in the House of Commons was flattering in the extreme, and
on one occasion when some murmurs arose from the Tory benches *
against the assertion of a member that the case against him was
based on forgery, he rose in his place and dared any member of
that body in the House to indicate by word, or nod, or gesture
that he did not believe this to be the case. There was no response.
He seemed absolutely master of the situation, the dictator of pol-
icy, the ruling force in the House of Commons, unquestioned chief
of his own party by dint of his personality, and master of other
parties by reason of his magnificent and seemingly instinctive di-
plomacy. And then the blow fell I

Captain O'Shea, who had given what was meant to be damag-
ing proof against him at the Times Commission, filed a petition for
divorce against his wife, naming Parnell as co-respondent. There
was no defence, and no appearance for the defence. Parnell
ignored the whole business as if it were of no importance, what-
ever. When the decree was made absolute he promptly married
Mrs. O'Shea.

If others had taken matters as coolly as Parnell, it might have
been better. But a meeting of the party was called at the Leinster
Hall, Dublin, and a resolution of confidence in Parnell's leader-
ship was passed. The delegates at the time in America — O'Con-
nor, O' Kelly, O'Brien, Dillon and others were asked to cable a

659

66o THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

resolution of confidence In Pamell, and this was in due course
done. Mr. T. D. Sullivan alone, of those in contact with each
other, reserved judgment. He was sharply criticised for his reti-
cence, but he had this consolation : that while the others went back
on their words later, he had nothing to retract.

A meeting of the Irish Party was held, and Parnell was re-
elected sessional chairman without a dissentient voice. It was
known to Justin McCarthy, and must also have been known to
Parnell, that Gladstone had prepared a letter in which he stated
that Parnell's continuance In the leadership of the Irish Party would
be productive of consequences disastrous In the highest degree to
the cause of Ireland and would render his retention of the leader-
ship of the Liberal party almost a nullity.

This was the letter of a political strategist. Gladstone did not
say that he would resign his leadership. He did not say that he
would wash his hands of legislation for Ireland. In plain fact he
said nothing tangible at all, except that Parnell's leadership pleased
him no longer.

Parnell replied In a long manifesto which he submitted to a
number of members of his party — the Redmonds, O' Kelly, Leamy,
Col. Nolan, Justin McCarthy. He asked not to be thrown to the
"English wolves," now howling for his destruction. He disclosed
all his negotiations with the Liberals, and showed that his chair-
manship from the Liberal point of view did not matter In the least;
that Liberals would proceed on their pre-arranged plans whether
he was leader or not, but that as leader he might be able to counter
them. Bribes offered him by the Liberals he disclosed: the Chief
Secretaryship for himself; one of the law-ofScerships of the Crown
for a colleague, and so forth. He had rejected all these offers
valuing the independence of his party more than anything else.
He lifted a corner of the veil which had screened his negotiations
with the Liberals, and pointed out that his leadership had nothing
to do with Liberal policy which was settled and. In gear, though
possibly it might Interfere with its smooth working If he was con-
tinued in power.

There was a moment of tension. Then Justin McCarthy spoke.
He disapproved of the manifesto from beginning to end. Par-
nell urged him for particulars. He objected to It all especially
the words "English wolves." "I will not change them," Pamell
said, "whatever goes out, these words shall not go out,** The
**split" was thenceforward in being.

In the heart of the controversy which followed the truth was
submerged under ex-parte pleadings on either side. Gladstone was

FALL OF PARNELL 66 1

accused of sacrificing Parnell, though for years he had been well
aware of the relations between Parnell and Mrs. O'Shea. Mrs.
O'Shea had in fact acted as envoy to him, again and again, from
Parnell. But in fair play it must be said that whatever Gladstone
suspected he had no proof. When the matter became public he had
to consider the attitude of his party and electorate and was not
really one of the "English wolves," though for aught we know he
may have been glad of Parnell's downfall. Morley was asked if
Parnell would retire if found guilty. "He will not," said Morley,
"he will remain where he is, and he is quite right."

The Irish Party met. Parnell simply asked them not to sell
him without getting his value. "Gentlemen," said Parnell, "it is
not for you to act in this matter. You are dealing with a man who
is an unrivalled sophist. You are dealing with a man to whom it
is as impossible to give a direct answer to a plain and simple ques-
tion, as it is for me impossible to give an indirect answer to a plam
and simple question. You are dealing with a man who Is capable
of appealing to the constituencies for a majority which would
make him independent of the Irish Party. And if I surrender to
him, if I give up my position to him — If you throw me to him, I
say, gentlemen, that it is your bounden duty to see that you secure
value for the sacrifice. How can you secure this value? You can
secure this value by making up your minds as to what these provi-
sions in the next Home Rule Bill should be."

Envoys of the party called on Mr. Gladstone and they learned
the nothing which deputations learn of Cabinet Ministers. It was
a duel between Parnell and Gladstone. The latter won. On De-
cember 6th, 1890, Mr. Justin McCarthy withdrew with forty-four
followers; Parnell was left with twenty-six.

Then came the Kilkenny election and Parnell crossed over to
Ireland. But before going to Kilkenny there was work to be done
in Dublin. United Ireland bought by Parnell, and for long bril-
liantly edited by William O'Brien, had, under the direction of
Mathias McD. Bodkin, gone over to the enemy ! On the morning
of December i8th, 1890, a call was made at the office. A Fenian,
a follower of Parnell, approached the acting editor and said:
"Matty, will you walk out, or would you like to be thrown out?"
Matty decided for the less exciting manner of exit.

That night, at a wonderful meeting in the Rotunda, Parnell
spoke a sentence that lived for ever In the hearts of those who
heard it, and ought to live in the hearts of their descendants. He
said :

"I don't pretend that I had not moments of trial and of tempta-

662 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

tlon, but I do claim that never in thought, word, or deed, have I
been false to the trust which Irishmen have confided in me."

Next morning before setting out for Cork he had to re-conquer
United Ireland which had been re-captured by the enemy. With
the assistance of a vast crowd he did so, and then drove to Kings-
bridge and took his train for Cork. An immense crowd followed
him to the terminus at Kingsbridge and Parnell made a royal de-
parture declaring that what Dublin said to-day all Ireland would
say to-morrow.

There were disappointments ahead, however. His candidate
for a by-election in Kilkenny was beaten by two to one^ and a
little later in North Sligo the Pamellite candidate met with a simi-
lar fate. Later his candidate was defeated in Carlow. It was
obvious that Parnell either miscalculated the forces against him,
or was determined to fight to the last even if he fought alone.

By the end of the year Mr. William O'Brien had returned from
America to France. There was a whitewashed cell awaiting him
in Ireland, and he decided to remain, for the time being, in Bou-
logne. Here Parnell, in the interests of peace, agreed to meet
him. O'Brien, however, found Parnell unyielding. This is not
surprising, inasmuch as the terms of peace suggested by Mr.
O'Brien were such, and involved so many people — the Bishops,
Gladstone, and both sections of the divided Irish Party — that Par-
nell saw at once that a peace by negotiation was impossible and
thenceforward devoted his great gifts of strategy to sowing the
seeds of dissension among his opponents. Ostensibly he was try-
ing to get his opponents and the peacemakers to extract promises
from Gladstone and the Liberals regarding details relating to land
and the police in any forthcoming Home Rule Bill — a re-asser-
tion of his attitude that he should not be sold for less than his
price. He and William O'Brien were to be the judges of the value
of the promises made by the Liberals. As was to be expected,
they disagreed. Mr. O'Brien seemed to be satisfied with a memo-
randum containing the points of a letter which Gladstone was pre-
pared to publish. Parnell was not. It is not now, and it was not
then, an easy matter to decide whether Parnell in the course of
these negotiations was really striving for peace, or waging diplo-
matic war. In either case he was forcing O'Brien and the others
to exact conditions from the Liberals. In the midst of much mis-
chief he was to this extent doing good, although it has to be ad-
mitted that he openly mocked at the chance of one of his former
colleagues getting any reliable guarantee from Gladstone, the un-
rivalled sophist. Still he said: "Some good may come of these

FALL OF PARNELL 663

negotiations. We may pin the Liberals to something definite yet."
O'Brien and Dillon came across to England and were promptly
dispatched to Galway jail. On their release, some months later
they both declared against Parnell. On this account they came
in for a good deal of criticism, mostly undeserved. Parneirs jibe
at them summarised and concentrated it. "Some of the seceders,"
he said, "the majority of them — have changed only twice. Mr.
Dillon and Mr. O'Brien have changed four times." It was not
fair; men who are working for peace may be forced by circum-
stances to make many changes, and Parnell himself had not been
as consistent as he pretended. In fact it was only after "the split"
that he discovered the cloven hoof of the Liberal party; up to
the date of his "manifesto" he had been exploiting Gladstone and
the alliance with the Liberals. It is true that his strictures on Glad-
stone's propositions had reference to the end of the year 1889.
But it is fairly evident that if Gladstone's letter to Morley had not
been published, if dissension had not been fomented in the Irish
party, there would have been no question of Gladstone's sincerity.
Parnell worked very hard during these few years of strife.
He was far from well; his medical advisers counselled rest and
quiet; but Parnell was ubiquitous. He put into this personal con-
flict more energy in one yeaT than he had expended in the House
of Commons in the preceding eight. His friends told him that he
was killing himself-— but in vain.

In the meantime, the Tory Government was giving, along with
plenty of coercion, some "ameliorative" legislation. Measures
were adopted to cope with the failure of the potato crop. 'Irish
railway development was taken in hand ; a Bill for Land Purchase
was introduced, and the Congested Districts Act was an enactment
that contained a good deal of promise which has been realised
only in part. A new Board was constituted, but its powers of trans-
fer of tenants from congested areas were so limited that even to-
day we have families living in absolute poverty in parts of Ireland
while over the rich plains of the midlands the low of the bullock
has replaced the merry prattle of children, the whistle of the
ploughman behind his team, the swish of the caman on the hurling
field and the song of the girls scutching flax or feeding the quaint
and beautiful little tuirne.^ Landlordism had claimed the land.
The law allowed it and the courts awarded it. The people had
to go, and the palatial bawn represents scores of vanished home-
steads. On the outskirts of huge, unpeooled ranches we still find

^ Spinning wheel.

664 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

a hardy and industrious race cultivating marsh and moor, hoping,
often in vain, to take out a crop before the substance of the soil
is again claimed for the support of the rush and of the heather.

Irishmen are kind to the memory of Parnell. He sinned, and
he was punished. No other man — not even O'Connell — always
excepting men who had sealed their allegiance to Dark Rosaleen
with their blood — ^was more dearly beloved by the Irish Catholic
people than this Protestant. The people of Ireland were all Par-
nellite at heart. They did not wish to oppose him. If he had
only bowed for a time before the storm he would have come back
in triumph. But Parnell was too proud for compromise. He
would lead or break the Irish Party. He tried diplomacy. But,
in Ireland, at least, there is a greater force, which sometimes be-
comes powerful. It is truth.^

Parnell's last meeting was at Creggs, County Galvvay. He was
warned by his medical advisers not to go. He had promised to
go, and he went. This was on September 27th, 1891. There was
death in his face, as he delivered his speech. On October 6th, he
died at Brighton. He was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin,
close beside O'Connell. His funeral cortege was magnificent, and
on the Sunday nearest his anniversary, a pilgrimage is made an-
nually to his grave, which is always adorned by flowers, the gift
of many nameless friends.

Parnell was adored by the Irish and feared by the English.
Nobody, even among his followers, could foretell his attitude to-
wards a measure in Parliament. He often seemed to make up his
mind in a moment. He seemed to have what we may call political
instinct, an instinct dangerous to the stability of Governments.
Gladstone, the one statesman who could be compared with him,
regarded him as an "intellectual phenomenon."

And now Parnell passes from the scene for ever, and there
is a vacancy that no member of his followers is able or willing to
fill. Sexton was out of the ordinary in many ways; but he had
practically retired. Healy was brilliant, "the one political brain
amongst them," said Parnell, but he had not the gifts requisite in
a leader. Parnell professed to be willing to hand over his leader-
ship to Healy, but the sincerity of the proposal is open to doubt.
The rents and rifts in the party made it impossible to select a
leader of the whole.

Shortly after Parnell's death there was a General Election.

» It is hardly necessary to say that sincere Irishmen still hold opposite opinions
upon the right or MVTong of Parnell's stand.

FALL OF PARNELL

665

GUdstone hfid a woridng majority <5f about forty-two. The Home
Rule Bill of 1893 was passed in jthe House of Commons by a ma-
jority of forty-three. It was rejected by the House of Lords.
Next year the "Grand Old Man" resigned and was succeeded by
Lord Rosebery.

John Redmond's party (the Parnellites), Dillon's party,
O'Brien's party and Healy's party, floundered rather hopelessly
for years, disputing plenty, achieving little.

In 1897 the Report of a Commission temporarily re-united
the various shades of Irish opinion. The Royal Commission on
taxation discovered, among other things, that Ireland was being
taxed at over £3,000,000 a year beyond her obligations under the
enforced Act of Union. The report of the Commission was put
on the shelf along with many other reports, and in the face of it,
Mr. Balfour announced in the House of Commons that Ireland
was really a financial loss to th« Empire I Restitution to Ireland
of the vast sum of which she had been robbed (in 50 years £150
million) was, of course, point blank refused.

A Land Act had been introduced in 1 896. It gave a good bribe
to the landlords and substantial relief to the tenants. The Local
Government Act of 1898 displaced the Grand Juries and trans-
ferred control of local affairs to popularly elected bodies. In
1899 the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction
was instituted owing chiefly to the work and influence of Mr. Horace
Plunket.

Meanwhile, the Parnellites, led by Mr. John Redmond, though
a poor minority, held their ground, and resisted all attempts at
compromise. In 1898 Mr. Dillon effected a compromise and
agreed to resign in behalf of a Pamellite leader. John Redmond,
supported by a handful of followers, accepted the office and be-
canie leader of the united party in 1900. The United Irish League
formed by Mr. William O'Brien in 1898 gave the united party
an organisation at their back. The League was a good effort to
get the seat of agitation transferred from Westminster to Ireland.
But its new heads, hypnotised by Westminster, did not develop it
in its natural way. And it never became a great force.

During the Boer war which broke out in 1 899 the sympathies
of the Irish people were, of course, on the side of the Boers, and
no attempt was made to dissemble the delight in Ireland when the
Boers scored a victory over the English. Major John MacBride
held conmiand of an Irish Brigade fighting with the Boer forc«s.

In 1902 on the initiative of Captain Shawe-Taylor, a Galway
landlord, representatives of landlords and tenants met in confer-

666 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

ence to investigate the possibility of an agreed solution of the Land
Question. An agreement was reached on the basis of long term
purchase which would secure the landlords against loss, and while
making the purchase money of their farms higher to the tenants
would enable them to secure money at a low rate of interest, and
secure them their land at a fixed annuity which would be lower
than the actual rent.

Mr. George Wyndham, Chief Secretary, proceeded to give
effect to these recommendations and the result was the Land Act
of 1903. It was a measure welcomed by the tenants who wished
to be rid of the landlords at all costs, and by the landlords who got
a very good bargain by the sale of their estates for cash that in
many instances was very urgently needed.

A move by Lord Dunraven and others to bring about by con-
ference a solution of the question of self-government for Ireland
by means of an enlargement of local government was not so suc-
cessful. The Orange element was alarmed. They pointed out
that a Tory government had placed a papist — Sir Anthony (now
Lord) McDonnell, Under Secretary, in virtual control of Ireland.

In 1906 Mr. Davitt passed away. He lies in his native Straide
close to the home from which, as a child, English aggression drove
him in support of the landlordism whose power it was his man-
hood's task to break. He succeeded; and dear to Irish hearts is
that grave in Mayo which encloses the mortal remains of a man
whose spirit could not be broken.

In 1906, also, the Liberals returned to power. Mr. Birrell
was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland. His first legislative
effort was an Irish Councils Bill, a sort of enlargement of the
Local Government Act. Mr. Redmond favoured the measure;
but having learned the temper of Ireland, he had to reject it.

In 19 14 a so-called "Home Rule" Act was passed— empower-
ing the Irish people to play at a "Parliament" in Dublin, whose
enactments could be vetoed by either the British Lord Lieutenant
or the British Parliament — or ruled illegal by the High Court of
Justice ! Also it provided that Ireland's finances should chiefly re-
main in England's hands ! The Irish Parliamentary Party, grasp-
ing at any straw that might save it from being finally engulfed,
begged Ireland to believe that this was the nation's "great charter
of liberty." (Such was the phrase actually in daily use by the
Party.) And Mr. John Dillon in the House of Commons sol-
emnly pledged, for Ireland and the Irish Parliamentary Party,
that the Act would be accepted as a full and final settlement of

FALL OF PARNELL

667

Ireland's claims 1 ' When the "Home Rule" Bill became law, it
was postponed on the plea that the war was on — ^in reality be-
cause Sir Edward Carson forbade its application. The British
Government kept postponing it period after period, till eventually
it never went into force. The Irish people, most of whom
had at first been deceived into regarding it as a de3irable step to-
ward larger liberty, eventually disillusioned, would not in the end
accept it.

