Beauties and Antiquities of Ireland
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Title: Beauties and Antiquities of Ireland
Author: Thomas O'Neill Russell
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BEAUTIES AND ANTIQUITIES OF IRELAND
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUeBNER & Co., Ltd.
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BEAUTIES AND ANTIQUITIES
OF IRELAND
BEING
A TOURIST'S GUIDE TO ITS MOST BEAUTIFUL
SCENERY & AN ARCHAEOLOGIST'S MANUAL
FOR ITS MOST INTERESTING RUINS
BY T. O. RUSSELL
AUTHOR OF "DICK MASSEY," "TRUE HEART'S TRIALS," ETC.
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD.
B. HERDER
17 SOUTH BROADWAY
ST LOUIS, MO.
1897
PREFACE
To describe all the beauties and antiquities of Ireland, an encyclopedia,
instead of a volume the size of this one would be required. As one of the
objects of this book is to show that Irish history is as generally
interesting as Irish scenery is generally beautiful, few places are
noticed that are not historic; but in a volume of the size of this, all
the historic places could not be mentioned. Many books have been published
during the last three-quarters of a century that treat on Irish scenery
and antiquities. Some of them are very voluminous and copiously
illustrated. They were, for the most part, written by persons utterly
unfitted for the task they undertook. Their remarks on Irish scenery may
be of some value; they may have thought Killarney more beautiful than the
Bog of Allen; but wherever they touch on matters connected with history
and antiquities, they are so often incorrect and misleading that the books
they have published may, for the most part, be said to be useless. It is
not too much to say that many of these works would be actually increased
in value if the printed matter were torn out of them and nothing left but
the illustrations and covers. The people who wrote them were totally
unfitted to treat of Irish history and antiquities. They knew little about
the history of ancient Ireland, and nothing of the Irish language or its
literature. They could hardly be justified to treat of Irish architectural
remains, because they were ill-equipped to do so, and were unsympathetic
with the race that raised them.
If there is any country in Europe about the scenery and antiquities of
which an interesting book could be written, it is Ireland. In no other
country are scenery and antiquities so closely allied, for the finest
remains of her ancient ruins are generally found where the scenery is most
weird, most strange, or most beautiful. In no other country, perhaps, can
so many places be identified with historic events, or historic personages,
as in Ireland. It contains more relics of a long vanished past than any
other European land. Great Britain seems a new country compared with
Ireland. In spite of the wanton and disgraceful destruction of her ancient
monuments that has been going on for centuries, more of such can be found
in a single Irish county than in a dozen in Great Britain. Although
Stonehenge is the finest druidic monument known to exist, the quantity of
druidic remains is much greater in Ireland than in England. In the latter
country we miss the _dun_, the _rath_, the _lis_, the round tower and the
sepulchral mound, some of which are found in almost every square mile of
Ireland. And coming down to later times, when men began to erect
structures of stone, we find the remains of castles and keeps in such
extraordinary numbers that we wonder for what purpose so many strongholds
were erected. Counting _raths_, _duns_, _lises_, _cromlechs_, round
towers, crumbling castles, and deserted fanes, Ireland may be called a
land of ruins beyond any other country in Europe. To make these
multitudinous monuments of a far-back past still more interesting, it will
be found that mention is made of most of them even in the remnant of
Gaelic literature that by the merest chance has been preserved.
The place names of Ireland are as interesting and as extraordinary as her
antiquities, and to some are even more fascinating than her beauties. The
bewildering immensity of Irish place names is one of the most remarkable
things connected with Ireland; but like her ancient monuments, they are
every day disappearing--fading away with the language from which they
were formed. Even still, there are, probably, as many ancient place names
in a single Irish province as in the whole of Great Britain. If it is not
absolutely true when speaking of Ireland to say that, "No dust of hers is
lost in vulgar mould," it can at least be said that there is hardly a
square mile of her surface where some hoary relic of the past or some
beautiful object of nature can be met with that is not mentioned in
history, enshrined in legend, or celebrated in song.
T. O. R.
CONTENTS
PAGE
KILLARNEY 1
Its fame world wide--Beauty of its name--Extract from
Macaulay in its praise--Comparative smallness of
Killarney--Admirable proportion of its scenic features--
Softness and beauty its chief attractions--Its weather
often moist--Autumn the best time to see it--Its
overpowering beauty on fine autumn days--The country
round Killarney a wonderland of beauty--Its ruins; and
their historic interest.
TARA 12
Its antiquity its chief attraction--Beautiful view from its
ruined ramparts--The most historic spot in these islands--
Proof of the general correctness of early Irish history--Dr
Petrie's great work on the antiquities of Tara--His map of
it--Its adaptation for a seat of government in ancient
times--Its profanation by the erection of modern buildings
on it--Tracks of its principal monuments--No trace of stone
buildings found--Its praise sung by Gaelic poets--Was the
most important place in Ireland--The roads that centred
there--The Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny; prophecy
concerning it; was brought from Tara to Scotland; now under
the coronation chair at Westminster; Petrie's mistake about
it; proofs that it was removed from Tara; the stone there
now not the Lia Fail; is the Lia Fail a meteoric stone?--
Tara the great political centre of ancient Ireland--The
Leinster Tribute--Slaughter of 3030 maidens--Indifference
of the Irish heretofore about their history and literature--
Many valuable gold ornaments found in Tara--The "Tara
Brooch"--King Laoghaire buried in Tara; his face to his
foes, the Leinstermen--The old feud between Meath and
Leinster not yet quite forgotten--Tara terribly uprooted--
Saint Patrick's goat--Last King that reigned in Tara--Its
vast antiquity worthy of credence.
LOCH REE 47
One of the least known of the great lakes of Ireland--Its
great beauty--Decline of population in the country round
it--Want of steam-boats on the Upper Shannon--Number of
Islands--Beauty of the Leinster shore of the lake; is
studded with gentlemen's seats--Goldsmith's house--Historic
interest of Loch Ree--The treaty of Blein Potog--Athlone;
its beauty of situation; the most prosperous town on the
Upper Shannon; its manufactures--Decline of the Irish
language--Improvement in the condition of the Irish
peasantry.
"EMANIA THE GOLDEN" 58
Emania a Latinised form of Emain Macha--The second most
historic spot on Irish soil--Its history--Its present
desolation--Its great extent--Denationalisation of the
peasantry in its vicinity; their almost total ignorance of
its history--Emania and the "Children of Uisneach"; extreme
beauty of that legend--The tomb of Deirdre--Many gold
ornaments found near Emania--Long preservation of a place
name--Queen Macha--The city of Armagh; its antiquity;
founded by St Patrick; ruined and plundered by the Danes;
was for some years the abode of a Danish King; its
picturesqueness.
QUEEN MAB'S PALACE 71
Rathcroghan, where Queen Mab lived and reigned, a very
celebrated place--She was contemporary with Cleopatra, and
was Queen of Connacht--Few legends about her in Ireland; an
historic personage there--Proofs of the comparatively high
civilization of Ireland in ancient times--Extraordinarily
long preservation of the legend of Queen Mab or Medb, in
England; her very long reign and great age; death in
Iniscloran; her fondness for cold water baths; the Four
Masters do not mention her--Description of the Fort of
Rathcroghan; the wooden palace that once stood on it;
unlike any of the historic forts of Ireland--Rathcroghan
desolate since the time of Queen Mab; its vast ancient
cemetery; Queen Mab buried there--Longevity of the ancient
Irish--Strong proofs that the Connacht queen was the
prototype of the Mab of Shakespeare, Drayton, Spenser, etc.;
her sister's name still preserved in an Irish place name--
Beauty of the country round Rathcroghan; its fertility--
Many mentions of Rathcroghan in ancient Gaelic writings.
THE HILL OF UISNEACH 84
One of the most historic of Irish hills; its peculiar
shape--Magnificence and beauty of the view from it--
Knockcosgrey--Decay of rural population--Uisneach
peculiarly adapted for a stronghold--Aill na Mireann, or
rock of the divisions; now called the "Cat Stone"; its very
peculiar shape; was supposed to mark the geographical
centre of the island--Great Synod held in Uisneach in A.D.
1111--Moat of Ballylochloe; its extreme beauty; supposed
origin of its name.
CLONMACNOIS 97
Strangeness and uniqueness of its situation--Love of the
strange and beautiful among ancient Irish Churchmen--The
Shannon--Views from Clonmacnois--Small size of its
remaining ruined fanes--Its round towers and crosses--
Wondrous beauty of its smaller round tower--Petrie's theory
of the origin of round towers--Destruction of Clonmacnois--
Vandalism manifest--Occupation by the Danes--The nunnery--
Clonmacnois founded by St Kieran--De Lacy's ruined castle--
Beauty and diversity of scenery of the Shannon; historic
interest of so many places on its banks.
KNOCK AILLINN 111
Third most historic hill in Ireland--Beauty of the view
from its summit--On it is the largest fort in Ireland--
Anciently the Residence of Kings of Leinster--The hill of
Allen; Finn's residence according to all authentic
documents; but no trace of earthworks on it--John
O'Donovan's opinion about it--Probable confusion of the
names Aillinn and Allen--Probability that Aillinn was
Finn's dun--Immensity of the folk-lore about Finn; as
widespread in Scotland as in Ireland; extraordinary way in
which he impressed himself on his age; does not seem to
have been a lovable personage--Dermot O'Duibhne--Real name
of the Campbells of Argyle--Finn, the most powerful man in
Ireland in his time--His name incorrectly spelt _Fionn_.
"KILDARE'S HOLY FANE" 126
Not much scenic beauty about Kildare--The Curragh--Few
ancient remains in Kildare--Its round Tower--Kildare once
a large place; famous on account of St Brigit--Its "bright
lamp"--Moore's noble lyric, "Erin, O Erin"--St Brigit's
life in the Leabhar Breac; extracts from it--Her benevolence
and charity; her love of the poor and the sick; she was
buried in Kildare.
GLENDALOCH 138
Its weird situation--A good central point from which to
make excursions--"Sugar-loaf" mountain; its horrible
modern name, and grand ancient one--Glendaloch the most
celebrated place in Wicklow--St Kevin; his youth; his
piety; he did not drown Kathleen; he only whipped her with
nettles--Kevin the most popular of Leinster Saints--"St
Kevin's bed"--Glendaloch an almost utter ruin--Ancient
Irish monasteries; their great wealth--Antique gold
ornaments--The evils of Danish raids--How well the Irish
fought the Danes--Round towers--Their uses--Books destroyed
by the Northmen--Halo of legend and romance that is round
Glendaloch.
"LORDLY AILEACH" 157
The second most historic spot in Ulster--Sublime view from
it--Noble work done in its partial restoration--Its early
history--Its destruction by a Munster King--A funny _rann_
from the Four Masters about it--Its great antiquity--The
great Circuit of Ireland made from Aileach--Quotations from
an ancient poem on the Circuit--A great poem totally
ignored by the Irish cultured classes--Muircheartach
MacNeill a great prince--His capture of the provincial
Kings--His tragic and untimely death.
"ROYAL AND SAINTLY CASHEL" 172
Peculiar situation--Ancient Irish churchmen's appreciation
of the beautiful in nature--Superb beauty of the site of
Cashel--A wonder that so few poets have been inspired by
it--Sir Aubrey de Vere's Sonnet on Cashel--Marred by the
erection of new monuments--Long the seat of Munster Kings--
Antiquity of Cashel as a centre of Christian cult--Wondrous
beauty of Cormac's Chapel; the most remarkable of early
Irish churches--The ancient Irish had no castles; they were
introduced by the Norman French--The city of Cashel--
Cashel, Glendaloch and Clonmacnois the most interesting
places of their kind in Ireland.
LOCH ERNE 186
Loch Erne, Loch Ree and Loch Derg compared; the former the
most peculiar of all Irish Lochs--Its innumerable islands,
and the great beauty of its shores--Want of proper
passenger steamers on it--Tourists must have good
accommodation--Ireland's beauties can never be fully known
until good hotels are provided--No other country of its
size has so many lakes and rivers as Ireland--Historic
attractions of Loch Erne--Devinish Island.
MELLIFONT AND MONASTERBOICE 195
They are the most interesting ecclesiastical ruins in
Louth--Great beauty of the site of Mellifont--Terrible and
wanton destruction of its ruins--Its name not Irish--Was
generally known as "the Drogheda Monastery"--Size of the
building--Was founded in 1142--Renaissance of Irish
ecclesiastical architecture; it began when Danish plundering
ceased--Effects of the Anglo-French invasion--Dearvorgil,
wife of O'Ruarc, buried in Mellifont--Antiquity of
Monasterboice--Its glorious ancient crosses--Its round
tower--Became a ruin many centuries before Mellifont--Beauty
and historic interest of locality--Drogheda--The burgs of
the Boyne, New Grange and Dowth.
TRIM CASTLE 207
It is the largest of Irish Castles--The Anglo-French great
Castle builders--Hugo de Lacy--Many Castles erected by
him--He was the greatest of the invaders of Ireland--He
wanted to be King of Ireland--Distracted state of the
country in his time--Trim once an important place--Claims
to be the birth-place of Wellington; an anecdote about
him--The country round Trim most interesting and historic--
The Boyne the most historic of Irish rivers.
CONG ABBEY 218
The most interesting ruin in Connacht--Roderick O'Connor;
Moore's opinion of him--Cong founded by St Fechin--Was
endowed by O'Connor--Description of the Abbey--Its
sculptured stones--The Cross of Cong--Cong never plundered
by the Danes--Peculiarities and beauty of the country round
Cong--Loch Corrib--The Joyce country; a land of giants;
anecdote about one of them.
LOCH DERG 231
Its great size--Want of islands its principal drawback--Its
hilly shores--Little traffic on it--Iniscealtra--St
Cainin--Killaloe; its ruined fanes--The Palace of Kincora;
no vestige of it remaining; totally destroyed by Turloch
O'Connor in 1118--MacLiag's Lament for Brian and Kincora--
The rapids of Doonas; their great beauty.
HOLYCROSS ABBEY 243
Its beautiful situation--One of the largest ruined churches
in Ireland--When founded--Its ruins not much marred--Was
inhabited until the suppression of monasteries--Beauty of
one of its sepulchral monuments--Founded too late to be
plundered by the Danes.
DUNLUCE CASTLE 247
The most remarkable ruined Castle in Ireland--From its
situation it is the finest ruin of the kind in Europe--The
narrow causeway by which it is entered--Unusual thinness of
its walls--Was evidently erected before cannons were
perfected--An awful place in a storm--Giant's Causeway--
Dunseverick Castle--Meaning of the name _Dunluce_--Not
known by whom or when it was founded--Was once owned by the
MacQuillins--Sorley Boy--Terrible catastrophe that once
happened at Dunluce--Must have been built before the
fifteenth century.
BOYLE ABBEY 254
Not much known to the general public--Its limpid river--
Rivers of muddy water an abomination--Irish rivers
generally clear--Extraordinarily luxuriant growth of ivy on
the ruins; their effect marred by the erection of a new
building close to them--Vandalism in Ireland--Ancient name
of Boyle--History of its monastery--Loch Key; the burning
of its _cranniog_--Loch Arrow.
THE LAKES OF WESTMEATH 263
Few in search of the beautiful know anything about them;
are best known to fishermen--Not many places of historic
interest in Westmeath--Loch Ouel--Turgesius, the Dane,
drowned in it by Malachy the First--Legend about Malachy's
daughter--Lover's poem about her--Quotation from the Book
of Leinster about Turgesius--Loch Sheelin; beauty of its
name--Beauty of Celtic place names--Beauty of the name
Lorraine.
KELLS IN MEATH 271
Its ancient name--Its great antiquity--Fertility of the
country round it--The tower of Lloyd--Tailltean; its
immense antiquity--The Irish Olympia--Proofs of the general
authenticity of early Irish history--Sir Wm. Wilde's
opinion of Irish chronology--Assemblies held in Tailltean
in recent times--Early Christian Monuments--Kells often
burned and plundered by the Danes--The Book of Kells and
the Tara Brooch.
CUCHULAINN'S DUN AND CUCHULAINN'S COUNTRY 281
Scandalous desecration of his _dun_; its situation and vast
size; its existence another proof of the general truth of
Irish history--Cuchulainn, the Irish Hercules--Origin of
his name--Nothing told about his size or stature--Total
ignorance about Cuchulainn in his birth-place; immensity
of the literature in which he figures--Literary industry of
early Irish monks--Cuchulainn loved by women; his abduction
of Eimer; his _liaison_ with Fann; the tract about him in
the Book of the Dun Cow--Fann's rhapsody--"Cuchulainn's
Death" from the Book of Leinster; beauty of the view from
his _dun_--Numerous antiquities of the County Louth--The
Cooley and Mourne mountains--Neglect of the scenery of
Louth and Down.
