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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The South Isles of Aran, by Oliver J. Burke
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The South Isles of Aran
+
+Author: Oliver J. Burke
+
+Release Date: October 24, 2011 [EBook #37840]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SOUTH ISLES OF ARAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brian Foley, Jane Hyland and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
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+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SOUTH ISLES OF ARAN
+
+
+
+
+    THE SOUTH ISLES OF ARAN
+    (_COUNTY GALWAY_)
+
+    BY
+    OLIVER J. BURKE, A.B., T.C.D.
+
+    Knight of the Order of St. Gregory the Great
+
+    _BARRISTER-AT-LAW_
+
+    AUTHOR OF "THE HISTORY OF ROSS ABBEY," "HISTORY OF THE LORD CHANCELLORS
+    OF IRELAND," "HISTORY OF THE ARCHBISHOPS OF TUAM," "ANECDOTES OF
+    THE CONNAUGHT CIRCUIT"
+
+    "Signs and tokens round us thicken,
+    Hearts throb high and pulses quicken"
+
+    LONDON
+    KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE
+    1887
+
+
+
+
+(_The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved._)
+
+
+
+
+TO THE HON. MR. JUSTICE O'HAGAN,
+
+ONE OF THE JUSTICES OF THE SUPREME COURT IN IRELAND.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MY DEAR JUDGE O'HAGAN,
+
+During the vacation of last autumn I applied myself to collecting as
+much information as possible concerning the South Isles of Aran, which I
+had visited in connection with the Land Commission in the previous month
+of July. Pressure of business and a severe illness compelled me to defer
+until recently the arranging of my notes, which, in the hope that they
+may direct the attention of those in power to the long neglected
+Islands, I have resolved to publish, and I look on it as a good omen of
+the success of my efforts that you have kindly allowed me to dedicate my
+work to you, who have won so high a place in law and in literature.
+
+                   Believe me to remain
+                                          Sincerely yours,
+                                                           OLIVER J. BURKE.
+
+    OWER, HEADFORD,
+                 CO. GALWAY,
+                         _August 8, 1887_.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+    CHAPTER I.
+
+                                                                       PAGE
+
+    Island of Aran--Galway bay, anciently Lough
+    Lurgan--Population--Religion, etc.--Inishmore, ruins on--Inishmaan,
+    ruins on--Inisheer, ruins on--Mail boat--Hotel--Aran
+    landscape--Flora--Potatoes--Aran wildfowl--Capture of the
+    puffin--Cragsmen--Geology of islands--Limestone
+    terraces--Boulders--Cliffs on islands--Seaweeds--Moving sands--_Pinus
+    maritima_                                                       1
+
+
+    CHAPTER II.
+
+    Monuments of Druidism--Druids--Cairns--Cromlechs--Baal,
+    worship of--Zodiacal rings--Sacred fires--Druidical
+    religion--Sir Edward Coke, on--Groves--Immense
+    fortresses--Dun AEngus--Its situation, dimensions, etc.--Dun
+    Conor--Christian remains--St. Enda, romantic
+    story of--His hapless love--Becomes a monk--Obtains
+    grant of Aran from King of Cashel--St. Brendon--His
+    leaving Aran for countries beyond the Atlantic--Rendered
+    into verse by Denis Florence MacCarthy--St.
+    Columba, his grief at leaving Aran--Rendered into
+    verse by Sir Aubrey De Vere--St. Fursa--Residence in
+    Aran--Pilgrimage to Rome--Buried in Aran--Aran
+    monuments, pagan and Christian, vested in Board of
+    Works--Churches facing the east--The north--Cloghauns--Dwellings
+    of the monks--_Teampul-Chiarain_--_Teampul
+    McDuach_--Holy well--Childless
+    marriages--Description of churches--Lonely lives of
+    the monks--One of the Popes said to be buried in
+    Aran--Ordnance Survey--Its vast stores of learning
+    unprinted                                                            13
+
+
+    CHAPTER III.
+
+    Aran, 14th-18th centuries--A.D. 1308. O'Brien, lord of the
+    isles--In consideration of twelve tuns of wine annually
+    engages to protect the trade of Galway--A.D. 1334.
+    Aran plundered by Darcy--A.D. 1400. Henry IV. gives
+    license to certain persons to attack rebels in Aran--A.D.
+    1485. Franciscan monastery built--A.D. 1537. Suppression
+    of religious houses--A.D. 1560. Shipwreck of
+    Teige O'Brien, lord of the isles--A.D. 1570. Mortgage
+    of the islands--A.D. 1579. Mayor of Galway appointed
+    admiral of Galway bay, including Aran--1586. O'Brien
+    expulsed from Aran by the O'Flaherties--1587. Queen
+    Elizabeth grants islands to Sir John Rawson--1588.
+    Corporation of Galway petition in favour of O'Briens--Annals,
+    1618, 1641, 1645, 1651--Surrender of the islands
+    to the Commander-in-Chief of the Parliamentary forces--Annals,
+    1653, 1670, 1687, 1691, 1700, 1746, case of
+    _Mayor of Galway_ v. _Digby_--1754, 1786. Earldom of
+    Aran--1857                                                           31
+
+
+    CHAPTER IV.
+
+    Noble character of Aranite peasantry--Letters, 1841, by
+    Dr. Petrie; 1852, by Sir Francis Head, K.C.B.; 1875,
+    by Frank Thorpe Porter, Esq., B.L.; 1886, by Mr. R.
+    F. Mullery, clerk of Galway Union; by Philip Lyster,
+    Esq., R.M., B.L.--Rev. Fathers O'Donohoe, P.P., and
+    Waters, C.C.--_Sta viator_--Isle of O'Brazil--Gerald
+    Griffin's poem on                                                    52
+
+
+    CHAPTER V.
+
+    Healthful islands--Old age in--Land Commission in Aran--Aran
+    fisheries--Letters, 1886, from Sir Thomas F.
+    Brady, fishery commissioner, on; from C.T. Redington,
+    J.P., D.L., on public works in islands; from Rev.
+    William Killride, on employment and on timber--"Many
+    places in the islands covered with trees" fifty
+    years ago--Poverty of fishermen--Baltimore fisheries--Baroness
+    Burdett-Coutts--Irish Reproductive Loan
+    Fund--Bounties given by Irish Parliament, in 1787, to
+    encourage deep sea fisheries--Trawling                              65
+
+
+    CHAPTER VI.
+
+    Re-afforesting Aran--Dr. Lyons--Dermot O'Conor Donelan,
+    J.P.--Forest industries in Germany--Supports
+    300,000 families--Paper from young timber, etc.                     82
+
+
+    CHAPTER VII.
+
+    Superstitions of the grove--Concerning the oak--The ash--The
+    mountain ash--The aspen--The pine--The
+    holly--The ivy--The hawthorn--The blackthorn--The
+    rose--The fern--The fairy flax--The hazel                           88
+
+
+    APPENDIX A.
+
+    Conversant with the O'Briens--Bryan Boroimhe--His
+    descendants Kings of Thomond--and their descendants
+    Lords of Inchiquin, junior branch of Kings of
+    Thomond--Marshal MacMahon--Also junior branch,
+    O'Briens of Ballynalacken                                           105
+
+
+    APPENDIX B.
+
+    Statistics of Aran                                                  110
+
+
+
+
+THE SOUTH ISLES OF ARAN.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+    "Oh, Aranmore! loved Aranmore,
+      How oft I dream of thee,
+    And of those days when by thy shore
+      I wandered young and free;
+    Full many a path I've tried since then,
+      Through pleasure's flowery maze,
+    But ne'er could find the bliss again
+      I felt in those sweet days."
+
+                                 THOMAS MOORE.
+
+[Sidenote: POPE GREGORY THE GREAT]
+
+The south isles of Aran, which shelter the Galway bay from the heavy
+swell of the Atlantic, are Inishmore, the large island, nine miles in
+length; Inishmaan, the middle island, two and a half miles in length;
+Inisheer, the lesser, two miles in length; Straw Island, upon which the
+lighthouse stands, and the Brannock Rocks or islands, all forming that
+group which to the west bounds the Galway bay, and the ancient
+jurisdiction of the Admiral of Galway. They lie in a line drawn from the
+north-west to the south-east from Iar Connaught to the county of Clare.
+Iar Connaught is separated from Inishmore, the largest and most
+westerly island, by the North Sound, five and a half miles wide, called
+by the natives _Bealagh-a-Lurgan_, "Lough Lurgan way." Lough Lurgan was
+the ancient name of a lake that formerly lay west of Galway, and the
+tradition is that in the old times before us--213 years from the
+Flood--the waters of the Atlantic, sweeping in the full fury of their
+force across the Aran barriers, united with the waters of the lake and
+formed the Bay of Galway, leaving the islands of Aran the towering
+remnants of the barriers which were too strong even for the Atlantic
+billows to carry away. Between Inishmore and Inishmaan is Gregory's
+Sound, a mile and a half wide, called by the natives _Bealagh-ne-Hayte_,
+"Hayte's way." The present name was given to it by the monks, who called
+the sound "Gregory," in honour of Pope Gregory the Great, after he had
+converted or aided in converting the Anglo-Saxons to the Christian
+faith. Between the middle island, Inishmaan, and Inisheer, the eastern
+and smallest island, is the "foul sound," four miles wide; and between
+Inisheer and the county of Clare is the "south sound," four miles wide.
+This is the great waterway between "the old sea," as the natives call
+the Atlantic, and the Bay of Galway.
+
+[Sidenote: MANOR OF IAR CONNAUGHT.]
+
+The sum of the lengths of the three islands and of the two intervening
+sounds is eighteen miles. The area of the entire group is 11,288 acres;
+poor law valuation, L1576; rent, L2067; poor rate, a shilling in the
+pound; average poor rate for ten years, three shillings; population,
+3118 Catholics, and 45 Protestants. Aran is in the Catholic archdiocese
+and in the Protestant diocese of Tuam. In the islands are three Catholic
+churches and one Protestant, two priests, one parson, and one doctor,
+and there are schools, schoolmasters, schoolmistresses, and scholars,
+_et hoc genus omne_; and there is a petty sessions court, and there are
+three police-barracks and eighteen policemen. The fishing-boats or
+curraghs of the third class, which are ribs covered with canvas, and
+worth L6 each, are 130 in number; of the second class there are 34
+boats, and of the first class there are none. There are no paupers from
+the islands in the workhouse, which is in Galway, and there is no
+workhouse on the island; neither is there an auxiliary workhouse, nor an
+hospital, nor an infirmary, nor a midwife, nor a jail, nor grand jury
+works, though there is a grand jury cess of L34 12_s._ 2_d._
+
+[Sidenote: THE ARAN MAIL-BOAT.]
+
+Of Inishmore, or the great island, Kilronan is the capital--a village
+with a good hotel. Killeany was the ancient capital, formerly the
+residence of the lords of the manor of Iar Connaught. The other places
+of note are Oghil, Onaght, Bungowla, Kilmurry, Dun AEngus, Dun Eochla,
+Dubh Chathair or the black fort. So also on that island are the ruins of
+the churches of Tempul Benin with its rectangular enclosures and group
+of cells, of Tempul Brecan and Cross, of Tempul Beg Mac Dara, of Tempul
+More Mac Dara, of Tempul Assurniadhe, of Tempul-an-cheathrair-Aluin, and
+of St. Enda and the ruins of the seven churches.
+
+On the middle island of Inishmaan are the ruins of the fortresses of Dun
+Chona and Dunfarbagh, and the villages, five in number. On the eastern
+island of Inisheer are St. Gobnet's chapel, Ballyhees, Largi, Furmina,
+Trawkera, near which there is a lake a quarter of a mile in
+circumference and of great depth, which might be converted into a useful
+harbour by cutting an entrance into it through the rocky shore.
+
+The harbour of Kilronan is spacious, but not fitted for vessels of heavy
+tonnage. A pier of four or five hundred yards is built out into the sea,
+alongside of which was moored during the tempestuous days of the last
+week of July (1886) her Majesty's mail-boat--a large-sized sailing
+yacht, provided with a cabin and forecastle, and manned by a remarkably
+civil and obliging crew. But it is to be lamented that no steamer has as
+yet been placed on the line between Galway and Aran, in consequence of
+which, frequently for four or five days, communication with the mainland
+becomes impossible. Letters remained unanswered, and newspapers remained
+unread; so that nation might rise against nation, and kingdom against
+kingdom, but the islanders in happy repose, undisturbed by the postman
+or by the magnetic wire, would in their isles of peace have happily
+lived on in blissful ignorance of the painful turmoils that reigned
+around.
+
+[Sidenote: THE BLACK-EYED HEBE.]
+
+At the hotel the tourist will be served with a homely and wholesome
+fare--prime veal and sweet and tender mutton, for the Aran herbage is
+renowned for the tenderness of the meat that it produces. At dinner a
+bottle of the mountain-dew, with a smell as divine as it is illegal, may
+be by accident produced; and for all this, when the guest requests that
+he might be informed of the charges, the reply ten to one will be, "Oh,
+anything your honour likes to give!"--at least, such was said by the
+black-eyed Hebe who ministered to the wants of the writer of these
+pages.
+
+[Sidenote: THE FLORA OF ARAN.]
+
+The Aran landscape as your vessel approaches from Galway is a peculiar
+one--peculiar to Aran. From the soft sea beach on the Galway side of the
+island, which varies in breadth from one to four miles across, slope
+fields of bare rocks terrace over terrace, sometimes nine in number,
+until they reach the topmost cliff on the south-west or ocean side
+hundreds of feet over the Atlantic. This terraced landscape has the
+appearance of being a barren and rocky wilderness; but on closer
+inspection threads of fresh green herbages can be traced in the
+cleavages and deeply cut fissures of the rocks, and it is in those
+cleavages that the richest profusion of botanical specimens are to be
+found. The cleft upon which we stood was teeming with purple heather,
+foxglove, scarlet geranium, and wild thyme, with the golden leaf of the
+variegated ivy; the crimson berries of the orchis and the red fruit of
+the wild strawberry forming a rich contrast to the delicate blue of the
+forget-me-not. Here, too, were the harebell and speedwell, fringed with
+the delicate frond of the maidenhair fern. In other clefts was the
+richness of the white and red clover, intermingled with a variety of
+medicinal herbs, amongst which were the wild garlic and the kenneen or
+fairy flax, much relied on for its medicinal qualities. In several of
+the localities in the islands the tormentil root, which serves in place
+of bark for tanning, and another plant which gives a fine blue dye and
+which the islanders use in colouring woollen cloths manufactured by them
+for their own wear, are to be found. The Aran isles contain many rare
+plants; but, owing to the absence of turf bogs and scarcity of damp
+ground, there are neither marshy nor heathy plants, nor sedges, nor
+rushes. Even so, the flora of Aran is decidedly rich. On the hillsides
+are a great variety of flowering plants indigenous to the soil, which
+blossom at different times of the year. In the rocky dells there are
+several kinds of convolvulus of very rich florescence. The Madagascar
+periwinkle seems to be perfectly acclimatized and blossoms profusely,
+and we were happy to find an abundant growth of hops, the introduction
+of which is ascribed to the monks of the olden time.
+
+[Sidenote: ORNITHOLOGY OF ARAN.]
+
+The tillage of the islands comprises potatoes, mangold wurzel, vetches,
+rape, clover, oats, and barley. The potatoes almost exclusively planted
+are "the Protestants;" and a Protestant tourist unarmed felt somewhat
+alarmed at the startling intelligence that "dinner would be ready as
+soon as the Protestants that were on the gridiron would be roasted." The
+dinner brought up, need it be told that our Anglican friend enjoyed the
+joke of our witty waitress quite as much as we ourselves did?
+
+[Sidenote: TANKS WANTING IN ARAN.]
+
+The crops are greatly devastated by caterpillars and grubs. The
+abundance of these pernicious insects is attributed to the great
+scarcity of sparrows and other small birds. Starlings are seldom seen;
+but never a swallow. Sea gulls are numerous, and amongst the sea birds
+the osprey or sea eagle is a conspicuous object. Neither the raven,
+rook, crow, nor jackdaw visits the islands; but there is a handsome bird
+which is very numerous, especially in the north island. The chough,
+which, in addition to plumage dark and glossy like that of the jackdaw,
+displays a beak and legs of bright scarlet. It is said that this bird
+was formerly to be seen in flocks on various parts of the English
+coasts, and that now it cannot be found in any part of the United
+Kingdom except in Aran. Plovers, gannets, pigeons, duck, teal, and
+divers breed abundantly on the rocky ledges. The cliffs are the resort
+of countless puffins (_Anas Leucopsis_); the popular belief being that
+they spring from the driftwood[1]. Their flesh supplies a rich lamp oil,
+and their feathers fetch a high price in the London markets. The capture
+of these birds is a dangerous occupation for the cragsmen, who descend
+from the cliffs by means of a rope to the haunts of the puffin, and
+having spent the night in the dangerous occupation, ensnaring and
+killing them as they sleep on the rocky ledges, they are hauled up in
+the morning, having realized ten or twelve shillings during the night.
+In the summer of 1816, two unfortunate fellows engaged in this frightful
+occupation missed their footing, and falling, were dashed to pieces on
+the rocks below. The solitary bittern, called in Irish the
+_Boonaun-Laynagh_, frequents the low-lying ground on the Galway side of
+the island, and hares and rabbits are very plentiful also. On the barren
+sheets of rocks the peasants (denominated lazy and idle, by lazy and
+idle writers and speakers) have with tireless toil walled in and made
+numberless gardens in which potatoes mealy and dry are grown. The
+meteorological aspirations of the Aran peasant are for rain,
+diametrically the opposite of what their brethren on the mainland
+desire. A dry summer gives to Aran a parched and burnt-up hue, when the
+cattle faint and die if not removed to the mainland. Tanks, such as they
+have in Ceylon, are sadly wanting in those islands, and the expense of
+their construction must be a trifling matter indeed.
+
+[Sidenote: ICE-CUT FURROWS.]
+
+One of the most remarkable features in the conformation of Inishmore is,
+that between the overlapping strata or terraces of limestone,
+thirty-seven feet in thickness in some places and eighteen in others,
+are beds of shale. The highest of the terraces is 320 feet over
+high-water mark, on the perpendicular cliff overlooking the Atlantic. On
+the sixth lowest of these descending steps the village of Kilronan, the
+capital of the island, over against the Galway bay, is built, and under
+that terrace and over the seventh is a shale bed which contains the
+water supply for the glebe and upper village wells.