The dreary years from 1892 onwards, characterised by strife
and bitterness and the growth of dictatorial management of Irish
affairs by the Parliamentarians, were not without some good re-
sults. Honest and patriotic men and women in Ireland grew tired
of the squabbles of rival politicians, of the manipulation of par-
liamentary and local elections, of the general corruption of public
life, and, falling bade on first principles, endeavoured to plan a
future for Ireland far different from that in the dreams of the pro-
vindalist politicians. National consciousness was awakening, and
the intellect of Ireland found expression, first in the Sean Bhean
Bhocht of Belfast edited by Ethna Carbery and Alice Milligan,
and afterwards in the United Irishman of Dublin edited by Arthur
Griffith and contributed to by William Rooney. The Gaelic League
had been established, and by slow degrees the Irish people were
taught to rely on themselves, to rebuild their ancient, though shat-
tered civilisation, to rediscover their soul as a people, and confront
the world as an ancient, cultured and dignified race, and no longer
an obscure beggar seeking for English doles. And worthily did
the best of the Irish race respond to this appeal. No greater
sacrifice of personal interests can be recorded in the world than
the work expended in Ireland during the past three decades. Father
O'Growney gave his life for the language; William Rooney for
the national cause generally; Pearse, McDonagh and their com-
rades have faced the firing squad; and among the host of those

'The Party had been rapidly sinking in self-respect for a quarter of a cen-
tury-^!>ut in the last nine years of this time had gone down hill with accelerated
velocity. It became the official "tail" of the British Liberals, and obediently wagged
as the d<^ willed. For the older, wise, and well proved maxim, "England's diffi-
culty is Ireland's opportunity," the Party adopted as its slogan: "Don't embarrass
the Government 1" — ^till the slogan and its users passed into a joke. In reward for
the unworthy services rendered to the Liberals, the members of the Party were
permitted to scramble for the crumbs that fell from their masters' table. For al-
though they still went through the form of gravely subscribing to the pledge that
Pamell had seen it necessary to prescribe — ^the solemn pledge that no one of them
would accept, or ask, from an English Government, office or favour for himself or
friends — there was furious scramble among them for the offices and favours— often-
times ludicrously petty ones — that Dublin Castle had in its gift

668 THE STORY OF THE IRKH RACE

who tiavc given up their lives for the preservation of an Irish Ire-
land are numbers of unnamed and forgotten men and women who
were prepared to wbrk in obscurity and neglect, that Ireland might
live.

This remarkable resurgence of national self-respect was looked
on askance by the political leaders whose vision was limited to
action in the English House of Commons. The intellectual phase
of the Irish movement they heartily disliked. Criticism of "the
Party" was speedily suppressed. The Party controlled nearly all
the newspapers of Ireland and woe betide the journalist who took
any liberties in criticism of the Kings. They would not trust the
intellect of Young Ireland. And thus for thirty years and more
the Party sat on a mine which was certain to explode some day.
They, themselves, provided the fuse. In the English House of
Commons John Redmond, in 19 14, unreservedly offered the ser-
vices of the manhood of Ireland in one of England's wars. Earl
Grey was happy to announce that Ireland was "the one bright
spot" on the horizon. Then, Mr. Redmond, having gone so far
was forced to go further ; and when at Woodenbridge, County
Wicklow, he advised the Irish Volunteers to go to war for Eng-
land, he, fortunately, sounded the final knell of the "Party."

The Parliamentary leaders, Redmond, Dillon, Davitt, Devlin,
O'Connor, came out openly as England's recruiting sergeants —
and their followers in the country, the scales at length fallen from
their eyes, began a wholesale desertion — which in startlingly short
time left the leaders looking in vain to find any followers. They
were to be formally wiped out at the next general election. The
Irish Parliamentary Party, having compromised Ireland's every
claim to nationhood, and touched the depths of disgrace, then dis-
appeared from history. And Ireland severed itself from the bad
tradition of British Parliamentarianism.

William O'Brien's Recollections and Evening Memories.
T. P. O'Connor's Pamell Movement.
Michael Davitt's Fall of Feudalism.
Mrs. Dickenson's A Patriot's Mistake.
Barry O'Brien's Life ef PamelL

CHAPTER LXXVII

THE MODERN LITERATURE OF IRELAND

I. Modern Gaelic Literature

The last writers in the ancient bardic dialect, the three O'Clerys
and O'Mulconry, four friars who have been immortalised as the
Four Masters, in the early 17th century collected all the old manu-
scripts they could find, and in Donegal Abbey v^rote their mighty
Annals that, though the nation, as they feared, should perish, the
names of the great ones at least should be preserved. They praised
and dispraised Gael and Englishman with perfect impartiality —
evidence that their minds were still untuned to the new world of
warring states. "They belonged to the old, individual, poetic life,
and spoke a language even, in which it was all but impossible to
think an abstract thought." *

1 THE FOUR MASTERS

BY THOMAS d'aRCY MC GEE

Many altars are in Banba, many chancels hung in white,

Many schools and many abbeys, glorious in our fathers* sight;

Yet whene'er I go a pilgrim back, dear Native Isle, to thee.

May my filial footst«)s bear me to that Abbey by the sea —

To that Abbey — rooness, doorless, shrineless, monkless, though it be!

I still hear them in my musings, still see them as I gaze, —
Four meek men around the dresset, reading scrolls of other days ;
Four unwearied scribes who treasure every word and every line —
Saving every ancient sentence as if writ by hands divine.

Not of fame, and not of fortune, do these eager penmen dream ;
Darkness shrouds the hills of Banba, sorrow sits by every stream;
One by one the lights that lead her, hour by hour, are quenched in gloom ;
But the patient, sad. Four Masters toil on in their lonely room —
Duty still defying Doom.

As the breathing of the west winds over bound and bearded sheaves —
As the murmur in the bee-hives softly heard on summer eves —
So the rustle of the vellum, — so the anxious voices sound ; —
While a deep expectant silence seems to listen all around.^

Brightly on the Abbey gable shines the full moon thro' the night.
While afar to westward glances a]l the bay in waves of light :

669

-670 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

After the disastrous Elizabethan wars, Ireland was sti'ipped of
her forests. Partly this was done for plunder, but chiefly to de-
stroy all refuges and cover. From being an island Lebanon, Ire-
land became the gaunt, naked, shelterless expanse that it is to-day.
"The wandering companies that keep the wood" were gone, and
the modern period set in. With the sweeping away of the proud,
aristocratic order of Gaeldom, Irish literature became impover-
ished, and yet, by an accident, the greatest of all Irish writers,
Goeffrey Keating, was the first eminent "popular" writer.

Returning from Spain a doctor of divinity, Keating won fame
as a preacher in County Tipperary. On a certain occasion, he
preached in the presence of a lady whose name was associated with
that of Carew, the Lord President of Munster, a sermon calculated
to give as much offence as. John the Baptist's reproof of Herod.
The anti-popery laws were put in motion through Carew's per-
sonal spite, and Keating had to fly. Hiding in the Glen of Aher-
low, he composed his celebrated Forus Feasa ar Eirinn, or
History of Ireland, which was and is the standard work of Irish
prose. Hundreds 'of manuscript copies were made. Several Eng-
lish translations exist, one by John O'Mahony, the Fenian Head
Centre in America. Keating also composed religious works, one
of which, the Three Shafts of Death, is full of spirited moral tales
told with the story-telling zest that makes the History so readable.
Thus Keating writes of a wild and ignorant kern of Munster who
went exploring and landing in England, was sumptuously enter-
tained at the first great house he came to. When, at last, sated
with good living, he and his company made to depart, the keeper
of the house cried to his accountant: Make reckoning — English
words that the kern did not understand. The accountant there-
Tufted isle and s^inter'd headland smile and soften in her ray;
Yet within their dusky chamber the meek Masters toil away,
Finding all too short the day.

Now they kneel f oh, list the accents, from the soul of mourners wrung;
Hear the soaring aspirations in the old ancestral tongue;
For the houseless sons of chieftains, for their brethren near and far,
For the mourning Mother Island these their aspirations are.

And they say before up-rising: "Father! grant one other pray*r.
, Bless the Lord of Moy — O'Gara ! Bless his lady and his heir I

Send the generous Chief, whose bounty cheers, sustains us, in our task,
Health, success, renown, salvation : Father ! grant the prayer we ask."

Oh, that we, who now inherit the great beouest of their toil, —
Were but fit to trace their footsteps through the annals of the Isle;
Oh, that the same angel. Duty, guardian of our tasks might be ;
Teach us, as she taught our Masters, faithful, grateful, just, to be: —
As she taught the old Four Masters in the Abbey by the sea !

THE MODERN LITERATURE OF IRELAND 671

with stripped the visitors of their goods, sending them bare away :
for the house was an Inn. The kern was much puzzled, for never
before had he known food bought or sold. Coming home, he told
his friends that England was a wonderful country for food and
drink and hospitality, only when strangers were leaving their en-
tertainer, a violent fellow called MacRaicin was called down to
despoil them. Keating adds that "England is the earth; the inn-
keepers, the world, the flesh and the devil; the Kern, people in
general, and MacRaicin — death I"

Keating attended some of the last bardic schools, but he chose
to write in a style to be "understanded of the people." His poetry
is in the new lyrical style then coming in, breaking away from the
severe old metres that only the learned could compose — or per-
haps enjoy. He was a genuine poet, too. Witness this exile-song,
of the typical Gaelic "catalogue" order:

MO BHEANNACHT LEAT A SGRIBHINN

My blessing with thee, letter ^
To the delightful isle of Eire,
My pity that I see not her hilltops
Though oft their beacons blaze !

Farewell to her nobles and her people,
Fond, fond farewell to her clergy,
Farewell to her gende womenkind,
Farewell to her learned in letters!

Farewell to her smooth plains,
A thousand farewells to her hiUs,
Hail to him who dwells there,
Farewell to her pools and lakes!

Farewell to her fruity woods,

Farewell to her fishing weirs.

Farewell to her bogs and lawns,

Farewell to her raths and moors!

Farewell from my heart to her harbours,
Farewell, too, to her heavy pastures.
Good-bye to her hillocks of fairs,
Farewell to her bowed branches!

Though batde-wrath be frequent
In the holy heaven-favoured isle.
Westward o'er the ocean's ridge,
Bear, O writing, my blessing!

672 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

The difference between the old classical metres — ^used in Old
and Middle Irish verse — and the free metres of modern Irish may
briefly be explained by an imitation of a classical verse. Here is
the original :

Do chuadar as rinn mo ruisg
Do tholcha is aluinn eaguisg,
Is tuar orcra da n-eisi
Dromla fhuar na h-aibheisi.

Dr. Hyde gives an imitation of this, as follows :

Slowly pass my aching eye
Her holy hills of beauty ;
Neath me tossing to and fro
Hoarse cries the crossing billow.

Now those used to English verse can make little of this, be-
yond the fact that there are seven syllables in each line. Note,
however, that there is an intricate system of internal assonances
and alliterations (slowly and holy, tossing and crossing, etc.) while
the chief peculiarity is that the rhyming and syllables are not, as
in English verse, equally stressed. Fro is stressed, but Its rhyme
is unstressed — "low" in billow. Further than this, it must be men-
tioned that certain groups of letters were held to rhyme, so that
"maid" rhymed with MacCabe, these groups being distinct and
rigidly observed. From this it will be seen that classic Gaelic verse
could not live as a popular art. Keating gave the popular forms
of versification — already common in Scotland — a standing that they
could not achieve while they were confined to folk-compositions,
and soon after his days, the old metres disappeared.

Daithi O'Bruadair, a poet of the WiUiamite wars, was the last
aristocratic poet, but Egan O'Rahilly, who lived In the first half
of the 1 8th century — the century of the Penal Laws, when Cath-
olics, i.e., the nation, were forbidden the rudiments of education,
had much of the austere dignity of the past In his style. He It was
\7ho composed "Gile na Gile,*' the most refined and melodious of
all those multi-rhyming songs in which, during the 1 8th century, .
Ireland was sung of as a discrowned maiden, Cathleen-ny-HouIi-
han, Shiela-ny-Gara, or Moirln-ny-ChuillenaIn, awaiting the King*s
son who should free her and enthrone her once more.

Brightness of brightness came, in loneliness, advancing
Crystal of crjrstal, her clear grey eyes were glancing,

THE MODERN LITERATURE OF IRELAND 673

Sweetness of sweetness, her soft words flowed entrancing,
Redness and whiteness her cheek's fair form enhancing.

A curious story, probably untrue, but quite typical of the times,
tells that poor O'Rahilly was once standing by when a planter min-
ister ordered a certain tree to be hewed down. The workers
(Catholic hewers of wood and drawers of water) refused to lay
axe to the trunk on account of some historic associations. The
minister's son climbed the tree and began to hew branches, but fell,
and was caught In a cleft and hanged. O'Rahilly at once made a
verse beginning Is maith do thoradh a chrainn, viz., "Good is your
fruit, O tree; may It flourish on every branch. My grief that the
trees of Eire are not loaded with the same fruit every day I"

Sean O'NeachtaIn of Meath, contemporary, composed sparkling
lyrics comparable to nothing In English but Herrick, and wrote
humorous tales satirising the Gaels of the day who talked broken
English under the Impression that they were speaking Shakespeare's
tongue. Tarlach O'Carolan — ^best known as Carolan — ^llved about
the same time. His meeting with Goldsmith has been written of
as a meeting of the dying Gaelic -and the new-born Anglo-Irish
literatures, but the conceit is scarcely justified, for Carolan was
more musician than poet, merely writing words for tunes. His
music was such that we may believe that, had Ireland been free
to cultivate national art, he would have exalted the wonderful tradi-
tional music into a lofty art, as Chopin did with the national music
of Poland.

Sean Clarach MacDonnell, at whose house In Co. Cork the
"bardic sessions" of the southern poets, i.e., literary evenings as-
sisted with good fare, were held, was more exuberant, more popu-
lar, than any who had gone before him, and his passionate, joyous,
rollicking songs are sung to this day. Sometimes, in serious mood,
he drew terrible pictures of the plight of the Gael under the brutal
foreign planters. Of one such usurper he declares that "he has
tethered the famine In a cleft of the mountains to prey upon the
people" — an Image terrible enough for iEschylus.

Donacha Rua Macnamara Is chiefly remembered for his poem,
"The Fair Hills of Eire O," which Is so exquisite an exile-song,
that a score of translations into English have been made :

Take my heart's blessing over to dear Eire's strand

And the fair hills of Eire O !
To the Remnant that love her— our forefather's land —

Fair hills of Eire O!

674 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

How sweet sing the birds, o'er mount diere and vale
Like soft sounding chords, that lament for the Gael —
And I o'er the surge, far, far away must wail
The fair hills of Eire O I

It is particularly interesting to note, in the numerous popular
poets, how the ancient heroic names occur in their songs.
O'Tuama, keeper of a tavern, laments the passing of the Gaelic
aristocracy, comparing them to "Warlike MacMorna, tremendous
in the chase ; gallant Oscar, spear-shatterer of legions ; young, gen-
erous Conall, bringer of help" — and in a final line that Virgil might
envy, he cries : "Nior clos dom Gall ba dheallrach leo" [I never
heard of Englishmen of their like I]. Thus did the heroic figures
remain through the centuries symbols of the ideal, enriching the
speech and thought of the people with beautiful allusions. To-
wards the end of the i8th century we meet Eoghan Rua O'Sullivan,
the most wonderful maker of adjectival symphonies who ever com-
posed Gaelic verse. His songs are mighty rushes of melodious
language, sense sometimes failing under sheer loveliness of sound.
Swinburne is his faint reflex in modern English poetry. Yet this
remarkable man worked as a farm labourer. It is recorded that
his employer's son, puzzled by some passage of Greek set him by
his tutor, was astonished to find O'Sullivan able to assist him I

Merriman, author of The Midnight Court, may be mentioned
as closing the 1 8th century. This lengthy and richly-phrased poem
is a Rabelaisian skit on the contemporary shortage of marriage-
able young men, and it stands unique in the Gaelic literature of that
age in originality. Save the mannerism of their style, there was
scarcely anything to distinguish one of the i8th century singers
from another — all sang of love, of wine, of repentance and of
Cathleen-ny-Houlihan in much the same style and even the same
phrases ; only Merriman stood apart, a man of piquant personality,
daring wit and conscious literary artistry.

Though the Munster poets were the most exuberant and are to-
day the most famous, there was an important Northern school of
song, of which MacCuarta, O'Doimin, MacAlendon and Mac-
Cooey are famous names. It is said, with some aptness, that the
North had matter without style and the South style without matter.
At least, the Northern writers, now being edited, display much
strength and vigour of thought that is lacking in O'Sullivan. On
the whole, the course of modern Irish poetry may be compared to
the descent of a river from the first trickles at the frozen heights
of classicism (O'Bruadair and O'Rahilly) to a growing stream

THE MODERN LITERATURE OF IRELAND 675

(O'Neachtain) which at last becomes a rushing torrent in the low
country (O'Sullivan and his popular contemporaries).

The Ulster school lived longest. In 1795 Belfast had a Gaelic
magazine. Many of the Northern leaders in '98 were students of
Gaelic, and a nascent revival was proceeding. Some of Maria
Edgeworth's writings were done into Irish and printed in Belfast
in 1833. A bardic session was held in Dundalk in 1820. Art
Bennett, a Gaelic scribe, scholar and poet, was still living in Co.
Armagh in 1879, and since men still living knew him, we may
truly claim that Gaelic literature is, in the North, an unbroken
continuity to this day.

Early in the 19th century, the first gleams of the new dawn
appeared. In the Penal night, Ireland had almost grown ashamed
or forgetful of her past. But Petrie, O' Curry and O' Donovan,
following some preliminary work by O'Reilly, the lexicographer,
and Hardiman, the collector of songs, performed the great work
which restored Ireland's traditions. These three giants unveiled
the forgotten past in their researches into Gaelic typography and
editing of Gaelic annals. O'Curry and O'Donovan were both poor
and one might say despised labourers, but no men ever did such
mighty nation-building as they. Tom Moore, writing an Irish his-
tory, one day saw O'Curry working at the huge manuscripts of the
Annals, and listened with amazement at the scholar's account of
the sealed Gaelic literature. At last he said: "I ought never to
have undertaken an Irish history. These great works were not
written by fools, and I know nothing of them." He had sung of
"the long-faded glories" of Eirinn, taking them all on trust. He
and his generation knew nothing of the Irish past save what was
revealed by hostile English historians and vague native tradition.
O'Curry and O'Donovan gave Ireland back her national memory.