THE WILD WEST COAST 299
Its magnificence; comparison between it and the coasts of
Norway; its mild climate--Bantry Bay--The cliffs of Moher--
Half Ireland has been swallowed by the sea--Constant
erosion by the waves--Killary Harbour--Clew Bay, the queen
of Irish Sea lochs; comparison between it and other bays--
Croagh Patrick--Achill and its cliffs--Antiquities at
Carrowmore--Loch Gill--Sligo--Slieve League--Loch Swilly--
Grandeur of the scenery from Cape Clear to Inishowen; its
wonderful variety; its mild climate and wild flowers--Ten
people visit the coasts of Norway for one that visits the
west coast of Ireland--Want of passenger steamers on the
west coast; its beauties can only be seen to advantage from
the sea--Few safe harbours on the Donegall coast.
DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS 325
Dublin not sufficiently appreciated by some of its
inhabitants--Its history--Its long Gaelic name--Danish
domination in it--Many times taken and sacked by the
Irish--Battle of Clontarf--Canute made no attempt to
conquer Ireland--Dublin has not suffered from a siege for
one thousand years--Its rapid growth in the eighteenth
century--Greatly improved during the last twenty-five
years--Its improvement undertaken under enormous
difficulties--Its educational advantages--Its libraries--
Its museum of antiquities; disgraceful management of it--
Dublin supposed to be a dirty city--Its situation--Its
public buildings--Its environs; their supreme beauty--
Glasnevin Botanic Gardens--Dublin Bay; poem on it--Variety
of scenery round Dublin--The Dargle--Howth--Fingall--Dublin
situated in a land of flowers--Abundance of wild flowers in
Ireland--Phoenix Park--Three round towers close to Dublin;
error in its census--What the author has said in its praise
is true.
BELFAST AND ITS ENVIRONS 357
Its rapid growth, and beauty of its environs--Its linen
trade--Business capacity of its inhabitants--Its history
and meaning of its name--The Giant's Ring--View from Davis
mountain--Belfast Loch--Hollywood--Scenic attractions of
the country round Belfast.
CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS 366
Its ancient name--Its history--Its situation--Is not
growing as it should--Prophecy about it--Its fine public
buildings--Its noble harbour--Cork should be where
Queenstown is--Environs of Cork--Its antiquities--Its
sufferings from the Northmen; their ravages; Lord
Dunraven's theory about them; they met stranger opposition
in Ireland than in any other Country; what the Irish
suffered from them; the Northmen not builders-up of
nations; gruesome revelation of their cruelty found at
Donnybrook--The author's theory as to the cause of their
invasions.
GALWAY AND ITS ENVIRONS 388
Its history--Was once a place of large trade--Frightful
decline of its population--Its splendid situation and noble
bay--Its environs--The Isles of Arran; their gigantic
cyclopean remains the most wonderful things of their kind
in Europe.
THE CLOUD SCENERY OF IRELAND 394
Ireland the land of cloud scenery; its situation far out in
the "melancholy ocean"; its moist climate; its sunsets;
their gorgeousness in fine weather; not often seen in
perfection but in autumn.
SOMETHING ABOUT IRISH PLACE NAMES 396
Ireland a peculiar country; its abundance of place names as
compared with Great Britain--Its _ballys_, _kills_, _raths_,
_duns_ and _lises_; their immensity--Dense rural population
of Ireland in ancient times--Antiquity of Ireland.
KILLARNEY
Killarney is famed and known all over the civilized world; but there are
places in Ireland where isolated scenes can be found as fair as any in
Killarney. Much has been written about this "Eden of the West," but most
of those who have attempted to describe it have omitted to mention its
chief charm--namely, diversity of scenic attractions within a small
compass. Almost everything that Nature could do has been done within a
tract of country hardly ten miles square.
Except some favoured spots in Switzerland, there is no spot of European
soil more famed for beauty than Killarney. Its very name is beautiful, as
any one can know who has heard Balfe's grand song, "Killarney." No sounds
more harmonious or more fitted for a refrain could be uttered by the
organs of speech. The name signifies in Gaelic the church of the sloe or
wild plum-tree. The real name of the lake, or chain of lakes, which is one
of the charms of Killarney, is Loch Lein, but the latter name is now
almost obsolete.
Before attempting to describe Killarney, it will be well to give the
reader an extract from Macaulay's "History of England." The passage is a
masterpiece of prose. It is a sketch of the scenic characteristics of that
part of Ireland where the famous lakes are situated:
"The south-western part of Kerry is now well known as the most beautiful
tract in the British Isles. The mountains, the glens, the capes stretching
far out into the Atlantic, the crags on which the eagles build, the
rivulets branching down rocky passes, the lakes overhung by groves in
which the wild deer find covert, attract, every summer, crowds of
wanderers sated with business and the pleasures of great cities. The
beauties of that country are often, indeed, hidden in the mist and rain
that the west wind brings up from the boundless ocean. But, on rare days,
when the sun shines out in his glory, the landscape has a freshness and
warmth of colouring seldom found in our latitude. The myrtle loves the
soil; the arbutus thrives better than in Calabria; the turf has a livelier
hue than elsewhere; the hills glow with a richer purple; the varnish of
the holly and the ivy is more glossy, and berries of a brighter red peep
through foliage of a brighter green."[1]
Macaulay, in spite of his Celtic name, was not a lover of Ireland and the
Irish, and there is no reason to suppose that this most wonderful
word-painting was evoked by any liking for the land it describes. He had
seen Killarney, and it must have inspired him to write the greatest
descriptive passage he ever penned.
Those who expect to find in Killarney the grandeur of the Alps, the Rocky
Mountains, or even of the Scottish Highlands, will be disappointed. It is
too small to be sublime, for it could be ridden round in a day. The most
wonderful of its many wonders is variety of scenery in a small compass. In
this respect few parts of the known world can compare with it. Almost
every possible phase of Nature, almost everything she could do with land
and water, can be found in Killarney, and found on a little spot of earth
hardly larger than the space covered by London. Mountains, lakes, rivers,
rocks, woods, waterfalls, flowery islands, green meadows and glistening
strands, almost exhaust Nature's materials for forming the beautiful. But
all are found at Killarney. Man, who mars Nature so often, has helped her
here, for the castles and abbeys he raised of yore still stand, and their
ivy and flower-decked ruins, tenanted only by the bat and the bee, put the
finishing touch on this earthly Eden, and make it one of the scenic
wonders of the world. If Killarney had glaciers and eternally snow-clad
peaks, it would have everything that Switzerland has.
Another wonderful thing about Killarney is the admirable proportion its
scenic features bear to one another. If the mountains were any higher they
would be too high for the lakes, and if the lakes were any bigger they
would be too big for the mountains. Even the rivers and waterfalls are
almost in exact proportion to the other phases of Nature. The monstrous
Mississippi or the thundering Niagara would spoil such a miniature
paradise; but the limpid Laune and O'Sullivan's babbling cascade suit it
exactly. Killarney is the most perfect effort of Nature to bring together
without disproportion all her choicest charms.
Small as Killarney is, it would take at least a week, or perhaps two
weeks, to see it and know all its loveliness. It is only on foot and
without hurry that its beauties can be seen in perfection. Its mountains
may be ascended, and glorious views of sea and craggy heights obtained;
but the charm of Killarney is not grandeur, but beauty. There are mountain
views in Scotland finer than can be had from the summits of Mangerton or
Carn Thual. It would be something like waste of time to climb those
hills. Let the tourist rather wander in the hundreds of shady lanes or
paths that skirt the lakes, or take a boat and navigate that most
picturesque river, for its length, in the world, the Long Range, that
connects the upper with the lower lake. Let him mark the wondrous
luxuriance of grass, leaf, weed and flower. The arbutus grows so large
that it becomes a tree. Ferns of such gigantic proportions may be found in
shady nooks that they seem to belong to some far-back geological age.
Softness, freshness, luxuriance and _beaute riante_ are the real glories
of Killarney. In these it has no rival.
There are two drawbacks to Killarney; there is the guide nuisance and the
rain nuisance. The nuisance of guides is probably no greater than in many
other places of tourist resort, and, by a strong effort of the will, can
be got rid of. But the rain is a more serious matter and must be borne
patiently. Some years come when not a dozen dry days occur throughout the
entire summer, but generally there is less rainfall than on the west
coasts of Scotland or England. There have been quite as many wet days in
Liverpool during the three last summers as there usually are in Killarney.
It does, however, too often happen that tourists are confined to the hotel
for four or five days at a time owing to the rain. It must be borne in
mind that this excessive moisture of atmosphere is what has given the
south-west of Ireland, and England too, their exquisite charm of verdure
and wild flowers. When a fine day comes after rain in summer or autumn all
Nature seems to laugh. Flowers of all hues open their petals, birds in
multitudes begin to sing, and wild bees and hosts of insects make the air
musical with their hum. The American tourist need have no fear when
insects are mentioned, for the mosquito is unknown in Killarney. Midges
are the only insect plague, but they never enter houses, and are
troublesome only before rain, early in the spring or late in the autumn.
Most tourists go to Killarney early in the summer. June and July are
favourite times for Americans to visit it. As it lies almost in the direct
route between New York and Liverpool, they generally visit it before going
to England or the Continent of Europe. But the time to see Killarney is in
the autumn--it is then in all its glory. It should not be visited before
the 15th of August; from then until the 1st of October it is the most
beautiful place, perhaps, on the earth, provided always that the weather
is not wet. There is only one thing that mars the weather in the south of
Ireland--namely, rain. Cold, in the general sense of the word, is almost
unknown. Every day that is not wet must be fine. There is, it must be
confessed, rather more probability of having dry weather in Killarney in
the spring or early summer than in the autumn, but, by visiting it in the
spring, the tourist would gain nothing, and would lose the wild-flower
feast of autumn. No American, or even native of England, no matter from
what part of his country he comes, can form the faintest conception of
what a Killarney mountain is in September, if the weather be fine. The
wild-flower that is the glory of Ireland is the heath. It blossoms only in
the autumn. Next in glory to the heath comes the furze. Both furze and
heath are indigenous in the whole of the south-west of Europe, but, owing
to the mildness and moistness of the climate of Ireland, they grow and
blossom there with a luxuriance unknown in any other country. When a great
mountain becomes a mighty bouquet of purple and gold, a sight is revealed
which surpasses anything on earth in floral beauty. Almost every mountain
round about the "Eden of the West" is clothed from base to summit in a
vast drapery of heath. Some of the Killarney mountains are wooded for a
few hundred feet up their sides, but most of them are entirely covered
with heath interspersed with furze. When a fine autumn occurs, tens of
thousands of acres of mountain and moorland gleam in the sunlight, an
ocean of purple heath and golden furze. Not only do the heath and furze
blossom in the autumn, but myriads of other wild-flowers appear only at
that time of year, or blossom most luxuriantly then. Even white clover,
which rarely blossoms in other countries except in the spring or early
summer, open its flowers widest and sends out its most fragrant perfume in
an Irish autumn. The air is heavy with fragrance of flowers, the mountains
are musical with the hum of bees, and
"Every winged thing that loves the sun
Makes the bright noonday full of melody."
Killarney in a fine autumn becomes not only entrancing, but overpowering
in its loveliness.
The whole country round Killarney is a wonderland. Macaulay's description
of it is true to the letter. In all his works nothing can be found of a
descriptive character equal to the passage quoted from him. He had a great
subject, and he handled it as no other writer of the English language
could. He has described one of the loveliest regions in the world in a few
lines that will stand for ever as one of the greatest efforts of a great
writer. His description is a brilliant gem of composition, just as the
place it describes is a brilliant gem of nature.
No one should visit Killarney without visiting Glengariff. It is only
about twenty miles from Killarney, and can be reached by a sort of
low-backed car peculiar to Ireland. This car is a very curious sort of
conveyance. The occupants sit back to back, with their sides to the
horses. In fine weather there is no pleasanter mode of travelling than on
a low-backed car, but when it rains one is anything but comfortable.
Glengariff is thought by some to surpass even Killarney in beauty. It is a
deep glen surrounded by mountains of the most fantastic shapes, clothed
with a wealth of foliage that would astonish any one who had not seen
Killarney. The lake that is seen at Glengariff is sea-water, and opens
into Bantry Bay. The tourist will find an excellent hotel there, and no
matter how he may be satiated with the beauty of Killarney, he will see
other and more striking beauties in Glengariff.
Killarney is well supplied with hotels. There are four or five, and they
are all good. Most of them are situated in sequestered places, where a
view of some enchanting scene spreads before the door. The village of
Killarney is about a mile from the lake; it is a place of no interest at
all, but there is a very good hotel in it, and many tourists stop there,
for it is just at the railway terminus. Hotel expenses at Killarney in the
tourist season are not so high as at some of the fashionable Continental
summer resorts. Guides are not much wanted, unless mountains are to be
ascended. Then they are indispensable, for mists may suddenly come during
the very finest day, and the tourist without a guide would run a chance of
spending a night on a bleak mountain or being drowned in a lake or
bog-hole. Ponies of a most docile character can be hired cheap. Pony-back
travelling is a favourite mode of "doing" Killarney, especially with
ladies and lazy men, but no one into whose soul the charm of Killarney
really enters would think of travelling through such lovely scenes on
horseback. On foot or in a boat is the way to see Killarney.
[Illustration: ROSS CASTLE.]
There are ruins of the most interesting kind in Killarney. Muckross Abbey
is not so large as some of the ruined shrines of England, but it is a
venerable and imposing building. It was built by one of the MacCarthys,
chiefs of the district, in 1340. Ross Castle is another imposing ruin. It
is situated on a green promontory that juts into the lake. There is some
doubt as to the exact time when it was erected, but it could hardly have
been before the fourteenth century. The most interesting ruin near
Killarney, and by far the most ancient, is the monastery on the supremely
beautiful island of Inisfallan. It was founded by Saint Finian in the
sixth century. It was there the yet unpublished "Annals of Inisfallan"
were compiled. Hardly any of the walls of the old monastery remain. The
arbutus and the hawthorn are growing where once were cloisters, and are
fast completing the ruin of what was one of the first of the ancient
churches that were erected in Ireland.
TARA
The supreme attraction of Tara is its antiquity. It must not, however, be
thought that a visit to this famous hill reveals no beauties. It is not
situated among mountains; hardly a lake is visible from its summit: yet
the view from it is so fine that if there was no historic interest
attached to it, the tourist in search of the beautiful alone would have
his eyes feasted with as fair a scene from one of its grassy ramparts as
could be gazed on in any part of Ireland. Eastward the view is obstructed
by the hill of Screen, but on every other side it is superb. Westward the
eye ranges over the fairest and most fertile part of Ireland, the great
plain of Meath and West Meath, anciently called _Magh Breagh_, or the fair
plain. And fair indeed it is in summer time, one great green sea of grass
and wild flowers, reaching to the Shannon, sixty miles away. But it is
southward that the view from Tara is most striking. The Dublin and Wicklow
mountains are more imposing when seen from Tara than from any other place.
They rise in a vast, blue rampart, and seem so colossal as to appear
thousands of feet higher than they are. Those old, barbaric Irish kings
and chieftains must have been lovers of the beautiful, for they almost
invariably fixed their strongholds not only in the fairest parts, but in
places commanding the fairest prospects. There are hardly two other places
in Ireland the surroundings of which are more beautiful than those of Tara
and Uisneach, or from which fairer prospects are to be seen. They were,
from far-back antiquity, the seats of those by whom the country was
_supposed_ to be ruled, for it often happened that he who was styled chief
king had but little control over his vassals.
There is no other spot of European soil the records of which go so far
back into the dim twilight of the past as do the records of Tara. Before
the first Roman raised a rude hut on the banks of the Tiber, when the
place where the Athenian Acropolis now stands was a bare rock, kings,
whose names are given in Irish history, ruled in Tara. When one gazes on
those grassy mounds, that are almost all that remain of what our ancient
poets used to call "the fair, radiant, City of the Western World," he can
hardly believe that such a place could ever have been the abode of
royalty, the meeting-place of assemblies, and the permanent home of
thousands. Other desolated strongholds of ancient royalty and dominion
bear ample evidence of their former greatness. Ruined columns of
Persepolis yet remain. The site of Tadmor is marked by still standing
pillars of marble, and vast piles of decomposed bricks tell of the
greatness of ancient Babylon; but green, grassy mounds and partially
obliterated earth-works are almost all that remain of Tara. It is so
ruined that it can hardly be ruined any more. Time may yet destroy even
what remains of the bricks of Babylon, but time can hardly change what
remains of the ruins of Tara.