+
+[Sidenote: BOULDERS.]
+
+Those who delight in geological speculations will find in these isles
+much to interest them. Here are deep furrows in the hard rocks, cut as
+they say by passing icebergs. One of these ice-cut furrows may be seen
+near the shore of Killeany Bay, about two hundred yards north-east of
+Lough Atalia, and a quarter of a mile from Kilronan. It is about seven
+yards long, nearly a yard wide, having a bearing of east by north.
+Though the icebergs have left their striae, and though their passage is
+marked by the deep furrows cut by them as they moved, nevertheless the
+patches of boulder drift on the surface are few; but the bergs in their
+passage from the north district did drop some huge metamorphic rocks,
+not one of which is indigenous, so to speak, to the islands, but have
+been carried from a district such as that of Oughterard. Strange that
+some limestone boulders have also been dropped, carried from some
+far-off limestone district. These boulders have withstood the wreck of
+ages, but the weather-beaten rocks under them are so worn as here and
+there to present the appearance of pedestals bearing up the
+superincumbent masses. Whilst there is much to arrest the attention as
+you look from the hotel windows towards Galway over the Galway bay,
+bounded on the north by the grotesque desolation of the Connemara
+mountains, and on the south by the rocky mountains of the county of
+Clare, it is on the south-west side of the islands of Aran that the
+scene is awfully sublime, terrific, and impressive--rendered more awful
+by reason of the confusion of the waters and of the roaring of the waves
+of the sea. The heavy swell of the Atlantic there rolls in angry billows
+against the cliffs dark and perpendicular, hundreds of feet in
+height--cliffs perforated by winding caverns worn by the violence of the
+waves, from one of which, having an aperture in the surface, was
+projected a column of water to the height of a ship's mast. Whilst many
+of these cliffs rise perpendicularly from the ocean, many of them have
+sea terraces or steps at foot below the high-water mark. At
+_Illaun-a-naur_, on the south-easterly side of the great island, are
+sea-terraced cliffs which are fendered by a rampart formed of enormous
+blocks of limestone upheaved from the depths of the ocean and hurled
+with violence on the rampart which now forms a foot barrier against the
+further encroachment of the Atlantic.
+
+[Sidenote: SEA WEEDS.]
+
+The seaweeds around the Aran islands are peculiarly fitted for the
+production and manufacture of kelp, of which there are two varieties,
+one made from the black weed, and the other from the red. The black
+usually grows above the low-water mark of the neap-tide, whilst all the
+red grows below it. The red weed kelp is the most valuable, as in
+general it gives salts containing iodine. Marine plants, such as the
+sea-anemones, the rock-grown samphire, and the sea-cabbage grow around
+the islands in great profusion.
+
+Another remarkable feature in Aran is the enormous amount of fine
+quartzose--moving sands which, blown in thick clouds by the winds, fill
+the nooks and corners and crevices of the islands. These sands, which
+are said to possess the property of preserving bodies uncorrupted after
+death, might be fixed and utilized in the same manner as the sands of
+Arcachon on the west coast of France have been fixed and utilized, by
+planting therein vast forests of the _Pinus maritima_, the interlacery
+of whose roots would do the twofold duty of fixing the sands and
+creating a soil enriched by the amount of nitrogen therein digested and
+deposited. At Trawmore, on the south of Killeany Bay, proofs have lately
+been discovered not only of the movement of the sand-hills, but also of
+the appearance of fields and buildings submerged on the sea-coast.
+
+[Sidenote: MOVING SANDS IN ARAN.]
+
+These islands in prehistoric times must have suffered much from the
+convulsions which then shook the world--in later times they appear to
+have suffered little, though Richard Kirwan the chemist relates that in
+his memory, in the year 1774, a fearful thunderstorm visited Inishmore,
+when a granite block of enormous dimensions, called the "Gregory," was
+struck by lightning, shattered to atoms, and flung into the sea.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Denis Florence McCarthy's Poems, p. 87 note.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+    "Remnants of things that have passed away,
+    Fragments of stone reared by creatures of clay."
+
+                                                   _Siege of Corinth._
+
+
+[Sidenote: THE DRUIDS.]
+
+The "remnants of things that have passed away" are many on these
+islands. In no other part of the United Kingdom are there confined in
+spaces so narrow so many monuments of Pagan times; here are evidences of
+two great ages of civilization--that of the Druids and that of the
+Christians; but, whether of the Druids or of the Christians, Aran had
+been the retreat in early times of the contemplative and the learned.
+Sequestered and undisturbed, the natives have even to this day preserved
+much of the moral and physical remains of the ancient world.
+
+[Sidenote: DRUIDISM.]
+
+The Aranites in their simplicity consider the remains of the Druids as
+inviolable, being as they fondly imagine the enchanted haunts and
+property of aerial beings, whose power of doing mischief they greatly
+dread and studiously propitiate. The natives believe that the "cairns"
+or circular mounds are the sepulchres of the mighty men of old, men of
+renown, whose acts and deeds even now are celebrated in songs sung at
+the cottage firesides by minstrels to the strings of the wandering
+harper: on every lip are the exploits of Churcullen, of Gol, son of
+Morna, of Oscar, and of Ossian, and here are pointed out the places
+where they lived and died. We have also the immense "cromlechs" or altar
+flags, supported on perpendicular pillars, as we may venture to call the
+unhammered stones of about three feet in height, whilst under those
+"cromlechs" still rest the remains of heroes whose faithful dogs
+interred with them bear them company even in death. Here, too, no bad
+memory is retained of the sacred fires of Bal (another name for the
+sun), which were kept burning; for the sun, and the moon, and the stars
+were by them reverenced; but the sun of the Druids was supposed to be
+the most noble type of the Godhead--the most glorious object of the
+material creation. The mysterious stones, twelve in number, encircling
+the altars of sacrifice, sometimes said to be zodiacal rings, after the
+twelve signs of the zodiac, are here frequently to be found. The
+purifying ordeals the cattle were subject to at Aran until a very late
+period are yet there remembered. The sacred fires on the first day of
+each of the quarters blazed from cairn to cairn, amid prayers for the
+fruits of the earth, and even yet, on St. John's Eve in June, huge
+bonfires are lighted near every village through the island, for the
+holy flame was considered essential to the cattle as a preservative from
+contagious disorders. The Druids kindled after their manner two immense
+fires, with great incantations, close to each other, whilst between
+those fires the cattle were driven, and if they escaped unharmed it was
+considered as auspicious as it would be inauspicious for man and beast
+to be therein harmed, and hence the saying, "Placed between the two
+fires of Baal." Concerning the mysteries of their religion, the Druids
+did not commit them to writing, and therefore it is that so little is
+known of their teachings or of what they taught, and what they did teach
+is said by some to have been taught in the Greek language, "to the end,"
+writes Sir Edward Coke, "that their discipline might not be made so
+common amongst the vulgar, nay more, their very names and appellations
+may serve as a proof of their use of the Greek tongue, they being called
+Druids from [Greek: Drys], an oak, because, saith Pliny, they frequent
+the woods where oaks are, and in all their sacrifices they use the
+leaves of those trees."[2]
+
+[Sidenote: SIR EDWARD COKE ON DRUIDISM.]
+
+With Druidism departed the forests of the ilex and the quercus from
+Aran. May we venture to hope that, in the coming changes, Aran may once
+more be re-afforested, and that the islanders, who have now no coal, no
+timber, and no turf to burn, may have at least timber to burn in great
+abundance in the near future?
+
+[Sidenote: FORTRESSES OF ARAN.]
+
+The immense fortresses on the islands are said to be the finest
+specimens of barbaric military structures extant in Europe. Built by the
+pagan Firbolgs in the first century of the Christian era, these
+mortarless walls, Cyclopean as they are called, having braved the
+tempests of nineteen hundred years, still stand. On the large island,
+and within four miles of our hotel, is Dun AEngus, which, covering many
+acres, is on a precipice hundreds of feet in height. This fortress, in
+the form of a horse-shoe, is unapproachable on the sea side, where the
+Atlantic surges heavily against the solid rock, whose surfaces are
+seamed, and scarred, and torn by the violence of the billows driven
+against them by the winter tempests. Unapproachable by an enemy from the
+sea, it is equally unapproachable by an enemy from the land, the only
+entrance thereto being by a narrow avenue skirting the edge of the
+cliff. The fortress consists of three enclosures, the inner, the middle,
+and the outer. The inner measures 160 feet, on what may be called the
+axis major from north to south of the horse-shoe on the ground plan,
+whilst along the cliff it measures 144 feet. The mortarless wall which
+surrounds this inmost enclosure is about 1100 feet from end to end, by
+18 feet in height, and 12 feet in thickness. Now this one wall is made
+up of three walls, each four feet thick, one against the other, like the
+coats of an onion, which arrangement occurs in the middle and outside
+enclosures, and which has this advantage, that if an enemy should
+succeed in breaking down the exterior envelope, he would find behind it
+a new face of masonry, instead of the easily disturbed loose interior of
+a dry stone wall. The space between this inner and the next outside, or
+middle enclosure, is perfectly clear, leaving ample scope for military
+manoeuvres. The outside wall, which is almost an ellipse, encloses
+about eleven acres, all studded over with an army of white pointed
+stones, set slope-wise into the earth, like almonds on a plum-pudding,
+save where a narrow avenue is left, so that no assailing force could
+possibly approach the second wall, without having its ranks broken by
+those intricate piles which answer the _chevaux-de-frise_ of modern
+fortifications. The doorway with sloping jambs of Egyptian pattern
+through the outer wall admits only one or two assailants together.
+
+[Sidenote: DUN AENGUS.]
+
+Dun Conor, an oval fort on the middle island, is much larger than Dun
+AEngus, of which we have just been speaking, the axis major of Dun Conor
+measuring 227 feet. It also stands on a high cliff, and its dry and
+mortarless walls are built also on the coat of the onion principle.
+
+Inisheer, the eastern island, contains a circular Dun called
+Creggan-keel. Furmena Castle, also on this island, was, in later times,
+the stronghold of the O'Briens--lords of the islands of Aran--and upon
+these islands are many more fortresses. There is, on the north side of
+Inishmore, Dun Onaght, a circular Firbolgic fort, measuring 92 feet
+across; and on the south-west side, _Dubh Cahn_, "the black fort," a Dun
+or fortress of very rude masonry, of enormous thickness, and overlooking
+the cliffs.
+
+[Sidenote: ST. ENDA.]
+
+The Christian remains of the islands are many, and many are the names of
+the saints still remembered who congregated here in the early days of
+Irish Christianity. Amongst those remarkable heroes of the Cross, none
+appears to have been greater than St. Enda, who has left his name
+everywhere in the islands. To him, indeed, is due much of the success
+that followed the footsteps of those missionaries who won, in the course
+of centuries, for Aran the appellation of "Aran of the Saints." Enda was
+the only son of Conel, King of Oriel, whose territories included the
+modern counties of Louth, Armagh, and Fermanagh. This Enda had, however,
+several sisters, the elder being the wife of the King of Cashel, whose
+death is chronicled in the annals of the Four Masters as of the year
+489; the younger was Fancha, the abbess of an abbey, or nunnery, wherein
+were educated ladies of the court, amongst whom was one remarkable for
+her great mental and personal attractions. Enda loved her, and hoped
+that she would one day share with him the glories, such as they were, of
+the throne of his fathers. His love for his affianced bride amounted to
+an idolatry, but his idolatry must end, and his idol must die an early
+death. The abbess brought him weeping into the chamber where the corpse
+of his loved one was laid. Fancha then reminded him of how favour is
+deceitful and how beauty is vain, and how the day, dim and remote, would
+still come when he would be as his affianced bride now was. "Love not
+the world, nor the things that are in the world!" exclaimed the abbess
+with a vehemence that her earnestness inspired. That world was then
+abjured, and straightway he entered a religious order, that of the
+Regular Canons of St. Augustine, and after years of study and probation,
+was ordained priest in Rome. He thence returned to the kingdom of Oriel
+in Ireland, where he built several churches. Having visited his sister
+and her husband the King of Cashel, the latter was, after much
+hesitation, persuaded to confer upon God and upon Enda the islands of
+Aran. Possession of a place so retired and so suited to study and
+contemplation being thus obtained, Enda introduced there a multitude of
+holy men, monks to live like the Essenes of old, a contemplative life.
+He divided the islands into ten parts, and built ten monasteries, each
+under the rule of its proper superior; whilst he chose a place for his
+own residence on the eastern coast of the western island of Inishmore,
+and there erected a monastery, the name and site of which are preserved
+even to this day in the little village of Killeany (Kil-Enda), about a
+mile from Kilronan. Half the island was assigned to this monastery, and
+multitudes from afar flocked to Aran, which became the home of the
+learned and the pious.
+
+[Sidenote: ST. BRENDAN.]
+
+Amongst the remarkable men that there clustered, were St. Kieran,
+founder of Clonmacnoise, who died in 549, and St. Brendan. The history
+of the latter abounds with fable, but it is admitted that a thousand
+years before Christopher Columbus, he crossed the Atlantic and landed on
+the coast of Florida, where there is a strip of country which, according
+to Humboldt, in his Cosmos, bore the name of _Irland it Milka_, "Ireland
+of the white man." The visit of St. Brendan to Aran, previous to his
+departure to the great western continent, has been described by one of
+the most musical of our poets--Denis Florence MacCarthy--as follows:--
+
+    "Hearing how blessed Enda lived apart,
+      Amid the sacred caves of Aran-moer,
+    And how beneath his eye, spread like a chart,
+      Lay all the isles of that remotest shore;
+    And how he had collected in his mind
+      All that was known to the man of the "old sea,"[3]
+    I left the hill of miracles behind,
+      And sailed from out the shallow sandy Leigh.
+
+    "Again I sailed and crossed the stormy sound,
+      That lies beneath Binn-Aite's rocky height,
+    And there upon the shore, the saint I found
+      Waiting my coming through the tardy night.
+    He led me to his home beside the wave,
+      Where with his monks the pious father dwelled,
+    And to my listening ear he freely gave
+      The sacred knowledge that his bosom held.
+
+    "When I proclaimed the project that I nursed,
+      How it was for this that I his blessing sought,
+    An irrepressible cry of joy outburst
+      From his pure lips, that blessed me for the thought.
+    He said that he, too, had in visions strayed,
+      O'er the untrack'd ocean's billowing foam;
+    Bid me have hope, that God would give me aid,
+      And bring me safe back to my native home.
+
+    "Thus having sought for knowledge and for strength,
+      For the unheard-of voyage that I planned,
+    I left those myriad isles, and turned at length
+      Southward my barque, and sought my native land.
+    There I made all things ready day by day;
+      The wicker boat with ox-skins covered o'er,
+    Chose the good monks, companions of my way,
+      And waited for the wind to leave the shore."
+
+[Sidenote: ST. FINNIAN.]
+
+Another of St. Enda's disciples was St. Finnian of Moville--and it was
+from Aran he set out on his pilgrimage to Rome. Soon after he returned
+to Ireland, bringing with him a copy of the Gospels, the Papal
+benediction, and the Canons of St. Finnian. Again departing for Italy,
+he was made Bishop of Lucca, in Italy, where he died in 588.
+
+[Sidenote: ST. COLUMBA.]
+
+St. Columba spent years in Aran, and deeply was he grieved at leaving it
+for Iona. His bitter lament in Irish verse has been translated into
+English metre by the late Sir Aubrey De Vere, Bart., in part as
+follows:--
+
+    1.
+
+    "Farewell to Aran isle, farewell!
+      I steer for Hy; my heart is sore,
+    The breakers burst, the billows swell,
+      'Twixt Aran's isle and Alba's shore.
+
+    2.
+
+    "Thus spake the son of God, 'Depart!'
+      Oh Aran isle, God's will be done!
+    By angels thronged this hour thou art:
+      I sit within my barque alone.
+
+    3.
+
+    "Oh Modan, well for thee the while!
+      Fair falls thy lot and well art thou,
+    Thy seat is set in Aran isle,
+      Eastward to Alba turns my prow.
+
+    4.
+
+    "Oh Aran, sun of all the west!
+      My heart is thine! as sweet to close
+    Our dying eyes in thee as rest
+      Where Peter and where Paul repose.
+
+    5.
+
+    "Oh Aran, sun of all the west,
+      My heart its grave hath found;
+    He walks in regions of the blest,
+      The man that hears thy church bells sound.
+
+    6.
+
+    "Oh Aran blest--oh Aran blest!
+      Accursed the man that loves not thee;
+    The dead man cradled in thy breast
+      No demon scares him--well is he."[4]
+
+
+[Sidenote: ST. FURSA.]
+
+Amongst the other ecclesiastical notabilities that frequented Aran in
+the sixth century was St. Fursa, whose life has been written by scores
+of writers, as well by the Venerable Bede as by Archbishop Usher, the
+greatest ornament of the Protestant Church in Ireland. The visions of
+Fursa were, we are informed by the Rev. J. Carey, in his admirable
+translation of Dante, the groundwork of the _Inferno_. The beautiful
+imagery of Fursa's fancy, which threw a charm over every subject that he
+handled, may be well illustrated by his rhapsodies on seeing for the
+first time the city of Rome, as staff in hand he wended his way to the
+Eternal City. Falling on his knees, with outstretched arms, he
+exclaimed, "Rome! oh, Rome! I hail thee, admirable by apostolic
+triumphs. Rome, decorated by the roses of the martyrs, whitened by the
+lilies of the confessors, crowned by the palms of the virgins, thou that
+containest the bones and relics of the saints, may thy authority never
+fade!"[5] Strange, is it not, that the first sight of the city of Rome
+should produce in the minds of men feelings which words almost fail to
+convey!
+
+[Sidenote: GIBBON.]
+
+It was eleven hundred years after Fursa's first salutation to the city
+of Rome that Edward Gibbon, when musing amid the ruins of the Capitol
+whilst the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of
+Jupiter, formed the idea of writing "The Decline and Fall of the Roman
+Empire," and what his feelings were on seeing for the first time the
+holy city he thus in that immortal work informs us: "My temper is not
+very susceptible of enthusiasm, and the enthusiasm which I do not feel I
+have ever scorned to affect, but at the distance of twenty-five years, I
+can neither forget nor express the strong emotions which agitated my
+mind as I first approached and entered the Eternal City. After a
+sleepless night I trod with a lofty step the ruins of the Forum." St.
