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diff --git a/old/53159-h/53159-h.htm b/old/53159-h/53159-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 6a8ab34..0000000 --- a/old/53159-h/53159-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6822 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Old Irish World, by Alice Stopford Green. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - <style type="text/css"> - -body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} -div.limit {max-width: 35em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} -div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} -.ls1 {letter-spacing: 1.7em;margin-left: 1.4em;} -.ls2 {letter-spacing: 4.5em; margin-left: 2.7em;} - - h1,h2 {text-align: center; clear: both;} - - -p {margin-top: 0.2em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: 0em; text-indent: 1.5em;} -.pn {margin-top: 0.2em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: 0em; text-indent: 0em;} -.pn1 {margin-top: 1em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: 0em; text-indent: 0em;} -.pc {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;} -.pch {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-size: 115%; margin-top: 1.8em; margin-bottom: 2em;} -.pc1 {margin-top: 1em; text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;} -.pc2 {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; margin-top: 2em;} -.pc4 {margin-top: 4em; text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;} -.pp6q {margin-top: 0em; text-align: left; text-indent: -0.45em; padding-left: 6em; font-size: 90%;} -.pbq {line-height: 1em; text-indent: 1.2em; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} -.ptn {margin-top: 0.3em; text-indent: -1em; margin-left: 2%;} -.pr2 {margin-top: 0em; text-align: right; padding-right: 2em;} - - -.p1 {margin-top: 1em;} -.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} -.p4 {margin-top: 4em;} - -.small {font-size: 75%;} -.reduct {font-size: 90%;} -.lmid {font-size: 110%;} -.mid {font-size: 125%;} -.large {font-size: 150%;} -.elarge {font-size: 175%;} -.xlarge {font-size: 200%;} - - -hr {width: 33%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: 33.5%; margin-right: 33.5%; clear: both;} -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} - -table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} - .tdl1 {text-align: left; padding-left: 0.5em;} - .tdr {text-align: right;} - -#toc {width: 60%; font-size: 90%; line-height: 1em; margin-top: 1em;} - - -.pagenum { /* visibility: hidden; */ position: absolute; left: 94%; color: gray; - font-size: smaller; text-align: right; text-indent: 0em; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;} - -.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} - -.figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} - -.caption {font-weight: bold;} - -p.drop-cap04 {padding-top: 2em; text-indent: -0.4em;} -p.drop-cap08 {padding-top: 2em; text-indent: -0.8em;} - - -p.drop-cap04:first-letter, -p.drop-cap08:first-letter - {float: left; margin: 0.07em 0.1em 0em 0em; font-size: 480%; line-height:0.85em;} - -@media handheld {p.drop-cap04:first-letter, - p.drop-cap08:first-letter - {float: none; margin: 0; font-size: 100%;} -} - -.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; color: black; font-size:smaller; padding:0.5em; margin-bottom:5em; font-family:sans-serif, serif; } - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Irish World, by Alice Stopford Green - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Old Irish World - -Author: Alice Stopford Green - -Release Date: September 28, 2016 [EBook #53159] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD IRISH WORLD *** - - - - -Produced by Giovanni Fini, Chris Curnow and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<div class="limit"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<div class="transnote p4"> -<p class="pc large">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:</p> -<p class="ptn">—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.</p> -<p class="ptn">—The transcriber of this project created the book cover -image using the title page of the original book. The image -is placed in the public domain.</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="pc4 xlarge">THE OLD IRISH WORLD</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p> -<p> </p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h1 class="p4">THE OLD IRISH WORLD</h1> - -<p class="pc4">BY</p> -<p class="pc elarge">ALICE STOPFORD GREEN</p> -<p class="pc reduct"><i>Author of “The Making of Ireland and its Undoing”<br /> -“Irish Nationality,” &c.</i></p> - -<p class="pc4 mid">DUBLIN</p> -<p class="pc large">M. H. GILL & SON, <span class="smcap">Ltd.</span></p> -<p class="pc mid">LONDON</p> -<p class="pc large">MACMILLAN & CO., <span class="smcap">Ltd.</span></p> -<p class="pc mid">1912</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p> -<p> </p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">PREFACE</h2> - -<p class="pn p2"><span class="smcap">Some</span> Irish friends have asked me to print certain -lectures concerning Ireland to which they had listened -with indulgence; and to reprint also former papers -in a manner more convenient for country readers. -This volume is the answer to their request. It will -be seen that I have not attempted to alter the lectures -from their first purpose and form.</p> - -<p>The various studies, thus accidentally united, have -a connecting link in such evidences as they may -contain of civilisation in the old Irish world. A -hundred years ago, in 1821, Dr. Petrie noted that -while the historians of ancient native origin were -unable in their poverty and degradation to pursue -the laborious study of antiquities, there were others -of a different class and origin who had taken up the -subject to bring it into contempt; and these indeed -succeeded in the cause for which they, unworthily, -laboured. Forty years later he recognised the same -influences at work. It would appear, he said in a -letter written to Lord Dunraven shortly before his -death in 1865, to be considered derogatory to the -feeling of superiority in the English mind to accept<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span> -the belief that Celts of Ireland or Scotland could have -been equal, not to say superior in civilisation to their -more potent conquerors, or that they could have -known the arts of civilised life till these were taught -them by the Anglo-Normans. After the lapse of -half a century we can still trace the same spirit—so -powerful have been the hindrances to serious and -impartial enquiry—so slow has been the decline of -racial prejudice and political complacency. But in -these latter days a great change has silently passed over -the peoples. The difficulties of historical research -and instruction do indeed remain as great as ever; -but in the new society which we see shaping itself in -Ireland on natural and no longer on purely artificial -lines, there is no reason to fear truth as dangerous -or to neglect it as unnecessary. There is now a public -ready to be interested not only in Danish and Norman -civilisation in Ireland, but also in the Gaelic culture -which embraced these and made them its own.</p> - -<p>I cannot adequately thank Professor Eoin MacNeill -for generously allowing me to embody in my first -chapter some of his researches on the history of the -Scot wanderings between Scotland and Ireland; -it is earnestly to be hoped that he will publish before -long the results of his original work.</p> - -<p>I owe my warm thanks also to Mr. F. J. Bigger for -his unstinted help in references and suggestions out of -the stores of his topographical knowledge. I may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span> -mention as an instance the grave-stone in Kilclief -churchyard carved with a Celtic cross, which he discovered -while these pages were going through the -press, so that I have been able to note it for the first -time among Lecale antiquities.</p> - -<p>Mr. R. I. Best has rendered me more services than -I can here tell, however gratefully I acknowledge them.</p> - -<p>The account of Ardglass has been re-printed -with additions, by the kind permission of the Editor -of the <i>Nation</i>. I have to thank the Editor of the -<i>Nineteenth Century</i> for leave to add the article on -Tradition in History, which is inserted at the request -of readers in Ireland.</p> - -<p>To prevent mistake I may add a word of explanation -that the map, or rather diagram, which is entitled -Scandinavian Trade Routes, contains not only those -lines of sea-commerce, but also an indication of the -ways across Europe which were used by Irish travellers -from earlier times. The difference between these -routes is clearly indicated in the text.</p> - -<p class="pr2">ALICE STOPFORD GREEN.</p> -<p><i>April 25, 1912.</i></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="pc4 lmid">IN MEMORY OF<br /> -THE IRISH DEAD</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CONTENTS</h2> - -<table id="toc" summary="cont"> - - <tr> - <td colspan="2"> </td> - <td class="tdr"><span class="small">Page</span></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr">I.</td> - <td class="tdl1"><span class="smcap">The Way of History in Ireland</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr">II.</td> - <td class="tdl1"><span class="smcap">The Trade Routes of Ireland</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr">III.</td> - <td class="tdl1"><span class="smcap">A Great Irish Lady</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_100">100</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr">IV.</td> - <td class="tdl1"><span class="smcap">A Castle at Ardglass</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_130">130</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr">V.</td> - <td class="tdl1"><span class="smcap">Tradition in Irish History</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_168">168</a></td> - </tr> - -</table> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="pc4 xlarge">THE OLD IRISH WORLD</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2 class="pc4">CHAPTER I</h2> - -<p class="pch">THE WAY OF HISTORY IN IRELAND</p> - -<p class="drop-cap04">IN all the countries of Europe the study of history -for a citizen of the State is taken for granted, -as the study of tides and currents might be -held necessary for a mariner, or of the winds for -an air-man, or that of the map for a merchant. -It is only a dozen years ago, however, that its -study was made compulsory in elementary schools -in England, and in that country men are still discussing, -by way of lectures and so forth, “What -is the Use of History.” The historical instinct -among the English people has indeed never been -very keen, so that, as learned men tell us, it would -be more difficult to form a folk-museum in -England than in any other country, so few are -the objects of a distinctly national character that -have survived. The past is rapidly overlaid -among men who live intensely in the present -and the immediate future. A great gulf separates -them from a race like the Irish, to whom the far -past and the far future are part of the eternal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> -present, the very condition of thought, the furniture -without which the mind is bare.</p> - -<p>The Irish, nevertheless, have by long effort -been brought under authority to the English -mind in history, and an Anglicised Ireland now -lies in the wake of England, a laggard in the trough -of the wave, rocked by the old commonplaces of -the early Victorian age. The hope that our -people may win out of that trough lies to a great -extent in the new sails set by the National -University, if they may at last catch the fresh -breezes of Heaven, and be swept into the open -sea of free knowledge and candid thinking. In -Ireland, as in England, history has been made -compulsory in a sense—a sense, we might -irreverently say, of the “United Kingdom.” It -has been made a department of English Grammar, -and has further been portioned out to Irishmen -as a fragment of English history, strictly confined -within dates fixed for that history in the schools -of England. The Irish story is thus shut up as -it were like criminals of old in the Tower prison of -Little Ease—a narrow place where no man could -stand or lie at length. And Irishmen are still -driven to discuss in belated fashion the question -that all Europe settled long ago—Why should -we make the History of our country our serious -study?</p> - -<p>The reason of Nature for this study is indeed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> -as profound as the being of man. There is no -other creature on this planet that can create a -history of its kind. To man alone belongs the -faculty of looking “before and after,” and considering -the story of his race from the first human -being that walked the earth. Our first forefather -brought with him something new—the power to -store up and to celebrate memories of the great -dead. His elemental pieties have become part -of the whole tradition of our humanity; and that -history which he began, and to which we add -day by day, is our witness to the separateness of -man from the other creatures of this world. When -we cherish this study we are proclaiming our -pre-eminence among all the living beings that we -know. When we let this history fall from us we -are sinking to the level of the dumb beasts. As -living men, therefore, “let us enjoy, whenever -we have an opportunity, the delight of admiration, -and perform the duties of reverence.”</p> - -<p>There is a practical reason, too, for the knowledge -of history. The individual man left to -himself is helpless to stand against the powers of -the world. Alone he can do nothing. His -strength lies in the generations and associations -of man behind him, linked by an endless tradition, -who have made for him his art, religion, science, -politics, social laws. It is only in communion -with that company of workers that he can take a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> -step forward. The soul of a country is bound up -with the heroes who still</p> - -<p class="pp6q p1">“... people the steep rocks and river banks,<br /> -Her natural sanctuaries, with a local soul,<br /> -Of independence and stern liberty.”</p> - -<p class="pn1">Rulers and commanders have known this well. -When they have wanted to exalt peoples or -armies under them, they have opened out to them -the glories of their history, and called on them -to admit into their souls the spirit of their fathers.</p> - -<p class="pp6q p1">“Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed<br /> -From dead men to their kind.”</p> - -<p class="pn1">When they have wished to depress and subjugate -a race they have slammed the doors of their history -on them, and left them alone, spiritless and -forlorn, passed by and forgotten by the Ages, -despised of themselves and of their neighbours.</p> - -<p>Whether therefore as men of a reasonable -nature, or as members of a nation, we are bound -to make History our all-important study. There -is no question about this in any self-respecting -nation in Europe. How does the case stand with -us in Ireland?</p> - -<p>When I first began the study of Irish History, -I was dissuaded from it by a man of exceedingly -acute mind and wide reading. His argument, -I imagine, is a common one, and shows the kind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> -of scruples that are set to bar our way to Irish -history—as some primeval race once planted the -slope of Cahir Mor on Aran with a forest of jagged -standing-stones, to forbid all entrance to the -fortress uplifted there above the expanse of the -Ocean in its freedom. Why, said my typical -objector, should we turn away from the great -highways of the world’s progress, with their sweeping -procession of Empires and great Dominions, -to lose ourselves in the maze where humble and -unsuccessful nationalities walk obscurely. Stimulate -the spirit of young men by giving them the -examples of heroes whose fame has sounded -through the earth, and societies that have been -adorned by triumph. Let the men of local fame, -the guardians of smaller nationalities, rest in darkness, -and let us follow the sun in its strength.</p> - -<p>We may remember one of the snares laid by -the Prince of Evil for the Son of Man, when he -set Him on a high place above the kingdoms of -the world, to bend His soul before their ostentatious -glory. From the mountain Satan displayed -the emblems of their pride, palaces and -towers and treasuries, “knowing that it was by -those alone that he himself could have been so -utterly lost to rectitude and beatitude. Our -Saviour spurned the temptation, and the greatest -of His miracles was accomplished.” England was -just at the outset of her imperial career when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> -Milton, in his “Paradise Regained,” pictured -that tremendous scene, the passing of the empires -in their state before the judgment of the Divine -Reason. The prodigious procession was marshalled -from the very dawn of history, powers and -dominions sweeping over the earth, and disappearing -with the suddenness with which they rose. -Not one has survived. In the shifting scene -forms of states move and stir dimly like the fallen -angels from “Paradise Lost” as they lay prone, -extended on the flood of ruin and combustion. -One scheme of government after another is lifted -up to be cast down—tyranny, oligarchy, slavery, -commercialism, communism, parliaments, theocracies. -The great warriors and the great statesmen -are alike entombed in the ruins of their empires. -“Head and crown drop together, and are overlooked.” -On the other hand, when empires have -fallen, the nationalities have not always perished. -They die only with the utter extermination of -the people. So long as the old stock lingers on -the soil, there is a spirit that can outlive all -empires, form the scourge of conquerors, and set -the last barrier to pride of dominion. We know -how peoples enclosed within small states, fed from -deep sources of heritage and tradition, have given -the impress of their local passion to their art. -Out of the intensity of national life have come -those high inspirations that have given to us all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> -that is best of literature, poetry, painting, -sculpture, music, and however deeply the artist -has felt the influence of the world outside, his -ultimate power lies in the spirit which has entered -into him from his native state and the race of which -he sprang. The generous influences of local -patriotism were recognised by the greatest political -thinker that modern Ireland has sent out: “To -be attached,” said Burke, “to the sub-division, -to love the little platoon we belong to in society, -is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public -affections.”</p> - -<p>Perhaps, we might also suggest to our objector, -the lesser nationalities are even now, in these days -of triumphant Imperialism, beginning to have their -revenge. The study of small societies seems to -become fashionable among the new reformers. -Do we not hear from all sides of the education, -discipline, and public spirit of countries compassed -within bounds suited to man’s apprehension? -With what respect do not Unionists extol the -industrial success of States such as Holland and -Denmark, for example. Even now do we not -hear English Imperialists crying out that perhaps -Switzerland has got the secret of the democratic -mind, or Norway, or New South Wales, or -Arizona; might not England take a lesson from -some little self-contained and thrifty community -on the use of the referendum? It would seem<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> -that the influence of small commonwealths is not -yet extinct among us.</p> - -<p>It is very certain that Ireland of all countries, -if left to itself, would never of its own will allow -history to lie in a backwater among the flotsam -of the current. History was the early study of -the Irish, the inspiration of their poets and writers. -Every tribesman of old knew, not only the great -deeds and the famous places of his own clan, but -of the whole of Ireland. In the lowliest cabin -the songs of Irish poets lived on for hundreds of -years, and dying fathers left to sons as their chief -inheritance the story of their race. When war, -poverty, the oppression of the stranger, hindered -the printing of Irish records, there was not a -territory in all Ireland that did not give men to -make copies of them, hundreds of thousands of -pages, over and over again, finely written after the -manner of their fathers. Through centuries of -suffering down to within living memory the long -procession of scribes was never broken, men tilling -small farms, labouring in the fields, working at -a blacksmith’s forge. And this among a people of -whom Burke records that in two hundred thousand -houses for their exceeding poverty a candle, on -which a tax lay, was never lighted. As we follow -the lines and count the pages of such manuscripts, -we see the miracle of the passion in these men’s -hearts. No relics in Ireland are more touching<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> -than these volumes, and none should be more -reverently collected and preserved. They form -a singular treasure such as no country in all Europe -possesses.</p> - -<p>But now, in spite of this tradition, history is -more backward in Ireland than in any other country. -Here alone there is a public opinion which resents -its being freely written, and there is an opinion, -public or official, I scarcely know which to call it, -which prevents its being freely taught. And -between the two, history has a hard fight for life.</p> - -<p>Take the question of writing. History may -conceivably be treated as a science. Or it may be -interpreted as a majestic natural drama or poem. -Either way has much to be said for it. Both -ways have been nobly attempted in other -countries. But neither of these courses is thought -of in Ireland. Here history has a peculiar doom. -It is enslaved in the chains of the Moral Tale—the -good man (English) who prospered, and the bad -man (Irish) who came to a shocking end—the -kind of ethical formula which, for all our tutors -and teachers could do, never deceived the generosity -of childhood. The good man in the moral tale -of Ireland is not even a fiction of Philosophy or -of History. He is, oddly enough, the offspring -of Grammar alone, and carries the traces of his -dry and uninspired pedigree. He owes his being, -in fact, to the English dislike for a foreign language.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -The Gael, as we know, ever faithful to the -tradition of his race, while he sang and recited -and wrote and copied his story with an undying -passion, did these things in his own speech. The -Norman or “Frank” settlers, true “citizens -of the world,” adopted his tongue, his poetry, -and his patriotic enthusiasm. When the English -arrived, however, they according to their constant -insular tradition refused to learn a strange -language, so that the only history of Ireland they -could discern was that part of it which was written -in English—that is, the history of the English -colonists told by themselves. On this contracted -record they have worked with industry and self-congratulation. -They have laid down the lines -of a story in which the historian’s view is constantly -fixed on England. All that the Irish had -to tell of themselves remained obscured in an -unknown tongue. The story of the whole Irish -population thus came to be looked on as merely -a murky prelude to the civilizing work of -England—a preface savage, transitory, and of -no permanent interest, to be rapidly passed over -till we come to the English pages of the book. -Thus two separate stories went on side by side. -The Irish did not know the language which held -the legend of English virtue and consequent -wealth. The English could not translate the -subterranean legend of Irish poetry, passion, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> -fidelity. Religion added new distinctions. Virtues -were Protestant, the sins of the prodigal were -Catholic. Finally, class feeling had its word. -The upper class went to their university, and -their manners and caste instincts entitled them -as of course to the entire credence of their own -social world; the lower class were alleged to be -men whose manners were common and their -prejudices vulgar.</p> - -<p>In this way there grew up an orthodox history -based on sources in the English tongue alone. -The Colonists laid down by authority its dogmas -and axioms. All that agreed with this conventional -history was reputed serious and scholarly: -whatever diverged from it was partial, partizan, -or prejudiced. “Impartiality” and “loyalty” -became technical terms, with a special meaning for -Ireland. The two words were held also to be -interchangeable. A strictly “impartial” writer -must not let his “loyal” eye swerve from the -fixed point, England. As a judicious Englishman -said of his compatriots, they only think a man -impartial when he has gone over to the opposite -side.</p> - -<p>The results of this system are conspicuous. A -Frenchman may unreproved write with affection -and ardour of France, and an Englishman of -England. An Irishman, however, is in another -case. He must have no patriotic fire for his own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> -people. He must not acclaim their victories -nor mourn their defeats. Take an illustration -of this temper. A clergyman has lately written -to the <i>Church of Ireland Gazette</i> to condemn -history readers “written from an anti-English -and anti-Church point of view”; he complains -that the writer describes the battle of the Blackwater -in 1598, where the English were routed, -as “a glorious victory for the O’Neill.” Such -a phrase as this cannot be allowed to Irishmen. -Or as a writer to the <i>Irish Times</i> puts a similar -argument: “If the Nationalists want for ever -to live in the glories of the past and to harp upon -them, why do they not go far enough back ... -to the time when they ate their grandmothers -... and indulged in all sorts of hellish rites.”</p> - -<p>In fact, as we trudge along the dull beaten -road of the orthodox history we never escape, -not for a moment, from the monotonous running -commentary which sounds continually at our -side. “Nomadic,” “primitive,” “wigwam,” -“aboriginal,” “savage,” “barbarous,” “lawless”—the -words are always at hand. In the -moral tale the accustomed stream of precept -and delation never runs dry. It follows us -through all the strictly “impartial” writers. -The Irishman was a “kerne.” The Irish word -cethern (kerne) meaning a troop or company -of soldiers, probably foot soldiers, is as old as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -Latin <i>caterva</i> with which it is cognate, or the -Umbrian <i>kateramu</i>, and so is of quite respectable -lineage; but being a foreign word to the Englishman, -he used it as a natural term of contempt, -as though a Chinese should cry “sailor” or -“merchant” when he meant to say “English -devil.” More than that, the Irishman was a -“nomad,” apparently because he sent his cattle -to graze on the hills in summer—a custom which -in modern Switzerland is held to be quite respectable -by admirers of Federalism. This “nomad” -idea is familiarly handed about from one writer -to another. One of the most esteemed historians -in Dublin was Mr. Litton Falkiner, who has -added some notable pages to later Anglo-Irish -history. Yet he was satisfied to dismiss the Irish -population of mediæval times in one terse phrase: -“the pastoral, and in great measure nomadic -Celts, who stood for the Irish people before the -12th century”—in other words, before the -Norman invasion. This absurd sentence seems -to pass current; no objection has been made to it. -What would educated Englishmen think of a -leading historian who dismissed the pre-Norman -population of that island as “boorish Low-Dutch, -hut-dwellers round a common field cut into strips -after their barbarous manner, <i>who stood for the -English people before the Norman Conquest</i>?” -Trivialities and ignorances of this sort are not in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> -fashion in English history, and it is time that -they were out of fashion in Ireland.</p> - -<p>Irishmen of the north still preserved, Mr. -Falkiner told us, even to the end of the 17th -century, “all the primitive characteristics of the -scarcely more than nomadic civilisation of Ulster.” -With summary contempt he pretended to dispose -of what he fancifully termed “the lawless banditti -who commonly formed the body-guard of an -Irish chief”; and in the orthodox manner confronts -“Irish law” and “Irish lawlessness” under -what he called “the English ownership of -Ireland.” The great Hugh of Tyrone is described -as looking “on the onward march of English institutions -with feelings not very different from those -with which the aborigines of the American continent -beheld the advance of the stranger from the -east.” In the same spirit he informed Englishmen -that Ireland was sadly deficient in the wealth -of historical and literary associations which form -the romantic charm of England. “Cathedral -cities, in the sense in which the term is understood -in England, Ireland may be almost said to be -without. A few of the towns,” he generously -admitted, “contain, indeed, the remains of -ecclesiastical and monastic buildings. But even -where these exist they are, with one or two exceptions, -sadly deficient in human interest.” It -is a cheap method, even if it is one out of date<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -elsewhere, to deny human interest to a subject -which one has learned to ignore, and may desire -to see forgotten. Can no human interest touch -the heart in Dromahair or Donegal or Glendalough? -There is a remote and little-known road -in the plains of Mayo where a singular sight may -be seen. Near it stand the ruins of a majestic -abbey founded over seven hundred years ago -(1189-1190), by Cathal O’Connor (whose foster-father’s -tomb has lately been found at Knockmoy -with its Irish inscription). Nave and transepts -were laid bare and open from their immense -gable ends, and the tower flung from the four -splendid arches that supported it, but the old -vaulted roof of the choir still remains; and here, -it is said, in this remoteness, is the only ancient -church of the Irish where, amid the universal -destruction and confiscation, they have been able -to carry on their old worship from the old days -till now. In this land of the banished—“to hell -or Connacht”—mass was without ceasing celebrated -in the choir; and from the hearts of the -worshippers kneeling in the nave and transepts -under the open sky a prophecy arose that when -the church was roofed once more Ireland would be -freed. Songs still sung among Connacht peasants -tell of such services amid ruins of their holy places, -the priests wet with the rain, the women’s clothes -bedraggled, the men carrying small stone flags<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> -so as to have a dry spot for their knees. Not in -any way was such a place like an English cathedral, -but if brave men’s vows and prayers and tears -for seven centuries can confer human interest -the stones of Ballintober are precious.</p> - -<p>The problem remains, however (for insoluble -problems beset every false position) that according -to Mr. Falkiner’s theory the history of towns -and cathedrals only began with “the English -ownership.” How was it that these Englishmen -left none of their “romantic charm” there? -What strange history lies hidden behind this -saying?</p> - -<p>Another historian takes up the same taunt—a -true scholar and worker who has added to our -knowledge of the close of Stuart rule in Ireland. -“The Irish,” says Dr. Murray, “are indeed a -strange race.... No monument marks the site -where the Irish hero and the Irish thinker repose.... -The graves of a patriot like Owen Roe -O’Neill, and of a statesman like Archbishop King -... are unknown. The thrill that an Englishman -feels in Westminster Abbey when he enters the -presence of the mighty dead is denied an Irishman, -for he has not taken care of the dust of his -immortals.” A memorial by the defeated Irish -to Archbishop King of Dublin, ardent supporter -of the Dutch conqueror, passionate worker -for the Protestant succession, four times Lord<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> -Justice for the government of Ireland under -William in those days of agony and despair—this -is a lofty counsel of perfection, such as we give -to others. The Irish raised no monument to -Owen Roe O’Neill—no monument, with Cromwell’s -soldiers abroad in the land, to the general proclaimed -by the English Government “traitor, -rebel, disturber of the common peace”—is that -the charge? Alas! I wonder from that day to -this what welcome would have been given in a -Protestant churchyard, guarded by the conquerors, -to an Irish memorial over the grave of Owen -Roe O’Neill. The dust of the Irish immortals -lies indeed far scattered. Has Dr. Murray ever -stood in the solitary burial places of Rath Croghan, -of Iniscaltra, of Clonmacnois? Has he counted -the stones in Athenry or those heaped up in Burris? -Has he seen the bones of the martyrs strewn from -sea to sea? Surely he himself has told us that -“the Irish custom of burying their dead in an -old ruined church or monastery was forbidden,” -and that not by the Irish, but by the Church of -the English. From the Reformation until eighty-two -years ago every Irish Catholic was needs -carried at death to a Protestant cemetery, and it -is only within the life-time of men now living -that, when Catholic prayers at the grave were -denied, the Irish people at last secured in 1829 a -burying place of their own.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p> - -<p>This fiction of a “strange race” has become a -kind of special philosophy which is dragged in -to interpret the most ordinary actions of the Irish. -For example, “the march of the soldiery upset -the balance of the excitable Irish farmer, and -he neglected his land”—a fact which in any other -country would need no “race” explanation. -Through the story of that war, whose end was -to transfer the soil of Ireland, five-sixths of it, -to lords of another race and religion, the old -inhabitants of two thousand years’ possession are -made to appear as “the Irish factions”; their -vice is patent, while English crimes are accidental, -inadvertent, or high-spirited. If we want to know -why the Irish people lost faith in the Stuarts -who had betrayed and outraged them at every -turn, we are referred to the simple habits of a -strange and childish race. “The Celt wants to -see a sovereign regularly in order to adore him”: -“A principle must be set forth by a person, and -the more attractive the person the stronger the -hold of the principle.” As we watch the strong -ceaseless current of Irish life such theories are swept -beyond our sight. The Irish poet told his people -another tale:</p> - -<p class="pp6q p1">“It is the coming of King James that took Ireland from us,<br /> -With his one shoe English and his one shoe Irish<br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>He would neither strike a blow nor would he come to terms,<br /> -And that has left, so long as they shall exist, misfortune upon the Gaels.”</p> - -<p class="p1">In his laborious work on the Norman settlement, -Mr. Orpen deals with the Irish in the usual -conventional manner:—“The members of this -family were always killing one another.” “The -chieftain ... had no higher conception of duty -than to increase the power of his clan; with -this object in view, he was stayed by no scruples”; -as for the clansman, “the sentiment for ‘country’ -in any sense more extended than that of his own -tribal territory, was alike to him and to his chief -unknown.” This description, like the terms -“tribal” and “nomad,” has long been habitual, -and accepted with as little enquiry as those words. -Mr. Orpen’s clients, the “Normans,” we may -assume to have been nobly free from any such -barbarous notions of individual aggrandisement, -regardless of “their country’s” claims.</p> - -<p>Mr. Bagwell, the leading historian of the English -occupation under Tudors and Stuarts, throws -his searchlight on the Irish:—“They were barbarous, -but they could appreciate virtue.” “The -Irish were subtle, fond of license, and ready for -anything as long as it was not for their good.” -May we remember the saying of the Irish themselves -in those days:—“Ask for nothing that you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> -would not deem a benefit to you, and before all -praise God.” Again, according to Mr. Bagwell, -“the people had no other idea of trade than to -extort exorbitant prices.” This quality scarcely -seems to need a racial explanation; it has been -found elsewhere in time of war. But under all -circumstances the “primeval” theory of Irishmen -must be maintained. The character of the -“natives”—using this word with its “savage” -implication—plays a great part in our history. -Thus, when a boat load of treasure from the -Armada was washed on shore Mr. Bagwell notes -that “such unaccustomed wares as velvet and -cloth of gold, fell into the hands of the natives.” -Cloth of gold and velvet had for centuries been -known to the wealthy Irish; even in England -they were not the clothing of the “natives,” if -such a term could be applied to Englishmen. -Again we are told that “the Irish, by being held -always at arm’s length, had become more Irish -and less civilised than ever”; <i>held at arm’s -length</i> is an ingenious phrase for evicting a people -from their homes, and throwing them out on -bogs and mountains. The hardships of hunted -famine-stricken outlaws hanging round their old -homes, is represented in this kind of history as -the life which would be naturally chosen by wild -Irish “nomads.” “True children of the mist, -they [the O’Tooles] either bivouacked in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> -open or crept into wretched huts to which Englishmen -hesitated to give the name of houses. They -cultivated no land.” “Thus one by one did -the chiefs of tribal Ireland devour each other.” -As for “the men of free blood, whose business had -always been fighting, and who would never work -... when the chiefs were gone they had nothing -to do but to plunder, or to live at the expense -of their more industrious, but less noble, neighbours.” -“The island was poor and the people -barbarous, and no revenue could be expected.” -It is true, indeed, that the wealth did not go the -way of the Crown; officials had other uses for it.