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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11260 ***
+
+THE KILTARTAN HISTORY BOOK.
+
+BY LADY GREGORY.
+
+
+ILLUSTRATED
+
+BY ROBERT GREGORY
+
+
+
+_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
+
+Seven Short Plays
+
+Cuchulain of Muirthemne
+
+Gods and Fighting Men
+
+Poets and Dreamers
+
+A Book of Saints and Wonders
+
+
+
+DEDICATED AND RECOMMENDED TO THE HISTORY CLASSES IN THE NEW UNIVERSITY
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  The Ancient Times
+  Goban, the Builder
+  A Witty Wife
+  An Advice She Gave
+  Shortening the Road
+  The Goban's Secret
+  The Scotch Rogue
+  The Danes
+  The Battle of Clontarf
+  The English
+  The Queen of Breffny
+  King Henry VIII.
+  Elizabeth
+  Her Death
+  The Trace of Cromwell
+  Cromwell's Law
+  Cromwell in Connacht
+  A Worse than Cromwell
+  The Battle of Aughrim
+  The Stuarts
+  Another Story
+  Patrick Sarsfield
+  Queen Anne
+  Carolan's Song
+  'Ninety-Eight
+  Denis Browne
+  The Union
+  Robert Emmet
+  O'Connell's Birth
+  The Tinker
+  A Present
+  His Strategy
+  The Man was Going to be Hanged
+  The Cup of the Sassanach
+  The Thousand Fishers
+  What the Old Women Saw
+  O'Connell's Hat
+  The Change He Made
+  The Man He Brought to Justice
+  The Binding
+  His Monument
+  A Praise Made for Daniel O'Connell by Old Women and They Begging
+    at the Door
+  Richard Shiel
+  The Tithe War
+  The Fight at Carrickshock
+  The Big Wind
+  The Famine
+  The Cholera
+  A Long Remembering
+  The Terry Alts
+  The '48 Time
+  A Thing Mitchell Said
+  The Fenian Rising
+  A Great Wonder
+  Another Wonder
+  Father Mathew
+  The War of the Crimea
+  Garibaldi
+  The Buonapartes
+  The Zulu War
+  The Young Napoleon
+  Parnell
+  Mr. Gladstone
+  Queen Victoria's Religion
+  Her Wisdom
+  War and Misery
+  The Present King
+  The Old Age Pension
+  Another Thought
+  A Prophecy
+
+NOTES
+
+
+
+
+THE KILTARTAN HISTORY BOOK
+
+
+THE ANCIENT TIMES
+
+"As to the old history of Ireland, the first man ever died in Ireland
+was Partholan, and he is buried, and his greyhound along with him, at
+some place in Kerry. The Nemidians came after that and stopped for a
+while, and then they all died of some disease. And then the Firbolgs
+came, the best men that ever were in Ireland, and they had no law but
+love, and there was never such peace and plenty in Ireland. What
+religion had they? None at all. And there was a low-sized race came that
+worked the land of Ireland a long time; they had their time like the
+others. Many would tell you Grania slept under the cromlechs, but I
+don't believe that, and she a king's daughter. And I don't believe she
+was handsome either. If she was, why would she have run away? In the old
+time the people had no envy, and they would be writing down the stories
+and the songs for one another. But they are too venemous now to do that.
+And as to the people in the towns, they don't care for such things now,
+they are too corrupted with drink."
+
+
+GOBAN, THE BUILDER
+
+"The Goban was the master of sixteen trades. There was no beating him;
+he had got the gift. He went one time to Quin Abbey when it was
+building, looking for a job, and the men were going to their dinner, and
+he had poor clothes, and they began to jibe at him, and the foreman said
+'Make now a cat-and-nine-tails while we are at our dinner, if you are
+any good.' And he took the chisel and cut it in the rough in the stone,
+a cat with nine tails coming from it, and there it was complete when
+they came out from their dinner. There was no beating him. He learned no
+trade, but he was master of sixteen. That is the way, a man that has the
+gift will get more out of his own brain than another will get through
+learning. There is many a man without learning will get the better of a
+college-bred man, and will have better words too. Those that make
+inventions in these days have the gift, such a man now as Edison, with
+all he has got out of electricity."
+
+
+A WITTY WIFE
+
+"The Goban Saor was a mason and a smith, and he could do all things, and
+he was very witty. He was going from home one time and he said to the
+wife 'If it is a daughter you have this time I'll kill you when I come
+back'; for up to that time he had no sons, but only daughters. And it
+was a daughter she had; but a neighbouring woman had a son at the same
+time, and they made an exchange to save the life of the Goban's wife.
+But when the boy began to grow up he had no wit, and the Goban knew by
+that he was no son of his. That is the reason he wanted a witty wife
+for him. So there came a girl to the house one day, and the Goban Saor
+bade her look round at all that was in the room, and he said 'Do you
+think a couple could get a living out of this?' 'They could not,' she
+said. So he said she wouldn't do, and he sent her away. Another girl
+came another day, and he bade her take notice of all that was in the
+house, and he said 'Do you think could a couple knock a living out of
+this?' 'They could if they stopped in it,' she said. So he said that
+girl would do. Then he asked her could she bring a sheepskin to the
+market and bring back the price of it, and the skin itself as well. She
+said she could, and she went to the market, and there she pulled off the
+wool and sold it and brought back the price and the skin as well. Then
+he asked could she go to the market and not be dressed or undressed. And
+she went having only one shoe and one stocking on her, so she was
+neither dressed or undressed. Then he sent her to walk neither on the
+road or off the road, and she walked on the path beside it. So he said
+then she would do as a wife for his son."
+
+
+AN ADVICE SHE GAVE
+
+"One time some great king or lord sent for the Goban to build a
+_caislean_ for him, and the son's wife said to him before he went 'Be
+always great with the women of the house, and always have a comrade
+among them.' So when the Goban went there he coaxed one of the women the
+same as if he was not married. And when the castle was near built, the
+woman told him the lord was going to play him a trick, and to kill him
+or shut him up when he had the castle made, the way he would not build
+one for any-other lord that was as good. And as she said, the lord came
+and bade the Goban to make a cat and two-tails, for no one could make
+that but himself, and it was meaning to kill him on it he was. And the
+Goban said he would do that when he had finished the castle, but he
+could not finish it without some tool he had left at home. And they must
+send the lord's son for it--- for he said it would not be given to any
+other one. So the son was sent, and the Goban sent a message to the
+daughter-in-law that the tool he was wanting was called 'When you open
+it shut it.' And she was surprised, for there was no such tool in the
+house; but she guessed by the message what she had to do, and there was
+a big chest in the house and she set it open. 'Come now,' she said to
+the young man,' look in the chest and find it for yourself.' And when he
+looked in she gave him a push forward, and in he went, and she shut the
+lid on him. She wrote a letter to the lord then, saying he would not get
+his son back till he had sent her own two men, and they were sent back
+to her."
+
+
+SHORTENING THE ROAD
+
+"Himself and his son were walking the road together one day, and the
+Goban said to the son 'Shorten the road for me.' So the son began to
+walk fast, thinking that would do it, but the Goban sent him back home
+when he didn't understand what to do. The next day they were walking
+again, and the Goban said again to shorten the road for him, and this
+time he began to run, and the Goban sent him home again. When he went in
+and told the wife he was sent home the second time, she began to think,
+and she said, 'When he bids you shorten the road, it is that he wants
+you to be telling him stories.' For that is what the Goban meant, but it
+took the daughter-in-law to understand it. And it is what I was saying
+to that other woman, that if one of ourselves was making a journey, if
+we had another along with us, it would not seem to be one half as long
+as if we would be alone. And if that is so with us, it is much more with
+a stranger, and so I went up the hill with you to shorten the road,
+telling you that story."