+Fursa, returning on foot through France, died at Peronne, and his body
+was conveyed to the island of Aran, where amongst his _quondam_ brethren
+he now, awaiting the resurrection of the just, reposes.
+
+Of the monuments, as well pre-Christian as Christian, in these islands,
+there are twenty-one, vested in the secretary of the Commissioners of
+Public Works in Ireland, to be preserved as national monuments. (See
+next page.)
+
+[Sidenote: RUINS.]
+
+Ruins everywhere meet the eye of the tourist in Aran--ruined abbeys,
+ruined monasteries, ruined nunneries, ruined cells, ruined churches,
+ruined schools, ruined forts, ruined forests, and ruined towers. With
+one exception the churches of Aran face the east. I heard somewhere,
+when on the islands, that that is not exactly true, but that they faced
+the point of the compass at which the sun rose on the day that the
+foundation stone was laid. Be that as it may, there is the Oratory of
+St. Banon, which directly faces the north. It is fifteen feet long, by
+seventeen feet high to the summit of the gables, by eleven feet in breadth.
+
+                          COUNTY OF GALWAY.
+
+                           BARONY OF ARAN.
+
+  --------------+----------------+--------------------------------------
+     Parish.    |  Townland.     |        Monuments.
+  --------------+----------------+--------------------------------------
+  Inisheer,     | Inisheer       | Great Fort, with stone-roofed Cells,
+        or      |                |   and O'Brien's Castle.
+  Lesser Island |                | Fort with Mound and Monument.
+                |                | Ruins of Church--Kill-Gobnet, etc.
+                |                | Ruins of Church--Burial-place of
+                |                |   Seven Daughters, whose names are
+                |                |   unknown.
+                |                | Ruins of Church--Tempul Coemhan.
+                |                |
+  Inishmaan,    | Carrowntemple  | Fort Mothar Dun.
+        or      | Carrownlisheen | Fort of Conor.
+  Middle Island |                | Ruins of Church--Kill Canonagh.
+                |                | Ruins of Church--Tempul Caireach
+                |                |   Derquin.
+                |                |
+  Inishmore,    | Onaght         | Fort Dun AEngus.
+       or       | Killeaney      | Fort Dun Eochla.
+  Great Island  |                | Dubh Chathair or the Black Fort.
+                |                | Ruins of Church--Tempul Benin, with
+                |                |   rectangular enclosure and group
+                |                |   of Cells.
+                |                | Ruins of Church--Tempul Brecan and
+                |                |   Cross.
+                |                | Ruins of Church--Tempul beg mac Dara.
+                |                | Ruins of Church--Tempul more mac
+                |                |   Dara.
+                |                | Ruins of Church--Tempul Assurniadhe.
+                |                | Ruins of Church--Tempul Ciara
+                |                |   Monastir.
+                |                | Ruins of Church--Tempul a Phoill (the
+                |                |   seven churches).
+                |                | Ruins of Church--Tempul an Cheathrair
+                |                |   Aluin.
+                |                | Ruins of Church--Teglach Enda (St.
+                |                |   Enda's Church).
+  --------------+----------------+--------------------------------------
+
+[Sidenote: CLOGHAUNS.]
+
+Close by are the remains of the hermitage, partly sunk in the rock, and
+of some cloghauns, or stone-roofed dwellings. How those solitaries, who
+for centuries held up the lamp of learning which shone across Europe
+during the long night which followed the breaking up of the Roman
+empire, could live in such comfortless cells, it is impossible to
+apprehend: circular chambers about twenty feet in exterior diameter,
+with a hole in the stone beehive roof for a chimney, and with an
+Egyptian-like doorway that a tall man could with difficulty enter.
+_Teampul-Chiarain_ has a beautiful eastern window, with some crosses.
+Four miles from Kilronan are Kilmurvey and _Teampul McDuach_, a
+sixth-century church, consisting of nave and choir in beautiful
+preservation. There are windows there of remote antiquity, with lintels
+formed of two leaning stones; and there is a semicircular window of
+great beauty of a more recent date. There is a stone leaning against the
+eastern gable with a rudely cut opening which seems to have been the
+head of the more ancient window. The narrow doorway is like the entrance
+to an Egyptian tomb. Another small church, _Teampul-beg_, together with
+a holy well and monastic enclosure, is worthy of inspection. At the
+north-western side of the Inishmore island, and six miles from
+Kilronan, are the remains of the seven churches, one of which is called
+_Teampul Brecain_--the church of St. Braccan, who was the founder of the
+monastery of Ardbraccan, now the cathedral church of the diocese of
+Meath. The ruined church of _Teampul-saght-Machree_ is an object of
+interest on the middle island. The eastern island in ancient times was
+called _Aran-Coemhan_ in honour of _St. Coemhan_ (St. Kevin), brother of
+St. Kevin of Glendalough. He was one of the most renowned of the saints
+of Aran, and is believed to have not unfrequently abated storms after
+being piously invoked.
+
+[Sidenote: CHILDLESS MARRIAGES.]
+
+There is a legend in the islands worthy of remembrance by those whose
+marriages are as yet unblest with children. We speak of that of St.
+Braccan's bed, where many a fair devotee has prayed and has had her
+prayers granted, as Anna of old had in the temple of Silo,[6] when the
+Lord bestowed on her childless marriage a child who was afterwards the
+prophet Samuel.
+
+[Sidenote: ARAN CHURCHES.]
+
+The churches are all of small dimensions--never more than sixty feet in
+length--at the eastern end of which is not unfrequently a chancel in
+which the altar was placed. Between the nave of the church and the
+chancel was the chancel arch of a semicircular form, a very beautiful
+specimen of which exists in the Protestant cathedral of Tuam. These
+temples, very imperfectly lighted by small windows splaying inwards, do
+not appear to have ever been glazed. The chancel had usually two or
+three windows--one of which is always in the centre of the east end,
+with another in the south wall, another in the south wall of the nave,
+sometimes, though rarely, two in number. The windows are frequently
+triangular-headed, but more usually arched semicircularly, whilst the
+doorway is almost universally covered by a horizontal lintel consisting
+of a single stone. In all cases the sides of the doorways incline like
+the doorways in the old Cyclopean buildings, to which they bear a
+striking resemblance. The smaller churches were usually roofed with
+stone, whilst the larger ones were roofed with wood covered with thatch.
+The wells are carefully preserved, the scarcity of water rendering the
+possession of a well almost as precious to them as to the Eastern
+shepherds in the days of Rebecca.
+
+The Aran churches, it must be admitted, have little in them to interest
+the mind or captivate the senses; nevertheless, in their symmetrical
+simplicity, their dimly lighted naves, in the total absence of
+everything that could distract attention, there is an expression of
+fitness for their purpose too often wanting in modern temples of the
+highest pretensions.
+
+[Sidenote: LIVES OF THE MONKS.]
+
+The monastic establishments close by contained little that would savour
+of luxury. The cells of the friars were low, narrow huts, built of the
+roughest materials, which formed, by the regular distribution of the
+streets, a large and populous village, enclosing within a common wall a
+church and hospital, perhaps a library. The austere inmates slept on the
+ground, on a hard mat or a rough blanket, and the same bundle of palm
+leaves, served them as a seat by day and a pillow by night. The brethren
+were supported by their manual labour, and the duty of labour was
+strenuously recommended as a penance, as an exercise, and as the most
+laudable means of securing their daily subsistence. "_Laborare est
+orare_" was a monastic maxim. The garden and the fields which the
+industry of the monks had rescued from the forest or the morass were
+cultivated by their ceaseless toil. In the evening they assembled for
+vocal or mental prayer, and they were awakened by a rustic horn, or by
+the convent bell in the night, for the public worship of the monastery.
+Even sleep, the last refuge of the unhappy, was rigorously measured; and
+it was to lives of self-denial like this that great multitudes in the
+first century of the Christian era betook themselves. Pliny, who lived
+when Christ was crucified, surveyed with astonishment the monks of the
+first century, "a solitary people," he says, "who dwelt amongst the palm
+trees near the Dead Sea, who increased, and who subsisted without money,
+who fled from the pleasures of life, and who derived from the disgust
+and repentance of mankind a perpetual supply of voluntary
+associates."[7]
+
+[Sidenote: ORDNANCE SURVEY.]
+
+On Inisheer island is a signal tower, and near it is an old castle on an
+eminence. Here is shown the "bed of St. Coemhan," much famed for its
+miraculous cures. On the south-west point is a lighthouse showing a
+light one hundred and ten feet in height. It is stated in the
+_Leabhar-braec_ that one of the Popes was interred in the great island
+of Aran. The same is repeated in one of the volumes of the Ordnance
+Survey, a work which, never printed, is stowed away on the shelves of
+the Royal Irish Academy, liable at any moment to be destroyed by a
+conflagration. In the three or four volumes on the county of Galway are
+contained, and in the English language, the inquisitions of Elizabeth,
+the subsequent patents of James I., and much learning touching tithes,
+fisheries, abbeys, abbey lands, priories, and monasteries, as well as
+letters on these subjects between Petrie and O'Donovan and other
+antiquarians employed on that survey.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] II. Coke's Reports, part iii. Preface, p. viii.
+
+[3] The "Old Sea," the ancient name of the Atlantic in Irish.
+
+[4] Sir Aubrey De Vere, "Irish Odes," p. 274.
+
+[5] Colgani, Acta SS. Hiberniae.
+
+[6] 1 Sam. i. 9-17.
+
+[7] Pliny, Hist. Nat., v. 15.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ISLES OF ARAN, 14TH-18TH CENTURIES.
+
+    "Long thy fair cheek was pale,
+                      _Erin Aroon_--
+    Too well it spake thy tale,
+                      _Erin Aroon_--
+    Fondly nursed hopes betrayed,
+    Gallant sons lowly laid,
+    All anguish there portrayed,
+                      _Erin Aroon._"
+
+                                       _Sliabh Cuilinn._
+
+[Sidenote: ANNALS OF ARAN.]
+
+A.D. 1308. The trade of Galway, which at the time of the Anglo-Norman
+invasion in the twelfth century was at zero, rapidly rose to a
+comparatively high figure in the fourteenth century. In 1300 the customs
+receipts were L24 15_s._ 2_d._ at that port, and in 1392, L118 5_s._
+10_d._ This augured well for the progressive improvement of the town;
+but that improvement was blasted for a season by the appearance in the
+bay of a fleet of pirates who swept the ships from the seas. The
+merchants applied to their powerful neighbour,[8] Dermot More O'Brien,
+lord of the isles of Aran, to succour them in their straits; and for
+that succour and the protection which he agreed to give them they agreed
+to pay him yearly twelve tuns of wine; the trade, commerce, and harbour
+of the town to be protected, and otherwise by him and his successors
+defended, from all and every attack of pirates and privateers
+whatsoever, to which intent and purpose, and for the considerations
+aforesaid, he covenanted and agreed to maintain a suitable maritime
+force. This Dermot More O'Brien was descended from Brian [Boru]
+Boroimhe, slain at the battle of Clontarf in 1014.
+
+A.D. 1334. In this year the islands were plundered by Sir John Darcy,
+who sailed with fifty-six ships around the Irish coasts.
+
+[Sidenote: REVOLT OF ARAN.]
+
+A.D. 1400. The rebellion of the Mayo and Clanrickarde Burkes in the
+province of Connaught, consequent on the murder, in 1333, of William De
+Burgh, Earl of Ulster and fifth Lord of Connaught, caused the overthrow
+for nearly two hundred years, of the English power in that province. The
+town of Galway, oscillating in its allegiance between the Crown and the
+Clanricardes, joined that powerful family against Henry IV., and in
+their revolt they were joined by the South Isles of Aran.
+
+[Sidenote: ROYAL LICENSE.]
+
+Thereupon the King did by royal license permit certain persons to attack
+the rebels in the said island, which license is as follows:--
+
+"The King to all and singular our admirals mayors and others in our
+kingdom of England and lordship of Ireland greeting At the supplication
+of John Roderic William Pound Edward White and Philip Taylor all of
+Bristol and of Nicholas Kent burgess of Galway in Ireland In as much as
+our aforesaid liege subjects have given to us security that they shall
+not nor will presume to make war or afford cause for making war against
+any of our faithful Irish subjects or attempt anything against the form
+of the truces entered into between us Wherefore know ye that we have
+granted and given license and do hereby grant and give licence to them
+the said John Roderic William Pound Edward White Philip Taylor and
+Nicholas Kent that they with as many men at arms as they choose to have
+and provide at their own expenses may take their course for and pass
+over to our said lordship of Ireland in four ships called by the divers
+names of 'The Christopher' 'the Trusty' 'the Nicholas' and 'the May of
+Bristol' and there make war against the rebels and enemies of us in the
+said town of Galway and also in the islands of Arran which lie full of
+gallies to ensnare capture and plunder our liege English and further
+KNOW YE ALL MEN that if said John and William and Edward and Philip and
+Nicholas shall be able by force and armed power to obtain and take the
+town and islands aforesaid they may have hold and inhabit the same town
+and islands taking to their own use and profit all and singular the
+property of the aforesaid rebels and enemies of us and all that which
+they shall be able so to obtain and take The right nevertheless and
+other the rents revenues services and other moneys whatsumever to our
+royal prerogative there pertaining always saved unto us saving also the
+right of the son and heir of Roger de Mortimer late Earl of March
+deceased being within age and within our wardship and the rights of all
+other liege subjects whomsoever--given at our Palace at Westminster on
+the 22nd day of May in the first year of our reign--A.D. 1400 'By the
+King himself'"[9] The town however returning to its allegiance, the
+above license was in the same year revoked.
+
+[Sidenote: THE REFORMATION.]
+
+A.D. 1485. A monastery was built in this year on the great island for
+the Franciscans of the strict observance; but this community was doomed
+to be short lived, for the word had gone forth from Henry VIII. to
+suppress the monasteries and they were suppressed; and the annalists
+thus, in the Annals of the Four Masters, A.D. 1537, chronicle not alone
+their overthrow, but the spread of a new religion in England, "A new
+heresy and error arose in England through pride, vain-glory, avarice,
+sensuality, and many strange speculations, so that the people of England
+went into opposition to the Pope and to Rome. They have demolished the
+abbeys, sold their roofs and bells, and there is not one single
+monastery from Aran of the Saints to the '_Straits of Dover_'[10] that
+has not been completely destroyed."
+
+
+[Sidenote: A STORM.]
+
+A.D. 1560. A tragic occurrence occurred in this year when Teige O'Brien,
+lord of the isles, was returning, loaded with booty if not with honours,
+to Aran, from a plundering expedition which he had made into Munster;
+from one of the seaports of which province he had the rashness with his
+homeward bound barque to put to sea when a tempest was said by his
+sailors to be impending. Deceived by the "calm before the storm" he
+insisted on weighing anchor. It was weighed, and as the starless night
+was closing and deepening around him, the gale freshened as he
+advanced--his tempest-tossed vessel struggled amidst the waves, for the
+wind was high against it--and when the morning rolled the clouds away, a
+broken spar, an oarless boat, were all that remained to tell the ghastly
+tale, that every hand on board was lost. At the entrance of the Great
+Man's Bay, which was far out of their course, is even now shown the spot
+where on that fatal night they perished.
+
+A.D. 1570. Morchowe O'Brien, in consideration of a sum of money to him
+in hand paid, conveyed these islands by way of mortgage to James Lynch
+Fitz Ambrose and his heirs.
+
+[Sidenote: THE O'BRIENS.]
+
+A.D. 1575. In June of this year it was agreed between the mortgagor and
+mortgagee of the islands "that in case the sept of clan Tiege O'Brien,
+the said mortgagor, should decease and perish, then that James Lynch
+Fitz Ambrose, the mortgagee, should be their sole heir, and possess,
+Aran, and all other their lands, and that said O'Brien should not
+alienate or mortgage any part or parcel of Aran to any person without
+the mortgagee's consent and license." It appears, however, that Tieg
+Eturgh, Morchowe Morowe, Conchor McMurchowe, Terrilagh Meeagh, Tieg
+McTerrilagh, Dermot McMurchowe, Tieg McTerrilagh Oge, and Conchor
+McMoriertagh, McBrene, gentlemen, all of Aran, and Dermot McCormick
+McConnor, of the Castle of Trowmore, afterwards on July 14, 1575,
+appointed Captain Morchowe McTerrilagh O'Brien their attorney for
+ransoming the isles of Aran from James Lynch, that all such parts as he
+should so ransom should belong to him (O'Brien) and his heirs for
+ever.[11]
+
+It would appear that this Captain Morchowe McTerrilagh O'Brien, of the
+Clantiege of Aran, on July 14 of the same year, 1575, was in Galway; and
+being there, was minded to claim the privilege his ancestors had, he
+alleged, enjoyed of lodgings and meals for two days and two nights in
+the town, and the "mayor calling before him auncient old credibel
+witnesses, they declared upon their oaths that they never heard of their
+parents or saw the said sept have no more than two meals in the town,
+and it was thereupon ordered that said sept shall have no more than two
+meals, they being always bound to serve attend and wait upon us and in
+our service as their ancestors had been, and further that it was the
+O'Brien sept that was bound to give lodging and entertainment to all the
+commons of Galway, when they shall repair to the islands of Aran. And
+the said mayor did grant and promise O'Brien to be aiders, helpers,
+maintainers and assisters, of him against all persons that would lay
+siege to spoil the islands or castle of Aran or otherwise wrong the said
+Morchowe or his sept."[12]
+
+[Sidenote: THE CLANRICARDES.]
+
+A.D. 1579. Queen Elizabeth, by her charter to the town of Galway, having
+recited that Richard III., late King of England, out of his abundant
+grace and for the greater security and safeguard of the town of Galway,
+willed and ordained that neither MacWilliam Burke, Lord of Clanricarde,
+nor his heirs, should have any rule or power in the said town of Galway,
+therein to act, exact, receive, ordain, or dispose of anything without
+the special license, and by the assent and superintendence of the mayor,
+bailiffs, and commonalty of the said town of Galway; appointed the
+mayor of Galway to be admiral of her and her successors within the town
+aforesaid and within and over the islands of Aran and from the said
+islands to Galway.
+
+A.D. 1580. There died in this year in the islands of Aran an islander
+who had reached the extreme old age of two hundred and twenty years.
+This patriarchal inhabitant killed a bullock in his own house every year
+for one hundred and eighty years.
+
+[Sidenote: THE FEROCIOUS O'FLAHERTIES.]