Several academic societies did good work during the century
in printing Gaelic classics — ^notably the Ossianic Society and the
Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language. Standish
Hayes O'Grady, the most prominent figure in these societies, was
the greatest Gaelic litterateur after O'Donovan and O'Curry. In
"Silva Gadelica," two huge volumes, he edited a large number of
Fenian and other texts, with a spirited translation that did more
to revive appreciation of classic Irish than is generally realised. It
is not every man who can read English who can appredate Shake-
speare, and a knowledge of Irish does not imply an understanding
of the subtle humour and delicate beauty of its literature. O'Grady
had a liver appreciation of the nuances of Irish prose than any other
of his day — ^he was himself able to write a richly humorous Irish

676 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

style — and so his translations, with their wondrous, reckless, imag-
inative language reveal the richness of classic Irish with the power
of brilliant criticism.

O'Grady's influence was great on Mr. W. B. Yeats, Dr. Doug-
las Hyde, Padraic Pearse, and others who have taken prominent
parts in the Gaelic and Anglo-Irish literary movement of to-day.
Dr. Douglas Hyde's "Literary History of Ireland" (1898) was
the bible of the Gaelic League. It is a treasury of wonders. His
pen, as it were a magic wand, transformed the Ireland of late
Parnell days from being a sordid hovel to a regal palace in the
eyes of the living Gael. He, Father Dineen, and others began to
edit the classics of Irish letters and to compose a new literature
in Gaelic. Dr. Hyde's playlets were the earliest fruits of the re-
vival. Most of what was written in the new Irish was, however,
of small literary value. Writers quite reasonably concentrated at-
tention on developing a modern idiomatic style, and so a piece of
good reporting from "the speech of the people," useful as a text
for students, was more valued than a tale or poem of originality
written in an indifferent or artificial style. Nine-tenths or more of
the copious Gaelic publishing of the last 25 years has been of lin-
guistic rather than literary value, and the attempt to produce a
Gaelic drama has failed, save in translations from Anglo-Irish ar-
tists, such as the Irish versions of W. B. Yeats's "Cathleen-ny-
Houlihan, Seumas MacManus's "Lad from Largyraore" and
Corkery's "Clan Falvey."

The search for a modern Gaelic style reached success in the
epoch-making work of Canon Peter O'Leary (died 1920). An
t-Athair Peadar, as we call him, wrote exactly as the good speakers
of the old generation talked. He poured scorn — too much scorn,
perhaps — on the "scholars" who fabricated a book-style. He
broke away from the stately long sentences of classic Irish as
Macaulay broke away from the Gibbonesque long English sentence,
and like Macaulay, he coined a short-sentence style that is, above
all else, lucid. His "Seadna," a folk-story told with much elabora-
tion, descriptive of the life of the country side, is his great master-
piece. It ranks as pure literature, and may be read in an English
translation. His Irish translation of "The Imitation of Christ"
goes out of print as fast as it can be printed. A dozen or so other
books from his pen are modem renderings of classic Irish ro-
mances, etc.

Next to Canon O'Leary, Padraic O'Conaire is the most suo-
cessful modern Irish writer. His novels and short tales in Irish

THE MODERN LITERATURE OF IRELAND 677

are the "best-sellers" printed in Ireland. He has not so rich a
style as the master of modern Irish prose, but he is the most "mod-
em" of Irish or Anglo-Irish writers. A grim and gloomy realism,
combined with a skill in story-telling not excelled by Maupassant,
make him a writer whose works cannot be put down or ignored,
even if they be distasteful to the reader. His influence is seen in
Liam O'Rinn, the most promising of younger writers, who has writ-
ten wonderfully realistic, if drab, tales of modern Dublin, and, hav-
ing perfected a style based partly on the O'Leary tradition and
partly on the classic literature that O'Leary neglected, has ^ven
us a standard work in translating Mickiewicz's "Book of the Polish
Pilgrimage," a holy book of nationalism that has not yet appeared
in English.

"An Seabhac" and "Conan Maol" are two other writers of
short tales whose work cannot be overlooked. The former has
written a volume of humorous stories that are classic records of
country humour and models of a racy style. The latter is severely
dignified in style and will live, though not winning great popularity.

Padraic Pearse's Gaelic works are varied. His short tales,
done in the colloquial manner, lack idiomatic finish, but have the
strength of French short stories. They may be read in translation.
They mark a departure in our literature by introducing the "ex-
plosive opening" and other modernisms which were cried out
against by Gaelic purists, but have been established by O'Conaire's
highly modern art. Pearse stands almost alone in understanding —
as O'Grady understood — the dignity of the artificial classic style,
and he used this style very beautifully in some Gaelic political es-
says which yet await appreciation. His poetry was classic in metre,
but highly individual in matter. Old fashioned critics who objected
to the individuality of Pearse's verse did not realise that he was
harking back to the personal richness of the Golden Age.

There are living other Irish writers who excel O'Leary,
O'Conaire and Pearse in scholarship, in beauty of style, and per-
haps in potentiality, but they have yet to do their best work, and
it would be invidious to attempt comparisons. In the Gaelic quar-
terly, An Branar, their work may be seen. But the three names
here quoted are names that stand for personalities, each strongly
original and all dissimilar. Between the idyllic ruralism of
O'Leary, the modernism of O'Conaire, the passion, the vision, the
splendour of Pearse, there is room for a very notable literature to
grow up. There are many most encouraging signs of its early ap-
pearance.

678 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

II. The Literature of Anglo-Ireland

Gaelic Ireland is the real Ireland, the secret Ireland. Only in
the last twenty-five years has this been realised. Up to 1893
(when the Gaelic League was founded) Irish-Ireland was con-
temned, even by Irish patriots, and the pseudo-Ireland, the super-
ficial, historically insignificant English-speaking Ireland, was ac-
cepted as the true reality. Up to the date of the Great Famine,
the bulk of the nation was Irish speaking. Even down till the end
of the last century, English-writing authors in Ireland mostly came
of a caste partly separated from the mass of the people. Only in
our own days has Ireland been genuinely articulate in the English
language, and the best of modern Anglo-Irish literature owes some-
thing to English literature, while failing to express certain untrans-
latable elements of Irish-Ireland thought and feeling. Still,
Anglo-Irish literature is a not undistinguished body of work. It
falls into two chief divisions.

The first of these is the i8th century group. Molyneux was
the first, famous for his "Case of Ireland," ordered to be burnt by
the hangman because it contained such passages as this : "To tax
me without my consent is little better than downright robbing me"
and "There may be ill consequences if the Irish come to think of
their rights and liberties left to depend on the will of a legislature
wherein they are not parties." This spirited work played its part
later in inspiring the American revolutionaries, but Molyneux' brave
words in favour of liberty were intended to apply to the colonists
only: the authentic nation, the Gaelic race, the Catholic popula-
tion, he feared and detested as much as any of his political op-
ponents.

Similarly Bishop Berkeley, whose pamphlet, The Querist, is
often quoted as Nationalist propaganda, exhibits in his political
writings the same narrow colonial, or ascendancy, vision. The
Querist is directed against the ill economy of the wasteful As-
cendancy:

Whether an Irish lady, set out with French silks and Flanders lace,
may not be said to consume more beef and butter than a hun-
dred of our labouring peasants?

Whether nine-tenths of our foreign trade be not carried on singly
to support the article of vanity?

Whether it is not madness for a poor nation to imitate a rich one?

Whether a woman of fashion ought not to be declared a public enemy?

Whether as seed equally scattered produceth a goodly harvest, even
so an equal distribution of wealth doth not cause a nation to
flourish ?

THE MODERN LITERATURE OF IRELAND 679

But when Berkeley goes on to ask whether Ireland could not
support her population in full comfort even were a brass wall built
around the island, he is but the settler discussing the potentialities
of captured land. He asks whether "the upper parts of this peo-
ple" are not "English by blood, language, religion, manners, in-
clination and interest." The evils he inveighed against did not
touch the Gaelic masses, for their trouble was not uneven distribu-
tion of wealth, but political and economic annihilation.

Berkeley's celebrated works on philosophy belong to another
field than pure literature, but their English is esteemed as rank-
ing with the finest in lucidity and eloquence. We may note that he
is often written of as being, in philosophy, as Irish as Locke was
English and Hume Scottish. This is as just as it is plausible, for
Berkeley's thought was on the Platonic side of that line which is
said to divide all men into Platonists and Aristoteleans ; and from
the Druids and Duns Scotus down, Irish speculators have been
found on the Platonic side.

Swift was the most notable of the colonial writers, and the near-
est to a national figure, for his personality is inseparable from the
traditions of Dublin. He was an Englishman born and educated
in Ireland, but hating his life in that country. Some instinct in
his nature made him unusually sensitive to environment, for despite
his English blood, he is a true Irish type of the line Shane O'Neill,
Parnell, G. B. Shaw. The humbug-piercing cynicism, the cold-
blooded satire, the love of overthrowing other people's idols that
characterise that line of Irishmen wera supremely represented in
him. So mercilessly, so truthfully, did he satirise the feuds of
sects, that he was suspected by the dense of intending to ridicule
all religion. When he solemnly proposed that Irish poverty be
cured by using babies as food, he was quite in the Irish tradition of
solemnly shocking criminal indifference with the logical, if absurd,
working out of its principles. He was Irish, too, in his feminism.
In the 1 8th century, a Turkish attitude to women prevailed, and
it needed courage In a man of his creed and class, to declare that
"the same virtues equally become both sexes."

Goldsmith, who resembled Swift In wit and chivalry, was of a
tenderer nature, and perhaps came nearer to expressing the Irish
spirit In his writings, though they were not directly associated with
Ireland. Like Swift, he came into contact with Gaelic Ireland, for
If Swift did an Irish poem (O'Rourke's feast) into English and
(perhaps) derived the plot of "Gulliver's Travels" from the Gaelic
story "Elsirt," Goldsmith met Carolan in the flesh. Had Gold-
smith been born In a cottier's hut, had he frequented the humble

68o THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

bardic courts, he might have assumed Keating's mantle, and bent
Irish prose to the range of modern thought. In "The Deserted
Village" we feel we arc touching Ireland. In 1740 (when Gold-
smith was aged 12) Ireland was desolated by a famine that dis-
peopled whole villages — ^400,000 people perished. Hence the
gloomy colours of the famous poem. The lament contains some
sound Irish political economy, and the whole is a vignette of i8th
century Ireland.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey
Where wealth accumulates and men decay :
Princes or lords may flourish or may fade,
A breath could make them as a breath has made ;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride
When once destroyed can never be supplied.

Goldsmith and Sheridan hold high places in English drama,
ranking only below Shakespeare. Something more than a thread
connects these i8th century Anglo-Irish dramatists with Wilde and
Bernard Shaw, masters of social comedy in our own days. The
satiric trait in the Irish temperament (strengthened by Irish his-
tory!) finds congenial expression in the drama; verbal wit, flashing
dialogue, colloquial prose, all vital elements of a dramatic style,
come easily to the Irish pen. The flexibility of style which marks
Anglo-Irish prose writers, particularly the dramatists, is traceable to
the animation of Irish conversation, which in turn is attributable to
our bilingual conditions. The grammatic opulence of the Gaelic
tongue makes Irish use of the English language lively and apt; and
authors ignorant of Gaelic itself may reap benefit from the vitality
of popular speech. To this day in Ireland an expressive, rhythmic
English is spoken such as the English Elizabethans heard around
them, though it died in England not long after their great days.
Anglo-Irish prose offers the most imitative worthy models, the
bright, easy, clear and forceful English of Berkeley, Goldsmith and
Swift contrasting with the stilted and laborious prose of Johnson or
Gibbon.

The cause to which we attribute this flexibility of style Is also
accountable for Anglo-Irish writers' eminence in translation. Fran-
cis' "Horace," Gary's "Dante," Mangan's renderings from Irish,
German and Oriental tongues, Fitzgerald's "Omar" — these are but
a few examples.

Mention must not be omitted of Grattan's orations— ornate,
eloquent, unsurpassable rhetoric. But a contemporary of the great
parliamentarian calls for more particular notice — ^Wolfe Tone.

THE MODERN LITERATURE OF IRELAND 68 1

Tone's "Autobiogaphy" is one of the very greatest works of Anglo-
Irish literature, little as it is appreciated by the critics. Padraic
Pearse used to carry it about with him like a Gospel, and indeed,
it is one of the gospels of Irish nationality. It reveals the most
lovable personality who ever set pen to paper in Ireland. We
cannot read it today without tears for his wistful memories of his
runaway marriage on "one beautiful morning in June," thrills for
his patriotic ideals, bitterness for his defeat, and heartfelt enthusi-
asm for his heroic example.

Thomas Moore was accused by Hazlitt of "turning the wild
harp of Erin into a musical snuff-box" — a criticism worthy of a
man with a satiric Irish strain. It corrects the idolisation of
Moore which prevailed in the anglicised 19th century. But while
we do right to remember that Moore's prettiness is not the majesty
amd passion of the authentic Gael, yet he should be honoured be-
cause, in however artificial a manner, he did keep alive a belief in
"the days of old" '

... ere the emerald gem of the western world
Was set in the crown of a stranger.

He was of the prevailing "romantic" school: but romance was
better than darkness, in the absence of certainty.

The second division of Anglo-Irish literature comprises the
writers of the "Nation," the men of '48 and their immediate suc-
cessors. These energetic young men set out to create a national
literature in English. They owed nothing to the i8th century
school. Belonging to the Ascendancy class, they knew nothing of
the Gael, save what was being introduced to the scholars' attention
by O' Curry and O' Donovan. Their rousing national ballads were
mostly composed on foreign models, and John Mitchel's mighty
prose was marred by imitation of rhetorical Carlyle. The great-
est by far was Thomas Davis. His was a mind of encyclopedic
range, though not very deep learning. Ardently and persuadingly
he pleaded in his glowing essays for a national art, for reading-
rooms, for historical studies, for industrial development. His
poems have never been excelled as patriotic verse. "The West's
Awake" will never lose popularity, but his songs of rural life, prais-
ing sturdy country manners and simple joys, were equally part of
his prophetic message to his people. His supreme teaching was —
the return of Gaelicism. "Ireland free," he said, "yes, but at all
hazards, Ireland Gaelic." Laughed at by the superficial, he
preached revival of the Gaelic tongue, and set about its study him-

682 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

self. He died with but three crowded years of work to his credit.
The Famine came and struck down all the national energies. It
was left to our own days for men to take up Davis's work, and his
essays are the program of the Irish-Ireland movement to-day.

Though Davis was greatest as a national teacher, Clarence
Mangan was greatest as a literary artist. He differed from Davis,
too, in being immersed in Gaelic style; his poetry is full of Gaelic
imagery and music. He is to Irish what Chapman is to Homer.
His Gaelicism renders him strange and difficult to English critics;
otherwise he would be recognised as one of the greatest poets using
English in his days. He was capable of magnificent symbolism as
in this lament for the Irish princes :

Theirs were not souls wherein dull Time
Could domicile decay, or house Decrepitude,

and of unforgettable passionate imagery, as in Dark Rosaleen,
Meehal Dhu MacGiolla Keerin and Cathleen-ny-Houlihan.

Sir Samuel Ferguson must be mentioned with Mangan because,
though his style was less racily Gaelic, and derived more from
classical study, he aided in presenting Gaelic tradition through Eng-
lish verse. He was more scholarly and more artistic than the po-
litical writers of the Nation, but his patriotism was less from the
heart. His poem describing The Burial of King Cormac — ^telling
how the Boyne water carried away the corpse of the King who
wished not to be buried with his pagan sires — gives us both the
atmosphere of the Boyne country and a true picture of the splendid
and barbaric pre-patrician age. His Lays of the Western Gael
bring up a vivid pageant of the Red Branch figures.

The reader who possesses Mitchel's Jail Journal (the second
gospel of Irish nationality), the Spirit of the Nation (an anthology
of the Nation poets), the Essays of Davis, and the poems of Man-
gan and Ferguson, has a fairly complete collection of Anglo-Irish
literature of this group.

We have thus far made no allusion to fiction, for the reason
that it is in poetry and the essay that Ireland found some degree
of national expression, while fiction is a more external or impres-
sionist matter. Maria Edgeworth's name is a great one in Eng-
lish literature, and her brilliant tales of i8th century Ascendancy
life in Ireland deserve attention, though they cannot be described
as an expression of the nation. Carleton*s tales contain a rich gal-
lery of pictures of the people's life in the early 19th century, but
their anti-Irish bias renders them displeasing to modern readers.

THE MODERN LITERATURE OF IRELAND 683

Love and Lever wrote rollicking tales which are similarly disap-
proved of because they distorted Irish life to please the prejudices
of a contemptuous English maiket. The judicious reader, of
course, can peruse these works with interest and profit, but they
are intrinsically unnational. Kickham's Knocknagow is the one out-
standing Irish novel of the age that is national, inoffensive and
historic.

CHAPTER LXXVIII

SINN FEIN

The world is witnessing in Ireland an extraordinary national renais-
sance, which expresses itself in literature, art, industry, social ideal-
ism, religious fervour and personal self-sacrifice. Deprived of the
means of learning, impoverished and ground dorwn, the Irish people
for 200 years have not known culture or freedom, and their history
for that period is gloomy reading.