+
+
+THE GOBAN'S SECRET
+
+"The Goban and his son were seven years building the castle, and they
+never said a word all that time. And at the end of seven years the son
+was at the top, and he said 'I hear a cow lowing.' And the Goban said
+then 'Make all strong below you, for the work is done,' and they went
+home. The Goban never told the secret of his building, and when he was
+on the bed dying they wanted to get it from him, and they went in and
+said 'Claregalway Castle is after falling in the night.' And the Goban
+said 'How can that be when I put a stone in and a stone out and a stone
+across.' So then they knew the way he built so well."
+
+
+THE SCOTCH ROGUE
+
+"One time he was on the road going to the town, and there was a Scotch
+rogue on the road that was always trying what could he pick off others,
+and he saw the Connemara man--that was the Goban--had a nice cravat, and
+he thought he would get a hold of that. So he began talking with him,
+and he was boasting of all the money he had, and the Goban said whatever
+it was he had three times as much as it, and he with only thirty pounds
+in the world. And the Scotch rogue thought he would get some of it from
+him, and he said he would go to a house in the town, and he gave him
+some food and some drink there, and the Goban said he would do the same
+for him on the morrow. So then the Goban went out to three houses, and
+in each of them he left ten pounds of his thirty pounds, and he told the
+people in every house what they had to do, and that when he would strike
+the table with his hat three times they would bring out the money. So
+then he asked the Scotch rogue into the first house, and ordered every
+sort of food and drink, ten pounds worth in all. And when they had used
+all they could of it, he struck with his hat on the table, and the man
+of the house brought out the ten pounds, and the Goban said 'Keep that
+to pay what I owe you.' The second day he did the same thing in another
+house. And in the third house they went to he ordered ten pounds worth
+of food and drink in the same way. And when the time came to pay, he
+struck the table with the hat, and there was the money in the hand of
+the man of the house before them. 'That's a good little caubeen,' said
+the Scotch rogue, 'when striking it on the table makes all that money
+appear.' 'It is a wishing hat,' said the Goban; 'anything I wish for I
+can get as long as I have that.' 'Would you sell it?' said the Scotch
+rogue. 'I would not,' said the Goban. 'I have another at home, but I
+wouldn't sell one or the other.' 'You may as well sell it, so long as
+you have another at home,' said the Scotch rogue. 'What will you give
+for it?' says the Goban. 'Will you give three hundred pounds for it?' 'I
+will give that,' says the Scotch rogue, 'when it will bring me all the
+wealth I wish for.' So he went out and brought the three hundred pound,
+and gave it to the Goban, and he got the caubeen and went away with it,
+and it not worth three halfpence. There was no beating the Goban.
+Wherever he got it, he had got the gift."
+
+
+THE DANES
+
+"The reason of the wisps and the fires on Saint John's Eve is that one
+time long ago the Danes came and took the country and conquered it, and
+they put a soldier to mind every house through the whole country. And at
+last the people made up their mind that on one night they would kill its
+soldiers. So they did as they said, and there wasn't one left, and that
+is why they light the wisps ever since. It was Brian Boroihme was the
+first to light them. There was not much of an army left to the Danes
+that time, for he made a great scatter of them. A great man he was, and
+his own son was as good, that is Murrough. It was the wife brought him
+to his end, Gormleith. She was for war, and he was all for peace. And he
+got to be very pious, too pious, and old and she got tired of that."
+
+
+THE BATTLE OF CLONTARF
+
+"Clontarf was on the head of a game of chess. The generals of the Danes
+were beaten at it, and they were vexed; and Cennedigh was killed on a
+hill near Fermoy. He put the Holy Gospels in his breast as a protection,
+but he was struck through them with a reeking dagger. It was Brodar,
+that the Brodericks are descended from, that put a dagger through
+Brian's heart, and he attending to his prayers. What the Danes left in
+Ireland were hens and weasels. And when the cock crows in the morning
+the country people will always say 'It is for Denmark they are crowing.
+Crowing they are to be back in Denmark.'"
+
+
+THE ENGLISH
+
+"It was a long time after that, the Pope encouraged King Henry to take
+Ireland. It was for a protection he did it, Henry being of his own
+religion, and he fearing the Druids or the Danes might invade Ireland."
+
+
+THE QUEEN OF BREFFNY
+
+"Dervorgilla was a red-haired woman, and it was she put the great curse
+on Ireland, bringing in the English through MacMurrough, that she went
+to from O'Rourke. It was to Henry the Second MacMurrough went, and he
+sent Strongbow, and they stopped in Ireland ever since. But who knows
+but another race might be worse, such as the Spaniards that were
+scattered along the whole coast of Connacht at the time of the Armada.
+And the laws are good enough. I heard it said the English will be dug
+out of their graves one day for the sake of their law. As to
+Dervorgilla, she was not brought away by force, she went to MacMurrough
+herself. For there are men in the world that have a coaxing way, and
+sometimes women are weak."
+
+
+KING HENRY VIII.
+
+"Henry the Eighth was crying and roaring and leaping out of the bed for
+three days and nights before his death. And he died cursing his
+children, and he that had eight millions when he came to the Throne,
+coining leather money at the end."
+
+
+ELIZABETH
+
+"Queen Elizabeth was awful. Beyond everything she was. When she came to
+the turn she dyed her hair red, and whatever man she had to do with, she
+sent him to the block in the morning, that he would be able to tell
+nothing. She had an awful temper. She would throw a knife from the table
+at the waiting ladies, and if anything vexed her she would maybe work
+upon the floor. A thousand dresses she left after her. Very
+superstitious she was. Sure after her death they found a card, the ace
+of hearts, nailed to her chair under the seat. She thought she would
+never die while she had it there. And she bought a bracelet from an old
+woman out in Wales that was over a hundred years. It was superstition
+made her do that, and they found it after her death tied about her
+neck."
+
+
+HER DEATH
+
+"It was a town called Calais brought her to her death, and she lay
+chained on the floor three days and three nights. The Archbishop was
+trying to urge her to eat, but she said 'You would not ask me to do it
+if you knew the way I am,' for nobody could see the chains. After her
+death they waked her for six days in Whitehall, and there were six
+ladies sitting beside the body every night. Three coffins were about
+it, the one nearest the body of lead, and then a wooden one, and a
+leaden one on the outside. And every night there came from them a great
+bellow. And the last night there came a bellow that broke the three
+coffins open, and tore the velvet, and there came out a stench that
+killed the most of the ladies and a million of the people of London with
+the plague. Queen Victoria was more honourable than that. It would be
+hard to beat Queen Elizabeth."
+
+
+THE TRACE OF CROMWELL
+
+"I'll tell you now about the trace of Cromwell. There was a young lady
+was married to a gentleman, and she died with her first baby, and she
+was brought away into a forth by the fairies, the good people, as I
+suppose. She used to be sitting on the side of it combing her hair, and
+three times her husband saw her there, but he had not the courage to go
+and to bring her away. But there was a man of the name of Howley living
+near the forth, and he went out with his gun one day and he saw her
+beside the forth, and he brought her away to his house, and a young baby
+sprang between them at the end of a year. One day the husband was out
+shooting and he came in upon Howley's land, and when young Howley heard
+the shooting he rose up and went out and he bade the gentleman to stop,
+for this was his land. So he stopped, and he said he was weary and
+thirsty, and he asked could he rest in the house. So young Howley said
+as long as he asked pardon he had leave to use what he liked. So he came
+in the house and he sat at the table, and he put his two eyes through
+the young lady. 'If I didn't see her dead and buried,' he said, 'I'd say
+that to be my own wife.' 'Oh!' said she, 'so I am your wife, and you are
+badly worthy of me, and you have the worst courage ever I knew, that you
+would not come and bring me away out of the forth as young Howley had
+the courage to bring me,' she said. So then he asked young Howley would
+he give him back his wife. 'I will give her,' he said, 'but you never
+will get the child.' So the child was reared, and when he was grown he
+went travelling up to Dublin. And he was at a hunt, and he lost the top
+of his boot, and he went into a shoemaker's shop and he gave him half a
+sovereign for nothing but to put the tip on the boot, for he saw he was
+poor and had a big family. And more than that, when he was going away he
+took out three sovereigns and gave them to the blacksmith, and he looked
+at one of the little chaps, and he said 'That one will be in command of
+the whole of England.' 'Oh, that cannot be,' said the blacksmith, 'where
+I am poor and have not the means to do anything for him.' 'It will be as
+I tell you,' said he, 'and write me out now a docket,' he said, 'that
+if ever that youngster will come to command Ireland, he will give me a
+free leg.' So the docket was made out, and he brought it away with him.