</p> - -<p>In the same way Mr. Chart, in his study of Irish -life during the dark years after the Union—years -of acute suffering, hunger, disillusionment and -despair—discovers “a sullen discontent which, -as usually happens in Ireland, broke out occasionally -into acts of lawlessness and barbarity,” as if -some special form of iniquity had its home in -Ireland. At a time when the whole people in -England were in a turmoil of revolt, on the verge -of revolution, he mourns “the fatal Irish -tendency to rush into extremes,” and that -magistrates and police had to accustom “a hot-headed -and violent-tempered race to curb itself -within legal limits”—as if this was an unusual -fact, peculiar to this one race of the world, predestinate -to evil. It would seem that in Ireland<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -alone it is not safe to give any man “full and -unconstrained control over his personal and -political enemies,” and therefore “Ireland is -no country for a volunteer police.”</p> - -<p>I suppose there is not another history in the -world in which this free slinging of blame and -advice is continuously kept up at so fine a pitch. -If a problem in Irish life lifts its head, some puzzling -fact or tendency that demands explanation, -a stone is ready in the orthodox historian’s sling: -the dilemma is ended by one of the useful words—“primitive,” -“tribal,” “kerne,” “nomad,” -“barbarous,” “Celtic.” By constant reiteration -I fancy writer and reader now scarcely notice -them, so much have they become the symbols -of Irish history, and so deeply have they sunk -into the public mind.</p> - -<p>Thus the stream of calumny still flows on. -The latest voice from Trinity College, that of -Professor Mahaffy, in his Introduction to the -third volume of the “Georgian Society,” is of -the old familiar type. It should be, he explains, -“the interest and duty” of historians to maintain -certain desirable opinions—this, according to Dr. -Mahaffy, adds to their credibility. Once more, -therefore, we have from him “the elements of -primeval savagery which still existed in the Irish -people, and which they had in common with -almost all primitive races and societies” (and this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> -by the way, in the 18th century, after six hundred -years of English compulsion). How well we know -the old battered and time-exhausted phrase! Of -course we have again our old friend, the story -of O’Cahan sitting with the naked women, served -up as the ever-repeated type of all the generations -of Irish in their habitual squalor. For, we are -told, “since the earliest times the greater part -of the Irish ... have not found any discomfort -in squalor.” But for English law this singular -people would apparently never put on clothes at -all, winter or summer, good or bad weather, in -any northern gale from the Arctic ice. Ulstermen -now-a-days are certainly a degenerate race in -physical endurance.</p> - -<p>It is interesting to follow this story of O’Cahan.</p> - -<p>The story begins with a Bohemian baron, name -unknown, whom Foynes Moryson, an Englishman, -saw on one occasion. Here is the exact tale:—“The -foresaid Bohemian baron, coming out of -Scotland to us by the north parts of the wild -Irish, told me in great earnestness (when I -attended him at the Lord Deputy’s command), -that he coming to the house of the O’Cane, a -great lord among them, was met at the door with -sixteen women, all naked, excepting their loose -mantles; whereof eight or ten were very fair, -and two seemed very nymphs; with which strange -sight his eyes being dazzled, they led him into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> -the house, and there sitting down by the fire with -crossed legs like tailors, and so low as could not -but offend chaste eyes, desired him to sit down -with them. Soon after O’Kane, the lord of the -country, came in all naked excepting a loose -mantle and shoes, which he put off as soon as he -came in, and entertaining the baron after his -best manner in the Latin tongue, desired him -to put off his apparel, which he thought to be -a burden to him, and to sit naked by the fire with -his naked company.”</p> - -<p>Now on this tale let me make two or three -remarks.</p> - -<p>We may ask, in the first place, why this one -story is repeated on every occasion by historians -of what I might call the “savage” type; why, -omitting all other accounts, it is singled out as -the typical instance of daily life in Ireland. Is -this one of the views which, according to Dr. -Mahaffy, it should be “the interest and duty” of -impartial and loyal historians to maintain?</p> - -<p>The story originated with a “Bohemian baron,” -of whom we know nothing; it was reported by the -English secretary of Mountjoy, whom he praises -for the number of “rebels” he had “brought -to their last home”; to both of them the Irish -were nothing more than savages of a low type. -We may remember that this is the only story -of the kind cited from Ulster. A Spanish captain,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> -escaped from the Armada, travelled through -Connacht and Ulster and the O’Cahan country -for several months of hiding from English soldiers; -he too talked Latin in the many Irish houses -which gave him shelter, but in the book of his -wanderings there is no such incident as this.</p> - -<p>There would seem to be need of some strictness -of enquiry—some caution in discussing the tale. -At the best the outlines of the baron’s story are -vague. What decorations he himself may have -introduced into it, and what further ornaments -Fynes Moryson may have added, we do not know. -We may, perhaps, judge by the embellishments -which later writers have introduced. It is possible -that the baron and the secretary, not inferior -to their successors in contempt of the Irish, may -have equalled them also in literary skill and the -gift of embroidering a narrative. Let us see, -therefore, some of these decorations.</p> - -<p>Froude takes up the tale:—“If Fynes Moryson -may be believed, the daughters of distinguished -Ulster chiefs squatted on the pavement round the -hall fires of their father’s castles, in the presence -of strangers, as bare of clothing as if Adam had -never sinned.” Here we see the “women,” who, -for all the original story has to tell us, might be -servants, dependants, or refugees gathered in from -the war and pillage by which O’Cahan’s country -was then ravaged, are transformed into “daughters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -of chiefs,” the “house” turns into “pavements” -by the “hall-fires of castles,” and the incident -has become a universal custom.</p> - -<p>Then Professor Mahaffy arrives with a series -of versions. “O’Cahan, though living in a hovel, -could speak Latin.” More particularly, it was a -shantie of mud and wattles, without rafters, and -the cattle and swine occupied the same room -as the masters; so he explains in a lecture on -“Elizabethan Ireland.” A more circumstantial -account appears in “An Epoch in Irish History.” -In this the traveller is received by the “ladies -of the chieftain’s household.” “They brought -him into the thatched cabin which was their -residence,” and throwing off their mantles invited -him to do likewise before the chief came in—an -invitation which the unknown “women” of the -baron’s tale did not give. The baron’s “house” -has already changed into castles with pavements, -then into a hovel, and a thatched cabin, but the -picture of savagery is not yet lurid enough, and -there is a further transformation which, possibly -from its supposed importance, is dragged into -a description of society in the Dublin Georgian -houses of the 18th century. “The O’Cahan -in his wigwam, surrounded by his stark naked -wives (why not squaws?) and daughters, addressed -the astonished foreign visitor in fluent Latin.” -The “wigwam” and the “wives” show the unimpaired<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -fertility of Professor Mahaffy’s imagination. -His pronouncements, the <i>Irish Times</i> -assures us of this essay, “carry historical value -of the highest degree.” It will be interesting -to watch his further adornments of his favourite -tale. It will also be interesting to see how long -professors of Trinity College will still invite Irish -students to enter there by offering this curious -bait of conventional insults to their race and -country, and new varieties of old slanders.</p> - -<p>We might remember the scene in Galway a -few years later, where high-born ladies, plundered -of all their property by the rapacious soldiers, -sinking with shame before the gaze of the public -in their ragged clothes, covered themselves with -embroidered table-covers, or a strip of tapestry -taken from the walls, or lappets cut from the bed-curtains, -or with blankets, sheets, or table-cloths. -“You would have taken your oath,” says the -contemporary writer, “that all Galway was a -masquerade, the unrivalled home of scenic -buffoons, so irresistibly ludicrous were the varied -dresses of the poor women.” Why do not the -Colonial historians give this scene as showing -the habitual taste and pleasure of the Galway -ladies?</p> - -<p>Dr. Mahaffy has some other lights to throw -on Irish history. “The contempt for traders -as such ... is,” he says, “like all such prejudice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -in Ireland, the survival of the contempt which -the meanest members of any Irish clan felt for -any profession save that of arms, and the preying -on the churl.” The despisers of trade whom -he is describing in this passage are the English -landowners of the Williamite settlement, who had -finally ousted the Irish from their lands, and taken -them over as Protestant Englishmen, men of -“a better race.” This conquering class naturally -felt a contempt for their victims, the evicted -Catholic Irish, who were allowed for the benefit -of their lords and rulers to plough and to trade, -while deprived of civil and social rights. But -I do not know how those lordly squires would -like to have heard that they represented the -prejudices of “the meanest member of an Irish -clan,” accustomed to prey on “the churl,” whoever -he was. As for the Irish clansman who is -supposed to look on traders as outcasts, he appears -to be a fiction of the essayist’s fancy. Where -in Irish records will proofs be found of contempt -for a trader? Their story seems to be quite -the other way. It may be convenient, however, -for the defaming of the Irish to despise and ignore -those records. Moreover, since Irish abbeys and -cathedrals have been pronounced by Mr. Litton -Falkiner not to be like the English ones, why -need an Irish writer stoop into their ruins to seek -out the story written there? No, it is easier to keep<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> -the slander running, to swell its volume, and to -increase its violence. Yet in those ruins any man -who will may look upon the countless tombs of -Irishmen who (so long as the conqueror’s law -allowed their desolate companies to enter the -ancient shrines) were borne by their friends to -rest in the roofless nave or before the high altar -under great slabs with the signs of their trade, -the tailor’s instruments, the carpenter’s tools, -and the mason’s, the labourer’s plough, and the -trader’s ship, deeply graven beside their names—no -emblems of shame in those last sanctuaries of -the Irish people.</p> - -<p>Social life in Ireland, through all the ages, -Dr. Mahaffy describes as especially immoral. The -young girls, he says, were generally accessible to -the squire and his sons all through Irish history, -and suffered no disgrace, but married all the better -for such an adventure. “All through Irish -history” is a liberal and characteristic phrase -to use of English squires and their sons. The -tradition of absolute landlord power still lives -in the Irish country-side, when girls were told -the price at which they might save their family -from being driven out of the home held by their -ancestors for hundreds of years, and left to die -on the roadside of hunger, or in the coffin-ship -of plague. With security of tenure for the Irish -poor such ordeals have passed into history. As<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> -for reports of English tourists, they resemble the -travellers’ tales which everywhere and at all times -various countries have heard on the manners of -their neighbours. It is well to remember Gibbon’s -reflection on general charges of this sort. Manuel, -Emperor of the East, visited England in 1400, -and coming from Constantinople was shocked at -English conduct:—“The most singular circumstance -of their manners,” he reported, “is their -disregard of conjugal honour and of female chastity. -In their mutual visits, as the first act of hospitality, -the guest is welcomed in the embraces of their -wives and daughters; among friends they are -lent and borrowed without shame; nor are the -islanders offended at this strange commerce.” -“We may smile at the credulity, or resent the -injustice of the Greek,” Gibbon reflects, “but -his credulity and injustice may teach an important -lesson; to distrust the accounts of foreign and -remote nations, and to suspend our belief of every -tale that deviates from the laws of nature and the -character of man.”</p> - -<p>English writers have forgotten a grave disadvantage -to themselves in the moral tale of the -good and bad man (besides its incredibility and -its dullness). In this version of Irish history the -Englishman’s triumph remains a poor thing, -destitute of interest or value, where the fame of -the victor is abased and confounded by the worthlessness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -of his foe. The Irish warriors are mostly -described as drunkards, cowards, and barbarians. -Dr. Mahaffy likens Shane O’Neill to a Moor or a -Zulu. Hugh of Tyrone “was a polished courtier -on the surface, with a barbarous core.” Here is -Mr. Bagwell’s portrait of Shane, whose organisation -and defence of Ulster cost Elizabeth over -£147,000 of English money (in modern money -probably over £1,500,000) without counting the -enormous cesses laid on the country, and three -thousand five hundred of her soldiers slain. “He -is said to have been a glutton, and was certainly -a drunkard.” The story of drunkenness seems -to have originated in his mud-baths, such as are -now commonly ordered for rheumatism. Once -started, the fable was persistent. “That drunken -brain was, nevertheless, clear enough to baffle -Elizabeth for a long time.” His conduct of a -war which cost Elizabeth so much is described:—“Shane, -who had been indulging as usual in wine -or whisky, came up at the moment.” “Shane, -who was never remarkable for dashing courage, -retired into the wood.” “Shane, whose reputation -for courage is not high, slipped out at the -back of his tent.” So, I believe, did de Wet, -instead of waiting to be killed. At the last, “the -love of liquor probably caused his death”; here -indeed Mr. Bagwell contradicts the Lord Deputy -Sidney himself, who boasts that Shane was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> -tricked and murdered by a Scotsman in Sidney’s -pay, the last of a series of attempts at assassination. -From the point of view that “barbarians” -are usually childish, Mr. Bagwell tells how -the important chiefs, MacWilliam Burke and -MacGillapatrick, were given titles and robes of -Earl and Baron, “in the belief that titles and -little acts of civility would weigh more with these -rude men than a display of force.” He complains -that the best-laid English military plans of occupation -of this country, instead of proceeding without -interruption from the natives, might be “frustrated -by one of those unexpected acts of treachery -in which Irish history abounds.” However, even -in treachery the Irish were incompetent. “Irish -plots are commonly woven in sand.” “In this, -as in so many other Irish insurrections, there -was no want of double traitors; of men who had -neither the constancy to remain loyal, nor the -courage to persevere in rebellion.”</p> - -<p>With such a rabble we can only wonder that there -was any need of an English army at all; or how -the conflict could last a year (not to say a few -hundreds of them); or why England should have -sent over her very best generals, her stoutest -governors, and a prodigious deal of her gold. -It was the bogs, apparently, that swallowed up -those inconceivable hosts and coins.</p> - -<p>Under the “savage” theory military matters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> -lose all interest; but they are given to us with -pitiless detail. Expeditions of soldiers against -famine-stricken peasants without arms, raids of -mere slaughter, the chasing of outlaws from a -lake island, are described with the minuteness -of a genuine campaign. These things, no doubt, -are in the books. There are plenty of reports -from officials, very humanly anxious to justify -themselves or to magnify their feats. But history -after all claims some revising power, and we need -another standard of proportion than the vanity -of a lieutenant. It is impossible to give vitality -to a story in which highly armed and civilised -Englishmen are represented as wiping out with -cannon and gunpowder a savage and unarmed -crowd of peasants—in which honour, courage, -and progress are supposed to be eternally confronted -with chicanery, barbarity, and treachery. -No one wants to hear that tale. Such a history -turns to inconceivable tediousness, of no use to -any living soul.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile vast tracts of history have been -set aside as apparently not worth exploring. Where, -for example, shall we find a serious account, with -the guidance of modern scholarship, of the hundred -and fifty years between the battle of Clontarf -and the landing of the Norman barons. The -people were no longer in the tribal state. The -change to a kind of feudalism had come. What<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -was the form of that feudalism? How did it -differ from the system that had grown out of other -conditions elsewhere? There is not so much as -a chapter in any book, or a pamphlet, occupied -with the land system of the earlier middle ages, -what changes the Norman settlement brought, -or what forms of social life did actually exist. -The campaign of Edward Bruce is usually said -to be a central turning point in Irish history, -but who will guide us to any adequate study of -it? There are no monographs on Desmonds, -O’Neills, O’Donnells, Fitzgeralds, Butlers, Clanrickards, -and so on. No annals of the provinces -or kingdoms have been compiled, nor chronologies. -The work of the two great Earls of Kildare is -one of the most critical periods of Irish history: -it still awaits a historian. Who has examined -the history of the schools and education? Who -has worked out the industrial development? -How can we learn what were the negotiations by -which Henry <span class="smcap">viii.</span> carried the claim to be King -of Ireland? Here are fields too long deserted -waiting for workers. Here are a few of the immense -voids, into which our writers fling, like bundles -of dried straw, their vain words—“savage,” -“primeval,” “lawless,” “brutish,” and the rest. -In the history of Ireland nothing has been completed. -That which is unknown disturbs, and -may overturn the vulgar conclusions from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> -fragments known. We are for ever walking through -a country unmapped. To be sure it is full of -sign-posts put up at hazard—“To English Civilisation.” -Where every road is marked to lead to -the same inn, why should travellers discuss, -debate, and ask questions? What reason can there -be to loiter by the way? The English fingerpost -is always there.</p> - -<p>Some day perhaps the Irish race in this island -will no longer seem to lie beyond the need, and -below the honour, of the historical method. -Ireland will have a history like other nations. -It is possible to conceive that out of its peoples, -English or Irish, there may arise some great thinker -or poet who will set before us the two civilizations -that have met here; in other words, the -efforts by which two highly endowed races -endeavoured to solve the problem that has perplexed -every people that has ever yet appeared -in this world—how to shape a community where -men may live in safety, freedom, and happiness. -The Celts had waged the fight for their civilization -to the walls of Rome itself. They had left -the valleys of the Danube and the Rhine and -the plains of Gaul red with their blood. Now, -on the outermost border of the world their last -conflict awaited them. Within the mountain -rim of Ireland, with silent Nature to keep the -lists, two peoples met to fight out the last issues<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> -on that fatal soil. Here, imprisoned by the -Ocean, the antagonists stood for centuries to -their battle: every passion exalted, the splendours -of courage, the majesty of despair, all skill of -surprises, all glory of chivalry, triumph and sorrow, -Christian pieties, and the surging up amid the -upheaval of human nature of the mysterious -superstitions of elemental man, and of his -ferocities. What affections of race lay behind -such a struggle? What was its meaning? What -of beauty, of happiness, or of virtue did each -civilization in fact offer to man? What was -gained, what was lost? Here would have been -a history of fire and flame, a new outlook on the -fate of commonwealths, a theme worthy of an -English or an Irish patriot.</p> - -<p>In the long task of giving its true balance to -the history of Ireland, by the discovery of all -the facts, and the adjudging of their place, controversy -will be lively. Every Irishman for certain -will be ready for a battle of wits. But let us -keep our intelligence perfectly clear on one point. -We shall hear a great deal of “impartiality” and -a “judicial mind.” Here we must make no -mistake. Impartiality of intellect need not mean -insensibility of heart. Let us suppose that the -intellect should have no pre-possession at all, not -even in favour of English civilization, nor of the -idol of the market-place, “the Wealth of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> -Nations”—its delicate balance should drop now -on this side, now on that, without a shadow of -prejudice or a hint of obstinacy, abhorrent of -convention, with never a predilection. But -impartiality of the heart—that is another matter. -Who will pretend to comprehend human life -who has no great affection of the soul? The -generous heart knows no balancing hesitation -between the man who deserts his country and the -man who defends it; he alone can interpret the -hero in whose soul some answering passion flames; -and I suppose that the understanding of a -commonwealth will best come to him who is most -responsive to a variety of human emotions. I -think we could do with a change of partialities -in Ireland—fewer orthodox predilections of the -head, if it might be so, and some illumination -from the heart.</p> - -<p>A new examination of Irish history is indeed -of the utmost importance to our people. The -leading reviews, text-books, and histories in -England with one accord have presented Ireland -to the English people under the “savage” aspect, -and their statements have been too frequently -accepted. Hear the common opinion as Tennyson -put it: “Kelts are all made furious fools.... -They live in a horrible island, and have no history -of their own worth the least notice. Could not -anyone blow up that horrible island with dynamite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -and carry it off in pieces—a long way off?” The -same gloomy picture is still spread before England. -Mr. Fletcher, a Fellow of All Souls, records that -“it was quite common to bleed a cow for a refreshing -drink of blood,” and that “there were no -exports save the said cow-skins,” though with -these the Irish apparently managed to buy “red -seas of claret.” Shane O’Neill was killed “by -his own people whom he was plundering!” -Degradation was universal, as we learn from a -sentence absolutely amazing in its colossal and -unscrupulous ignorance—“though his name had -once been FitzNigel or de Burgh, it gradually -became O’Neill or O’Bourke!” Mr. Rudyard -Kipling joins Mr. Fletcher in declaring that -Irish history “was all broken heads and stolen -cows, as it had been for a thousand years,” and -that Irishmen had no interest or care for their -religion till they discovered a use for it as a warcry -against England. Accounts of Ireland equally -contrary to fact and common sense serve in -political controversy. English politicians assert -on platforms that Irishmen of themselves had -never any national life or duty at all, that the -first gleam of true patriotism was taught them -by England since the Union, that Ireland had no -conception of a Parliament till England gave it -to her people, when the boon was so misused -and misunderstood by an incompetent race (the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> -English in Ireland, be it remembered) that in the -higher interests of man it had to be withdrawn. -As for the desire of self-government, “some -people said it was a matter of historical sentiment. -The humour of it was that there never was a real -Irish kingdom at all. The Parliament which -it was sought to restore to Ireland was given to it -by England. The historical sentiment and loyalty -which Mr. John Redmond was talking was the -greatest humbug that was ever preached.” There -are others who argue, Dr. Mahaffy among them, -that practically there is not any more a Celtic -race in Ireland, but one so mixed in blood that -it no longer, if it ever did, contains the materials -of a nation. The Celtic people, to their honour, -have never denied a national brotherhood to -Danes, Normans, English, or Palatines, who -loyally entered into the Irish commonwealth. -But as to political theories of the vanishing of the -race, we have only to examine them by known -facts, and turn to the Report of the Registrar-General -in 1909 for proof that in the mingling -of peoples the Celtic is still the predominant -element over all the rest; and if this proof is -conclusive, even in the register of merely Irish -names, how enormous would be its increased -weight if we could reckon in Celtic families the -change from Irish names which has gone on ceaselessly -since the thirteenth century, and is still<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> -constantly occurring at this moment—a change -which, however lamentable, cannot alter the blood -and the inheritance.</p> - -<p>Irishmen are often warned to waste no time -in looking back at the past. But if England -draws the moral from her interpretation of history, -we must learn our lesson too—only it must be a -lesson more serious, exact, and worthy of an -educated people. We have had experience of -how profound and vicious may be the practical -effect of a history unscientific, irresponsible, -prejudiced, and incomplete. Out of ignorance -of the past, what sound policy can grow for the -future? I suppose that in civilized Europe, -among the speeches on State affairs of prominent -statesmen, we could find no parallel to historical -verdicts so crude and unsubstantial as those which -are given to us by a certain group of political -leaders and writers in England, concerning the -Irish portion of the “Empire” of which they -make their boast. How many are the ignorances -and negligences which still do service unreproved -among those who claim to be the chief upholders -of a “United Kingdom,” and exponents of the -“Imperial” faith.</p> - -<p>In Ireland we have still indeed a heavy road -to travel. When history has been written, what -about the teaching of it, or the learning, in this -country? Who will make the way free for that?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p> - -<p>Let me put this matter before you by way of -contrast. You have heard the fame of Sparta, -the land of heroes who won at the Thermopylæ -a far-shining glory that will ever stir the hearts -of men. Montaigne reminds us that in the -matchless policy of Sparta to build up a noble -State, it is worthy of great consideration that the -education of the children was the first and principal -charge. “And, therefore, was it not strange,” -he says, “if Antipater requiring fifty of their -children for hostages, they answered clean -contrary to what we would do, ‘that they would -rather deliver him twice so many men’; so much -did they value and esteem the loss of their country’s -education.” Now in this training up of men -to be citizens of the finest quality, the only one -book-study absolutely enforced in Sparta was -History—to the mockery and contempt of neighbouring -Doctors of letters and literature of the -time. “Idiots and foolish people,” scoffed the -high-class Athenian professor, adept in polite -languages and fine phrasing and the elegancies of -culture, and not neglectful of the profits to be -got by professing them; “idiots and foolish -people, who only amuse themselves to know the -succession of kings, and establishing and declination -of estates, and such-like trash of flim-flam -tales.” Socrates, you may be sure, did not join -in these sarcasms. Sparta had shown the honour<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> -and manhood that history can teach, and how it -can make of men champions of their country, -keepers of their forefathers’ fame, and rivals of -their own ancient heroes.</p> - -<p>Side by side with this ancient instance we may -put one of our own day. There is a country -which has suddenly risen to great eminence in war -and organisation, as it had long been famous in -the arts, with which England hastened to make -alliance. That country is Japan. In Japan, when -the eldest son comes of age, it is the custom for his -father to take him a tour on foot round the country, -visiting every place of fame in its history, so that -the youth may enter on man’s estate as a worthy -citizen of the State that bred him. These honourable -pilgrims can be met on every road. They -have known, like the men of Sparta, the power of -history to fortify the mind and expand the soul. -Every Japanese man of character will tell you that -in any serious enterprise he is in the presence, -in the company of the great Dead of his people. -That by them his purpose is ennobled, his courage -uplifted, his solitude changed into a great communion. -We have seen how that spirit has exalted -a people.</p> - -<p>With such instances in our minds we may ask -what we are doing in Ireland. What kind of -citizens are we building up for our own -land?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p> - -<p>As in England, so in Ireland, history has in the -last dozen years been made compulsory in the -schools. But there is a difference. For Ireland -history is not a subject in itself. In our primary -and intermediate education Irish history is now -a department of English language and literature. -At the age when impressions made on a youth’s -mind are certain to become the all-compelling -habits of his later life, it is suggested to him that -the history of his country is less important than the -rules of English grammar, and that the achievements -of his father may at the best rank with the -model sentences in which English essayists write -of Friendship and Gardens and Christmas. The -student for honours under the Intermediate system -may, at his own will, prefer a continental language -to history. A pass-student might choose to gain -all the necessary marks in English grammar and -composition alone; if he has drunk in all that the -amiable and unimportant Alexander Smith can -tell him “Of the Importance of a Man to Himself,” -he may omit all that the world can tell him -“Of the Importance of a Man to his Country,” -or of his Country to him. Such knowledge may -be left to the “idiots and foolish people, who -only amuse themselves to know the succession of -kings, and establishing and declination of estates, -and such-like trash of flim-flam tales.”</p> - -<p>Nor is this the worst of the matter. Suppose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> -that an Irish boy has been stirred by what he has seen -in his country home. There was, perhaps, beside -it a Danes’ Fort, a Giants’ Ring, one of the -two thousand mounds piled up in Ireland by -human hands, a Rathcroghan, or a mighty Ailech -of the kings where legendary monarchs sleep on -their horses waiting for the day that shall call them -to ride out. He may have lived by a solemn -burial place of great chiefs, by a round tower, by a -high cross deeply carved, by some island of saints -rich in ruins and sculptured slabs. He may have -been taken to the Irish Academy and seen the -Psalter of Columcille; or to Trinity College to -look on the book of Kells; or to the National -Museum to be turned loose among the carved -rocks, the copper cauldrons, the golden diadems -and torques, the mighty horns of bronze, the -heavy Danish swords, the weights for commerce, -the marvels in metal and enamel work, the Tara -brooch, the Ardagh chalice, the Cross of Cong, -the long array of crosiers and bells and shrines and -book-covers. He may learn by chance that his -country is the wonder of Europe for the wealth -and beauty of its relics of the past. Desire may -come on him to know the story of a land so astonishing -in the visible records left by his ancestors. -Descended from a race who had history in their very -blood and the glorious tradition of their fathers, -he may feel that old hereditary passion burn in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> -heart. He will add history to his study of the English -language and the essays of Smith.</p> - -<p>But even in that case, once entered on the course -of education provided for him by the Intermediate -Board, he will find through the whole of his pass -work or of his honour work not one word to tell him -who made the marvels he has seen. For in Anglicised -Ireland it is ordered that history shall begin in -1066. The Irish annals record a comet in that year. -But it is not for the comet the year is chosen, but -because the date of the Norman Conquest of England -is to mark the beginning of history for Ireland. From -the first the student is caught by the pleasant fiction -which is now proclaimed on every Unionist platform -that Ireland “under the English ownership,” has -no life save that which England gives. Irish history -is not to be the story of Ireland, but of the “United -Kingdom.” It is to travel with the fortunes of -England step by step. An exact care conducts the -student through the centuries. All dates are ruled -by English text-books, never by periods of change -in Ireland. According to the step by step theory, -if the Irish student must begin his story of Ireland -with William’s Conquest of England, he must pause -at the end of the English Wars of the Roses. What -matter if that close of a period in England happens -in Ireland to be in full midway of a very extraordinary -racial and constitutional movement full of vital energy? -The teacher must by order cut his story in half, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -start again to pull up his next course sharply at the -death of Elizabeth, a merely nominal date in Ireland, -which ended or began nothing. There the next -period opens by order, and ended this present year -at a date (1784) when it would be absolutely -impossible for an Irish teacher to call a halt except -by stopping in the middle of a sentence; and for -the coming year is to close at 1760, before the first -movement for the emancipation of the Irish Parliament. -Not a word will the Irish youth hear of the -Irish kingdoms and schools and craftsmen and -merchants, nor of the Danes and their fleets, nor of -the Irish culture spread over Europe. He would -know nothing of Columcille and the work of Iona, -nor of Columbanus and the work of St. Gall and of -Bobio. Nothing will be told of St. Brendan and his -sailing to the west; nor of learned Fergil the -Geometer, who in spite of the orthodox theories -of an impassable equator, alone maintained that -there were living men at the antipodes; nor of the -Irish goldsmiths and builders. Cormac’s chapel -must go. The very name of Brian Boru is expunged. -There can be no mention of the five hundred years -of Irishmen’s fame in Europe as classical scholars, -philosophers, saints, merchants, or travellers. The -centuries of Ireland’s history as a free and independent -country are blotted out, and he may catch no glimpse -of his people save in the various phases of their material -subjugation. During his entire course he can turn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> -no wandering eye on an Ireland that had any art, -literature, or industry of its own—a place where -anything may have happened on its own account, -or where any interest may lie detached from an -English book of chronology.</p> - -<p>This disastrous conception of the “Union” as -a kind of amalgamation of countries in which all -national limits are submerged and lost follows the -Irishman at home and abroad. He can scarcely set -foot in Europe save in the track of Irish wanderers -of every age whose fame should be his glory. But -the shadow of this distorted notion hangs round him—the -shadow of the predominant sharer of all the effort -and fortune of his people. In the published Catalogue -of the MSS. in the Royal Library at Brussels, he -must look for the Irish Annals and historical documents -under the one heading <i>Angleterre</i>, without -even a sub-heading <i>Irlande</i>. In Switzerland, surrounded -by relics of the six hundred and thirteen -dependent houses of St. Gall, whence Irish monks -restored civilization to that land, he will be told -at S. Beatenberg by the guide-books that S. Beatus -was <i>British</i>, and by local tradition that he was Scotch. -At the shrine of San Pellegrino in the Apennines, -he will hear praises of a <i>Scotch</i> king’s son. In Rome -he will learn that <i>England</i> was “the Isle of Saints.” -Against these ignorances his training in Ireland gives -him no protection. Similar fallacies pursue him -across the Atlantic. Let him go to America, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> -Washington Irving will tell him of the mariner whose -story was one of the moving causes that led Columbus -to enquire of the land beyond the Ocean, and will -inform him that this famous St. Brendan was a -<i>Scotch</i> monk. Many others he will find ignorant -of history, and above all anxious not to identify -Ireland with any of her children that have done -great things. Mr. Whitelaw Reid will explain to him -that the emigrants from Ulster to America, the -Ulster-born leaders who fought for American -independence in counsel, in convention, and in the -field; the “Sons of St. Patrick” who poured out -their money and their blood for Washington—that -all these were <i>Scotchmen</i>, of no Irish kin or race, whose -followers and descendants have manfully rejected -the term “Scotch-Irish” because it “confused the -race with the accident of birth,” and called themselves -“Ulster Scots” to show they had no part -or lot with the Irish by blood (<i>Celtic Review</i>, Jan., -1912). He apparently sees in the Presbyterian religion -of the “Ulster Scot” some subtle evidence of a -nobler and more distinguished origin than the -“Scotch Irish,” some guarantee of Low-German or -English stock.