The country in these long years lay fallow, but the soil was
good. In the closing years of the 19th century the untilled field was
ploughed up and sown in by the Gaelic League. From this educa-
tional movement which began in 1893 the whole revival of Irish-
Ireland may be dated.*

Recovering some measure of strength at last after the exhaus-
tion of the famine years, but disheartened and confused by the col-
lapse of the Parnell movement, Ireland welcomed the Gaelic League

1 At the very beginning of the Gaelic League movement a Gaelic song, sung
from the gallery of a Dublin theatre by William Rooney and some fellow en-
thusiasts (the first of its kind ever heard in such place) had thrilling effect upon
many of the hearers— especially upon Ethna Carbery who commemorated the
event in her poem:

A GAELIC SONG

A murmurous tangle of voices.

Laughter to left and ri^t,
We waited the curtain's rising,

In a glare of electric light;
When down through the din came, slowly.

Softly, then clear and strong,
The mournful minor cadence

Of a sweet old Gaelic song.

Like the trill of a lark new-risen.

It trembled upon the air, ^
And wondering eyes were lifted

To seek for the singer there ;
Some dreamed of the thrush at noontide.

Some fancied a linnet's wail.
While the notes went sobbing, sighing,

O'er the heartstrings of the Gael.

The lights grew blurred, and a vision

Fell upon all who heard —
The purple of moorland heather

By a wonderful wind was stirred;
684

SINN FEIN

685

as a new and hopeful means of exerting her national energies. The
League spread like fire. With its pageants, its countryside "feise-
anna" or festivals, its Gaelic song and music, rich with memories,
its lectures on the forgotten glories of the Gael, it roused the whole
mind of the country. Thainig anam in Eirinn — a soul came into
Ireland. The popular imagination recovered a vision of historic
Ireland, that traditional nation whose heroes were not the orators
of College Green but the O'Neills and the Fianna and the chivalry
of the Red Branch. Twenty-five years ago, the multitude were
stark ignorant of the names of Conall Cearnach, Luke Wadding,
Ceitinn, Raftery: to-day the traditional lore is at least as fam-
iliar as the English lore which had threatened utterly to usurp it.
To-day, too, Gaelic education has its numerous summer colleges
and diocesan colleges; it has assumed something like its proper na-
tional position in all the better seminaries, and no scholar can enter
the National University without a knowledge of the Irish tongue.

The centre of gravity in national life changed from the angli-
cised towns to the rural population, sturdy, unspoilt, patriotic, virile,
the offspring and living representatives of the traditional Gael.
Hence Irish politics began forthwith to reflect the mind of the real
Irish race.

Green rings of rushes went swaying,
Gaunt boughs of Winter made moan ;

One saw the glory of Life go by,
And one saw Death alone.

A river twined through its shallows,

Cool waves crept up on a strand.
Or fierce, like a mighty army.

Swept wide on a conquered land;
The Dead left cairn and barrow.

And passed in noble train.
With sheltering shield, and slender spear —

Ere the curtain rose again.

The four great seas of Eire

Heaved under fierce ships of war,
The God of Battles befriended,

Wie saw the Starl the Star!
We nerved us for deeds of daring,

For Right we stood against Wrong;
We heard the prayer of our mothers,

In that sweet old Gaelic song.

It was the soul of Eire

Awaking in speech she knew.
When the clans held the glens and the mountains,

And the hearts of her chiefs were true :
She hath stirred at last in her sleeping,

She is folding her dreams away,
The hour of her destiny neareth—-

And it may be to-day— to-day t

686 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

We now see Ireland, in the new century new-awakened to self-
consciousness, a stout rural nation, filled with new pride in its past,
and feeling after means to achieve a worthy future. Throughout
the country, a band of enthusiasts toils at an intellectual movement
— studies a difficult and educative language, reads history and all
manner of books on national construction, and acts as a ferment to
the whole people.

Extraordinary little newspapers and magazines, written volun-
tarily by enthusiasts, began to appear. The most important was the
United Irishman,^ edited by Mr. Arthur Griffith (the Hamlet of
the whole story) and contributed to by scores of brilliant writers
of verse, drama, tale, essay and research-work. This weekly, vol-
untary, paper, published work that has since taken rank among the
immortal things of Irish literature. Parallel to this journalistic
movement, a dramatic movement, led by W. B. Yeats and Lady
Gregory, was proceeding in the Abbey Theatre.

This intellectual ferment called for a political expression. You
could not have all young Ireland brimful with enthusiasm for the
glories of the Gael, primed with ambition to see again on Irish
soil a hale and lovely polity like that of old, eager to use hand
and brain In patriot work, and yet rest content tp mark time behind
a (Parliamentary) political movement that seemed to have lost
momentum, and which certainly gave no promise that it was seek-
ing an Ireland such as was now envisioned.

In 1905 Mr. Griffith and his friends put before the nation a
new political movement. In Dublin on Nov. 28, 1905, a National
CounciP was called into being for the purpose of organising the
nation with a view to withdrawing the representatives sitting at
Westminster and setting up a provisional Irish Parliament made up
of these members and representatives of public bodies. This de
facto Parliament would call upon the people to co-operate with it
voluntarily in the administration of Ireland. In a newly-founded
weekly, Sinn Fein (succeeding the United Irishman), Mr. Griffith
proceeded to show how the nation could thus conduct its own affairs
even while the national parliament was denied recognition by out-
side powers.

Thus, through the Harbour Boards, difficulties could be im-
posed in the "dumping" of foreign goods, which would amount to

2 Preceded by the Shan Van Vocht, which, edited by Ethna Carbery and
Alice Milligan, first awaked the new national enthusiasm, and did splendid pioneer
work.

"For sake of historical record it may be stated that those who first met and
formed this National Council were: Arthur Griffith, Maud Gonne MacBride,
Alderman Tom Kelly, Henry Dixon, Seumas MacManus, and Edward Martyn.

SINN FEIN 687

a system of protection for Irish industries. The public could be
organised for the support of native industry, and capital could be
encouraged by the offer of rate-free sites, etc. Arbitration Courts
could be set up everywhere, superseding the British courts in civil
matters. National insurance could be undertaken. National banks
could divert from foreign fields the Irish money which could so
much more profitably be invested in buying up Irish land, financing
Irish developments and extending Irish control of home resources.
A national mercantile marine could be co-operatively bought and
set to carrying Irish produce to those Continental markets which
offered so much better prices than the English markets to which
English ships carried Irish cattle and manufactured goods. Irish
commercial agents — consuls — could be sent to the great foreign
trade centres.*

It was this policy of boycotting foreign institutions, and of
"non-co-operation" with the usurping power, which, under Deak's
leadership, won Hungary the status of an independent nation in
the struggle with Austria that culminated in 1867. Griffith's per-
sonality is in ways reminiscent of Deak's. In Hungarian history
you will read that Deak was above all other things, inflexible. He
was not an "extremist," but he was trusted by those who went far-
ther than he did because they knew that he would never be betrayed
into standing for a party instead of for a nation. He would do
nothing to help Austria govern Hungary. He preached the pure
doctrine of nationality. The blandishments of the Emperor, paper
promises of a constitution, the actual setting-up of a subordinate
Home-Rule parliament; all failed to extort one sign of recognition
from this iron leader. When even all his demands were promised
him if he would promise in return Hungarian military aid, he re-
fused to be moved. Freedom was a right, not a thing to be bar-
gained for. Only when the free Hungarian constitution was brought
into being did he extend the hand of friendship.

That has been Arthur Griffith's attitude, and the fact that his
policy has made such remarkable progress is due to his iron refusal

*Thb policy was not wholly a novel one. Daniel O'Connell once contem-
plated summoning a Council of Three Hundred, withdrawing representation at
Westminster, and proceeding to legislate for the country. The idea had been en-
thusiastically taken up by the Young Irelanders, but when O'Connell found he had
a militant and united nation behind him, he abandoned the scheme. That it had
frightened the British supremacy is clear from Lord John Russell s dictum: In
six months the power and function of government will be wrested from our
hands, and the Lord Lieutenant will sit powerless in Dublin Castle. The Arbitra-
tion Courts which had been prepared with a view to superseding the tngUsh
courts, were surrendered as well as the Council, and Ireland heard no more ot
the proposal until it was brought to mind by Griffith.

688 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

to compromise on any point, or to parley, until liberty is brought
into being. A pen-portrait thus describes him: . . . "A small
man, very sturdily built, nothing remarkable about his appearance
except his eyes, which are impenetrable and steely; taciturn, deliber-
ate, speaking when he does speak with the authority and finality of
genius, totally without rhetoric, under complete self-control, and
the coolest and best brain in Ireland." And: "He believes in-
tensely in himself, and he has no real faith in anybody else, so that
he is always more or less cold towards anybody who tries to do any
political work in or about his own particular sphere. . . . Once
he has made up his mind on anything he never changes. In con-
troversy he is like a bull-dog: he is always the last to let go, and
by that time there isn't much left of the other man's case. As a
controversialist he Is able and . . . unscrupulous,' but he is nearly
always right." The same writer adds that "he is naturally a be-
liever in evolutionary methods in politics rather than in revolu-
tionary methods, and. In a free Ireland, would I think be found on
the side of what The Times would call 'stability.' He is no great
believer in the rights of man, and modern radical catch-cries leave
him cold; his creed being rather the rights of nations and the du-
ties of man, the rights of a nation being freedom and the allegiance
and service of all its children, and the rights of man being to fear
God and serve his nation. He believes in the State as against the
individual."

We give this extended account of Arthur Griffith, because it
may justly be said that his personality is the Sinn Fein movement.
Though he alone could not have made Sinn Fein the power in Ire-
land that it is, yet those brilliant minds, those fighters and doers,
who brought his movement to its present position, would without
him have been disunited and perhaps conflicting forces. In particu-
lar, the Volunteer movement, had it stood as a Physical Force
movement alone, would have resulted in a disastrous and disheart-
ening failure such as took the heart out of former generations in
Ireland. When Easter Week was over, and the insurgents were
crushed, the country was not broken as after '98 or '48 or '67, be-
cause the large fabric of the comprehensive Sinn Fein policy re-
mained, and the sacrifice of Pearse and his comrades served but as
a stimulus to the masses to carry on the work of industrial revival,
language-restoration, etc.

Griffith, in his long years of propaganda, had taught the rising

* It is just to say, here, that the writer of this foot-note, long intimate with
Griffith's work, can recall nothing to justify this surprising charge. — S. M. M.

SINN FEIN 689

generation that nationality was to be served in every act of life.
The pages of Sinn Fein teemed with ideas, represented every phase
of national existence. Art, literature, the drama, economics, in-
dustry, sociology; all such topics were discussed by enthusiasts, and
plans were even laid for a national decimal coinage of which the
unit was to be the Gael (equivalent to the Franc) . When in 19 10
Mr. Redmond secured the Balance of Power in the British Parlia-
ment, Mr. Griffith suspended the organising of Sinn Fein as a po-
litical party, giving the Parliamentary leader a free hand to achieve
whatever he could achieve for Ireland with the parliamentary
weapon. For years, then, Sinn Fein was apparently dormant, its
only large activity being the publication of the weekly with its con-
structive and critical articles. Mr. Griffith believed that the parlia-
mentary dice was weighted against Ireland, and that at the critical
moment, the rival British parties would coalesce, rather than be
played off against each other to yield Irish freedom. So he bided
his time. It may here be remarked that one man could have wielded
the weapon of Abstention with force at that time. Mr. Redmond
had the leadership of the nation and could have secured its approval
of a dramatic leaving of the House of Commons when the Liberals
played Ireland false. It is a tragedy that (for whatever cause)
he was not able to co-operate with Arthur Griffith in this way.
Much blood and sorrow might have been spared.

Unhappily Redmond allowed himself to be coerced by the
threats of Sir Edward Carson, and early in 19 14, accepted the prin-
ciple of Partition. Weakness, and perhaps anglicisation led him
to almost abject surrender, and ever since, English politicians have
used the authority of an Irish leader for a policy of dividing the
Irish nation. In Ireland, there was horror and almost despair.
Meanwhile, Nationalists had organised a Volunteer force nupiber-
ing up to 200,000 to repel the threat of Sir Edward Carson's
Volunteers, who were armed with the connivance of English mili-
tary authorities and at the expense of English Unionists. There
was even talk of Civil War on the eve of the Great War : but this
must be largely discounted as journalistic sensationalism, since the
Ulster Volunteer, who would not even subscribe for his own equip-
ment, not parade without the free gift of a bowler-hat, was not
likely to play the hero in the field against men fighting for a real
cause. Indeed, when the Great War came, only one in ten of these
loyal warriors enlisted for the defence of the Empire which they
professed to love so dearly.

But the Great War found the Irish situation under the influence
of another element than Unionism, Parliamentarianism and Sinn

690 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Fein — an element which we have not yet referred to, to wit, Fe-
nianism, or Republicanism. A Physical Force party, aiming at an
independent Irish Republic, owned a monthly paper, Irish Freedom,
and through a series of "Wolfe Tone Clubs," exerted an influence
on public opinion that was far from being negligible. This party
enjoyed the allegiance of several of the best brains of modern Ire-
land: in particular, it numbered among its leading adherents, Pa-
draic Pearse, one of the most remarkable men of his age.

Parnell had said that Fenianism was the backbone of the na-
tion. Though not a Physical Force man himself, he did nothing to
check the activities of those who believed in freeing Ireland by
armed conflict: he refused to be "England's policeman." And so
his own movement was the stronger because his opponents knew
that if it were withdrawn they would have to deal with the desperate
men who stood behind. Even so, Grattan once had used the men-
ace of the Volunteers of 1782. But Fenianism appeared to the
outer world to have perished in our own days. A few old Fenians
here and there, "embers" kept the fire of freedom aflame in the
country, and some, like the venerable John O'Leary, preached that
Physical Force was needed, not because it was capable of winning
against England, but because sacrifice alone would keep Nationality
alive.

How far Fenianism survived as an organisation only the ini-
tiates could tell; but it is a known fact that Fenianism definitely
took up arms again some years before the war.

The Fenians adopted from Fintan Lalor the motto: "Repeal
not the Union, but the Conquest." These were lean years for Sinn
Fein, but these two small parties of enthusiasts worked side by side
without acrimony. Each was equally devoted to the full Irish-Ire-
land program of a Gaelicised nation. The Fenians were the active
element in the Volunteers when that extraordinary armed move-
ment came into being : but they did not at first control the new de-
velopment.

Such, then, were the factors in the Irish situation on which the
Great War descended in August, 19 14.

CHAPTER LXXIX

EASTER RISING

'Tis said that the first shots in the Great War were fired in Ireland.
This happened on July 26th, 19 14, a beautiful summer Sunday. It
came about thus :

Early in 19 14 the Carsonite Volunteers, with the connivance of
British sympathisers in high places, ran a big cargo of arms ashore
at Lame, and distributed them over Ulster by motors flying through
the night. The e3q)loit was carried out with excellent generalship,
and one life, that of an over-excited official, was lost. Those were
dull days in world affairs — the calm before the storm — and the
press received the news with voracious jey. Every newspaper pub-
lished thrilling (often imaginative) accounts, garnished with maps
and war-artists' pictures. The public enjoyed a sensation bigger
than anything since the Boer War. Forthwith, the British Gov-
ernment prohibited the importation of arms into Ireland, lest the
Nationalists shoufd secure weapons too.

On Sunday, July 19th, the Dublin Volunteers were mobilised
for a route march. A big column assembled at the Volunteer
grounds at Clontarf after Mass, and received orders to march
towards Howth. Only one or two officers knew what the day's
program was, and the section commanders and rank and file obe-
diently tramped out along the side of Dublin Bay, turning off to the
left, according to orders, where a bye-road leads to Baldoyle, a
little village near a racecourse. The Volunteers were, as usual,
watched by police. This being the first big muster of Volunteers,
perhaps a suspicion passed through the mihds of both the Volun-
teers and the police, that some coup was being planned. However,
arrived at Baldo^e, the column was dismissed and allowed to take
refreshments. After an hour or so, the whistles sounded, and the
men were marched back to DubKn. Nothing remarkable had hap-
pened. There was talk that at the next route march there would
probably be some drill in field operations. . . .

On the following Sunday, the volunteers were again mobilised.
Nearly a thousand paraded. As tliey hurried from all parts of

e9i

692 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

Dublin to the parade ground, they saw announcements on the
Sunday paper placards of a serious international crisis that had been
brought about through Austria's quarrel with Serbia. The very
sensitive minds felt, perhaps, the first tremors of the coming
cataclysm.

Out towards Howth they marched once more, singing their
marchings songs, "Clare's Dragoons," "Step Together," and the
"Soldiers' Song." Only a few knew the words of this last and
none guessed that In less than three years it would be as popular
with the Irish race as "God Save Ireland." Out the Howth Road
they swung along and past Kilbarrack churchyard; but instead of
turning to the left for Baldoyle, they were led past Sutton on
towards the great hill of Howth itself.