+And sure enough, the shoemaker's son listed, and was put at the head of
+soldiers, and got the command of England, and came with his soldiers to
+put down Ireland. And Howley saw them coming and he tied his
+handkerchief to the top of his stick, and when Cromwell saw that, he
+halted the army, 'For there is some poor man in distress,' he said. Then
+Howley showed him the docket his father had written. 'I will do some
+good thing for you on account of that,' said Cromwell; 'and go now to
+the top of that high cliff,' he said, 'and I'll give as much land as you
+can see from it.' And so he did give it to him. It was no wonder Howley
+to have known the shoemaker's son would be in command and all would
+happen him, because of his mother that got knowledge in the years she
+was in the forth. That is the trace of Cromwell. I heard it at a wake,
+and I would believe it, and if I had time to put my mind to it, and if I
+was not on the road from Loughrea to Ballyvaughan, I could give you the
+foundations of it better."
+
+
+CROMWELL'S LAW
+
+"I'll tell you about Cromwell and the White Friars. There was a White
+Friar at that time was known to have knowledge, and Cromwell sent word
+to him to come see him. It was of a Saturday he did that, of an Easter
+Saturday, but the Friar never came. On the Sunday Cromwell sent for him
+again, and he didn't come. And on the Monday he sent for him the third
+time, and he did come. 'Why is it you did not come to me when I sent
+before?' said Cromwell. 'I'll tell you that,' said the White Friar. 'I
+didn't come on Saturday,' he said, 'because your passion was on you. And
+I didn't come on the Sunday,' he said, 'because your passion was not
+gone down enough, and I thought you would not give me my steps. But I
+came to-day,' he said, 'because your passion is cool.' When Cromwell
+heard his answer, 'That is true,' he said, 'and tell me how long my law
+will last in Ireland.' 'It will last,' says the White Friar, 'till
+yesterday will come (that was Easter Sunday) the same day as our Lady
+Day.' Cromwell was satisfied then, and he gave him a free leg, and he
+went away. And so that law did last till now, and it's well it did, for
+without that law in the country you wouldn't be safe walking the road
+having so much as the price of a pint of porter in your pocket."
+
+
+CROMWELL IN CONNACHT
+
+"Cromwell cleared the road before him. If any great man stood against
+him he would pull down his castle the same as he pulled down that
+castle of your own, Ballinamantane, that is down the road. He never got
+more than two hours sleep or three, or at the most four, but starting up
+fearing his life would be peppered. There was a word he sounded out to
+the Catholics, 'To hell or Connacht,' and the reason he did that was
+that Connacht was burned bare, and he that thought to pass the winter
+there would get no lodging at all. Himself and his men travelled it, and
+they never met with anything that had human breath put in it by God till
+they came to Breffny, and they saw smoke from a chimney, and they
+surrounded the house and went into it. And what they saw was a skeleton
+over the fire roasting, and the people of the house picking flesh off it
+with the bits of a hook. And when they saw that, they left them there.
+It was a Clare man that burned Connacht so bare; he was worse than
+Cromwell, and he made a great slaughter in the house of God at Clonmel.
+The people have it against his family yet, and against the whole County
+of Clare."
+
+
+A WORSE THAN CROMWELL
+
+"Cromwell was very bad, but the drink is worse. For a good many that
+Cromwell killed should go to heaven, but those that are drunken never
+see heaven. And as to drink, a man that takes the first glass is as
+quiet and as merry as a pet lamb; and after the second glass he is as
+knacky as a monkey; and after the third glass he is as ready for battle
+as a lion; and after the fourth glass he is like a swine as he is. 'I am
+thirsty' [IRISH: Ta Tart Orm], that was one of our Lord's seven words on
+the Cross, where he was dry. And a man far off would have given him
+drink; but there was a drunkard at the foot of the Cross, and he
+prevented him."
+
+
+THE BATTLE OF AUGHRIM
+
+"That was a great slaughter at Aughrim. St. Ruth wanted to do all
+himself, he being a foreigner. He gave no plan of the battle to
+Sarsfield, but a written command to stop where he was, and Sarsfield
+knew no more than yourself or myself in the evening before it happened.
+It was Colonel Merell's wife bade him not go to the battle, where she
+knew it would go bad with him through a dream. But he said that meant
+that he would be crowned, and he went out and was killed. That is what
+the poem says:
+
+  If Caesar listened to Calpurnia's dream
+  He had not been by Pompey's statue slain.
+
+All great men gave attention to dreams, though the Church is against
+them now. It is written in Scripture that Joseph gave attention to his
+dream. But Colonel Merell did not, and so he went to his death. Aughrim
+would have been won if it wasn't for the drink. There was too much of it
+given to the Irish soldiers that day--drink and spies and traitors.
+The English never won a battle in Ireland in fair fight, but getting
+spies and setting the people against one another. I saw where Aughrim
+was fought, and I turned aside from the road to see the tree where St
+Ruth was killed. The half of it is gone like snuff. That was spies too,
+a Colonel's daughter that told the English in what place St. Ruth would
+be washing himself at six o'clock in the morning. And it was there he
+was shot by one O'Donnell, an Englishman. He shot him from six miles
+off. The Danes were dancing in the raths around Aughrim the night after
+the battle. Their ancestors were driven out of Ireland before; and they
+were glad when they saw those that had put them out put out themselves,
+and every one of them skivered."
+
+[ILLUSTRATION: WILLIAM III]
+
+
+THE STUARTS
+
+"As to the Stuarts, there are no songs about them and no praises in the
+West, whatever there may be in the South. Why would there, and they
+running away and leaving the country the way they did? And what good did
+they ever do it? James the Second was a coward. Why didn't he go into
+the thick of the battle like the Prince of Orange? He stopped on a hill
+three miles away, and rode off to Dublin, bringing the best of his
+troops with him. There was a lady walking in the street at Dublin when
+he got there, and he told her the battle was lost, and she said 'Faith
+you made good haste; you made no delay on the road.' So he said no more
+after that. The people liked James well enough before he ran; they
+didn't like him after that."
+
+
+ANOTHER STORY
+
+"Seumus Salach, Dirty James, it is he brought all down. At the time of
+the battle there was one of his men said, 'I have my eye cocked, and all
+the nations will be done away with,' and he pointing his cannon. 'Oh!'
+said James, 'Don't make a widow of my daughter.' If he didn't say that,
+the English would have been beat. It was a very poor thing for him to
+do."
+
+
+PATRICK SARSFIELD
+
+"Sarsfield was a great general the time he turned the shoes on his
+horse. The English it was were pursuing him, and he got off and changed
+the shoes the way when they saw the tracks they would think he went
+another road. That was a great plan. He got to Limerick then, and he
+killed thousands of the English. He was a great general."
+
+
+QUEEN ANNE
+
+"The Georges were fair; they left all to the Government; but Anne was
+very bad and a tyrant. She tyrannised over the Irish. She died
+broken-hearted with all the bad things that were going on about her. For
+Queen Anne was very wicked; oh, very wicked, indeed!"