No other spot of Irish earth can compare with Tara in historic interest or
in antiquity. Emania and Rathcroghan are little more than places of
yesterday compared with it. It is over three thousand years ago since the
first king reigned in Tara. Some may say that it is only bardic history
that tells of what took place in Ireland in those very remote times, and
that it is unworthy of credence. It is true that there is a great deal of
fiction mixed with the early history of Ireland, as there is with the
early history of all countries; but the ancient Irish chroniclers did not
attempt much more than a mere sketch of the salient points of Irish
history of very remote times, say from beyond the third century B.C. Some
of the facts they mention have been verified in remarkable ways by what
may be called collateral evidence. This evidence is found in place names,
and in the names of persons and things. One of those proofs of the general
correctness of what is related in Gaelic literature about far-back events
of Irish history is so remarkable that it deserves special mention. One of
the kings who ruled in Tara considerably over a thousand years B.C. was
named Lugh, or in English, Lewy or Louis. He established the games that
were held annually at Tailtean, near Kells, that were regularly celebrated
down to the time of the Anglo-French invasion, in honour of his mother,
whose name was Tailte. Those games were held in the first week in August,
and from them the Irish name for the month of August is derived; it is
_Lughnasa_. This is the only name known in Gaelic to the present hour for
the month of August, except a periphrastic one meaning "the first month of
autumn." This name for August is known in every part of Ireland and
Scotland where the old tongue still lives, but it has been corrupted to
_Lunasd_ in the latter country. The meaning of the word _Lughnasa_ is, the
games or celebrations of this same Lugh or Lewy, who lived and reigned
centuries before Rome was founded, and before a stone of the Athenian
Acropolis was laid. It seems almost impossible to conceive that the Gaelic
name for the month of August could have had any origin other than that
given above on the authority of one of the most learned of ancient Irish
ecclesiastics, Cormac MacCuillenan, Archbishop of Cashel, in the ninth
century.
The descriptions of Tara given in ancient Gaelic writings have been
verified in the most remarkable manner by the researches of modern
archaeologists. Dr Petrie's great work, "The Antiquities of Tara Hill,"
would go far to remove the prejudices of the most bigoted despiser of
Irish historic records. He was one of the most learned and scientific
investigators of antiquities that ever lived, and was not only a good
Gaelic scholar himself, but had the assistance of the greatest Gaelic
scholar of the century, John O'Donovan. Those two gentlemen translated
every mention of Tara that they could find in prose or verse in ancient
Irish manuscripts; they compared every mention they could find of the
monuments of Tara with what remains of them at present; and they found
such a general agreement between ancient descriptions of those monuments
and the existing remains of them as proved what is said in Gaelic
manuscripts about the extent and splendour of Tara in Pagan times to be
well worthy of credence. Every one who visits Tara, and who is in any way
interested in archaeology, should have Doctor Petrie's map of it, which
will be found in his minute and elaborate work on the "Antiquities of Tara
Hill." That map is reproduced here. The book is very scarce, as only a
small edition of it was printed, but it can be found in the "Transactions
of the Royal Irish Academy." Armed with Petrie's map a visit to Tara would
be one of the most interesting and enjoyable excursions that could be made
from Dublin. Kilmessan Station can be reached from the Broadstone terminus
in an hour, and less than two miles of a walk through a beautiful country
brings one to the summit of "the Hill of Supremacy," as it was called of
old when he who ruled in Tara ruled Ireland. No matter how confirmed an
archaeologist he may be who stands for the first time on this celebrated
hill, his first feeling will be of joy at the beauty of the prospect that
is spread before him. To know how beautiful Ireland is, even in those
places that are not on the track of tourists, and that are seldom
mentioned in guide books, one should see the view from the hill of Tara.
It would be hard to find any other hill in Ireland so well adapted for a
place of assembly or for the dwelling of a ruler as Tara. Uisneach, in
Westmeath, is, perhaps, the only hill in Ireland that possesses all the
advantages of Tara. In ancient times, when war was the rule and peace the
exception, it was imperative that a stronghold should be on a height.
Athens had its acropolis and so had Corinth. Tara had the advantage of
extent as well as of height, and could be made a permanent dwelling-place
as well as an acropolis, for there are fully a hundred acres on what may
be called the summit of the hill. It is unfortunate that some of the hill
has been enclosed, planted with deal trees, and a church erected on the
very track of some of the most ancient monuments. This plantation and
church have terribly interfered with the picturesqueness and antique look
of Tara. Planting deal trees and erecting a modern church amid the
hoariest monuments, and on the most historic spot of European soil, was
little less than sacrilege. If there had been a proper national spirit, or
a due veneration for their past among the Irish, they never would have
allowed a church or any modern building to be erected on the most historic
spot on Irish soil; and even now they ought to have the church removed,
the wall torn down, and the plantation uprooted. All Greece would rise up
in indignation were any one to erect a church or chapel amid the ruins of
the Athenian Acropolis.
[Illustration: MONUMENTS ON TARA HILL.
(_After Petrie's Map._)]
The most interesting and best preserved of the antiquities of Tara is the
track of the banquetting-house. It must have been an enormous building,
for it was about 800 feet long and about 50 wide. It is wonderful how
perfectly plain and well-defined the track of this once great structure
appears after nearly fourteen hundred years, and in spite of the way this
historic spot has been uprooted and levelled. But not a vestige of
stone-work or of stones is to be seen near the ruins of the
banquetting-house. It seems absolutely certain that there were no
buildings of stone in Tara when it was at the height of its grandeur, and
that seems to have been about the middle of the third century, during the
reign of Cormac MacAirt. It must not be thought that buildings cannot be
fine unless they are of stone; but buildings of stone were very rare in
northern countries until comparatively recent times. Moore, in his
"History of Ireland," says, speaking of wooden buildings and of
Tara--"However scepticism may now question their architectural beauty,
they could boast the admiration of many a century in evidence of their
grandeur. That those edifices were of wood is by no means conclusive
either against the elegance of their structure or the civilisation of
those who erected them. It was in wood that the graceful forms of Grecian
architecture first unfolded their beauties." So the absence of stone
buildings in Tara in no way proves that it was not a place of grandeur as
well as of beauty; and the tenth century Gaelic poet may have been
justified in saying of it,
"World of perishable beauty!
Tara to-day, though a wilderness,
Was once the meeting-place of heroes.
Great was the host to which it was an inheritance,
Though to-day green, grassy land."
Every mention of Tara in the vast remnant of Gaelic manuscripts of the
ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries that still exists shows it
to have been, beyond all comparison, the most important place in ancient
Ireland. Oengus the Culdee, author of the longest poem in ancient Gaelic,
the famous Felire, recently translated by Mr Whitley Stokes, speaks thus
of this renowned but now ruined spot:
"Tara's mighty burgh hath perished
With its kingdom's splendour;
With a multitude of champions of wisdom
Abideth great Ardmagh."
The poet contrasts the desolation into which the strongholds of the Pagans
had fallen with the then flourishing condition of the centres of
Christian teaching. Tara was the political as well as the social centre
of ancient Ireland. It is in connection with it that the only mention made
of roads having names is found in ancient Gaelic writings. Five great
roads, as will be seen by the annexed map, led from Tara to the
extremities of the Island. The Slighe Dala went southward; the Slighe
Asail went north-west; the Slighe Midhluchra, went north-east; the Slighe
Cualann went south-easterly; and the Slighe Mor went in a south-western
direction. Traces of those roads may still be seen by the practised eye of
the archaeologist.
One of the most interesting things connected with Tara is the Lia Fail, or
Stone of Destiny. It was upon it the over-kings of Ireland had been
inaugurated from far-back antiquity. It is said to have been brought by
Fergus, brother of the then reigning chief King, to Scotland, in order
that he might be crowned king on it over the part of Scotland he had
conquered. It remained under the coronation chair of the Kings of Scotland
down to the time of Edward the First, who seized it and brought it to
Westminster, where it is now, and the sovereigns of England have been
crowned on it ever since his time. Petrie maintains that the Lia Fail is
still in Tara, and that the pillar stone that stands over the graves of
the men who fell in '98 is it. He adduces very strong evidence from
manuscripts of high authority and of great antiquity to prove what he
says. There is, on the other hand, strong testimony to prove that it was
brought to Scotland by Fergus. The question will probably never be finally
settled. The principal virtue supposed to be possessed by the Lia Fail was
that it would bring political power to the country in which it was,
particularly if its people were of Celtic stock. It is very remarkable
that soon after the stone supposed to be the Lia Fail was taken out of
Ireland, her political power began to decline, her over-kings lost a great
part of their former authority, and in the long run she lost her
independence. Scotland's political power and national independence
vanished not long after she had lost the Lia Fail, and in a few centuries
after England had got it she became one of the foremost nations in the
world. The English claim to be Saxons, but it is now generally admitted
that the Celtic element preponderates in the island of Great Britain, so
that the prophecy attached to the Lia Fail seems to be fulfilled.
The Lia Fail is certainly the most extraordinary stone in Europe, if not
in the world. The famous Rosetta stone, covered as it is with archaic
writing, and verifying, as many suppose, the truth of Old Testament
history, is hardly more interesting than the rude granite slab that lies
under the coronation chair in Westminster, unmarked with a single letter.
It is about 25 inches in length, about 15 in breadth, and 9 in depth. How
such a rude, unshapely flag-stone could have such a history, and have been
an object of veneration and interest for so many centuries, is what
strikes with wonder those who see it. But if it is not the real Lia Fail,
if it is a sham, and if the stone still standing in Tara is the genuine
one, the wonder increases; for the fact of a spurious article having
become invested with such fame and regarded with such veneration is the
greatest wonder of all.
Doctor Petrie says, in his "Antiquities of Tara Hill," that "it is in the
highest degree improbable that to gratify the desire of a colony the Irish
would have voluntarily parted with a monument so venerable for its
antiquity and considered essential to the legitimate succession of their
own kings." He quotes verses from a tenth century poet, Kenith O'Hartigan,
who says that the Lia Fail is
"This stone on which are my two heels";
and he quotes from an ancient tract called the _Dinseanchus_, another
proof that when it was composed, and that time could not have been later
than the tenth century, the Lia Fail was in Tara. It often happens,
however, that Irish annalists and historians, so fond were they of looking
backward to the past, make things appear as they had been, and not as they
were when they wrote. The over-kings of Ireland were called Kings of Tara
five hundred years after Tara had been abandoned, and when it was as waste
and desolate as it is to-day. O'Dugan, in his topographical poem, written
in the fourteenth century, tells of clans inhabiting the English Pale,
when they had been banished westward by the invaders nearly two hundred
years before he wrote. He prefaces his topographical poem by saying
"O'Maolseachlinn, chief King of Tara and Erin,"
but the last O'Maolseachlinn that was nominally chief King of Ireland and
Tara had died three hundred years before O'Dugan wrote! Why those old
Gaelic poets were so fond of describing things as they had been, and not
as they were when they wrote, is hard to understand. They may have got
their information from documents that were centuries old when they copied
them. It seems a certainty that the men whose writings Petrie quotes to
prove that the Lia Fail was in Tara in the tenth century, did what O'Dugan
did in his topographical poem--that is, speak of things as they had been
hundreds of years before. He never mentions the English at all. This
partially accounts for Irish writers of the tenth century speaking of the
Lia Fail being then in Tara. They intended to describe where it used to
be, but not where it was. When Petrie says that the Lia Fail is spoken of
by all ancient Irish writers in such a manner as to leave no doubt that it
remained in its original situation at the time when they wrote, he makes a
great mistake. Here is a quotation from the "Book of Leinster," a
manuscript of the highest authority, compiled in the early part of the
twelfth century, and mostly from writings of a much earlier date:--"It was
the Tuatha De Danaans who brought with them the great _Fal_, that is, the
stone of knowledge that _was_ in Tara; from which [the name of] Magh Fail
is on Ireland. He under whom it would roar was then [rightful] King of
Ireland."[2]
There is another very strong proof brought to light by the publication of
"Silva Gadelica," by Mr Standish Hays O'Grady, that the Lia Fail was
removed from Tara. In the tract called the "Colloquy," one of the speakers
says: "This, then, and the Lia Fail, or stone of destiny, that _was_ there
(in Tara) were the two wonders of Tara. When Ireland's monarch stepped on
it, it would cry out under him," ... "And who was it that lifted that
flag, or that carried it away out of Ireland?" asked one of the listeners.
"It was a young hero of great spirit that ruled over" ... Here,
unfortunately, the tract ends abruptly. The "Colloquy," or "Agallamh na
Seanorach," is a tract of respectable antiquity. Its language seems to be
that of the fifteenth or perhaps the fourteenth century, but the version
that has come down to us may be, and probably is, but a transcript of a
much more ancient tract, the language of which was modernised.
If Doctor Petrie had known of the existence of those two proofs given of
the Lia Fail having been removed from Tara, he never would have said that
all ancient Irish writers spoke of it in such a way as to leave no doubt
of its being there still. O'Reilly, author of Irish dictionary, says: "Lia
Fail, the stone of destiny, on which the ancient Irish monarchs used to be
crowned until the time of Mortogh Mac Earc, who sent it into Scotland
that his brother Fergus, who had subdued that country, might be crowned on
it. It is now in Westminster Abbey." O'Reilly was the most learned Irish
scholar and historian of his day, and was a painstaking, conscientious
man, who would hardly state any thing for which he did not have good
authority. It must, however, be admitted that up to the present no
positive statement seems to have been found in ancient Irish writings as
to when and by whom the Lia Fail was brought from Tara to Scotland;
neither does it seem to be known where O'Reilly got his information about
it.
When Petrie spoke of the improbability of the Irish allowing such a
venerated monument as the Lia Fail to be taken out of Ireland, he should
have remembered that at the time when it is said to have been taken, in
the beginning of the sixth century, Christianity had become established in
Ireland. Paganism or Druidism may have survived among a few, but it had
got its death-blow. Pagan monuments of every kind had begun to be
disregarded. The Lia Fail was essentially a Pagan monument, and
consequently an abhorrence to Christians. The fathers, or at least the
grandfathers, of the men who allowed Fergus to take it to Scotland, would
probably have shed the last drop of their blood to keep it in Ireland. The
disrepute into which everything connected with Paganism had fallen after
the introduction of Christianity is plainly set forth in the "Book of
Leinster" in the very page from which the Gaelic extract about the Lia
Fail has been given:--"It happened that Christ was born not long after; it
was that which broke the power of the idols."[3] The Lia Fail was an idol
that had lost its power and prestige, so that the people would not be
likely to have any objection to its being removed to Scotland or anywhere
else.
But there are still other even stronger objections for accepting Petrie's
theory that the Lia Fail is still in Tara. The pillar stone that is there
is not a _lia_, and never would have been called such by the ancient
Irish. _Lia_ means a stone of any kind in its general sense; but the
pillar stone in Tara would not be called a _lia_, but a _coirthe_. _Lia_
is always applied to a flag-stone, both in ancient and modern Gaelic. The
stone under the coronation chair in Westminster is a real _lia_ or
flag-stone; the one in Tara is a _coirthe_, or pillar stone, for, judging
from its height above the ground, it cannot be much less than eight feet
in length; it is very nearly round, and was evidently fashioned into its
present shape by man. If the stone in Tara is the real Lia Fail, how did
it come to lose its original name and be know even still by an Irish name
that connects it with Fergus, the person by whom the real Lia Fail is
popularly believed to have been brought to Scotland? This loss of an
original name, and its substitution by a new one, could hardly have
occurred in the case of such a famous monument as the Lia Fail. If the
superstitious reverence with which it had been regarded before the
introduction of Christianity had vanished, its original name would have
remained. There are many place names in Ireland that have not changed
during twenty centuries, and it is almost impossible to conceive how the
name of the most venerated monument in all Ireland could have changed had
the monument itself remained in the country. Another strong objection
against the pillar stone in Tara being the real Lia Fail is its shape. The
real Lia Fail was intended to be stood upon by the chief king at his
inauguration; but the most flat-footed monarch that ever ruled Ireland
would have considerable difficulty in standing steadily on the _coirthe_
in Tara, even if it were prostrate, for it is round and not flat.
Standing steadily on it would be nearly as difficult a performance as
"rolling off a log" would be an easy one.
Taking everything into consideration, there seem to be very strong reasons
to believe that the Lia Fail was taken from Tara to Scotland at the time
it is popularly believed to have been taken--namely, about the year 503 of
the Christian era; that it was taken in order to have Fergus Mac Earc
inaugurated on it as king over that part of Scotland which he had brought
under his domination; that it was taken from Scone to Westminster by
Edward the First in the year 1296, and that it is now under the coronation
chair in Westminster Abbey. It seems strange how a man of Doctor Petrie's
archaeological knowledge could have been led to believe that the pillar
stone still in Tara, for whatever use it may have been originally
intended, was the real Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny.
It would be most instructive and interesting if a scientific examination
was made of the stone under the coronation chair. If it was proved to be a
meteoric stone, its fame and the reverence with which it was so long
regarded could be easily understood. If an ancient tribe saw a stone
falling from heaven among them, they would regard such a thing as a
miracle, and think that the stone was sent to them for some special
purpose. They would, if possible, take it with them wherever they went. If
the Lia Fail was proved to be a meteoric stone, the esteem and honour in
which it was so long held, and the power which it was believed to possess,
would be easily accounted for.
The history of Tara is, to a great extent, the history of ancient Ireland
of pre-Christian times. It was more of a political centre than London or
Paris is at present. The event that above all others left a permanent mark
as well as a blot on Irish history may be said to have had its origin in
Tara. The horrible Leinster Tribute and Tara are closely connected.
In the first century of the Christian era, an over-king called Tuathal,
from whom the common Irish surname O'Tool, or Tool, seems to have
originated, reigned in Tara. He had two daughters, famed for their beauty.