When the column reached the narrow isthmus which links
Howth to the mainland, the island of Ireland's Eye could be seen to
the left across the sunny green waters. Past it, making for Howth
Harbour, a small yacht was sailing. None of the Volunteers, save
perhaps three men, knew what that yacht was carrying in her hold.
When the Volunteers reached the foot of Howth pier, they were
halted. The yacht was then nearing the mouth of the harbour.
Suddenly, as the white sails dropped and the little craft ran under
the lighthouse, and around the pierhead, the order was passed along
the line to double down the pier. Vaguely sensing that something
notable was afoot, the Volunteers ran. Small contingents of picked
men appeared from no one knew where and guarded the foot of
the pier with automatic pistols. Coast guards venturing to interfere
found themselves looking into the muzzles of lethal weapons and
desisted. Police, going to barracks to telephone to Dublin discov-
ered that wires had been cut and that Howth was isolated. And
then —

The column had been halted along the pier. The little yacht
was moored at the pierhead. Heavy batons of wood with leather
wrist-straps were dealt out and a hundred or so Volunteers were
armed therewith. Suddenly it was noticed that in the summer sun-
light straw-bound objects were being handed up from the boat to
those Volunteers who held the pierhead. Straining eyes saw the
straw torn away, and the Irish Volunteers' first rifles appearing!

An indescribable shriek of cheers went up. The column broke,
and men dashed forward, eager to get arms. For a few minutes
the officers had difficulty in restoring order. "Have patience," they
said. "Don't fear — ^there's enough to go 'round."

And so, in a few minutes, every Volunteer held a heavy rifle

EASTER RISING 693

in his hands, while motors shot away with further stands and boxes
of ammunition.

Loudly were the armed men cheered by holiday makers at
Howth, people on tramtops and by roadside, as they marched
back to the city, their rifles on their shoulders. Word of their
approach was carried ahead of them, by, it may be assumed, a
police motor. Bodies of police marched behind them, and when,
after 9 miles' tramping, they neared Clontarf, the Volunteer cycle
scouts rode back to the column with word that a detachment of
British soldiers blocked the way into the city. The marching
column drew up a few score feet from the sinister khaki line. Their
officers received from a police official the intimation that they must
surrender their arms. The officers temporised. The police official,
on some technical point, was acting beyond his powers, though in
the spirit of his authorities. The discussion between the two parties
was accordingly prolonged. While the argument over technicalities
lasted the Volunteers quietly dispersed and got away across fields
to safe hiding places for their guns. And so battle was avoided.
Yet it was touch-and-go, and had ammunition been served out
instead of prudently held back by the Volunteer leaders, there
would undoubtedly have ensued a bloody episode with huge casu-
alties.^

But though the armed men thus got their weapons away without
a clash of arms, the day was not to end in peace. The khaki forces
marching back to barracks were hooted by a mob that resented an
attempt to disarm Nationalists while Carsonites were encouraged
to arm. The soldiers fired two volleys into the crowd. Four
people were in cold blood shot dead and about fifty wounded.

This tragic occurrence shocked the whole country. Mr.
Asquith's efforts to gloze over the shooting of civilians infuriated
the insulted nation. The victims' funeral was one of the most
impressive events ever witnessed In Dublin. Hundreds of thou-
sands participated. Volunteers kept order and fired a military
salute over the graves. There was a breath of revolution in the air.

And then the Great War began. Everyone felt that those shots

* One body of worthy ones, who materially aided in the saving of the guns—
as well as in other good projects — was the fine, and well-trained body of patriotic
Irish lads, the Fianna na hEireann. They were a body of brave boys enrolled by
a brave Irishwoman, who fought gallantly, and suffered sorely for Ireland, the
Countess Markievicz. The admirable G)n Colbert, who smilingly met the martyr
death dealt to the patriot leaders of the Easter Rising, was one of the Fian— and
had become a diief trainer of them. He had an able assistant in another lovable
Fian graduate, and rebel leader, Liam Mellowes.

'694 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

at dvilians in Dublin had been the first blows in the conflict. Appeals
were now made to Irishmen to rally to the defence of England!
Mr. Asquith, visiting Dublin to address a great ticket meeting, had
to approach the hall through armed guards, and the demonstration
secured, it is said, only six recruits.^

When Mr. Redmond, who had promised unreserved Irish aid
in the war without even stipulating that national freedom should
firsfrbe ensured* went farther, and declared that the Irish Volunteers'
duty was to enlist en masse under England's flag, the founders of
thfe Volunteer organisation revolted, and the movement was split.
The original Volunteers were a minority, but they were a deter-
mined body of men, and as Irish nationality received one rebuff
after another, and coercion was used against Irishmen of inde-
pendent standing, an increasing body of discontented or disillusioned
people passed over to the "extreme" camp. In 19 14 the majority
was with Mr. Redmond. By the beginning of 19 16 his Volunteers
bad melted away and he was a lonely, disappointed, failing man. On
St. Patrick's Day of that year, a wonderful demonstration took
place, a vast body of Volunteers parading in College Green before
the old Parliament House, and saluting Eoin MacNeill, recognised
leader of the recalcitrants. It was then clear that the Volunteer
movement was definitely in the opposite camp to Mr. Redmond,
and was both powerful and determined. Nobody doubted now
that an armed conflict between this well-organised body and the
forces of the Crown was something more than a lively possibility.

Professor MacNeill, however, was known to be a cautious and
moderate man, who then followed a policy far short of the republi-
can. He was in favour of accepting and defending Home Rule. He
wished to see the Volunteers' organisation brought to a pitch of
completeness that would enable the leaders, at the war's end, to
confront England with an armed nation demanding its promised
freedom. He was not in favour ®f striking for a republic to be
achieved by force of arms, though it is, of course, impossible to say
whether he would not have agreed to an insurrection had Germany
been able to send forces and arms that would render such action
seriously formidable to British power.

How came it, then, that insurrection without German aid ulti-
mately came about? The answer is found in the personality of two
men — Padraic Pearse and James Connolly.

Without doubt, Pearse was one of the most remarkable men

2 The meeting was attended by Mr. Redmond's fstithful "loyalists" and the
Anglo-Irish. Admission by ticket was arranged, to prevent the real Irish from
smashing it up.

EASTER RISING 695

ever born in Ireland. His curious and powerful writings expound
a philosophy that sets the Irish cause in the light of a tremendous
religious mission. As an educationalist alone, Pearse came with a
message destined to work profound revolution in the nation's
intellectual life. Starting, as it were, where the Gaelic League
left off, to wit: at the conviction that Irish must be restored to the
position it enjoyed in Gaelic days if the nation is to preserve its
apostolicity, he went farther, and showed that the whole system of
education in Ireland, and the intellectual standards of the educated,
must be utterly changed. He advocated bilingualism on the ground
that it made for rich intellectual development, and having studied
bilingual education in Belgium, he expounded it in the press and in
practice. Irish was made the school language at St. Enda's, his
school, only the sciences in which a Gaelic vocabulary is lacking
being taught in English. But his educational ideals went far farther
than bilingualism. He held that "heroic literature, the national
sagas, should take a prime place in school curricula. At St. Enda's
every boy was made as familiar with Cuchulainn and Fionn as in
other schools he would be with Macaulay. Heroic pageants and
Passion Plays were enacted while lectures from eminent literati
introduced the lads to realms of modern culture. Further, the
common relation of master and pupil was changed for that of
teacher and disciple. Pearse held that Our Lord, moving with the
Twelve about the countryside and feeding them on the richness of
His wisdom, was the ideal type towards which education should
aspire.

Pearse held that English commercialism was the wickedest
thing that ever corrupted the hearts of great nations. Irish nation-
ality, on the other hand, he saw as a sacred trust, committed to
the race by God, who spoke through Tone and Mitchel and Davis
and Labor as the Four Evangelists of Ireland, and was crucified in
Robert Emmet, who made the supreme sacrifice to keep the spirit
of the nation alive. Every generation, Pearse said, must make
protest in blood against foreign dommion ; otherwise Ireland's claim
to independent nationhood would be annulled. He quoted the in-
spired utterance that "without blood there is no remission of sins,"
and both in his school and in his writings preached ceaselessly the
beauty of sacrifice. In one of his most typical school plays, a saintly
youth takes the place of the king at the head of a failing army, and
by the gift of his young life wins a victory. "Let me do this little
thing, O King," says the boy as he goes forth to death. That was
Pearse's most typical and most actually personal line.

When the war came, Pearse brooded even more seriously on

696 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

the need of an armed rising. When every other subject people
rose for freedom, was Ireland alone to make no sign? She must
fight, if not with hope of success, then in the spirit of a blood
sacrifice to demonstrate her undying resolve to win ultimate free-
dom. This Pearse preached to the people, speaking at meetings
where, with a religious solemnity, he made his hearers stand as for
the recitation of the Creed in Church, and repeat after him: "I
believe in One Irish Nation, and that Free."

And yet Pearse was slow to consent to the Rising. Undoubtedly
he expected and relied on an armed conflict in Ireland before the
Great War should end, but he was resolved to strike when the blow
should have best chance of success. It is generally believed, and is
probably the case, that James Connolly was responsible for the
hurrying of things to an issue.

Connolly was a Socialist, and the Socialist Republican Party
which he founded before the '98 Centenary was an active force in
the revival of separation. He believed in the Marxian doctrine of
Social Revolution with more earnestness than the Socialists of
other countries, who professed to be revolutionaries, but feared
revolution no less than other classes of the community. Connolly
worked at all times to bring about that violent revolt against the
Capitalist system from which the new order was expected to rise.
Pearse, no less than Connolly, was opposed to the Capitalist order
and looked to see new Ireland blossom is a co-operative common-
wealth; but he did not share Connolly's reliance on Class War:
he hoped to see patriotism, by fnspiring all classes with a
lofty ideal, direct the nation to a nobler order than the present.
Connolly, however, was no doctrinaire Socialist : he was not pledged
to a communistic future, and would have supported any program
which made for democracy in industry and equitable d'stribution of
wealth and power. He was as intensely patriotic as any anti-
socialist, and when awaiting execution said to his daughter : "Other
socialists will not understand why I am here — ^they forget that I
am an Irishman."^

Connolly is said to have told his friends in 19 14 that he would
not let the war end without striking a blow for revolution. In the
early part of 19 16, his paper preached revolt in unmistakable terms.
Undoubtedly his propaganda hastened the ultimate decision.
During the Lent preceding the Rising he published such fiercely
rebellious matter that no reader could doubt his intention. It was
expected that the Castle would raid Liberty Hall and destroy the
revolutionary printing press. So, to defend liberty of utterance, a
Citizen Army guard stood with loaded rifles, day and night, pre-

EASTER RISING 697

pared to resist to the end. Just a week before Easter, the Irish
Tricolour was hoisted over the Hall as if the Republic were already
in being. The atmosphere was tense. Various raids, captures of
arms, strange threats and rumours, filled the public mind with the
impression that something sensational was afoot. It was thought
that an attempt might soon be made to disarm the Volunteers, and
people vaguely wondered what resistance could be offered.

On Easter Sunday two mysterious items in the papers sent a
thrill of sensation through the country. The first was a report of
how a motor carrying unknown persons, driving furiously in the
dark towards the Kerry coast, had taken a wrong turn and plunged
into an arm of the sea. The second was this note, signed by Eoin
MacNeill, chairman of the Volunteers :

"Owing to the very critical position, all orders given to Irish
Volunteers for to-morrow, Easter Sunday, are hereby rescinded,
and no parades, marches, or other movements of Irish Volunteers
will take place. Each individual Volunteer will obey this order
strictly in every partiailar."

It needed little imagination to guess that the motor car accident
had been in connection with some landing of arms or persons, and
Professor MacNeill's order clearly showed that some stupendous
crisis had just been passed.

What had happened was, that Roger Casement had landed in
Kerry, had failed to be met by those who were to take him to his
destination, and had been captured by police, identified, and hurried
away, a prisoner, to London. Simultaneously, a liner, now named
the Aud, which accompanied Casement's submarine, disguised as a
Norwegian timber ship, but really carrying 20,000 rifles, millions
of rounds of ammunition, with machine guns and explosives, had
been stopped by a British patrol boat near Tralee, where the arms
were to be landed. Flying the German flag, the Aud was scuttled
by its own crew.

A Rising had been planned for Easter Sunday. The news of
Casement's arrest and the loss of the cargo of arms had reached
the Volunteer headquarters, and it is believed that Casement at the
last moment got an appeal through to abandon the project. It is not
known whether the Volunteer council as a whole had decided
on insurrection, or whether it was the secret intention of the
Fenian section only. But in any case, the proposal was
negatived and Eoin MacNeill sent the Countermanding Order
broadcast through the land. The manoeuvres arranged for
Easter Sunday — ^which from drill were to have been transformed

698 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

into action — were abandoned, and the Insurrection appeared to be
definitely and finally "off."

But on Easter Monday, soon after noon, the Irish Republic was
proclaimed in Dublin, and the insurgent Tricolour suddenly broke
on startled eyes from the flagstaff above the General Post Office in
the heart of the Irish capital.

What caused the change of plan? This. — ^The British govern-
ment learnt from the sinking of the Aud how nearly insurrection
had come to pass, and the decision was made to seize the Volunteer
executive and break up the organisation. No sooner was the
decision made than it was communicated to the threatened parties
by their Secret Service. On Easter Sunday the Volunteer council
sat to consider a situation which was in substance this: a simul-
taneous rising throughout the country had been rendered imprac-
ticable by the Countermanding Order. But if no blow was struck
there and then, the possibility of striking a blow at any time would
be lost, for the Castle was to arrest all the leaders during the
coming week. Should they submit to disarmament thus, or should
they strike in Dublin with whatever sporadic support might be
rendered through the country?

It is said that the decision to strike was reached by only a
majority of one. Eoin MacNeill and those who felt with him con-
sistently opposed unaided insurrection. Sean MacDiarmada, Tom
Clarke and Thomas MacDonagh were, on the other hand, com-
mitted to the insurgent policy. Pearse is believed to have favoured
the moderate counsel, but Connolly declared that the Citizen Army
at any cost would strike before it was disarmed, and so, having
preached at all times the duty of Irishmen to vindicate their national
faith by sacrifice, Pearse gave the vote for insurrection which turned
the course of Irish history.

It seemed a forlorn hope. Did the insurgents think to win on
the field of battle? When all was over, people gasped at the
apparent madness of a few ill-armed youths in throwing down the
gage to an empire. But a week before, the Rising was by no means
an extravagant proposal. Had the Aud safely landed its cargo, to
be followed by further consignments at some point on the coast
held by the now-equipped insurgents, then a certain belt or area
of the country could have been captured, entrenched, and held for
an indefinite period. Some 100,000 men could have been secured
for the fighting line. To crush an insurrection of such magnitude
— supported perhaps by German air and naval raids on the English
coast and by the establishment of German submarine bases in ports
seized by the rebels — England would have needed practically to

EASTER RISING 699

withdraw her forces on the Western Front. It is not too much
to say that the issue of the war in the West might have been wholly
changed had a well-armed, all-Ireland insurrection taken place.

The Easter Monday Rising, however, had no such military
prospects of success. There was always, of course, the chance that
a German success on the Western Front would break England's
defences and allow substantial help to be sent before the Rising was
crushed, but this proved a vain hope. A small ineffectual shelling
of the English coast was all that Germany performed in Ireland's
aid. The insurgents put little reliance on German succour: they
went out fully prepared to meet defeat and death, believing the
Rising to be an honourable necessity, and hoping that it would
ultimately prove successful by rousing the spirit of the nation and
making the Irish cause once more an international question.

On the morning of Easter Monday, April 24th, 19 16, the
Dublin battalions paraded, bearing full arms and one day's rations.
Shortly after noon, the General Post Office, the Four Courts, three
of the railway termini, and other important points circling the
centre of Dublin, were rushed and occupied. The Proclamation of
the Irish Republic was published in big placards :

Poblacht na hEireann

The Provisional Government of the Irish Republic

To the People of Ireland:

Irishmen and Irishwomen! In the name of God and of
the dead generations from which she receives the old tradition
of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to
her flag, and strikes for her freedom. . . .

IFe declare the right of the people of Ireland to the
ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish
destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. . . . In every
generation the Irish people have asserted their right to
National freedom and sovereignty ; six times during the past
three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing
on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in
the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic
as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and
the lives of our comrades to the cause of its freedom, of its
welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations. . . .

The Republic guarantees civil and religious liberty, equal
rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares
its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole

700 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the
nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully
fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority
from the majority in the past. . . .

fVe place the cause of the Irish Republic under the pro-
tection of the Most High God, whose blessing we invoke upon
our arms. . . . In this supreme hour the Irish nation must,
by its valour and discipline, and by the readiness of its children,
to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself
worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.

Signed on behalf of the Provisional Government,
Thomas J. Clarke,
Sean MacDiarmada, Thomas MacDonagh,

P. H. Pearse, Eamonn Ceannt,

James Connolly, Joseph Plunkett.

There was little fighting on the first day of the Rising. Wholly
unprepared, since it was believed that the Volunteers had aban-
doned the project, the British authorities were taken by surprise
and could not immediately muster forces to attack the insurgents
before they had "dug themselves in." Two important points within
the Dublin war area were, however, held by the British, namely,
Trinity College, which was defended by the Officers' Training
Corps, and Dublin Castle. The former dominated the old Parlia-
ment House and two leading thoroughfares. The latter could
have been taken easily enough, but the Volunteers suspected It to be
more strongly garrisoned than it actually was, and abstained from
attack until troops were got in, and it was too late. It was on
the Tuesday that a British force of some 4,500 men, with artillery,
attacked the rebel strongholds, and secured the Castle. Fierce
fighting with rifle, bomb and bayonet went on in buildings near the
Castle, these being cleared of insurgents after desperate hand-to-
hand battles. A cordon was then drawn, around the north of the
city, some of the rebel outposts being attacked and broken with
rifle or artillery.