+
+A.D. 1586. In this year the O'Briens, long the lords of the islands of
+Aran, "were expulsed from their territory by ye ferocious O'Flaherties
+of Iar Connaught." The matter was brought under the knowledge of the
+Crown, who resolved to put an end to the lawless savagery which existed
+in those parts, whereby one sept could, in times of peace, sail on a
+plundering expedition against another and expel them, wasting the
+country with fire and sword all the time; and accordingly a commission,
+under the great seal, was issued for the purpose of examining the title,
+if any, of the O'Flaherties to the islands. Having gone through the
+mockery of an inquisition, the commissioners found that the islands
+belonged not to the O'Briens, lords of the isles, nor yet to the
+O'Flaherties, who had no title at all, but that they belonged to her
+Majesty Queen Elizabeth in right of her crown and dignity; and
+accordingly she, by her letters patent dated January 15th, A.D. 1587,
+instead of restoring them to the ancient proprietors, granted them
+entire to Sir John Rawson, of Athlone, gentleman, and his heirs, on
+condition that he should retain constantly on the islands twenty
+foot-soldiers of the English nation.[13]
+
+[Sidenote: CLAN OF MAC TIEGE O'BRIEN.]
+
+A.D. 1588. When the return of the inquisition and subsequent patent
+granting the lands away from the O'Briens became known, the corporation
+of Galway thus petitioned the Queen, in favour of Murrough McTurlogh
+O'Brien: "That the Mac Tieges of Aran, his ancestors, were under her
+Majesty and her predecessors the temporal captains or lords of the
+islands of Aran, and held their territories and hereditaments elsewhere
+under the name of Mac Tiege O'Brien of Aran, time out of man's memory,
+and that they the said corporation, had seen the said Murrough McTurlogh
+authorized by all his sept, as chief of that name, and in possession of
+the premises as his own lawful inheritance, as more at large doth appear
+in our books of record, wherein he continued until of late he was, by
+the usurping power of the O'Flaherties expelled; and we say, moreover,
+that the sept of the Mac Tiege O'Briens of Aran, since the foundation of
+this city, were aiding and assisting ourselves and our predecessors
+against the enemies of your majesty and your predecessors in all times
+and places, whereunto they were called as true and faithful and liege
+people to the crown of England, to maintain, succour, and assist the
+town.
+
+    "(Signed), "JOHN BLAKE, Mayor of Galway,
+
+    "WALTER MARTIN, Bailiff,
+
+    "ANTHONY KIRWAN, Bailiff."
+
+Queen Elizabeth heard the appeal, but her Majesty was inexorable. It is
+more than probable that the O'Briens had caused, at least remotely, the
+alienation of their inheritance by their own domestic feuds. At the
+north extremity of Inishmore, the large island, not far from Port
+Murvey, the islanders show a field where human bones are frequently dug
+up, and for which reason it is called _Farran-na-Cann_, "the field of
+the sculls." Here the O'Briens are said at some remote period to have
+slaughtered each other almost to extermination. This sort of
+self-destruction is the blackest blot on the page of Irish history. It
+has always been, and alas! is Ireland's sad and unalienable inheritance.
+
+[Sidenote: AN INDUSTRIOUS DISCOVERER.]
+
+Of the patentee, John Rawson, little is remembered, save that in an
+instrument enrolled in the Rolls Office, in 1594, he is called "an
+industrious discoverer of lands for the Queen." The O'Flaherties had now
+the gratification of seeing the O'Briens, also an Irish sept, turned out
+of their inheritance, and the same granted to a stranger.
+
+[Sidenote: LYNCHES.]
+
+After this period the property and inheritance of the islands became
+and were vested in Sir Roebuck Lynch, of Galway. How Sir Roebuck became
+proprietor of the islands we have been unable, with certainty, to learn;
+but we might hazard a plausible guess that Sir John Rawson was granted
+whatever estate O'Brien had forfeited, and that what O'Brien did forfeit
+as mortgagor was the equity of redemption in the islands; that
+consequently Lynch, the mortgagee, remained in possession of the legal
+estate, and he, on Rawson failing to perform the covenants in mortgage
+deed contained, foreclosed the mortgage, and thus probably the fee and
+the equity of redemption became united in one and the same person, Sir
+Roebuck Lynch.
+
+
+A.D. 1618. "Indenture of June 20th, between Henry Lynch, son and heir of
+Roebuck Lynch, of Galway, deceased, of the one part, and William
+Anderson, of Aran, in said county, of the other, whereby he, the said
+Henry Lynch, for and in consideration of a sum of L50 of English
+currency to him paid, did thereby demise and assign all that and those,
+a moiety of the said three islands to him, the said William Anderson,
+his executors, administrators, and assigns, for a long term of years,
+excepting thereout" what must have then been in the islands, "_great
+trees_, mines, and minerals, and hawks, at an annual rent of L3 Irish,
+and a proportion of port corn, as therein is set forth."
+
+A.D. 1641. The clan Tiege O'Briens still claimed the islands as their
+legitimate inheritance, and, taking advantage of the troubles of this
+troubled year, prepared to attack them with a considerable force, and
+with the aid of a gentleman of extensive property and influence in the
+county of Clare, Boetius Clancy the younger. This project, however, was
+frustrated by the opposition of the Marquis of Clanricarde, then
+governor of the county of Galway.[14]
+
+[Sidenote: ARCHBISHOP O'QUEELY.]
+
+A.D. 1645. The death of Malachy O'Queely, Catholic Archbishop of Tuam,
+occurred in this year. To him John Colgan was indebted for a description
+of the three islands of Aran and their churches.
+
+A.D. 1651. When the royal authority was fast declining, the Marquis of
+Clanricarde resolved to fortify these islands, wherein he placed 200
+musketeers with officers and a gunner, under the command of Sir Robert
+Lynch, owner of the islands. The fort of Ardkyn, in the large island,
+was soon after repaired and furnished with cannon, and by this means
+held out against the Parliamentary forces near a year after the
+surrender of Galway. In December, 1650, the Irish, routed in every other
+quarter, landed here 700 men. On the 9th of the following January, 1300
+foot, with a battering piece, were shipped from the Bay of Galway to
+attack them, and 600 men were marched to Iar Connaught, to be thence
+sent, if necessary, to the assistance of the assailants.
+
+[Sidenote: SURRENDER OF ARAN.]
+
+On the 15th the islands surrendered on the following terms:--
+
+"Articles concluded between Major James Harrisson and Captain William
+Draper, on behalf of the Commissary-General Reynolds, Commander-in-Chief
+of the Parliamentary forces in the isles of Aran, and Captain John
+Blackwall and Captain Brien Kelly, commissioners appointed by Colonel
+Oliver Synnot, commander of the Fort of Ardkyn, for the surrender of the
+said Fort.
+
+"(1) It is concluded and agreed that all the officers and soldiers both
+belonging to sea and land shall have quarters, as also all others the
+clergyman and other persons within the Fort. (2) That they shall have
+six weeks for their transportation into Spain or any other place in
+amity with the State of England, and that hostages shall be given by
+Colonel Synnot for the punctual performance of these Articles. (3) That
+Colonel Synnot shall deliver up, with all necessaries of war, by three
+o'clock this 15th of January, 1652, before which time all officers and
+soldiers belonging to the said Fort shall march with drums beating to
+the Church near Ardkyn and there lay down their arms. (4) That Colonel
+Synnot and the captains, eight in number, shall have liberty to carry
+their swords, the other officers and soldiers to lay down their arms;
+that Commissary Reynolds shall nominate four officers of the Fort
+hostages. (5) That Colonel Synnot, with the rest of the officers and all
+other persons in the Fort shall, upon delivering their arms and
+delivering their hostages, be protected from the violence of the
+soldiery, and with the first conveniency be sent to the county Galway,
+there to remain for six weeks in quarters, in which time they are to be
+transported as aforesaid, provided that no person whatsoever belonging
+to the Fort of Ardkyn found guilty of murder be included in these
+articles, or have any benefit thereby."
+
+[Sidenote: ERASMUS SMITH.]
+
+The Parliamentary forces, on taking possession of the fortifications,
+found several large pieces of cannon, with a considerable quantity of
+arms and ammunition; they seized also a French shallop with twenty-eight
+oars and several large boats. The Fort was soon after repaired and
+strongly reinforced. The late proprietor of the islands, Sir Robert
+Lynch, was declared a forfeiting traitor, and his right made over to
+Erasmus Smith, Esq., a London adventurer whose interest was afterwards
+purchased by Richard Butler, created Earl of Aran in 1662.
+
+A.D. 1653. The castle of Ardkyn was by order of the Lord Protector
+pulled down, and a strong fort erected in its place. Thenceforth Aran
+became the place of transportation for the Catholic clergy, whilst on
+the mainland the most violent acts of oppression and injustice openly
+took place. The King's arms and every other emblem of royalty were torn
+down, and fifty priests were shipped for Aran[15] until they could be
+transported to the West Indies, they being allowed sixpence a day each
+for their support.
+
+[Sidenote: QUIT RENT.]
+
+A.D. 1670. On the 9th of September, Charles II., by patent under the Act
+of Settlement, granted to Richard, Earl of Aran, the great island,
+containing 2376 acres statute measure, all situate in the half barony of
+Aran, county of Galway, at the annual rent of 18_s._ 5-1/2_d._ crown
+rent, payable to the King and his successors. We may observe that the
+"crown rent" payable to the Crown for lands is the same rent as that
+which was formerly paid to the abbot or prior of the abbeys and priories
+confiscated from them under the statute of Henry VIII.--consequently
+lands held under the religious houses pay crown rent even to this day.
+Quit rent (_Quietus Redditus_) in the province of Connaught, merely
+three halfpence an acre, was for the first time imposed at the
+Restoration, and amounts in the islands of Aran to L14 8_s._ 4_d._
+
+A.D. 1687. A grant was made in this year by James II. of three-fourths
+of the tithes of Aran islands to the Most Reverend John Vesey, D.D.,
+Protestant Lord Archbishop of Tuam, and his successors in the See. One
+could readily account for his Majesty's bestowing the tithes in question
+on the Catholic archbishop, but why he bestowed them on the Protestant
+line appears unaccountable; yet so it is stated in the appendix to the
+report of the Royal Commission (1868) on the revenues and condition of
+the Established Church, page 191.
+
+A.D. 1691. On the surrender of Galway to the arms of William and Mary, a
+garrison was sent to Aran, and a barrack therein built in which soldiers
+were for many years stationed.
+
+[Sidenote: THE FLORA OF ARAN.]
+
+A.D. 1700. An excursion was made to the islands in this year by one
+whose name is well known by those who prefer to contemplate the silent
+life of vegetation to the saddening spectacle of man at variance with
+his fellow-man. Edward Lnwyd spent many months inspecting the flora of
+the islands, and having done so, made his report upon them, which is
+said to be a marvel in its way.
+
+The fee of the islands had become vested in Edmund Fitzpatrick of
+Galway, Esquire; and he in 1717 demised the whole island of Inisheer to
+Andrew French of Galway, merchant, for thirty-one years, at the yearly
+rent of L100, with liberty to cut and carry away as much straw from
+Straw Island as should be deemed necessary to thatch the houses on the
+island of Inisheer.
+
+[Sidenote: ROYAL FRANCHISE.]
+
+A.D. 1746. The case of _The Mayor of Galway_ v. _Digby_, conversant as
+it was with the royalties of the islands of Aran, caused great
+excitement in the town during the summer assizes of the year. The action
+was tried before Mr. Justice Caufield. Mr. Staunton, Mr. French, and
+another, appeared as counsel for the plaintiff; Mr. John Bodkin and Mr.
+Morgan for the defendant. The case as stated by the learned counsel for
+the plaintiff was that from times of remote antiquity the O'Briens were
+lords of the isles of Aran, or to use somewhat of legal phraseology,
+were lords of the manor of Aran, and as such, and in their manorial
+rights they were entitled to all the royal franchises, wrecks, and other
+strays washed on the shores either of the islands or mainlands of the
+bay. But the Crown had made a grant of the royal franchises away from
+the lords of the manor, and had conferred the same on the Admiral of the
+Bay of Galway, the office of Admiral of the Bay belonging to and being
+held by the mayor of the town. Now, on the 1st of August, 1745, a great
+whale, which appeared in the Aran waters, was stranded, and harpooned by
+the defendant, who obtained from it no less than fifty gallons of oil.
+The blubber and the whalebone were all there ready to be transported to
+the Dublin market, and the defendant had actually converted to his own
+use so much of this royal franchise as would realize a sum of L160.
+Plaintiff's patent was full, ample, and large; so full, so ample, and so
+large, that he, counsel, could not but wonder that any lawyer at the bar
+would sign the pleadings in a case in which a verdict must be directed
+on the spot for the plaintiff.
+
+Counsel for the defendant did not feel so sure of the success of his
+learned friend's case as his learned friend did--quite the reverse; he
+must and at once ask the learned judge for a direction that the verdict
+be entered for him. He, Mr. Bodkin, admitted that a sturgeon and a whale
+were royal fish, but they were governed by widely different principles
+of law. If a sturgeon had been washed on the shore, then the King or his
+grantee could claim it and grant it to whomsoever they pleased, and the
+grantee here would not be entitled to it at all; but the whale is not
+the King's property to grant. Half of the whale is the perquisite of the
+Queen consort, and that being so, the grant fails. The King is only
+entitled to the head and the Queen to the tail. It was in old law laid
+down to be for the Queen's convenience to have abundance of whalebone
+for her boudoir, and so it is said in Bracton [l. 3. ch. 3], "of the
+sturgeon let it be noted that the King shall have it entire, but it is
+otherwise of the whale, for the King shall have the head and the queen
+the tail, _sturgeone observetur quod rex illum habebit integrum: de
+Balena vero sufficit si rex habeat caput et regina caudam_." A verdict
+was directed against the plaintiff, but whether any after move was made
+in the matter, or whether the Attorney-General intervened, we have been
+unable to discover. Suffice it to say that the corporation of Galway
+interfered no more in the matter.
+
+A.D. 1754. John Digby demised the island of Inisheer to William
+MacNamara of Doolin, county Clare, for thirty-one years, at an annual
+rent of L90.
+
+[Sidenote: ARCHBISHOP PHILLIPS.]
+
+A.D. 1786. The Catholic Archbishop of Tuam, the most Rev. Philip
+Phillips, D.D., partaking of the hospitality of the parish priest of
+Aran, stopped a week in the islands: sleeping, however, on a bed of
+rushes, to which he had been unused, he got an attack of bronchitis, of
+which he shortly after died at Cloonmore, in the county of Mayo. One
+would have thought that he could have outlived a discomfort of that
+trivial kind, for he had been in early life a soldier--not a feather-bed
+soldier, but a distinguished officer in the Austrian service, and
+therefore it was that he was called Captain Phillips to the last hour of
+his life. It is not unworthy of remark that this prelate had, previous
+to his translation to Tuam, been Bishop of Killala, to which see he had
+in 1760 [1 Geo. III.] been by James III., King _de jure sed non de
+facto_ of Great Britain and Ireland, nominated as appears by the
+apostolic letter of Clement XIII., dated Rome, November 24, 1760.
+
+[Sidenote: EARL BUTLER OF ARAN.]
+
+In the peerage we find that the earldom of Aran has been twice bestowed
+on families bearing different names. First in 1662, when Richard Butler
+(son of James, the twelfth Earl and first Duke of Ormonde) was created
+Earl of Aran. The honours of this nobleman having expired on his death
+without issue, the earldom was revived in 1693 in favour of Lord
+Charles Butler, brother of James, the second Duke of Ormonde. The story
+of the second Duke of Ormonde is a sad one. Having filled the highest
+offices in the state in Ireland under Charles II., he forgot his
+allegiance to his brother James II., and went over to the ranks of
+William and Mary. In 1702 he was constituted by Queen Anne
+Commander-in-Chief of the Forces of Great Britain, sent against France
+and Spain, when he destroyed the French fleet and sunk the Spanish
+galleons in the harbour of Vigo, for which important services he
+received the thanks of both houses of Parliament. In 1715 (2 George I.),
+his grace was attainted by the British but not by the Irish House of
+Parliament of high treason, and L10,000 set upon his head should he land
+in Ireland. His grace then retired to Avignon, and died in 1745, a
+pensioner of the crown of Spain. Upon the duke's death the Earl of Aran
+became entitled _de jure_ to the dukedom, but was not aware of his
+rights, which he never claimed, being of opinion that the British
+Parliament destroyed not only the English but the Irish titles of honour
+of his deceased brother, the second duke. The Earl of Aran died without
+issue male, December 17, 1758, when the title became and was extinct.
+
+[Sidenote: GORE, EARL OF ARAN.]
+
+After four years, in 1762, the earldom was bestowed on another noble
+house, that of Gore, in the person of Sir Arthur Gore, and from him is
+descended Sir Arthur Charles William Fox Gore, fifth Earl of Aran, born
+on the night of storm, January 6, 1839.
+
+A.D. 1857. The islands were visited by the British Association, under
+the leadership of Sir William Wilde, M.D., and the results of the visit
+were subsequently embodied in an interesting pamphlet by Martin Haverty,
+Esq., long assistant librarian to the Honourable Society of the King's
+Inns, Dublin. Subsequently the Earl of Dunraven, accompanied by a number
+of scientific friends, proceeded to the islands, when a series of
+magnificent photographs were executed, printed, and published under the
+supervision and direction of the accomplished editor, Miss Stokes, who
+has edited that ponderous work which throws so much light on the early
+history of this country.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[8] O'Hart's "Landed Gentry," p. 124, edit. 1884.
+
+[9] Pat. Rolls, 1 Hen. IV. 7. m.
+
+[10] "The Straits of Dover" does not occur in the Annals, but the word
+which does so occur is construed by the commentator to be those
+"straits."
+
+[11] Hardiman, "History of Galway," p. 208 note.
+
+[12] Hardiman's History of Galway, p. 207.
+
+[13] Pat. Rolls, 31 Eliz.
+
+[14] Clanricarde Memoirs, p. 71.
+
+[15] Froude's English in Ireland, vol. i., p. 134.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+    "Where the tints of the earth and the hues of the sky,
+    In colour though varied, in beauty may vie,
+    And the purple of ocean is deepest in dye."
+
+                                                  _Bride of Abydos._
+
+
+[Sidenote: THE ARAN ISLANDERS.]