</p> - -<p>The new school of American Irish, who under -the influence of the “Anglo-Saxon” enthusiasm, -or with a desire to be on the winning side, lay claim -to a “Scotch” descent, ignore the historical meaning -of the word “Scot,” or the origin of the name<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> -“Scotland.” In vain for them authentic history -may tell of the ceaseless wanderings of the Gaelic -people across the narrow seas. From Ireland the -Scots in early times spread over the Hebrides and -western Highlands, and carried their settlements -and speech over the Lowlands of the Picts and Britons -to the very borders of the little English colony of -the Lothians, leaving the western and middle Lowlands -the most Celtic region in Scotland. Irish -folk settled freely in Scotland until the confiscation -of Ulster; as for example when the Monroes and -Currys crossed the sea, about 1300, with a number -of other noble families who obtained grants of land. -Inter-marriage was very frequent at all times. Back -to Ireland again came streams of immigrants from -the “Scot” or Irish settlements across the water. -The mingled race of Celts and Norse from the -Hebrides and the Highlands, all alike talking Irish -and claiming Irish descent, poured colonies into -Ireland without ceasing from 1250 to 1600, forefathers -of hundreds of thousands to-day of Irish family. -The western and middle Lowlands (along with the -Highlands) sent from 1600 the main body of settlers -of the Ulster Plantation, chiefly of Picto-Celtic -stock; most of the first settlers must have been -bi-lingual, speaking not only “Broad Scots” but -their native Gaelic, which in 1589 was still the chief -language of Galloway. Scots and Irish were the same -to Henry VIII., whose servant Alen protested in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> -1549 against any “liberty” for the Irish, which, he -said, was “the only thing that Scots and wild Irish -constantly contended for.” The Scots of the Isles were -known to Elizabeth as “those Yrishe people,” “the -Yrishes”; the “English Scots” whom she employed -in her Irish wars were so called from their political -faction and Protestant religion, not from any difference -of blood from their brethren. In 1630 the scholar -Bedell included Irish and Scots in one single group; -“and surely it was a work agreeable to the mind -of God that the poor Irish, being a very numerous -nation, besides the greater half of Scotland, and all -those islands called Hebrides, that lie in the Irish -Sea, and many of the Orcades also that speak Irish, -should be enabled to search the Scriptures.” The -old Irish of Ulster in 1641 excepted the Scots from -their hostile measures as being of their own race, -and this only a generation after the Plantation, when -most of the evicted Irish must have been still alive. -Jeremy Taylor in 1667 describes the Scots and -Irish of north-east Ulster as “<i>populus unius labii</i> -and unmingled with others.” Over whole districts, -where half the population at least were Presbyterian -descendants of Scottish immigrants, the speech of -the people even in the eighteenth century was Gaelic. -For some fourteen centuries indeed common schools -of learning, a common literature, common national -festivals, maintained the unbroken tradition of unity -of race; it was from Ireland, in an Irish translation,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> -that the Bible reached the Highlands. The kings -of Scotland long kept the remembrance of their -connexion with the remote generations of the race -of Gaedhel Glas. Dr. Norman Moore in his -“Medicine in the British Isles,” (149) has preserved -a Highland tradition told him by Field-Marshal -Sir Patrick Grant whose memory was full of the old -Gaelic stories and verses; that at the Scottish coronation -of Charles I. ancient Gaelic phrases of installation -were used for the last time.</p> - -<p>Among the men whom Mr. Whitelaw Reid selects -to give glory to the “Scotch” race as distinguished -from the Irish, we may take at chance three examples. -President MacKinlay came of the Hebridean race -of Gaelic Scots with a strong infusion of Norse blood, -who, Norsemen and Scots alike, boasted of Irish -descent; they settled in Ireland about 1400 <span class="smcap">a.d.</span>, -nor did the Antrim MacKinlays in later days ever -speak of themselves save as Irish. President Monroe -belonged to an Irish Gaelic family which had crossed -to Scotland with a number of other noble families -about 1300, and obtained grants of land among their -kin there. Patrick Henry, whether he was of old -Ulster race or of the Scottish lowlands, unless clear -proof to the contrary can be given by a detailed -pedigree, must be counted as a Celt or a Picto-Celt: -one group of Henrys in Ulster is descended from -the MacHenry sept of the O’Neills who lived on -the Bann-side at the time of the Plantation; another<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> -family, more ancient and probably more numerous, -O h-Inneirghe, whose surname is now written Henry, -was the ruling sept of a district in the south of Derry -country. No one, unless he proves his case by direct -evidence, could truthfully and with knowledge assert -that Patrick Henry, or President Monroe, or President -MacKinlay, were other than representative Celts by race.</p> - -<p>It would have been a strange doctrine to the Irish -emigrants themselves to tell them that they were -Scotch. From 1720 they swarmed over to people -Pennsylvania, as if, men said at the time, Ireland was -sending out all its inhabitants—in one year alone -(1729) no less than 5,655 Irish, to 267 English and -Welsh, and 43 Scotch. There was a Scotch Society -of St. Andrew’s in Philadelphia (1749); but the -emigrants from Ireland, Catholic and Presbyterian -alike, looked on themselves as plain Irishmen, not -Scotch; they gave to their settlements Irish names; -the wealthier men among them established in 1765 -an “Irish Club”; out of this they formed in 1771 -the leading Irish organisation before and during -the Revolution—the famous Society of the “Friendly -Sons of St. Patrick.” There were at first but three -Catholics in the Society, but the Irish Presbyterians -and Episcopalians of that day chose for their patron -the Saint of Ireland, not of Scotland, and for their -President a Catholic, Moylan, certainly not a Scotchman; -they met on St. Patrick’s Day; their medal -bore figures of <i>Hibernia</i> with a harp, and <i>St. Patrick</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> -carrying a cross and trampling on a snake. The -heroic services of that devoted Society of Irishmen -cannot be told here. After the war it founded and -became merged in the <i>Hibernian</i> Society of “the -natives of Ireland or descendants of Irishmen” (so little -did they fear the name), for the relief of emigrants -from Ireland. These Irishmen had not yet learned to -despise their race and country, and to invent for themselves -a new nation without any root in history.</p> - -<p>In English history, where certain general lines of -knowledge have been laid down as the common -property of educated men, serious lapses are held -a reproach: in Irish history an ambassador from the -United States to Great Britain and Ireland can -allow himself to tell us that an “Ulster Scot” is no -more an Irishman than a man would be a horse if -born in a stable.</p> - -<p>The imaginations of a mock “Imperial history,” by -which all treasure found is thrown “impartially” -into the common stock of the United Kingdom, -in other words of Great Britain, leaving Ireland bare, -belong not to science but to politics. By such a -perverted history the honourable pride of a people -may be transformed into humiliation and self-distrust. -They are made to stand before Europe with the -appearance of defeat, ruin, and rebuke; a race -without the dignity of ever having had a true -civilization, incapable of development in the land -they wasted. What vigour or self-respect can grow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> -out of a maimed history such as this? Or can any -promise of material advancement serve as the -substitute for a good reputation, or consolation for -spiritual impoverishment?</p> - -<p>We may take one notable instance of how since -the Union ignorance of Irish history has been officially -fostered. In 1828 a lofty enterprise was opened by -Sir Thomas Larcom, director of the central office -of the newly-appointed Irish Ordnance Survey. The -Survey maps were to be constructed on such a scale as to -be of use in correcting the unequal pressure of taxation, -and to serve as guides for local improvement. Enquiry -indeed was needed into the resources and conditions -of a country which Petrie describes—“the habitations -of the people miserable and comfortless, and the -people themselves the most wretched in the world. -Joy will never brighten the prospect, misery never -disappear.” To carry out these orders Larcom -planned a scheme on noble lines. He held it necessary -to complete the maps by making a study in each -parish of the state in which Nature had placed it, -the condition to which it had been brought by art, -and the uses now made by the people of their combination; -in other words, there must be an exact -knowledge of the natural products of the country, -its history and antiquities, and its economic state -and social condition. In this scheme of elevated -science an enquiry into past history was considered -necessary as a prelude to the proper understanding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> -of the present state—an enquiry which was to include -all monuments of the past, Pagan and Christian, all -the traditions and accounts of them that remained, -the state of society in which they arose, the earliest -history of the people whose descendants might still -inhabit the district, and the changes which led to -the present establishments for government.</p> - -<p>The opportunity for carrying out this work was -as surprising as its conception. The great scholar -Petrie, who was at the time founding the museum -of the Royal Irish Academy and in great measure -founding too its library, was in 1833 set at the head of -the historical department of the Survey, and charged -with the task of collecting the true names of baronies, -townlands, and parishes, and the investigation of -ancient monuments. He gathered round him a -staff of Irish scholars—men of the soil, heirs of the -Irish tradition—John O’Donovan, Eugene O’Curry, -J. O’Connor, P. O’Keefe, along with Clarence Mangan, -Du Noyer, Wakeman, and others, all filled with the -same spirit, and fired with the desire of producing a -perfect work. Never perhaps had there been such -a combination of talent directed to the one end of -restoring Irish knowledge. For the first time during -centuries of exclusion, Irish students were brought -into close and constant communication in their own -country with men of trained intelligence, and encouraged -to use their skill for the benefit of their -country. Once more Ireland had such a school<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> -as those which in the periods of her great revivals in -the twelfth and fifteenth centuries gathered up and -left to us all the relics of Irish history that we possess. -Once more a kind of peripatetic University was set -up, in the very spirit of the older Irish life.</p> - -<p>The astonishing enthusiasm of these zealots is -shown by the almost incredible record of their work -in half a dozen years. It is such things as these that -reveal to us the soul of Irish Nationality and the might -of its repression. We can but stand astonished before -the unstinted labour, before the miraculous accomplishment, -of that company of workers. The work -was new, travel was slow, and hardship frequent: -but every difficulty vanished before their consuming -ardour. Petrie’s band has left, besides maps, sketches, -and documents of a general nature, not less than four -hundred and sixty-eight large volumes of documents -relating to Irish topography, language, history, and -antiquities. A collection was made of over sixty -thousand names, of their mutations, their various -spellings, their meanings, and translations in English; -when this work was completed a skilled Irish scholar -was sent to every district to learn there from Irish -speakers the vernacular name, and to collect traditions -and legends, and note any antiquities that had been -omitted. The traditions of Ireland at that time -had not been wholly broken. In Petrie’s writings -we can still see the Irish multitudes who in the depth -of their poverty preserved the memories of their race<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> -and their holy places, and the national pilgrims -gathering round their old shrines “with the utmost -fervency of devotion, and in all their movements -an abstracted intensity of feeling that carries the mind -back to remote times.” In spite of much destruction, -in spite of the lamentable absence in the new landlords -of Ireland of proper pride and national feeling, there -still remained a mass of ancient monuments preserved -by the pious memories of the people, crosses, graveyards, -old paths, and names and histories; which have -been since swept away in the horrors of famine and -emigration and the devastating land commercialism -let loose by the Encumbered Estates Act.</p> - -<p>The first memoir published by the Ordnance -Survey in 1837, the account of Derry, was hailed with -universal enthusiasm. “Irishmen of all sects and -parties felt that in such work as this they would have -for the first time the materials for a true history of -their country.” But the Government interfered. The -Topographical Survey was closed, the staff discharged, -and the vast mass of material, comprising among -other things upwards of four hundred quarto volumes -of letters and documents relating to the topography, -language, history, antiquities, productions, and social -state of almost every county in Ireland, were ordered -to be kept, idle and useless, in the Survey Office at -Mountjoy barracks. The reason given was the cost. -At this time England was drawing from Ireland to -her own use some three millions a year above her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> -expenditure there. It was shown that the sale of -the memoir was such as would probably defray the -whole expense. The Government objected to treating -history and political economy as subjects which -might re-open questions of Irish party divisions: -it was answered that the events of history could not be -buried in oblivion, since they had occurred and their -effects continue, and it was well for the public to -have a plain impartial record of bare facts, since on -neither side were the facts yet known.</p> - -<p>In answer to the vehement protests of all Ireland, -a Commission was appointed under a new Government -in 1843. It advised that the work should be -continued, and urged the importance of the time, -for monuments and language were alike disappearing: -it recommended that the vast mass of collected -material now lying waste should be published, since -“no enquirer until the officers of the Survey commenced -their labours, has ever brought an equal -amount of local knowledge, sound criticism, and -accurate acquaintance with the Irish language to -bear upon it.” The Government took no notice. It -was believed by the best-informed that some strong -concealed influence urged on ministers that it was -dangerous to open up to the people the memory of -their fathers and their old society, or remind them -of the boundaries of their clans and families. In -vain the best Irishmen of the day, of every race and -religion, pleaded for a braver view of truth and statesmanship.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> -Political influences, the fears of absentee -landlords or of a Protestant ascendancy, prevailed -in London. English rulers dreaded the knowledge -of the Irish more than they dreaded their ignorance; -and the door was shut on history, science, and truth, -with the results that we have seen in succeeding -generations.</p> - -<p>By this act much knowledge was finally obliterated: -no such opportunity can ever occur again. Much -more was set back for a hundred years, and ignorance -still left enthroned. We may still hear men professing, -as though time had stood still, the doctrines -Petrie reported in vogue a century ago: “The -history and antiquities of Ireland previous to the -English Invasion, are wholly unworthy of notice, -or, at best, involved in obscurity and darkness such as -no sane mind would venture to penetrate.” Irish -history, buried by two Governments, was supposed -to have no resurrection: instead of the serious enquiry -inaugurated by the old Survey, modern statesmen -will assure us through Mr. Balfour that for talk of -Irish ideas and institutions, “there is no historic -basis whatever.”</p> - -<p>The Royal Irish Academy applied for the custody -of a part of the Survey records, which were given to its -keeping in 1860; and have there been consulted for -local or county histories. Meanwhile the Survey -was continued in an innocuous form without the -historic virus. Directed from Southampton, English<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> -“division officers” in Dublin, Belfast and Cork -conduct the Irish Survey. Their maps may serve -practical purposes of buying and selling land, and -even present accurately all modern features, police -barracks and the like. But they offer doubtful help -to the curious historian on the road of scientific -enquiry. The spirit and purpose of the older research -has been banished. Irish antiquities are no longer -objects of interest or of skilled observation; Irish -names are treated in many cases as an insurmountable -difficulty; any ordered attempt at their right spelling -is abandoned. The ancient fort of Lisnalinchy in -Antrim has been allotted the happy name of <i>Silentia</i>, -as if to give to a deep-buried Irish history the respectability -of a mock Roman tombstone. Port-na-veadog, -the port of the plover, appears as Dog’s Bay. -Professor Macalister, examining the ancient ruins -on the Carrowkeel mountain in Co. Sligo, has reported -there the remarkable site of one of the oldest village -settlements in northern Europe, with remains of over -forty-seven structures; and hard by an ancient -cemetery with fourteen carns left by the old builders. -The Survey has been there, and has marked the height -of the beacon it erected on one of the finest of the -carns, but has left on the map no record of this -conspicuous and striking carn as an ancient monument. -The most important of the structures, eighty-seven -feet in diameter and twenty-five in height, is marked -by an indefinite symbol, and not as having any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> -character of antiquity. While nearly all the chief -carns were omitted, by some chance or curious scruple -of conscience one or two of the smaller examples -have been noted. Of twenty-three place names -in the square mile of country only nine are recorded. -Names here and elsewhere are set down in an -Anglicised and phonetic spelling, often atrocious in -form. As Professor Macalister observes, nothing could -more clearly prove than this characteristic effort of -the Ordnance Survey in Ireland the absolute necessity -of a thorough re-survey, under expert superintendence, -of the archæology and place names of the country. -All historians, all Irishmen alike, must ardently join -in such an entreaty, for the honour of their land. -Is it too much to hope that this national work may -not be for ever left to indifferent hands, but that -Irish scholars may yet be given the patriotic task of -saving what yet remains on Irish soil of the inheritance -of her people.</p> - -<p>Of one thing, however, we may be sure. The -reform of Irish history must begin in our own country, -among our own people. Since it is public opinion -that at the last decides what our people shall learn of -their father-land, we ourselves must be the keepers -of our fame and the makers of our history. Let us in -Ireland therefore remember that we have an ancestry -on which there is no need for us to cry shame. -Chivalry, learning, patriotism, poetry, have been -found there, even “in huts to which an Englishman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> -would have hesitated to give the name of a house.” -No people have ever surpassed them in exaltation -or intensity of spiritual life. The sun has risen and -set in that land on lives of courage, honour, and -beauty. The seasons have watched the undying -effort to make Ireland the honoured home of a united -people. Not a field that has not drunk in the blood -of men and women poured out for the homes of -their fathers. Why should not we, the sons and -daughters of Ireland, take our rich inheritance? -“Let us enjoy, whenever we have an opportunity, -the delight of admiration, and perform the duties -of reverence.” So long as the Spirit of life is over -us, I do not know, and I hope you do not know, -why we in this country should not be worthy of -our dead.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-062.jpg" width="600" height="508" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER II</h2> - -<p class="pch">THE TRADE ROUTES OF IRELAND.</p> - -<p class="drop-cap08">A DISCUSSION of the Trade Routes of -Ireland may seem to some a superfluous and -barren task. It has long been a fashion to -look on the country as an island, “remote, unfriended, -melancholy, slow.” Writers have pictured it as -lying through the centuries in primitive barbarism, -an outlying desolation of poverty and disorder. The -blame of this desolation is sometimes laid on the -savagery of the people, sometimes on the position -of the island, at the very “ends of the earth.” No -doubt there has been a certain political convenience -in the very usual argument that the geographical -position of Ireland, lying so near to Great Britain, -makes it immediately dependent on that country -alone, so that it could by nature have no real converse -with Europe, and no door of civilisation save through -England. An island beyond an island—such is -reputed the forlorn position of Ireland. We all -naturally believe that which we constantly hear or -frequently repeat: and it is well from time to time -to ask ourselves what reason may lie behind common -tradition—in this special case to enquire what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> -geography and history may have to tell us of the -natural trade routes of Ireland and of England in -former times.</p> - -<p>From the map it is plain that the two islands have -a very different outlook. Michelet has pictured -Europe with all her main rivers and harbours opening -to the west, and the island of Great Britain alone -lying as a mighty ship poised on the ocean with her -prow fronting the orient. The Thames opens its -harbour to the east, the capital looks to the east, -and the early trading centres, the Cinque Ports, -turn to the sunrising. Thus the natural way of trade -and travel from England to the Continent has always -been by the narrow seas—across the Channel or -the North Sea to the convenient river-mouths and -harbours of the north European plain. Ireland was -in a different case. If the opposite British coast, -for the most part inhospitable mountain and forest, -offered to her in early times a slender trade and a -harsh welcome, she on her side did not turn to it -her best natural ports. Those on the east coast -from Waterford to Belfast are few; Dublin, left -to itself, is a poor harbour; and from thence to -Belfast there is only one small port, Ardglass, where -the entrance is safe at low tide. The chief harbours -of Ireland in fact were those that swelled with the -waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Her outlook was across -its stormy waters, and her earliest traffic through -the perils of the Gaulish sea. The English were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> -concerned with the north and east of Europe, the -Irish with the south and west, and their paths did -not cross.</p> - -<p>For Ireland, therefore, the road to Europe did -not lie across Great Britain. As far back as we can -see into the primitive darkness the inhabitants of the -island were all in turn out on the great seas. An -old myth or legend tells of the ancient Manannan -Mac Lir, “Son of the Sea,” who was the best pilot -that was in the west of Europe, and the greatest -reader of the sky and weather: or who in another -tale appears a sea-god triumphant over the ocean -as his boat raced under him on the immensity of -the waters like a chariot on the summer fields, while -he sang in his joy—“That is to me a happy plain -with a profusion of flowers, looking from the chariot -of two wheels.” Ireland, in times beyond the reach -of history, lay on the high-road of an ancient trade -between the countries we know as Scandinavia and -Gaul. Even in the Stone age its people cut some -of their flint arrows after the fashion of Portugal, -or carried them from that peninsula across the Bay -of Biscay; and fragments of stone cups have been -found in Ireland, as in Britain, which are said to -have come from the Mediterranean by the Gaulish -sea. As for the northern traffic, we have traces -of it more than a thousand years before the Christian -era in burial mounds of the Bronze age, where there -are stones carved with a form of ornament which in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> -western Europe is only found in Scandinavia and -Ireland.</p> - -<p>It was during the Bronze age that the first Gaelic -or Goidelic invaders entered Ireland, coming not -through Britain but over-sea from Spain and Gaul, -from the openings of the Garonne and the Loire, -or from the ports of Brittany. And by that open -highway sailed also later settlers from southern and -northern Gaul. Some relics of these conquering -tribes, fine rivetted trumpets of bronze made after -the fashion of the continent, of the same pattern -as those used in central France about the Loire, -show that they kept up intercourse with their people -abroad. For centuries, in fact, this intercourse can -be traced. An invasion of the Gauls in the third -century <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> left to Leinster its old name of Laigen, -from the broad-headed lances which they carried; -and five hundred years later, in the second century -<span class="smcap">a.d.</span>, Irish princes used to send to Gaul for soldiers -to serve in their wars.</p> - -<p>In the time of the Roman Empire therefore -Irish trade with Europe was already well established. -Tacitus (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 98) tells that its ports and harbours -were well known to merchants; and in the second -century the geographer Ptolemy of Alexandria gave -a list, very surprising for the time, of the river-mouths, -mountains, and port towns of Ireland, and its sea-coast -tribes—a knowledge he may have gained from -Marinus of Tyre, or the Syrian traders who conducted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> -the traffic from Asia Minor to the Rhone, and thence -across the Gaulish Sea. Italy exported her wine -in the second century <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>; and in the second -century <span class="smcap">a.d.</span>, four hundred years later, when wine -was grown on the hill sides of Provence it may have -reached Irish ports, transported by merchants of -Marseilles to the Garonne, or by the valleys of the -Rhone and the Loire, and thence across the sea. -They travelled in ships built to confront Atlantic -gales, with high poops standing out of the water -like castles, and great leathern sails—stout hulls -that were steered and worked by the born sailors -of the Breton coast. From Brittany the passage -to Ireland could be made in three days. From the -Loire it was two days longer, as we may see from -a later Irish story of the sixth century which tells -how a ship-load of strangers, five decades of them, -came sailing from the lands of Latium on pilgrimage -to Ireland. Each decade of pilgrims took with them -an Irish saint to guide and protect the vessel, every -one in his turn for a day and a night, which gives -a voyage of five days and nights. As they neared -the Irish coast a fierce storm arose, and St. Senan, -who was that day guardian of the company, rose from -dinner with a thigh-bone in his hand, and blessing the -air with the bone brought the pilgrims safe into Cork -harbour. The saint was a practical sailor and pilot, and -he had been allotted the best joint, the portion which -by Irish law was given to the king or the high poet.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p> - -<p>But while traders of the Empire sailed to Ireland, -the armies of Rome never crossed the Irish Sea. -Ireland therefore lay outside the Roman Empire, -while it lay within the circle of imperial civilisation -and commerce. Christianity first came from across -the Gaulish Sea, and the art of writing, and new -forms of ornament. From Gaul the Irish learned -to divide tribe-land into private property marked -by boundary stones. Roman-Hellenistic learning, -which spread from northern Italy to Marseilles, -crossed the Irish seas with the merchants of Aquitaine -carrying the wine of Bordeaux; or it was -brought home by Irish scholars of the fourth century -who went to seek learning in Narbonne, where Greek -was spoken as a living tongue. The Irish Pelagius, -who went to Italy in 400, was able to carry on a discussion -in Jerusalem in 415 with Orosius the Spaniard, -in which he spoke Greek while Orosius needed an -interpreter: if he had not learned Greek in Ireland, -Zimmer reminds us, he would not have been able -to learn it in Rome. Nearly two hundred years -later, in 595, the Irish saint Columbanus and his -companions knew Greek, but Gregory the Great -did not know it, though he had twice been Papal -nuncio in Constantinople. Ovid and Vergil were -known and read in Ireland, where scholars seem to -have taken all that Rome had to give of classical -culture and philosophy.</p> - -<p>It is often assumed that to share in the benefits<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> -of an empire it is necessary to be a subject country, -lying within its police control, and that the Irish -suffered by never having been forced under the -authority of Rome. Perhaps, however, we might -learn here another lesson—that in matters of civilisation -what is really needed is not subjection to force, -but free human converse and the willing intercourse -of men. We have the spectacle of an island beyond -the military rule, the police control, the law, of the -Roman empire, willingly adopting all the spiritual -good which Rome could give it, and the culture that -the intelligence of its people found to suit them. -Free to keep her own customs, Ireland could gain -this new learning without losing her own civilization -and her pride of language, history, and law. It -was in seas of blood that such national pride was -wiped out by Roman conquerors from the plains -of Gaul. But for the Irish at that time there was -no violent breach with the traditions of their race, -nor any humiliation or bondage to darken their high -spirit; and in the joyful and brilliant activity of the -succeeding centuries they illustrated the free and -peaceful union of two civilizations.</p> - -<p>Ireland had another advantage from her place of -freedom on the open highways of the sea. For -lying outside the Empire she was saved from the -economic ruin that fell on all the Roman dominions -when, by the fatal policy of the Empire, enterprise -and wealth were sucked to the centre and capital,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> -draining the provinces bare; so that, for example, -witnesses of that time describe the once wealthy -port of Cadiz as a town of great empty warehouses, -silent and deserted, save for a few poor old men and -women creeping about its melancholy streets. Her -position saved her too when the barbarians swept -over the Empire. As she had been unconquered -by the Romans so she remained unconquered by -Teuton or English. Her learning did not perish -before invaders; and if on the mainland every old -line of communication was closed or broken, her way -of the ocean was still free. It is true that the wars -of the English invaders of Britain for some hundred -and fifty years (449-597) barred all passage through -it to the Continent. But that route had never been -of any real consequence. A way to Europe across -Britain was no doubt known to the Irish in Roman -times, and some pilgrims journeyed by that way -across the Empire. But this was not the main route -for travellers from Ireland, and it was never the line -of their continental trade. There seems to have been -little communication on the whole with Britain. -Settlers went over from Ireland to Scotland, to Wales, -to the Cornish peninsula, and founded Irish colonies. -But in the main the Irish troubled themselves very -little about Britain at all. In fact from the third -century onwards they were accustomed to give to -all strangers the name of “Galls,” from Gallos, the -people of Gaul, the chief visitors they knew.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p> - -<p>To the Irish the important thing therefore was -that the way of the sea was still open. Traders -from Gaul sailed along the western coast, and up the -Shannon to Roscommon and Loch Cé, and on the -eastern side their ships passed by the Irish Sea to -what is now Down and Antrim, to Iona, and Cantyre. -They still as of old carried the wine of Provence -in great wooden tuns, in one of which three men -could stand upright; there still came men speaking -Greek, and scholars of the east, and artists of Gaul. -At this time indeed the Irish were no recluse people, -living in a backwater or severed from the great -world. An Old Irish poem tells of the traditions of -Leinster under its ancient kings—“The sweet strain -heard there at every hour; its wine-barque upon -the purple flood; its shower of silver of great -splendour; its torques of gold from the lands of the -Gaul.” The metropolis of Columcille’s church -organization at Iona, the established centre of Irish -learning at Bangor in Down, both alike lay in the -track of the sailing ships, and in frequent communication -with Europe. News of the destruction -by earthquake of Citta Nuova in Istria was brought -to Columcille that same year by Gaulish mariners. -Columbanus and his companions could take ship -from Bangor to Nantes on their mission to Europe -(589). Northwards Irishmen sailed to the Hebrides, -the Orkneys, the Shetlands. They seem to have -traded and married with Scandinavians a century<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> -before the invasion of Ireland by the Wikings. Moreover -Irishmen had travelled as far as Iceland in 795, -where Nadoddr the Norseman heard of them some -sixty years later.</p> - -<p>Thus the old civilization, rudely interrupted elsewhere, -was carried on unbroken in Ireland. Now -was the time (500-1000) when the island began to -give back to Europe the treasures of learning which -she had stored up in the time of the Roman Empire, -and had kept safely through the barbarian wars. -Missionaries and scholars from Iona and Ireland -carried letters and Christian teaching to every part -of England, while ship-loads of Englishmen went -to Ireland for instruction. Other Irishmen sailed -to Brittany, and journeyed east over northern France -beyond the Rhine. A greater number travelled -by Nantes, Angers, Tours, past the monastery of -Columbanus at Lisieux, and thence over middle -Europe, or by St. Gall southward through Italy -as far as Tarentum, and to the Holy Land. Occasionally -pilgrims and missionaries took the road to Europe -through Britain, when with the settlement of the -English kingdoms and the coming of Augustine (597) -a new intercourse had opened between the English -and the continental peoples. That is, some few -travellers went this way, but merchants still kept -to the old sea route, and the greater number of Irish -pilgrims and scholars. It was by that way, for -example, according to the old story by a monk of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> -St. Gall, that two Scots from Ireland sailed to Gaul -in the early days of Charles the Great, and in the -market-place, where the merchants trafficked with -the crowds, raised their cry of an Irish trade:—“If -anyone is desirous of wisdom, let him come to -us and receive it, for we have it to sell.” At last -they were brought to Charles himself, who asked -what payment they would need; nothing more, -they answered, than convenient situations, ingenious -minds, and as living in a foreign country to be -supplied with food and raiment; and the king formed -a school for one of them in France, and set the other -at the head of the great school at Pavia. Irish monasteries, -one after another in rapid order, rose along -the main highways of travel, among the ruined heaps -of Roman towns where wild beasts alone found shelter, -in forest and desert and mountain. Every school -had Irish teachers and Irish manuscripts, relics of -which still remain in continental libraries. Ireland -became the source of culture to all Germanic -nations: indeed wherever in the seventh and following -centuries education or knowledge is found it may -be traced directly or indirectly to Irish influence. -It has been justly said that at the time of Charles -the Bald every one who spoke Greek on the -Continent was almost certainly an Irishman, or taught -by an Irishman. By degrees Irish monasteries, built -and supported by Irish money, spread over Europe -from Holland to Tarentum, from Gaul to Bulgaria.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p> - -<p>The Continent was therefore well known to -Ireland when about 800 <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> a new revolution passed -over Europe.</p> - -<p>Continental trade, as we have seen, had perished -with the Roman Empire. Commerce had fallen -to its lowest point. There was scarcely any money, -nor in any country, neither England, nor France, -nor Germany, a native class of merchants; wandering -Jews and Greeks and Syrians, and later Italians, -carried on what little buying and selling still survived. -On the shores of the North Sea, however, the Frisians -had made their town of Duurstede, near the mouth -of the Rhine, a centre for traffic carried down the -river; and in their stout, flat-bottomed, high-boarded -sailing ships traded across the North Sea and the -Baltic. Duurstede became for a time the chief port -of western Europe. There Charles the Great coined -money, and the lines along which the Frisian traders -carried their wares may still be traced by the finding -of the Duurstede coins. But even in the time of the -Emperor Charles came the change which was to -sweep away the Frisian traders. This was the rise -of the new lords of the sea—the Scandinavians—who -were to wrest commerce from Frisians and Gauls, -and open a new trade for northern Europe.