+
+
+CAROLAN'S SONG
+
+"Carolan that could play the fiddle and the harp used to be going about
+with Cahil-a-Corba, that was a tambourine man. But they got tired of one
+another and parted, and Carolan went to the house of the King of Mayo,
+and he stopped there, and the King asked him to stop for his lifetime.
+There came a grand visitor one time, and when he heard Carolan singing
+and playing and his fine pleasant talk, he asked him to go with him on a
+visit to Dublin. So Carolan went, and he promised the King of Mayo he
+would come back at the end of a month. But when he was at the
+gentleman's house he liked it so well that he stopped a year with him,
+and it wasn't till the Christmas he came back to Mayo. And when he got
+there the doors were shut, and the King was at his dinner, and Queen
+Mary and the three daughters, and he could see them through the windows.
+But when the King saw him he said he would not let him in. He was vexed
+with him and angry he had broken his promise and his oath. So Carolan
+began to give out a song he had made about the King of Mayo and all his
+family, and he brought Queen Mary into it and the three daughters. Then
+the Queen asked leave of the King to bring him in, because he made so
+good a song, but the King would not give in to it. Then Carolan began to
+draw down the King of Mayo's father and his grandfather into the song.
+And Queen Mary asked again for forgiveness for him, and the King gave
+it that time because of the song that had in it the old times, and the
+old generations went through him. But as to Cahil-a-Corba, he went to
+another gentleman's house and he stopped too long in it and was driven
+out. But he came back, having changed his form, that the gentleman did
+not know him, and he let him in again, and then he was forgiven."
+
+
+'NINETY-EIGHT
+
+"In the year '98 there were the Yeomanry that were the worst of all. The
+time Father Murphy was killed there was one of them greased his boots in
+his heart. There was one of them was called Micky the Devil in Irish; he
+never went out without the pitchcap and the triangle, and any rebel he
+would meet he would put gunpowder in his hair and set a light to it. The
+North Cork Militia were the worst; there are places in Ireland where you
+would not get a drink of water if they knew you came from Cork. And it
+was the very same, the North Cork, that went of their own free will to
+the Boer war, volunteered, asked to go that is. They had the same sting
+in them always. A great many of them were left dead in that war, and a
+great many better men than themselves. There was one battle in that war
+there was no quarter given, the same as Aughrim; and the English would
+kill the wounded that would be left upon the field of battle. There is
+no Christianity in war."
+
+
+DENIS BROWNE
+
+"There is a tree near Denis Browne's house that used to be used for
+hanging men in the time of '98, he being a great man in that time, and
+High Sheriff of Mayo, and it is likely the gentlemen were afeared, and
+that there was bad work at nights. But one night Denis Browne was lying
+in his bed, and the Lord put it in his mind that there might be false
+information given against some that were innocent. So he went out and he
+brought out one of his horses into the lawn before the house, and he
+shot it dead and left it there. In the morning one of the butlers came
+up to him and said, 'Did you see that one of your horses was shot in the
+night?' 'How would I see that?' says he, 'and I not rose up or dressed?'
+So when he went out they showed him the horse, and he bade the men to
+bury it, and it wasn't two hours after before two of them came to him.
+'We can tell you who it was shot the horse,' they said. 'It was such a
+one and such a one in the village, that were often heard to speak bad of
+you. And besides that,' they said, 'we saw them shooting it ourselves.'
+So the two that gave that false witness were the last two Denis Browne
+ever hung. He rose out of it after, and washed his hands of it all. And
+his big house is turned into a convent, and the tree is growing there
+yet. It is in the time of '98 that happened, a hundred years ago."
+
+
+THE UNION
+
+"As to the Union, it was bought with titles. Look at the Binghams and
+the rest, they went to bed nothing, and rose up lords in the morning.
+The day it was passed Lady Castlereagh was in the House of Parliament,
+and she turned three colours, and she said to her husband, 'You have
+passed your treaty, but you have sold your country.' He went and cut his
+throat after that. And it is what I heard from the old people, there was
+no priest in Ireland but voted for it, the way they would get better
+rights, for it was only among poor persons they were going at that time.
+And it was but at the time of the Parliament leaving College Green they
+began to wear the Soutane that they wear now. Up to that it was a
+bodycoat they wore and knee-breeches. It was their vote sent the
+Parliament to England, and when there is a row between them or that the
+people are vexed with the priest, you will hear them saying in the house
+in Irish 'Bad luck on them, it was they brought misfortune to Ireland.'
+They wore the Soutane ever since that time."
+
+
+ROBERT EMMET
+
+"The Government had people bribed to swear against Robert Emmet, and the
+same men said after, they never saw him till he was in the dock. He
+might have got away but for his attention to that woman. She went away
+after with a sea captain. There are some say she gave information.
+Curran's daughter she was. But I don't know. He made one request, his
+letters that she wrote to him in the gaol not to be meddled with, but
+the Government opened them and took the presents she sent in them, and
+whatever was best of them they kept for themselves. He made the greatest
+speech from the dock ever was made, and Lord Norbury on the bench,
+checking and clogging him all the time. Ten hours he was in the dock,
+and they gave him no more than one dish of water all that time; and they
+executed him in a hurry, saying it was an attack they feared on the
+prison. There is no one knows where is his grave."
+
+
+O'CONNELL'S BIRTH
+
+"O'Connell was a grand man, and whatever cause he took in hand, it was
+as good as won. But what wonder? He was the gift of God. His father was
+a rich man, and one day he was out walking he took notice of a house
+that was being built. Well, a week later he passed by the same place,
+and he saw the walls of the house were no higher than before. So he
+asked the reason, and he was told it was a priest that was building it,
+and he hadn't the money to go on with. So a few days after he went to
+the priest's house and he asked was that true, and the priest said it
+was. 'Would you pay back the money to the man that would lend it to
+you?' says O'Connell. 'I would,' says the priest. So with that O'Connell
+gave him the money that was wanting--£50--for it was a very grand house.
+Well, after some time the priest came to O'Connell's house, and he found
+only the wife at home, so says he, 'I have some money that himself lent
+me.' But he had never told the wife of what he had done, so she knew
+nothing about it, and says she, 'Don't be troubling yourself about it,
+he'll bestow it on you.' 'Well,' says the priest, I'll go away now and
+I'll come back again.' So when O'Connell came, the wife told him all
+that had happened, and how a priest had come saying he owed him money,
+and how she had said he would bestow it on him. 'Well,' says O'Connell,
+'if you said I would bestow it, I will bestow it.' And so he did. Then
+the priest said, 'Have you any children?' 'Ne'er a child,' said
+O'Connell. 'Well you will have one,' said he. And that day nine months
+their young son was born. So what wonder if he was inspired, being, as
+he was, the Gift of God."
+
+
+[Illustration: O'CONNELL]
+
+THE TINKER
+
+"O'Connell was a great man. I never saw him, but I heard of his name.
+One time I saw his picture in a paper, where they were giving out meal,
+where Mrs. Gaynor's is and I kissed the picture of him. They were
+laughing at me for doing that, but I had heard of his good name. There
+was some poor man, a tinker, asked help of him one time in Dublin, and
+he said, 'I will put you in a place where you will get some good thing.'
+So he brought him to a lodging in a very grand house and put him in it.
+And in the morning he began to make saucepans, and he was making them
+there, and the shopkeeper that owned the house was mad at him to be
+doing that, and making saucepans in so grand a house, and he wanted to
+get him out of it, and he gave him a good sum of money to go out. He
+went back and told that to O'Connell, and O'Connell said, 'Didn't I tell
+you I would put you in the way to get some good thing?'"
+
+
+A PRESENT
+
+"There was a gentleman sent him a present one time, and he bade a little
+lad to bring it to him. Shut up in a box it was, and he bade the boy to
+give it to himself, and not to open the box. So the little lad brought
+it to O'Connell to give it to him. 'Let you open it yourself,' says
+O'Connell. So he opened it, and whatever was in it blew up and made an
+end of the boy, and it would have been the same with O'Connell if he had
+opened it."