We are told in the "Book of Leinster" that they were "fairer than the
clouds of heaven." Their names were Fihir and Darine. A king of Leinster
named Eochy married Fihir, the elder of the two sisters. He got tired of
her after a short time, went to Tara, told Tuathal that Fihir was dead,
and that he wanted to marry her sister Darine. Tuathal consented, and
Eochy took his new wife home to his _dun_, which was in the western part
of the present county of Wicklow. Darine had been only a short time in her
new home when she met her sister Fihir, who she had been told was dead.
Darine was so overwhelmed by shame that she died, and Fihir was so shocked
at the death of her sister that she died of grief. So Tuathal's two
beautiful daughters were dead, and were buried in the same grave. When
Tuathal heard of their deaths he summoned his vassals, the kings of Ulster
and Connacht; his army and theirs invaded Leinster, defeated and killed
its king, ravaged it, and imposed the celebrated Tribute on the
unfortunate province--namely, fifteen thousand cows, fifteen thousand
sheep, fifteen thousand pigs, fifteen thousand silver chains, fifteen
thousand bronze or copper pots, and fifteen thousand linnen (?) cloaks,
together with one great cauldron into which, _Hibernice_, "twelve beeves
and twelve pigs 'would go,' in the house of Tara itself." This was,
indeed, a prodigious pot that could boil four-and-twenty quadrupeds of the
sort, for Ireland was always famous for its large pigs and beeves. Such a
cauldron having been used, shows that however poorly the inhabitants of
other parts of Ireland may have fared in ancient times, the people of
Tara lived well. When it is remembered that ancient Leinster was little
more than half the size of the modern province, such a tribute appears
enormous. Ancient Leinster, or, to speak more correctly, the Leinster of
the time of Tuathal, went no further north than a line running from Dublin
to Athlone. The counties of Meath, Westmeath, Longford, and Louth belonged
to the province of Meath that had been carved out of parts of the four old
provinces by Tuathal himself. The Tribute was to be paid every year, but
it was not, for, as the Leinstermen's own great Chronicle says, "It never
was paid without a fight"; and sometimes when they succeeded, as they very
often did, in licking the combined armies of all the other provinces, it
used not to be paid for many years. It was, however, paid on and off for
over five hundred years, and to forty over-kings. It was remitted in the
seventh century; but many attempts were subsequently made to re-impose it
on the unfortunate Leinstermen, who paid more dearly for the treacherous
act of one of their kings than any other province or nation mentioned in
history. One of their poets has said in a yet untranslated poem in the
"Book of Leinster":
"It is beyond the testimony of the Creator,
It is beyond the word of supplicating Christ,
All the kings of the Irish
That make attacks on Leinstermen!"[4]
It is not to be wondered at that the Leinster Tribute totally
denationalised the province on which it was levied, and made its harried
inhabitants side with the Danes and with the Anglo-Normans against their
own countrymen. But what is most astonishing about the Tribute is its
enormousness. That part of Leinster which was the ancient province could
hardly pay such a tax to-day. This matter seems to show that ancient
Ireland, in spite of a state of almost continual intestine warfare, was
far richer and more populous than is generally supposed.
The most horrible act recorded in Irish history was committed at
Tara--that is, the slaughter of 3030 women by the Leinstermen in the year
241. Here is what the Four Masters say of it under that year:--"The
massacre of the girls at Cloonfearta at Tara, by Dunlang, King of
Leinster. Thirty royal girls was the number, and a hundred maids with
each of them. Twelve princes of the Leinstermen did Cormac put to death in
revenge of that massacre, together with the exaction of the Borumha
(Tribute) with an increase after Tuathal." The Cormac here spoken of was
the celebrated Cormac Mac Airt, one of the best over-kings that ever ruled
ancient Ireland. This horrible massacre of maidens in Tara is so often
mentioned in ancient Irish history and annals, and the same number of
victims so invariably given, that there cannot be any doubt whatever about
its having occurred. But particulars about it seem wanting. There was
probably some pagan festival to be celebrated in Tara, at which the
children of the upper classes only attended. The ladies may have arrived
from the different parts of the country before the men, and when the
harried Leinstermen made a raid on Tara, they found it unguarded save by
women, and killed them and burned Tara to the ground at the same time; or
it may have been that the women tried to help the few men that happened to
be there in protecting the place, and Dunlang made an indiscriminate
massacre of every one he found in it. This horrible act was caused by the
imposition of the Leinster Tribute. It is to be presumed that there were
no Leinster girls among those who were slaughtered.
Those interested in Irish history, or in ancient history in general,
should read the tract called the _Borumha_, or Tribute, in the "Book of
Leinster." Translations of it have been recently made in the _Revue
Celtique_ and in _Silva Gadelica_. There is not in any ancient or mediaeval
literature anything to excel it in general interest. It is an historic gem
that has been forgotten or overlooked for centuries. The indifference
which the educated classes of the Irish people have heretofore shown about
the ancient literature of their country was one of the most shocking,
sickening symptoms of national degradation ever shown by any civilised
people. They are latterly beginning to take more interest in it; but it is
greatly to be feared that they have been induced to turn their attention
to it more by the example shown them by foreigners than by any change of
opinion originating among themselves. Much as O'Donovan, O'Curry, and
Stokes have done to call the attention of the cultured classes of the
Irish people to the study of Celtic literature, it is doubtful if they
would have succeeded if the scholars of Continental Europe had not taken
an interest in it. The _renaissance_ of Celtic studies which seems to
have taken place owes a large part of its origin to the Germans and the
French.
Many valuable gold ornaments of antique and beautiful design and
workmanship have been found in Tara and its immediate vicinity, but very
few of them have found their way to the Kildare Street Museum in Dublin,
one of the greatest, if not the very greatest, collection of ancient
weapons, implements, and ornaments to be seen in Europe. Most of the gold
ornaments found in Tara have been melted down. If one is to believe what
the peasantry living in its vicinity say, the quantity of gold ornaments
found there was very great. The famous Tara Brooch, preserved in the
Dublin Museum, and considered the most beautiful piece of metallurgy,
either ancient or modern, that is known to exist, was not found in Tara,
but on the seashore about three miles from Drogheda, and nine or ten from
this famous hill. It was found by an old woman, who is said to have sold
it to a shopkeeper in Drogheda for ninepence. The Royal Irish Academy paid
L500 for it. Many think that a regular, scientific exploration of Tara
Hill ought to be made, such an exploration as Schlieman made of the site
of Troy. If this were done under government surveillance, or by some
responsible and skilled antiquarian, there is hardly a doubt but that many
and precious ornaments in gold, and implements and weapons in bronze,
would be found, especially the latter, for there seems every reason to
believe that Tara was the seat of government long before iron was known,
and long before the bronze age came to an end. It would, however, be a
tremendous task to uproot several hundred acres merely on speculation. But
the quantity of antique gold ornaments that has been found in Ireland was
immense, more, it is thought by some, than has been found in all the rest
of Europe. They are being found almost every year. Nearly L300 worth of
golden fibulae was found in the County Waterford in 1894. They are now to
be seen in the Dublin Museum.
[Illustration: TARA BROOCH.]
The many things that are told about Tara in old Gaelic books would fill a
large volume. They are all interesting. They may be incredible, grotesque,
or funny, but they are never common-place: it is this uniqueness that is
the great charm of ancient Irish literature. What could be more unique
than this account of the burial of Laoghaire, the chief king who was
cotemporary with St Patrick, but of whom the Saint never succeeded in
making even a half decent Christian. It is taken from the book of the Dun
Cow. When Laoghaire was killed by "the elements," by lightning probably,
"his body was taken from the south and was buried with his warrior weapons
in the outward(?) south-eastern rampart of the Kingly Rath Laoghaire in
Tara, and its face to the south against the Leinstermen [as if] fighting
with them, for he had been an enemy of the Leinstermen when alive." The
idea of facing his enemies with his dead body, for Laoghaire must have
given orders as to how and where he should be buried, could only have
entered into the brains of ancient Irish kings, for they were grotesque or
original in almost everything.
It is strange how long political memories last. The enmity between
Leinster and Meath has not even yet quite died out. Meath, as the seat of
the over-kings, represented Ireland, and was also the place from which the
hateful Leinster Tribute originated. This is not yet forgotten, for
whenever wrestling matches, or athletic sports of any kind, are held near
Dublin by the people of adjoining counties, the counties of Dublin,
Kildare, and Wicklow are always pitted against Meath. Dubhthach Mac U
Lugair, one of the first converts St Patrick made in Ireland, tells us, in
a poem of his in praise of his native province of Leinster, that its war
cry was "The magnification of Leinster, the destruction of Meath."
Dubhthach may have been a good Christian, but there are good grounds for
thinking that he was a better Leinsterman; for he says in the same poem
that--
"Except the host of Heaven round the Creator
There never was a host like Leinstermen round Crimhthan."
Crimhthan was a king of Leinster, who is said to have had a stronghold in
Howth, where the Bailey Lighthouse now stands.
Although few traces of cultivation are to be seen on the Hill of Tara,
there can be no doubt that it has been very much defaced and uprooted.
The great _rath_ of King Laoghaire, who was cotemporary with St Patrick,
has almost entirely disappeared. Its earthen rampart must have been of a
good height, when it served as a sepulchre for Laoghaire with his body in
an erect position, with its face turned southward, against the
Leinstermen. Laoghaire was never a Christian; or if he was such at one
time, there seems strong reason to think that he relapsed into paganism
towards the end of his career. At all events it is evident that he was not
a favourite of St Patrick's or of the early Irish Christians, and it is
quite likely that when Tara was abandoned, his _rath_ was uprooted, and
his body, or what remained of it, consigned to some unmarked grave. But
from whatever cause, this _rath_ has certainly been almost entirely
obliterated. It must have been considerably over two acres in area, if one
can judge by the small segment of it that can still be traced.
The following story is told in the life of St Patrick in the Leabhar
Breac. Mr. Whitley Stokes says in his translation of the lives of the
Saints from the "Book of Lismore," that it so disgusted Thomas Carlyle
that it caused him to give up the study of Irish history:
"Then three of Ui Meith Mendait Tire (a tribe that were located in the
vicinity of Tara) stole and ate one of the two goats that used to carry
water for Patrick, and came to swear a lie. Whereupon the goat bleated
from the stomachs of the three. 'By my good judge,' said Patrick, 'the
goat himself hides not the place where he is.'" It is hardly to be
wondered at that a story like this, that would make any right-minded man
laugh, only disgusted a hypochondriacal crank like Carlyle.
The last chief king who lived in Tara was Dermot MacCarroll, who died in
the year 565. He was evidently only half a Christian, for it has been
fully proved that Druidism lingered in Ireland for many years after the
death of St Patrick. Dermot got into a dispute with the clergy because
they sheltered a man who had done something that displeased him. The end
of the dispute was that St. Ruadhan, one of the prominent ecclesiastics of
the time, cursed Tara, and it was forever abandoned as the seat of
royalty. It is almost certain that the real cause of the cursing of Tara
by the clergy was that druidical or pagan rites continued to be practised
in it after the bulk of the people had become Christians; for it had been
for untold centuries the seat of paganism as well as of royalty. It has to
be admitted, however, that great a benefit to the true faith as the
abandonment of Tara as a political centre undoubtedly was, it was
disastrous to the authority of the chief kings, for they appear to have
lost much of their authority over the provincial rulers when they
abandoned Tara and made their abodes in various places in Meath,
Westmeath, and Donegal.
The vast antiquity given to Tara cannot be reasonably considered as the
mere invention of Irish bards or chroniclers. It is inconceivable that
they would invent the names of forty or fifty kings, most of whom ruled
there over a thousand years before the Christian era. The Irish annalists
who wrote about the very remote historical events of Irish history lived
and wrote long before Ireland came under English domination. They would
have no object in inventing historic falsehoods. The Tuatha de Daanans and
Firbolgs, who possessed the country before the Milesians, had vanished
more than a thousand years before the most ancient annals we possess were
written. What object could men who claimed to be Milesians have in
inventing historic falsehoods about races who possessed the country before
them? Besides, the general correctness of Irish annalists in recording
purely historic events is now admitted by all those capable of forming an
opinion. The men who wrote the oldest chronicles that we possess of
events in the very far-back past of their country, evidently wrote what
had been handed down to them, either in writing or by tradition. They
would have had no object in becoming fabricators.
So far, then, Tara with its glamour of greatness and antiquity, its
uprootedness, its ruin, and its utter desolation.
LOCH REE
Of all the great lakes of Ireland there is none so little known to
tourists or the public in general as Loch Ree. It is the fourth in size,
Loch Neagh, Loch Erne, and Loch Corrib being the only Irish lakes of
greater extent, but none of them exceeds Loch Ree in beauty. Loch Erne is
a noble sheet of water, and is adorned with many beautiful islands, but
owing to its peculiar shape, one cannot take in all its charms from any
point on its shores; but there are dozens of places on the banks of Loch
Ree from which all its great expanse of water, and most of the charming
features of the country that surrounds it, can be taken in at a single
glance. If the shores of Loch Ree were mountainous it would be one of the
most beautiful lakes, not only in Ireland, but in the world. It is strange
that it is not more generally known, and it lying almost in the
geographical centre of Ireland, and surrounded by some of the richest land
and most beautiful _paysage_ scenery to be found anywhere. People rush to
Killarney, Connemara, Achill and many other places, and almost totally
neglect this noble expanse of the king of Irish rivers, the Shannon. It is
the unfortunate commercial state of Ireland that has caused the scenery of
the Shannon to be so little known. If there were dozens of thriving and
populous towns on its banks, as there would be if it flowed through any
other country than Ireland, large and commodious steamers would be plying
on its waters, and the beauties of Loch Ree and Loch Dearg would be as
well known as those of Windermere or Killarney. Nothing can more plainly
show how fast Ireland is retrograding from even the very mediocre trade
she enjoyed half a century ago than the fact that the passenger
steam-boats that used to ply almost daily in the summer season between
Carrick-on-Shannon or Lanesboro' and Killaloe have long ceased to run, and
are now rotting somewhere on the Lower Shannon. The decline in the
population, and the consequent decline in trade, became so great that it
was found that the money taken did not pay more than seventy per cent. of
even the working expenses of those steamers, and they had to stop running.
The writer travelled in one of them more than thirty years ago between
Athlone and Killaloe. They were large side-wheel steamers that would
carry over one hundred passengers, and on which excellent meals could be
obtained at a moderate price. There is probably not in Europe a more
generally interesting river than that from Athlone to Killaloe, but it is
now practically closed, not only to tourists, but to the public in
general, for a passenger steamer has not traversed the Upper Shannon for
well-nigh thirty years. It is no wonder, then, that the glories of Loch
Ree, with its almost countless islands, and the glories of Loch Dearg,
with its mountain-girded shores, are now nearly as unknown to tourists and
to the Irish public in general as are the reaches of the Congo or the
Niger. It is simply heartrending to think that decline of population and
general decay have made the mighty waters of the Shannon, that runs almost
from one end of Ireland to the other, an almost lifeless stream, for the
few little row-boats and sailing smacks one sees on it would not, all
told, hold more people than the life-boats of a single Atlantic steamer.
Bad as things are, they seem to be getting worse, for there is hardly a
single town or city on the Shannon that is not declining in trade and
population. At the rate things are going on, a turf boat will soon be the
only sort of craft to be seen on the waters of Ireland's greatest river!
It is, however, cheering to be able to state that there is good reason to
believe that steps are being taken to re-establish a line of passenger
steam-boats on the Upper Shannon.
The tyranny and folly of man may mar towns and turn fields into
wildernesses, but they cannot mar nature. If no steam-boats plough the
waters of Loch Ree, and if men have given place to cattle and sheep on its
banks, it is still as beautiful as ever. Its sinuous shores are still as
fair to the eye as they were fifty years ago, when a teeming population
lived on them, and when twenty thousand people might be seen at the annual
regatta that used to be held every autumn on its waters. Nothing less than
an earthquake could destroy the beauty of Loch Ree. It has every element
of scenic beauty save mountains, but such are its general beauties that
mountains are hardly missed. Loch Dearg is almost surrounded by mountains,
but it is not nearly so fair to look upon as Loch Ree. The former lake is
almost entirely islandless, but Loch Ree is studded with them. In
traversing its entire length, from Lanesboro' to Athlone, a distance of
twenty miles, islands are ever in view. Hare Island is the most beautiful
island in the lake; seen from the waters or from the mainland it seems a
mass of leaves. The trees grow on it so thickly that they dip their
branches into the water almost all round it. Lord Castlemaine has a
charming rustic cottage on Hare Island, and the pleasure grounds attached
to it are laid out with very great taste and skill. It is one of the most
beautiful sylvan island retreats in Europe. Hare Island contains nearly a
hundred acres. Inchmore is still larger, but not so well wooded. Then
there are Inchbofin, Inis Cloran, Inchturk, Saints' Island, Hag's Island,
Carberry Island, and many others, the names of which would be tedious to
mention. The islands of Loch Ree are of almost all sizes, from a hundred
acres to a square perch. Except in the vast St Lawrence alone, with its
famed thousand islands, there are few river expansions in the world that
contain so many islands as Loch Ree. Its shores are fully as beautiful as
its islands. It would be hard to conceive anything in the way of shore
scenery more beautiful than the shores of Loch Ree for eight or ten miles
on the Leinster side of the lake between the mouth of the river Inny and
Athlone. The shores are so irregular and cut up into so many promontories
and headlands that, to follow the water's edge from Athlone to where the
Inny enters the Shannon, a distance of not more than ten miles as the crow
flies, would involve a journey of over fifty. Every headland is
tree-crowned, and every promontory rock-girded. Very little of the shores
of this beautiful lake are swampy; they are generally as rocky as those of
a Highland tarn, with deep, blue water ever fretting rock and stone into
thousands of fantastic shapes. So rocky are most parts of the shores of
Loch Ree, that those aesthetic persons living near it who wish to form
rock-works in their pleasure grounds find abundance of water-worn stones
on the shores of Loch Ree to make rock-work of any shape required.