+
+We have thus far spoken of the scenery of the islands, and of their
+natural history, of their antiquities, Pagan and Christian, and of their
+annals; let us now turn to speak of their people and of what others
+think of them. Doctor Petrie thus, in 1841, writes:
+
+"I had heard so much of the Aran islanders, of their primitive
+simplicity, and singular hospitality, that I could not help doubting the
+truth of a picture so pleasing and romantic, and felt anxious to
+ascertain by personal observation how far it might be real.
+Collectively, the inhabitants may be said to exhibit the virtues of the
+Irish character with as little intermixture of vices as the lot of
+humanity will permit.
+
+[Sidenote: A POLITE PEOPLE.]
+
+"They are a brave and hardy race, industrious and enterprising, as is
+sufficiently evidenced, not only by the daily increasing number of their
+fishing vessels, the barren rocks which they are covering with soil and
+making productive, but still more by the frequency of their emigration
+from their beloved homes and friends to a distant country, led solely by
+the hope that their indefatigable labour may be employed there to the
+greater ultimate benefit of their families.
+
+"They are simple and innocent, but also thoughtful and intelligent,
+credulous, and, in matters of faith, what persons of a different creed
+would call superstitious. Lying and drinking, the vices which Arthur
+Young considers as appertaining to the Irish character, form at least no
+part of it in Aran, for happily their common poverty holds out less
+temptation to the vices of lying and drinking.
+
+"I do not mean to say they are rigidly temperate, or that instances of
+excess, followed by the usual Irish consequences of broken heads, do not
+occasionally occur--such could not be expected, when their convivial
+temperament and dangerous and laborious occupations are remembered. They
+never swear, and they have a high sense of decency and propriety, honour
+and justice. In appearance they are healthy, comely, and prepossessing;
+in their dress (with few exceptions) clean and comfortable; in manner
+serious yet cheerful, and easily excited to gaiety; frank and familiar
+in conversation, and to strangers polite and respectful, but at the same
+time free from servile adulation. They are communicative, but not too
+loquacious; inquisitive after information, but delicate in seeking it,
+and grateful for its communication.
+
+"If the inhabitants of the Aran islands could be considered as a fair
+specimen of the ancient, and present wild Irish, the veriest savages in
+the globe, as the learned Pinkerton calls them--those whom chance has
+led to their hospitable shores to admire their simple virtues would be
+likely to regret that the blessings of civilization had ever been
+extended to any portion of this very wretched country."[16]
+
+[Sidenote: RESIGNATION OF THE ARANITES.]
+
+The devotional expressions of the Aranites and the meekness and
+resignation with which they bear misfortunes or afflictions is the most
+striking feature in their character. "I had a beautiful girl for a
+daughter," said an Aranite peasant, "and I laid her in her grave
+yesterday, praise be to His holy Name that took her to Himself." A poor
+woman asking for charity tells you that "she hasn't eaten a bit this
+day, thanks be to God." Another says, "In troth I have been suffering
+for a long time from poverty and sickness, glory be to God." Their mode
+of salutation, too, is worthy of remembrance. The visitor on entering a
+house says, "God save all here." Meet a man on the road, greet him with
+a "God save you, sir;" instantly he'll remove his hat and reply, "God
+save you kindly, your honour." If you pass by men working in a field,
+always address them with a "God bless the work, boys;" they will
+answer, "And you too, sir," and if you speak in Irish so much the
+better, and how their eyes will brighten up at hearing their
+mother-tongue spoken by "a gentleman's honour!"
+
+[Sidenote: THEIR PURITY OF MORALS.]
+
+To the purity of the morals of the Aran women there are many
+testimonies. Births of illegitimate children are of rare occurrence
+indeed. Sir Francis Head, in 1852, made a tour through Ireland, looking
+into every police barrack as he passed, and when all that was done he
+published a work entitled "A Fortnight in Ireland." Unsparing in his
+vilifications of the Catholic clergy, he is compelled to compare the
+people to whom they minister favourably with those of other countries in
+the world. Arriving in Galway his first visit was to the police barrack,
+where he inquired of the officer as to the morals of the Claddagh
+people, when the south isles of Aran thus came to be mentioned.
+
+Sir F. Head. "How long have you been on duty in Galway?"
+
+The officer replies, "Only six months."
+
+_Question._ "During that time have you known of many instances of
+illegitimate children being born in the Claddagh?"
+
+_Answer._ "Not a single case--not one; and not only have I never known
+of such a case, but I never heard any person attribute immorality to the
+fishwomen. I was on duty in the three islands of Aran, inhabited almost
+exclusively by fishermen, who also farm potatoes, and I never heard of
+any one of their women (who are remarkable for their beauty) having had
+an illegitimate child, nor did I ever hear it attributed to them. Indeed
+I have been informed by a magistrate who lived in Galway for eight
+years, and has been on temporary duty in the isles of Aran, that he has
+never heard there of a case of that nature. These people, however, when
+required to pay poor-rates, having no native poor of their own in the
+workhouse, resisted the payment of what they considered a very unjust
+tax. In fact they closed their doors when the rate was only partially
+collected."
+
+Three and twenty years after Sir Francis Head wrote the above we read in
+the writings of Frank Thorpe Porter, Esq., a member of the Irish Bar,
+long a divisional magistrate for the city of Dublin, and some time
+acting chief justice for Gibraltar, a further testimony of the worth of
+the islanders. On his return from Spain, he visited his son, Mr. Frank
+Porter, M.D., medical officer of the islands,[17] and whilst he was
+there several cases of typhus fever of a malignant type occurred.
+
+[Sidenote: THEIR KINDNESS.]
+
+The cottages are, with three or four exceptions, thatched and without
+any upper storey. The invariable course adopted during the prevalence of
+the epidemic was to nail up the door of the patient's apartment, to
+take out the sashes of the window, and render it the sole means of
+external communication. The medical attendant, priests, and nurse
+tenders had no other means of ingress and egress, and no objection
+appears to have ever been made to the system. Doctor Porter was stricken
+down by the disease, and although ten days had elapsed before a medical
+gentleman arrived from Galway, the doctor surmounted the fearful malady.
+"I spent," writes Mr. Porter, "each night in my son's apartment, and
+during the day he was attended by a nurse. Almost every night I heard
+some gentle taps outside the vacant window, and on going over to it, I
+would be told 'My wife is afther making a pitcher of whey for the poor
+docthor, you'll find it on the windy-stool;' or 'I brought you two jugs
+of milk to make whey for your son.' When the crisis had passed, and
+nutriment and stimulants were required, I would be told, 'We biled down
+two chickens into broth for the docthor, I hope it will sarve him.'
+Rabbits, chickens, and joints of kid were tendered for his use, and a
+bottle of 'rale Connemara Puttyeen,' was deposited on the window-stool.
+The people were all kind and anxious, and when he became able to walk
+out he was constantly saluted and congratulated; but no person would
+approach him if they could avoid it. They were all dreadfully
+apprehensive that he might impart the dreadful contagion. I brought him
+home as soon as possible, but he and I will always remember most
+gratefully the unvarying kindness and sympathy we experienced in Aran
+where they refused to take a farthing either for gratuity or
+compensation."
+
+[Sidenote: THEIR HOSPITALITY.]
+
+On September 3, 1886, Mr. R.F. Mullery, clerk of the Galway Union, thus,
+in answer to my letter to him, writes:--
+
+    "The present poundage-rate, one shilling in the pound, is
+    exceptionally low, owing to a grant of L440, under the 'relief of
+    the distressed Unions Act,' having been made to the islands. The
+    average rate for the last ten years was three shillings in the
+    pound. We never have islanders. There is no hospital, though there
+    ought to be one, on the islands, as the sick poor are deterred from
+    coming thirty miles by boat to the workhouse. The general health is
+    exceptionally good, and very many live to a very old age. I have an
+    opportunity of knowing this, as I have to examine the registry of
+    deaths at the end of each quarter. The islanders as a rule are very
+    intelligent, and quick at picking up anything they can either hear
+    or see; and, best of all, they are a moral people, a case of
+    illegitimacy scarcely ever occurring in the islands, and then it is
+    looked on as a crime of the blackest dye.
+
+                  "I have the honour, etc.,
+
+                              "ROBERT F. MULLERY."
+
+
+The following extract from a letter written by my learned friend,
+Philip Lyster, Esq., barrister-at-law, resident magistrate of the
+district in which Aran is situated, bears testimony to the peaceful and
+law-abiding character of the islanders:--
+
+                                          "Belfast, September 26, 1886.
+
+    "MY DEAR BURKE,
+
+    "My absence from Galway upon special duty in the north has prevented
+    my replying to your note of the 18th inst. until now.
+
+    [Sidenote: THEIR INDUSTRY.]
+
+    "The Aran islanders as a body are an extremely well-behaved and
+    industrious people. There are sometimes assaults on each other,
+    which invariably arise out of some dispute in connection with the
+    land, and are generally between members of the same family. There
+    are very few cases of drunkenness. I have known two months to elapse
+    without a single case being brought up. I should say that for four
+    years, speaking from memory, I have not sent more than six or seven
+    persons to jail without the option of a fine. There is no jail on
+    the islands. We hardly ever have a case of petty larceny. I remember
+    only one case of potato stealing, when the defendant was sent for
+    trial and punished. There are often cases of alleged stealing of
+    seaweed in some _bona-fide_ dispute as to the ownership, which we
+    then leave to arbitration by mutual consent. I know very little of
+    the history of the islands. In the last century justice used to be
+    administered by one of the O'Flaherty family, the father of the
+    late James O'Flaherty, of Kilmurvy House, Esq., J.P. He was the only
+    magistrate in the islands, but ruled as a king. He issued his
+    summons for 'the first fine day,' and presided at a table in the
+    open air. If any case deserved punishment he would say to the
+    defendant, speaking in Irish, 'I must transport you to Galway jail
+    for a month.' The defendant would beg hard not to be transported to
+    Galway, promising good behaviour in future. If, however, his worship
+    thought the case serious, he would draw his committal warrant, hand
+    it to the defendant, who would, without the intervention of police
+    or any one else, take the warrant, travel at his own expense to
+    Galway, and deliver himself up, warrant in hand, at the county jail.
+    I am afraid things are very much changed since those days. Excuse my
+    not going more fully into the subject-matter of your letter. Duties
+    here are heavy. Believe me,
+
+                         "Sincerely yours,
+
+                                            "PHILIP LYSTER."
+
+
+[Sidenote: THEIR DRESS.]
+
+The dress of the islanders is said, by those who understand such things,
+to be picturesque; but beyond all doubt their shoes, or rather slippers,
+made of untanned cow-hide with the hairy side out, and without heels and
+without soles, are the most unpicturesque foot-dress in Europe. These
+they call Pampoodies.
+
+[Sidenote: THEIR PAMPOODIES.]
+
+The raw cow-hide, which is cut to fit the foot, is stitched down the
+instep to the toe and also on the back of the heel. Soft as a glove, the
+wearer soon acquires an elasticity of step and an erect and noble
+bearing in his walk, to which the wearer of the more picturesque boot
+can never attain. There are two things, it is said, not to be found in
+Aran--corns on the foot and frogs in the fens. The young women on
+Sundays have their hair trimmed and bound up very tastily; but what
+ornament can these young people put on equal to the virtuous characters
+they bear? On Sundays and holy days the churches are well filled, and
+the altars well served by priests as zealous as the Catholic Church can
+in Ireland lay claim to--the Rev. Father O'Donohoe, P.P., and the Rev.
+Father Waters, C.C.
+
+The extreme politeness of the islanders, and their desire to impart any
+knowledge they possess of antiquarian lore or of the legends or fairy
+tales with which the islands abound, must strike with force the mind of
+the observing tourist. Their reverence for the dead, and their affection
+for their loved and departed friends, impel them to erect, sometimes in
+long lines on the roadside, square stone pillars about ten feet in
+height by three feet each side, all of the same measurements, surmounted
+each with a well-cut stone cross and with inscriptions such as the
+following: "_Sta viator._ Stay, traveller. O Lord have mercy on the soul
+of Mac Dara Ternan, who departed this life 26th June, 1842." These
+monuments of the dead, who are generally interred in far-distant
+churchyards, have by moonlight a ghastly appearance.
+
+[Sidenote: THEIR HOLY WELLS.]
+
+The reverence of the Aranite for holy wells is great, nor will he suffer
+in silence his faith in them to be ridiculed. "Can you," said a
+stranger, "be so silly as to believe that that well gushing out of the
+hillside was placed there by a saint, in dim and remote ages?" The
+peasant replied that a well on a mountain side or on a mountain top
+appeared to him to be miraculous. "And isn't it, sir, wonderful to see
+water on the top of a hill? And it must flow up the hill inside before
+it can flow down the hill outside;" and water flowing up the hill inside
+or outside was to his mind miraculous. The stranger answered that, "the
+water may have been forced up from some far-off lake on a higher level."
+The peasant's answer was, "that may be so and it may not be so, but your
+honour does not give us any proof that it is so." Wells in all ages and
+in all places are associated with the marvellous, even from the well of
+Zem-zem to that on the Aran rocks, and we are not so sure that the
+geological stranger was quite satisfactory as to his theory of wells on
+a mountain summit.
+
+[Sidenote: THE ISLE OF O'BRAZIL.]
+
+Speaking of the wonders by which the native of Aran is surrounded, what
+wonder can be greater than that of the mirage, an island that is said to
+rise after sunset from the Atlantic? A phantom island which the people
+call "O'Brazil, the Isle of the Blest," upon which a city like the New
+Jerusalem is built, and the old men say that that city hath no need of
+the sun nor of the moon to shine in it, neither does it need the light
+of the lamp any more at all. That island with that city has, they say,
+over and over again appeared far away on the Atlantic. Alison, we
+remember, somewhere in his charming account of the French in Egypt,
+gives a note on the mirage of the desert, where the parched-up soldiers
+of the French republic, in 1798, used to see far-distant lakes into
+which tumbled the waters of mighty waterfalls. On, on the French
+soldiers rushed. Alas! the phantom vanished; and so vanishes the phantom
+city seen on a summer evening from the lofty cliffs of the Aran islands.
+To follow in search of this "Isle of the Blest" an Aranite peasant once
+resolved. He had heard of St. Brendan and of Christopher Columbus, and
+of those mariners who, sailing over the seas in search of fame and of
+gold, were fortunate enough to find both. The peasant, in spite of all
+persuasion, set sail.
+
+[Sidenote: A PHANTOM-ISLAND.]
+
+The phantom receded; he followed. Still following, he never returned to
+Aran again, and his mournful fate is thus sung by Gerald Griffin:--
+
+    1.
+
+    "On the ocean that hollows the rocks where ye dwell,
+    A shadowy land has appeared, as they tell;
+    Men thought it a region of sunshine and rest,
+    And they called it O'Brazil, the Isle of the Blest.
+    From year unto year on the ocean's blue rim,
+    The beautiful spectre showed lovely and dim;
+    The golden clouds curtained the deep where it lay,
+    And it looked like an Eden away--far away.
+
+    2.
+
+    "A peasant who heard of the wonderful tale,
+    In the breeze of the Orient loosened his sail;
+    From Aran, the holy, he turned to the west,
+    For though Aran was holy, O'Brazil was blest.
+    He heard not the voice that called from the shore,
+    He heard not the rising wind's menacing roar:
+    Home, kindred, and safety, he left on that day,
+    And he sped to O'Brazil away--far away.
+
+    3.
+
+    "Morn rose on the deep, and that shadowy isle,
+    O'er the faint rim and distant reflected its smile;
+    Noon burned on the wave, and that shadowy shore
+    Seemed lovely, distant, and faint as before.
+    Lone evening came down on the wanderer's track,
+    And to Aran again he looked timidly back;
+    Oh! far on the verge of the ocean it lay,
+    Yet the isle of the blest was away--far away!
+
+    4.
+
+    "Rash dreamer, return! oh, ye winds of the main,
+    Bear him back to his own peaceful Aran again;
+    Rash fool! for a vision of fanciful bliss
+    To barter thy calm life of labour and peace.
+    The warning of reason was spoken in vain,
+    He never revisited Aran again.
+    Night fell on the deep, amidst tempest and spray,
+    And he died on the waters away--far away."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[16] Stokes' "Life of Dr. Petrie," pp. 49, 50.
+
+[17] "Reminiscences of Frank Thorpe Porter, Esq.," 1875, p. 489.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+    "Never Boreas' hoary path,
+    Never Eurus' poisonous breath,
+    Never baleful stellar lights
+    Taint _Aran_ with untimely blights."
+
+                                                           BURNS.
+
+
+[Sidenote: OLD AGE IN ARAN.]
+
+The extreme old age to which the inhabitants live in Aran proves the
+excellence of the air and of the food. Neither asthma, nor gout, nor
+rheumatism are known in portions of the islands. Formerly there were
+forests of oak and of pine in Inishmore, which must have been peculiarly
+suited to those who suffered from diseases of the chest.
+
+The fishery here begins in the spring, and great quantities of spillard,
+cod, ling, haddock, turbot, gurnet, and mackerel are caught. The natives
+look much to the herring fishery, which seldom disappoints their
+expectations. In May the pursuit of the sun-fish gives employment to
+many, and it appears, from evidence given before the Irish House of
+Commons in 1762, that sun-fish of average size were worth from L5 to L6
+each. Then all manner of shellfish are in abundance in those
+waters--multivalves, bivalves, and univalves--lobsters, oysters,
+periwinkles. The Aranite may be said to be an amphibious animal--a
+fisherman and a farmer, but as a fisherman he is powerless to cope with
+them whose ships are built for the deep sea fishery.
+
+[Sidenote: LAND COMMISSION IN ARAN.]
+
+It was as a farmer we had the pleasure of seeing him, and in the court
+of the Land Commission, which sat in Kilronan on the 20th of July, 1886.
+The Land Court presented an animated appearance on that day, the
+islanders crowding in to hear their cases. Unlike any Europeans that we
+know of, the men sat or squatted on the floor in manner as the
+Mahometans would in the mosques of Bussorah. Remarkably intelligent,
+they gave their evidence in court with an ease and precision, especially
+when examined in Irish, which it was refreshing to hear. Many of the
+cases stood over from the Land Commission sittings in the islands on
+June 25, 1885, on which occasion there were ninety-five listed for a
+hearing, and of these the following, the first heard, is a fair specimen
+of all the rest, the Commission being composed of Mr. Crean, B.L.,
+Professor Baldwin, and Mr. Barry.
+
+
+IRISH LAND COMMISSION.
+
+Michael O'Donel, tenant.