</p> - -<p>The Scandinavians got their training in a hard -school. They had a thousand miles of stormy shores -to practice seamanship, fishing along their mountain -coasts, and sailing against Arctic tempests round the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> -North Cape. They had to build better ships than -anyone else, and to sail them better. They invented -a new kind of vessel where both oars and sails were -used. And in a short time the Frisians were outdone -both in seamanship and in trade.</p> - -<p>East and west the Scandinavians sailed. As early -as the eight century colonies of Swedes were -passing by the Baltic and the gulf of Finland to settle -on the opposite coast about Novgorod and along the -Dnieper—the East way, as they called it. They left -Scandinavian names along the rapids of the river -as their travellers pushed forward, till in 839 they -came in contact with the Greeks, and Swedes who had -journeyed by the Dnieper were introduced by the -Emperor of the East to the Western Emperor Louis -the Pious. Their ships were soon the terror of the -Black Sea shores—laden with warriors tall like palm -trees, ruddy, fairhaired, who were in turn traders -and plunderers, conquerors and slave-dealers. In -865 two hundred of their vessels appeared before -Constantinople; in 880 they had reached the Sea -of Azof, the Don and the Volga; in 913 they had -five hundred ships, each carrying a hundred men, -in the Caspian. Novgorod was the mart of their -vast eastern commerce. There have been found in -Sweden nearly twenty thousand Arabian coins, dating -from 698 to 1002 <span class="smcap">a.d.</span>, carried across the Baltic by -home-going merchants. Gothland became the general -centre of exchange for the Eastway trade, where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> -Danes sailed from their settlements on the Mecklenburg -coast and the mouth of the Oder, to buy Russian -furs, Greek and Arabian silks, and Indian spices, -and here have been discovered thirteen thousand -coins of the tenth and eleventh centuries—Byzantine, -Arabian, and from central Asia.</p> - -<p>Other adventurers from Norway and Denmark -turned towards the Atlantic Ocean, trading and -plundering in every harbour of the west, as far as -Seville and the Spanish coasts. Northward they -peopled Iceland and the Orkneys, and in time rounded -the North Cape. They fished the Ocean for whales, -and opened a trade in whale-meat and in the furs -and cod of the White Sea with Normandy and -England. The English liked better to buy than to -catch whales. “Can you take a whale?” we read -in an old West-Saxon dialogue. “Many,” says the -home-loving Englishman, “take whales without -danger, and then they get a great price, but I dare -not from the fearfulness of my mind.”</p> - -<p>Besides opening out this world-wide trade, the -Scandinavians made a revolution also in the manner -of trading. Up to this time buying and selling had -been carried on by travelling dealers, Syrian and -Italian. Now however Norsemen and Danes, who -had no towns in their own lands, planted themselves -in their new countries in fortified cities; and, for -example, showed their enterprise by forming in the -Five Danish Burghs in England the earliest federation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> -of towns known outside Italy. In the new -towns a settled class of merchants was established, -who learned to group themselves according to the -English system of guilds. The Scandinavians learned -also to strike coins after the manner of the Frisians. -In all these ways, by their new ships, their new trade -routes, their money, their guilds, and their settled -merchants in towns, the Scandinavians won a pre-eminence -on the sea, which they were to hold in their -own hands for some two hundred years.</p> - -<p>What was the effect in Ireland of this new peril, -an attack on Europe from the sea? In the first -place the highways of the sea, never before closed, -were barred by the Scandinavian free-booters. A -few Irish travellers (even from Leinster) did even in -800 and 850 take the old accustomed journey to the -Loire and so across France to Germany; but the -passage was now dangerous. The terrors of the sea -journey drove travellers to the land route, and the way -across England to the Continent became so important -that clerics of the tenth century could not imagine -that any other way had ever been possible. The -new sea-kings, moreover, were not the people to -forget the ancient and profitable trade routes of -the wine commerce, or the Irish harbours into which -trading ships from north and south had sailed for -the last two thousand years, or the gold that had -been dug from Irish mines in old days. They seized -every harbour, sent their boats up every creek and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> -river, plundered the monasteries and wealthy houses, -broke into every burial mound for treasure, and put -a poll-tax on the men. Scholars and Christian monks -fled from the heathen barbarians, carrying to Europe -their treasures and manuscripts. The time of mere -destruction, however, was not long. The Scandinavians -were practical men of affairs, and Norsemen -and Danes had settled in Ireland for business. The -“Great Island,” as they called it, was a natural centre -of their new world-wide commerce; lying within -the trade circle formed by the ships that swept from -the Orkneys and Hebrides round the Atlantic coast -to the Loire and the Garonne, or that traversed -the Irish Sea from Cantyre to Devonshire and -Brittany. It was the shelter of voyaging ships, the -recruiting ground of raiders, the winter-quarters -of fleets; its commerce fell in naturally with the -traffic of the western world. Danes and Irish were -presently to the full as busy in trading as in fighting. -Ireland became a commercial centre, a meeting place -of the peoples. There came Grett with the Greek -hat to buy captives for the Iceland market. A host -of Saxons and Britons were brought over by Olaf -and Ivar in 871. Almost every king of Norway -sailed his fleet into Irish harbours, to drive off the -rival Danish merchants, to broaden his traffic, to -spy out some new store of gold, to load up with corn, -to sweep the cattle down to the seashore for the -“strand-hewing” that was to provision his crews<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> -with meat, fresh and salt, for their ocean course. -Traders bargained then just as they bargain now. -There is a harbour of Ardglass on the coast of County -Down where a castle was built many centuries ago -to protect the commerce of the port. The other -day an Irishman repaired its ruins, and for a sign -flew from it the flag of one of the Irish lords of the -country, the Red Right Hand of O’Neill. At that -very moment a light schooner sailed into the offing -and at once flew in answer the Danish flag. The -vessel was from Marsthal. Getting into port the -crew bargained for herrings, counting out a hundred -and ninety-five barrels of them by “chequers,” -while the Ardglass men checked the number on -notched sticks. Neither knew one word of the -other’s tongue. So the Danes did business and -sailed away, exactly as their forefathers had done -a thousand years ago.</p> - -<p>Between plundering and trading and marriages -and alliances Norse and Irish got to know each other -well, as we may see by the story of king Olaf -Tryggwason and his dog. Olaf the Magnificent, -most glorious and far-shining of sea-kings, famed -beyond all others for the surpassing perfection of his -warships, being married to Gytha sister of Olaf -Kuaran king of Dublin, abode in England and occasionally -in Ireland. “He happened once,” says the -Saga, “to be present in Ireland with a large naval -force engaged in war. A foray to get stores being<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> -necessary, the men went on land and drove towards -the shore a multitude of sheep and cattle; and there -followed them a yeoman, who begged Olaf to give -him back his cows from among the flock that they -were driving off. King Olaf answered: ‘Take your -cows if you know them, and are able to separate -them from the rest without delaying our journey; -but, I think, neither you nor any other man can do -that feat among so many hundred cattle as are in -the drove.’ The yeoman had a big cattle dog with -him. So he sent the dog among the herd as they -were driven off together, and the dog ran up and -down among them all, and soon picked out and put -aside as many of the man’s cattle as in the yeoman’s -opinion were there. As these were all marked with -one and the same mark, it was evident that the dog -must have had a perfect knowledge of them. Then -the King said: ‘Wonderfully clever is your dog, -yeoman; will you give him to me?’ And the man -answered: ‘I will gladly do so.’ Then the King -straightway, in return, gave the yeoman a large gold -bracelet, and promised him his friendship therewith. -This dog, the best and most sensible of all dogs, -was named Wigi, and Olaf had him for a long time -afterwards.” There came a day later when Olaf -was entrapped by his enemies in the Baltic, sailing -with his fleet on the far-famed Long Serpent—“never -warship has been built in Northern lands -its equal for beauty and size.” “Right and proper<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> -is it,” said Earl Eric, “that such a noble ship should -belong to Olaf Tryggwason, for he is truly said to -surpass other kings as much as the Long Serpent -surpasses other ships.” The King, with shield and -helmet overlaid with gold, and red silken kirtle, stood -on the ship’s prow, a great dragon’s head ornamented -so that it seemed of gold, and when it gleamed far over -the sea as the sun shone upon it, fear and terror were -shot into men’s hearts. “Lay the big ship more -in front. My place in this warlike host is not at the -back of all my men,” he called. “I had the Serpent -built of greater length than other ships that she -might stretch the more boldly beyond them in the -battle.” The conflict of heroes raged long. As his -enemies poured over the deck King Olaf, blood -falling over his face and arm from under helmet -and mail-sleeve, vanished, no man knew how, in the -waters. The Long Serpent, sinking in the sea, was -of no use to its conquerors. His queen was brought -from under the deck weeping bitterly and so sore -wounded with grief that she could neither eat nor -drink, and died in nine days. Throughout the battle -the dog Wigi lay without stirring before the castle -of the Short Serpent; it carried him home along -with Einar Thambaskelf, the youth of eighteen, -hardest shooter of his time, who stood by the King -in the Long Serpent, who when his own bow was -broken stretched the King’s beyond the arrow head -and flung it away (“Too weak, too weak, the great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> -King’s bow”), who had sprung after the King into -the water, and for his courage was given freedom -by the victors. As they touched land Einar “before -going on shore, went to the dog as he lay there, and -said, ‘We’ve no master now, Wigi!’ At these -words the dog sprang up growling, and with a loud -yell, as if seized by anguish of heart, he ran on shore -with Einar. There he went and lay down on the -top of a mound, and would take no food from anyone, -though he drove away other dogs, beasts and birds -from what was brought to him. From his eyes, -tears coursed one another down his nose, and thus -bewailing the loss of his liege-lord, he lay till he died.” -From that day grief and sorrow lay on Einar. And -men remembered the prophecy of the blind yeoman -of Moster that in one voyage Norway should lose its -four most noble things—the king, whose like had -never been seen, the queen, best for sense and goodness -that ever came into Norway, the greatest ship -ever built in Norway, and the Irish dog, wiser and -more clever than any other dog in the land.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-083.jpg" width="500" height="596" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p> - -<p>In Ireland the power of the Scandinavians was -shown in the foundation of two kingdoms, along the -two main lines of sea traffic—Dublin on the eastern -sea, and Limerick on the Atlantic. -The Norwegian kingdom on the Liffey had its -centre in the mound raised by the river-side for its -Thing or Moot, near where the Dublin Parliament -House rose nine hundred years later. The kingdom -stretched over a narrow strip of shore, the memory -of which was preserved for a thousand years, till -a generation ago, in the jurisdiction of the Dublin -Corporation over a long line of coast from the river -Delvin below Drogheda to Arklow. Four fiords—Strangford -and Carlingford to the north, and Wexford -and Waterford to the south—lay outside the actual -kingdom of Dublin, but were closely connected -with it. Waterford kings were at times of the same -family as the Dublin kings, and in the ninth and -tenth centuries Waterford was sometimes independent -and sometimes united to Dublin.</p> - -<p>Dublin commanded a double line of commerce—from -Scandinavia to Gaul, and by York to Novgorod -and the Eastway. The kingdom was in close connection -with the Danish kingdom of Northumbria, -with its capital at York. For Danish Northumbria, -opening on the North Sea by the Humber, formed -the common meeting ground, the link which united -the Northmen of Scandinavia and the Northmen of -Ireland. A mighty confederation grew up. Members -of the same house were kings in Dublin, in Man, -and in York. Their descendants were among the -chief settlers in Iceland. The Dublin kings married -into the chief houses of Ireland, Scotland, and the -Hebrides. The sea was the common highway which -bound the powers together, and the sea was held by -fleets of swift long-ships with from ninety to a hundred -and fifty rowers or fighting men on board. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> -Irish Channel swarmed with ships of the Dublin -kingdom. It became the mart of the Scandinavian -traders, of Icelandic sailors, and men of Norway, -and merchant princes landing from their cruise -to sell their merchandise or their plunder. “You -must this summer make a trading voyage,” said Earl -Hakon to his friend Thori Clack, “as is customary -now with many, and go to Dublin in Ireland.” Far-travelled -traders carried from Dublin and York, deep -into the inland of Russia, English coins and weapons -and ornaments such as were used in Great Britain -and Ireland.</p> - -<p>“Limerick of the swift ships,” looking out to the -Atlantic and the Gaulish sea, was a rival even to -Dublin. The Norwegians first fortified the town -by an earthen or wooden fence, but presently by a -wall of stone, “Limerick of the rivetted stones.” -Behind it lay a number of Norse settlements scattered -over Limerick, Kerry, and Tipperary. The first -settlers were from the Hebrides where Irishmen and -Norse and Danes mingled as one people, interchanging -names and mingling speech so that the Norse used -Gaelic words for goblets for which they drank their -wine, and the oats for their bread. The name <i>Maccus</i>, -a later form of Magnus, was in the tenth century only -used by the reigning families of Limerick, the Hebrides, -and the Isle of Man. United by kinship and by -trade, the lords of the Isles and the lords of Limerick -constantly aided one another, and made joint expeditions.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> -Once more the Gaulish trade was revived, -and vessels sailed out from the Shannon to fetch -wine and silks from the harbours of the Loire and -the Garonne. From every bay and river-mouth -between Waterford and Lough Foyle streams of -commerce poured into the main current of the -Atlantic trade. After a brief interruption in fact -Ireland was once more in the ninth and tenth century -in the full current of European life, and that in a -double way. The lines of merchant vessels carried -her trade, while the stream of her professors and -scholars and missionaries brought her fame to every -court in Europe.</p> - -<p>King Ælfred has left his record of the three Irishmen -who came “in a boat without oars from Hibernia, -whence they had stolen away because for the love -of God they would be on pilgrimage, they recked -not where. The boat in which they fared was wrought -of three hides and a half, and they took with them -enough meat for seven nights.” On the seventh -day they drifted ashore at Cornwall, and were taken -on to Ælfred whose captives they had thus become. -Perhaps from them that great-hearted and far-sighted -English king learned to honour the Irish. -He sent gifts to monasteries in Ireland. He noted -in his Chronicle the death of Suibhne, anchorite of -Clonmacnois, “the most learned teacher among -the Scots,” said Ælfred.</p> - -<p>From this story some may have supposed that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> -“primitive” Irishmen had not yet got beyond the -rude fishing-boats of savage life. But we have here -in fact only an instance of the strange contrasts which -make Irish history so full of wonder, so rich in human -interest. In the midst of a world of furious trade -and war, Irish poets and mystics, obedient to the -ancient message of their masters, still went down -to the sea-brink abiding there “the revelation of -knowledge.” In the vast solitude of sea and sky -beyond which, in which, waited the revelation, the -seen and the unseen were confounded and limits of -space and time fell away in infinity. The everlasting -gates were there, the way of the soul’s escape from -imprisonment in shadows, the opening of the Eternal -Reality. Abandoning will and fear, they cast themselves -on Nature and the God immanent in Nature, -and summoned by the silent call went out in faith, -“they recked not where.”</p> - -<p>Thus in Ireland old worlds were ever intermixed -with new. Pilgrims cast themselves on the sea in -curraghs, and drifted to the Faroes and to Iceland -carrying with them the power of piety and learning. -But there were also Irish traders with business minds. -They, like the French, learned from the Scandinavians -to build ships, and like the French, used Norse words -for their new sea-faring vessels, “brown-planked” -warships, and merchant ships, ships large and small, -and boats; and for the planks and sides, bottom-boards, -row-benches, taff-rail, gunwale, the creaking,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> -of the row-bench, the steersman. They learned -too from the Scandinavians their method of raising -a navy by dividing the country into districts, each -of which had to equip and man so many ships which -were to assemble at the summons to arms into the -united war fleet—the levy and the fleet both called -by Norse words. Sagas of the Danish time tell -of “the fleet of the men of Munster,” of “Munster -of the swift ships,” six or seven score of them ready -to sail to Dundalk or to the Mull of Cantyre at the -call of the king of Cashel.</p> - -<p>The Irish had also their fleets of merchant ships. -An old poem of about 900 <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> gives a description -of the dwellers on the coast from Carn or Mizen -Head to Cork (the Irish clan of the O’Mahoneys -chief among them)—</p> - -<p class="pp6q p1">“High in beauty,<br /> -Whose resolve is quiet prosperity.”</p> - -<p class="pn1">a description which has been generally considered -quite unsuited to the Irish and more naturally -reserved for Englishmen. The merchant princes won -for their province the name of “Munster of the great -riches.” But the signs of foreign trade, chains and -massive links of silver, and brooches of Scandinavia -and the eastern world, are found all over Ireland—Belfast, -Navan, Monaghan, Limerick, Galway, Cavan, -King’s and Queen’s Counties—the patterns wholly -unlike Irish work. There were enamelled glass beads,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> -and silks and satins and stores of silver, oriental goods -from the Caspian and East Mediterranean, which -had been carried across Russia to Swedish and Danish -lands and so to Ireland.</p> - -<p>“What is best for a king?” asked an Irish poet -of the tenth century.</p> - -<p class="pp6q p1"> -“Fish in river-mouths.<br /> -Earth fruitful.<br /> -Inviting barks into harbour<br /> -Importing treasures from over-sea.<br /> -<span class="ls1">••••••</span><br /> -Silken raiment.<br /> -<span class="ls1">••••••</span><br /> -Abundance of wine and mead.<br /> -<span class="ls1">••••••</span><br /> -Let him foster every science.”</p> - -<p class="p1">Thus it was that the Irish wrested some advantage -out of the Danish wars. They profited by the material -skill and knowledge of the invaders. They were willing -to absorb the foreigners, to marry with them, and -even at times to share their wars. They learned -from them to build ships, organise naval forces, -advance in trade, and live in towns; they used Scandinavian -words for the parts of a ship and the streets -of a town. The Irish gave proof of a real national -vigour. In outward and material civilization they -accepted modern Norse methods, just as in our days -the Japanese accepted modern Western inventions.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> -But in what the Germans call Culture—in the ordering -of society and law, of life and thought, the Irish -like the Japanese never for a moment abandoned their -national loyalty to their own country. During two centuries -of Danish wars they did not loosen hold of their old -civilization. “Concealing ancient lore, to hold any -new thing fair,” they said face to face with the new -Scandinavian system, “this is the way of folly.” -They maintained their schools, their art and literature. -They preserved their church. Writers of the ninth -century describe the duty of an Irish king: he had to -journey over the land and bring each chief under law: -“let him enslave criminals”: “let him perfect the -proper due of every man of whatever is his on sea -or land.” On their side the tribes were to have -for their protection not only “a lawful lord,” but -“a meeting of nobles”; “frequent assemblies”; -“an assembly according to rules”; “a lawful synod.” -We read of yet larger Assemblies for the whole country -“to make concord between the men of Ireland.” -If the chief places of the people were captured, they -went out into the bog-lands to elect their kings according -to their law. Thus when Cashel was held by -the Danes the seventeen tribes of Munster gathered -in a marshy glen, where the nobles sat in assembly -on a mound, and decided to choose one Cennedig -as king. But the queen, Cellachan’s mother, appeared -before them, and in a speech and a lay which she -made declared the right of Cellachan. And when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> -the champions of Munster heard these great words -and the speech of the woman they rose up to make -Cellachan king, “and gave thanks to the true -magnificent God for having found him ... and put -their hands in his hand, and placed the royal diadem -round his head, and their spirits were raised at the -grand sight of him.”</p> - -<p>Under the power of this national feeling the Irish -learned from the Danes not only the new trade, -but they learned also the new sea warfare, and understood -their lesson so well that they were soon able -to drive back the armies and fleets of the Danes, -and to become themselves the leaders of Danish -and Norse troops in war. It was about 950 <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> -that the Irish won their first famous naval victory. -Cellachan, king of Cashel, had been taken prisoner -by the Norse, and was carried to Sitric’s ship at -Dundalk. An army was sent from Munster across -Ireland to rescue him. They demanded to have -back their king. “Give honour to Cellachan in the -presence of the men of Munster!” commanded -Sitric in his wrath. “Let him even be bound to the -mast! For he shall not be without pain in honour -of them!” “I give you my word,” said Cellachan, -as he was lifted up, “that it is a greater sorrow to -me not to be able to protect Cashel for you, than -to be in great torture.” “It is a place of watching -where I am,” he cried, high lifted above them all. -“I see what your champions do not see, since I am<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> -at the mast of the ship.” “Are these your ships -that are coming now?” said he. For on the far -horizon rose the masts of his fleet of Munster sailing -into Dundalk harbour, six score of them, the full -muster of the ships gathered from every sea port -between Cork and Galway, from the regions of Bandon -and Kinsale, from the land of the O’Driscolls who -held the coast from Bandon across Clear harbour -to Crookhaven and the river of Kenmare, from the -Dingle peninsula, from “Kerry of the rushes” on -the Shannon shore, from western Clare, and from -Corcomroe and Burren. When the Irish captains -looked on their king bound and fettered to the mast, -their aspect became troubled, their colour changed, -and their lips grew pale. From his place of agony -Cellachan watched the onset of his sailors, and heard -the rattle of swords and javelins filling the air, like -the sound that arises from the seashore full of stones -trodden by herds of cattle and racing horses. He -saw the Irish fling tough ropes of hemp over the long -prows of the Norse ships to hold them fast, while the -Norsemen threw stout chains of blue iron. He saw -his people, defended only by their “strong enclosures -of linen cloth to protect bodies and necks and noble -heads,” as they dashed themselves into the Norse -ships among the mail-clad warriors; he watched -the heroic Failbe springing on the deck of Sitric’s -battle-ship, and with a high and deer-like leap mount -on the mast, his right-hand sword swinging against<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> -the crowding enemy, while with the sword in his -mighty left hand he cut the ropes that bound king -Cellachan. In the moment of his king’s salvation -Failbe fell dead. As the Norsemen struck off his -head and set it upon the prow of the ship, Failbe’s -foster-brother, mad for revenge, with an eager falcon-like -leap sprang into the warship, and since no weapon -of his could pierce the armour of the Norse king, -he fixed his white hands in the bosom of Sitric’s -coat of mail and dragged him down into the water, -so that they together reached the gravel and the -sand of the sea and rested there. After six hours’ -battle the remnant of the Scandinavian fleet put -out to sea, and, says the old saga, they carried neither -King nor Chieftain with them.</p> - -<p>After that battle came other triumphs; the fleet -of the kings of Ailech that carried off plunder and -booty from the Hebrides: Brian Boru’s expedition -of the Norsemen of Dublin, Waterford, Wexford, -and of the men of Munster, and of almost all of the -men of Erin such of them as were fit to go to sea, -and they levied tribute from Saxons and Britons as -far as the Clyde and Argyle. The spirit of independence -rose high, and victorious warriors established -again the rule of the Irish in their own land.</p> - -<p>But the Danes had no mind to let Ireland and her -harbours and her sea routes fall out of their hands. -The great conflict of the two peoples came about -sixty years after the victory of Cellachan.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p> - -<p>The Danes had now held command of the sea -for two hundred years. About 1000 <span class="smcap">a.d.</span>, in the -glory of success, their kings, like later monarchs in -Europe, began to think of their “Imperial Destiny.” -It seemed time to perfect the whole business and -round off the borders of their State. So Swein -Forkbeard of Denmark proposed to create a Scandinavian -Empire which should extend from the -Slavic shores of the Baltic to the rim of the Atlantic, -with the North Sea as a lake of this wide dominion. -Swein overran England, and his son Cnut ruled from -the Baltic to the Irish Channel, lord of Denmark, Norway, -England, and the Danes of Dublin (for he minted -coins even there), with London as the chief city -of the new Danish Empire. The imperial plan -was not yet complete. Danish rule was to extend -to the outermost land on the Atlantic. But Ireland -blocked the way. The Ireland of King Brian Boru—of -men who lived (as they said) “on the ridge of the -world,” men bred in the free air of the plains and the -mountains and the sea—left the Scandinavian Empire -with a ragged edge on the line of the Atlantic -commerce. In the spring of 1014 the Danish army -gathered in the Bay of Dublin to straighten out the -boundaries of the Empire on the western Ocean. -There met a mighty host under the “Black Raven” -of the pagans, woven with heathen spells; “when -the wind blew out the banner it was as though the -Raven flapped his wings for flight.” In that Imperial<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> -army there were warriors “from all the west of -Europe,” from Iceland, the Orkneys, the Baltic -Islands, from Norway a thousand men in ringed -armour, from Northumbria two thousand pagans, -“not a villain of them who had not polished armour -of iron or brass encasing their bodies from head to -foot.” On the night before the battle Woden himself, -the old god of war, rode up through the dusk -men said, on a dapple-grey horse, halbert in hand, -to take counsel with his champions.</p> - -<p>But Woden’s last fight was come. The full tide -of the morning carried the pagan host over the level -sands to the landing at Clontarf. The army of King -Brian Boru lay before them. From sunrise to sunset -on Good Friday that desperate battle raged, the -hair of the warriors flying in the wind, says the old -chronicler, as thick as the sheaves floating in a field -of oats. The Scandinavian scheme of a Northern -Empire was shattered on that day, when with the -evening flood-tide the remnant of the Danish host put -out to sea. The work which had been begun by the -fleet of Cellachan in Dundalk harbour sixty-four -years before, was completed by Brian Boru where -the Liffey opens into the Bay of Dublin. For a -hundred, and fifty years to come Ireland kept its -independence. England was once again, as in the -time of the Roman dominion, made part of a continental -empire. Ireland, as in the days of Rome, -still lay outside the new imperial system.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p> - -<p>Clontarf marked the passing of an old age, the -beginning of a new. We may see the advent of -the new men in the names of adventurers that landed -with the Danes on that low shore at Clontarf—the -first great drops of the coming storm. There were -lords from Normandy, Eoghan Barun or John the -Baron, and Richard, with another, perhaps Robert -of Melun. There was Goistilin Gall, a Frenchman -from Gaul. There was somewhere about that time -Walter the Englishman, a leader of mercenaries from -England. In such names we see the heralds of the -approaching change. A revolution in the fortunes of -the world had in fact opened. Scandinavian pre-eminence -on the sea was even now passing away, -as that of the Frisians had passed away two hundred -years before. New lords of commerce seized the -traffic of sea and land when the Normans, “citizens -of the world,” carried their arms and their cunning -from the Moray Firth to the Straits of Messina, from -the Seine to the Euphrates. The Teutonic peoples -that now girded the North Sea—Normans, Germans -of the Hanseatic League, English—were to supersede -Danes and Norwegians. Trade moreover had once -more spread over the high roads of Europe, as in the -days of the Roman Empire, and the peoples of the -south, Italians and Gauls, had taken up again their -ancient commerce.</p> - -<p>In the new commerce as in the old Ireland was to -take her full part. The island lay in the moving<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> -life that stirred the great seas, washed by that whirlpool -of activity. From every shore she saw the sails -of busy traffickers bearing the commerce of the known -world, and carrying too its thought and art. The -people had not lost their wit. They shared in the -enterprise and the profit of the new commerce. The -great routes were open, from Scandinavia to Gaul, -and down the Irish Channel. The Danish traffic -across England was not forgotten, and as the trade -of the German coasts developed, busier lines of commerce -were opened from the Irish harbours of the -south eastward to the North Sea and the Baltic.</p> - -<p>It is an unfinished tale I tell. But it may remind -us of one gift of Nature to Ireland—the freedom of -Europe by the sea. We have seen the dim figures -of the flint-men, the Bronze-men, the first Gaels, -reaching out hands to Scandinavia and to the -Mediterranean lands. We have seen Ireland on the -borders of the Roman Empire, free and unconquered, -busy in trade, busier still in learning, carrying across -the Gaulish Sea treasures of classical knowledge. -Again Ireland appeared when the barbarians had -spread over Europe, still unconquered, sending back -across the Ocean the learning she had stored up, the -free distributor on the Continent of the classics and -science and Christian teaching. We have seen the -island again on the fringe of the Scandinavian Empire, -even now unconquered, and still in the mid-stream -of European traffic. When a new revolution came,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> -and trade swelled under the Normans, every Irish port -was full. Irishmen sailed every sea. Their fabrics -were sold in every country as far as Russia and Naples. -Through the long centuries they never lost the habit -of the sea and of Europe. In the middle ages Spanish -coin was almost the chief currency in Ireland, so -great was the Irish trade with Spain; and in the -eighteenth century the country was still full of Spanish, -Portuguese, and French money in daily use—the -moydore, the doubloon, the pistole, the Louis d’or, -the new Portuguese gold coin. So much so that -in the Peninsular war Ireland was ransacked for foreign -coins to send to the army in Spain and Portugal.</p> - -<p>But that story is over. Ireland at last was swept -within the orbit of an Empire—not as a free member -of a federation, but in full subjection, with every -advantage that complete military and police control -could afford. Natural geography gave place to -political geography, and the way of the Empire ruled -out the way of the sea. “I should not presume,” -wrote Richard Cox, Esquire, Recorder of Kinsale, -in dedicating to their Majesties William and Mary -a History of Ireland from the Conquest thereof, -which he printed at St. Paul’s Churchyard in 1689. -“I should not presume to lay this treatise at your -Royal feet, but that it concerns a noble Kingdom, -which is one of the most considerable branches of -your mighty Empire.</p> - -<p>“It is of great Advantage to it, that it is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> -Subordinate Kingdom of the Crown of <i>England</i>; -for it is from that Royal Fountain that the Streams -of Justice, Peace, Civility, Riches and all other Improvements -have been derived to it; so that the -Irish are (as Campion says) beholding to God for -being conquered.</p> - -<p>“And yet Ireland has been so blind in this Great -Point of its true Interest, that the Natives have -managed almost a continual war with the English -ever since the first Conquest thereof; so that it has -cost your Royal Predecessors an unspeakable mass -of Blood and Treasure to preserve it in true -Obedience.</p> - -<p>“But no cost can be too great where the Prize -is of such value; and whoever considers the Situation, -Ports, Plenty, and other Advantages of Ireland will -confess, that it must be retained at what rate soever; -because if it should come into an Enemy’s Hands, -England would find it impossible to <i>flourish</i>; and -perhaps difficult to <i>subsist</i> without it.</p> - -<p>“To demonstrate this assertion, it is enough to say -that Ireland lies in the <i>Line of Trade</i>, and that all the -English vessels that sail to the <i>East</i>, <i>West</i> and <i>South</i>, -must, as it were, run the <i>gauntlet</i> between the -Harbours of Brest and Baltimore: and I might add -that the Irish Wool, being transported, would soon -ruine the English clothing Manufacture.</p> - -<p>“Hence it is that all Your Majesties Predecessors -have kept close to this Fundamental Maxim, of retaining<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> -Ireland inseperably united to the Crown of -England.”</p> - -<p>The house of Hanover ended what the Tudors -had begun. Ireland became an island beyond an -island. But the great deep still gives to the country -an abiding unity. In ancient days the Irish had a -noble figure by which they proclaimed the oneness of -the land within its Ocean bounds. The three waves -of Erin they said, smote upon the shore with a foreboding -roar when danger threatened the island. -One wave called to Munster at an inlet of Cork; two -of them sounded in Ulster, at the mouth of the Bann -and in the bay of Dundrum. The Ocean bore the -same fate to Munster and to Ulster. And in fact -so long as the sea surrounds this island, so long all -its peoples must be linked in a common fortune. The -deep that encompasses Ireland has made this country -one, gathering together into the Irish family all -races that have entered within its circuit. By the -might of that encircling Ocean the men of Ireland -are bound together in one inheritance, unchanging -amid ceaseless change.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER III</h2> - -<p class="pch">A GREAT IRISH LADY</p> - - -<p class="drop-cap04">WE are often told that the civilization of a people -is marked by the place of its women: a rule -by which the Irish stand high. In the -fifteenth century, as at all times, their annals record -many noble ladies “distinguished for knowledge, -hospitality, good sense and piety”; “humane and -charitable”; “a nurse to all guests and strangers, -and to all the learned men in Ireland.” Of these -Margaret, daughter of O’Carroll lord of Ely, wife -of Calvagh O’Connor Faly lord of Offaly (lands which -lie across the boundaries of the modern King’s and -Queen’s Counties and Kildare), was the most -illustrious. She came of a learned race. The -O’Carrolls, in the course of little more than a century -(1253-1373), held the See of Cashel for sixty years; -and O’Carroll had been Archbishop of Tuam; and -Margaret’s father, lord of Ely, was “the general -patron of all the learned men of Ireland.” “This -Teige was deservedly a man of greate accompt and -fame with the professors of Poetrye and Musicke -of Ireland and Scotland, for his liberality extended -towards them, and every of them in generalle.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>” -So highly was he esteemed among the chiefs that -he was forbidden by the Irish captains of east Munster -to carry out his wish of resigning his lordship of Ely -(1396). He made a pilgrimage, however, that year -to the threshold of the apostles, with his companions -O’Brien, Gerald, and Thomas Calvagh MacMurchadh -of the royal race of Leinster; and coming back -through England visited Richard <span class="smcap">ii.