+
+
+HIS STRATEGY
+
+"O'Connell was a grand man; the best within the walls of the world. He
+never led anyone astray. Did you hear that one time he turned the shoes
+on his horses? There were bad members following him. I cannot say who
+they were, for I will not tell what I don't know. He got a smith to turn
+the shoes, and when they came upon his track, he went east and they went
+west. Parnell was no bad man, but Dan O'Connell's name went up higher in
+praises."
+
+
+THE MAN WAS GOING TO BE HANGED
+
+"I saw O'Connell in Galway one time, and I couldn't get anear him. All
+the nations of the world were gathered there to see him. There were a
+great many he hung and a great many he got off from death, the dear man.
+He went into a town one time, and into a hotel, and he asked for his
+dinner. And he had a frieze dress, for he was very simple, and always a
+clerk along with him. And when the dinner was served to him, 'Is there
+no one here,' says he, 'to sit along with me; for it is seldom I ever
+dined without company.' 'If you think myself good enough to sit with
+you,' says the man of the hotel, 'I will do it.' So the two of them sat
+to the dinner together, and O'Connell asked was there any news in the
+town. 'There is,' says the hotel man, 'there is a man to be hung
+to-morrow.' 'Oh, my!' says O'Connell, 'what was it he did to deserve
+that?' 'Himself and another that had been out fowling,' says he, 'and
+they came in here and they began to dispute, and the one of them killed
+the other, and he will be hung to-morrow.' 'He will not,' says
+O'Connell. 'I tell you he will,' says the other, 'for the Judge is come
+to give the sentence.' Well, O'Connell kept to it that he would not, and
+they made a bet, and the hotel man bet all he had on the man being hung.
+In the morning O'Connell was in no hurry out of bed, and when the two of
+them walked into the Court, the Judge was after giving the sentence, and
+the man was to be hung. '_Maisead_,' says the judge when he saw
+O'Connell, 'I wish you had been here a half an hour ago, where there is
+a man going to be hung.' 'He is not,' says O'Connell. 'He is,' says the
+judge. 'If he is,' says O'Connell, 'that one will never let anyone go
+living out of his hotel, and he making money out of the hanging.' 'What
+do you mean saying that?' says the judge. Then O'Connell took the
+instrument out of his pocket where it was written down all the
+hotel-keeper had put on the hanging. And when the judge saw that, he set
+the man free, and he was not hanged."
+
+
+THE CUP OF THE SASSANACH
+
+"He was over in England one time, and he was brought to a party, and tea
+was made ready and cups. And as they were sitting at the table, a
+servant girl that was in it, and that was Irish, came to O'Connell and
+she said, 'Do you understand Irish?' [IRISH: 'An tuigeann tu Gaedilge,
+O'Connell?' 'Tuigim,'] says he, 'I understand it.' 'Have a care,' says
+she, 'for there is in your cup what would poison the whole nation!' 'If
+that is true, girl, you will get a good fortune,' said he. It was in
+Irish they said all that, and the people that were in it had no ears.
+Then O'Connell quenched the candle, and he changed his cup for the cup
+of the man that was next him. And it was not long till the man fell
+dead. They were always trying to kill O'Connell, because he was a good
+man. The Sassanach it was were against him. Terrible wicked they were,
+and God save us, I believe they are every bit as wicked yet!"
+
+
+THE THOUSAND FISHERS
+
+"O'Connell came to Galway one time, and he sent for all the trades to
+come out with the sign of their trade in their hand, and he would see
+which was the best. And there came ten hundred fishers, having all white
+flannel clothes and black hats and white scarves about them, and he gave
+the sway to them. It wasn't a year after that, the half of them were
+lost, going through the fogs at Newfoundland, where they went for a
+better way of living."
+
+
+WHAT THE OLD WOMEN SAW
+
+"The greatest thing I ever saw was O'Connell driving through Gort, very
+plain, and an oiled cap on him, and having only one horse; and there was
+no house in Gort without his picture in it." "O'Connell rode up Crow
+Lane and to Church Street on a single horse, and he stopped there and
+took a view of Gort." "I saw O'Connell after he left Gort going on the
+road to Kinvara, and seven horses in the coach--they could not get in
+the eighth. He stopped, and he was talking to Hickman that was with me.
+Shiel was in the coach along with him."
+
+
+O'CONNELL'S HAT
+
+"O'Connell wore his hat in the English House of Commons, what no man but
+the King can do. He wore it for three days because he had a sore head,
+and at the end of that they bade him put it off, and he said he would
+not, where he had worn it three days."
+
+
+THE CHANGE HE MADE
+
+"O'Connell was a great councillor. At that time if there was a Catholic,
+no matter how high or great or learned he was, he could not get a place.
+But if a Protestant came that was a blockhead and ignorant, the place
+would be open to him. There was a revolution rising because of that, and
+O'Connell brought it into the House of Commons and got it changed. He
+was the greatest man ever was in Ireland. He was a very clever lawyer;
+he would win every case, he would put it so strong and clear and clever.
+If there were fifteen lawyers against him--five and ten--he would win it
+against them all, whether the case was bad or good."
+
+
+THE MAN HE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE
+
+"Corly, that burned his house in Burren, was very bad, and it was
+O'Connell brought him to the gallows. The only case O'Connell lost was
+against the Macnamaras, and he told them he would be even with them, and
+so when Corly, that was a friend of theirs, was brought up he kept his
+word. There was no doubt about him burning the house, it was to
+implicate the Hynes he did it, to lay it on them. There was a girl used
+to go out milking at daybreak, and she awoke, and the moon was shining,
+and she thought it was day, and got up and looked out, and she saw him
+doing it."
+
+
+THE BINDING
+
+"O'Connell was a great man, wide big arms he had. It was he left us the
+cheap tea; to cheapen it he did, that was at that time a shilling for
+one bare ounce. His heart is in Rome and his body in Glasnevin. A lovely
+man, he would put you on your guard; he was for the country, he was all
+for Ireland."
+
+
+HIS MONUMENT
+
+"There is a nice monument put up to O'Connell in Ennis, in a corner it
+is of the middle of a street, and himself high up on it, holding a book.
+It was a poor shoe-maker set that going. I saw him in Gort one time, a
+coat of O'Connell's he had that he chanced in some place. Only for him
+there would be no monument; it was he gathered money for it, and there
+was none would refuse him."
+
+
+A PRAISE MADE FOR DANIEL O'CONNELL BY OLD WOMEN AND THEY BEGGING AT THE
+DOOR
+
+"Dan O'Connell was the best man in the world, and a great man surely;
+and there could not be better than what O'Connell was.
+
+"It was from him I took the pledge and I a child, and kept it ever
+after. He would give it to little lads and children, but not to any aged
+person. Pilot trousers he had and a pilot coat, and a grey and white
+waistcoat.
+
+"O'Connell was all for the poor. See what he did at Saint Patrick's
+Island--he cast out every bad thing and every whole thing, to England
+and to America and to every part. He fought it well for every whole
+body.
+
+"A splendid monument there is to him in Ennis, and his fine top coat
+upon him. A lovely man; you'd think he was alive and all, and he having
+his hat in his hand. Everyone kneels down on the steps of it and says a
+few prayers and walks away. It is as high as that tree below. If he was
+in Ireland now the pension would go someway right.
+
+"He was the best and the best to everyone; he got great sway in the town
+of Gort, and in every other place.
+
+"I suppose he has the same talk always; he is able to do for us now as
+well as ever he was; surely his mercy and goodness are in the town of
+Gort.
+
+"He did good in the world while he was alive; he was a great man surely;
+there couldn't be better in this world I believe, or in the next world;
+there couldn't be better all over the world.
+
+"He used to go through all nations and to make a fight for the poor; he
+gave them room to live, and used to fight for them too. There is no
+doubt at all he did help them, he was well able to do it."