+
+Miss Digby, Landenstown, county Kildare, and the Hon. Thomas Kenelm
+Digby St. Lawrence (second son of Thomas, twenty-ninth baron, third Earl
+of Howth--by his second wife, Henrietta Digby, only child of Peter
+Barfoot, Esq., of Landenstown, county Kildare), landlords.
+
+Mr. Concannon appeared as solicitor for the tenants; Mr. Stephens,
+solicitor, for the landlords.
+
+Michael O'Donel sworn.
+
+Mr. Concannon. O'Donel, are you tenant of this holding?
+
+I am, your honour.
+
+How long are you tenant?
+
+Since I was born--and that's fifty years ago.
+
+Do you swear that, that you were tenant since you were born? How long
+are you paying rent?
+
+Since my father's death, about eight years ago last
+Pathrickmuss,--that's the time I'm the rale tenant. My father and his
+father were tenants on that holding since the Deluge at all
+events--couldn't swear longer than that.
+
+Do you swear that?
+
+Well, of coorse I couldn't swear it out and out.
+
+What quantity of land have you in your holding?
+
+Well, twenty-two acres exactly, be the same more or less. [Mr. Stephens,
+for the landlords, said that twenty-two acres was the true area of his
+farm.] Five of the twenty-two acres were nothing but rocks and stones,
+without one blade of grass in them, so that it was seventeen acres of
+productive land he had, at an annual rental of L3 18_s._ 6_d._, and it
+was not worth that.
+
+To the court. The last change of rent was thirty years ago.
+
+What buildings have you?
+
+The house is my own, and the barn. Both are thatched. [Mr. Stephens did
+not claim the houses.] Improvements?--Well, there are walls, but did not
+measure them, and small gardens.
+
+In answer to Mr. Concannon: We claim to be entitled to take the seaweed
+for manure. We have no turf, nor timber to burn, and have to pay L3 a
+year for two boat loads of turf. The stock on his farm was a cow and a
+veal calf, a horse, five sheep, and eight lambs. Shears them every year,
+but the wool he never sells as he keeps it for his family. As for
+tillage, he had about eighty stone of potatoes last year, and by his
+stock he realized L12; that includes L6 7_s._ 6_d._ that he received for
+a couple of veal calves. He had no grain crops. He had a couple of pigs
+too. As for his stock, maybe it's little he'd have out of them coming
+home to his wife and childher, and his was a nice wife, thanks be to
+God. His sheep he brings by boat to the county of Clare, sells them at
+the fair of Ennistymon. Has to pay freight 3_d._ a head for sheep and
+lambs. His cattle and pigs he puts on the mail boat and sails them to
+Galway--the freight being 2_s._ 6_d._ for calves, and a shilling a head
+for pigs. And wasn't he sixteen days weatherbound in Galway last
+February, after the fair-day?
+
+Mr. Concannon would produce no valuer, he felt perfect confidence in the
+commissioners.
+
+This closed the tenant's case.
+
+Mr. Thompson, of Clonskea Castle, county Dublin, sworn. Is the agent on
+the estate; succeeded his father, who had been agent for many years.
+Witness has in his custody all the rentals and leases of the estate from
+1794. "The rental in 1800 was L2143, as fixed by valuation in that year.
+In 1812 the rental was L2668; in 1827, L2145 10_s._ 4_d._; in 1846,
+L1937 17_s._ 7_d._; in 1881, L2067; in 1885, L2067; the acreage of the
+islands being 11,288 acres. The lands are in the hands of tenants, with
+the exception of two croggeries which are in my occupation."
+
+The learned chairman, Mr. Crean, B.L., inquired what a croggery meant.
+
+Witness said that "croggery" was a very ancient name for fourths. The
+entire islands were divided into townlands, which townlands contained 4
+or 6 quarters each, every quarter containing 16 croggeries, and every
+croggery containing 16 acres. Inishmore thus contained 4 townlands and
+4t. x 6qrs. x 16crog. x 16ac. = 6144 acres. On Inishmaan there are two
+townlands, which contain 6 quarters each. On Inisheer there is only one
+townland containing 4 quarters. The tenants have manure and seaweed from
+the sea shore free of charge. The seaweed was very valuable in 1866,
+when the kelp made on the islands realized L2577, being L5 a ton. There
+is no kelp made now, owing to the fall in prices. For twenty years the
+value of a tenant's interest in a croggery varied from L30 to L90.
+
+This closed the landlord's evidence, and the lay sub-commissioners in
+due time inspected the farms. The case came on for judgment, and the
+court reduced the rent from L3 18_s._ 6_d._ to L2 7_s._ 6_d._, being
+39.75 per cent. reduction.
+
+All the other cases were similar to the last.
+
+On Tuesday, July 20, 1886, her Majesty's gunboat was moored at the New
+Docks, Galway, for the purpose of taking the Land Commission composed of
+Mr. Crean, Lieut.-Colonel Bayley, Mr. Rice and myself, to Aran. The
+voyage was one to be remembered. The wind, from the S.S.W., rose to a
+tempest, not a sail in sight. Nevertheless the vessel held on her
+course, though the wind was high against her, and she let drop her
+anchor in due time in the Bay of Kilronan. No mail boat from "Europe"
+arrived in the islands during the greater part of that week. To fix a
+fair rent was the object of fifty-four originating notices which now
+came on for hearing. Of this number two were dismissed on points of law,
+and forty-nine had their rents fixed, the sum of the old rents being
+L384, which was now reduced to the new or judicial rent of L231, being a
+reduction in favour of the tenants of L153, say forty per cent. This
+reduction, as a matter of course, was well received by the islanders;
+but the questions that are irresistibly forced on the mind are, can any
+reduction of rent improve their condition? And can any tenure of their
+farms, or any estate therein, however large, raise them from their
+condition of comparative poverty to that of wealth? And would it be of
+material benefit to them to sweep from the landlord the last farthing of
+his rent, and to grant the same to them? And would it not be for their
+weal rather that they had schools to instruct the young in the natural
+history of the fish, and in the ways of science connected with the deep
+sea fisheries, and in navigation and all its kindred branches, such as
+mathematics, spherical trigonometry, the use of the compass, magnetic
+needle, the constellations, and nautical tables, etc., together with all
+the trades incident to fishing such as carpentering, ship building, nail
+making, sail, net, rope, and line making?
+
+[Sidenote: BARONESS BURDETT-COUTTS.]
+
+And ought not the young and the old to be familiarized with the name of
+the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, and with her wonderful works in the cause
+of the Baltimore Fishery? And would it not be for the weal of the
+islanders, and of the nation, the Irish nation, that the islanders
+should be supplied, not for charity, with deep sea fishing appliances,
+as the Baltimore fishermen have been?
+
+[Sidenote: THE ARAN FISHERIES.]
+
+The ignorance of our fishing population is thus deplored in the report
+of "the inspectors of the sea and inland fisheries of Ireland," 1887:--
+
+"It is melancholy to find how deficient our coast population is in all
+these matters, and that the rising generation are left untaught in arts,
+from the exercise of which, wealth would be brought into our land, and
+industry, self-reliance, and temperance inculcated, while the seas
+around our island teem with fish; so much so that often, when a great
+capture occurs, quantities of fish are lost from the want of scientific
+knowledge as to the best means of curing; and, at the same time, Ireland
+is _importing_ about 10,000 tons of cured fish _annually_, when she
+might be _exporting_ double, or even treble that quantity.
+
+"Thousands of pounds are also sent annually from Ireland to England,
+Scotland, and the Isle of Man, for nets and lines alone, the great bulk,
+if not all, of which might be kept at home, and our people profitably
+employed."[18]
+
+The following letter, from Sir Thomas F. Brady, Inspector of Irish
+Fisheries, Dublin Castle, on the Aran fishery, is worthy of note:--
+
+                                    "11, Percy Place, Dublin, Dec. 5, 1886.
+
+    "MY DEAR BURKE,
+
+    "I have your note here. There is a large number of open row boats
+    and curraghs on the three islands of Aran, but that is their only
+    mode of fishing; and they can only fish at short distances from the
+    land, and cannot fish except in suitable weather. There is not a
+    single first-class fishing vessel attached to the islands. The
+    people are too poor to provide themselves with such, or obtain
+    security for loans for such. There is one drawback to such vessels
+    being kept, the want of proper harbour accommodation. There is a
+    pier at the north island, but vessels cannot approach it unless near
+    high water, and there is no means of improving it by extension. To
+    make a good harbour it would be necessary to build a new pier into
+    deep water; then, if any quantity of fish is taken, the vessels must
+    lose their time and bring them to Galway, thirty miles. If there
+    were telegraphic communication between the island and mainland, the
+    Galway steamer might be sent out when there was a large quantity of
+    fish, or if there were a number of first-class vessels there, it
+    might pay a steamer to attend them regularly as they do in the North
+    Sea.
+
+    "The Manx, Cornish, and French vessels, only go there in the early
+    part of the year when the mackerel sets in. The Frenchmen slightly
+    salt the fish on board, and take them to France and come back again
+    for another cargo.
+
+                                      "Sincerely yours,
+
+                                                   "THOMAS F. BRADY."
+
+
+
+That a step, however small, in the right direction has been taken,
+appears from the following letter from Christopher Talbot Redington,
+Esq., J.P., D.L., of Kilcornan, in the county of Galway:--
+
+    "Poor Relief (Ireland) Inquiry Commission,
+
+                                                            "Dec. 10, 1886.
+
+    "DEAR MR. BURKE,
+
+    "I have been engaged all the summer, in conjunction with Colonel
+    Fraser and Mr. Mahony, in expending a grant of L20,000 in the
+    scheduled unions under the provisions of the Poor Relief Ireland
+    Act, 1886. We have carried out several works in North and South
+    Aran. The Board of Works are building a pier in the middle island.
+
+                                        "Yours truly,
+
+                                               "C.T. REDINGTON."
+
+
+The absence of first-class fishing boats accounts for the absence of
+wealth in the islands. The Aran fisherman sees the French fisherman
+fishing whilst he becomes a farmer and a labourer at wages not worth
+working for. The Rev. William Killride, rector of Aran, thus writes:--
+
+
+                                                      "Aran, Dec. 11, 1886.
+
+    "DEAR SIR,
+
+    "Men's wages vary. There is no constant work whatever. Spring and
+    the seaweed gathering for kelp are the chief harvests for the
+    labourer. A labourer has seldom more than four months' labour in
+    the year; so that it is a necessity on his part to get gardens on
+    hire. Until last year or the year before he got from 1_s._ to 1_s._
+    6_d._ in spring, with his diet; at harvest, about 1_s._ with his
+    diet, three meals in the day, bread and tea for breakfast, etc. When
+    there is a hurry in seaweeding time he used to get 2_s._ 6_d._ and
+    diet, but this lasts only a week twice in the year."
+
+    [Sidenote: TREES IN ARAN.]
+
+    The writer then speaks of several other matters connected with the
+    island and about the possibility of growing timber there. "My little
+    grove was planted by myself. I find the greatest difficulty in
+    preserving it, seven trees being destroyed this year. Then I planted
+    every nook and cranny with evergreens; but they were plucked up
+    three several times. I got sick of this thing. Many places in the
+    island were covered with trees. In fact, fifty years ago or so, I
+    have been informed that a large portion of the island grew trees,
+    especially hazel, from 20 to 26 feet in height.
+
+    "What kept the poor rate down both last year and this was the amount
+    of relief given out. Mr. Thompson, the agent, laid out L140 on a
+    road, and L136 on seed potatoes. Sir John Barrington has given me
+    upwards of L100 for this object, and this year he gave me L80 or L90
+    for seed potatoes and L120 for relief and also money to assist
+    emigration and to buy turf. The people will suffer terribly this
+    year for want of fuel. The potato crop is all gone. No fish
+    whatever taken. Any further information you may want I will freely
+    give.
+
+                "I am, dear Sir,
+
+                              "Yours, very sincerely,
+
+                                            "WILLIAM KILLRIDE."
+
+
+[Sidenote: BARONESS BURDETT-COUTTS.]
+
+The poverty of the Aran fishermen was equalled until lately by that of
+the Baltimore fishermen in the south of Ireland. Their altered state of
+circumstances appears by a report of the inspectors of Irish fisheries
+on the sea fisheries of Ireland, presented to his Excellency the Lord
+Lieutenant in the autumn of 1886. The Baltimore fishing boats had been
+mere curraghs worth about L6 each. Owing to the liberality of Baroness
+Burdett-Coutts, of imperishable fame, a number of deep sea fishing boats
+were built at a cost of L600 each, which was lent to the Baltimore men
+on easy rates of repayment. The report states that at Baltimore, in the
+year 1885, there were 41,610 boxes of fish caught by fishermen
+previously unemployed, and these boxes of fish realized a sum of
+L34,585. Mostly every tradesman in the town was employed; the carpenters
+in making boxes, the smiths in strapping them round with hoop iron.
+"Three vessels arrived in Baltimore loaded with ice, and eight hulks
+were used for storing it, two at a cost of L20 a month, the others were
+owned by a company of fish buyers, at a cost of L1 5_s._ a week each.
+This for ten would amount to L3080, besides a large expenditure on
+packers." Fancy the like sums scattered in Aran!
+
+[Sidenote: THE ARAN FISHERIES.]
+
+At Baltimore in 1886, sixteen steamers were employed in carrying the
+fish to England, at an estimated cost of L400 each per month.
+
+Over 100 men were employed in the boats used by the buyers; and at a
+rate of wages which, for twelve weeks, would amount to about L1500,
+besides a large expenditure upon packers, etc.
+
+In 1886 three vessels arrived with ice, containing 1423 tons, all of
+which were imported, and eight hulks were used for storing it, owned by
+a company of fish buyers.
+
+The following instructions to persons applying for loans under the Irish
+Reproductive Loan Fund, and Sea Fisheries Fund Acts, 37 and 38 Vict.
+chap. 86; 45 Vict. chap. 16; and 47 and 48 Vict. chap. 21, would be read
+with delight and acted upon with avidity were it not for the nasty note
+that appears at the foot of so flaring an advertisement.
+
+[Sidenote: LOANS FOR FISHERY PURPOSES.]
+
+    "I. Loans will be made as heretofore for the purchase or repairs of
+    boats, vessels, or fishing gear, on the security of borrowers and
+    persons to be joined with them as sureties in a joint and several
+    bond and promissory notes.
+
+    "II. In _special cases_, where the Inspectors of Irish Fisheries
+    shall deem it expedient that a new fishing vessel should be supplied
+    to a borrower instead of money, they may, with the consent of the
+    Lord Lieutenant, recommend loans on the security of the borrowers,
+    and on the security of the fishing vessel to be supplied. In such
+    cases the borrowers must give to the Commissioners of Public Works a
+    joint and several bond or promissory note as the case may be, for
+    the amount of the loan, and also execute a deed providing that the
+    vessel shall be registered in the name of the Commissioners of
+    Public Works, and so continue registered until the loan with
+    interest, and any expense incurred, shall be repaid, and also
+    providing that in default of payment of any of the instalments, by
+    which such loan shall be made repayable, or in default of the
+    borrowers preserving the same in proper order and condition, or in
+    case the said vessel should become in the opinion of the said
+    Commissioners a deficient security for the amount of the loan for
+    the time being unpaid, the said Commissioners may cause such boat or
+    vessel to be sold.
+
+    "III. Time for repaying any loan not exceeding ten years.
+
+    "IV. Repayment by half yearly instalments with interest at the rate
+    of 2.5 per cent. per annum.
+
+    [Sidenote: THE ARAN FISHERIES.]
+
+    "NOTE.--It must be observed that loans under rule No. 2. can only be
+    recommended _under very_ _exceptional circumstances, and to a very
+    limited extent_, as the funds available for loans for new vessels
+    are quite insufficient to meet large demands. It will, therefore, be
+    impossible for the inspectors to do more in carrying out this rule
+    than to recommend loans on the security of vessels in a few cases
+    only, where very exceptional circumstances exist, and only in cases
+    of new first-class fishing vessels being provided for with
+    thoroughly experienced fishermen of good character.
+
+    "No loans for the purchase of gear will be made without personal
+    security, as laid down by the rules already in force, see No. 1.
+
+                       "By order,
+
+                                 "GEORGE COFFEY,
+
+                                                                "Secretary.
+
+    "Fisheries Office, Dublin Castle, February, 1886."
+
+
+[Sidenote: IRISH FISHERIES--IRISH PARLIAMENT.]
+
+Of the immensity of the fisheries we can form no estimate. But to the
+islanders the fisheries are worthless without boats, and without the
+means of obtaining boats; without funds, and without the means of
+obtaining funds. Except "under very exceptional circumstances, and to a
+very limited extent," they are unable to launch out into the deep and
+let down their nets for a draught. It is said by one party that a
+different state of things would prevail had the Irish people an Irish
+Parliament. That may be so and it may not be so; but one thing is
+certain, that whilst in 1887 no bonus of any kind can be obtained, in
+1787 bonuses of many kinds could be obtained, and were obtained. In the
+27th year of George III., A.D. 1787, an Irish Act was passed "for the
+encouragement of the fishery usually called the deep sea fishery." The
+marginal note of that section, a section too long to repeat, states that
+"bounties will be given, 80 guineas for the greatest quantity of
+herrings caught by the crew of any one vessel, and imported between the
+1st of June and the 31st of December in any one year; 60 guineas for the
+next greatest quantity, 40 guineas for the next, and 20 guineas for the
+next, to be paid on the 1st of January following." By the same Act
+bounties of four shillings a barrel were authorized to be given for
+herrings; and by another section, the fourteenth, three shillings and
+threepence by the hundredweight was allowed for all dried cod, ling, and
+other fish mentioned therein. Bounties, however, have long since been
+discouraged by political economists, and loans have long since been
+discouraged by other economists, and between those scientists money for
+the improvement of the Aran fishery was never so hard to be got at as at
+this present time.
+
+[Sidenote: THE ARAN FISHERIES--TRAWLING.]
+
+From the coastguard return it would appear that the Galway coastguard
+division is guarded by five coastguard stations, two of them being on
+the Aran islands, in which there has been an increase in 1886 of two
+second class and sixteen third class boats solely engaged in fishing.
+The trawlers work from Barna to the islands of Aran. That trawling
+injures the supply of fish is insisted upon by the one party and denied
+by the other. A court of public inquiry was held in Galway, where the
+entire question was investigated; the result of which investigation will
+form the subject of a special report. We shall only observe that the
+Scotch Fishery Board has prohibited trawling in some places in Scotland.