The shores of Loch Ree, particularly the Leinster shore, are more adorned
with gentlemen's seats than the shores of perhaps any other lake in
Ireland. From Athlone to nearly the head of the lake there is a succession
of gentlemen's seats. Many of them are kept with great care and taste, and
are in themselves well worth a visit. The house in which Goldsmith spent
his early youth is about two miles from Loch Ree, and about two-and-a-half
from the village of Glassan. The house is a ruin, but a well-preserved
one. When it was built seems unknown, but from what can be gathered from
the old men living in its vicinity, it seems to have been built about the
year 1700. The walls are still intact. It was two storeys high, and must
have contained seven or eight apartments. The name Auburn is still
applied to the townland on which the house stands; but the name seems to
have originated with Goldsmith himself, for the place does not appear to
have been so called before his time. Lissoy is its Irish name, but Auburn
does not seem to be an Irish name at all. The "Jolly Pigeons" public-house
still exists. It is about a mile from Auburn. There never was a village
called Auburn in the locality. The nearest place to Goldsmith's house that
could be called a village is Glassan.
Loch Ree is not void of considerable historic interest. There are many
noble ruins on its shores; among them Randown Castle is the most
remarkable. It was one of the earliest Norman-French keeps erected in
Ireland. It is situated on a bold promontory jutting into the lake on the
Connacht side, about ten or twelve miles north of Athlone. It is now
generally called St John's Castle. At _Blein Potog_, or Pudding Bay, took
place in the year 999 one of the most important events in Irish
history--namely, the surrender of the sovereignty of Ireland to Brian
Boramha by Malachy the Second. The Munster king came up the Shannon with a
large army in a flotilla of boats, and Malachy met him there and
surrendered to him. Many think that it was, in a political point of view,
one of the most disastrous events of Irish history, for the usurpation of
the chief sovereignty by Brian caused such weakness and confusion after
his death, that each provincial ruler wanted to be chief king, and created
such wars and political chaos that no chief king that succeeded possessed
complete sway over the country, the so-called chief kings that succeeded
being kings only in name. For a full account of the treaty of Blein Potog,
the reader is referred to the "Wars of the Gaels and the Galls,"
translated by the late Rev. Dr Todd. The site of the treaty is some ten
miles north of Athlone, on the Leinster shore of Loch Ree.
Athlone is one of the most picturesque and interesting inland towns in
Ireland. Its situation is simply superb,--in the almost exact geographical
centre of Ireland, at the foot of one of the most beautiful of lakes, and
on the banks of a noble river, deep and wide enough to carry ships on its
waters.
Athlone is one of the few towns--perhaps the only one--on the Shannon that
is not decaying at present. For many years after the famine it decayed
rapidly, but some thirty years ago a woollen factory was established; now
there are two woollen factories and a saw-mill that give employment to
some hundreds of hands, consequently Athlone has been saved from decay.
But comparatively prosperous as it is, it is not one-fourth as prosperous
as it ought to be considering its splendid situation and the fertility and
beauty of the country that surrounds it. It has recently become a great
railway centre; one can go by rail from Athlone to almost any part of
Ireland. But all the railways and all the fertility of all the world
cannot bring real prosperity to any country in which the population is
declining. The decline of the population in Athlone itself and in the
country surrounding it has, during the last fifty years, been something
frightful, and can only be fully realised by those who remember what it
was in former times. A market day in Athlone now is very different from a
market day there half a century ago. The writer recollects having been at
a market in Athlone when a small boy, about the year 1841 or '42, and saw
more people there in one market than could be seen in twenty markets there
now. The town was too small to contain much more than half of them; they
flowed out into the fields surrounding it. The crowds in the streets were
so dense that it would take hours to jostle one's way from one end of the
town to the other, and, what will hardly be credited by those whose
memories do not go back fifty years, there were certainly three persons
speaking Irish for one who spoke English. One might attend markets in
Athlone now every week in the year and not hear a word of any language but
English. Irish has completely died out of the country surrounding Athlone,
save in the south-western corner of the county Roscommon, where some old
people still speak it. There is something inexpressibly sad in the fading
away of any form of National speech, but, above all, in the fading away of
a tongue so old and once so cultivated as Irish. It seems to forebode not
only the death of all real National aspirations, but the death of heart
and soul. It seems to show that Philistinism is rapidly driving away
sentiment from the Irish people. But the life of the Irish peasant has
been so long such a battle for mere existence that it is no wonder that he
came to look with contempt on everything that did not administer to his
mere animal wants. He is rapidly improving since he has had a barrier put
between him and the generally cruel treatment he was wont to receive from
his landlord. None but those who remember what his position was fifty
years ago, and who see what it is now, can fully understand all the
advance he has made. In spite of the awful decline of population in the
rural districts of Ireland during the last fifty years, there is much to
be seen in them to gladden the heart of the philanthropist. Small farmers'
cottages, that would formerly be a disgrace to a Zulu or an Esquimaux, are
now not only generally clean, but sometimes beautiful. Flowers in pots in
the windows and evergreens creeping up the walls of a peasant's cottage
would have caused him to be laughed at by his neighbours fifty years ago,
but now they cause him to be respected instead of being laughed at. He
will become again what he once was, one of the most soulful and
un-Philistine of beings; it is probable he will become such when better
laws and freer institutions shall have raised him from the slough of
poverty and despondency in which he has been steeping for centuries.
Tourists and the travelling public in general will find good accommodation
at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Athlone, in which town boats can be hired
by those going either up or down the Shannon.
"EMANIA THE GOLDEN"
Two miles west of the city of Armagh lies an earthen fort known as the
"Navan Ring." This is all that remains of the renowned palace of the Pagan
Kings of Ulster, the real name of which was Emain Macha, which has been
Latinised Emania, and corrupted into Navan.
After Tara, Emania is the most historic spot of Irish soil. No other place
in all Ireland, Tara only excepted, is so often mentioned in the historic
and romantic tales that have been preserved in such abundance in ancient
Gaelic. Emania is the great centre of that wondrous cycle of legend,
history, and song known as the Cuchullainn cycle of Celtic literature.
Every tale and legend in it refer more or less to Emania. It is curious
that while hardly any of the treasures of ancient Irish manuscript
literature we possess were compiled in Ulster, there is hardly a page of
them, no matter in what province they were originally composed, that does
not mention this now almost obliterated stronghold of the Ulster kings.
The "Book of Leinster" was compiled in Kildare or in Glendoloch, and for
nearly a thousand years, or from the imposition of the Leinster Tribute
early in the second century down to the time of Brian Boramha, Leinster
and Ulster were inveterate enemies, yet the "Book of Leinster" teems with
mention of Emania. Even in the great manuscript books compiled in Connacht
and Munster, the name of Emania occurs next in frequency to that of Tara.
So far as can be gathered from the most authentic sources, the palace of
Emain Macha, or Emania, was erected by the over-king Cimboath, about five
hundred years before the Incarnation. It continued to be the seat of the
Ulster kings down to A.D. 331, when it was destroyed by the three Collas,
chieftains of the race of the over-kings of Ireland from a hostile
province, that made war on Ulster. The destruction of Emania is recorded
by the Four Masters under the year 331, when Fergus, King of Ulster, was
defeated and slain by the three Collas. Emania was burned, and the ancient
dynasty that had so long ruled the province of Ulster was destroyed.
Emania may be said to have been a desolation since then; for though we are
told that one of the O'Neill's built a house within the ruins of the fort
in 1387, no vestige of it now remains, and it is not probable that it was
long in existence.
None of the ancient palaces or great _duns_ of ancient Ireland shows such
utter desolation, or bears evidence of having been so uprooted as does
Emania. The great fosse by which it was once surrounded is entirely
obliterated save on the west side, where it is nearly twenty feet in
depth. Much as Tara has been obliterated, its monuments are more easily
traced than are those of Emania. The county Meath seems to have been a
grazing country almost from time immemorial. This saved Tara from being
entirely uprooted; but the country round this ancient seat of the Ulster
kings is essentially agricultural; it is mostly in the possession of small
farmers owning from ten to twenty acres; consequently they have levelled
most of the great circular embankments that formerly enclosed an area of
nearly a dozen acres, and have filled up most of the deep fosse which, if
we can judge by the small part of it that still remains, must have been,
when Emania was in its glory, between twenty and thirty feet deep. So
potatoes are growing and corn is waving over a large extent of the inside
of the fortress, where vast wooden buildings once stood, and where mirth
and revelry and clash of arms once resounded.
Mons. Darbois de Jubainville, the eminent French archaeologist and Celtic
scholar, made an exhaustive examination of Emania some years ago. He
found that the area within the original enclosure was four and a half
hectares, or between eleven and twelve English acres in extent, and that
the space enclosed was nearly circular. Like Tara, the buildings in Emania
must have been almost entirely of wood. Some of them may, like many of the
wooden houses in America, have been built on stone foundations, and there
are some traces of stone-work still to be seen. There is a magnificent
passage in the Feilere of Oengus the Culdee, written about A.D. 800, in
which the greatness and glory of the Christian cities of Ireland are
contrasted with the state of utter desolation into which the strongholds
of the Pagan kings had fallen. Speaking of Emania he says--
"Emain's burgh hath vanished
Save that its stones remain;
The Rome of the western world
Is multitudinous Glendaloch."
There is no doubt that the ruins of Emania were in a much better state of
preservation when Oengus wrote, nearly eleven hundred years ago, than they
are in at present, and it is certain that many of its stones have been
carried away to build walls and houses. But it is also quite certain that
neither in Ireland, Great Britain, or in any northern country, were stone
buildings general in ancient times, and we may be sure that when Emania
was at the height of its splendour its best and largest buildings were of
wood.
The area of eleven or twelve acres that was once surrounded by a deep
fosse and high embankment, and within which all the buildings of Emania
were erected, is not quite circular, nor is its surface level.
Considerable inequality of surface evidently existed in it before it was
chosen for the site of palace or _dun_. The highest part within the
enclosure is a good deal removed from its centre, and it was evidently on
it that the citadel stood. There was a dun within a dun, as there
generally was in all ancient Irish fortresses of any great extent. The
citadel having been on the highest ground within the enclosure, commanded
a view of the surrounding country for a considerable distance. Emania,
when at its best, with its vast surrounding fosse and high earthen
rampart, capped with a strong fence of wood, might, if properly
provisioned and manned, defy almost any army that could be brought against
it in ancient times when firearms were unknown.
It is for the antiquarian rather than for the seeker of the picturesque
that Emania will ever have the most attraction. There is nothing very
striking from a scenic point of view in its environs. Its present
shockingly uprooted condition, and the almost total lack of interest the
peasantry living in its immediate vicinity take in it, have a depressing
effect on anyone interested in Irish literature, history, or antiquities.
During the writer's last visit to this historic spot he met a small farmer
whose potatoes were planted over part of the obliterated fosse and rampart
of this famous stronghold of Ulster. He had never heard of King Connor
MacNessa, of Connall Carnach, of Cuchullainn, or of the Red Branch
Knights. He knew no more about them than about the heroes of ancient
China. He said that he "ever an' always hard that the Navan Ring was built
by the Danes." This man had been born and bred in the locality, but he
took no more interest in the historic spot that had given him birth than
if he were a Hottentot instead of an Irishman. Anglicisation has indeed
been carried to an extreme pitch in most parts of Ireland, and is rapidly
turning the Irish peasant into the most generally uninteresting, prosy,
and least _spirituel_ of mortals. As a rule, the more Anglicised he
becomes the more intolerable he is. If the peasantry living round Emania
had preserved their native language, while at the same time knowing
English, if they were bilingual, like millions of their class in different
European countries, many things connected with the history of this
celebrated place would be known to them; but having lost the link that
bound them to the past, they are like a new race in a new country. It is
well known that the masses of the Greek peasantry, notwithstanding that a
large percentage of them are illiterate, know more about the history and
traditions of their country than any Irishman, save a specialist, knows
about the history and traditions of Ireland. In very few European
countries will such a knowledge of its past be found among the masses as
in Greece, and principally because the Greeks have preserved their
language.
Although Tara is more ancient and more historic than Emania, the latter
place is connected with the most pathetic, the most dramatic, and most
generally beautiful tale in all the vast mass of ancient Gaelic
literature--"The Fate of the Children of Uisneach." It was in Emania that
their betrayer and murderer, Connor, King of Ulster, lived; it was there
that they themselves were killed, and it was there that Deirdre died. The
tale appeared almost a century ago in a book brought out by a Gaelic
Society that then existed in Dublin. The Irish text was given, with a
translation by Theopholus O'Flanagan. It was thought by some that he had
no ancient copy of the tale, and that he might have embellished it, for he
did not say from what manuscript he had taken it. The story, as given in
the "Book of Leinster," while agreeing in the main with O'Flanagan's
version, is not nearly of such literary value as his, and is not more than
one quarter the length. But all doubts as to the existence of an ancient
version of the story given by O'Flanagan have been removed, for an ancient
copy of it, supposed to be of the fourteenth century, was found some years
ago in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, and has been edited and
translated by Mr. Whitley Stokes. It may be seen in Windische's _Irische
Texte_. It agrees almost exactly with the version given by O'Flanagan. It
would be hard to give a clearer proof of the utter neglect with which
Celtic literature has heretofore been treated, than by a statement of the
fact that there are not probably a hundred persons living, at least of the
literary class, who have read this wondrously beautiful tale of the
Children of Uisneach. For pathos, dramatic power, and pure poetry it would
be hard to get anything in the way of romance superior to it. If such a
literary gem existed in the literature of any European language but Irish,
if such existed even in Arabic or Persian, it would be known to literary
people almost all over the world. But how can people of other nations be
blamed for their ignorance of Gaelic literature when the Irish themselves
are more indifferent about it than the Germans or the French? A text and
translation of the "Fate of the Children of Uisneach" is sorely
wanted--not merely as a text for scholars, but for the people at large.
When such appears it will make a visit to Emania infinitely more
interesting; for, after reading such a pathetic tale, he would indeed be
hard-hearted and unsympathetic that would not, if he could find where she
was buried, shed a tear over the grave of Deirdre. The very fine poem by
the late Doctor Robert Dwyer Joyce, published in Boston, America, in 1877,
was the only attempt ever made to popularise the story of the Children of
Uisneach and the fate of the unfortunate but true and noble Deirdre.
The country in the vicinity of Emania, while containing no striking
objects of scenic interest, is, at the same time, picturesque and
beautiful. Southern Ulster, even where it is not mountainous, is usually
most varied and interesting in its general features. It is essentially a
land of hills and valleys; but the hills are never so high that they
cannot be cultivated, and the best land is sometimes found on their very
tops. The country round Emania is extremely broken, hill and valley are on
every side. It is generally, like most parts of Ulster, well cultivated.
There are many antiquarian curiosities in the neighbourhood of this
ancient fortress. Some of the most perfect Druid circles in Ireland are in
its vicinity. There is a very remarkable one about a mile from it which a
thrifty farmer has turned into a haggard. It encloses about quarter of an
acre of ground. The stones of which it is composed stand about four feet
over the surface, and must average nearly a ton each in weight. But
vandalism is strong in the vicinity, for it is only a short time since
another splendid Druid circle, nearly as large as the one mentioned, was
torn down, and its stones broken to mend roads withal. Thus are many of
the relics of ancient Erin disappearing before the march of
denationalisation.
Those who live in the vicinity of Emania tell many stories about the
finding of treasure-trove close to and in this ancient fortress. According
to them, gold ornaments of great value were found by some persons many
years ago who suddenly became rich, much to the surprise of their
neighbours. Those ornaments were, of course, melted down, and like
hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of similar articles found in almost
every part of Ireland, never found their way to any museum, and are lost
to the country for ever. There can hardly be any doubt that some very
valuable articles in gold have been found near Emania.