Meanwhile large reinforcements were being hurried into Ire-
land, via Kingstown, and on Wednesday, the south side of the city
was brought within the cordon, which then began to be tightened,
while the insurgents, receiving no addition of strength to fortify
their somewhat loose hold of a large area, consolidated their
position. The British forces marching in from Kingstown had, how-
ever, to fight their way. At Mount Street, the canal was covered
by a Volunteer force in corner houses. The invading column was

EASTER RISING 701

fired on, and a ferocious battle ensued. The rebels — ^who were but
a few men — ^were ultimately dislodged or destroyed by waves of
bombing raids. The British casualties were: officers killed 4,
wounded 14; men, 216 killed or wounded.

On the Thursday the encircling forces pressed closer and pene-
trated to the central scene of operations, though every inch of the
advance was contested by snipers and little bodies of desperate,
daring men. Liberty Hall had been shattered by gunfire from the
river, and now shells ignited great buildings in O'Connell Street.
On Thursday night, the city was under a canopy of crimson smoke,
while rifle, machine gun and cannon contested in a furious crescendo.
The lines of communication between the insurgent strongholds were
broken, and the British forces concentrated on reducing head-
quarters, the General Post Office, over which the Republican flag
still flew.

Meanwhile what was happening in the rest of Ireland?

When news reached the country battalions that, despite the
Countermanding Order, a Rising had begun, there were necessarily
divided counsels. All over Ireland, the thought of a few hundred
youths, ill-armed, standing their ground against the might of
Britain, sent an unforgettable thrill. Men knew that the circle of
fire and steel was contracting 'round the daring insurgents, and
everywhere they wrung their hands, saying: "Can we do nothing?"
.What, could they do ? The very best organised counties had not
munitions for an hour's fight. Still, here and there, the cast was
made. The Co. Dublin Volunteers, acting from Swords, pierced
into Co. Meath, taking R. I. C. barracks, and fighting a pitched
battle at Ashbourne with a constabulary force that was defeated at
the cost of heavy casualties. Dr. Hayes, later elected to the Dail,
was the leading figure in this smaller campaign.

In Co. Galwaj^Xiam Mellowsjied a large body of insurgents on
Galway city. iV gunboatin-Galway Bay dispersed them by shell-
fire. At Athertry, the insurgent camp was surrounded, and dis-
persed when the hopelessness of resistance became clear. Liam
Mellows escaped capture by that remarkable resourcefulness which
enabled him to i^ake Galway so formidable.

In Co. Wexford Enniscorthy was seized on the Thursday morn-
ing, and the Rep^iblican flag was hoisted over the Athenaeum. The
greater part of <' northern Co. Wexford was also taken. Great
administrative sltill was shown, order being maintained, not by the
armed Volunte^s, but by a civil force, the Irish Republican Police.
A large militartr force with artillery was sent to capture Enniscorthy,
but happily tl^e extremely bloody struggle that might have taken

/ . . . . ; ,.: ■/ L. ,

702 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

place was avoided. News came on Saturday that Dublin had sur-
rendered and that Pcarse had ordered all Volunteers to lay down
their arms. As with the force at Swords, representatives of the
insurgents were motored to Dublin under a safe conduct and the
white flag, to see Pearse in person. Heartbroken, the delegates
returned from the prison to the rebel town. Their impulse to fight
a despairing fight to a finish was overcome by the good offices of
an inter-denominational Peace Committee, and they, too, joined in
the surrender.

How had the surrender come about?

On Friday, a terrific bombardment had set the centre of Dublin
city wholly ablaze. Banks, churches and business places were aflame
and tottering. The loss of life among non-combatants was appall-
ing. Amid the carnage, Pearse wrote his final manifesto. Con-
nolly lay wounded with a bullet through the thigh, still directing
the defence.

"I desire now" [Pearse wrote] "lest I may not have an oppor-
tunity later, to pay homage to the gallantry of the Soldiers of Irish
Freedom who have during the past four days been writing with fire
and steel the most glorious chapter in the later history of Ire-
land. ...

"For four days they have fought and toiled almost without
cessation, almost without sleep, and in the intervals of fighting, they
have sung songs of the freedom of Ireland. No nfan has complained,
no man has asked 'why?' Each individual has spent himself, happy
to pour out his strength for Ireland and for freedom. If they do
not win this fight, they will at least have deserved to win it. But
win it they will, though they may win it in death. . . .

"If we accomplish no more than we have accomplished, I am satis-
fied. I am satisfied that we have saved Ireland's honour ... of the
fatal countermanding order which prevented those plans from being
carried out, I shall not speak further. Both Eoin'MacNeill and we
have acted in the best interests of Ireland.

"For my part, as to anything I have.done in this, I am not afraid
to face either the judgment of God or the judgment of posterity."

Here we see Pearse facing Impending defeat. His reference
to Eoln MacNelU suggests that he felt it was well that a Rising had
been made, and also well that the whole country had not come into
it. A localised rising was enough to give Ireland her blood sacri-
fice : MacNeill's order had spared many who would otherwise have
been lost. If military victory was Impossible, it was well that the
necessary sacrifice was limited.

Commandant Daly had destroyed the Linen Hall Barracks but

EASTER RISING 703

was now surrounded at the Four Courts. Countess Markievicz,
after being driven out of trenches in Stephens' Green, was defend-
ing the College of Surgeons. Commandant McDonagh was sur-
rounded in Jacob's factory. Commandant de Valera, whose men
had so tenaciously resisted the advance from the south, was now
holding Boland's Mills, while Commandant Ceannt held part of the
South Dublin Union.

On Saturday, the General Post Office was set aflame, and the
Republican Provisional government had to evacuate its so-bravely
defended headquarters. In the dash to Moore Street — a neighbour-
ing bye-way — ^The. O'Rahilly, who had oppose4 the Rising with
MacNeill, but had gone out in it because he felt himself committed
to that course, was shot dead. From the new headquarters soon
after noon, a message was sent by Pearse, by the hand of a Red
Cross nurse, asking for terms. These were refused, and at 2
o'clock, Pearse surrendered to Sir John Maxwell unconditionally.
He then sent out notices to the Commandants of survivimg Volun-
teer bodies, ordering ^rms to be laid down :

"In order to prevent the further slaughter of unarmed people, and
in the hope of saving the lives of our followers, now surrendered
and hopelessly outnumbered."

And so the Rising ended, the outstanding forces laying down
arms on the Sunday.

But the tragic story was as yet only beginning.

Arms had not been laid down, sniping had not died into silence,
the smoke of the terrific conflagration in the heart of Dublin had
not settled, befqre a huge roundup of Irish Irelanders began all
over Ireland. In every village there were arrests. To have been
heard speaking Irish was in some cases cause enough for the bread-
winner to be torn from the family. The horrors of the congfestfed
prisons are too disgusting to narrate. Soon the hundreds and hun-
dreds of prisoners were sent to rat-ridden internment camps across
the water.

In ones and twos fifteen leaders ' of the Rising were shot after

*The leaders shot were: — Padraic Pearse and his brother William, James
Connolly, Eamonn Kent, Michael O'Hanrahan, Sean MacDermott, Con Colbert,
J. J. Houston, Thomas Kent (shot in Cork), Joseph Mary Plunkett, Edward Daly,
Michael Mallon, Thomas MacDon^h, Tom Qark and John MacBride.

Sir John Maxwell, in command of the British Army in Dublin, deserves having
his name transmitted to posterity in conjunction with the names of the martyred
ones. In response to the cry of the British nation for the blood of "scoundrels"
guilty of the fearful crime of fighting tjieir land's invader, ^ir John, with an
expedition that won him praise, blotted out the lives of fifteen of Ireland's

704 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

secret military trial. Many of the executed prisoners were mere
boys. All the signatories of the Republican declaration were put
to death. Some death sentences, however, were conmiuted to
sentences of imprisonment for life, happily for Ireland, Comman-
dant de Valera escaping thus.

The callous shooting of the boy prisoners, most of all, roused
in Ireland a terrific storm of indignation. The remarkable spirit
of religious devotion displayed by the doomed men stirred the
depths of Irish emotion. Sinn Fein became at once the creed of all
Nationalist Ireland. The British had dubbed the rebel movement
"Sinn Fein." And in the furnace of national suffering, all parties
who stood for the nation were welded into one, and the name "Sinn
Fein" was accepted.

After a year the prisoners were released for the purpose of
English propaganda in America. During their imprisonment a
man hitherto known only as an obscure mathematical professor,
a silent Gaelic League and Volunteer worker, had been strangely
recognised as the national leader. This was Eamon de Valera.
At the Release, he shot, as it were, to the nation^s lead in a flash.
One week, his name was scarcely known; the next he was recognised
as the man on the bridge. Character alone was the cause of this
remarkable ascendancy. Cool, resolved, gentle, masterly, humble,
firm: Eamon de Valera impressed all. He is no great orator like
Pearse; he does not pretend to have Griffith's marvellous mastery
of political science, and indeed, talks always of Griffith as his
teacher : but he combines the idealism of one with the statesmanship
of the other. Pearse performed the revolutionary task he set him-
self, but we cannot imagine him as counsellor in days of peace or
negotiation; Griffith alone could not win the nation's adherence.
The stars were lucky when Ireland was given three men so remark-
able in one generation. But where in political history is there a
finer spectacle than the superb self-sacrifice with which Griffith
handed the leadership of Sinn Fein to his young disciple, saying:
"The people of Ireland now have a leader who is both soldier and
statesman" ?

When, one year later again, that is, in 191 8, England decreed
the conscription of Ireland's manhood to save her from the great

noblest — of the world's noblest The manful Connolly was lying in hospital,
helpless, and possibly dying from the wounds got in the fight. But the blood of
the vanquished and dying was necessary to the victor's complete and happy satis-
ifaction. So, the helpless one was borne on a stretcher to the place of execution,
solicitously propped up against a support and shot dead. The rebel's foul crime
was expiated. The Just One, the Owner of Ireland, was temporarily appeased. —
S. M. M.

EASTER RISING 705

German advance, it was 'round de Valera that the whole nation
rallied. His coolness and wisdom saved Ireland from a bloody
defeat, and secured a moral victory. Very nearly was Ireland
plunged into a life-and-death struggle, but de Valera's resolved
bearing, and the splendid succour offered by the Church, held the
whole people firm and calm. Before the determined nation,
fortified with spiritual strength, those who had planned a des-
perate onslaught hesitated, and at last withdrew. Irish conscription
was, at the last moment, abandoned, and Ireland for the first time
in many centuries escaped the scourge prepared for her.

In December, at the General Election, all Nationalist Ireland
declared its allegiance to the Republican ideal, and the Sinn Fein
policy of abstention from Westminster was adopted. In January,
the republican representatives assembled in Dublin and founded
Ddil Eireann, the Irish Constituent Assembly, proclaiming the
Republic once again. A message was sent to the nations of the
world requesting the recognition of the free Irish State, and a
national government was erected.

The best history of the Sinn Fein movement is The Evolution of
Sinn Fein, by Prof. R. M. Henry of Belfast University [Talbot
Press]. A useful companion is P. S. O'Hegarty's small brochure
Sinn Fein: An Illumination [Maunsel]. Also Aodh de Blacam's
Towards the Republic, which deals with Sinn Fein social ideals as
well as history.

Griffith's Resurrection of Hungary is important. Francis P.
Jones' History of Sinn Fein [Kenedy] is fine.

CHAPTER LXXX

THE LAST WAR?

No sooner had the new Government begun to function, established
its Courts, appointed Consuls, started a stock-taking of the country's
undeveloped natural resources, and put a hundred constructive
schemes to work, than Britain stepped in, with her army of Soldiers
and Constabulary, to counter the work, harassing and imprisoning
the workers. This move of England's called forth a secretly built-up
Irish Republican Army (developed from The Irish Volun^ers),
which, early in 1920, began a guerilla warfare, and quiekly suc-
ceeded in clearing vast districts of the Constabulary who were ever
England's right arm in Ireland.

Lloyd George met this not only by pouring into Ireland regi-
ments of soldiers with tanks, armored cars, aeroplanes, and all the
other terrorising paraphernalia that had been found useful in the
European War, but also by organising and turning loose upon Ire-
land an irregular forte of Britons, among the most vicious and
bloodthirsty known to history-! — the force which quickly became
notorious to the world under the title of the Black and Tans. And
then, with carefully planned purpose to quickly break the Irish
spirit and subdue the nation, was waged upon the Irish people —
alike combatants and non-combatants, Irish women as well as
men, toddUng child and tottering aged — a war of vengeance, un-
paralleled for blind fiiry and fearful cruelty by any war in any
civilised country of the world since the seventeenth century. The
wholesale burning of a hundred villages, towns, cities, the looting,
the spoliation of the inhabitants, though in themselves appalling,
were as nothing compared with the cold-blooded murders per-
petrated by the British, and the elaborate refinement of torture,
worse far than death, which they visited on non-combatants as
well as combatants — fearful tortures that frequently only ended
when slow death snatched from them their prey.

It was intended that the job of "settling Ireland" should, like
Cromwell's campaign on which it was modelled, be sharp, short, and
decisive. It should be over and done with ere the outside world
awoke to the fearful reality of what was happening. And the

706

THE LAST WAR? 707

English press, with a bare two or three honourable exceptions, the
English correspondents of foreign newspapers, and the English
cable service, well did their part to back the British army in the
field. They saw to it that not only was the hideousness of their
campaign in Ireland concealed from the world, but that instead,
the brave Irish boys, fighting for freedom a fearfully unequal fight,
were lied about and painted to the world as corner boy ruffians.
And, loyally doing their bit in the disgraceful campaign of hood-
winking the world, the highest, most "Honourable" Government
officials, from Premier Lloyd George down to Irish Secretary Sir
Hamar Greenwood, from their places in the British House of Com-
mons deliberately and persistently falsified the accounts of occur-
rences in Ireland, denied, without wincing, the barbarous crimes of
the British which they knew and approved of, and unblushingly
fathered upon the clean-fighting Irish boys callous and diabolical
cruelties that were native alone to the breasts of their own — even to
insinuating that the murders, by disguised and masked British ruf-
fians, of Mayor MacCurtain of Cork and Mayor Clancy of Lim-
erick were perpetrated by their own Republican comrades, who
slew them as traitors. Thus did the Honourable British gentlemen
blacken the dead as well as the living.

Yet the well-planned campaign for the quick wasting of Ireland,
and breaking of Ireland's spirit did not come off on schedule. The
atrocities which were meant to frighten and subdue, only stimulated
the outraged nation to more vigour : and by the time the fight was
expected to end it was found to be only well begun. And, carefully
as the army of falsifiers guarded every gate by which the truth
might escape to the world, tricklings of truth had begun to find their
way out, and the world was beginning to whisper of strange British
doings in Ireland. More than by anything else, probably, the world
was awakened to the truth of the situation in Ireland through the
extraordinary heroism of Terence MacSwiney ( Mayor of Cork in
succession to the martyred MacCurtain), who in protest against
the foreign tyranny which seized and jailed him as a criminal for
the guilt of working for his country, refused to eat in British dun-
geon, till, after three months of slow and painful starving to death,
with the wondering world literally by his bedside watching his death
agonies, he at length went to join the joyful company of martyrs
who had died that Ireland might live.

The world was stirred. The terrible truth about Britain's rape
of Ireland began to be realised — and began to call forth muttered
foreign protest. Only then, when they realised that they were found
out, an appreciable portion of the Britons themselves began to

7o8 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

protest — chiefly, not to save Ireland, but to save Britain's face.*
The general aspect of the British Campaign in Ireland is best
summarised, perhaps, in the findings of the American Commission
on Conditions in Ireland — a Commission whose members were se-
lected by the American Committee of One Hundred — this latter
being composed of many of the most representative men and
women in America, Protestant, Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian
and Jew — including Governors of States, Senators, Congressmen,
Protestant, Catholic and Methodist Bishops, College Presidents,
Editors, Business men, Labor men. Following are the most re-
markable of their findings :

"1. The Imperial British Government has created and introduced
into Ireland a force of at least 78,000 men, many of them youthful and
inexperienced, and some of them convicts; and has incited that force
to unbridled violence.

^ The Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury speaking in the House of Lords
(Feb. 22nd, 1921) said, with just indignation, "What is being done in Ireland is
exactly what we condemned the Germans for doing in Belgium."

The Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in England, Rev. Duncan Mac-
Gregor, said, "The result of the present policy is that British rule has become a
by-word and a scoff in every country in Europe, and across the Atlantic. ... I won-
der whether the whole Church of God cannot speak with united voice on so clear
and crying a moral issue."

Ex-FVime Minister Asquith declared, "Things are being done in Ireland with
the knowledge and approval, if not under the direction of. Government officials,
which would disgfrace the blackest annals of the lowest despotism of Europe."

The British Labor Party found themselves forced to send a Commission to
Ireland to investigate. After journeying to the various parts of Ireland most
affected by the war machine, and interviewing witnesses to some of the most terrible
of the occurrences, as well as leading men and officials of both sides, they found
themselves forced to give a report that made myriads of their British people gasp.
The gfist of their findings may be conveyed in one sentence taken from the closing
paragraph of their report: "Things are being done in Ireland, in the name of
Britain, which must make her name stink in the nostrils of the whole world."

Hon. C. F. G. Masterman at Macclesfield: "Speaking v/ith a full sense of my
responsibility as former Cabinet Minister, I declare the evidence is overwhelming
that a systematic policy of terror is being pursued in Ireland— defended by Lloyd
George, backed up by the flagrant lies of Sir Hamar Greenwood, and organised by
officials in high places in Dublin. The attempt is not merely to punish the guilty,
but to break the whole spirit of Ireland by inflicting punishment upon people who
are as innocent as babes unborn. That was the system which, under the German
invasion of Belgium, turned the whole world against Germany. Yet in every par-
ticular the things going on in Ireland to-day are a replica — in some cases they are
worse than — ^the things the Germans did in Belgium."