+"In the Galway Bay trawling was prohibited for a number of years in
+about half the bay. For about four years it was not followed at all,
+and, so far as the evidence at public inquiries could be relied on,
+there was no improvement in the fisheries during the cessation of this
+mode of fishing in either the whole, or part of the bay. In the case of
+Dublin Bay trawling has been prohibited for nearly forty-four years; and
+the question arises whether the fisheries of that bay have increased in
+that period.
+
+"In other bays no trawling has ever been carried on; and the present
+state of the fisheries in such places will have to be carefully inquired
+into."[19]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[18] Report of Inspectors of Irish Fisheries for 1887, p. 10.
+
+[19] Report of Inspectors of Fisheries, 1887, p. 8.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+    "The darksome pines on yonder rocks reclined
+    Wave high and murmur to the hollow wind."
+
+                                                               POPE.
+
+
+Having thus far spoken of the wealth that might be realized by the
+islanders from the waters that surround their islands, let us turn to
+speak of the wealth that might be realized by the islanders from the
+islands themselves--wealth produceable neither by patches of potatoes,
+nor by tillage, nor by minerals, nor by pasturage. On the islands are
+vast terraces of naked rocks, and there are vast terraces of rocks not
+naked on which grew those forests of oak, of yew, and of fir of which we
+have already spoken, when treating of Druidism.
+
+[Sidenote: RE-AFFORESTING ARAN.]
+
+To re-afforest the disafforested wilderness has of late occupied the
+thoughts of the thoughtful in our country. Dr. Lyons, for some time M.P.
+for the city of Dublin, gave to it much of his attention. He has been
+taken away, but his mantle has fallen upon another. Dermot O'Conor
+Donelan, Esq., J.P., of Sylane, near Tuam, teaches us how the people of
+other countries are enriched by their forests. Having made a tour
+through the unwooded mountains of Connemara, he subsequently in the
+present year made a tour through the wooded mountains of the Grand Duchy
+of Baden. His inquiries and the result of his inquiries in that
+prosperous country he published in a series of letters in the _Irish
+Times_ and _Freeman's Journal_. To give those letters _in extenso_,
+however instructive, would fill too many of our over-filled pages, but
+we may be permitted to make a few quotations from them.
+
+[Sidenote: FORESTS IN BADEN.]
+
+"It is a noteworthy fact," writes Mr. Donelan, "that from the class of
+lands similar to those that lie waste in Ireland, the recent progress of
+Germany is generally believed to proceed. Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony,
+Wurtemburg, Baden, and Alsace-Lorraine have a combined population of
+40,644,000. The labour connected with the forests of those countries and
+their products have been estimated to be worth L9,450,000; and those
+earnings suffice for the maintenance of about 300,000 families." He then
+forms a painful contrast between Baden and Ireland--between the German
+mountain districts, and the mountain districts of the same kind in
+Ireland where there is a similarity of soil; but there the similarity
+ends.
+
+[Sidenote: FOREST INDUSTRIES.]
+
+"The mountains and bogs of Connemara, with the roots and remains of
+trees scattered everywhere amongst them, are lying there in their bare
+and melancholy desolation, and but for the presence of some miserable
+hovels, the whole scene might be inside the Arctic circle. The mountains
+of Schwartzwald, however, are covered with forests of silver fir, and by
+their vast supplies of timber are creating vast industries. In a tour
+which I made through it some months ago, I observed that almost every
+branch of wood-work was in active operation, and for miles together the
+rattle of machinery was hardly ever silent. The manufacture of paper
+from wood, which is comparatively new, has already assumed very large
+proportions in South-Western Germany. Second class wood-ends, etc., for
+paper-making, can be had for about eight shillings a ton; while straw
+must always cost from 30_s._ to L2 10_s._ This difference will gradually
+transfer the manufacture of paper and papier-mache to this and similar
+forest districts. Within the last few years several mills have been
+established for the manufacture of cellulose from wood. They have been
+found successful, and it is expected that this will soon be among the
+most important of the forest industries. A list of the objects of which
+cellulose is the basis would form a curious example of recent invention.
+In the American Patent Office no less than one hundred and twenty
+patents have been taken out in connection with cellulose since 1870.
+Gun-cotton, collodion, celluloid, artificial ivory, handles for knives,
+etc; dental plates, cuffs, collars, shoe-tips and in-soles, billiard
+balls, are a few names taken from a long list, and which will give an
+idea of the number of trades this one material is establishing in many
+cities and towns of Germany. Celluloid can be made as hard as ivory or
+be spread on like paint; it is water proof, air proof, and acid proof.
+It can be pressed or stamped, planed as wood, turned in a lathe, and it
+can be transparent or opaque.
+
+"I am not able to state the quantity of basket and wicker-work used in
+the United Kingdom, but at the lowest computation it must be several
+millions worth a year, the imports alone being very large.
+
+[Sidenote: RE-AFFORESTING ARAN.]
+
+"It would not be possible to enumerate," he writes, "the number of
+industries which supplies of timber are capable of developing. Some of
+those would spring up within twelve or fourteen years, and which are
+further capable of enormous development. Poplar grows rapidly in
+Ireland; in twelve years the thinnings are of considerable size, and,
+according to Mr. Herbert's report on the forestry of Russia (Blue Book,
+commercial, 31, 1883), it appears that from poplar most of the paper
+exported from Russia is manufactured. The consumption of paper in the
+United Kingdom must be over L30,000,000 a year, and if it be probable
+that mountain forests are likely to be the scene of a considerable
+portion of its production in the future, what an opportunity is there
+then of utilizing by means of forestry the waste lands and the cheap
+labour of Donegal and Connemara. Ever since 1800 the question of the
+waste lands has been before the public. It was reported on in 1812, and
+again by the Devon Commission of 1840. Every writer on the industrial
+resources of Ireland had paid it particular attention. It was mentioned
+by Sir Richard Griffith, by Munns, by Dutton, and even before 1800 by
+Arthur Young. There is hardly a Government in Europe which has not
+undertaken the work of reclaiming and afforesting waste lands."
+
+[Sidenote: FORESTS FORMERLY IN ARAN.]
+
+So writes the author of those interesting letters, and he dissipates an
+illusion which is prevalent amongst us, namely, that to turn planting
+into profit requires long years and gross timber. On the contrary, as
+his observations prove, in their earlier years of growth forests will
+supply many industries for which old timber is unsuited. A great
+objection to re-afforesting mountains and rocky districts is the length
+of time that is generally supposed must elapse before so gigantic a work
+could become remunerative; but Mr. O'Conor Donelan shows that no great
+length of time is necessary, and that after a very few years timber
+would be suitable for the works of which he speaks. Would that the
+Government would take his words to heart, and do in Ireland what German
+statesmen have done in Germany! There are men amongst us who would fain
+believe that Aran is too much exposed to the westerly winds to admit of
+timber being grown on the islands; but the great roots old in the earth
+tell of the great trees that grew in Aran many centuries ago.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+SUPERSTITIONS OF THE GROVE.
+
+    "Oh the Oak, and the Ash, and the bonnie Ivy tree
+    Flourish best at hame in the North Countrie."
+
+[Sidenote: SUN-WORSHIP IN ARAN.]
+
+In the present chapter we propose to give a few of the legends with
+which groves were enriched when the worship of the sun (Baal) was the
+religion of the world--legends yet remembered in Aran. In the groves
+they offered sacrifices, and "burnt," writes the Prophet Hosea, "incense
+under the oak and the poplar and the turpentine tree [the pine], because
+the shadow thereof was good."[20] And we are told that "Abraham planted
+a grove in Bersabee, and there called upon the Name of the everlasting
+God."[21]
+
+[Sidenote: WORSHIP OF BAAL IN ARAN.]
+
+The selection of such places originated, no doubt, in the fact that the
+gloom of the forest was calculated to excite awe, and because they
+considered that the spirits of the departed hovered over the places
+where the bodies were buried; and it was common to bury the dead under
+trees, as appears from the eighth verse of the thirty-fifth chapter of
+the Book of Genesis, where it is stated that when Deborah, the nurse of
+Rebecca, died, she was buried at the foot of Bethel under an oak tree,
+and the name of that place was called "The Oak of Weeping;" and when
+Saul, the first King of Israel, fell at the battle of Gilboe, his bones
+were buried under an oak tree at Jabesh.[22] Amongst the Hebrews it was
+common, before the time of Moses, to plant groves. But the idolatrous
+nations planted them also; and groves and the places of idol-worship
+soon became convertible terms. For the purpose, therefore, of
+extirpating idolatry, the Lord thus spoke through Moses: "Thou shalt
+plant no grove, nor any tree near the altar of the Lord thy God."[23]
+And in after-centuries, when Josias abolished the worship of Baal in
+Judah, and destroyed them that offered incense to the sun, and the moon,
+and to the twelve signs, he caused the grove to be burnt there.[24]
+
+Whether the groves of Aran were destroyed at the time of the destruction
+of the religion of Baal and of the introduction of Christianity, or in
+after-ages, it is impossible now to state. That great trees had
+existence in the islands in 1618 is certain, as appears by a partly
+hereinbefore recited indenture of that date, when Henry Lynch did demise
+a moiety of the three islands to William Anderson, his executors, etc.,
+for a long term of years, excepting thereout _great trees_.
+
+[Sidenote: NYMPHS OF TREES.]
+
+_The Oak._--The chief object of worship was the oak, which has not
+inaptly been called "the king of the forest." With its life was bound up
+the life of a nymph, for the nymphs of trees, called in classics
+_Hamadryades_, were believed to die together with the trees which had
+been their abode, and with which they had come into existence. Those
+that presided over woods in general were called _Dryades_, as the
+divinities of particular trees were Hamadryades. Not unfrequently has
+the axe of the woodman been stayed by the voice of the nymph breaking
+from the groaning oak.
+
+[Sidenote: THE OAK.]
+
+That misfortune was believed to follow in the footsteps of those who
+wantonly felled an oak is abundantly proved by the soothsayers in the
+olden time. Often have oaks become attached to the lords of the house
+with whose existence they were bound for hundreds of years. If the
+leaves in a living state have prophesied touching the affairs of men, so
+did the dried timbers, as in the case of the _Argo_, when they warned
+the Argonauts of the misfortunes that awaited them. Not unfrequently has
+the falling of a branch of the oak tree warned the protecting family of
+coming disasters. The idols in idolatrous times were manufactured from
+its wood, though more frequently from that of the ash, and from it was
+cut the yule-log which served to maintain the perpetual fire. Once a
+year all fires and lights but one were extinguished, and that was the
+oaken log, from which every other fire in the islands was with much
+ceremony relighted.
+
+The medicinal qualities of the tree, and the charmed life it bore,
+prophetic, as we have said, and causing diseases to depart by its spells
+and incantations, must have made its existence, if it knew anything at
+all about it, a happy one. The Irish of the "oak" is _Dara_, and many an
+Aranite bears that name.
+
+Now, there was a blessed Saint, "Mac Dara," who lived in those islands
+long ages ago, and there was a renowned statue of him made of oak, which
+the people venerated with an idolatrous veneration. It was in vain that
+the Catholic clergy called on them to desist from kneeling before the
+graven image, and from swearing on it rather than on the Book of the
+Gospels, on which all men swore. Malachy O'Queely, Roman Catholic
+Archbishop of Tuam, was, however, resolved to put down an exhibition
+which he considered a scandal to the Catholic Church, and so, coming to
+the islands in 1645, he tore down the statue and flung it into the sea;
+but ill luck awaited him. In the same year he was sent by the Supreme
+Council of Kilkenny to accompany the confederate troops to Sligo, which
+had been lately taken by the Parliamentary forces. He did so, and the
+warrior archbishop rushed to the relief of the town, and for a season
+dislodged the enemy; but the tide of victory turned, the Irish were
+routed, and the body of the prelate was literally cut to pieces. Upon
+him was found that treaty with Charles I. which afterwards helped to
+bring the unhappy king to the scaffold.
+
+[Sidenote: OAK--ASH.]
+
+Another of the superstitions that attaches to the king of the forest is
+that, if his majesty leafs before the ash, the coming season will be
+dry; if, however, the ash leafs before the oak, then the coming season
+will be wet.
+
+    "If the oak's before the ash,
+    Then you'll only get a splash;
+    If the ash precedes the oak,
+    Then you may expect a soak."
+
+Of the Irish oak and of the horror that insects have of that tree, we
+may form an estimate from Hall, who, in his Chronicles, says that
+"William Rufus builded Westminster Hall, and the oaks with which the
+said Hall was roof'd were felled in Oxmanstown Green, near Dublin, and
+no spider webbeth and breedeth in that roof of oak even to this day." Of
+the remote pedigree of the oak we need not speak further than to remind
+those who are curious about such matters that the oak all over the world
+is said to be the first created of all trees, and next to it comes the
+ash.
+
+The _Ash_ is "the Venus of the forest." On ashen sticks (dreadful in
+matters of witchcraft, as appears from the evidence given in the case
+of "the Dame Alice Kettler," tried for witchcraft in Kilkenny, in 1324)
+witches were wont at night to ride "through the fog and filthy air." To
+love-sick maidens the even ash leaf--that is, where the leaflets of the
+leaf are even in number--is of priceless value, "and note that if a
+youngster meeteth and plucketh an even ash leaffe and a four leaffed
+clover [shamrock], they are most certaine to meet their husband or wyfe,
+as the case may be, before the day passeth over;" and so runs the old
+saw--
+
+                              "And if you find
+    An even-leaved ash and a four-leaved clover,
+    You'll see your true love 'fore the day is over."
+
+[Sidenote: ASH--ROWAN TREE.]
+
+Strange that the mountain ash, the _rowan tree_, should be held in
+horror by witches. "Of it whip-handles are made, for the bewitched and
+stumbling horses thereby become unbewitched and unstumblers." So also
+the housewife should, before turning the cows out to grass for the
+summer, tie a switch of mountain ash with a red worsted thread around
+the cow's tail. The churn, so often bewitched of its butter, is certain
+to withstand the evil eye when the churn-staff is manufactured of the
+rowan tree. The roots of the ash or the mountain ash, in Aran, are of
+rare occurrence; we shall, therefore, pass on to the _aspen_, of which
+it is said that it alone refused to bow, as the other trees did, to the
+Redeemer, and that for such conduct the aspen leaf all over the world
+trembleth even to this hour.
+
+[Sidenote: ELDER--PINE.]
+
+_The Elder._--The most unlucky of all trees is the elder, now a mere
+bush; for out of it was made the cross of Christ, and from one of its
+boughs Judas hanged himself. In Scotland this tree is known as the
+bourtree, and hence the rhyme--
+
+    "Bourtree, bourtree, crooked wrung,
+    Never straight and never strong;
+    Ever bush and never tree,
+    Since our Lord was nailed to thee."
+
+The mushrooms growing in or near the elder are known as Judas's ears, of
+wondrous virtue in curing coughs.
+
+    "For a cough take Judas' ear,
+    With the parings of the pear;
+    And drink this without fear."
+
+The superstitions attached to this tree are many, and to tell them would
+fill a volume.
+
+Stumps of _Pine_ and _Fir_ are numerous in the Aran islands. The fir
+tree has been ever highly esteemed. It was amongst the materials
+employed in the building of Solomon's temple. Together with the pine it
+was held in such veneration in France, that St. Martin met with the
+strongest possible opposition when he proposed the destruction of the
+holy fir groves. The fir grew luxuriantly in Palestine; and the Prophet
+Hosea saith that the Lord will make Ephraim flourish "like a green fir
+tree."[25] And another prophet, Ezechiel, informs us, in the fifth verse
+of the twenty-seventh chapter of his prophecy, that the navy of Tyre was
+constructed of this tree, whilst the masts were from the cedars (pines)
+of Libanus. It was the timber, too, used for the manufacture of musical
+instruments in Israel; for in the Second Book of Samuel (ch. vi. 5) it
+is written that "David and all the house of Israel played before the
+Lord on all manner of instruments made of _fir wood_, even on harps, and
+lutes, and timbrels, and cornets, and cymbals." And when Hiram, King of
+Tyre, sent timber to Solomon for the building of the temple, it was the
+cedar and the fir[26] he sent, for which he was allowed twenty thousand
+measures of wheat. It was, in Palestine, a tall tree, on the tops of
+which, we are informed somewhere in the Psalms, the storks built their
+nests.
+
+[Sidenote: HOLLY--IVY.]
+
+The _Holly_, or _Holy_, and the _Ivy_ are indigenous in the soil of
+Aran. In idolatrous times holly was planted, according to Pliny, in the
+neighbourhood of dwelling-houses, to keep away spirits and all manner of
+enchantments. There can be no doubt that those who believe dreams to be
+other than the wanderings of the fancy can on any night have steady
+sensible dreams of a reliable nature if they bring home in their
+handkerchief (observing the strictest silence all the time) nine leaves
+of thornless holly and place the same under their pillow. Amongst the
+conversions of the trees of the forest from the pagan to the Christian
+faith, that of the ivy was the most remarkable; it no longer adorns the
+brow of a drunken Bacchus, but is now entwined in wreaths over the altar
+at the midnight Mass on Christmas night. Nevertheless, they that would
+look into futurity can still read in the ivy leaf of what is coming to
+pass in after-times. Place a leaf, on New Year's Eve, in a basin of
+water, and take it out on the eve of Twelfth Night; if it come out
+fresh, health is on the house; but if it come out spotted, sickness and
+death are sure to follow.
+
+[Sidenote: HAWTHORN--BLACKTHORN.]
+
+The _Hawthorn_ and _Blackthorn_ grow freely in the islands. Need it be
+told that the antipathy between these shrubs is so great that the one is
+never found to be growing naturally near the other? Of course, if
+planted together, they will struggle on for a time; but one or other
+generally sickens and dies; for there is a controversy between them as
+to which had the misfortune to supply the crown of thorns to Christ on
+the night of the Passion. The peasantry in England, Scotland, and France
+believe it was the hawthorn, and they look on it as an outrage to bring
+in flowering hawthorn in May to their houses, it being unlucky and
+accursed ever since that dreadful night preceding the Crucifixion. So
+also the blackthorn in Austria and the south of Europe is considered
+unlucky; as it is there insisted on that _it_ supplied the thorns,
+wherefore it is doomed to blossom when no other tree of the forest
+dares, in the teeth of the poisonous Eurus, so to do. On which side the
+truth lies we shall not venture to speculate; but our astonishment is
+great when we learn that the walking-stick of Joseph of Arimathaea was of
+hawthorn, that in Glastonbury he stuck it accidentally in the ground,
+and that ever since it and its descendants bud, blossom, and fade on
+Christmas Day!