One of the most interesting instances of the long survival of a place name
is to be found adjacent to this celebrated spot. Most Irish persons have
heard of the Red Branch Knights. Moore has immortalised them in his
exquisite lyric, "Let Erin Remember the Days of Old." Few believe that
such an institution as the Red Branch Knights ever existed. It is
generally looked on as a bardic fable; but there is a townland close to
Emania which is still called Creeve Roe, in correct orthography, _Craobh
Ruadh_, which means Red Branch. The preservation of this place name for
nearly two thousand years cannot be regarded as an accident. It goes far
to prove that the Red Branch Knights did exist, and that the townland took
its name from them. This extraordinarily long survival of a place name,
the historic fame and antiquity of the locality, lend a supreme interest
to this ruined stronghold, which, centuries after its glories had
vanished, Gaelic bards used still to call "Emania the Golden."
Ardmagh is so near Emania, only two miles from it, that one place could
hardly be described without saying something about the other. Its ancient
name was Ardmacha, meaning the height of Macha. This Macha was queen, or
at least ruler, of that part of the country in far-back pagan times. It
was also from her that Emain Macha, or Emania, was named. Ardmagh was
founded by St Patrick in the year 457. A man named Daire, chief of the
district, is said, in the "Annals of the Four Masters," to have given
Patrick the site on which the city is built. Patrick appointed twelve men
to build the town, and ordered them to erect an archbishop's city there,
and churches for the different religious orders. It seems strange that the
saint should have chosen Ardmagh for the site of the chief religious
establishment in Ireland. Emania had been ruined and desolated in the
previous century, but it is evident that it was the fame of the ancient
stronghold of Ulster that induced Patrick to choose its immediate vicinity
as a site for his new Christian city, because Emania had been for so many
centuries previous the political centre of the province, and, next to
Tara, the chief political centre of Ireland. Of the old ecclesiastical
buildings of Ardmagh, not a vestige remains. Some of its new ones are,
however, magnificent. The new Catholic cathedral is the finest building of
its kind in Ireland. It is hardly to be wondered at that none of the
ancient buildings of Ardmagh should remain, for of all towns in Ireland,
it was burned, plundered, and razed the oftenest. In the course of the two
centuries and a half ending in 1080, it was plundered and wholly or
partially burned _twelve times_ by the Danes. No other city in Ireland
seems to have suffered so much from the Northmen. Turgesius, the Danish
king, captured it and lived there for some years. The present city is one
of the most picturesque towns of its size in Ireland, but it is not
growing much. It once had a good linen trade, but since the introduction
of cotton fabrics, its linen trade has entirely ceased.
QUEEN MAB'S PALACE
Rathcroghan, about two miles from Tulsk, in the county Roscommon, is one
of the most celebrated places in Irish history, legend, and song. It was
there that Queen Mab, spelt Medb in old Irish, and Meave at present, had
her palace, and it was there she was buried. That she was a real historic
personage, and not a myth or a fairy, there can be no doubt at all, and
that she was a very extraordinary woman cannot be doubted either. She was
Queen of Connacht, and was cotemporary with Cleopatra; but if the Egyptian
queen is mentioned in history she is forgotten in legend, while Mab has
lived in legend for more than eighteen centuries. It is remarkable that
the myths and legends about her should have been more prevalent during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England than in Ireland. There are
few legends about her in Ireland; she is simply an historic personage
there, but in England she became a fairy. There is hardly a popular
English writer of the two centuries referred to that has not said
something about Queen Mab; and it is very probable that none of them knew
that she was a reality in Irish history. Shakespeare, Spenser, Drayton,
and other English writers contemporary with them, speak of her as a fairy,
and even Shelley considers her a sprite; but she is rarely, if ever,
mentioned as such by the Gaelic writers of any epoch. Why legends about
Queen Mab, or, as we call her at present, Meave, should be so rare in
Ireland is probably owing to the fact that she belongs to what is known as
the Cuchulainn cycle of Irish history and legend. That cycle is almost
forgotten by the people, and has been for many centuries. It has been
eclipsed by the greater popularity of the Finn cycle, which is some
centuries more recent. For the one legend existing in the most
Gaelic-speaking parts of Ireland and Scotland about Cuchulainn or his
cycle there are a score about Finn, Oisin, Caoilte, and others of their
contemporaries. It may have been that the introduction of Christianity had
much to do in stereotyping the legends of the Finn cycle in the memories
of the masses, for Finn is said to have lived so long that he saw St
Patrick, and held converse with him. One of the most remarkable literary
productions in Irish, the "Dialogue of the Sages," consists of converse
between the Saint and Finn, and others belonging to the same cycle.
There could hardly be a stronger proof of the high civilisation that
existed in Ireland in ancient times as compared with that which existed in
England than the fact that the remembrance of Irish historic personages
continued widely spread in England in spite of so many changes, not only
in government, but in race and language. There is no traditional
remembrance in Ireland of any English historic personage contemporary with
Queen Meave, or of any such that lived for many centuries after her time.
That a knowledge of her and Lir, the Lear of Shakespeare, should have
existed among the ancient Britons is not to be wondered at, for they were
kin to the Irish, and must have spoken the same, or nearly the same,
language; but that this remembrance of Irish historic personages should
have continued to exist in England under Roman, Saxon, Dane, and
Frenchman, is very remarkable. If it was knowledge obtained through books
it would be less to be wondered at; it was knowledge transmitted by
legend, and like all legendary knowledge, it had a tendency to go astray.
The legends that existed in England about Meave and Lir did go astray, for
they made a little fairy of the one and a King of Britain of the other.
But Meave was not a little fairy, but a very fine woman of flesh and
blood; and Lir was not King of Britain, but an Irish pirate whose
principal stronghold appears to have been the Isle of Man. It is called
after him, for his full name was Mananan Mac Lir. It seems more than
probable that both Dunleer and Liverpool are also called after him, for
the latter place is written "Lyrpul" in the earliest known document in
which the name occurs, and it is Lyrpul still in Welsh. It is probable
that Lir had possessions in England as well as in Ireland and the Isle of
Man.
Medb or Meave, Queen of Connacht, was daughter to Eochy Fayloch, over-king
of Ireland. She lived about half a century before the Christian era.
Keating says, in his "History of Ireland," that she reigned ninety-eight
years. This very long reign is doubted by some Irish historians, but it is
generally admitted by them that her reign, as well as her life, was
remarkably long. She had more husbands than even the woman of Samaria is
credited with. It was evidently her extraordinary long life and reign that
caused her to be ultimately believed to be something supernatural, and to
be regarded as a fairy. She was, however, no fairy, but a bold, bad, and
warlike woman. She, even more than Cuchulainn, is the central figure of
the greatest prose epic in the Irish language, the _Tain Bo Chuailgne_, or
Cattle Raid of Cooley. By lies and bribes she persuaded the other
provincial rulers to join her in a totally unjustifiable war on Ulster, so
that she was able to invade that province with a great army of fifty-four
thousand men. She carried off a great prey from Ulster, but not without
suffering some defeats and losing some of her bravest warriors. It is said
that Mr Ernest Windisch is engaged in translating this great epic into
German, but it seems not yet finished. Meave, like most of the prominent
people of her day, met with a violent death. She had many enemies,
especially in Ulster. One of them, a son to the king of that province,
killed her by a cast from a sling as she was about taking a cold water
bath in Iniscloran, an island in Loch Ree. She must have been considerably
over a hundred years old when she was killed, but she appears, even at
that great age, to have been the admiration of every one that saw her on
account of the great beauty of her face and figure. Perhaps it was her
cold water baths that were the chief means of preserving her youth and
good looks, for we are told in the "Book of Leinster" that she was under
_geis_, or bonds, not to let any morning pass by without taking a bath.
It is no wonder that such a person should have in the long run passed into
the realm of fairie, and have been thought something supernatural. It is,
however, a wonder that the Four Masters do not mention the name of Meave,
although they do mention the name of her father; but there are many
similar strange omissions in their annals. Meave is, however, mentioned in
the Annals of Clonmacnoise, in which many hard things are said of her.
The fort, as it is generally called, of Rathcroghan, upon which Queen
Meave's palace must have stood, is unlike any other place of its kind
known to the writer. Strictly speaking, it is not a fort at all, and it is
impossible to conceive how it ever could have been used for purposes of
defence, or for any purpose other than to build some sort of habitation
on. It is nothing but a raised circular elevation, an English acre in
area, in a perfectly level field, without a vestige of the fosse or
rampart that usually surrounds the ruined strongholds of Celtic chiefs and
kings. Long ago as it is since Rathcroghan was the seat of kings or queens
of Connacht, some traces of the surrounding ramparts would almost
certainly be yet visible had they ever existed. Queen Meave seems to have
depended more on her soldiers to defend her than on ramparts of stone or
earth. She seems to have relied on "castles of bones" rather than on
castles of stones; for her palace, so far as can be judged from existing
remains, seems to have been without defending ramparts of any kind. There
are many references in old Gaelic manuscripts to the splendour of Queen
Meave's palace. It is said to have been built of pine and yew, and to have
contained beds enough to accommodate a small army. It was probably an
immense round wigwam that covered all or nearly all of the raised platform
that still remains. That platform is about eight or nine feet above the
level of the field on which it stands, and has two entrances into it, one
exactly opposite the other. If the vast circular wooden building that
stood on it was roofed, as it almost certainly was, the walls would have
to be fifty feet or more in height to give it anything of an imposing
appearance. It may have been that the entire raised platform was not
covered by the wooden structure, but the descriptions of its great size
given in old books would lead one to think that it was.
Rathcroghan does not appear to have been a place of residence of any of
the rulers of Connacht since the time of the celebrated Queen Meave. If it
was, the writer has not been able to find trustworthy evidence of the
fact. It may, however, have been used as a place for assemblies in
comparatively recent times. _Relig na Riogh_, or the cemetery of kings, at
Rathcroghan, was one of the great burial places of the Pagan Irish Kings.
It is a circular enclosure, about half a mile from the platform on which
Queen Meave's palace stood. It bears all the marks of extreme antiquity,
and has suffered much from the ravages of time. It covers between two and
three acres, and at first sight appears nothing more than a piece of
ground of very broken surface, for the mounds that marked the graves of
kings and chiefs have become nearly obliterated. But it was here that many
of the kings and heroes of ancient Ireland were buried, and it is here
that the bones of Queen Meave rest, that is, if we are to believe the most
trustworthy records of Irish history. It is thought by some that she was
buried under the vast cairn of stones that crowns the summit of
Knocknarea, near Sligo, for it is called to this day _Moisgan Meabha_,
literally Meave's butter-dish; but by extension it probably means Meave's
heap or cairn. There is no historic evidence to prove that she was
interred under the cairn on Knocknarea, however it came to be called by
its present Irish name; and according to the late Sir Samuel Ferguson, her
name, or a name closely resembling it, has been found written in Ogam
characters on a stone in _Reilig na Riogh_.
That there was such a person as Queen Meave there cannot be any doubt
whatever. History and legend never yet existed about a fabulous personage,
and Meave figures in both. Whatever impossible things may be related about
her in legend, history says nothing about her that cannot be easily
believed, her great age and length of reign excepted. It must, however, be
remembered that the ancient Irish were a very long-lived people. This fact
is so apparent in so many places in ancient Gaelic literature that it has
to be believed. We have as strong proof as can be afforded by history that
in comparatively modern times Henry Jenkins lived to be over a hundred and
sixty, and Old Parr to be over a hundred and fifty years old, and why
could not Queen Meave have lived to as great or even a greater age? She
was an extraordinary woman, and her name sheds a halo of romance round the
place where she lived, and where her remains rest in peace after her long
and stormy career. It was also in _Reilig na Riogh_ that Dathi, the last
pagan Irish Chief King, was buried. His mound is marked by a pillar stone,
and O'Donovan, one of the most cautious and least impulsive investigators
of Irish history and antiquities, saw no reason to doubt that the pillar
stone marks his grave.
It may be said that no proof has been given that the Connacht Queen Medb
or Meave was the prototype of the Mab of Shakespeare, Drayton, Spenser,
and other English poets. True, no absolute proof has been given, and
probably never will; but there is that which may be called negative proof,
which in such a case is very strong. The negative proof, if it can be
called such, that the Connacht queen was the prototype of the Queen Mab of
English poets and English legend, is found in the complete silence of
history and of tradition as to how else the legend of Queen Mab
originated, for it must have originated somewhere and from some one. We
are, then, and in a great measure by the total lack of any other way to
account for the origin of the legend of Queen Mab being queen of the
fairies, forced to come to the conclusion that the Connacht queen is the
only person known to history who furnishes the prototype for her. But
there is something more. It has been stated that the old Irish form of the
name was _Medb_. It is well known to Celtic savants that what is now
called "aspiration," or the change in sound, and sometimes the entire
suppression of certain consonants in pronunciation, did not take place
nearly so often in old Irish as in the modern language; so that the name
_Medb_ would in ancient times be pronounced _Mab_, or something very like
it. It is curious that in Drayton's poem, "The Nymphadia," Queen Mab,
though a fairy, is remarkable for those things for which her Irish
prototype was also remarkable--namely, her chariots, her amours, and her
beauty.
A very strong proof that Queen Meave was an historic personage and not a
myth is to be found in the name of the island in Loch Ree where she was
killed. It is usually pronounced and written Iniscloran; but Inis Clothran
is how it ought to be spelled, and how it is invariably spelled in the
"Annals of the Four Masters" where the name frequently occurs, the island
having been the seat of more than one church in early Christian times, and
therefore often mentioned in annals. Meave had a sister named Clothru who
lived in Iniscloran, and who was Queen of Connacht before Meave. Here is a
translation from the "Book of Leinster," page 124: "It was there that
Clothru used to explain the laws of Connacht in Inis Clothran in Loch
Ree." The island was evidently called after Clothru (Clothran in the
genitive), sister to Meave. This preservation of a place name connected
with the name of an historic personage for two thousand years is most
remarkable, and shows that Irish history is more truthful than is
generally supposed. It is thought that Meave had Clothru killed, in order
that she herself might become Queen of Connacht.
The country around Rathcroghan abounds in antiquities of far-back ages.
Sepulchral mounds, ruined raths, tortuous caves, and weather-worn
cromlechs are to be found on almost every side. It is a spot where the
antiquarian might revel for weeks and find something every day to interest
him. It is a beautiful country also, not a plain, in the strict sense of
the word, and yet not hills, but what an American would call "rolling,"
and a Frenchman "accidente." It is the "Magh Aoi" of Queen Meave's time,
and "Machaire Chonnacht," or plain of Connacht, of later days. It is part
of the celebrated Plains of Boyle, and is considered to contain some of
the best grass land in Ireland. No fairer spot could be found in Connacht
for the dwelling of a potentate who dealt largely in cattle than the green
eminence on which Queen Meave had her palace, and both history and legend
say that her flocks and herds were well-nigh innumerable. She made her
home in the centre of the fairest and richest part of the province she
ruled; and long as that home has been desolate, it has not been forgotten
in history or in song, for that noble melody which Moore has made
immortal--"Avenging and Bright Fall the Swift Sword of Erin"--was first
known as "Croghan na Veena," or "Croghan of the Heroes"; and the incident
to which it refers--the murder of the children of Uisneach--occurred when
Queen Meave was at the height of her splendour, when Rathcroghan was in
its glory, and when it was really the dwelling-place of heroes.
There are many mentions of Rathcroghan in ancient Gaelic writings, and all
of them speak of it as one of the most important places in Ireland in
Pagan times. Oengus, the Culdee, whose poem has been already referred to,
says of it--
"Rathcroghan hath vanished
With Ailill, offspring of victory;
A fair sovranty above Kingdoms
Is in Cluain's city."
The Ailill mentioned was one of Queen Meave's many husbands, and "Cluain's
City" means Clonmacnois.
The nearest railway station to Rathcroghan is Castlerea, from which it is
about eight miles distant. Its long distance from a railway and the want
of good accommodation for tourists in its vicinity have helped to cause
this celebrated place to be so neglected and forgotten.
THE HILL OF UISNEACH
Uisneach is one of the most historic hills in Ireland, yet there are
probably not five per cent. of the people of Ireland that have ever heard
of it, and not one per cent. of them that has ever seen it. Apart even
from its historic interest, it is well worth seeing, for it is not only a
beautiful hill, but it affords from its summit one of the most extensive
and lovely views in Ireland. The hill of Uisneach is in the Barony of
Rathconrath, County Westmeath, and only about four Irish miles from
Streamstown Station on the Midland Great Western Railway, so that it is
easily reached. There is, unfortunately, no hotel where tourists could be
accommodated nearer to it than Moat, which is about eight Irish miles from
it; and Mullingar is about the same distance. The village of Ballymore is
five miles from the hill, but as there is no hotel there, Moat and
Mullingar are the only towns within any moderate distance of it where
tourists could get either lodgings or meals. It is not certain if even a
car could be hired at Streamstown or near it, consequently those wishing
to visit Uisneach should either have a private conveyance or make up their
minds to "do it" on foot.