+
+
+RICHARD SHIEL
+
+"As to Shiel, he was small, dressed very neat, with knee-breeches and a
+full vest and a long-skirted coat. He had a long nose, and was not much
+to look at till he began to speak, and then you'd see genius coming out
+from him. His voice was shrill, and that spoiled his speech sometimes,
+when he would get excited, and would raise it at the end. But
+O'Connell's voice you would hear a mile off, and it sounded as if it was
+coming through honey,"
+
+
+THE TITHE WAR
+
+"And the Tithes, the tenth of the land that St. Patrick and his Bishops
+had settled for their own use, it was to Protestants it was given. And
+there would have been a revolution out of that, but it was done away
+with, and it is the landlord has to pay it now. The Pope has a great
+power that is beyond all. There is one day and one minute in the year
+he has that power if it pleases him to use it. At that minute it runs
+through all the world, and every priest goes on his knees and the Pope
+himself is on his knees, and that request cannot be refused, because
+they are the grand jury of the world before God. A man was talking to me
+about the burying of the Tithes; up on the top of the Devil's Bit it
+was, and if you looked around you could see nothing but the police. Then
+the boys came riding up, and white rods in their hands, and they dug a
+grave, and the Tithes, some image of them, was buried. It was a wrong
+thing for one religion to be paying for the board of the clergy of
+another religion."
+
+
+THE FIGHT AT CARRICKSHOCK
+
+"The Tithe War, that was the time of the fight at Carrickshock. A narrow
+passage that was in it, and the people were holding it against the
+police that came with the Proctor. There was a Captain defending the
+Proctor that had been through the Battle of Waterloo, and it was the
+Proctor they fired at, but the Captain fell dead, and fourteen police
+were killed with him. But the people were beat after, and were brought
+into court for the trial, and the counsel for the Crown was against
+them, Dougherty. They were tried in batches, and every batch was
+condemned, Dougherty speaking out the case against them. But O'Connell,
+that was at that time at Cork Assizes, heard of it, and he came, and
+when he got to the door the pony that brought him dropped dead. He came
+in and he took refreshment--bread and milk--the same as I am after
+taking now, and he looked up and he said 'That is no law.' Then the
+judge agreed with him, and he got every one of them off after that; but
+only for him they would swing. The Tithes were bad, a farmer to have
+three stacks they's take the one of them. And that was the first time of
+the hurling matches, to gather the people against the Tithes. But there
+was hurling in the ancient times in Ireland, and out in Greece, and
+playing at the ball, and that is what is called the Olympian Games."
+
+
+THE BIG WIND
+
+"As to the Big Wind, I was on my elder sister's back going to a friend
+beyond, and when I was coming back it was slacked away, and I was
+wondering at the holes in the houses." "I was up to twelve year at the
+time of the Big Wind that was in '39, and I was over at Roxborough with
+my father that was clearing timber from the road, and your father came
+out along the road, and he was wild seeing the trees and rocks whipped
+up into the sky the way they were with the wind. But what was that to
+the bitter time of the Famine that came after?"
+
+
+THE FAMINE
+
+"The Famine; there's a long telling in that, it is a thing will be
+remembered always. That little graveyard above, at that time it was
+filled full up of bodies; the Union had no way to buy coffins for them.
+There would be a bag made, and the body put into it, that was all; and
+the people dying without priest, or bishop, or anything at all. But over
+in Connemara it was the dogs brought the bodies out of the houses, and
+asked no leave."
+
+
+THE CHOLERA
+
+"The cholera was worse again. It came from foreign, and it lasted a
+couple of years, till God drove it out of the country. It is often I saw
+a man ploughing the garden in the morning till dinner time, and before
+evening he would be dead. It was as if on the wind it came, there was no
+escape from it; on the wind, the same as it would come now and would
+catch on to pigs. Sheds that would be made out in the haggards to put
+the sick in, they would turn as black as your coat. There was no one
+could go near them without he would have a glass of whiskey taken, and
+he wouldn't like it then."
+
+
+A LONG REMEMBERING
+
+"The longest thing I remember is the time of the sickness, and my father
+that was making four straw mats for four brothers that died, and that
+couldn't afford coffins. The bodies were put in the mats and were tied
+up in them. And the second thing I remember is the people digging in the
+stubble after the oats and the wheat; to see would they meet a potato,
+and sometimes they did, for God sent them there."
+
+
+THE TERRY ALTS
+
+"The Terry Alts were a bad class; everything you had they'd take from
+you. It was against herding they began to get the land, the same as at
+the present time. And women they would take; a man maybe that hadn't a
+perch of land would go to a rich farmer's house and bring away his
+daughter. And I, supposing, to have some spite against you, I'd gather a
+mob and do every bad thing to destroy you. That is the way they were, a
+bad class and doing bad deeds."
+
+
+THE '48 TIME
+
+"Thomas Davis was a great man where poetry is concerned, and a better
+than Thomas Moore. All over Ireland his poetry is, and he would have
+done other things but that he died young. That was the '48 time. The '48
+men were foolish men; they thought to cope with the English Government.
+They went to O'Connell to get from him all the money he had gathered,
+for they had it in their head to use that to make a rise against
+England. But when they asked O'Connell for it he told them there was
+none of it left, not one penny. Buying estates for his children he used
+it, and he said he spent it on a monastery. I don't know was he speaking
+truth. Mahon made a great speech against him, and it preyed on
+O'Connell, and he left the country and went away and died in some place
+called Genoa. He was a very ambitious man, like Napoleon. He got
+Emancipation; but where is the use of that? There's Judge O'Brien, Peter
+the Packer, was calling out and trying to do away with trial by jury.
+And he would not be in his office or in his billet if it wasn't for
+O'Connell. They didn't do much after, where they didn't get the money
+from O'Connell. And the night they joined under Smith O'Brien they
+hadn't got their supper. A terrible cold night it was, no one could
+stand against it. Some bishop came from Dublin, and he told them to go
+home, for how could they reach with their pikes to the English soldiers
+that had got muskets. The soldiers came, and there was some firing, and
+they were all scattered. As to Smith O'Brien, there was ten thousand
+pounds on his head, and he hid for a while. Then at the last he went
+into the town of Clonmel, and there was a woman there in the street was
+a huckster, and he bade her give him up to the Government, for she would
+never earn money so easy. But for all she was worth she wouldn't do
+that. So then he went and gave himself up, and he was sent to Australia,
+and the property was given to his brother."
+
+
+A THING MITCHELL SAID
+
+"Mitchell was kept in Clonmel gaol two years before he was sent to
+Australia. He was a Protestant, and a very good man. He said in a
+speech, where was the use of meetings and of talking? It was with the
+point of their bayonet the English would have to be driven out of
+Ireland. It was Mitchell said that."
+
+
+THE FENIAN RISING
+
+"It was a man from America it came with. There was one Mackie was taken
+in a publichouse in Cork, and there was a policeman killed in the
+struggle. Judge O'Hagan was the judge when he was in the dock, and he
+said, 'Mr. Mackie, I see you are a gentleman and an educated man; and
+I'm sorry,' he said, 'that you did not read Irish history.' Mackie cried
+when he heard that, for indeed it was all spies about him, and it was
+they gave him up."
+
+
+A GREAT WONDER
+
+"The greatest wonder I ever saw was one time near Kinvara at a funeral,
+there came a car along the road and a lady on it having a plaid cloak,
+as was the fashion then, and a big hat, and she kept her head down and
+never looked at the funeral at all. I wondered at her when I saw that,
+and I said to my brother it was a strange thing a lady to be coming past
+a funeral and not to look on at it at all. And who was on the car but
+O'Gorman Mahon, escaping from the Government, and dressed up as a lady!
+He drove to Father Arthur's house at Kinvara, and there was a boat
+waiting, and a cousin of my own in it, to bring him out to a ship, and
+so he made his escape."