+
+[Sidenote: THE ROSE--SILENCE.]
+
+_The Rose._--"I am the Rose of Sharon." In the East it is the pride of
+flowers for fragrance and elegance. It was used amongst the ancients in
+crowns and chaplets at festive meetings and religious sacrifices. A
+traveller in Persia describes two rose trees fully fourteen feet high,
+laden with thousands of flowers, and of a bloom and delicacy of scent
+that imbued the whole atmosphere with the most exquisite perfume.
+Originally it was white, and the white moss-rose was suspended over the
+door of the Temple of Silence; whence it is that secrets are said to be
+told "under the rose." At convivial banquets in Greece the guests not
+unfrequently wore chaplets of roses, and anything said by them whilst
+wearing the emblem of silence was not to be repeated. The white rose was
+the emblem of purity, and the term "Mystical Rose" is applied by the
+Catholic Church to the Virgin Mary. Under the cross there grew, amongst
+the wild flowers of Calvary, a multitude of white roses, some of which
+were reddened with the blood of Christ. From these comes the red rose,
+emblematic, not alone of purity, but of martyrdom.
+
+[Sidenote: THE ROSARY--FERNS.]
+
+The tomb of the Virgin (the Rose that never fades) was found by the
+apostles to be filled with roses after the Assumption. Her altars ever
+after have been decorated with roses, and it was a high privilege in the
+Middle Ages to have a garden where no other flower was admitted. These
+gardens, called rosaries, may have suggested to St. Dominic the name
+given to that collection of prayers which he arranged, and which he
+called the Rosary.
+
+The love of the nightingale for this flower is proverbial in the East.
+It is unnecessary, of course, for us to remind our readers that the
+white and red roses were the badges of the rival houses of York and
+Lancaster.
+
+As for the elm and the beech, countless superstitions are attached to
+these trees, but as we fail to find that they existed in Aran, so we
+shall not prosecute further our inquiries on this head.
+
+_Ferns._--Not the least interesting amongst the botanical curiosities of
+Aran are the ferns, that carry their seed on their backs--a seed that
+has, it is said, the extraordinary property of making the person in
+whose shoes it is placed instantly invisible to all but himself. So
+Shakespeare has it, too, in his play of "1 Henry IV.," act ii. scene 1:
+
+    "We have the receipt of fern seed, we walk invisible."
+
+[Sidenote: FERNS--INVISIBILITY.]
+
+A painful illustration of this property occurred, it is told, when once
+upon a time a man was looking for a foal that had strayed from his
+stable. He happened to pass through a meadow just as the fern was
+ripened, some of the seeds of which were shaken into his shoes. After a
+wearisome and fruitless search during the night he returned all
+travel-soiled in the morning, and sat down in his house to join the
+family at breakfast. He was amazed to see that neither wife nor children
+welcomed him home, nor showed the slightest concern at the night he had
+spent, nor even inquired about the result of his search. At length,
+breaking silence, he said, "I haven't found the foal." All were
+startled, and they looked everywhere to see where he was hiding.
+Believing that his family were treating him with contempt, he repeated,
+in a towering passion, "I have not found the foal!" They all sprang to
+their feet, and his wife called him by name to give over that nonsense,
+and to come out from his hiding-place. The creaking of his shoes was
+distinctly heard, though the wearer thereof could not be seen. At
+length, in a voice of anger, he repeated, as he planted himself opposite
+his wife at the foot of the table, "I say, I have not found the foal!"
+Need we tell the terrors of the family? But just then he remembered that
+he had, on the previous night, crossed a meadow loaded with ferns, and
+that some of the seed might have got into his shoes, and that he was
+therefore invisible. Flinging them off, he at once became visible to
+everybody.
+
+Fern seed has also the valuable property of doubling a man's power in
+the working field, several examples of which are given by writers on
+this interesting subject.
+
+[Sidenote: FAIRY FLAX--FAIRIES.]
+
+The _Fairy Flax_ of Aran we have frequently spoken of in the preceding
+pages, and that flax may be spun from year's end to year's end, and
+little realized thereby, unless, indeed, "the good people," as the
+fairies are called,[27] take the spinner under their protection. Now,
+there was once a man in humble circumstances, who had an only daughter,
+the most beautiful creature that ever was seen. She spent much of her
+time spinning, but to no purpose. At length a hideous dwarf, lame and
+blind of an eye, came to her one day as she was spinning, and presented
+her with a distaff full of flax, upon which, he said, there was enough
+for her whole life, if she lived a hundred years, provided she did not
+spin it quite off. On she went spinning, but never spinning to the end,
+and her loom produced the choicest of stuffs, for which she received
+prices almost fabulous! Day by day her wealth increased, and after a
+time she felt assured that the produce of her labour had now secured so
+sure a market that it made little difference whether she spun the fairy
+flax right off or not; so, to try what would be the effect, in her
+curiosity she spun it to the end. In a moment the wheel stopped, and she
+had ever after to repent the curiosity that stripped her of immense
+wealth.
+
+[Sidenote: SATURDAY'S SPINNING--HEMP.]
+
+The spinning-wheel in Aran, the old crones say, should never spin on
+Saturday. Whence this keeping holy the Saturday I know not; but it does
+look as if they who kept the Saturday holy, were of Israelitish
+descent--were, perhaps, of the lost tribes carried into Nineveh at the
+time of the Captivity by Salamanassar, 730 B.C.![28] Now, there were two
+old women indefatigable spinners, whose wheels never stood still, though
+they were by the wise men warned not to spin on Saturdays. At length one
+of them died, and on the Saturday night following she appeared to the
+other, who was as usual busy at the wheel, and showed her her burning
+hand, saying--
+
+    "See what in hell at last I've won,
+    Because on Saturdays I've spun."
+
+_Hemp._--I don't remember seeing hemp growing in Aran to any great
+extent. Sowing the seed of hemp on All Hallows' Eve in some parts of
+the country, and on St. John's Night in others, is described in the
+following lines from Gay's "Pastorals":--
+
+    "At eve last midsummer no sleep I sought,
+    But to the field a bag of hemp seed brought:
+    I scattered round the seed on every side,
+    And three times in a trembling accent cried,
+    'This hemp seed with my virgin hand I sow,
+    Who shall my true love be the crop shall mow.'
+    I straight looked back, and, if my eyes speak truth,
+    With his keen scythe behind me came the youth.
+    'With my sharp heel I three times mark the ground,
+    And turn me thrice around, around, around!"
+
+[Sidenote: HAZEL--DIVINING-RODS.]
+
+The _Hazel_, one of Thor's trees, is generally used as a divining-rod to
+discover mines and lost treasures supposed to be hidden underground. The
+person who seeks for the treasure takes a hazel rod with an end in each
+hand, and then slowly walks over the ground, keeping the rod in a
+horizontal position before him; when passing over the spot it bends down
+like a bow in the middle, towards the place as if it were magnetized, as
+the needle turns to the pole. Beyond a doubt the hazel is known to
+miners, and to those who look for minerals underground, as the
+divining-rod.
+
+[Sidenote: FAREWELL INISHMORE.]
+
+And now, bringing our legends to a close, we shall bid farewell to these
+lonely and lovely isles, and in bidding them farewell we shall merely
+ask how it is that the travelling English public travel not into these
+islands, where frosts never wither, where snows never rest? And so
+farewell to Inishmore, the island-home of St. Enda--Inishmore--once
+
+                    "Notissima fama
+    Insula dives opum, _Hiberniae_ dum regna manebant
+    Nunc tantum sinus, et statio mala fida carinis."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[20] Hos. iv. 13.
+
+[21] Gen. xxi. 33.
+
+[22] 1 Chron. x. 12.
+
+[23] Deut. xvi. 21.
+
+[24] 2 Kings xxiii. 5, 6.
+
+[25] Hos. xiv. 9.
+
+[26] 1 Kings v. 10, 11.
+
+[27] Numbers of books treat of the superstitious belief in fairies. The
+Irish fancy that they are the "fallen angels" mentioned in Jude 6, and
+that on the day of judgment they will be released from their hapless
+condition (2 Peter ii. 4). The belief in fairies is universal in
+Mahomedan countries.--_Vide_ "Lalla-Rookh," "Paradise and the Peri."
+
+[28] 2 Kings xvii. 6.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX A.
+
+    "Adorned with honours on their native shore,
+    Silent they sleep and dream of wars no more."
+
+                                          POPE'S _Iliad_.
+
+[Sidenote: O'BRIENS LORDS OF ARAN.]
+
+We have spoken so much in the foregoing pages of the O'Briens, lords of
+Aran, that we feel inclined to say a word as to, who those O'Briens
+were, whence they came, and whither they went; and first, let us state
+that their pedigree is traced by Irish genealogists to a date earlier
+than the Christian era. The O'Briens, lords of Aran, were descended from
+Bryan Boroimhe, King of Thomond and monarch of all Ireland, who
+conquered and fell at the battle of Clontarf on April 23, 1014, when the
+Danish power, all over Ireland, was scattered to the four winds of
+heaven. In the third generation after the death of Bryan, his descendant
+Dermod sat on the throne of Thomond, and this Dermod had sons and
+daughters, and the eldest of the sons was called Turlough, who in 1118
+became, on his father's death, King of Thomond, whilst his younger
+brother was Mahon, and his youngest brother was Teige; and the clan
+MacTeige for 470 years ruled those islands, we have no doubt, with a
+very equitable and a very paternal rule, and wholly unhampered with
+legislative bodies such as a Witenagemot, or with the parliamentary
+institutions of the Normans, where the members then, as now, had the
+liberty of speaking, sometimes very plainly, their minds--as, indeed,
+the Norman name of our legislative assembly imports: _parler-les-mens_,
+a place for "speaking their minds." That the Corporation of Galway
+recognized the power of the O'Briens, lords of the isles, is plainly
+told in the foregoing pages, where we remember that twelve tuns of wine
+were annually paid to the lord for sweeping the sea, as it were with a
+broom, clean of the Algerine pirates that then infested the high seas;
+and there can be little if any doubt that the O'Briens were ready, from
+time to time and at all times, to massacre the foe wherever they met
+him, and to convert his ships to their own use and behoof in manner and
+form as by their indenture of treaty was provided. It is not for us to
+criticize with critical pen the policy of the respected lord of the
+isles, who, in 1560, was swallowed up in the deep, near the Great Man's
+Bay, when he was returning from Thomond loaded with the booty which, at
+the point of the sword, he had won from the subjects of his cousin
+O'Brien of Thomond; for it does not appear that ties of blood preserved
+his Majesty of Thomond from the vengeance of his lordship the lord of
+the isles, or, _mutatis mutandis_, the lord of the isles from the
+vengeance of his Majesty. "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,"
+was their maxim, and it may have been good law where the antagonists had
+each two eyes and two teeth; but the vengeance was dreadful when the
+punished party had only one eye and one tooth. He was then blinded and
+untoothed out and out; and frequently such dreadful vengeance did await
+the conquered. Let us not, however, be too hard on the conquerors when
+we remember that David sawed his prisoners in two, and drove harrows
+over them in a harrowed field.[29] The O'Flaherties, an equally warlike
+race, dispossessed the lords of the isles, and in 1588, the very year of
+the Spanish Armada, Queen Elizabeth finally confiscated their
+territories, and now the name of O'Brien is forgotten in Aran. Not so on
+the mainland; the O'Briens are still in Thomond and elsewhere, as, it is
+to be hoped, they will be for centuries yet to come. The lords of the
+Isles of Aran are extinct. The last of the male line was John O'Brien of
+Moyvanine and Clounties, whose daughter Sarah was married to Stephen
+Roche, from whom is descended the present Thomas Redington Roche, of
+Ryehill, Esq., J.P., Co. Galway. Amongst the families of this house
+still existing in Thomond, are the noble house of Inchiquin and the
+O'Briens of Ballynalacken, both of whom trace up, in an unbroken
+succession, to Bryan Boroimhe, who, like Leonidas at Thermopylae, fell
+fighting the foreign foe for the liberties of his country.
+
+[Sidenote: O'BRIENS LORDS INCHIQUIN.]
+
+The title of Inchiquin dates from the year 1543, but no title was
+required to ennoble those who were of the blood of kings, and were
+"nobler than the royalty that first ennobled them." The untitled
+aristocracy in England are often superior to the titled aristocracy, who
+cannot trace back farther than the Wars of the Roses. Now, the last King
+of Thomond resigned his royalty to Henry VIII., who in return, by patent
+A.D. 1543, bestowed upon Murrough O'Brien, and upon the heirs male of
+his body, the title of Baron of Inchiquin. This Murrough had two sons,
+the elder Dermot, and the younger Donough, and Dermot on his father's
+death became Baron of Inchiquin; and so the title descended from father
+to son until the year 1855, when James, the twelfth baron, who was also
+seventh Earl of Inchiquin (creation A.D. 1654) and third Marquis of
+Thomond (A.D. 1800), died without issue male, when the earldom and
+marquisate expired. Thereupon the father of the present baron, who was
+also a baronet, and brother to William Smith O'Brien, celebrated as
+Member of Parliament and leader of the Irish people, knowing his descent
+from Donough, second son of the first baron, instructed his counsel to
+bring his case before the Committee of Privileges of the House of Lords,
+to whose satisfaction he proved that he was heir male of the body of the
+first baron, and thereupon he was confirmed in said barony, and became
+thirteenth baron.
+
+[Sidenote: MARSHAL MACMAHON.]
+
+Let us now go back to Dermod, the third generation from Bryan Boroimhe,
+which Dermod died, as we said, in 1118, leaving three sons, the eldest
+Turlough, King of Thomond, the younger Mahon, and the youngest Teige,
+lord of the isles; from Mahon is sprung Marshal MacMahon, whose acts and
+deeds are known of by all men.
+
+[Sidenote: O'BRIENS OF BALLYNALACKEN.]
+
+This Turlough, King of Thomond, was ancestor of Teige O'Brien, who
+married Annabella, daughter of Ulick McWilliam Burke, of Clanrickarde,
+known as "Ulick of the Wine," and by her had, with other sons, Turlough
+Don, King of Thomond in 1498, and Donal. Turlough Don was ancestor of
+the family of Inchiquin, of which we have spoken, and from Donal sprang
+Turlough O'Brien, who was married to a grandniece of Sir Toby Butler,
+better known as the jovial Sir Toby, the great luminary of the Connaught
+Circuit, Solicitor-General for Ireland under James II., and the
+celebrated lawyer who drafted that treaty which will be remembered by
+all generations as the broken Treaty of Limerick. Turlough was the
+grandfather of John O'Brien, of Ballynalacken, who died in 1855, and of
+James O'Brien, Esq., Q.C., who was Member of Parliament for the city of
+Limerick from 1854 to 1858, when he was raised to a judgeship in the
+Queen's Bench. It is too near our own time to speak of that learned
+lawyer further than to say that "he judged not according to appearance,
+but judged just judgment;" that in him the prisoner at the bar found a
+merciful judge, and at the same time one who held the scales so that
+crime could not escape with impunity. Let us hope that when he went to a
+higher court he reaped the rewards promised to a just judge; and let us
+hope that those who come after him of his name and race may, when their
+turn comes, follow in his footsteps, and thus show that the wisdom of
+the wise still dwells in the brehons of the Celtic race.
+
+The Ballynalacken O'Briens are now represented amongst the landed gentry
+by James O'Brien, J.P., D.L., and they are also represented at the Bar
+by his brother, my learned friend, Peter, late Sergeant O'Brien, now
+Solicitor-General for Ireland.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[29] 2 Sam. xii. 31.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX B.
+
+STATISTICS OF ISLANDS OF ARAN.
+
+
+        Area, 11,288 acres.
+
+    Population--Census 1815, 2400
+        "         "    1871, 3049; increase, 640
+        "         "    1881, 3163     "      114
+    Inhabited houses, 1815    395
+        "       "     1881    576     "      181
+
+        Petty Sessions District, Aran.
+
+    Religion of Aranites, 1871, 2993 Roman Catholics
+        "          "        "     55 Protestant Episcopalians
+        "          "        "      1 Presbyterian
+                                ----
+                         Total  3049
+
+    Religion of Aranites, 1881, 3118 Roman Catholics; increase, 125
+        "          "        "     44 Protestant Episcopalians;
+                                       decrease, 11
+        "          "        "      1 Presbyterian
+                                ----
+                         Total  3163
+
+    Number speaking Irish only in Aran, 1871            835
+       "      "     English and Irish    "             1924
+       "      "     Irish only, 1881                    889
+       "      "     English and Irish, 1881            1829
+
+    Constabulary barracks, 1871                           1
+          "         "      1881                           3
+    Number of constabulary, 1871                          6
+          "         "       1881                         18
+    Coastguard barracks, 1881                             2
+
+            Quarter Sessions--Galway.
+        Petty Sessions--Held on the islands.
+
+    Roman Catholic churches in Aran                       4
+    Protestant Episcopal church                           1
+    Protestant church accommodation                     180
+    Annual income of parish priest, 1801                L60[30]
+       "      "     Protestant incumbent               L125[31]
+    National schools in islands                           4
+    Average attendance, Sept., 1886, to June,
+      1887                                              524
+        Manager, Rev. M. O'Donoghoe, P.P.
+
+    Fishing boats on islands, 1st class, 1887             0
+         "         "          2nd   "      "             34
+         "         "          3rd   "      "            130
+    Poor-law valuation                                L1576
+    Rent, 1881                                        L2067
+    Average poor rate, last ten years        3_s._ in the L
+    Paupers in workhouse                                  0
+    Distance of workhouse from islands             30 miles
+    Numbers receiving outdoor relief                     43
+
+    Grand jury works on island, Spring assizes, 1887      0
+    Grand jury cess       "        "      "     L34 12s. 2d.
+
+    Crown rent (_sup._, p. 45)                  18s. 5-1/2d.
+    Quit rent (_sup._, p. 45)                    L14 8s. 4d.
+    Labourer's wages                          1s. _per diem_
+       "         "  spring and harvest    1s. 6d., with diet
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[30] Vide return made in 1801 by Most Rev. Edward Dillon, D.D., Roman
+Catholic Archbishop of Tuam (Lord Castlereagh's Correspondence, vol. iv.
+p. 126). I can find no subsequent return.
+
+[31] Charles's "Irish Church Directory."
+
+
+THE END.
+
+PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
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