Uisneach is one of the most peculiarly-shaped hills in Ireland. It is only
six hundred feet in height--a fair elevation in a part of the country
where there are no mountains--but no matter from what side it is
approached, it cannot be seen until one is almost at its base. The country
immediately around it is so broken and so cut up by many hills and hollows
of almost all shapes, that Uisneach, the highest of all the hills near it,
can hardly be noticed until one is just at it. A public road runs close to
its base, so there is no difficulty in reaching it, and the ascent is by
no means steep. It is not until one is on the top of Uisneach that he
finds out how high it is, for the view from its summit is extensive and
beautiful almost beyond power of description. The country on every side of
it consists of some of the richest pasture lands, not only in Ireland, but
in the world. No matter in what direction one looks, a vast, undulated
expanse of green meets the eye. If the view from Uisneach is seen in
autumn, when the too few and far between grain-fields are turning yellow,
it is as fair a sight as human eye ever gazed on. The country for scores
of miles on every side is so rich, so green, and so varied with hill,
dale, wood, and water, that the Biblical phrase that is applied to parts
of Palestine, "the garden of the Lord," might well be applied to the land
round this hill. But it is safe to say that no Israelite ever gazed from
Gilboa or Carmel on so fair a prospect. The vast extent of the view from
this hill seems out of all proportion with its moderate height. On a clear
day one can very nearly see from the Irish Channel to Galway Bay. The
Wicklow hills seem close by. The mountains, not only of Cavan, but of
Leitrim, are distinctly visible. On every side, save the south-west, the
prospect is what some would be tempted to call boundless. On the
south-west the view is obstructed by the hill of Knock Cosgrey, an
eminence slightly higher than Uisneach, and one of the most beautiful
hills in Ireland. It is about four miles south-west of Uisneach. Unlike
Uisneach, however, it is, seen from a distance, both striking and bold. It
has the misfortune to be called by so many different names, or rather, its
name is pronounced in so many different ways, that strangers are often
sadly puzzled what to call it. It is called Kunna Kostha and Kruck Kostha
by the peasantry, and by the gentlefolk generally Knock Ash. But its
proper name is _Cnoc Cosgraigh_, and is so written by the Four Masters,
who are, undoubtedly, the highest authority we possess on place names.
Seen from the road from Moat to Ballymahon, Knock Cosgrey is one of the
most charming sights imaginable. It is nearly a mile from top to base, and
forms a green pyramid of almost perfect symmetry. Its surface is entirely
under grass; for this part of Ireland has been largely turned into
pastures; and sometimes one may drive for six miles and not see a field of
grain. "The bold peasantry" of whom Goldsmith speaks in his "Deserted
Village" have become so few in these parts that miles may be travelled at
mid-day through as fine a country as there is in the world without meeting
a human being. Sheep and cattle, and not men and women, seem the
prevailing living creatures. Knock Cosgrey is not only higher than
Uisneach, but more near the true geographical centre of the island; but it
possesses hardly any historic interest from the fact that its summit was
too narrow to allow the ancient Irish either to build or assemble on it.
Uisneach, with its over a hundred acres of nearly level land on its top,
was therefore chosen, for a hundred thousand men could find space on it.
It became, for that reason, one of the most historic, and in ancient times
one of the most celebrated, hills in Ireland.
There is probably not another hill in Ireland so well adapted both for a
place for assemblies and a site for building as Uisneach. Its summit is
extensive. There are springs of the purest water on it. Plenty of stones
of almost every size abound, and the soil, even in the most elevated
parts, is of great fertility. In the troublesome times of yore, Uisneach
possessed advantages that were most important in its elevation, and the
extensive view it commanded; for they made it impossible for an army to
approach it from any side without being seen by the watchers on its top.
From the many advantages that this beautiful and extraordinary hill
possesses, it seems strange that it was not chosen by the ancient Irish
for a place of central government. It would have been even better suited
for such a purpose than Tara. It probably would have been the chief seat
of ancient Irish sovereignty if it had not been that the mistake made in
selecting Tara instead of it, occurred so far back in what may be called
prehistoric times, and antiquity had given Tara such a prestige that it
continued to be the most important place in Ireland until it was
abandoned as a seat of government in the sixth century. But Uisneach was
also used as a place of residence by the Irish over-kings. That they
sometimes resided there can be proved from ancient Gaelic writings. It was
supposed to be the geographical centre of Ireland, and before the
formation of the province of Meath by the over-king, Tuathal, in the early
part of the second century, the four provinces met at Uisneach Hill. It is
curious what a close guess the ancients made to locate the exact centre of
the island. They seem, however, to have placed it four or five miles too
far to the north-east, for, according to the most recent surveys, the hill
of Knock Cosgrey is in the exact geographical centre of Ireland. In
far-back ancient times, before the province of Meath had been formed by
taking parts of the four original provinces, the hill of Uisneach was in
Connacht. This almost exact quaternal division of Ireland into provinces,
and their meeting at a point that was supposed to be the exact centre of
the island, is a very curious and interesting feature in ancient Irish
polity. In other countries, provinces seem to have originated by mere
accident, some being big, and some little; but in Ireland they seem to
have been laid out by line and rule, for the four provinces that met at
Uisneach must have been very nearly of equal area. The celebrated Cat
Stone on the hill of Uisneach was known from remote antiquity as _Ail na
Mireann_, or "the rock of the divisions," because the four provinces met
at it. This rock was known by this name among the peasantry of the
neighbourhood up to recent times, until Irish became a dead language in
this part of the country.
Ail na Mireann, or, as it is now called, the Cat Stone, is the greatest
curiosity on Uisneach Hill. It is not on the top of the hill, but on its
side. It is, perhaps, the most puzzling rock in Ireland, for it is hard to
say whether it was placed in its present position by an iceberg in the
glacial age, or whether it was placed there by human agency, and intended
for a rude cromlech. Here is what the eminent scholar and antiquarian,
John O'Donovan, says about it in his yet unpublished letters when he was
on the Government Survey of Ireland in 1837:--"The huge rock on this hill
of Uisneach, a part of which was split and formed into a cromlech, is now
called the Cat Stone, from a supposed resemblance to a cat sitting and
watching a mouse." If this stone is a cromlech, or Druid's altar, it is
unlike anything of the kind found elsewhere in Ireland or other
countries, for the four upright stones which usually support the flat one,
are not to be seen here. The weight of this enormous mass of stone can
hardly be less than twenty tons, and if it was put in its present position
by human agency, it is by far the most extraordinary thing of its kind in
Ireland. But a majority of those who see it think that it is merely a
boulder of peculiar shape. If it is a boulder it is a very extraordinary
one, and if it is a cromlech it is a more extraordinary one still.
It was on Uisneach Hill, or in its immediate vicinity, that the
ecclesiastical synod met in the year 1111. This great meeting is mentioned
in almost all Irish annals. It was attended by fifty bishops, three
hundred priests, and upwards of three thousand students, and by the nobles
of the southern half of Ireland, with Muircheartach O'Briain, King of
Munster, at their head. We are told that the synod was convened to
regulate the manners and mode of living of both clergy and laity. It does
not seem to have done much good on account of the then chaotic political
state of the country, caused by almost constant wars between the aspirants
for chief kingship.
There are many interesting things besides the cromlech to be seen on the
vast undulated summit of Uisneach. There is a hollow known as St
Patrick's bed, and there are the remains of the walls of large stone
buildings on the most elevated part of the hill. There is also one of the
finest raths in Ireland, which must have been a place of great strength,
for the embankments are still of immense height, and are overgrown with
hawthorn bushes of great size. This rath, unlike the generality of such
structures, is not round, but oblong. It encloses a space of nearly an
acre in extent.
Apart from antiquarianism, the hill of Uisneach is well worth seeing, for
it is as strange in shape as it is beautiful in verdure. It is only a few
miles from a railroad; it is easy to ascend, for a carriage might be
driven to its summit. The longest summer day might be passed on it, and
some new curiosity of antiquity or some fresh beauty of scenery be
continually discovered. The surface of the hill is so broken, and is of
such great extent, that to explore it thoroughly, and to enjoy all the
varied prospects to be seen from it, even a long summer day would hardly
be long enough.
[Illustration: MOUNT OF BALLYLOCHLOE.]
When treating of hills and of the country in the vicinity of Uisneach, it
may be interesting to say something about the most beautiful and
perfect _artificial_ hill in Ireland--namely, the Moat of Ballylochloe. It
is about nine miles west of Uisneach, and three north-west of Moat. It was
evidently erected for a sepulchral mound, but seems to have also been used
as a place of defence. A ridge of sand-hills has been cut, and a most
perfect and symmetrical _moat_ has been formed. It cannot be less than a
hundred and fifty feet in height. When seen from the road approaching it
from the east, it is almost Alpine in appearance, and looks like a small
mountain. Neither history nor legend throws much light on the origin of
this gigantic mound. We are told, however, that in the time of Queen
Meave, about the year 50 B.C., there was a terrible battle in a place
called Cloch Bruighne, now called Cloch Brian, some two miles from where
the moat now stands, in which battle a wealthy farmer called Da Choga was
killed, and his house burned. His wife, whose name was Lucha, died of
grief, and was buried, it is said, near Loch Lucha, which seems to have
been called after her. In Irish, the name of this place is _Baile Loch
Lucha_. From the fact of the name of the wife of the farmer, or _bruighe_,
being contained in the name of the stead, the late Mr W. M. Hennessy, an
excellent authority on such matters, thought that the mound was erected
over the remains of the woman Lucha. In former times, there was a small
lake at the foot of the moat, hence the modern name Ballylochloe.
This beautiful artificial hill is well worth seeing. It is only three
miles from the railway station at Moat.
CLONMACNOIS
The ruins of Clonmacnois form by far the most interesting architectural
remains on the Shannon. Their situation is unique--on a sandy knoll
overlooking the winding river, as it flows in great reaches among marshy
meadows of apparently illimitable extent. Thousands of acres of them on
both banks of the Shannon are spread before one's gaze when standing at
the base of any of the ruined shrines of this ancient seat of piety and
learning. The ecclesiastics of ancient Ireland seem to have been gifted
with an extraordinary amount of appreciation for the beautiful and unique
in nature. The wilder and the more beautiful a place was, the more it
seems to have attracted them. Cashel's solitary Rock, Glendaloch's gloomy
vale, and this barren sandhill overlooking the most peculiar scenery in
all the island, were the places in which they reared their most cherished
fanes and most beautiful buildings. The situation of Clonmacnois cannot be
said to be beautiful, but it is strange and weird to the last degree--more
strange and weird, perhaps, than any other place in Ireland.
The best and most agreeable way to reach Clonmacnois is from Athlone. It
is twelve English miles from Athlone by road, and ten by river. By river
is not only the cheapest way but the most interesting. Sails can be used
on this part of the Shannon almost as well as on Loch Ree, for the banks
are so low that every breeze that blows can be fully utilised; and the
river is so crooked, that no matter from what quarter the wind comes it
can sometimes fill the sail. The Shannon here is no tiny stream like the
Liffey, but a wide river, never less than from 150 to 200 yards in
breadth, and generally deep enough to float a small ocean steamer. The
current is, however, not rapid.
The first thing that strikes the stranger who sees Clonmacnois for the
first time is the extraordinary view from it over the largest extent of
callow meadows to be seen in any part of Ireland. It must not be thought
that these meadows are mere bogs, for some of the finest hay is raised on
them. The grass that grows on them must be of a fairly good quality, for
they let at from L5 to L6 per Irish acre, the purchaser having to save the
hay, and run all the risk attending the making it in land so liable to be
flooded. Not infrequently, the taker of meadow on the vast flats that
border the Shannon between Loch Ree and Loch Derg, will awaken some fine
morning and find all his small cocks of hay afloat, sailing placidly
southward, and more likely to find their way to Killaloe than to his
haggard. The second thing that will strike the observant stranger in
Clonmacnois is the small size of the churches. That it was one of the most
important ecclesiastical establishments in ancient Ireland there cannot be
any doubt, for it is more frequently mentioned in ancient Irish history
and annals than any other place of its kind in the country. Yet the
largest church in it, the ruins of which exist, would not, by any stretch
of imagination, accommodate more than three or four hundred worshippers.
There are the ruins of but three churches existing in Clonmacnois; the
largest of them is called Cathedral, the two smaller ones can hardly be
called churches. They must have been oratories, and would not combined
contain over two hundred persons. When Clonmacnois was in its most
prosperous condition--that was in the early part of the ninth century, or
about the time when the Danish invasions were heaviest and most
harassing--Ireland must have been a very populous country. There are so
many proofs of this in ancient Gaelic annals and literature that it may
be regarded as a fact. How, then, did it happen that the churches in
Clonmacnois were so small? This is a question that cannot be answered
fully. It may be that what now remains of its churches is of comparatively
recent origin, and may not have been erected until the decadence of the
population had commenced at the time of the Danish invasions, which
decadence became more and more pronounced down to the latter part of the
sixteenth century. Or it may have been that there were large wooden
Churches in Clonmacnois in ancient times, not a vestige or trace of which
would be found after fire had done its work on them.
[Illustration: ROUND TOWER, CLONMACNOIS.]
The two round towers are by far the most interesting and beautiful
buildings in Clonmacnois. The larger one wants apparently twenty or thirty
feet of the top; whether it was struck by lightning, or knocked off by
cannon, no one seems to know. The smaller tower is as perfect as it was
when its builder pronounced it finished a thousand years ago. No more
beautiful piece of architecture in the way of a tower ever was erected. It
seems to be absolute perfection. The most skilled modern artisan in stone
could not find an imperfection in it. It is built entirely of cut
stones. The roof or dome is made of lozenge-shaped stones, fitted so
closely and finished so well that time and weather seem to have passed
over it in vain, for it is, as far as can be seen from the ground at its
base, as perfect as it ever was. Of all round towers in Ireland, it is the
most beautiful and perfect. The larger tower seems to have been built of
stones similar to those of the smaller one, but as it wants its top its
beauty is almost entirely spoiled. What remains of it seems about as
perfect in its architecture as human hands could make it. The smaller
tower appears to afford positive proof of Petrie's theory as to the
post-Christian origin of the Irish round towers, for it and the little
church or oratory at its base, and out of which it rises, were evidently
built at the same time, for the walls of both are actually in some places
one. Like some few of the existing round towers (the one near Navan, for
instance), the smaller one at Clonmacnois has no opening in the roof by
which the sound of bells could be emitted, showing clearly that it could
never have been erected solely for a belfry; for no matter how big a bell
might be, its sound would not have been heard a hundred yards away, if
rung under the windowless stone roof of this most perfect and beautiful of
Irish round towers. That round towers were sometimes used as belfries
seems very probable; but that their principal use, and the prime object
for which they were erected, were to protect the clergy and the treasures
of the churches from the marauding Northmen is the theory regarding them
that is now most generally accepted.
Clonmacnois is not so rich in ancient crosses as some other places like
it. There are only two to be seen there at present. They are not nearly so
well carved and ornamented as many that still remain in other Irish
cemeteries. There is not, so far as can be seen by the passer-by, a single
inscription in the Irish language visible, though some scores of such
inscriptions exist in it, every one of which has been faithfully copied
and translated by Doctor Petrie in his great work, "Christian Inscriptions
in the Irish Language." The inscribed stones are, very properly, stowed
away in a vault under lock and key where they are safe from the mischief
of so many who would delight in marring and effacing any thing they could
not understand. There are plenty of inscriptions in English to be seen in
Clonmacnois, for it is still used as a place of interment. This takes away
a great deal of its antique charm and general interest. It seems a sort of
profanation to erect a modern tomb with an English inscription on it at
the very base of a hoary round tower that was a wonder of art and beauty
when London was little else than a large village, and when England itself
was hardly civilised, and as politically powerless as Saint Domingo or
Corea.
Clonmacnois has suffered as much from vandalism as any other place of its
kind in Ireland. It was taken and spoiled by the Danes when at the height
of its splendour in the ninth century. But it was not the Danes that
committed the worst depredations in this wonderfully unique and ancient
place. They were committed by men who used gunpowder, for it was evidently
by it that most of the old buildings of Clonmacnois were destroyed. It is
generally believed that it was by one of Cromwell's captains who was
stationed with some troops at Athlone when the Royalist cause had been
lost that most of the destruction at Clonmacnois was accomplished. The
blowing up of the magnificent castle erected here by Hugo de Lacy in the
twelfth century, is attributed to Cromwell's troopers, as is also the
demolition of some thirty or forty feet of the larger of the two round
towers, known as O'Ruarc's tower.
There are the remains of only three churches extant in Clonmacnois; but
we know from authentic annals and history that there were nearly a dozen
churches in it at one time. What became of them, or where they stood,
cannot now be known. Many of them were, probably, wooden churches, and,
when once destroyed, left no trace. The ruins of the ancient nunnery are
distant nearly quarter of a mile from the churchyard, on the grounds of a
gentleman named Charlton. It is only about thirty years ago since an
attempt was made to clear away the rubbish in which they were buried, and
to try if any of the sculptured stones could be recovered. The excavations
were made under the supervision of the Protestant Bishop of Limerick.
Sculptured stone-work of the highest order of art was dug up from many
feet under the surface where the destroyers had buried it. Visitors to
Clonmacnois will not have any difficulty in seeing the ruins of the
nunnery, for Mr Charlton willingly permits visitors to see them. It is not
only curious, but hopeful and pleasant, to find people of the same
religious belief altering so much for the better as time rolls by. Whilom
Protestant men and a whilom Protestant Government did all they could in
the seventeenth century to turn Clonmacnois into a heap of ruins, almost
as void and as shapeless as those of Babylon; but Protestant men and a
Protestant Government in the nineteenth century have done everything in
their power to save it from further decay, and to dig up its sculptured
stones from the dust in which ancient Protestant fanaticism and bigotry
had buried them.