+
+
+ANOTHER WONDER
+
+"I saw Clerkenwell prison in London broken up in the time of the
+Fenians, and every ship and steamer in the whole of the ocean stopped.
+The prison was burned down, and all the prisoners consumed, and seven
+doctors' shops along with it."
+
+
+FATHER MATHEW
+
+"Father Mathew was a great man, plump and red in the face. There
+couldn't be better than what he was. I knew one Kane in Gort he gave a
+medal to, and he kept it seventy years. Kane was a great totaller, and
+he wouldn't drink so much as water out of a glass, but out of a cup; the
+glass might have been used for porter at some time. He lost the medal,
+and was in a great way about it, but he found it five years after in a
+dung-heap. A great totaller he was. Them that took the medal from Father
+Mathew and that kept it, at their death they would be buried by men
+dressed in white clothes."
+
+
+THE WAR OF THE CRIMEA
+
+"My husband was in the war of the Crimea. It is terrible the hardships
+he went through, to be two months without going into a house, under the
+snow in trenches. And no food to get, maybe a biscuit in the day. And
+there was enough food there, he said, to feed all Ireland; but bad
+management, they could not get it. Coffee they would be given, and they
+would be cutting a green bramble to strive to make a fire to boil it.
+The dead would be buried every morning; a big hole would be dug, and the
+bodies thrown in, and lime upon them; and some of the bodies would be
+living when they were buried. My husband used to try to revive them if
+he saw there was life in them, but other lads wouldn't care--just to put
+them down and have done. And they were allowed to take nothing--money,
+gold watches, and the like, all thrown in the ground. Sure they did not
+care much about such things, they might be lying in the same place
+themselves to-morrow. But the soldiers would take the money sometimes
+and put it in their stocking and tie the stocking below the ankle and
+below the knee. But if the officer knew that, they would be
+courtmartialed and punished. He got two medals--one from the English and
+one from the Emperor of Turkey. Fighting for the Queen, and bad pay she
+gave him. He never knew what was the war for, unless it might be for
+diminishing the population. We saw in the paper a few years ago there
+was a great deal of money collected for soldiers that had gone through
+hardship in the war, and we wrote to the War Office asking some of it
+for him. But they wrote back that there were so many young men crippled
+in the Boer war there was nothing to be spared for the old. My husband
+used to be saying the Queen cared nothing for the army, but that the
+King, even before he was King, was better to it. But I'm thinking from
+this out the King will get very few from Ireland for his army."
+
+[Illustration: W.E. GLADSTONE]
+
+
+GARIBALDI
+
+"There was one of my brothers died at Lyons in France. He had a place in
+Guinness's brewery, and earning £3 10s. a week, and it was the time
+Garibaldi, you might have heard of, was out fighting. There came a ship
+to Dublin from France, calling for soldiers, and he threw up his place,
+and there were many others threw up their place, and they went off,
+eleven hundred of them, in the French ship, to go fighting for their
+religion, and a hundred of them never came back. When they landed in
+France they were made much of and velvet carpets spread before them. But
+the war was near over then, and when it had ended they were forgotten,
+and nothing done for them, and he was in poverty at Lyons and died. It
+was the nuns there wrote a letter in French telling that to my mother."
+"And Napoleon the Third fought for the Pope in the time of Garibaldi. A
+great many Irishmen went out at that time, and the half of them never
+came back. I met with one of them that was in Russell's flour stores,
+and he said he would never go out again if there were two hundred Popes.
+Bad treatment they got--black bread, and the troops in the Vatican well
+fed; and it wasn't long till Victor Emanuel's troops made a breach in
+the wall."
+
+
+THE BUONAPARTES
+
+"Napoleon the Third was not much. He died in England, and was buried in
+a country church-yard much the same as Kiltartan. But Napoleon the First
+was a great man; it was given out of him there never would be so great a
+man again. But he hadn't much education, and his penmanship was bad.
+Every great man gave in to superstition. He gave into it when he went to
+ask the gipsy woman to divine, and she told him his fate. Through fire
+and a rock she said that he would fall. I suppose the rock was St.
+Helena, and the fire was the fire of Waterloo. Napoleon was the terror
+of England, and he would have beat the English at Waterloo but for
+treachery, the treachery of Grouchy. It was, maybe, not his fault he was
+treacherous, he might be the same as Judas, that had his treachery
+settled for him four thousand years before his birth. There was a curse
+on Napoleon the Third because of what Napoleon the First had done
+against the Church. He took Malta one time and landed there, and by
+treachery with the knights he robbed a church that was on the shore, and
+carried away the golden gates. In an ironclad he put them that was
+belonging to the English, and they sank that very day, and were never
+got up after, unless it might be by divers. And two Popes he brought
+into exile. But he was the friend of Ireland, and when he was dying he
+said that. His heart was smashed, he said, with all the ruling Princes
+that went against him; and if he had made an attack on Ireland, he said,
+instead of going to Moscow the time he did, he would have brought
+England low. And the Prince Imperial was trapped. It was the English
+brought him out to the war, and that made the nations go against him,
+and it was an English officer led him into the trap the way he never
+would come to the Throne."
+
+[Illustration: LOUIS NAPOLEON]
+
+
+THE ZULU WAR
+
+"I was in the army the time of the Zulu war. Great hardship we got in it
+and plenty of starvation. It was the Dutch called in the English to help
+them against the Zulus, that were tricky rogues, and would do no work
+but to be driving the cattle off the fields. A pound of raw flour we
+would be given out at seven o'clock in the morning, and some would try
+to make a cake, and some would put it in a pot with water and be
+stirring it, and it might be eleven o'clock before you would get what
+you could eat, and not a bit of meat maybe for two days."
+
+
+THE YOUNG NAPOLEON
+
+"There was a young Napoleon there, the grandson of Napoleon the First,
+that was a great man indeed. I was in the island where he was interred;
+it is a grand place, and what is not natural in those parts, there are
+two blackthorn bushes growing in it where you go into the place he was
+buried. And as to that great Napoleon, the fear of him itself was enough
+to kill people. If he was living till now it is hard to say what way
+would the world be. It is likely there'd be no English left in it, and
+it would be all France. The young Napoleon was at the Zulu war was as
+fine a young man as you'd wish to lay an eye on; six feet four, and
+shaped to match. As to his death, there was things might have been
+brought to light, but the enquiry was stopped. There was seven of them
+went out together, and he was found after, lying dead in the ground, and
+his top coat spread over him. There came a shower of hailstones that
+were as large as the top of your finger, and as square as diamonds, and
+that would enter into your skull. They made out it was to save himself
+from them that he lay down. But why didn't they lift him in the saddle
+and bring him along with them? And the bullet was taken out of his head
+was the same every bit as our bullets; and where would a Zulu get a
+bullet like that? Very queer it was, and a great deal of talk about it,
+and in my opinion he was done away with because the English saw the
+grandfather in him, and thought he would do away with themselves in the
+time to come. Sure if he spoke to one of them, he would begin to shake
+before him, officers the same as men. We had often to be laughing seeing
+that."
+
+
+PARNELL
+
+"Parnell was a very good man, and a just man, and if he had lived to
+now, Ireland would be different to what it is. The only thing ever could
+be said against him was the influence he had with that woman. And how do
+we know but that was a thing appointed for him by God? Parnell had a
+back to him, but O'Connell stood alone. He fought a good war in the
+House of Commons. Parnell did a great deal, getting the land. I often
+heard he didn't die at all--it was very quick for him to go. I often
+wondered there were no people smart enough to dig up the coffin and to
+see what is in it, at night they could do that. No one knows in what
+soil Robert Emmet was buried, but he was made an end of sure enough.
+Parnell went through Gort one day, and he called it the fag-end of
+Ireland, just as Lady Morgan called the North the Athens of Ireland."