Lord Hugh Cecil (in the House of Commons, on March 1st, 1921) : "The
methods adopted in Ireland have no precedent whatever in the story of the restora-
tion of law and order by previous governments in the nineteenth century."

(General Gough, formerly of the British Army— one of the Army leaders who,
when a follower of Carson, in 1914, threatened to mutiny if "Home Rule" was
forced upon the Orangemen— now wrote a letter to the press (March 1st, 1921)
in the course of^ which he said : "Law and order has g^ven place to a bloody and
brutal anardiy, in which the armed agents of the Crown violate every law in aim-
less and vindictive and insolent savagery. England has departed further from her
own standards, and further from the standards even of any nation in the world,
not excepting the Turk and the Zulu, than has ever been known in history before."

THE LAST WAR? 709

"2. The Imperial British forces in Ireland have indiscriminately
killed innocent men, women, and children; have discriminately assas-
sinated persons suspected of being republicans ; have tortured and shot
prisoners while in custody, adopting the subterfuges of 'refusal to
halt' and 'attempting to escape'; and have attributed to alleged 'Sinn
Fein extremists' the British assassination of prominent Irish Repub-
licans.

"3. House burning and wanton destruction of villages and cities
by Imperial British forces under Imperial British officers have been
countenanced and ordered by officials of the British Government, and
elaborate provision by gasoline sprays and bombs has been made in
a number of instances for systematic incendiarism as part of a plan
of terrorism.

"4. A campaign for the destruction of the means of existence of
the Irish people has been conducted by the burning of factories, cream-
eries, crops, and farm implements, and the shooting of farm animals.
This campaign is carried on regardless of the political views of their
owners, and results in widespread and acute suffering among women
and children.

"5. Acting under a series of proclamations issued by the competent
military authorities of the Imperial British forces hostages are carried
by forces exposed to the fire of the Republican Army; fines are levied
upon towns and villages as punishment for alleged offenses of in-
dividuals; private property is destroyed in reprisal for acts with which
the owners have no connection ; and the civilian population is subjected
to an inquisition upon the theory that individuals are in possession
of information valuable to the military forces of Great Britain. These
acts of the Imperial British forces are contrary to the laws of peace
or war among modern civilised nations."

In the spring of 192 1 there was galloped through the English
Parliament a "Home Rule Bill" for Ireland — whose object was,
by giving the eastern part of Ulster, the Orange corner, a Parlia-
ment of its own, to detach it from the rest of Ireland, thus dividing
the nation on sectarian lines, and by the Orangemen's aid strength-
ening the foreign grip on the whole country. The Orangemen ( all
British in blood) — ever the Ascendancy in Ireland treading on the
necks of the real Irish — had professed that they feared to trust
themselves to the certain intolerance of an Irish Parliament —
though the true fact was well known to English statesmen: even
Sir Hamar Greenwood, who blackened Nationalist Ireland by every
device in his power, having had to state in the British House of
Commons, "I am constrained to confess that the North is the only
part of Ireland where people are interfered with on account of
their religion." These Northeasterners in July, 1920, celebrated
their coming freedom from an intolerant Irish Parliament by in-

|-g^^ I ^■^^•^^m .^— - -^r,-.-*-.-- . , .-.-.Ji^pPBp-.-v

710 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

stituting a scries of pogroms against the minority among them — in
the course of which in twelve months more than one hundred of Ae
minority were killed by being beaten, stabbed, kicked, or shot to
death, and more than one thousand injured, while the homes and
belongings of several hundreds were burnt, and six thousand Na-
tionalists driven out of employment. It is to be remembered in this
connection that the motto of these noble Orangemen is "Civil and
Religious Liberty."

Premier Lloyd George, having ignored the rising tide of world
indignation until Britain's hold on Ireland's northeastern corner was
well secured and clamped, then had King George go to Belfast to
open Britain's branch Parliament there, and speak a prepared piece,
calling for union among the people he was dividing, and asking also
for peace between England and Ireland. And then in deference to
his King's pious wish (so he informed the world) the Prime Min-
ister invited Sinn Fein to a parley. Ireland had proved uncon-
querable by any other means.

President De Valera, for the Irish Republic, accepted the invi-
tation. A truce was arranged between the invader's army and the
army of the Republic in July, 1921. And the English Prime Minis-
ter received with honour the head of that body which he had with
long and faithful persistence denounced to the world as "the
Irish murder gang."

To De Valera, in this parley, offer was made to give Ireland
what George called "Dominion status" — supposedly that amount of
freedom under the British Crown which is the lot of Canada and
Australia — but less the control by Britain of the Irish harbours, seas,
skies, and some other such perquisites — ^which offer was promptly
and unanimously rejected by An Dail Eireann. Rather than sanc-
tion Britain's covetous and dishonest grab of anything that was
Ireland's the Irish representatives preferred that their people should
return to the wilderness.

Then, after resorting to threat of a renewed war upon Ireland
far more fierce than had gone before — which threat caused no weak-
ening of the Irish resolve — the English Prime Minister invited
Ireland to send delegates to a peace conference, on the understand-
ing that the idea of separating Ireland from the British Crown
should not be considered. De Valera, for An Dail Eireann, re-
fused such condition. And, beaten from one position after another,
Premier Lloyd George finally called for a conference, free of con-
ditions, to be held in London on October i ith, 192 1. And President
De Valera accepted the invitation.

THE LAST WAR?

[On this p«ge write, or paste in, the result of the Peace Con{erence.J

VVECySlESDAVglllBRUARY 7, .1923.

711

»■ ^^

I ■■■'

REBELS mCK
CORiBOMB

DUBLIN, Feb. 7.— <By€nternation-
al News Service.)— Republican Irregu-
lars attacked the city of Cork today,
but the casualties were slight. The,
courthouse was bombed and there,
was heavy fighting around the bar- '
racks. One civilian was wounded.
Telephone and telegraph wires were
cut.

Four, irregular leaders were cap-
tured by Free Staters at Clonmel.

Castleboro, the historic home of
Lord Carew near Enniscorthy, waa
burned by Republican guerrillas. The
damage is estimated at $500,000.

CHAPTER LXXXI

THE DAWNING

The final chapter of the story of the Irish Race will not be written
till, please God, many a long and glorious Irish day shall yet have
come and gone. The final chapter of our partial story cannot be
better written than in the words of Ethna Carbery, who shortly
before her early death saw with her spirit eyes the radiant Dawn
dethroning Eire's dark Night of Sorrow — and in beautiful words
pictured for us her vision —

MO CHRAOIBHIN CNO.*

A Sword of Light hath pierced the dark! Our eyes have seen the Star!
Oh, Eire, leave the ways of sleep now days of promise are I
The rusty spears upon your walls are stirring to and fro,
In dreams they front uplifted shields — ^Then wake,
Mo Chraoibhin Cnol

The little waves creep whispering where sedges fold you in,
And round you are the barrows of your buried kith and kin;
Oh! famine-wasted, fever-burnt, they faded hke the snow
Or set their hearts to meet the steel — for you,
Mo Chraoibhin Cnol

Their names are blest, their caoine sung, our bitter tears are dried ;
We bury Sorrow in their graves, Patience we cast aside;
Within the gloom we hear a voice that once was ours to know —
'Tis Freed(xn — Freedom calling loud. Arise,
Mo Chraoibhin Cno!

Afar beyond that empty sea, on many a battle-place.

Your sons have stretched brave hands to Death before the foeman's face —
Down the sad silence of your rest their war-notes faintly blow,
And bear an echo of your name — of yours,

Mo Chraoibhin Cno!

* Pronounced vxo chreeveen no, "My cluster of nuts" — my brown-haired girl,
i. e., Ireland. During our many dark ages when it was treason for our singers
to sing of Ireland, the_ olden poets sang of, and to, their beloved, under many such
endearing and figurative titles.

712

THE DAWNING 713

Then wake, a gradh! We yet shall win a gold crown for your head,
Strong wine to make a royal feast — the white wine and the red —
And in your oaken mether the yellow mead shall flow .
What day you rise in all men's eyes — a Queen,
Mo Chraoibhin Cno!

The silver speech our fathers knew shall once again be heard;
The fire-lit story, crooning song, sweeter than lilt of bird ;
Your quicken-tree shall break in flower, its ruddy fruit shall glow.
And the Gentle People dance beneath its shade —
Mo Chraoibhin Cno I

There shall be peace and plenty — the kindly open door;
Blessings on all who come and go— the prosperous or the poor —
The misty glens and purple hills a fairer tint shall show,
When your splendid Sun shall ride the skies again —
Mo Chraoibhin Cnol

THE POUR WINDS OP BIRINN

The Poems of Ethna Carbery
New Enlarged Edition, with Memoir by Seumas MacManus, and with Portrait of the Author

Fiona Macleod, in an article upon "The Four Winds of Eirinn" in The Fortnightly
Review, said: —

"One copy of such a book as 'The Four Winds of Eirinn' is enough to light many unseen
fires. ... In essential poetic faculty Ethna Carbery falls behind no Irish poet save Mr. Yeats
and 'A. E.' As an Irish writer for an Irish-public, I doubt if any of these just named has
more intimately reached the heart of the people. Than Mr. Yeats, Ethna Carbery, while not
less saturated with the Gaelic atmosphere, possesses a simplicity of thought and diction foreign to
the most subtle of contemporary poets. . . . Her earliest as her latest verse has the quality of
song and the vibration of poetry."

Joaquin Miller says: — The Four Winds of Eirinn gave me the most delightful memories of
my life. The music of it lives and lingers as some far faint song of the minstrels of old time,
that I may never hear again; as perfume and memory blending in one; and indescribable. It
brought me the atmosphere of a diviner age.

Joyce Kilmer (New York Times) : — Ethna Carbery is one of the few real poets of the last
hundred years.

The (London) Daily News — In this book we move from wonder to wonder. It is natural
magic in the truest sense of the word. No less remarkable than the prodigality of fancy is
the richness and variety of melody which animate its sounds. The music is everywhere true,
and as full as it is new. One marvels at the spontaneousness of every thought and every word.
With as little effort, or premeditation, as the birds in the Land of Perpetual Youth, sang this
gifted child of Irish song.

Leinster Leader — It is not to be wondered at that poetry of such quality should at once
soar on deathless wings to Fame.

The Globe — Ethna Carbery surpasses all other poets of the Celtic school in the heart
quality of her verse. . . . Hers is a pure white passion for beauty, such as is revealed by the
few poets of the world.

Meath Chronicle — She was one of the noblest daughters Ireland has ever claimed. Her
glowing genius, and the womanly tenderness of her poet-heart, live in the songs she has left us
as a heritage.

Aberdeen Free Press — The most striking production of the Irish Literary Revival.

United Irishman — She was herself a poem incarnate; tender and sweet, and true and pure,
gracious and refined as one of her Irish princesses, and kindly as one of her peasants. («od gave
her grand, rare gifts, and she dedicated them to a high, holy cause. Her life was all too
short, but her works will live after her for all time.
Price $1.50 (and 10c. postage). From THE IRISH PUBLISHING CO.. Box 1300. New York City.

PROSE WORKS OF ETHNA CARBERY
IN THE CELTIC PAST, Hero Tales
THE PASSIONATE HEARTS, Love Stories
With, cover design, in three colours, by "A. E."

Irish Independent — Seldom, if ever, has the most potent of passions which stir the souls and
sway the destinies of mankind been painted with more beauty and power.

New York Times — They are full of the beautiful pathos of Irish poetry, the magic of
Irish music, and the elusive charm of Irish folk-lore, and convey the atmosphere of sincerity,
which only Hows from a pen dipped in the author's own heart.

Cork Sun — Prose poems, combining the melody of the lyre, the dignity of the epic, and
the vivid movement of the drama.

To-day — ^These stories throb with an ardent, passionate lore. They are beaatlfuL I
cannot write any better of them.

New York Sun — Nothing in the new Irish revival is more Irish than these booka

Glasgow Herald — Their very titles are instinct with a vague beauty. They come with a
sense of revelation. . . . They are full of passion and joy and sadness.

Morning Advertiser— -"The Passionate Hearts" is magically appealing.

Manchester Guardian — Full of enthusiasm and exaltation.

The (Newark) Daily Advertiser— Full of joy and passion.

Each book |1.50 (and 10c. posUge). IRISH PUB. CO., Box 1300, New York City.

714

AN HONOR-ROLL

I COULD not have given up three years of time, and incurred the
very heavy cost of producing this volume, but for the big aid given
me by the special supporters whose names are here set down. Each
of them, a warm lover of Ireland and Ireland's story, offered with
glad readiness to sponsor the work, and generously guaranteed to
take a large number of copies of it.

To every one of these large-hearted ones, who thus made the
work possible, I here record my deep gratitude — and this in a very
special manner applies to those marked ** whose princely gener-
osity prompted them to pay in advance for the copies which they
bespoke.

To all of the book's supporters I am ever thankful,

Seumas MacManus.

••A FEW IRISHMEN and Irish-Americans in Bolivia (per Caspar NicoUs, Oruro).

••BALLESTY, PATRiaO, Buenos Aires,
S. A.
BARRETT, REV. THOS. H., LL.D., Buf-
falo
BARRY, REV. M. K., Caldwell, Kan.
••BARRY, WM. P., PhUadelphia, Pa.

BATTLE, GEO. GORDON, New York City
BOYLE, RT. REV. H. C, Pittsburgh, Pa.
••BRADY, REV. D. J., EUzabeth, N. J.

BRADY, REV. FRANCIS A., Philadelphia
••BRADY, NICHOLAS F., New York City

BRADY, THOS. F., San Antonio, Tex.
"BRENNAN, JOHN (of Savannah), New

York City
••BRENNAN, MICHAEL, San Antonio de
Areco, Argentina
BRIAN BORU CLUB (per Daniel Bacon),

New York City -^

BROSNAN, REV. MICHAEL, St George's,

NTdland
BROUGHAL, REV. DENIS J., Philadelphia
BROWN, MRS. DENIS. Staunton, Va.
BROWNE, J. P., Saskatoon, Sask.
BROWNRIGG, H. W., St John's, N'f'dland
BUTLER, REV. FRANCIS J., Sommcrville,

Mass.
CALLAGHAN, REV. JAS. F., Chicago, HL
GALLERY, JAS. G., Pittsburgh, Pa.
CALWELL, ARTHUR A., Melbourne
••CAMIPBELL, RICHARD, New York City
CANEVIN. RT. REV. F. REGIS, D.D.,

Pittsburgh, Pa.
CARMELITE FATHERS (per Vy. Rev.
Peter E. Magennis), New York Oty

CARNEY, FRANCIS J., Boston, Mass.
CARROLL, REV. LAWRENCE A., E.

Pittsburgh, Pa.
CASEY, REV. JOS. A., Chicago, IlL
CASEY, REV. MICHAEL J., St Paul
CASHIN, HON. M. P., St John's,
N'f'dland
••CAVANAGH, REV. WALTER E., P.P.,

Almonte, Canada
••CHITTICK, RT. REV. JAS. J., Hyde

Park, Mass.
••CITIZENS OF THE IRISH REPUBLIC
(per Matt Butler, Secy.), New York City
••CLANCY, JNO. J., Brooklyn, N. Y.
COAKLEY, DANIEL H., Boston
COGHLAN, MSGR. GERALD P., Phila.,
Pa.
••COCKRAN, BOURKE, New York City
COHALAN, JUSTICE DANIEL F., New

York City
COLLERAN, J. P., Youngstown, O.
COLLINS, REV. RICHARD, San Jose.

CaL
COLLINS, REV. THOS. H., Wheeling,

W. Va.
CONLEY, COLONEL L. D., New York

City
CONNOLLY, RT. REV. J. N., N. Y. Qty
COONEY. REV. THOS., Naugatuck, Conn.
COPPINGER, REV. JOS. F., So. Boston
COTTER, JAS. E., Apalachicola, Fla.
••COYNE, REV. CHAS. J., Pittsburgh
♦•COYNE, MARTIN, Box 1306, Jerome, Arir.
CREAGH, REV. JNO. T., Brookline

715

7i6

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

CREEGAN, PATK.. Condon, Ore.
CRIMMINS, COLONEL M. L., New York

City
CROKE, REV. ANDREW, Chicago
••CRONIN, JNO. J., Girard, O,

CROWLEY, REV. JNO. T., Phila., Pa.
CROWLEY, REV. TIMOTHY E., St. Paul
CULLINANE, REV. P. J., Detroit.
••CUMMINS, REV. JNO. F., Roslindale,
Mass.
CURLEY, JAS. M., Jamaica Plains, Mass.
CURTIN, REV. CORNELIUS, Fairview.

Mont.
CURTIN, REV. T. A., Newton Centre,

Mass.
DAWSON, WM. J., Elks Club, Detroit
DEMPSEY, VT. REV. M. J. P., Detroit
DENNISON, REV. JNO. J., Chicago
DILLON, REV. GERALD, Scobey. Mont.
DOHENY, EDWD. L., New York City
DOHERTY, NEIL F., Boston
DOLAN, REV. HENRY A., Batavia, N. Y.
DOLAN, REV. FRANCIS X., D.D., Dor-
chester, Mass.
DONNELLY, RT. REV. JOHN E., Mon-
treal
DOODY, REV. DANIEL, Utica, N. Y.
••DOOLEY, MICHAEL F., Providence
DOUGHERTY, MISS LIDA, San Patricio,

Tex.
DRAKE, MRS. E. M., Regina, Sask.
••DRISCOLL, DANIEL J., Reading, Pa.
••DUFFY, MISS TERESA, Ritz-Carltoo,
New York City
DUVAL, C. L., New York City
••DRYER, A. T., Sydney, Aus.