</span> at Westminster, -who received him graciously, and being then about -to cross to Calais for his marriage with Isabella of -France, and the conclusion of a treaty of peace with -the French king, invited O’Carroll to accompany him -in his retinue. Ten years later he was slain by the -English, the boy-prince Thomas of Lancaster, son -of Henry <span class="smcap">iv.</span>, being then Viceroy in Ireland, and under -him the Lord Deputy Scrope. The English army -fell on him unawares at Callan; for whose death -indeed the sun stood still, said their account, to light -the Deputy and the fierce Prior of Kilmainham in the -evening surprise and the six miles’ ride of slaughter, -where eight hundred, or some said three thousand, -of his people fell. Some time after the massacre -Margaret married the most successful leader in his -day of the Irish, Calvagh O’Connor Faly, son of -Murchadh, the “Lord of Offaly, of the cattle-abounding -land,” descended from Conchobar of the race of -Cathair Mór, King of Leinster. Brought up amid -the perils and sorrows of constant war, her fortunes -were now transferred to a country where the conflict<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> -with the English knew no interlude. To understand -her story it is necessary to show very briefly the situation -of Offaly.</p> - -<p>The land of the O’Connors adjoined that of the -O’Carrolls under the Slieve Bloom mountains. The -old Offaly, from Sliabh-Bladhma, now Slieve Bloom, -to the hill of Alenn, and from Sliabh-Cualann in -Wicklow to the Great Heath, is a plain as level as -a tranquil sea. On its western side a long low ridge -north of Slieve Bloom had given shelter to the two -St. Sinchealls; a church had risen by the holy well; -and the fair-town of Killeigh on “the field of the long -ridge,” profiting by the traffic from the Shannon -to the Liffey. There Murchadh O’Connor founded -for the Franciscans a monastery (1393) said to be the -third in size and importance of the monasteries of -Ireland, the burial place of his race. In what was -once the Abbey churchyard, tombstones of the -O’Doynes, deeply sculptured with their armorial -bearings, recall a great family of Offaly. On the -eastern side of Offaly Norman settlers had pushed -back the boundary from the Dublin hills to Rathangan, -where a strong fort and church stood at the head -of the plain through which the Barrow and the Slaney -flowed south to Waterford and Wexford; and on that -important trade route Thomas O’Connor Faly had -founded a Franciscan monastery (1302), under the -walls of Hugh de Lacy’s fort at Castledermot. To -the north lay Meath—“cemetery of the valourous -Gael”—whose colonists had incessant war with -Offaly. It was a land over which the earliest Norman -settlers had swept from de Lacy’s fort of Castledermot -to that of Durrow; a land which was again -the chief centre of struggle when the Irish attack -drove the English power back to the plains of Meath, -and which in the renewed wars of the English under -the Tudors became the scene of ferocious reprisals -and calculated obliteration of its race and name. -From Calvagh’s first battle all his fighting was on the -plains of Meath. Once he made a raid in the land -of the O’Mores; and when his sons grew up they -had disputes with Irish neighbours. But the only -war of Calvagh from 1385 to 1458 was a war against -the English.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-102.jpg" width="400" height="268" - alt="" - title="" /> - <div class="caption"><p class="pc"><span class="smcap">Lady Chapel opening from North Side of the<br />Franciscan Abbey, Castledermot.</span></p> -</div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span></p> - -<p>The family were bitter Irreconcilables; since the -days of an older Calvagh, the “Great Rebel,” who -a hundred years before (1307), had been invited -with thirty of the Offaly chiefs to dine at Castle-Carberry -on Trinity Sunday with “the treacherous -baron,” Sir Pierce Bermingham, the “Hunter of -the Irish”; and were deceitfully murdered, the -Great Rebel and all, as they rose from table. This -new Calvagh fought the invaders for over sixty years, -from youth to old age, with scarcely a pause—a man -of humour as well as courage. Once when the English -troops with their Irish followers had ridden to the -very borders of Killeigh (1406)—the religious and -business centre of Offaly—Calvagh with half a dozen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> -horsemen came upon a body of plundering kerns, -one carrying off on his back a great cauldron which -Calvagh had lent his friend MacMaoilcorra for -brewing beer. “There is your caldron with the -kerns,” cried MacMaoilcorra helplessly, “take it -and discharge me of my loan.” “I accept of it -where it is,” mocked Calvagh, and flung “the shot -of a stone” which hit the cauldron straight, at the -great noise and report whereof the plunderers cast -away their spoil and fled in consternation. In the -great rout of the English that day the Irish won -back from them the chiefest relic of Connacht, the -cap or mitre of S. Patrick stolen from Elphin.</p> - -<p>In Calvagh’s days the Irish revival had pushed -back the rule of Dublin Castle to a strip of coast land -some twenty miles by thirty. There flew a tale -of panic (1385) that the Irish “were confederate -with Spain,” and that “at this next season, as is -likely, there will be made a conquest of the greater -part of the land.” Revenue was falling, English -colonists were flying across the water, and prayers -for help were sent over to the English king. The -king’s favourite De Vere, appointed Marquis of -Dublin and Duke of Ireland (1386), got no farther -than Wales, and English pretentions over the island -under a confused series of shifting rulers became -the mock of Europe. Stung by the taunt that he -who desired to be made head of the Holy Roman -Empire could not even subdue Ireland, Richard <span class="smcap">ii.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></span> -made his fantastic journey across the Irish Channel -(1394), carrying a wardrobe of untold cost in which -one jewelled coat alone was worth thirty thousand -marks, and with a following of four thousand squires -and thirty thousand archers, a greater army, some -said, than Edward <span class="smcap">iii.</span> commanded at Crecy. Thus -Calvagh had the rare opportunity of seeing the arrival -in Ireland of the only king of England who landed -there in the five hundred years between the coming -of Henry <span class="smcap">ii.</span> and John (1171 and 1210), and that of -James <span class="smcap">ii.</span> (1689)—all four driven over by personal -necessities, not by any concern whatever for the -Irish people or their well-being. The English troops -were flung back from the O’Connor land and from -Ely of the O’Carrolls, with many men slain and many -horses captured, and fresh supplies were sent for -from England. But Richard, unlike any other king -that visited Ireland, was moved by the spirit of the -country. The temper he had shown thirteen years -before in the Peasant Revolt—“I am your King -and Lord, good people; what will ye?”—manifested -itself again amid the troubles of his Irish lordship. -To the Irish people he showed the first signs of -sympathy and respect. Laying aside the hostile -banners of England, he substituted the golden cross -and silver birds of his patron saint, Edward the Confessor—the -only King of England reported to have -any connection with an Irish house, if as some -historians say (on what evidence I do not know) his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> -Queen’s sister Driella was wife of O’Brien, king of -Munster. “To Us and our Council,” he wrote to -England, “it appears that the Irish rebels have -rebelled in consequence of the injustice and grievances -practised towards them, for which they have been -afforded no redress.” Peace was made with “his -rebel MacMorrough”; and treaties signed with -the chiefs, seventy-five of them, were sent to England -in two hampers, while Richard returned to Westminster -leaving Roger Mortimer, heir to the throne, -as Viceroy. The next year, as we have seen, he -received O’Carroll of Ely at his palace with especial -honour.</p> - -<p>With his disappearance the policy of peace and -reform came to an end. The meaning of Mortimer’s -rule was clear to the Irish. He claimed by inheritance -of Lionel Duke of Clarence, son of Edward III., -to be Earl of Ulster, Lord of Connacht, Trim, Leix, -and Ossory, thus threatening the Ulster chiefs with -a war of conquest, and the lord of Offaly and the -middle Irish with the complete encircling of their -lands, their isolation and destruction. Edmund -Mortimer, son-in-law of Clarence, had already -appeared as Viceroy (1380-1381), carrying with him -the sword adorned with gold “which had belonged -to the good king Edward” the Confessor, and his -great bed of black satin embroidered with the arms -of de Mortimer and Ulster: he sent much spoil -and cattle to England, and died in the midst of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> -warfare. His son Roger was appointed Viceroy -(1382-1383) a boy of ten; and orders were sent to -arrest all those who by land or water should send or -sell horses, salt, armour, iron, gold, silver, corn, or -other provisions, to any of the Irish. Once more -this same Roger Mortimer was Viceroy in 1395, riding -to war for his inheritance in the dress and arms of an -Irish chief. Calvagh captured the earl of Kildare -who was held to ransom by his father; and the Carlow -men routed and slew the young Mortimer himself -(1398). On which Richard sent over his half-brother, -the Duke of Surrey (1398), and already forgetful -of his Irish compacts of three years before, granted -his favourite lands which by treaty belonged to -MacMurchadh. When war naturally followed the -king proposed to subdue the Irish by a new visit -(1399), this time forsaking the tradition of the Confessor -for that of Henry <span class="smcap">ii.</span>, and bearing the royal -regalia of England and the miraculous consecrated -oil of St. Thomas of Canterbury used at coronations. -Chanting a last collect with the canons of St. George -he set sail for Waterford, bringing with him the -Duke of Lancaster (afterwards Henry <span class="smcap">v.</span>) a boy of -twelve years, to take his first lesson in war. The -army was set to fell MacMurchadh’s woods; a space -was cleared, villages and houses set on fire, and in -that scene Richard made the young Henry knight, -even while the Duke of Lancaster was landing in -Yorkshire to seize the English crown. Before July<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> -closed the betrayed king had hurried back to England, -there to meet his death of horror.</p> - -<p>So ended the royal dream of chivalry in Ireland, -as it had closed before in England. Whatever -imaginative feeling for the Irish, whatever memories -of their old tradition or visions of a reconciliation -of the two civilizations, had stirred Richard <span class="smcap">ii.</span>, these -disappeared under the Lancastrian kings. Stern -conquest was their creed, as soon as their wars in -England, Wales, Scotland, and France would allow it.</p> - -<p>The comings and goings of English governors in -Ireland during the French wars read like the wanderings -of the Wiking raiders, now on the Irish side -of the sea, now on the French, as the chances of -campaign might open the best prospects of adventure, -plunder and ransom. Viceroys, deputies, lords -justices, of a summer or two, each with his twelve -months’ policy of extortion, slaughter, and vain -treaties, headed brief marches and skirmishes, campaigned -on the plan that there was never a battle -to be opened on a Monday or after noonday, hunted -or purchased prisoners not for their defeat but for -their ransom, and in succession sailed away for the -better ventures of the French war. “The most -cause of destruction,” the English colonists declared -to the king in 1435, arose because “during thirty -years past the Lieutenants and other Governors -did not come here but for a sudden journey or a -hosting.” As their power shrank their salaries and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> -armies were increased. Governors no longer pretended -to control the war, but returning to the -lawless practice of the first adventurers, ordered -any man who could to go out and fight however -and wherever he pleased; and the lords about Dublin, -freed from all restraints of law, kept troops of horse -and foot against “Irish enemies,” “English rebels,” -and their own personal foes.</p> - -<p>The Lieutenant sent by Henry <span class="smcap">iv.</span> to rule Ireland -(1401) was his son Thomas of Lancaster twelve years -old; and the first in a series of changing deputies -Sir Stephen Scrope, an old soldier trained in French -and Flemish wars, and as ready to serve Henry as -Richard. He it was who slew O’Carroll, Richard’s -friend; and against him Murchadh and Calvagh -O’Connor warred victoriously in Meath (1406, 1408). -The prior of Kilmainham being deputy (who had -also been on that ride of death when the sun stood -still), the O’Connors captured the sheriff of Meath -(1411) and took a great price for his ransom. The -three months’ rule of Sir John Stanley (1413) first -governor of Henry V. was ended by his death after -the curse of the chief bard Niall O’Higgin whom he -had plundered at Usnach—“the second poetical -miracle” of this famous bard. In vain his successor -Archbishop Cranley, whose eighty years alone held -him back from battle, gathered his clergy at Castledermot -to pray for English victory: O’Connor and -MacGeoghagan routed the English, and held to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> -ransom prisoners for two thousand six hundred marks -besides other fines (1414). Sir John Talbot Lord -Furnival followed (1414), hovering between Ireland, -England, and France—to the English “an ancient -fox and politique captain,” to the French “a very -scourge and daily terror,” to the Irish “a son of -curses for his venom and a devil for his evil.” He -called out the troops to active war, slew many rebels, -and gave protection to neither saint nor sanctuary; -it was his policy to “oblige one Irish enemy to serve -upon the other,” by forcing defeated chiefs to swear -that they would fight under him against their countrymen. -Still the O’Connors raided Meath for arms, -horses, and prisoners (1417). Calvagh was once -treacherously captured by a Meath lord, from whom -Talbot in hope of a ransom purchased him; but -the prisoner escaped that same night. To Talbot -succeeded (1420) James the White Earl of Ormond, -back from the French wars. Precepts drawn up to -guide his conduct declared that as “the Irish are -false by kind, it were expedient and a charity to -execute upon them wilful and malicious transgressors -the king’s laws somewhat sharply.” He too had been -at the death of O’Carroll, and once again, it was said, -the sun miraculously stood still for three hours, and -no pit or bog annoyed horse or man on his part, -while he slaughtered the Irish on “the red moor -of Athy.” Twice every week the clergy of Dublin -went in solemn procession praying for his good success<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> -against those disordered persons which now in every -quarter of Ireland had degenerated to their old trade -of life, and repined at the English. The colonists -petitioned Henry <span class="smcap">v.</span> that he would induce the Pope -to proclaim a holy crusade against the Irish, “in -perpetual destruction of those enemies.” It was -in the bitterness of this exasperated conflict that -Murchadh O’Connor Faly won a last victory (1421), -before he laid down arms and entered his monastery -of Killeigh to die—“Murchadh of the defeats.”</p> - -<p>For thirty-seven years Calvagh now led his people’s -fight against “the English manner of government,” -in other words, the destruction of the Irish. He -seized more lords and officers, won more wealth, -and recovered more Irish territory than any lord in -Leinster. At this time the Desmonds, out of favour -under Lancastrian kings, had withdrawn to Munster -to build up their dominion in the south, while the -Ormonds and their cousins and rivals the Talbots -fought for power. Passing strangers appeared in -Dublin Castle; but with occasional interruptions -the actual authority swung back, now to Ormond -and his half-brother the prior of Kilmainham, now -to Talbot and his brother the Archbishop of Dublin, -till each family had held the chief control many -times. The Talbots stood for pure English rule, -and excelled in severity alike towards colonists and -natives. They used for their wars and their rewards -Irish taxes, coyn and livery; but at Westminster<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> -they represented Ormond’s iniquity in levying the -like taxes, and his faint and wavering sympathies for -his countrymen, as treason of the darkest hue; his -favouring his Irish friends, keeping Irish soldiers -for his following, letting lands slip into Irish hands, -making Irishmen knights of the shire; with a few -additions thrown in of his sloth, violence, and corruption—“courses -ruinous and destructive” to the -English. In the midst of this discord Calvagh seems -to have leaned to Ormond. His wife, apparently -by a friendly arrangement, was given tribute from -an Ormond lordship in Kildare. He himself held -Talbot’s cousin Thomas to ransom in his prison at -Killeigh: he took “blackrent” or tribute from the -English of Meath.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile both Ulster and Offaly were set aflame -by the coming of a new Mortimer Viceroy (1423) -Edmund, son of Roger of the Irish dress. When he -landed with an English army O’Neill and O’Donnell -had already marched over Louth and Meath (1423), -compelling the English to give hostages and guarantees -for their pledge that they would be under tribute -for ever. Edmund called O’Neill and some of the -leaders to his Trim Castle, and made arrangements -with him; but they had scarcely left when he died -of plague (1424), and Talbot, then Lord Chief Justice, -pursued the chiefs and carried them prisoners to -Dublin, demanding hostages and ransom. Calvagh -on his side raided Meath, where he seized the Marshal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> -of the English army, the Seneschal of the Viceroy’s -manor, and other squires. But it was now the turn -of Ormond, who had lately come to Ireland bringing -a host of Saxons, and adding great strength to the -English wars; and Talbot made terms with Calvagh -before the appointment of the new viceroy. But -the peace was brief. Calvagh entered into alliance -with the princes of Ulster. He married his daughter -Finola to O’Donnell, “harrasser and destroyer of -the English.” And when O’Neill with O’Donnell -marched a great army to Mullingar (1431), and on the -Moat where O’Melaghlin had in old times ruled -and judged Leinster, gathered the chiefs to take -his wages and acknowledge him leader for the war, -Calvagh joined his host in the ravaging of Westmeath -till the English paid a heavy price for the sparing -of their country. Later, when his son-in-law -O’Donnell was captured and imprisoned in Dublin -Castle (1434), then sent to England (1435), and finally -to the Isle of Man (1439) to die there in prison, -Calvagh marched, year after year, through Meath -to avenge his captivity. The Justiciary or Deputy -himself was taken prisoner by Calvagh’s son, and -kept some time till the English of Dublin ransomed -him. In the feuds of the barons he found allies. -The son of MacFheorais, chief of the Berminghams -and heir of “the treacherous baron,” suffered “an -abuse” in the great court of Trim, the Governor’s -castle. For as he entered the court (1443) under the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> -safeguard of Ormond, the son of Barnewell, Treasurer -of Meath, beat a <i>Caimin</i>—namely, a stroke of his finger -on the nose of Bermingham’s son. On which he -stole out of the town, and went towards O’Connor -Faly, and they joined together, and it is hard to know -that ever was such abuse better revenged than the -said Caimin. They burned and preyed Meath and -obtained their full demands—that Calvagh should have -his duties from the English during his life as Lord -of his territory, and that the Clan-Feorais should have -all their hostages freely restored; and not only that -but they obtained in this “war of Caimin” all conditions -such as they demanded for holding peaceable -quiet with the English. Ever more formidable, -Calvagh now led his kerns to Moyclare beyond -Maynooth and to Tara itself (1446). Talbot, made -Earl of Shrewsbury, was called back from the French -wars. He re-built Castle Carberry, the castle of the -old massacre, to defend Meath against Berminghams -and O’Connors, caused Calvagh to make peace, to -ransom his son taken in the wars, and deliver many -beeves for the royal kitchen; and made a statute -(1447) that English and Irish should no more be -confounded together by their dress, but that every -Englishman who did not shave in the English manner -once at least in two weeks, should be treated as an -Irish enemy—a statute which survived till the reign -of Charles I. His last characteristic outrage was the -treacherous capture of Felim O’Reilly who had gone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> -to Trim at his own invitation, and the like deceitful -seizing of the Savadges. Talbot seems to have been -distinguished for his violated pledges among the -crowd of English officials whose broken faith became -a byword. “Thy safe-guarding,” said the poet, “I -confide to God; to Mary’s sweet and only Son; that He -may shelter thee from Anglo-word of Englishmen, and -from the gentiles’ act of violence.” The prisoners -all died in Trim Castle, disappointing the Viceroy -of his ransom. After which Talbot disappeared -for the last time to France (1447), followed by the -curses of the Irish—“the learned say there came not -from the time of Herod anyone so wicked in evil -deeds.” In his stead came Richard Plantagenet, -Duke of York, heir to the English crown, and to all -the earldoms and lordships of the Mortimers.</p> - -<p>No doubt the race of O’Connor Faly was a family -of irreconcilables; men fighting honourably to defend -their land and people, each leader of them in his turn -strong to obtain “great rewards from the English for -making peace with them, as had been usual with his predecessors.” -They were the sort of people for whom -Dublin Castle for a hundred years past, and many -hundred years to come, had but one name, “the -Irish enemy,” ever bitterly complaining of the “mere -Irish, men that are truly beastly and ignorant,” -living under “the wicked and damnable law called -Brehon Law,” “which by reason ought not to be -named a law, but an evil custom.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p> - -<p>There was a good deal however that Dublin -Castle did not know or care to know. In the midst -of this desolating war the story of Margaret, wife of -O’Connor, gives us a glimpse into the life of the Irish -clans behind the fastnesses that screened them from -English view. It might seem that amid centuries -of conflict, ever-present danger, preyings and raidings, -statutes to shut them out from learning, trade, -or advancement in their church, and torrents of -slander to defile their name, the Irish might in truth -have fallen into the nomad barbarism and the beastly -ignorance of which they were accused by the English -from that time to this. In fact however the people, -endowed with an immense vitality, were busily -occupied with commerce and with learning. Irish -princes were lively competitors with the English -merchants of the Pale. In all their territories the -places of fairs were thronged with dealers, English -and Irish, who did business together in peace and -amity, while profits poured into Irish coffers. English -statutes forbade any Englishman to deal in an Irish -market: English merchants therefore put on Irish -dress, rode on Irish saddles, talked Irish, and went -on trading as before. Towns and monasteries of the -colonists forced from the government charters allowing -them to traffic with Irish dealers. The O’Connors -lay at the meeting point of natural trade-routes, -with their fair-town at Killeigh, and their establishments -at Rathangan and Castledermot; and -Margaret was a patron of commerce, as she was of -learning and religion. “She was the only woman,” the -Annals tell us, “that has made the most of repairing -the highways and erecting bridges, churches, and -Mass books, and of all manner of things profitable -to serve God and her soul, and while the world stands -her many gifts to the Irish and Scottish nations shall -never be numbered.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-116.jpg" width="400" height="265" - alt="" - title="" /> - <div class="caption"><p class="pc"><span class="smcap">Window of Lady Chapel, Franciscan Abbey, Castledermot.</span><br /> -(From “Grose’s Antiquities,” 1792; destroyed 1799.)</p> -</div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p> - -<p>She was a patron too of -the schools of the learned, which under the Irish -revival had sprung into new and vigorous life, -training students in every corner of Ireland, and sending -out scholars to all the universities of Europe. -“The company that read all books, they of the church -and of the poets both: such of these as shall be perfect -in knowledge, forsake not thou their intimacy ever”—this, -according to an Irish poet, was the high duty of -chiefs, of the noble and wealthy; and Margaret -was faithful to the tradition of her people. Her -friendship for the learned, the royal magnificence -of her bounty was long remembered in Ireland. -The year 1433 was a year of trouble. Ormond -ravaged the land of Ely and destroyed the fortresses of -the O’Carrolls. Margaret’s daughter Finola—“the -most beautiful and stately, the most renowned and -illustrious woman of her time, her own mother only -excepted,” blessed with “the blessing of guests and -strangers, of poets and philosophers”—only saved -Tirconail from the enemies of O’Neill and of -MacDonnell and his Scots by herself going, after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> -the fashion of the strong-hearted and independent -women of Ireland, to meet them at Inishowen, and -there “made peace without leave from O’Donnell.” -It was a year terribly named in Irish tradition, “‘the -summer of slight acquaintance,’ because no one -used to recognise friend or relative,” for the greatness -of the famine that lay on the land. Such was the -time of Margaret’s great benevolence. “It is she -that twice in one year proclaimed to and commonly -invited (<i>i.e.</i>, in the dark days of the year, to wit, on the -feast day of Da Sinchell [26 March] in Killachy), -all persons, both Irish and Scottish, or rather -Albaines, to two general feasts of bestowing both -meat and moneys, with all manner of gifts, whereunto -gathered to receive gifts the matter of two -thousand and seven hundred persons, besides -gamesters and poor men, as it was recorded in a Roll -to that purpose, and that accompt was made thus, -<i>ut vidimus</i>—viz., the chief <i>kins</i> of each family of the -learned Irish was by Gilla-na-naemh MacÆgan’s -hand, the chief Judge to O’Connor, written in the -Roll, and his adherents and kinsmen, so that the -aforesaid number of 2,700 was listed in that Roll -with the Arts of <i>Dan</i>, or poetry, Music, and -Antiquity. And Maelin O’Maelconry, one of the -chief learned of Connacht, was the first written -in that Roll, and first paid and dieted, or set to supper, -and those of his name after him, and so forth every -one as he was paid he was written in that Roll, for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> -fear of mistake, and set down to eat afterwards. And -Margaret on the garrots of the great church of -Da Sinchell clad in cloth of gold, her dearest friends -about her, her clergy and Judges too. Calvagh -himself on horseback by the church’s outward side, -to the end that all things might be done orderly, -and each one served successively. And first of all -she gave two chalices of gold as offerings that day -on the Altar to God Almighty, and she also caused -to nurse or foster too [two] young orphans. But -so it was, we never saw nor heard neither the like of -that day nor comparable to its glory and solace. -And she gave the second inviting proclamation (to -every one that came not that day) on the feast day -of the Assumption of our Blessed Lady Mary in -harvest, at or in the Rath-Imayn, and so we have -been informed that that second day in Rath-Imayn -was nothing inferior to the first day.”</p> - -<p>We know something of the manner of these national -festivals, for the Irish were long practised in the -organizing of general conventions, and their poets -have left us some curious details. One tells of a -company of the Tyrone poets gathered in 1577 at -O’Neill’s house, where the poets sat ranged along a -hall hung with red on either side of the chief, and -standing up beside the host pledged him in ale quaffed -from golden goblets and beakers of horn; and having -told their song or story for a price, took their gifts -of honour. Another describes a greater company,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> -such an assembly as that of Margaret, invited in 1351 -to the castle of William O’Kelly.</p> - -<p>“The chroniclers of comely Ireland, it is a gathering -of a mighty host, the company is in the town; where -is the street of the chroniclers?</p> - -<p>“The fair, generous-hearted host have another -spacious avenue of white houses for the bardic companies -and the jugglers.</p> - -<p class="pc ls2">•••••••</p> - -<p>“Such is the arrangement of them, ample roads -between them; even as letters in their lines.</p> - -<p>“Each thread of road, bare, smooth, straight, firm, -is contained within two threads of smooth, conical -roofed houses.</p> - -<p>“The ridge of the bright-furrowed slope is a plain -lined with houses, behind the crowded plain is a fort, -as it were a capital letter.”</p> - -<p>The castle itself was worthy of one born into the -Irish inheritance, of the great lineage of their race: -far off it is recognised, the star-like mass of stone, its -outer smoothness like vellum—a castle which was the -standard of a mighty chieftain; bright is the stone -thereof, ruddy its timber.</p> - -<p>“Close is the joining of its timber and its lime-washed -stone; there is no gaping where they touch; -the work is a triumph of art.</p> - -<p>“There is much artistic ironwork upon the shining -timber: on the smooth part of each brown oaken -beam workmen are carving animal figures.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span></p> - -<p>“On the smooth wall of the warm mansion—amazing -in its beauty—is the track of a slender, pointed -pen; light, fresh, narrow.</p> - -<p>“The bardic companies of pleasant-meadowed Fóla, -and those of Scotland—a distant journey—will be -acquainted with one another after arriving in William’s -lofty castle.</p> - -<p>“Herein will come the seven grades who form the -shape of genuine poesy; the seven true orders of -poets, their entrance is an omen of expenditure.</p> - -<p>“Many coming to the son of Donnchadh from the -north, no less from the south, an assembly of scholars: -a billeting from west and east, a company seeking for -cattle.</p> - -<p>“There will be jurists, of legal decisions; wizards, -and good poets; the authors of Ireland, those who -compose the battle rolls, will be in his dwelling.</p> - -<p>“The musicians of Ireland—vast the flock—the -followers of every craft in general, the flood of companies, -side by side—the tryst of all is to one house.</p> - -<p>“In preparation for those who come to the house -there has been built—it is just to boast of it—according -to the desire of the master of the place, a castle fit for -apple-treed Emain.</p> - -<p>“There are sleeping booths for the company, -wrought of woven branches, on the bright surface of -the pleasant hills.</p> - -<p>“The poets of the Irish land are prepared to seek -O’Kelly. A mighty company is approaching his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> -house, an avenue of peaked hostels is in readiness for -them.</p> - -<p>“Hard by that—pleasant is the aspect—a separate -street has been appointed by William for the musicians, -that they may be ready to perform before him.</p> - -<p>“This lofty tower opposite to us is similar to the -Tower of Breoghan, from which the best of spears were -cast; from which Ireland was perceived from Spain.</p> - -<p>“By which the mighty progeny of Mil of Spain—a -contentious undertaking—contested the land with -sharp spear points, so that they became men of Ireland.</p> - -<p class="pc ls2">•••••••</p> - -<p>“From Greece to fair Spain, from Spain to Ireland, -such the wanderings of the mighty progeny of Mil, -the host of the seasoned, finely wrought weapons.”</p> - -<p class="p1">Such was the assembly, “the mound of grand -convention,” to which Margaret invited Irish scholars. -In such national festivals the passion of war was exchanged -for a nobler pride of life. The chief recognised -his place in the wide commonwealth of the -Gaelic people. Each one of the company of scholars -was reminded that whatever lord he served, Ireland -was his country and the fortunes of the race his care. -And the people themselves, sharing the festivities of -those joyous assemblies, and entertained by the best -that Ireland could give of music and literature, could -still exult through their successive generations in the -kinship of the whole race, Irish and Scots. Irishmen -to-day may remember that the scholars gathered by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> -Margaret’s munificence were among those to whom -we owe all that we now know of Irish history; they -were of the men who in the Irish revival of the -thirteenth and fourteenth centuries spent their lives -in searching out, preserving, copying, the records, -laws, and traditions of their people. They were the -lively translators of books from abroad, the students -of the modern sciences, the band of scholars whose -powerful influence was drawing the inhabitants of -Ireland, English and Irish, into one culture. Their -spirit is shewn in many sayings of the time.</p> - -<p>“If you praise one for nobility praise his father -likewise. If you praise one for his wealth, it is from -the world it comes. If you praise one for his strength, -know that sickness will render him weak, and if you -praise a person for his fairness or the beauty of his -body, know that the bloom of youth endures but a -short while, and that age will take it away. But if you -praise him for manners or learning, praise him as much -as you will ever praise anyone, for this is the thing -which comes not by heredity or through upbringing, -but God bestowed it upon him as a gift.”</p> - -<p>“Wisdom is life and ignorance is death, for of God’s -gifts upon earth there is none which is higher and more -comely and pure than wisdom, for to him who possesses -it, wisdom teaches the performance of good things.”</p> - -<p>Such were the people whose culture had to be -destroyed and their energies broken in the name of -civilization. Twelve years later (1445) Margaret<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> -with a company of patriots—MacGeoghagans and -others—hardened by long fighting, went on pilgrimage -to St. James of Compostella, the shrine most dear to -the Irish people, in the “fair Spain” whence their -race had come. These pilgrimages are interesting, as -showing the travel of Irishmen to Europe. In the -<i>Cambridge Modern History</i> Ireland is described as “a -mere <i>terra incognita</i>,” cut off by its barbarism, and by -its position from the larger influences of Europe: “of -one Irish chieftain it was placed on record that he -had accomplished the hazardous journey to Rome and -back.” In this half century alone (1396-1452) we -read of two companies of chiefs and men of the poorer -sort journeying to Compostella (1445, 1452), and of -two companies who travelled to Rome (1396, 1444); -and apparently of yet a third company, who brought -back to Ireland tales they had heard of the French -wars “from prisoners at Rome” (1451). By land and -sea traders and scholars were crossing and re-crossing -to the Continent, not only from one part of Ireland -but from every province: “Do not repent,” men said, -“for going to acquire knowledge from a wise man, for -merchants fare over the sea to add to their wealth.”</p> - -<p>Margaret returned to the distractions of a new -conflict and the treacheries of a false peace (1445). -Calvagh and the Berminghams were again making -“a great war” with the English, cutting much corn -and taking many prisoners, “and they made peace -afterwards;” on which MacGeoghagan, just home from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> -his pilgrimage, went with others under protection of -the Baron of Delvin “where the English were”—that -is to the Governor’s castle at Trim. “But the -English not regarding any peace took them all -prisoners.” MacGeoghagan was after that set at -liberty, his son being given as hostage. “And -Margaret, O’Carroll’s daughter, went to Trim and gave -all the English prisoners for MacGeoghagan’s son and -the son’s son of Art, and that unadvised to Calvagh, -and she brought them home.” It was an act as free -and brave as that of her daughter Finola, who had -made peace for the O’Donnell land. Such women of -great soul stand out on the stage of Irish history, -nobly praised by the poets.</p> - -<p class="pp6q p1"> -“She is sufficiently distinguished from every side<br /> -By her checking of plunder, her hatred of injustice,<br /> -By her serene countenance, which causes the trees<br /> -To bend with fruit; by her tranquil mind.”</p> - -<p class="p1">The story of Margaret was closing in sorrow. -Finola, “the fairest and most famous woman in all -Ireland beside her own mother,” after the death of -O’Donnell in the fifth year of his captivity in an -English prison, married Aedh Boy O’Neill, “who -was thought to be King of Ireland,” “the most -renowned, hospitable, and valourous of the princes in -his time, and who had planted more of the lands of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> -the English in despite of them than any other man of -his day;” he was wounded to death on Spy-Wednesday -(1444), “and we never heard since Christ was betrayed, -on such a day a better man.” A little later Finola, -“renouncing all worldly vanity betook herself into the -austere devout life in the monastery of Killeigh; and -the blessing of guests and strangers, and poor and rich, -of both poet-philosophers and archi-poet-philosophers -be on her in that life” (1447). The next year -Margaret’s son, Cathal, was slain by the English of -Leinster. Calvagh, leading the Irish of Leinster in a -great army, marched to Killculinn near the hill of -Alenn on the border of the old Offaly, and there, his -leg broken, his sword and helmet torn from him, the -English horsemen were about to bring him into -Castlemartin when “Cathal’s son returned courageously -and rescued him forceably.” Another son -Felim, heir to the lordship of Offaly, a man of great -fame and renown, lay dying of long decline, on the -night that Margaret herself passed away (1451). -“A gracious year this year was, though the glory and -solace of the Irish was set, but the glory of heaven -was amplified and extolled therein.” “The best -woman of her time in Ireland”—such was the Irish -record of that lofty and magnanimous soul. “God’s -blessing, the blessing of all saints, and every our blessing -from Jerusalem to Inis Gluair be on her going to -Heaven, and blessed be he that will read and hear -this for blessing her soul.