+
+
+MR. GLADSTONE
+
+"Gladstone had the name of being the greatest statesman of England, and
+he wasn't much after all. At the time of his death he had it on his mind
+that it was he threw the first stone at Parnell, and he confessed that,
+and was very sorry for it. But sure there is no one can stand all
+through. Look at Solomon that had ten hundred wives, and some of them
+the finest of women, and that spent all the money laid up by Father
+David. And Gladstone encouraged Garibaldi the time he attacked the
+Vatican, and gave him arms, Parnell charged him with that one time in
+the House of Commons, and said he had the documents, and he hadn't a
+word to say. But he was sorry at Parnell's death, and what was the use
+of that when they had his heart broke? Parnell did a great deal for the
+Irish, and they didn't care after; they are the most displeasing people
+God ever made, unless it might be the ancient Jews."
+
+
+QUEEN VICTORIA'S RELIGION
+
+"Queen Victoria was loyal and true to the Pope; that is what I was told,
+and so is Edward the Seventh loyal and true, but he has got something
+contrary in his body. It is when she was a girl she put on clothes like
+your own--lady's clothes--and she went to the Pope. Did she turn
+Catholic? She'd be beheaded if she did; the Government would behead her;
+it is the Government has power in England."
+
+
+HER WISDOM
+
+"As to the last Queen, we thought her bad when we had her, but now we
+think her good. She was a hard woman, and she did nothing for Ireland in
+the bad years; but I'll give you the reason she had for that. She had it
+in her mind always to keep Ireland low, it being the place she mostly
+got her soldiers. That might not be good for Ireland, but it was good
+for her own benefit. The time the lads have not a bit to eat, that is
+the time they will go soldiering."
+
+
+WAR AND MISERY
+
+"There was war and misery going on all through Victoria's reign. It was
+the Boer war killed her, she being aged, and seeing all her men going
+out, and able to do nothing. Ten to one they were against the Boers.
+That is what killed her. It is a great tribute to the war it did that."
+
+
+THE PRESENT KING
+
+"The present King is very good. He is a gentleman very fond of visiting,
+and well pleased with every class of people he will meet."
+
+
+THE OLD AGE PENSIONS
+
+"The old age pension is very good, and as to taxes, them can't pay it
+that hasn't it. It is since the Boer War there is coin sent back from
+Africa every week that is dug from the goldpits out there. That is what
+the English wanted the time they went to war; they want to close up the
+minerals for themselves. If it wasn't for the war, that pension would
+never be given to Ireland. They'd have been driven home by the Boers if
+it wasn't for the Irish that were in the front of every battle. And the
+Irish held out better too, they can starve better than the rest, there
+is more bearing in them. It wasn't till all the Irish were killed that
+the English took to bribing. Bribed Botha they did with a bag of gold.
+For all the generals in England that are any good are Irish. Buller was
+the last they had, and he died. They can find no good generals at all in
+England, unless they might get them very young."
+
+
+ANOTHER THOUGHT
+
+"It was old money was in the Treasury idle, and the King and Queen
+getting old wanted to distribute it in the country it was taken from.
+But some say it was money belonging to captains and big men that died in
+the war and left no will after them. Anyway it is likely it will not
+hold; and it is known that a great many of those that get it die very
+soon."
+
+
+A PROPHECY
+
+"It is likely there will be a war at the end of the two thousand, that
+was always foretold. And I hear the English are making ships that will
+dive the same as diving ducks under the water. But as to the Irish
+Americans, they would sweep the entire world; and England is afraid of
+America, it being a neighbour."
+
+
+NOTES
+
+I have given this book its name because it is at my own door, in the
+Barony of Kiltartan, I have heard a great number of the stories from
+beggars, pipers, travelling men, and such pleasant company. But others I
+have heard in the Workhouse, or to the north of Galway Bay, in
+Connemara, or on its southern coast, in Burren. I might, perhaps, better
+have called the little book Myths in the Making.
+
+A sociable people given to conversation and belief; no books in the
+house, no history taught in the schools; it is likely that must have
+been the way of it in old Greece, when the king of highly civilised
+Crete was turned by tradition into a murderous tyrant owning a monster
+and a labyrinth. It was the way of it in old France too, one thinks,
+when Charlemagne's height grew to eight feet, and his years were counted
+by centuries: "He is three hundred years old, and when will he weary of
+war?" Anyhow, it has been the way of modern Ireland--the Ireland I
+know--and when I hear myth turned into history, or history into myth, I
+see in our stonebreakers and cattle drivers Greek husbandmen or ancient
+vinedressers of the Loire.
+
+I noticed some time ago, when listening to many legends of the Fianna,
+that is about Finn, their leader, the most exaggerated of the tales have
+gathered; and I believe the reason is that he, being the greatest of the
+"Big Men," the heroic race, has been most often in the mouths of the
+people. They have talked of him by their fire-sides for two thousand
+years or so; at first earlier myths gathered around him, and then from
+time to time any unusual feats of skill or cunning shown off on one or
+another countryside, till many of the stories make him at the last
+grotesque, little more than a clown. So in Bible History, while lesser
+kings keep their dignity, great Solomon's wit is outwitted by the
+riddles of some countryman; and Lucifer himself, known in Kiltartan as
+"the proudest of the angels, thinking himself equal with God," has been
+seen in Sligo rolling down a road in the form of the _Irish Times_. The
+gods of ancient Ireland have not escaped. Mananaan, Son of the Sea,
+Rider of the Horses of the Sea, was turned long ago into a juggler doing
+tricks, and was hunted in the shape of a hare. Brigit, the "Fiery
+Arrow," the nurse of poets, later a saint and the Foster-mother of
+Christ, does her healing of the poor in the blessed wells of to-day as
+"a very civil little fish, very pleasant, wagging its tail."
+
+Giobniu, the divine smith of the old times, made a new sword and a new
+spear for every one that was broken in the great battle between the gods
+and the mis-shapen Fomor. "No spearpoint that is made by my hand," he
+said, "will ever miss its mark; no man it touches will ever taste life
+again." It was his father who, with a cast of a hatchet, could stop the
+inflowing of the tide; and it was he himself whose ale gave lasting
+youth: "No sickness or wasting ever comes on those who drink at
+Giobniu's Feast." Later he became a saint, a master builder, builder of
+a house "more shining than a garden; with its stars, with its sun, with
+its moon." To-day he is known as the builder of the round towers of the
+early Christian centuries, and of the square castles of the
+Anglo-Normans. And the stories I have given of him, called as he now is,
+"the Goban Saor," show that he has fallen still farther in legend from
+his high origin.
+
+As to O'Connell, perhaps because his name, like that of Finn and the
+Goban, is much in the mouths of the people, there is something of the
+absurd already coming into his legend. The stories of him show more than
+any others how swiftly myths and traditions already in the air may
+gather around a memory much loved and much spoken of. He died only sixty
+years ago, and many who have seen and heard him are still living; and
+yet he has already been given a miraculous birth, and the power of a
+saint is on its way to him. I have charged my son, and should I live
+till he comes to sensible years, I will charge my grandson, to keep
+their ears open to the growth of legend about him who was once my
+husband's friendly enemy, and afterwards his honoured friend.
+
+I do not take the credit or the discredit of the opinions given by the
+various speakers, nor do I go bail for the facts; I do but record what
+is already in "the Book of the People." The history of England and
+Ireland was shut out of the schools and it became a passion. As to why
+it was shut out, well, I heard someone whisper "Eugene Aram hid the body
+away, being no way anxious his scholars should get a sight of it." But
+this also was said in the barony of Kiltartan.
+
+The illustrations are drawn from some delft figures, ornaments in a
+Kiltartan house.
+
+
+A. GREGORY.
+
+COOLE PARK, _November_, 1909.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Kiltartan History Book, by Lady I. A. Gregory
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11260 ***