DWYER, REV. WM. J., Gloucester, Mass.
EMMANUEL, MOTHER M., Mt. St. Mary,

Newburgh, N. Y.
EMMETT KNIGHTS (per M. J. Walsh),

Nome, Alaska
EMMETT CLUB (per Thos. P. ReiUy),
Naugatuck, Conn.
••ERNSTMAN, GEO., Oxnard, Cal.

FARRAGHER, MICHAEL J., Youngs-
town, O.
FARRELL, JAS. A., New York City
••FAUGHNAN, REV. JNO., Pittsburgh, Pa.

FAY, REV. THOS. P. P., Ottawa
••FEENEY BROTHERS, Buenos Aires

FITZGERALD, E., Mayor of New Haven
••FITZPATRICK, T. B., Boston

FLAHAVAN, JER., Ansonia, Conn.
••FLANAGAN, JAS. P., Welch, W. Va.
••FLANNERY, REV. EDMUND, Sanu Lu-
cia, Argentina
FOGARTY, REV. PATK. F., Phila., Pa.
FOLEY, RT. REV. MSGR. WM., Chicago
FORD, PETER J., Wilmington, DeL
FOYE, F. J., Brownsville, Pa.
FRANK, JOHN, Kendall, Mont.
GAHAN, DR. THOMAS, Buenos Aires
••GALLAGHER, JNO., Youagstown, O.

GALLAGHER, RT. REV. MICHAEL J..

Detroit, Mich.
GALLAGHER, PATK., 525 W. 124th St.,
New York City
••GALVIN, JNO., Fort Russell, Wyo.
••GANLY, PADRAIC, Buenos Aires

GANNON, FRANK S., New York City
••GANNON, PATK., Snohomish, Wash.

GARRITY, THOS. J., Parkersburg, W. Va.
••GAUGHAN, MR, M. J., McKeesport, Pa.
GAVAGAN, JUSTICE EDWD. J., New
York City
••de GEARTY, MRS. M. A., Buenos Aires
••GEARTY, REV. R. J., San Antonio de
Areco, Argentina
GERSIE, MRS. G. L., Passaic, N. J.
••GIBBONS, JNO. T., New Orleans
••GIBBS, M. P., K. C, St. John's, N'fdland
GILLEN, REV. THOS. A., Pittsburgh
GILSON, JUDGE JNO. J., New Haven
GOODWIN, BERNARD, E. Rochester,

N. Y.
GORMLEY, MISS JANE A., Providence
GOUGH, REV. W. P., Phila., Pa.
••GOURLEY, WM. B., Paterson, N. J.
GRAHAM, JNO., Hotel Sutler, Cleveland,
O.
••GREANEY, REV. JNO. J., Woodlawn, Pa.
GREEN, VERY REV. JAMES F., O.S.A.,

Chicago
GREENSIL, REV. JNO. J., Phila., Pa.
GRIFFIN, VY. REV. EDWD. P., Pitts-
burgh
GRIFFIN, REV. JOHN F., Holyoke, Mass.
GRIMES, RT. REV. JOHN, D.D., Syra-
cuse, N. Y.
GUERIN, JUSTICE EDMUND, Montreal
GUILFOILE, FRANCIS P., Waterbury,

Conn.
GUILFOILE, JOS., Waterbury, Conn.
••HAGERTY, MISS E. F., Greenwich, N. Y.
HANNA, MOST REV. ARCHBISHOP

EDW. J., D.D., San Francisco, 0*1.
HANNIGAN, REV. JOS. J., Phila., Pa.
••HARE, J. S. M., Galesburg, 111.

HARRIGAN, JNO. F., Worcester, Mass.
HARRINGTON, REV. JERE., Minneapolis
HAYNES, MISS LIZZIE, Sydney, Aus.
HEALY, MAJOR M. F., New York City
••HEALY, RICHARD, Worcester, Mass.

HEARN, JNO. J., Westfield, Mass.
••HEAVEY, J. J., K.S.G., Valparaiso, Chile
HEENEY, REV. BERNARD C, Chicago
HENNESSY, JNO. A., Providence, R. I.
HENRY, JAS. A., Linwood, Pa.
HEWLETT, REV. FRAS. A., Detroit
HIBERNIAN SOCIETY (per W. Ryan,

President), Baltimore, Md.
HIBERNIAN SOCIETY (per Judge Peter

W. Meldrim), Savannah, Ga.
HICKEY, RT. REV. WM. A., Providence,
R. I.
••HILLIARD, MRS. F. T.. Detroit, Mich.

AN HONOR-ROLL

717

••HOGAN, GEO., Norfolk, Va.
HURLEY, RT. REV. MONS. EDWD. F.,
Boston, Mass.
••HURLEY. M. A., Pocatello, Idaho
HYNES, REV. BERNARD J., Pittsburgh,

Pa.
HYNES, REV. JAS. A., Chicago, 111.
IRISH AMERICAN ASSN. (per Patk.

Mulrooney), Wilmington, Del.
IRVINE, TOM (of Derry Walls), Ed-
monton, Alta.
ISENBERG, MRS. HANS, Lihue Kauai,

Hawaiian Islands
JENNINGS, REV. DR. GILBERT P.,

Cleveland, O.
JOHNSON, REV. DAVID M., S. J., Chi-

cago
JOY, EDWARD, Syracuse, N. Y.
KANE, MISS KATE L., Rochester, N. Y.
KEANE, DENNIS, New Haven
••KEANE, RT. REV. FRANCIS, Pittsburgh
KEEGAN, DR. EDWD., St. John's,

N'f'dland
KEEGAN, PETER C, Van Burcn, Me.
••KEELEY, MISS MARGARET, Euclid,
Minn.
KEENAN, JAS. E., Owen Sound, Ont.
••KENDALL, MRS. S. N., Madison, Wis.
••KENNY, REV. DR., Youngstown, O,
••KENNEDY, DANIEL, Elmira, N. Y.
KENNEDY, JAMES, Teller, Alaska
••KENNEDY, P. M„ Youngstown, O.

KIELY, MICHAEL E., Waterbury, Conn.
. KIERNAN, JNO., SR., New York City
KIERNAN, ROBT., JR., Freeport, N. Y.
KILLEEN, JNO. P., Pittsburgh
KIRLIN, VY. REV. JOS. L. J., Phila.. Pa.
KIRWIN, VY. REV. JAS. M., Galveston,

Tex.
LOMASNEY, MARTIN M., Boston, Mass.
LUDDY, TIM., Waterbury, Conn.
LYNCH, MICHAEL, Newburgh, N. Y.
LYNCH, REV. WM. J., Chicago
LYONS, REV. GEO. A, So. Boston
LYONS, WM. SEXTON, Northampton
MAHON, REV. THOS. F., Cleveland
MALLOY,JREV. FRANCIS A., Cleveland
MALONEY, THOS. J. (Lorillard Co.),

Now York City
MANN, MRS. WM., Bayonne, N. J.
MANNIX, THOS., Portland, Ore.
MARTIN, REV. DR., Youngstown, O.
MARTIN, GEO. J., W. Newton, Mass.
••MEAD, MAYOR JNO. C, Ansonia, Conn.
MEARS, REV. E., Youngstown, O.
MEATHE, REV. MATTHEW, Detroit
MEENAN, P. J., Pittsburgh, Pa.
MEHEGAN, MR. J. J., Kinston, N. C.
MEIGHEN, THOS. J., Preston, Minn.
••MINOGUE, REV. THOS. F., Anselmo,
Neb.
MOGAN, PATK., Fairbanks, Fox, Alaska
MONAHAN, REV. JAS. C, Phila., Pa.

••I

MOONEY, J. P., Lakewood, O.
••MOONEY, RT. REV. JOS. F., New York
City
MORAN, DANIEL J., Lynn, Mass.
►MORGAN, WM., Fray Bentos. Uruguay
'MORI ARTY, JNO. E.. Waterbury, Conn.'
MORONEY, W. J., Dallas. Tex.
MORRISON, MRS. THOS. F., Chanute,

Kas.
MORRISSEY. REV. JNO. J., Chicago
MULLINS, WM., Flint, Mich.
MURPHY, REV. DENIS N., Wilmerding,
Pa.
••MURPHY, EDWD., Rosario, Argentina
MURPHY, RT. REV. EUGENE M., Phila.,
Pa.
••MURPHY, REV. GEO. F., Cleveland

MURPHY, REV. JAS. J., Brighton, Mass.
••McALENNEY, REV. P. F., Hartford,
Conn.
McBRIDE, MICHAEL, San Diego, Cal.
McCABE, VY. REV. FRANCIS J., Pitts-
burgh
McCABE, REV. F. X., De Paul University.

Chicago
McCABE, REV. JNO. J., Detroit
••McCAFFERTY, JAS. A., Brooklyn, N. Y.

McCaffrey, hugh, Pem, ind.

••McCANN, SISTER MARY AGNES, Mt.

St. Joseph, O.
••McCANNA, C. ROY. Burlington, Wis.

McCarthy, J. J., Ogallala, Neb.
••McCONEGLY, JNO. D., Homestead, Pa.
McCORMICK, j. S., San Francisco, Cal.
McCORT, RT. REV. JOHN JOS., Altoona,

Pa.
McCRAN, SENATOR THOS. F., Paterson,

N. J.
McDERMOTT, REV. I., Jenkintown, Pa.
••McDERMOTT, RT. REV. C. A., McKees-
port. Pa.
MCDONNELL, RT. REV. PATK. J., Chi-
cago
McDONOUGH, STEPHEN J., Baltimore,

Md.
McEVOY, FRANK P., Waterbury, Conn.
McFADDEN, REV, MICHAEL A.. Swan-
ton, O.
••McFARLAND, STEPHEN, New York City
••McGANN, MICHAEL F., New Haven

McGARRY, REV. JNO. J., Boston, Mass.
••McGARRITY, JOS., Phila., Pa.
McGARRY, JNO. A., Chicago, IlL
McGILLEN, P., New York City
••McGINNISS, BRIG. GEN. J. R,, Cleve-
land
McGRATH, REV. CHRISTOPHER C,

Somerville, Mass.
McGRATH, HON. JNO. F., Waterbury,

Conn.
McGUIRE, FRANK (Radow & McGuire).

New York City
McKAY, REV. DR. ALEX. B.. Phila., Pa.

7i8

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

McLaughlin, DENIS, Brooklyn
McMAHON, JNO. J., Clevdand
McMANUS, J. A., Gretna, Va.
McMANUS, REV. MICHAEL T., Brook-
line
McMULLEN, HUGH, Cumberland, ^Md.
McNAMARA, S. J., Brooklyn, N. Y.
McQUEENY. MISS MARY F., New York

City
McWHORTER, MRS. MARY F., Chicago
••MacARTAIN, PADRAIC, Sterling City,

Cal.
••MacGUIRE. DR. CONSTANTINE J., SR..
New York City
MacNAMARA, THOS., JR., Youngstown,

O.
NAGLE, JNO. H., Hall of Records, New

York City
NAGLE, PATK. S., Kingfisher, Okla.
••NALLY, EDWD. J. (Marconi Co.), New
York City
NASH, REV. JOHN J., D.D., Buffalo
NOONAN, CHARLES, New York City
OWEN ROE CLUB (per Wm. Flood),
New York City
••OWENS, REV. EUGENE, Buchtel, O.
••O'BOYLE, PATRICIO, Rosario de Santa
Fe, Argentina
O'BRADY, JAS., Arrecifcs, Argentina
O'BRIEN, C. D., St. Paul. Minn.
O'BRIEN, REV. DANIEL, Buflfalo
O'BRIEN, REV. JAS. J., Somerville, Mass.
O'BRIEN, THOS., Albany, N. Y,
O'CONNELL, JOS. F., Boston
O'CONNELL, REV. P. J., Cleveland
••O'CONNELL, HIS EMINENCE CAR-
DINAL WM., Boston
O'CONNELL, WM. J., Des Moines, la.
O'CONNOR, REV. JAS. J., Pittsburgh
O'CONNOR, REV. JEREMIAH, St. Paul
O'CONNOR, REV. P. J., Pittsburgh
O'DONNELL, MR. PATK. J., Cleveland
••O'DONNELL, REV. R., Alderbrook, N. Y.
O'DOWD. LIAM, New York City
O'DWYER, REV. C, O.M.I., International

Falls, Minn.
O'FARRELL, C. M. (Carson, Pirrie, Scott

& Co.), Chicago
O'FARRELL, SANTIAGO, Buenos Aires
O'FLAHERTY, JAS. (Home News), The
Bronx
••O'GALLAGHER, FRANCIS B., Chicago
O'GARA, REV. THOS. F., Chicago, 111.
O'KANE. FRANCIS, Phila., Pa.
. O'KEEFE, P. J., Chicago

O'KEEFFE, REV. D. J.. Daytona, Fla.
••O'LEARY, MISS MARY THERESA, Los

Angeles
••O'NEILL, FRANCIS, Chicago

O'NEILL, REV. PATK. F., Phila., Pa.
O'REILLY, VY. REV, M. J., CM., Syd-
ney, Aus.
O'REILLY, REV. P. J., Springfield, 111.

O'ROURKE, REV. P. J., St. Louia, Mo.
O'SHEA, REV. TIMOTHY E., Chicago
O'SLATTERY, REV. J. P., New Orleans
O'SULLIVAN, REV. M„ St. Bridget's,

Chicago

O'TOOLE. MISS HELEN. Wiknington, Del.

PADRAIC PEARSE BRANCH, F. O. I. F.

(per Miss M. L. Brosnahan), Washington,

D. C.

PAULIST FATHERS (per Rev. Thos. F.

Burke), Chicago
PHELAN, SENATOR JAMES D., Wash-
ington, D. C.
POWER, RT. REV. MSGR. JAS. W., New
York City
••POWERS, REV. WM. F., Chelaea, Mass.
PRICE, RICHARD, Jackson, Mich.
PURCELL, REV. FRANCIS A., LL.D.,

Chicago
QUINN, JNO., Houtzdale, Pa.
RAFFERTY, REV. MICHAEL J., Phila.
REA, REV. THOS. R., McKeesport, Pa.
REEVES, JAMES. New York City
REGAN, JNO., New Bedford, Mass.
REILLY, THOS. L., Meriden, Conn.
••REYNOLDS, REV. JNO., Brooklyn, N. Y.
•♦RING, REV. THOS. G., Euclid, O.

ROCHE, JNO. L., International Falls,

Minn.
ROWLEY. THOS., Canton, in.
RUTTLEDGE, WM. L., Detroit, Mich.
RYAN, JOHN D., New York City
RYAN, JUDGE O'NEILL, St. Louis, Mo.
RYAN. REV. WM. A., Dorchester, Mass.
SARSFIELD CLUB (per M. O'Connor),
New York City
••SCANNELL, REV. PATK. J., Stoughton,

Mass.
••SHEA. JNO., Lawrence, Mass.

SHERIDAN, REV. JNO. J., Syracuse,
N. Y.
••SHIELDS, MRS. HENRY GRATTAN,

Flemington, N. J.
••SULLIVAN. JOHN, New Bedford, Mass.
SULLIVAN, JNO. F., Brooklyn, N. Y.
SCANLAN, JNO. N., Harvard Club, New
• York City

SCANLAN, REV. P. J., Chicago
SCHMIDT, DR. O. L., Chicago
SERVITE FATHERS (per Rev. PhiUp

Burke), Chicago
SEXTON, REV. FRANCIS J., Jersey City,

N.J.
SHANNON, REV. THOS. V.. Chicago
SHEEHAN, REV. FRANCIS J., Phila., Pa.
••SHEEHAN, REV. MICHAEL, Harper's
Ferry, la.
SHEEHAN, MISS MARY, Leaora Lake.

Sask.. Canada
SHEWBRIDGE, REV. P. F., Chiezgo
SISTERS OF THE <K>OD SHEPHERD,
ProTidence

AN HONOR-ROLL

719

SLATTKRY, REV. LAWRENCE W.. New-
ton, Mass.

SMITH, REV. JNO. TALBOT, Dobb's
Ferry, N. Y.
•♦SMITH, REV. JOS. F., Cleveland

STAPLETON, REV. JAS., Detroit

VAN ANTWERP. RT. REV. FRANCIS

J., D.D., Detroit
WALSH, REV. DANIEL. Buffiloy N. Y.
WALSH, FRANK P., New York Qty
WALSH, REV. JNO. J., PhiU., P».
WALSH, SENATOR THOS. J., Montana

SUPPLE, RT. REV. MONS. PATK. J., ♦*WALL, RT. REV. MSGR. FRANCIS H.,

Boston
♦•TAAFFE, M. (E. Hennin^, Inc.), Chicago,

111.
••THORN, ADOLPH HERMANN, Milford,
Mass.
TORMEY, WALTER, Brookficld, Mo.
TONER, REV. JOS., Pittsburgh
TWOMEY, REV. MORTIMER E., So.
Boston
••USHER, TIMOTEQ, SanU Elena, Argen-
tina
VAHEY, JAS. H. (Vahey & Casson), Bos-
ton

New York City

WHALEN, WM. J. (of P. H. Coney).
Topteka, Kan.

WHEELWRIGHT, MRS. C. Rochester.

N. Y.

WHELAN, REV. JNO., Maggiolo, Argen-
tina

WHITE, THOS., Koppel. Pa.
WHOLEY, JAMES, Providence
•♦WOLF TONE CLUB (per Michael B. Mc
Greal), New Haven
WRENN, REV. FRANCIS. Akron, Iowa

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