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span></p> - -<p>Margaret left her husband to the gallant and hopeless -struggle for the saving of Irish civilization. The -next year he too made pilgrimage to Compostella -(1452). But disaster gathered round him. MacGeoghagan, -the most famous and renowned among -the captains of Ireland, was slain, and his head carried -to Trim and Dublin. Two sons of Calvagh were killed -in war. His daughter Mòr, the wife of Clanricard, -died of a fall from her horse; with her ended the -system of alliances by which Calvagh had fortified -himself west of the Shannon and in Ulster (1452). -His old enemy Ormond, the best captain of the English -in Ireland, he for whom the sun of old stood still, had -come back to the Irish wars. He had been called to -London in 1447 on a charge of treason, for trial by -battle with his chief foe the Prior of Kilmainham—Ormond -by the King’s leave staying at Smithfield -“for his breathing and more ease” while he trained -for the fight; the Prior learning “certain points of -arms” from a fishmonger paid by the King. But the -royal favour prevailed, Ormond made clear his desire -to exterminate the Irish, and without trial or battle -was declared “whole and untainted in fame.” He -returned to ravage Kildare and Meath in war with -the rival house of the FitzGeralds, earls of Kildare, -and to make a last triumphant march round the -bordering Irish tribes. Calvagh was forced to “come -into his house” and make terms of peace (1452). -The peace was made null by Ormond’s death a month<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> -later, and Calvagh “went out into the wilderness of -Kildare” where the new deputy with his cavalry -surrounded him unawares. Teige, his son, “most -courageously worked to rescue his father from the -English horsemen; but O’Connor’s horse fell thrice -down to the ground, and Teige put him up twice, -and O’Connor himself would not give his consent -the third time to go with him, so that then O’Connor -was taken prisoner.” The same year he was released. -But his wars were practically over. In 1458 he was -buried by his father Murchadh and his wife Margaret in -Killeigh; defender of his country for sixty years, and -for thirty-seven years lord of Offaly. Last of all, -Finola, after forty-six years of the religious life (1493), -rested also in the splendid abbey of Killeigh.</p> - -<p>Of the glories of that abbey, of its rich glass, its -gold and silver work, its sculptured tombs, its organs, -nothing now remains but a bare fragment of wall. In -the year that Silken Thomas and his five uncles were -hanged at Tyburn (1537), Lord Leonard Grey wasted -the land of O’Connor Faly, who had married the -sister of Earl Thomas; making him “more like a -beggar, than he that ever was a captain or ruler of a -country.” Vast quantities of corn stored up at -Killeigh were carried to the Pale; and from the -ruined Abbey Grey furnished out the buildings of -Maynooth, which had been stormed and taken from -Earl Thomas two years before; carrying off from its -sack a pair of organs and other necessary things for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> -the King’s College at Maynooth, and as much glass -as was needed to glaze the windows of the College -and of His Grace’s Castle there. The tombs of the -great house of O’Connor Faly were utterly destroyed -so that no trace of them remains.</p> - -<p>The destruction of the great abbey was the -symbol to the Leinster Irish of their final desolation, -the ruin which submerged the whole people of Ireland -on the fall of the House of Kildare. Then began in the -rich plains of Leinster the ruthless policy of wholesale -extirpation of the Irish old inhabitants, to “plant” -the country anew from across the sea. The fruitful -land became to Irish eyes a vast cemetery of their dead. -In their lamentation they remembered that Brian -Boru’s grave was there, and the grave of his son “that -bore the brunt of weapon-fight”: and still the graves -were multiplied. “Great are the charges that all -others have against the land of Leinster”—a poet of -the O’Byrnes sang.... “Charges against her all -Ireland’s nobles have: that beneath the salmon-abounding -Leinster country’s soil—region of shallow -rivers foamy-waved—there is many a grave of their -kings and of their heirs apparent.” “The red-handed -Leinster province” holds the bones of the long line -of O’Connor Faly, men and women who adorned their -country with courage and piety, art and learning.</p> - -<p class="pp6q p1">“They shall be remembered for ever,<br /> -They shall be speaking for ever,<br /> -The people shall hear them for ever.”</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER IV</h2> - -<p class="pch">A CASTLE AT ARDGLASS.</p> - -<p class="drop-cap04">THE “island of Lecale,” as the Elizabethan -English called it, lies in the County of Down, -surrounded on three sides by the sea, and on -the fourth bounded by the Quoile and Blackstaff -rivers. The northern coast of the “island” almost -closes the mouth of Lough Cuan, now Strangford -Lough, leaving but a narrow strait for boats to pass. -On the south it bounds the Bay of Dundrum, across -which rises the huge granite mass of the Mourne -Mountains.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-130.jpg" width="400" height="688" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p> - -<p>The fruitful plain of Lecale, defended and enriched -by the sea, drew to it inhabitants from the -first peopling of Ireland. All Irish history is reflected -there. The in-comers of prehistoric times -raised the great stone circles of Ballyno, that stupendous -monument to a great hero and a solemn worship—none -more astonishing in Ireland. On a wide slope, -completely shut off and secluded by the higher ground, -the rings of massive stones lie confronting alone the -eminence on which is lifted up against the heavens -the imposing mound of Erenagh, loftiest of the line of -earthworks that surround Dundrum Bay. From the -time of an immemorial Nature worship pilgrims -have assembled, even as they gathered down to -our own times, where the streams of Struel pour -abundantly from the rock, to seek cleansing in the -bounteous waters on Midsummer Day, and at the -festival of Lughnasadh or Lugh’s fair on the first of -August. The Red Branch of Emain sent its heroes to -hold the two main passages into the “island,” and the -inlets of the sea where trade was borne. On the -northern port, known to Ptolemy as Dunum, where -the river Quoile widens to Strangford Lough, Celtchair -of the Battles made his entrenchment of Rath -Celtchair or Dun Lethglasse, on a hill rising from -the flat ground and swamps of the river. At the -head of Dundrum Bay, where the sea narrows over a -stretch of shoals and shallows to the inner bay, another -Red Branch knight raised on a steep rock his commanding -fort, Dún Rudraidhe, and left his name also to -the ocean tide, Tonn Rudraidhe, whose waters were -lifted up into one of the Three Waves of Ireland that -sounded their warning to the land when danger -threatened, or echoed the moan in battle of a dying -hero’s shield. Here, in this place of Celtic legend, -relics of bronze and pottery and stone can still be picked -up in plenty on the sand dunes. Round the circuit -of the bay half-a-dozen ancient earthworks may -still be seen, connected with strands or harbours by -old paths.</p> - -<p>With the dawn of a new age the wanderings of St.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> -Patrick gave to Lecale new memories—the wells which -he blessed for the new faith; the wooden barn at Saul -where he set up his church on the slope above the -marsh along which the highway ran from Strangford -to Down, and where the angel called him to die; the -Dun of Patrick, or Downpatrick, given him for a -Christian settlement on the old rath of Celtchair, -where according to later legend he was buried, and -where a great granite boulder now marks the traditional -grave. Amid the majestic monuments of pagan heroes -the lowly pioneers of the new faith raised their little -buildings. The spit of land that separates the bay of -Tonn Rudraidhe from that of Ardglass is fringed with -low rocks black and jagged; and this point of danger -to mariners, now marked by a lighthouse, was in early -Christian times sanctified by a church. A tiny harbour -cuts through the keen-edged rocks to a little strand -where a couple of curraghs might lie: and there by -the well the little company built their church—a -small stone building twenty feet by thirteen, with the -two narrow windows, one east and one south, to throw -on the altar the light of the rising and the mid-day -sun, and the western door for the departing day and -the hour of benediction till the sun should make his -circuit to the east. The name of St. John’s Point -recalls that old dedication, and the early Irish devotion -to their special saint, the beloved disciple of the Lord. -Across the bay might be seen the austere cell of St. -Donard lifted high, near 3,000 feet, on the topmost -point of Slieve-Donard, dominating all Lecale, where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> -an inspired solitary transformed the ancient pagan -tradition to a new use, that as mighty men of old -were in death commemorated by carns on the high -hills, so on the mountain a Christian would shew afar -the place of his burial to the world, and the place of -his resurrection.</p> - -<p>Lecale was soon filled with religious settlements and -schools. Lying at the entrance to Lough Cuan of the -hundred islands, now Lough Strangford, where a busy -population tilled the fertile slopes, and sent out -innumerable boats for the celebrated salmon-fishing, -or for traffic, Lecale was as it were the guardian of -their sanctuaries. Close to Downpatrick lies Crannach -Dún-leth-glaisse, “the wooded island of Dún-leth-glaisse,” -now known as Cranny island; there Mochuaróc -maccu Min Semon, whom the Romans called the -“doctor” of the whole world, lived early in the -seventh century, and wrote down the calculus which -his master Sinlan, Abbot of Bangor (+610), had -first among the Irish learned from a certain wise -Greek. Farther north, some twelve or fifteen miles -from Ardglass, lies Inis-Mahee, where behind the -boulder-strewn shore and the heavy seaweed thrown -up by the waters on meadows and ploughed land -over which sea-birds love to hover, past the harbour -and the rude boat-shelter cut in the rock, we enter -on a retreat where the light seems more translucent -than elsewhere, the silence more penetrating and peace -more profound, the colour as that of an everlasting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> -spring—a space of wild wood, resonant with the song -of birds, where the flowers spring thicker than the grass. -There St. Mochaoi (Mahee) raised his wooden church -about 450 <span class="smcap">a.d.</span>, first abbot and bishop. Legend told -that as he was cutting wattles for his building, he heard -a bright bird, more beautiful than the birds of the -world, singing on the blackthorn near him, and asked -who it was that made such a song. “A man of the -people of my Lord,” answered the bird. “Hail,” -said Mochaoi, “and for why that, oh bird that is an -angel?” “I am come by command to encourage -you in your good work, and because of the love that -is in your heart to amuse you for a time with my sweet -singing.” “I am glad of that,” said Mochaoi. One -hundred and fifty years passed as a moment while he -listened to the heavenly song; and when the bird -vanished and he lifted up his bundle of wattles to carry -home, a stone church stood there before him, and -strange monks. They made him abbot once more; -and there at last “a sleep without decay of the body -Mochaoi slept.” The foundations of the little church -with walls over three feet thick, the remnant of the -round tower, the traces of other buildings on the -west of the island hill, the well closed in, the triple -ring of earthen entrenchments faced with stone -that encircled the slopes of the island like a cashel, -the port with its rough stone work into which “ships -from Britain” sailed—these still tell of the days when -Inis-Mahee was a school of religion and learning for all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> -the district, where the famous St. Finian of Moville -came to study. From the round tower the whole -lough could be seen as far as Lecale and the passage -to the sea. There must have been then, as there was -later, much intercourse between the sea-going people -of Mahee and Ardglass. For Ardglass was the port of -the neighbouring monastery whose site we may still -trace at Dunsford. A Protestant church was planted -over it in Reformation times; but an old cross slab -may still be seen, and from the graveyard there has -been rescued an ancient stone font, and carried to the -new church of the older faith; and here too an ancient -Celtic cross from an old cemetery, of the type of -those found at Clonmacnois, has been set over the -church door.</p> - -<p>Lecale was a rich land to plunder when the Danes -descended on it. Not a creek that they did not visit. -Their raids were followed by later raids of their -Norman kinsmen, when in 1177 de Courcy came -marching to the conquest of Ulster, dreaming himself -the knight foretold by Merlin, and willing “to accommodate -himself in dress, in gesture, in his shield, and -even his white horse, to the prophecies; so that he -looked more like a Merry-Andrew than a warrior.” -The seizing of Lecale and Downpatrick was his first -adventure; before a year was over (1178) he had -attached Mahee to an English monastery, peopled it -with monks from the other side of the sea, and along -with Roger, the new lord of Dunsford, endowed it with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> -large tracts of land about Dunsford and in Lecale. -In spite of new wealth the spirit and fortunes of Mahee -died for ever under foreign rule.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-136.jpg" width="300" height="602" - alt="" - title="" /> - <div class="caption"><p class="pc">CROSS SLAB AT DUNSFORD.</p> -</div></div> - -<p>By de Courcy and -his followers the island of Lecale was ringed with -castles from the great keep of Dundrum (“it is one -of the strongest holds I ever saw,” said Lord Leonard -Grey) to Downpatrick at the passage of the Quoile. -The memory of one of his Norman knights is preserved -in Dunsford church, a grave-slab with a fine cross -and sword cut deeply on it, perhaps the tombstone -of “Rogerus de Dunsford.” The strong rush of -waters that poured through the narrow neck of Lough<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> -Cuan at every incoming or outgoing tide, once guarded -on either side by earthen entrenchments that may -still be seen, was now held by a Norman keep at -Strangford; but the towers of the coast line from -Ardglass to Down—Kilclief, Walsh’s castle, Audley -castle, Quoile castle, and the rest—each set at the -head of a little bay, were evidently planted there for -trade; and all probably on the sites of older Irish -communities. Thus at Kilclief, while Norman cross -slabs tell of de Courcy’s plantation, there is in the -churchyard a long forgotten tombstone marked with -a Celtic cross of the type of Clonmacnois. How many -were thrown out to build fences, or to be broken on -the roads! The activity of trade along the coast even -as late as the eighteenth century may be seen by the -remains at Quoile harbour near Down, the custom-house, -the great stores, the houses of merchants and -officials of the harbour.</p> - -<p>In the 106 miles of coast that lie between Kingstown -mole and Belfast bay, Ardglass is the one harbour -where a ship can enter at all stages of the tide without -a local pilot. It must ever have been a chief harbour -of eastern Ulster—a port open at all times of the tide -and sheltered from every wind save one, when boats -could take refuge in the southern port of Killough, -“the haven of Ardglass,” linked with it by an old path -along the shore. A wall was thrown round the little -town of Ardglass strengthened by seven towers, four of -which may still be seen; and within these defences a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> -central castle was set on the rocky edge of the port, -where boats could be pulled up to the very door. -The harbour was the outlet for the trade of the rich -agricultural and wool-producing lands of Down, -Tyrone, and Armagh, and traffic was carried on in -wines, cloth, kerseys, all kinds of fish, wool, and tallow. -There is evidence of trade with France in the beautiful -altar-vessel found at Bright, of gilt bronze and many -shaded enamel, fine Limoges work of about 1200 <span class="smcap">a.d.</span></p> - -<p>With the revival of Irish life in the fourteenth century, -and the gatherings of English merchants to Irish -fairs, commerce increased and flourished. Richard <span class="smcap">ii.</span> -gave the port of Ardglass and its trade as a rich reward -to the Gascon commander, Janico d’Artois, his bravest -leader against Art MacMurchadh (1398). It is said -that a trading company with a grant from Henry <span class="smcap">iv.</span> -built the famous “New Works.” Close to the harbour -ran a range of buildings two hundred and fifty feet -long, with three square towers, walls three feet thick, -pierced on the sea-side by only narrow loop-holes, and -opening into the “bawn” with sixteen square windows, -and fifteen arched door-ways of cut stone that gave -entrance to eighteen rooms on the ground floor and -eighteen above. It is still possible to trace the line -of the New Works, the doors and windows, and the -remains of the towers. There seems to have been a -local school of art continued from the earlier centuries: -fragments of a Virgin and Child of old Dunsford made -by Irish hands of Irish stone from Scrabo at the north -end of Strangford Lough, broken and scattered for -ages, have been recovered and pieced together and set -on the wall of the new Dunsford church, where it now -stands in its old grace and dignity as the only example -in Ulster, perhaps in Ireland, of such a pre-Reformation -statue not utterly destroyed. All the churches of -Lecale, old men told a traveller about 1643, had before -the burnings of Captain Edward Cromwell been lightly -roofed, probably with fine open wood-carving, and -highly adorned with sacred statues and images.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-138.jpg" width="400" height="261" - alt="" - title="" /> - <div class="caption"><p class="pc"><span class="smcap">The Castle of Ardglass, showing the “New Works.”</span><br /> -(From Grose.)</p> -</div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span></p> - -<p>From a few fragments we can only guess what -wealth was once stored up in Lecale. Wars of Irish -and English raged round a harbour so important, -as the chiefs of Ulster pressed down against the -strangers over a land which had once at Dun Lethglasse -held a chief fort of old Ulster kings. O’Neill -burned Ardglass of the d’Artois house in 1433: in -1453 Henry O’Neill of Clannaboy was driven back -from the town by the help of a Dublin fleet. At -the close of the fifteenth century the English almost -disappeared out of Lecale. Garrett the Great, Earl -of Kildare (1477-1513), claimed Ardglass and the -lands about it as heir through his mother to d’Artois, -and gained supremacy there—a part of the far-seeing -policy by which the house of Kildare was gradually -widening its influence from sea to sea, from Ardglass -to Sligo and the lower Shannon. His son Garrett -Oge had, by grant of Henry <span class="smcap">viii.</span> (1514), the customs -of Strangford and Ardglass, to be held by service<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> -of one red rose annually; and still after four centuries -heirs of the Fitzgerald house remain at the -entrance of Strangford Lough. After the revolt of -this Garrett’s son, Silken Thomas (1535), the English -marched through the country, burning Lecale. The -fall of the Kildares, allies and relatives of the O’Neills, -brought a revival of the O’Neill wars for Ardglass, -and of the English campaigns. Lord Leonard Grey -has left a description in the State Papers (III. 155) -of his expedition in 1539: “and so with the host -we set forward into the said country and took all -the castles there and delivered them to Mr. Treasurer -who hath warded the same ... the said Lecayll -is environed round about with the sea and no way -to go by land into said country but only by the castle -of Dundrome.... I assure your lordship I have -been in many places and countries in my days and -yet did I never see for so much a pleasanter plot of -ground than the said Lecayll, for the commodity -of the land and divers islands in the same environed -with the sea which were soon reclaimed and inhabited....”</p> - -<p>It was in this “reclaiming” that the Deputy -ravaged the east coast, took Dundrum, and the castles -of Lecale and Ards; profaned S. Patrick’s Church at -Down, turning it into a stable and destroying the -monuments of Patrick, Brigid, and Columcille, and -“after plucked it down, and shipped the notable ring -of bells that did hang in the steeple, meaning to have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> -them sent to England: had not God of his justice -prevented his iniquity by sinking the vessel and -passengers.” Queen Mary restored Ardglass to the -next Earl, Gerald, son of Silken Thomas, the boy -who at his father’s capture had escaped “tenderly -wrapped” in a turf-basket, and after long perils and -sorrows and exile in Rome, Italy, and France, had -at last returned, an obedient Angliciser under the -Catholic queen (1553). Under Queen Elizabeth, who -was in Irish belief illegitimate and a usurper, Shane -O’Neill (1558-1567) cast out the English, and -“forcibly patronised himself in all Lecale.” Ardglass -seems to have come into the hands of the Irish, and -trade was busy, for in Shane’s great cellars at Dundrum -he was said to have commonly stored two hundred -tuns of wine.</p> - -<p>Thirty years after Shane’s death (1597), a plan for -out-rooting the Irish and planting an English race -was drawn up by a clergyman of “the Church of -Ireland,” James Bell, Vicar of Christ Church in -Dublin, and dedicated by him to Lord Burghley. -He was the faithful representative of a political -establishment, deep-stained with the blood and sorrow -of the Irish. Here is his proposal, preserved in the -British Museum: “The Crown should divide the -land into lots of 300 acres, at £5 yearly rent, for -<i>English</i> undertakers, who should maintain 10 men -(English) and 10 women, who now live in England -by begging and naughty shifts; while single to have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> -two acres, married, four acres of the 300—which -was to be circumvallated by a deep trench or fosse.... -If upon Tirone’s lands 2,000 English families -be planted, her Majesty’s profit would at once be -£10,000; besides, having 4,000 soldiers at hand -without pay, for every two of the ten men should -serve in turn three months each year—the act would -be <i>motherly</i> and honourable for her Highness. To -the bishops, there should be given, in fee simple, -1,200 acres, at £20 a year, upon every 300 acres of -which the ten men and women are to be maintained, -upon the like conditions; the inferior clergy, down -to parson and curate, to have 600 acres upon proportionate -rent and service. If her Majesty’s heart -be moved by this device, there shall not be a beggar -in England; a work of great profit, great strength, -and great glory to the Queen, great love to her subjects, -and singular mercy towards her meanest subjects, -in that she giveth house and lands in Ireland to those -that, in England, have not a hole to hide their heads in. -The trench round about would barr Irish rebels -coming suddenly trotting and jumping upon the good -English subjects.” In the proposed commonwealth -no room for sustenance was left for the Irish people -of the land, fenced off from every place of food. -Loyal to her Majesty, James Bell was yet more loyal -to the material predominance of his Church. Among -farmers owning three hundred acres with ten families -of labourers, the Church of Ireland was to have a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> -stately position with its inferior curates owning twice -as much as their best neighbours, and the bishops -four times as much. It was but an act of gratitude. -“I will not say as Joshua and Caleb said, if the Lord -have a favour unto us; but I will say, the Lord having -a special love unto us, God hath given Ireland to her -Majesty—a country most sweet, most wholesome, and -most fruitful to dwell in; so full of springs, so full of -rivers, so full of lakes, so full of fish, so full of cattle, -and of fowl, that there is not a country upon the face -of the earth more beneficial to the life of man.”</p> - -<p>Thus plans of settlement and plantation were -abroad when Mountjoy led his army over Lecale. -The castle of Dundrum surrendered to him (1601). -“His Lordship ... rode to Downpatrick, and thence -by St. Patrick’s Well to Ardglass, being six miles, in -which town two castles yielded to the Queen, and the -warders, upon their lives saved, gave up their arms. -A third castle there had been held for the Queen -all the time of the Rebellion, by one Jordan, never -coming out of the same for three years past, till now -by his Lordship’s coming he was freed.” This was -the castle on the port, which was evidently provisioned -from the sea, the only stronghold left in Ardglass for -the English, and called Castle Jordan from its defender. -After this subjection of Ardglass, Sir Richard Morrison, -with five hundred foot and fifty horse, was left at -Downpatrick as governor of Lecale, while Mountjoy -carried on war against Tyrone.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></p> - -<p>A picture of life in a Lecale castle at this time has -been left to us by Captain Josias Bodley, of Mountjoy’s -army. From Armagh to Newry he journeyed through -a famished country where for a whole year Chichester’s -and Morrison’s troops had been employed in completely -devastating the land, so that O’Neill should -get provision neither for man nor horse; and the -poverty he saw in Newry shows their success. Thence -skirting the Mourne Mountains he stopped at the -island stronghold of Magennis in the lake at Castlewellan, -and passing through a land of ancient cromlechs -and souterrains, of earthworks ringed and conical, -and of early Norman castles, entered Lecale. The -scene of the final merry-makings, the Governor’s -Castle at Downpatrick, was probably the fort which -stood at the foot of the hill, the last remains of which, -a tall square tower, were removed a few years ago. -It was evidently not unlike the castle at Ardglass, -and life was the same in both of them. The stairs led -first to the guard-room, with its dresser laden with -dishes, and a wide fire-place where heavy pots hung -from iron crooks, and cooks were busy with interminable -cooking of the fish and fowls and game for -which Lecale was famous, pasties of marrow and -plums, Irish curds, and other dishes from France, -there designated “Quelq’ choses” (“kickshaws”), -which were reckoned “vulgar” by the English officers, -as being perhaps too little substantial. Thence the -stairs led to the large hall where in the huge fire-place<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> -logs were burning, even as in Castle Shane of Ardglass -to-day, “the height of our chins, as the saying is.” -The hall was comfortable, for of a night one may -sit in the Ardglass room with the unglazed windows -in the thick walls on every side, and the door open -to the winding stairs, and no flicker of candles betrays -a draught: the wind seems carried up the turret -staircase through the roof. The company in the hall -amused themselves with smoking, cards, backgammon, -and dice. There was much drinking of healths—many -political pledges no doubt as in modern Ulster, -bitter tests to Irish companions when the English -officers might call on a newly-submitted chief such -as Magennis to join in a “loyal” toast: Bodley -had apparently taken part in some scenes of scruple -and silence on the part of honourable men, “of -all things the most shameful,” he says. For any -special entertainment the servants crowded into the -same room as the masters—the cook’s wife, the scullion, -and all; and played to amuse them a game still common -in the north. There came, too, the Irish Mummers -or Rhymers, making their Christmas rounds with -torches and drums, wearing the traditional pointed -caps, and carrying their profits in the base money, -one part of silver to three of brass, which Elizabeth -forced upon Ireland in favour of her avaricious -Treasurer there, Sir George Carey. Of this money, -such as it was, the Rhymers were “cleaned out” by -the officers in a game of dice, and sent on their long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> -walk home across Lecale two hours after the winter -midnight, “without money; out of spirits; out of -order; without even saying ‘Farewell’”—a strange -contrast to the old Irish welcome to travellers and -wandering players—a gallant hospitality at the -Christmas time of English officers, for whom no season -of mercy was sacred, and no obligation of honour, -straight dealing, or courtesy binding so far as Irishmen -were concerned. The rhymers may have sung as they -took their way the fame of the hero-warrior of their -people: “Were but the brown leaf which the wood -sheds from it gold, were but the white billows silver, -Finn would have given it all away.” They may have -recalled the lament of the old Irish poet who saw the -havoc made by “outlanders” of the ordered hospitality -of Irish society. “At the end of the final world -[there will be] a refuge to poverty and stinginess and -grudging.” They could not see in the far future the -open castle of Ardglass.</p> - -<p>Cards, dice, drinking, and smoking filled up the -time of the English visitors, with strolls of curiosity -to the Wells and Chair of St. Patrick at Struel, or -the huge entrenchments of Celtchair of the Battles. -For the night there was a single sleeping-room above -the hall, a bed-chamber “arranged in the Irish -fashion” with a good and soft bed of down for the -owner, and thin pallets thrown on the floor for the -company. The dogs of Captain Constable shared -the room with the rest, after the Yorkshire manner,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> -leaping on the down bed and howling at their -rejection.</p> - -<p>When Morrison left Downpatrick there came -Captain Edward Cromwell—descendant of Thomas -Cromwell, minister of ill-fame to Ireland under -Henry <span class="smcap">viii.</span>—to be Governor of Lecale (1605): “this -son of earth and foul spot on the human race,” by -whose army the cathedral of Down was burned, -and in that conflagration sacred monuments and -very ancient writings; and many other churches too, -very few of which have been since then restored. -The very tombstones were used in building houses -and fences; while the people watching lamented the -devastation of what had been to them and their fathers -“the place of their resurrection,” so that they might -go in the fellowship of their saints “to the great -assembly of Doom.” To Edward Cromwell the people -gave the name “Maol-na-teampull” for his impiety, -and numbers of men born in that terrible year of ruin -reckoned their age over sixty years after from the days -of his sacrilege, as if from a national visitation. In -those days perhaps the Irish inhabitants were driven -off the fertile land to the very rim of the sea, to set -their cabins, as may still be seen, on the last refuge of -the shingle itself round the Dundrum bay, or to -cluster together on some bare crag.</p> - -<p>After the wars of Mountjoy and of Cromwell and -the plantations of their officers the fortunes of Lecale, -as of all Ireland, declined. With the final ruin of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> -O’Neills the clouded title of the Fitzgeralds revived, -in a dim shadow of their old pride. A branch of the -family built, in the eighteenth century, a sober mansion -over the “New Works” that had been raised when -Ireland claimed her right to trade, and around the -towers that marked ancient centuries of battle. Even -there the old Fitzgerald fires of patriotism and indignation -at inhuman wrong broke out anew. The -character of Lord Edward Fitzgerald is as little comprehended -as the spirit of his country. A Protestant -brought up in the days of penal laws and Protestant -ascendancy; a member of the great house of the -Duke of Leinster in Ireland and the Duke of Richmond -in England; trained in an army fighting for “the -Empire” against American “rebels”; his life till -twenty-seven was chiefly spent in France, America, -and England, amid military and aristocratic society—conditions -that have made many a man cosmopolitan, -denationalised, and indifferent. The liberal traditions -of his father, the first Duke of Leinster, had -practically died with him when the boy was only ten. -Ardently devoted to his family, there was not one -of them, or one of his early friends, to whom he could -speak of his national beliefs. And out of all this came -the lover of the poor and the oppressed, the friend -of all men, the intrepid martyr to the freedom of -Catholic Ireland, dying alone in prison with a prayer -for the salvation of all who died at the hangman’s -hands for the sake of Ireland. No wonder that the -people of Ardglass still show the tower chamber in -the old castle which was searched for Lord Edward, -the room in the great house where he was said to -have hidden, the rude bridge that gave him shelter -from the yeomanry, and the desolate site of Bone -castle where he slept for one night, in an ancient -possession of his family.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-148.jpg" width="400" height="267" - alt="" - title="" /> - <div class="caption"><p class="pc"><span class="smcap">View of Ardglass from Ringfadd</span></p> -</div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p> - -<p>In the course of the gloomy years that followed the -old house fell into decay. Last June (1911) the whole -derelict property, long deserted by its landlords, both -land and village, was sold for the benefit of English -mortgagees and bought by local people. Nothing -more “loyal” could be imagined than the apparent -community of Ardglass—nothing more to the heart -of the party in Down and Antrim of superiority and -supremacy which claims sole right to a place in the sun. -The Imperial flag flew from a high-lifted residence, on -the site of two of the old forts. The FitzGerald house -and demesne were bought by a golf club, reputed to be -faithful above all to English interests. The old castle -was bid for by a spirit-dealer of the right persuasion, -as a suitable storage place for whiskey. Not a breath -as to the destiny of Ardglass and its fishermen disturbed -the peace of Orangemen and stalwart -Protestants of the ascendancy.</p> - -<p>It occurred, however, to a good Irishman and antiquary, -a Protestant from Belfast, that there might be -a nobler use for the Castle of Ardglass. He bought -the castle. He replaced the vanished floors and ceilings<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> -with beams and boards of Irish timber. A few broken -pieces of masonry were repaired. The inside walls -were left in their rough state, merely dashed with -white. At the door was laid the anvil of an Irish smith -to be held between the knees, a stone with the centre -cut out and fitted with iron. The great fire-places -were filled with logs from a local plantation. Over -the flaming fires huge pots steamed, hanging from iron -crooks. Old Ulster ironwork for kitchen use hung -round the hearth. A dresser, such as Captain Bodley -might have seen, was stocked with pewter plates and -old crockery, brought, like the ironwork, by willing -givers who possessed any relic of Ireland of former days. -Tables of Irish oak, and Irish carved benches of the old -fashion, and Irish cupboards and settles furnished the -rooms. They were lighted by Irish-made candles in -the iron taper-holders of over a hundred years ago, -by a very remarkable bronze chandelier of the -eighteenth century, and by a still more striking -floreated cross and circle of lights, made in the penal -days by some local metal-worker with the ancient -Irish tradition of ornament still with him. In the -chief room a few old prints and portraits hung on the -walls, amid new banners representing O’Neill, -O’Donnell, and the black Raven of the Danes; most -prominent of all, Shane O’Neill himself, standing -proud in his full height in regal saffron kilt and flowing -mantle, a fine design by a young Irish artist of Belfast. -A tiny round-apsed oratory opened off this chief room. -It was hung with golden Irish linen; between the -lights on the altar stood a small crucifix of the penal -times, and interlaced Irish patterns hung on the walls. -The columbary in one of the towers, perhaps unique -in early castles, with its seventy-five triangular recesses -or resting-places for the pigeons built in the walls, -and entries to north and south—one a square opening -with sill inside and alighting slab outside, the other a -space cut below the narrow window exactly the size -through which a bird might pass—was again stocked -with pigeons given by a local admirer, and the tower -named after St. Columba. From a pole flew the flag -of O’Neill, the Red Right Hand, in memory of old -days. In three months the deserted ruin was transformed -into a dwellinghouse, where Mr. Bigger and -his helpers could sleep and cook and live. The workmen -in a fury of enthusiasm worked as if a master’s -eye was on them at every minute.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-150.jpg" width="400" height="524" - alt="" - title="" /> - <div class="caption"><p class="pc"><span class="smcap">Castle Séan, Ardglass.</span></p> -</div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p> - -<p>The design of the new owner was to bring the people -of Ardglass and the Lecale of Down into touch with the -Irish past, and give them some conception of the -historic background of their life. For it must be -remembered that through all conquests and plantations -the people of the soil of Lecale have still remained -of the old stock, an Irish people who have a natural -country to love. For them there need be none of the -perplexities which must confront those who in their -successive generations of life in Ireland still consent -to be designated by <i>The Times</i> as “the British Colony<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> -on the other side of St. George’s Channel.” I was -present on the Saturday night when the ruin was -opened to the people. There was no moon, and a gale -was blowing down the Irish Sea—a wind from the -north. A little platform was set against the sheltered -west wall of the castle. A beacon flamed on one of -the towers, and the ceremony began with a display of -limelight pictures on the wall. I was in the middle of -an audience packed as tight as men could stand in the -castle yard and across the wide street. There had been -no public announcements and no advertisement. But -word had passed round the people of Lecale, and it -seemed as if thousands had gathered under the resplendent -stars. “I do not mean to show you,” said -Mr. Bigger, “China or Japan; I mean to show you -Ardglass.” The audience went wild with delight to -see their fishermen and women, their local celebrities, -the boats laden with fish, the piles on the pier, the -Donegal girls packing them, the barrels rolled out to -the tramp steamers. But the delight reached its -utmost height at views of the sea taken from a boat -out fishing, the dawn of day, the early flight of birds, the -swell of the great waters. The appeal of beauty -brought a rich answer from the Irish crowd.</p> - -<p>Then there was Irish dancing and singing on the -little platform, with the grey wall of the castle as a -background and the waving ivy branches and tree -shadows in the limelight, a scene of marvellous light -and shade. But the great moment of all came when a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> -huge Irish flag was flung out on the night wind from -the Columba tower. I have never seen so magic a -sight. Lights blazed from the castle-roof, rockets -flamed across the sky, and in the midst suddenly -appeared like a vision among the host of stars (for no -flag-staff could be seen against the night-sky) a gleaming -golden harp hanging secure in immensity, crossed -and re-crossed by balls and flames of fire, so that it -seemed to escape only by a miracle.</p> - -<p>How did Ardglass and Lecale take this revival of -its older fame? That sight was not less striking than -the vision on the tower. Every cottage in the village -had candles set in its windows. The fisher-boats in -the harbour were alight; they flew flags too, and Irish -flags, as many as could get them. For hours crowds -climbed and descended the narrow winding staircase -in the castle turret, lighted by candles fixed in old -Ulster iron holders. They thronged the rooms, themselves -the guardians of all the treasures lying on the -benches and shelves and suspended on the walls. -When they drew aside the light curtain before the -oratory and entered in, they prostrated themselves, -kneeling in prayer, and came out with tears in their -eyes. Young men looked at Shane O’Neill, and looked -again, and took off their hats. As in other Irish -gatherings where I have been, sobriety and good -manners distinguished the crowd, very visible and -audible to me from my little hotel fronting the castle -where the visitors flocked for refreshment, under my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> -window opening on the one street of the village. -Strangers dispersed about eleven o’clock, but men of -the village sat round the fire of the old guard-room for -hours after, singing songs of Ireland endlessly. There -was no host, and no master of the ceremonies. The -castle was left absolutely to the people. Anyone who -would came in. They sang, and sang, the sorrowful -decadent songs of modern Ireland—songs of famine, -emigration, lamentation, and woe. But still they sang -of Ireland.</p> - -<p>The next day was Sunday. The parish priest, -many years among his people, shared in the joy of the -festival, in the new interest come to break the long -monotony of their life, and in the widening and lifting -of their emotion. He preached twice on the restoration -to them of their castle, and on their duty to -hold it sacred, and to act with courtesy and good -breeding when they entered it. He gave the children -freedom from Sunday School that they might see the -Irish flag flown from the tower at noon; and boys -and girls poured laughing down the street. All that -day, from morning till night, without a pause, lines -of village and country folk filed up and down the -turret stairs, holding to the rope, kept taut by its old -stone weight, that served as balustrade. Protestants -were intermingled with Catholics, as one could see by -the badges of their societies, in a common enthusiasm -for the memories of the country which was theirs. -Two admirable little girls of nine and fourteen installed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> -themselves as handmaids and hostesses of the castle, -and might be seen all day carrying water to the -cauldron, making tea, giving hospitality to visitors—their -first free service to Ireland. At night, men and -women of the village came into the guard-room and -banquet-hall, and sang and sang of Ireland. They did -not even smoke. One after another sang till one -o’clock. One or two sentimental ditties turned up, -on Shannon’s shores and Killarney’s lakes, of the feeble -artificial sort favoured by so-called “National Schools,” -but these found little encouragement. Many evenings -since, the guard-room has been filled with villagers, -and singing and old-time lore abound. Many bring -presents and leave them with scarce a word; and the -old oratory has not been left without gifts and flowers. -Nowhere has a pin been disturbed, or a trifle broken -or injured. The battlements and the glorious view -are a delight to all. They examine and point out to -each other the old devices, the flint weapons and the -bronze, the Celtic emblems and memorials, and the -Elizabethan and Volunteer arms that lie about. The -people have a new pride put in them, and are learning -to be their own Conservators and Board of Works.</p> - -<p>The Bishop of Ossory has lately given us all to understand -that the Church of Ireland, boasting itself to -be the highest, perhaps the sole, regenerating force -in the country, is at this crisis altogether absorbed in -anxious contemplation of the supposed danger from -the people of Ireland to its property. A material preoccupation,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> -at such a pitch, induces a multitude of unreasoning -timidities, fantastic safeguards, and voluntary -solitudes. It is true, indeed, that it was only -“property” in a spiritual sense which the people of -Ardglass had got that day. But in that higher sense -they had been given that which every Irishman lacks—something -of their own. No Englishman can picture -to himself that lack. He has never had it. But with -us it is an old story. If the people ask to learn Irish—“Here -is arithmetic; that will suit you better.” -They would like something of Irish history—“I -assure you that it is German grammar which you really -wish to ask for.” If the talk is of schools or fisheries—“The -English Treasury will see that you do not waste -money on school-house or steam trawler.” Their -very names are not their own. A Belfast bank the other -day refused the life-long signature on a cheque of a -well-known Irish writer because he signed, in English -letters indeed, but with his customary Irish spelling of -Padraic, and required instead the conventional English -Patrick. Who can tell the needless restrictions and -trivialities and imposed fashions that check expansion, -experiment, and freedom of mind? A dreary emptiness -has been stretched over the vivid natures of -Irishmen. What is there left for them to love? Is -it any wonder they desire something they may call -their own? It may be that “Loyalists” imagine -that a longer continuance of such destitution will end -at last in a lively passion for Englishmen and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> -Empire. Or, perhaps, it is the Unionist idea that an -enforced apathy indefinitely continued will produce -the fate that comes on men doomed to imprisonment -for life in solitary confinement, when after long years -thought and speech are gone, and idiot prisoners may -mingle harmlessly together.</p> - -<p>While the castle was repairing at Ardglass, an Irish -visitor watched the fishermen leaning on the sea-wall. -Every half-hour one might drop a word. They were -passing the time as only fishermen know how. As to -the castle, they looked as oblivious to it as to everything -else. After watching for some time, the Irish -visitor casually passed one of them, dropping an indifferent -remark: “What’s the meaning of all this?” -“It’s comin’,” said the fisherman. “We’re too long -held in chains”—and fell back into silence.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span></p> - -<p class="pc2 mid"><i>NOTE.</i></p> - -<div class="pbq"> - -<p class="p1">Bodley’s visit to Lecale, preserved in a Latin MSS. in -the British Museum, has been printed with a translation in -the Old Ulster Journal of Archæology II. 73. The account -is concerned with six officers of high rank and fame in the -veteran army of Elizabeth. The writer, Captain Bodley, -brother of the founder of the Bodleian Library at Oxford, -was commanding officer at Armagh, commissioned to raise -fortifications or entrenchments for the army—“a very honest -fellow with a black beard,” he describes himself. His companion -Captain Toby Caulfield, who had fought at Carlingford -and Kinsale, was the first Governor in 1602 of the new fort -of Charlemont, and Governor in 1603 of the counties of -Armagh and Tyrone, where he made good use of his -opportunities, a skilful appropriator of lands, who secured -for himself grants in nine counties, and the wealth on which -the earldom of Charlemont was established. Captain John -Jephson had rescued the remnant of the British army caught -in the pass of the Curlew Mountains in 1599: he gained the -Mallow estate by marriage with the daughter of Norreys, -President of Munster. Captain Adderton, whom they picked -up on the way, had distinguished himself in the Wicklow -wars, and was now Governor of the newly-built fort of Mount-norris, -on the road from Armagh to Newry.</p> - -<p>Their host at Downpatrick, Sir Richard Moryson, one -of the chief friends of Mountjoy, had fought in Leix and at -Kinsale, was now Governor of Lecale, and this same year -(1603) was promoted Governor of Waterford, and later (1607), -President of Munster. With him was Captain Ralph -Constable, who had followed all his campaigns from Kinsale -to the Blackwater.</p> - -<p>Four of the six, Moryson, Bodley, Jephson, and Caulfield, -had been comrades in the campaigns of the Low Countries -a few years before, and were among the companies of soldiers -which were drafted over from the Netherlands to Ireland to -strengthen the armies of Essex and Mountjoy. They were men<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> -who prospered in Irish wars—keen soldiers, and as keen dividers -of lands and offices in the new country, deeply concerned in -plantations and confiscations.</p> - -<p class="pc1"><i>An Account of a Journey of Captain Josias Bodley into Lecale<br /> -in Ulster, in the Year 1602 (properly 1603).</i></p> - -<p class="p1">Good God! what have I taken on me to do? Truly I -am an ass, otherwise I would never have undertaken so heavy -a burthen; but no matter, I shall do what I can, like -Coppinger’s female dog, who always took her own way.</p> - -<p>I have taken in hand to recount what happened in a journey -which Captain Caulfield, Captain Jephson, and I made to -Lecale, to visit our friend Sir Richard Morrison, and divert -ourselves there. And I shall narrate everything in due order; -for order is a fair thing, and all love it, except the Irish men-at-arms, -who are a most vile race of men, if it be at all allowable -to call them “men,” who live upon grass, and are foxes in -their disposition and wolves in their actions. But to our -business: The aforesaid Master Morrison sent very kind -letters to us, inviting us to keep the Nativity (which the -English call “Christmas”) with him; but as Sir Arthur -Chichester, the Sergeant-Major of the whole army, had convoked -us with all our companies at that very moment to fight -with Tyrone, who was then in the woods of Glenconkein -with much cattle and few fighting men; we could not go at -that time to Lecale, but joined the said Sir Arthur, and -remained with him for sixteen or seventeen days in the field, -without doing much harm to Tyrone: for that Tyrone is the -worst rascal, and very wary and subtle, and won’t be beaten -except on good terms. However, we fought him twice in -the very woods, and made him run to his strongholds. So -after leaving about that place a well-provided garrison, we -each departed, with full permission and good will.</p> - -<p>We now remembered the said invitation of Sir Richard -and, after deliberation (for, in the commencement of affairs, -deliberation should be used by those adventuring bold attempts,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> -as Seneca says), we thought it good to go thither, although -it was now eight days after the Nativity: because we did not -doubt our being welcome though it had been Lent. This -was resolved on in the city of Armagh, where there is a Governor, -a very honest fellow with a black beard, who uses everyone -well according to his poor ability, and would use them much -better if he had more of the thing the English call “means.”</p> - -<p>We set out from that city for the town commonly called -Newry, which was one day’s journey. There, to speak the -truth, we were not very well entertained, nor according to our -qualities; for that town produces nothing but lean beef, -and very rarely mutton; the very worst wine; nor was there -any bread, except biscuits, even in the Governor’s house. -However, we did our best to be merry and jocund with the -bad wine, putting sugar in it (as the senior lawyers are used -to do, with Canary wine)—with toasted bread, which in -English is called “a lawyer’s nightcap.” There we found -Captain Adderton, an honest fellow, and a friend of ours, -who, having nothing to do, was easily persuaded to accompany -us to Lecale.</p> - -<p>So the next morning we four take horse and set out. We -had no guide except Captain Caulfield, who promised he would -lead us very well. But before we had ridden three miles -we lost our way and were compelled to go on foot, leading our -horses through bogs and marshes which were very troublesome; -and some of us were not wanting who swore silently between -our teeth, and wished our guide at a thousand devils. At -length we came to some village of obscure name, where for -two brass shillings we brought with us a countryman who -might lead us to the Island of Magennis, ten miles distant -from the town of Newry: for Master Morrison had promised -he would meet us there.</p> - -<p>The weather was very cold, and it began to roar dreadfully -with a strong wind in our faces, when we were on the mountains, -where there was neither tree nor house; but there was no -remedy save patience. Captain Bodley alone had a long -cloak with a hood, into which he prudently thrust his head,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> -and laughed somewhat into himself to see the others so badly -armed against the storm.</p> - -<p>We now come to the Island of Magennis, where, alighting -from our horses, we met Master Morrison and Captain -Constable, with many others, whom, for the sake of brevity, -I pass by. They had tarried there at least three hours, expecting -our arrival, and, in the meantime, drank ale and usquebaugh -with the Lady Sara, the daughter of Tyrone, and wife of the -aforesaid Magennis; a truly beautiful woman: so that I -can well believe these three hours did not appear to them -more than a minute, especially to Master Constable, who is -by nature very fond, not of women only, but likewise of dogs -and horses. We also drank twice or thrice, and after we had -duly kissed her, we each prepared for our journey.</p> - -<p>It was ten or twelve miles from that island to Downpatrick, -where Master Morrison dwelt; and the way seemed much -longer on account of our wish to be there. At length, as -all things have an end and a black pudding two (as the proverb -hath it) we came by little and little to the said house. And -now began that more than Lucullan entertainment, which -neither Cicero, whose style in composition I chiefly imitate, -(although Horace says, “O imitators! a slavish herd”), nor -any other of the Latin or Greek authors, could express in -suitable terms.</p> - -<p>When we had approached within a stone’s throw of the -house—or rather palace—of the said Master Morrison—behold! -forthwith innumerable servants! some light us with -pine-wood lights and torches because it is dark; others, as -soon as we alight, take our horses, and lead them into a handsome -and spacious stable, where neither hay nor oats are wanting. -Master Morrison himself leads us by wide stairs into a large -hall where a fire is burning the height of our chins, as the -saying is; and afterwards into a bed chamber, prepared in the -Irish fashion.</p> - -<p>Here having taken off our boots, we all sit down and converse -on various matters; Captain Caulfield about supper and food, -for he was very hungry; Captain Constable about hounds, of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> -which he had there some excellent ones, as he himself asserted; -and the rest about other things. Master Morrison ordered -a cup of Spanish wine to be brought, with burnt sugar, nutmeg, -and ginger, and made us all drink a good draught of it, which -was very grateful to the palate, and also good for procuring an -appetite for supper, if anyone needed such.</p> - -<p>In an hour we heard some one down in the kitchen calling -with a loud voice “To the Dresser.” Forthwith we see -a long row of servants, decently dressed, each with dishes -of the most select meats, which they place on the table in the -very best style. One presents to us a silver basin with the -most limpid water; another hands us a very white towel; -others arrange chairs and seats in their proper places. “What -need of words, let us be seen in action” (as Ajax says in Ovid). -Grace having been said, we begin to fix our eyes intently -on the dishes, whilst handling our knives: and here you might -have plainly seen those Belgian feasts, where, at the beginning -is silence, in the middle the crunching of teeth, and at the -end the chattering of the people. For at first we sat as if -rapt and astounded by the variety of meats and dainties—like -a German I once saw depicted standing between two -jars, the one of white wine and the other of claret, with this -motto: “I know not which way to turn.”</p> - -<p>But after a short time we fall to roundly on every dish -calling now and then for wine, now and then for attendance, -everyone according to his whim. In the midst of supper Master -Morrison ordered be given to him a glass goblet full of claret, -which measured, (as I conjecture) ten or eleven inches roundabout, -and drank to the health of all, and to our happy arrival. -We freely received it from him, thanking him, and drinking -one after the other, as much as he drank before us. He then -gave four or five healths of the chief men, and of our absent -friends, just as the most illustrious Lord, now Treasurer of -Ireland, is used to do at his dinners. And it is a very praiseworthy -thing, and has, perhaps, more in it than anyone would -believe; and there was not one amongst us who did pledge -him and each other without any scruple or gainsay, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> -I was very glad to see; for it was a proof of unanimity and -assured friendship.</p> - -<p>For there are many (a thing I can’t mention without great -and extreme sorrow) who won’t drink healths with others; -sitting, nevertheless, in the company of those who do drink, -and not doing as they do; which is of all things the most -shameful.... For, at table, he who does not receive -whatsoever healths may be proposed by another, does so, -either because he likes not the proposer, or he to whom they -drink, or the wine itself. Truly I would not willingly have -any dealings with him who under values either me or my -friend, or lastly wine, the most precious of all things under -heaven.</p> - -<p class="pc ls1">••••••••••••</p> - -<p>Let us now return to Lecale, where the supper (which, as -I have said, was most elegant) being ended, we again enter our -bedroom, in which was a large fire (for at the time it was exceedingly -cold out of doors) and benches for sitting on; and -plenty of tobacco, with nice pipes, was set before us. The -wine also had begun to operate a little on us, and everyone’s -wits had become somewhat sharper; all were gabbling at once, -and all sought a hearing at once.... Amongst other things, -we said that the time was now happily different, from when we -were before Kinsale at Christmas of last year, when we suffered -intolerable cold, dreadful labour, and a want of almost everything; -drinking the very worst. We compared events, till lately -unhoped for, with the past, and with those now hoped for. -Lastly, reasoning on everything, we conclude that the verse -of Horace (Ode 37, Book 1st) squares exceedingly well with -the present time—namely, “that now is the time for drinking, -that now is the time for thumping the floor with a loose foot.” -Therefore, after a little Captain Jephson calls for usquebaugh, -and we all immediately second him with one consent, calling out -“Usquebaugh, usquebaugh”—for we could make as free there -as in our own quarters.</p> - -<p>Besides it was not without reason we drank usquebaugh; -for it was the best remedy against the cold of that night, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> -good for dispersing the crude vapours of the French wine; -and pre-eminently wholesome in these regions, where the -priests themselves, who are holy men—as the Abbot of Armagh, -the Bishop of Cashel, and others; and also noble men—as -Henry Oge MacMahon, MacHenry—and men and women of -every rank—pour usquebaugh down their throats by day and -by night; and that not for hilarity only, which would be -praiseworthy, but for constant drunkenness which is detestable.</p> - -<p>Therefore, after everyone had drank two or three healths -... what because of the assailing fumes of the wine which -now sought our heads ... we thought it right, as I have -said, to rest for some hours. And behold, now, the great kindness -that Master Morrison shows towards us. He gives up to us -his own good and soft bed, and throws himself upon a pallet in -the same chamber, and would not be persuaded by anything -we could say, to lie in his own bed; and the pallet was very -hard and thin, such as they are wont to have who are called -“Palatine” of great heroes.</p> - -<p>I need not tell how soundly we slept till morning, for that -is easily understood, all things considered; at least if the old -syllogism be true: “He who drinks well sleeps well.” We -did not, however, pass the night altogether without annoyance: -for the Captain’s dogs, which were very badly educated -(after the Northern fashion) were always jumping on the beds, -and would not let us alone, although we beat them ever so -often, which the said Captain took in dudgeon, especially -when he heard his dogs howling; but it was all as one for that; -for it is not right that dogs, who are of the beasts, should sleep -with men who are reasoning and laughing animals, according to -the philosophers.... Before we get out of bed they bring -to us a certain aromatic of strong ale, compounded with sugar -and eggs (in English “caudle”) to comfort and strengthen -the stomach, they also bring beer (if any prefer it) with toasted -bread and nutmeg, to allay thirst, steady the head, and cool -the liver; they also bring pipes of the best tobacco to drive -away rheums and catarrhs.</p> - -<p>We now all jump quickly out of bed, put on our clothes,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> -approach the fire, and, when all are ready, walk abroad together -to take the air, which, in that region, is most salubrious and -delightful, so that if I wished to enumerate all the advantages -of the place, not only powers (of description), but time itself -would be wanting. I shall therefore omit that, as being already -known, and revert to ourselves, who, having now had a sufficient -walk, returned to our lodging as dinner time was at hand. -But how can we tell about the sumptuous preparation -of everything? How about the dinners? How about the -dainties? For we seemed as if present (as you would suppose) -at the nuptial banquet to which some Cleopatra had invited -her Antony; so many varieties of meat were there, so many -kinds of condiments; about every one of which I would willingly -say something, only that I fear being too tedious. I shall -therefore demonstrate from a single dinner, what may be -imagined of the rest. There was a large and beautiful collar -of brawn, with its accompaniments—to wit, mustard and -Muscadel wine; there were well-stuffed geese, ... the -legs of which the Captain always laid hold of for himself; there -were pies of venison and of various kinds of game; pasties also, -some of marrow, with innumerable plums; others of it with -coagulated milk; others which they call tarts, of divers shapes, -materials and colours, made of beef, mutton and veal. I do not -mention because they are reckoned vulgar, other kinds of -dishes, wherein France much abounds, and which they -designate “Quelq’choses” [“Kickshaws”]. Neither do I -relate anything of the delicacies which accompanied the cheese, -because they would excel all belief. I may say in one word, -that all things were there supplied us most luxuriously and -most copiously. And lest anyone might think that God had -sent us the meat, but the Devil the Cook (as the proverb says), -there was a cook there so expert in his art that his equal could -scarce be found....</p> - -<p>If you now inquire whether there were any other amusements, -besides those I have related, I say an infinite number, -and the very best. For if we wished to ride after dinner, you -would have seen forthwith ten or twelve handsome steeds<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> -with good equipments and other ornaments, ready for the road. -We quickly mount, we visit the Well and Chair of St. Patrick -[Struel], the ancient Fort [Rath-Celtair], or any other place -according to our fancy; and at length returning home, cards, -tables, and dice are set before us, and amongst other things that -Indian tobacco (of which I shall never be able to make sufficient -mention), and of which I cannot speak otherwise.</p> - -<p class="pc ls1">••••••••••••</p> - -<p>And now once more to our Lecale, where amongst other -things that contributed to hilarity, there came one night after -supper certain maskers belonging to the Irish gentry, four in -number (if I rightly remember). They first sent in to us a -letter marked with “the greatest haste,” and “after our hearty -commendations,” according to the old style, saying that they -were strangers, just arrived in these parts, and very desirous -of spending one or two hours with us; and leave being given, -they entered in this order: first a boy, with a lighted torch; -then two, beating drums; then the maskers, two and two; -then another torch. One of the maskers carried a dirty pocket -handkerchief, with ten pounds in it, not of bullion, but of the -new money lately coined, which has the harp on one side, and -the royal arms on the other.</p> - -<p>They were dressed in shirts, with many ivy leaves sewed on -here and there over them; and had over their faces masks of -dog-skin; with holes to see out of, and noses made of paper; -their caps were high and peaked (in the Persian fashion), and -were also of paper, and ornamented with the same (ivy) leaves.</p> - -<p>I may briefly say we play at dice. At one time the drums -sound on their side; at another the trumpet on ours. We -fight a long time a doubtful game; at length the maskers lose, -and are sent away cleaned out. Now whoever hath seen a dog, -struck with a stick or a stone, run out of the house with his -tail hanging between his legs, would have (so) seen these maskers -going home: without money; out of spirits; out of order; -without even saying “Farewell”; and they said that each of -them had five or six miles to go to his home, and it was then two -hours after midnight.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></p> - -<p>I shall now tell of another jest or gambol, which amongst many, -the domestics of Master Morrison exhibited for us. Two -servants sat down after the manner of women (with reverence -be it spoken) when they “hunker,” only that they (the -servants) sat upon the ground: their hands were tied together -in such a manner that their knees were clasped within them; -and a stick placed between the bend of the arms and the legs, -so that they could in no way move their arms; they held between -the thumb and forefinger of either hand a small stick, almost -a foot in length, and sharp at the farther end. Two are placed -in this way: the one opposite the other at the distance of an -ell. Being thus placed they engage; and each one tries to upset -his opponent, by attacking him with his feet; for being once -upset, he can by no means recover himself, but presents himself -to his upsetter for attack with the aforesaid small stick. Which -made us laugh so for an hour, that the tears dropped from -our eyes; and the wife of Philip the cook laughed, and the -scullion, who were both present. You would have said that -some barber-surgeon was there to whom all were showing -their teeth.</p> - -<p>But enough of these matters; for there would be no end of -writing, were I to recount all our grave and merry doings in -that space of seven days.</p> - -<p>I shall therefore make an end both of the journey and of -my story. For on the seventh day from our arrival we -departed, mournful and sad; and Master Morrison accompanied -us as far as Dundrum; to whom each of us bid -farewell, and again farewell, and shouting the same for a long -way, with our caps raised above our heads, we hasten to our -quarters, and there we each cogitate seriously over our own -affairs.</p></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER V</h2> - -<p class="pch">TRADITION IN IRISH HISTORY.</p> - -<p class="pc"><i>Reprinted from the Nineteenth Century and After, -March, 1909.</i></p> - -<p class="drop-cap04">IN the <i>Quarterly Review</i> of January last there -appeared an article by Mr. Robert Dunlop, -dealing in a trenchant manner with a book which -I wrote lately, <i>The Making of Ireland and Its Undoing</i>. -I regret to take part personally in a controversy where -my own credit is brought into question, and I am only -moved to do so by consideration of the grave issues -which are involved as regards the study of Irish history.</p> - -<p>The appearance of my book has raised two questions -of a very different order—the important question of -whether, with the advance of modern studies, need has -arisen for an entire review of the whole materials for -Irish history and of the old conclusions, and the less -interesting problem of my own inadequacy and untrustworthiness. -Mr. Dunlop, in some fifteen pages of -discourse, has not so much as mentioned the first. -He has treated the second at considerable length. We -may here take them in order of importance.</p> - -<p>The real difference between Mr. Dunlop and myself -lies deeper than the question of my merits or demerits.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> -It is the old conflict between tradition and enquiry. -For the last 300 years students of medieval Irish -history have peacefully trodden a narrow track, hemmed -in by barriers on either hand. On one side they have -been for the most part bounded by complete ignorance -of the language of the country or its literature. On -the other side they have raised the wall of tradition. -Along this secluded lane writers have followed one -another, in the safety of the orthodox faith. A -history recited with complete unanimity takes on in -course of time the character of the highest truth. -There have been disputes on one or two points perhaps -where theologians are concerned, as for example the -story of St. Patrick; but on the general current of -Irish life there has been no serious discussion nor any -development in opinion. The argument from universal -assent has been sufficient. There is a similarity even of -phrase. “We prefer to think,” writes Mr. Dunlop. -“We prefer to abide by the traditional view of the -state of Ireland,” writes another critic from the same -school. Agreement has been general, individual speculation -has not disturbed the peace, and all have joined -their voices to swell the general creed. Under these -favouring conditions historians of Ireland speak with a -rare confidence and unanimity. “What are novelties -after all?” cries the sagacious historian imagined by -M. Anatole France: “mere impertinences.”</p> - -<p>It has happened to me to question the received -doctrine. Universal assent of all men of all time is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> -a very useful thing, and for some positive facts it may -be decisive. But in Irish history it is used to enforce -a series of negations—no human progress, no spiritual -life, no patriotism, no development, no activity save -murder, no movement but a constant falling to decay, -and a doomed lapse into barbarism of every race that -entered the charmed circle of the island. However -universal the consent, the statements of the tradition -are of so extraordinary a character, that one may fairly -desire an inspection of the evidence. I have ventured -to suggest that the time had come to study the sources -anew; to see if any had been omitted, or if in modern -research any new testimony concerning Ireland had -been brought to light; to give less weight to negative -assertions than to positive facts; and to enquire what -the whole cumulative argument might imply. Thus -the fundamental problem has been raised. If Mr. -Dunlop has not a word to say about it, it will nevertheless -not disappear. The enquiry will need many -scholars and a long time, but I am sure it will be -completed, and that Irish history will then need to be -re-written. Meanwhile, as I claim no infallible -authority, to fulminate against me does not get rid of -the essential problem. The discrediting of a doubter -of the orthodox faith is the simplest form of argument -and the least laborious. The trouble is that when it -is done the real question is no further advanced.</p> - -<p>A heretic must take his risks. We have an example -of their gravity in this article, in which Mr. Dunlop<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> -restores an old custom to controversy. We had -almost come to suppose that it was the privilege of -theologians to settle the respective platforms from -which disputations should be carried on. The higher -plane is reserved for the orthodox. The “querulous” -dissentient, on the other hand, is pronounced to be -making mere incursions into what is for him a comparatively -unknown region, his incapacity is obvious -and his want of candour deplorable, and he has forfeited -all claim to respect. This is all in the appropriate -manner of those who hold an Irish history handed -down by tradition.</p> - -<p>The permitted belief about Ireland has been summed -up dogmatically by Mr. Dunlop in the <i>Dictionary of -National Biography</i>, the <i>Cambridge Modern History</i>, -and elsewhere. Of the inhabitants of Ireland “two-thirds -at least led a wild and half nomadic existence. -Possessing no sense of national unity beyond the -narrow limits of the several clans to which they -belonged, acknowledging no law outside the customs -of their tribe, subsisting almost entirely on the produce -of their herds and the spoils of the chase, and finding -in their large frieze mantles a sufficient protection -against the inclemency of the weather, and one relieving -them from the necessity of building houses for themselves, -they had little in their general mode of life to -distinguish them from their Celtic ancestors.” “Outside -the pale there was nothing worthy of being called -a Church. To say that the Irish had relapsed into a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> -state of heathenism is perhaps going too far. The -tradition of a Christian belief still survived; but it was -a lifeless, useless thing.” The country was “cut off -by its position, but even more by the relapse of the -greater of its inhabitants into a state of semi-barbarism, -from the general currents of European development.” -Bogs and woods, the lairs of the wild-boar and the -wolf, made internal communications dangerous and -difficult, and prevented trade and intercourse with -other nations. Few words, therefore, are needed to -sum up their commerce. “French wines found their -way into the country through Cork and Waterford; -the long-established relations between Dublin and -Bristol still subsisted; Spanish traders landed their -wares on Galway quay; the fame of St. Patrick’s -purgatory attracted an occasional pilgrim from foreign -lands; and of one Irish chieftain it was placed on -record that he had accomplished the hazardous journey -to Rome and back.” Shane O’Neill, “champion of -Celtic civilisation,” could speak no language but Irish, -and could not sign his name. In the <i>Quarterly -Review</i> we have a few more details—that the main part -of the Irishmen’s dress was skins; that this people who -lived without houses when they went on their -“marauding expeditions” (excursions of the full -summer time) made to themselves tents of untanned -skins to cover them (here I could almost imagine Mr. -Dunlop, in spite of his aversion to bards, indulging on -the sly in a cloudy reminiscence of an Irish poet); that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> -among the whole of them they had just a few hundred -coracles made of osiers and skins for crossing swollen -rivers, for the O’Malleys and O’Driscolls who had -long-boats represented “perhaps the Iberian element -in the <i>nation</i>,” suggests Mr. Dunlop, not to give the -Gaels any credit, while he slips by the way into the -objectionable word apparently so hard to avoid; that -they made no practical use even of their inland fisheries, -and had no industries, so that even the cloth was made -by Englishmen.</p> - -<p>We would desire to ask Mr. Dunlop for the exact -proof he relies on for any one of these statements, -beginning perhaps with “no law outside the <i>customs -of the tribe</i>.” Writers who hold Ireland to be, as he -says, “a sort of scrap-heap for Europe,” and who -cannot conceive of medieval Irishmen as ordinary men -sharing the faults and virtues of other white Europeans, -are addicted to the word “native”—a word not in -common use among historians for Englishmen in -England in the Middle Ages, but affected by them to -indicate Irishmen in Ireland, with the derogatory sense -which their “tradition” requires. The vulgar view -received as it were official recognition half a century -ago from Mr. Hamilton in his preface to the <i>State -Papers</i> of 1509-73 (see also references in my book, -487-8), where he explains that the study of Irish life till -Elizabethan times will be of considerable value in the -study of <i>Universal History</i>, Ireland being so remote -from the earlier seats of civilisation that the rude way<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> -of living described by Hesiod and the old poets still -lingered there till the sixteenth century; till which time -“most of the wild Irish led a nomade life, tending -cattle, sowing little corn, and rarely building houses, -but sheltered alike from heat and cold, and moist and -dry, by the Irish cloak.” The last fifty years, we see, -amid the general shaking of dry bones and the movement -of history elsewhere, have brought no stir in -Irish history. That alone stands like eternal truth -fixed and unchangeable. Hence, doubtless, Mr. -Dunlop’s canon (<i>Quart. Rev.</i>, 1906) forbidding “<i>a -history of Ireland in more than one volume</i>.”</p> - -<p>The barbarian legend has got a long start. A first -attempt to review its evidence was made in my book. -In a series of social studies I have endeavoured to -discuss, not the whole of Irish history, but definite -matters of trade, social life, and education. I have -gathered a body of facts which indicate that Ireland -had considerable manufactures; that her foreign -commerce can be traced throughout Europe; that -there was an orderly society, even a wealthy one; that -Irish travellers were known at Rome and in the Levant; -that there was an Anglo-Irish culture by no means -contemptible, in touch with Continental learning; -and that increasing intercourse of the races did not -tend to barbarism but to civilisation.</p> - -<p>In this sketch I have not proposed to myself to -draw nice distinctions between what the Normans -precisely did, and what the Irish (or even, following<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> -Mr. Dunlop), what Iberians were doing in the sixteenth -century in the joint work of commerce and culture, -because there is as yet no sufficient material for that -discussion; I share this lack of knowledge with many -who have pronounced themselves with no uncertain -voice. Further, I should have been glad to confine -these studies to the cheerful progress of trade and -culture; but I was confronted with two possible -objections. The suggestion that if there had been any -considerable trade it would not have vanished by a -freak, could only be answered by indicating how and -why the destruction had been wrought. And to meet -the argument that historians would not have let a -genuine story perish, I gave my opinion on how it was -that the truth dropped out of sight.</p> - -<p>My conclusions conflict with the venerable traditions -over which Mr. Dunlop mounts guard. I clearly -offend also against the canon of one volume. It is -obvious that he must feel for me the sharpest disapproval; -and this censure is conveyed with no -mitigation of phrase or manner.</p> - -<p>The charge he elaborates against me is briefly that -I have no judgment, and less candour, in the use of -documents, and have thus produced a mass of mischievous -fiction.</p> - -<p>I may say in passing that Mr. Dunlop’s severity -with regard to authorities comes somewhat oddly -from one who has shown himself fairly easy in such -matters. In his own writings he gives no references,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> -and in this same article the only authority he quotes -independently is Mr. O’Connor’s <i>Elizabethan Ireland</i>. -When I have to be silenced, “Turn we to Mr. -O’Connor!” Now Mr. O’Connor has written a -slight sketch of Irish political and social life in some -280 pages. He gives no dates, no indications of place, -and no references. But we have Mr. Dunlop’s word -for it that it is a “scholarly” work. “Mr. O’Connor” -quoted by Mr. Dunlop ends controversy. The -tradition is secure. I might envy Mr. Dunlop this -freedom from trammels of references, of date, or of -place. In such wide and impartial survey any statement -about Ireland may appear as true of every place -and of all time. Barbarism would seem to be a fixed -and unchanging state, a passive monotony, from the -time of “Lacustrine habitations” and of “Hesiod -and the old poets,” till its characteristic representative -in Shane O’Neill. The principle once assumed, any -evidence will suffice to show that the Irish had none -of the attributes of ordinary white Europeans; while -evidence that they made money, traded, built houses, -talked Latin, studied medicine and law, or otherwise -behaved like other people of the Middle Ages, is -probably rhodomontade, moonshine, or historical -profligacy.</p> - -<p>Mr. Dunlop’s summary method with unfamiliar -sources appears in his asperity towards what he calls my -“trivial references” to Mr. Standish Hayes O’Grady’s -<i>Catalogue of Manuscripts</i>.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p> - -<p>“We wonder (he says on p. 267) how many of -Mrs. Green’s readers are aware that of this book, from -which she has gleaned so much information—of a sort—only -one copy, so far as we know, is accessible to the -public, and that is in the MSS. Department of the -British Museum. The book, we understand, was -never published. It is still incomplete. The official -copy consists merely of the bound sheets as they were -printed off for proof.”</p> - -<p>I suppose Mr. Dunlop does not mean to suggest -that the value of a book is in proportion to the number -of copies, or that an authority of which a single copy -exists should not be quoted. In any case I can reassure -him. The sheets of this <i>Catalogue</i> have been these -many years past for sale to the public at the Museum, -where I got my copy, and I hope many others did the -same. The book can be bought in a London shop -to-day. Mr. Dunlop might consult it in the London -Library. The copy placed in the National Library in -Dublin in 1895 has been in frequent use since then. -Possibly Mr. Dunlop knows the inside of the book -better than the outside, but it seems to be a new -acquaintance, suddenly introduced and viewed with -distaste. In this brilliant <i>Catalogue</i> we have the work -of a very great authority, unsurpassed in his special -learning, far beyond what O’Donovan could lay claim -to; with its “information—of a sort—” it is the most -important book that has appeared for many years with -regard to Irish history. Another critic of Mr. Dunlop’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> -school, who in his remarks gives no definite sign of -any knowledge of Mr. O’Grady’s work, has reproached -me for referring to it “without further sifting.” But -it is certain that neither of these writers who reprove -me will themselves do much “further sifting” where -that admirable scholar has gone before them.</p> - -<p>May I add that Mr. Dunlop does not appear to -follow too closely modern studies on Irish affairs, or -he would surely have known of Mr. Justice Madden’s -<i>Classical Learning in Ireland</i>, published last summer—a -little book which he should certainly have been -willing to include in any review of recent Irish writings?</p> - -<p>To return, however, to my own lamentable want of -candour and accuracy, I now give a few of the instances -of my deficiencies, and of the admirable example which -Mr. Dunlop sets me in these respects.</p> - -<p>Mr. Dunlop states, “to speak accurately,” that my -reference to Shane O’Neill as “done to death” (so -<i>he</i> expresses it) by the English is “absolutely without -foundation.” His own account of Shane’s death in -the <i>Dictionary of National Biography</i> tells us that -“possibly if he could have kept a civil tongue in his -head the MacDonnells might have consented to a reconciliation.” -“It is doubtful whether his assassination -was premeditated ... it is probable that when -heated with wine he may have irritated them by his -insolent behaviour beyond endurance.” In the -<i>Cambridge Modern History</i> (iii. 592), however, Mr. -Dunlop has attained conviction. “In his wine-cups,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>” -he tells us, “he began to brawl, and was literally -hacked in pieces by his enemies.” These and some -other of his suppositions do not appear to agree with -the story in <i>Holinshed</i>, <i>Campion</i>, <i>the Calendar of State -Papers</i>, or the <i>Four Masters</i>. But why does Mr. -Dunlop disagree with Lord Deputy Sidney, the main -mover in the matter? Many efforts, it is well known, -had been made to murder Shane. In 1566 Sidney -sent to Scotland his “man,” the English-Scot Douglas, -who had come to him from Leicester himself. Sidney -gives us the clue to his mission. “I pray you,” he -wrote to Leicester, “let this bringer (Douglas) receive -comfortable words of you. I have found him faithful, -<i>it was he that brought the Scots that killed O’Neill</i>.” -Douglas repeated the boast and prayed a reward from -Cecil. Years later Sidney, being maligned by powerful -enemies at Court, reminded the Queen of his old -services. “And whereas he [O’Neill] looked for -service at their [the Scots] hands against me, <i>for service -of me, they killed him</i>.... But when I came to -the Court,” he added with indignation, “it was told -me it was no war that I had made, nor worthy to be -called a war, for that Shane O’Neill was but a beggar, -an outlaw, and one of no force, and <i>that the Scots -stumbled on him by chance</i>.” Would Mr. Dunlop, as -a means of overthrowing me, join with Sidney’s -enemies to rob him of the deed he boasted of? (<i>Vide</i> -<i>Sid. Let.</i> 12, 34-5; <i>C.S.P.</i> i. 430; <i>Car.</i> ii. 338, -340-1.)</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span></p> - -<p>I have pained Mr. Dunlop by referring to the hoard -of Con O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, as evidence that -Ulster was not penniless. Mr. Dunlop discovers that -Shane O’Neill “robbed his father” of this store, and -can scarcely believe that I adduce this “robbery” to -prove the wealth of Ulster, and that I use it in connection -with a passage about plunder of Ireland by -English invaders. This hoard occurs in a list of three -pages containing signs of riches in Ireland (pp. 67-69), -a mere glance at which would show the absurdity of -any contention that all the moneys I mention fell into -English hands. As to Con O’Neill’s savings, I see no -objection to an allusion to them as one proof among -others of money and plate in Ulster. I do not know -if Mr. Dunlop means not only to suggest my want of -candour, but also to prove that if Shane “robbed” -his father’s treasure, therefore no English soldiers or -officials robbed any Irish chief of his plate or wealth.</p> - -<p>But though in this connection I have really nothing -to do with the ultimate fate of Con’s hoard, I may in -passing compare the Lord Chancellor Cusack’s report -at the time with Mr. Dunlop’s “robbery.” Con -O’Neill was thrown into prison in Dublin in 1552, -and said to be threatened with death. The English -were prepared with an illegitimate successor in Tyrone. -Shane claimed to be his father’s lawful heir, and fought -the English nominee. A garrison of English soldiers was -thrown into Armagh. Beyond the Blackwater Ford, -within a ride of Armagh, lay the chief fort of Tyrone,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> -on the great hill of Dungannon. Shane, evidently -with the support of his people, “came to Dungannon,” -and took with him “of the chief’s treasure £800 in -gold and silver besides plate and other stuff” [apparently -then not the whole of it, but so much as was -needed for the war at the moment] “and retaineth -the same as yet, whereby it appeareth that he and she -[the Earl and Countess] was content with the same; -for,” said Cusack, “it could not be perceived that they -were greatly offended for the same.” This was how -Shane O’Neill “robbed his father.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Dunlop quotes a sentence that “Galway ships -sailed to Orkney and to Lübeck,” and gives <i>one</i> only of -my references in the note, which states that a Scottish -ship of Orkney was freighted at Galway for Lisbon. -It is evident that by one of the accidental errors of -transcription, which every writer that ever lived has -sometimes to deplore, I transferred the words, and -<i>Orkney</i> was used where I meant to write <i>Lisbon</i>. -Lübeck is a different matter. Why did Mr. Dunlop -carefully omit the reference in the same note to the -page where I mention goods shipped from Galway to -Lübeck in 1416? Was it a generous effort to make -the error take on a more serious character? Or was -it a common inaccuracy? I may inform him that in -the <i>Hansisches Urkundenbuch</i> further references occur -to Irish cloth at Lübeck, as well as to Irish cloth and -provisions along the Elbe, and that the name he throws -doubt on appears with good reason in my text.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mr. Dunlop also discovers a “most apparent and -painful” instance of my “distorting of evidence” in -my reference (which I did not give as a quotation) to -Limerick merchants appeached of treason for <i>trading</i> -with Irish rebels, when the deputy’s words were -<i>victualling and maintaining</i> (p. 170). Mr. Dunlop -might perhaps himself suspect some barter in the -business when it attracted eight merchants to traffic -in so dangerous an enterprise. But he conveniently -omits the rest of my story, that within a year of the -arrest of the eight merchants the Limerick corporation -prayed to have the city charter confirmed with a special -clause <i>that they might buy and sell with Irishmen at -all times</i>. They seem to have had no objection to trade -with the Irish, which was the only point I had there -to prove. I willingly alter the word that seems to -Mr. Dunlop so painful a distortion of the truth, and -my argument remains unchanged.</p> - -<p>Mr. Dunlop twice condemns me in “the case of -Enniscorthy fair, where the documents referred to -refute the deduction drawn from them.” “We -strongly resent her concealing the fact” that Sidney, -with the Four Masters, deplored the “<i>destruction</i> -(n.b.)” of the fair by the rebellious Butlers at the -instigation of James Fitzmaurice. Why should I not -“conceal facts” I do not know to be true? I -fancy it is better than publishing them. The word -used by the Four Masters, Sidney, and a contemporary -letter given in Hore’s <i>Town of Wexford</i> (175) is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> -“spoiling.” Will Mr. Dunlop give his references to -“<i>destruction</i> (n.b.),” and to “the instigation of James -Fitzmaurice”? What is the proof? This day’s raid -was not the first attack on the fair after it had been -granted to English officers charged to execute martial -law on the Wexford Irish. I have not space to tell -the significant circumstances. Mr. Dunlop blames -me for not giving the founder of the fair. “We will -overlook the omission,” he says in his lofty way of -superior erudition and fidelity to facts. This cheap -taunt is surely absolutely unworthy of a writer who -should be aware that no one as yet knows the origin -of the fair. I see no reason against mentioning its -existence, among many others which Mr. Dunlop -neglects, as evidence of trading activity in a region -where Irish law and speech prevailed.</p> - -<p>I do not propose to weary the reader by multiplying -instances of this kind. The details of historical controversy -interest few readers. Its personal aspect -should interest none. The instances I have given are -true samples of all the rest. I have gone carefully -through the long indictment, and I note half a dozen -minor points in which I am glad to correct an obvious -misprint or to amend an error (not one of which, I -would say, affects the drift of my argument). But the -great bulk of these criticisms—grave inaccuracies in -themselves, or misstatements of what I say, or dogmatic -assertions which need for their discussion -evidences which there is no attempt to offer—can give<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> -me little help. For an example of historical investigation -of medieval Irish history, of serious use of references -and evidences, or of customary fairness in discussion, -I must go elsewhere than to Mr. Dunlop.</p> - -<p>With regard to evidence, I am charged with repudiating -the testimony of Spenser, Davies, Fynes -Moryson, Cuellar, Derrick, and official documents that -tell against me. I have drawn very largely from State -Papers and official records of all kinds, sources of information -which have proved invaluable for my -purpose. In the shaking bog of medieval testimony, -some firm standing is to be found in statutes, ordinances, -town records, cartularies, and the like. From -them we rapidly come to more perilous regions—State -Papers and letters—where every document needs to be -considered as a separate “source” to be separately -discussed. Some were written by strangers newly come -to the country—soldiers, secretaries, adventurers, -spies; others by higher officials struggling in an -intricate tangle of intrigues, or by a lower sort trying -to make their way upwards; some by governors zealous -to keep their credit amid the scandal of the Court; -others by governors desperate to recapture a lost -reputation. In the medley of partiality, prejudice, -ignorance, despair, and triumph, every one must judge -to the best of his ability as to the value of the testimony; -there can be no scientific accuracy in the measurement. -There is the same difficulty with the reports of a few -Continental travellers, Italian or Spanish. Historians<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> -of Ireland have freely used the evidence of men, -English or European, who came not knowing a word of -the language, who traversed the country more or less -rapidly under official guidance, or in the midst of armies -occupied in a peculiarly ferocious warfare, or who -attempted an uneasy living on the confiscated lands -of the “native” people—men, in fact, who knew -practically nothing but destruction. From the study -of other evidence I have come to think that the view -which has generally been accepted from these gentlemen -is imperfect and often erroneous. They could -know nothing of an earlier time and had but a partial -vision of their own.</p> - -<p>Some well-thumbed later authorities have been -found to give no trustworthy guidance for medieval -Ireland, and they do not appear in that customary -place of authority which had become their recognised -privilege; on the other hand, some entirely new -authorities have been called in and some have lain -unused.</p> - -<p>Among the writers I am accused of neglecting is -Captain Cuellar, a Spaniard from the Armada, knowing -no Irish, flying for his life, sometimes among people -who had no good reputation with the Irish themselves, -hiding himself in the wildest and most secret haunts -of districts swept and wasted from end to end by -English soldiers—I do not know why such an experience -should be quoted as a fair record of ordinary -Irish life in the plains, in times of peace, and among<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> -the richer and more settled clans. Mr. Orpen, in the -<i>English Historical Review</i>, has extracted from this little -record every damaging phrase to the Irish to be found -in it and omitted every favourable one. Does he -wonder why I have not done the like? I have not -done it because I do not think it fair dealing or honest -history to state as evidence against the Irish that -Cuellar was “robbed of all he possessed, stripped naked, -beaten, and forced by a blacksmith to work”; and not -to mention that the robbing and beating was the work -of English troops and mercenaries from Scotland; -that the week he spent at the blacksmith’s forge was -the solitary unkindness he suffered from any native -Irishman in his seven months’ wandering; that the -moment an Irish chief heard of his misfortune he sent -to take him to his own house; that in that seven -months of journeyings in the wilds, from the day when -cast on a Connacht beach, he was hidden in pity by -gallow-glasses till the day when men of Ulster secured -his escape across the sea, he was continually succoured -by young and old, men and women, clerics and laymen, -who pitied him, wept at his sufferings, showed him -every hospitality and kindness, and guided him from -shelter to shelter to hide him from the English. By -what strange tradition, by what long prejudice is this -perversion of evidence fabricated and admitted?</p> - -<p>Besides English and Spanish testimony we have also -some from the Irish themselves. Among Irish witnesses -the great Galway scholar Dr. Lynch, writer of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> -<i>Cambrensis Eversus</i>, stands high; no student can afford -to neglect editions and translations made by Mr. -Whitley Stokes and Professor Kuno Meyer in this -country, and by Continental scholars; the translations -of Dr. Douglas Hyde; the work of Dr. Norman Moore -in the <i>Dictionary of National Biography</i> and elsewhere; -or the collection of criticisms, translations, and summaries -that make up the invaluable <i>Catalogue of -Manuscripts</i> in the British Museum by Mr. S. H. -O’Grady.</p> - -<p>Mr. Dunlop does not like poets. “Surely she must -know that the very stock-in-trade of a poet is pure -moonshine,” he avers. However that may be, I may -say that Mr. O’Grady’s <i>Catalogue</i> contains a great deal -that is not poetry. “Must we remind her,” says Mr. -Dunlop with the loftiest severity, “that bard and -annalist were often the same individual?” The -<i>Catalogue</i> would explain to him how impossible would -be such a conception to the Irish world, where a bard -was a mere natural poet who had not studied in the -schools. Will Mr. Dunlop give one single instance of -this frequent fact? A quotation from a blind poet -peculiarly awakens his contempt, as he refers to it -twice, repeating here the criticism of another writer -of his school. Teigue Dall O’Higgin was a man of great -eminence in his day; and I see no reason to believe -that a blind man necessarily takes leave of <i>all</i> his senses. -I have no doubt that Teigue was at home in all the -gossip of Enniskillen, and that he could distinguish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> -between the sounds of a smith’s shop, or of women -talking over their embroidery, and of men bringing -boats to the shore. Other references to Fermanagh -which I have given in my book, and indications in the -English wars of the importance of water carriage on the -lake, bear out the story of Teigue the Blind. He -was right about the “blue hills.”</p> - -<p>If Mr. Dunlop accuses me of a “partiality for -native records” with all their “rhetorical rhodomontade,” -I frankly confess to a regard for the opinion of -people who belong to a country and speak its tongue. -I suppose that contemporary Irish witnesses, even the -<i>Four Masters</i>, may be used with the same authority -and the same limitations as English; nor do I know -why the opinion of any stray traveller or minor official -from over-sea, intent only on furthering his interests, -is to be accepted without question, while the word of a -deeply learned Anglo-Irish scholar of Galway, or of -an eminent Irish poet who had visited every province -of Ireland, is to be wholly suspect. I will give an -illustration by recalling the case of Sir John Davies and -of Dr. Lynch. To Mr. Dunlop the brief writings of -Davies represent a very high authority, while the -<i>Cambrensis Eversus</i> of Lynch is dismissed in one word -as a “political pamphlet.” He does not apparently -think Davies had any political leanings. We usually -think people impartial who hold our own opinions.</p> - -<p>In my book I have given definite reasons for thinking -that Davies’ acquaintance with Irish affairs was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> -inadequate—in a short residence in the country of -which he did not know the language, the law, or the -history. My own judgment is that considering his -imperfect means of knowledge, and his very strong bias -of prejudice, his statements about Ireland before his -coming there have no particular sanctity, and need to -be tested and corroborated like those of any other -writer. That he is sometimes at fault even a believer -such as Mr. Dunlop seems in a hidden way to admit. -Suggesting that my references to the cloth trade are -not so novel as unwary readers might think, “the -excellent quality of Irish wool,” says Mr. Dunlop, “is -one of the best attested facts in Irish commercial -history.” Then why has Mr. Dunlop until this -moment excluded any slightest mention of wool in his -summary of Irish trade? Was it too well known? -Or was it because of the saying of Sir John Davies—“for -wool and wool-felts were ever of little value in -this kingdom?” We are here shut into a denial of the -well-attested commerce in wool, or to a doubt of the -sufficiency of Sir John Davies as a witness; and we are -left without guidance by Mr. Dunlop. On the whole, -it seems judicious to depend on Davies’ evidence only -for the things that lay within his immediate and direct -observation. His opinion on all that he himself saw -is worthy of respect, and we may admit the sound -legal maxim that a man’s evidence can always be -accepted when it is given against himself.</p> - -<p>The same distinction may surely be drawn in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> -case of Dr. Lynch. Davies was a man of English and -Latin learning, Lynch a man of Irish and Latin -learning. The historical criticism of their day was -not perfect in either country, and as Davies leant to -the English side of prejudice, Lynch leant to the Irish. -But Lynch, like Davies, was I believe a just reporter -of what he had himself seen or had heard from firsthand -witnesses. And I have therefore quoted him, as -I have Davies, for what had come within the range -of his personal knowledge, not for matters of historical -research. His testimony is of extraordinary and -pathetic interest. Born in Galway in the last years -of Elizabeth, when the city still preserved its old culture -and the remnants of its old wealth, Lynch was one of -the last scholars who ever saw and knew the Anglo-Irish -civilisation. It is not any single picture that he gives -that is important; it is the host of scattered and chance -allusions, as to things well known to every Irishman in -his day, which reveal to us the society in which he had -been brought up. It is touching to remember that -he was the last to say a good word for the medieval -civilisation. After his death a darkness and silence of -hundreds of years fell over that story, and it is across -nearly three centuries that Irishmen will now have to -take hands with Lynch and carry on his justification -of the Ireland which was being gradually built up by -the work of Gaels, Danes, Normans, and English in -their common country.</p> - -<p>This, however, is just what Mr. Dunlop denies. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> -“begs leave to doubt” that the “native Irish” in the -fifteenth century developed the resources of the -country. By omitting all contemporary references to -timber, to leather, and to salmon, of course it can be -said there was no medieval trade in these. The plan -seems unsatisfactory, and I have not followed it. Mr. -Dunlop, for example, blames me for not quoting an -English poem (no pure moonshine here—perhaps a -farthing dip) which does not mention leather, as proof -that there was no leather trade. I have quoted the -<i>Libel</i> elsewhere, but on this point I preferred the -direct evidence of the records of the Bruges Staple; -and I have since added notices in the <i>Hansisches -Urkundenbuch</i> for leather sent in 1304, 1327, 1453 to -Bruges, Dinant, and Portugal. I would ask which is -the historical method: to close the question once for -all with the negative silence of an anonymous English -writer “whom we think,” says Mr. Dunlop, in one of -his easy moods about evidence, “had a pretty accurate -notion of what constituted Irish commerce”; or to -pursue enquiry in business records of the ports and -seek to ascertain the exact facts.</p> - -<p>The art of making linen was known, according to -Mr. Dunlop, to the “native Irish, as it is to most -primitive races.” But what they made in Ireland was -“of a very coarse kind, and its use was practically -restricted to the wealthier class—viz., the merchants -of the towns.” What is his proof for all this? Was -it the town merchants that Campion describes wearing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> -linen shirts for wantonness and bravery, “thirty yards -are little enough for one of them”? What about the -great linen rolls on the Irishwomen’s heads, and (is -the inference too romantic?) perhaps on their bodies -also? What about the fine linen in which the Galway -women wrapped the Spanish hanged after the Armada? -When I read of 6000 bales of linen cloth sent from -Galway to Genoa in 1492, or of 4000 linen cloths -mentioned in 1499 in another Galway merchant’s will, -or of the “sardok” of mixed woollen and linen in the -Netherland markets in 1353, or of Henry the Eighth -forbidding Galway any more to export linen, the -records of the time seem to conflict with the opinions -which Mr. Dunlop “begs leave” to hold.</p> - -<p>Mr. Dunlop now admits for the first time some trade -in cloth, but with a stipulation of his own that it was -all made by Englishmen. He does not trouble to -consider such a clue as we find in the State Papers of -Galway merchants carrying their wine into the country -to exchange among other things for cloth. He has his -own theory; “it is pretty clear from such expressions -as Limerick cloak, Galway mantle, Waterford rug, that -the centres of the cloth industry lay within the sphere -of English influence”; the participation of the Irish -was excluded by severe guild regulations, and “it may -not be unfair to infer that the reputation acquired -abroad by Ireland in regard to its serges was not due -to the industry of its native population.” This -insinuating hypothesis is a flaming fact on the next<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> -page, where it appears the “native Irish” (no inferring -here to dull the conclusion) “took no part in the -commercial development of their country, leaving it to -the stranger within their gate, and thereby earning -from the latter the reproach of idleness.” If there were, -as Mr. Dunlop “prefers to think,” some loyal Irishmen -who preferred English civilisation and the chances it -offered them of pushing their way in life to their native -customs, he states that the presence even of such loyal -Irishmen “was not always welcome to citizens of -English blood.” Thus the English of the towns must -have toiled day and night to supply the mantles which -the English Government forbade to loyal people, and -to provide cloaks and cloth for the foreign trade, since -in their incessant struggle to preserve themselves intact -from Celtic influences they refused the aid of Irish -hands to work for them. It is an idyllic picture of -high purpose and endeavour, of the way to develop a -country, and to make an empire.</p> - -<p>We are not, however, shut up to this series of -hypotheses. The town records themselves and English -State Papers, as I have shown, give sufficient proof that -the “native population” were not, in fact, rejected -from the town industries. Mr. Dunlop denies this; -he thinks the towns remained pure English. He is -sure that all the Galway people shaved their upper lip -weekly. Henry the Eighth was not so sure of it when, -in 1536, he sent orders from Westminster to Galway -men to shave themselves aright. When Mr. Dunlop,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> -to prove that the Galway citizens consistently desired -to keep themselves free from Irish customs, quotes -laws against Irish games and keening, he quotes them -without date. My contention is that, if it was necessary -<i>as late as 1527 and 1625</i> to enact these laws, this, with -a number of other indications that I have mentioned, -shows that the citizens’ “desire” was not very effective, -and that there was an Irish population ready to push -its way in trade, but not anxious to drop “their -native customs.” No doubt the extent to which Irish -names were changed must be conjectural; but there is -evidence that such change did take place. My suggestion -that “White” may indicate an Irish house gives -Mr. Dunlop an opportunity to parade his knowledge -of Gaelic. He informs me, on the authority of -O’Donovan, that there is no such Gaelic name as <i>Geal</i> -and imagines that settles the matter. He has never, -then, heard of the name <i>Fionn</i>, which has been -anglicised by “White” for centuries, just as a well-known -Scotch writer of our day calls himself Henry -White or Fionn indifferently.</p> - -<p>As for intellectual culture, Mr. Dunlop is brevity -itself. He has scarce a page for that chimera. The -Irish were barbarous and the Anglo-Normans contaminated. -His method is summary. The evidence -of Mr. Whitley Stokes, of Dr. Norman Moore, of Mr. -S. H. O’Grady, of Dr. Kuno Meyer has too little -importance with him to be mentioned, and he can -thus more easily avoid all proof of Irish scientific skill<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> -in medicine, or of the admirable quality of their -translations from the Latin. He necessarily omits all -mention of the many Irish scholars on the Continent, -for has he not himself told us only one Irish chieftain -made the perilous journey to Rome and back? He -has no reference to buildings or arts which indicate the -intercourse of Irish chiefs with the Continent. He is -silent on the schools from which Irishmen were able to -pass to foreign universities. He seems not to have -heard of evidence of Latin culture collected by Mr. -Justice Madden. And most wonderful to say, he -seems entirely unaware of the importance of the list -I have published, for the first time (by the generous -kindness of a great scholar), of Irish translations of -Continental works. Perhaps he felt himself anticipated -by the conclusive comment I saw from a dashing -newspaper critic, that “the Irish evidently satisfied -themselves with translations!” In any case, he never -hints at this list or its value as evidence. So astonishing -a neglect of the greater matters of evidence, while -every detail that could by any means discredit me is -searched out, is surely a grave abuse of the historical -method. In the matter of culture Mr. Dunlop -confines himself with a singular restraint to a single -topic—the list of Irishmen at Oxford. In this he counts -many Anglo-Norman and only seventeen Gaelic names, -and this solitary fact is enough to make him astonished -that I “did not recognise how utterly untenable is -her theory of the absorption of Anglo-Irish culture by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> -the native Irish.” Those readers who will turn to the -chapters on Irish learning in my book will perhaps be -astonished not at the theory that there was culture in -Ireland, but at the travesty of that theory and the -suppression of evidence which serves as historical -criticism for Mr. Dunlop.</p> - -<p>Mr. Dunlop meets with a direct negative my statement -that Sussex and Sidney carried off in their train -every notable chief’s son they could lay hands on, but -he gives no more than his own authority. My statement -is perhaps too comprehensive, but I have given -numerous instances (pp. 425-437) to show that the -method certainly used by Sussex and Sidney, so far as -they could, was steadily increased and extended in -proportion as the English power gradually spread over -one Irish region after another. The English took -over the Irish system of hostages, but they developed -it in a new way. The Catholic chief’s son was brought -up in London as a Protestant, in English law and -language and tradition, with the avowed purpose of -spiritually severing him from his people, and leaving -the clan without a natural leader or defender in the -national conflict; their chiefs, in fact, were to be made -the very instruments for dividing and subjugating -their own people. In the words I quoted, it was a -method which “not only rent asunder the bonds of -national loyalty and of natural affection, but which -forced parent and child alike to believe that in this -world and in the world to come they were divided by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> -an impassable abyss.” Surely there is no likeness in -this deliberate plan to the Irish chief’s use of his -hostage; it was, indeed, practised with consummate -art by Turkey.</p> - -<p>In this article Mr. Dunlop proposed to prove two -facts: first, that Celtic civilisation is largely a figment -of my imagination; and, secondly, that far from -composing one nation, the English element in Ireland -was proud of its origin, and struggled incessantly to -preserve itself intact from Celtic influence. One part -of his plan is destructive, and the second constructive. -Unfortunately the work of destruction has proved so -alluring that the constructive scheme is abandoned. -As to the value of the destructive work, I contend that -Mr. Dunlop’s criticisms are not so historically accurate, -so reasonable, or so candid, that they can serve for -correction or instruction. I contend further that even -on the generous assumption that the whole of Mr. -Dunlop’s criticisms might happen to be valid, there -would still remain untouched the main body of my -evidence and the whole current of my argument. -And I confidently believe that the history of Ireland -will be re-written on truer lines and surer foundations -than those sketched out in the <i>Cambridge Modern -History</i> and the <i>Quarterly Review</i>. But perhaps Mr. -Dunlop will go farther. It would be pleasant to hear, -in more detail, his views on “the Iberian element -in the nation.”</p> -</div> - -</div> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Old Irish World, by Alice Stopford Green - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD IRISH WORLD *** - -***** This file should be named 53159-h.htm or 53159-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/1/5/53159/ - -Produced by Giovanni Fini, Chris Curnow and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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