Clonmacnois was founded by St Kieran, who died in the year 549. There are
records of the erection of most of its ancient buildings to be found in
Irish annals and history. According to the _Chronicon Scottorum_, a work
of high authority, the Cathedral was built in the year 909. The Cathedral
that existed when Turgesius the Dane obtained sway for some years over the
greater part of Ireland, and when his wife used to issue her orders from
that building, was probably of wood, for no trace of it appears extant.
Doctor Petrie says that the larger round tower was erected in the tenth
century, and the smaller one in the eleventh or early part of the twelfth.
There is good authority to prove that the nunnery was erected and endowed
by the too well-remembered Dearvorgil, wife of O'Ruairc, whose _liaison_
with Dermot Mac Murrough, King of Leinster, is popularly believed to have
brought about the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland.
One of the great curiosities of Clonmacnois is the powder-blown-up castle
built by Hugo de Lacy in the latter part of the twelfth century, the
remains of which stand on a hill about two hundred yards from the
cemetery. It is generally known as the Prior's house, but it was evidently
built as a place of defence. It was one of the strongest castles ever
erected in Ireland. Although comparatively small, building and enclosure
not covering more than half an acre, it was a place of immense strength,
and before the invention of gunpowder could have defied a host. It is
encompassed by a fosse in some places forty feet in depth, that descends
sheer from the walls. The walls are of immense thickness and strength,
from six to eight feet thick in many places, and so firmly are the stones
embedded in grouting that to detach one of them from the powder-riven
walls, or from the vast masses of blown-up masonry that lie scattered
around, a hammer and chisel would be required. Huge heaps of the ruined
walls, some of them tons in weight, have been tumbled into the deep fosse
that surrounds the castle, but they are still almost as solid as rocks. If
ever the art of building solid walls was brought to perfection, it was by
those who reared this now ruined pile. To know the strength of gunpowder
and the solidity of ancient masonry, one should see this ruined castle of
Clonmacnois.
With all the beauties and diversity of scenery of the Shannon, on the
banks of which stands all that remains of Clonmacnois, and with all the
places of historic interest laved by its waters, it is a disgrace to
Ireland at large that there is not a single passenger steam-boat on it
above Limerick. It is nearly a hundred and fifty miles from
Carrick-on-Shannon to Killaloe, and in all that vast distance of spreading
lake and winding river there is not a passenger steam-boat to be seen!
There may be said to be no obstacle to navigation in all that distance for
boats drawing from five to six feet of water, and there are only four or
five locks to pass through. No other river of equal length affords more
variety of scenery than the Shannon. Sometimes the voyager passes by
wooded banks, anon through apparently illimitable meadows, and then
through great lakes like veritable inland seas,--island-studded or
mountain-girded,--change of scene occurring in almost every mile. Let it
be hoped that a line of passenger steamers will soon again be seen on the
waters of this great and beautiful river,--this "ancient stream," as its
Gaelic name is said to mean,--that has on its banks so many relics of the
past-the grass-grown rath, the hoary round tower, the crumbling castle,
and above all, the ruined fanes of Clonmacnois.
KNOCK AILLINN
After Tara and Uisneach, Knock Aillinn is the most historic hill in
Ireland--that is, if it was really the seat of the celebrated Finn, the
son of Cumhail. It is a different hill from the hill of Allen, which is
about nine miles north of it, and must not be confounded with it,
although, as it will be shown further on, the confusion of the two hills
seems to have taken place very long ago indeed. Knock Aillinn is some five
or six miles south of Newbridge, in the County Kildare. Apart from its
historic interest, it is well worth visiting, for it is situated in a rich
and beautiful part of the country, and the view from its summit is one of
the fairest and most extensive to be seen in any of the eastern counties.
Eastward the view is obstructed by the Wicklow mountains, but on every
other side it is very extensive, for Knock Aillinn is 600 feet high. So
fine is the view from this hill that O'Donovan, the celebrated Gaelic
scholar, was inspired by it to write a poem in Irish in praise of it, when
he was employed on the Government Survey in 1837. The poem may be seen in
his unpublished letters in the Royal Irish Academy. One verse of it,
translated into English, will show that it is a composition of more than
ordinary merit:--
"Beautiful the view from the hill of Aillinn,
Over lofty hills and fair plains,
Over mountains wreathed in veils of cloud;--
The view will remain in my memory for ever."
But beautiful and extensive as the prospect is from Knock Aillinn, and
greatly as the lovers of the beautiful may enjoy it, the chief interest
possessed by this hill is historic rather than scenic. On its summit is to
be seen the most gigantic of all Irish raths. O'Donovan called it
"prodigious." The whole top of the hill is surrounded by a mighty rampart
of earth, four hundred yards in diameter, that encloses over twenty acres.
After nearly two thousand years those earthen ramparts are still of great
height; and when, according to the fashion of the times, they were topped
with a strong palisade of timber, Knock Aillinn might be said to be an
almost impregnable fortress. To render it still stronger, the hill on
which it is placed is steep, and its ascent difficult. It was on this hill
that some think the renowned in Celtic song and legend, Finn, the son of
Cumhail, had his stronghold; but others, and it must be confessed that
they are the most numerous, think that Finn's dun was on the hill of
Allen, some eight or nine miles to the north.
That the vast _dun_, or enclosure, on Knock Aillinn was an ancient
residence of the Kings of Leinster is generally admitted; and that it was
erected long previous to the Christian era is also the opinion of those
best acquainted with early Irish history and literature. Proofs of this
can be obtained from the most reliable and ancient Gaelic writings. There
is hardly a vestige of antiquity to be seen on the summit of Knock Aillinn
save the vast earthen rampart. When one stands within it, and recalls to
mind what it must have been in days long gone by, when a large population
dwelt in it, and when armed multitudes issued from it, he will be tempted
to exclaim with Byron:--
"Shrine of the mighty! can it be
That this is all remains of thee?"
He will wonder that no vast masses of ancient masonry are to be seen. But
stone buildings of the kind that have been in use in these islands for
nearly a thousand years were unknown when the vast earth-works on Knock
Aillinn were erected. Walls built of dry stone have been used in Ireland
as fortresses from the most remote antiquity; but the art of building with
mortar was entirely unknown until after the introduction of Christianity.
The hill of Allen is the one on which, it is over and over again stated by
the most ancient and trustworthy Gaelic documents extant, Finn, the son of
Cumhail, had his palace. We are even told how, partly by force and
threats, he obtained Allen from his grandfather, Tadg; that he went to
live on it, and that it was his habitation as long as he lived. But here a
great difficulty meets us--there is not a vestige of dun or fort on the
hill of Allen. O'Donovan says in his unpublished letters, while on the
Ordnance Survey of Ireland, that Knock Aillinn was, according to various
ancient Irish authorities, one of the royal residences of the Kings of
Leinster, and that it received the name of _Aillinn_ from the _ail_, or
stone which was placed in the mound of the rath. On speaking of the hill
of Allen, where the celebrated Finn Mac Cool or Cumhail is said to have
had his seat, he says, "There are no traces of forts nor any other
monuments excepting one small mound called _Suidhe Finn_, or Finn's chair,
which occupies the highest point of the hill. On every side of this mound
there are faint traces of field works, but so indistinct that I could not
with any certainty decide whether they are traces of forts or of recent
cultivation, for the hill was tilled on the very summit. I travelled all
the hill, but could find upon it no monument from which it could be
inferred that it was ever a royal seat like Tara, Emania, Maistean, or any
of the other places of ancient celebrity whose localities have been
identified; and still in all Fingallian or Ossianic poems this hill (the
hill of Allen) is referred to as containing the palace of the renowned
champion, Finn Mac Cool, who seems to have been a real historical
character, who flourished here in the latter end of the third century."
O'Donovan says also in the same unpublished letters that "The antiquary
may draw his own conclusion from the non-existence of a dun on the hill of
Allen at this day. It is possible that there were forts on it a thousand
years ago, and that the progress of cultivation has effaced them; but it
is strange that these alone should disappear, while those of Tara, Emania,
Aileach, Naas, Maistean, and Raoirean remain in good preservation.... It
is curious to remark that all the monuments mentioned in the
_Dinnseanchus_ and the authentic annals still exist, while no trace is to
be found of Finn Mac Cool's palace on the hill of Allowin (Allen).... If
he had such a palace as this on Aillinn, near Kilcullen, on his hill of
Allowin, it would not disappear, because the labour of levelling it would
be so great that no agriculturist would undertake to level it."
It would seem as if the two hills, Aillinn, or Knock Aillinn as it is now
called, and Allen got confounded, and at an early date too. Allowing
liberally for exaggeration and discounting tradition, one has to believe
in the extent of Finn's house or palace, however rude and barbaric its
arrangements may have been. He was the most powerful man in Ireland, more
powerful even than the chief king. The fame of his household was spread
abroad, not only over all Ireland, but all Scotland. This we know by the
publication of the poems collected in the Highlands by the Dean of Lismore
in the sixteenth century, and translated by the late Mr T. M'Lauchlan, and
also from a host of other poems. They abound with allusions to Finn and
his house and household, as does almost all the folk-lore of the
Celtic-Scotch. One thing seems certain, that neither Finn nor his house or
palace were myths; his house must have existed, and, like all places of
its kind in the days when it existed, it must have been surrounded with an
earthen rampart no less high than that to be seen on Knock Aillinn. But no
vestige of house or rampart can be traced on the hill of Allen. A still
greater difficulty meets one in the size of the summit of the hill. It is
not much over half an Irish acre in extent, and where would there be room
on such a limited space for the vast household of Finn? His residence was
known from far-back times as "Almhuin riogha leathan mor Laighean," the
kingly, great-broad Allen of Leinster; but no _dun_ or habitation situated
on the narrow space on the top of the hill of Allen could be
"great-broad;" but the existing remains on Knock Aillinn would suit the
description almost exactly. We may be sure that if any man in Ireland in
those days had a big house, it was Finn. The names Allen and Aillinn are
so much alike, and both hills are so comparatively near each other, and
both seem to have been abandoned as strongholds at such an early date,
that confusion of one with the other could easily have taken place;
besides, Finn's name does appear to be, in some measure at least,
associated with Knock Aillinn. Here is a passage from the "Dinnseanchus"
at page 162 of the "Book of Leinster." Treating of Knock Aillinn, these
lines occur:--
"Faichthi ruamand ruamnad rinn
Co failgib flatha for Fhind."
Irish scholars may interpret these lines as they like, but it would seem
that the last word is a proper name, and that it relates to Finn.
But whether Finn lived in Knock Aillinn or in Allen, or whether he lived
in both places off and on, is a matter of minor importance. The real
wonder about him is the way he impressed himself not only on the age in
which he lived but on every age since then. No other man in any age or
country seems to have so fastened himself in the memories of the people of
his own race and lineage. It may be safely said that neither Julius Caesar
nor Charlemagne have impressed themselves on popular imagination so much
as Finn and those associated with him have. Those who have not studied the
Celtic folk-lore of Ireland and Scotland can form but an incomplete idea
of the overwhelming immensity of the folk-lore about Finn and his cycle
that exists even yet. But with the decay of Gaelic speech it is rapidly
fading away. It is hardly too much to say that when Gaelic was the
language of the fireside all through Ireland and a large part of
Scotland, and that is only a few centuries ago, there was not a parish
from Kerry to Caithness in which dozens of different stories about Finn
and his contemporaries did not exist; and it is equally safe to say that
not the tenth, probably not the twentieth, part of them was ever committed
to writing. Finn, Ossian, and Caoilte were the _dramatis personae_ of the
most extensive, if not the choicest, popular, unwritten folk-lore that
probably ever existed in any country. But one of the strangest things
connected with the cycle of Finn and Ossian is that its folk-lore hardly
appears at all in really ancient Gaelic literature. The Gaelic scribes of
the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries took but little notice of it;
it was to the events of the Cuchulainn cycle that they gave almost their
entire attention. In the "Book of Leinster," the greatest repertory of
Gaelic literature that exists in one volume, there is only one story that
can be called an Ossianic or Finnian one, while nearly half the book is
taken up with tracts and stories relating to the cycle of Cuchulainn,
which was nearly three centuries earlier than that of Ossian and Finn. But
the Cuchulainn cycle, from whatever cause will probably be never known,
seems to have entirely failed to take hold of the popular imagination.
Folk-lore relating to the Cuchulainn cycle is rare. There are a few in
which Cuchulainn is mentioned, and M'Pherson in his Ossian mixes the
Ossianic and Cuchulainn cycles together, although they were three
centuries apart. Of all the prominent names belonging to the Cuchulainn
cycle, Queen Medb or Meave was one of the most prominent, but not a single
story exists about her in the oral Gaelic folk-lore of Ireland or Scotland
of which the writer has ever heard. She seems to have found her way into
the folk-lore of England, but not into that of Ireland or the
Gaelic-speaking parts of Scotland. She figures very prominently in Irish
history and literature, but in folk-lore she does not figure at all. The
reason of this may be that Finn, Ossian, and others of their "set" were
supposed to have lived so long that they met St Patrick and were converted
to Christianity by him; but there is no foundation for such a belief, for
authentic Irish history says that Finn was killed in the year 283 at Ath
Brea on the Boyne.
It is not easy to see clearly why Finn so impressed his memory and his
cycle on the minds of his countrymen, for he does not appear to have been
an altogether amiable personage. There are very many discreditable things
told of him in the multitudinous stories of which he is the central
figure. In one of them, the "Pursuit of Dermot and Graine," he plays the
part of a revengeful, unforgiving, bad man; while his great enemy, Dermot
O'Duibhne, is a bold, open-hearted hero, the very opposite of his
unrelenting pursuer. With all the absurdities and impossibilities of the
"Pursuit," the leading characters in it are sustained with a consistency
that would do credit even to Shakespeare. Finn at the end of the story is
just what he was at the beginning, unforgiving and bad; and Graine, who is
bad at the beginning is bad also at the end; while Dermot, a hero at the
beginning of the story, is still a hero at its close. It may interest some
to know that most Irish historians and scholars think that Dermot
O'Duibhne was the person from whom the barony of Corcaguiney, in the
County Kerry, is called. In correct orthography it would be _Corc Ui
Dhuibhne_, and would be pronounced very nearly as the name of the barony
is written at present. If it be true that Corcaguiney got its name from
Dermot O'Duibhne, and there seems no reason to doubt that it did, another
proof is given of the general correctness of at least the salient points
in Irish history. It may also interest some to know that the Campbells of
Argyll are popularly believed, even in their own country, to be descended
from this same Dermot O'Duibhne. They have been known for centuries as the
Clann Diarmid, or children of Dermot, as will be remembered by any one who
has read Scott's "Legend of Montrose." The real name of the Argyll
Campbells seems to be really O'Duibhne. It was so that they generally
signed their names up to a comparatively recent date. Bishop Carsewell,
who translated John Knox's Prayer Book into Gaelic in 1567, the first
Gaelic book that was ever printed, dedicates it to the Duke of Argyll,
whom he calls Gilleasbuig O'Duibhne.[5] Carsewell would hardly have dared
to address his patron, and the most powerful nobleman in Scotland, by a
false name or a sobriquet. The Campbells seem to have been called
O'Duibhne down to the middle of the seventeenth century, for in the
national manuscripts of Scotland there is a very fine Gaelic poem on the
death of a Campbell, who is styled "O'Duibhne" in the Gaelic.
Translations that have been recently made from Gaelic manuscripts of high
authority have thrown considerable light on Finn, and the events of his
epoch. We are told in the tract called the "Boramha," or "Tribute," to
which reference has been already made, that when Bresal, a king of
Leinster, in the third century, was given his choice to pay the tribute or
fight the rest of Ireland, he asked help from Finn. A person called
Molling was sent to ask Finn to help the men of Leinster. Molling told
Finn that he should not come with a small army to fight the chief king,
who had the national army with him. The number of men that Finn had, was,
we are told in the "Boramha," fifteen hundred chiefs, each having thirty
men under him, making the total number of men that Finn brought to help
Leinster forty-five thousand, a very large army in those days. They joined
the Leinster men, inflicted a crushing defeat on the forces of the chief
king, so that the tribute was not paid for many years after. Nine thousand
of the "men of Ireland," as the "Book of Leinster" almost invariably calls
the national forces, were slain in the battle.
The militia of which Finn was the Commander-in-Chief, and of which his
father and grandfather had also been commanders, are the heroes of
hundreds of Ossianic tales and poems. It would appear that they numbered
twenty-one thousand men on a peace footing, but could raise their numbers
to double that amount in time of need. They became so extortionate and
arrogant in the long run, that the chief king, Cairbre, and it would seem
all the provincial rulers except the King of Leinster, determined to crush
them. So a great battle was fought at Garristown in the County Dublin in
the year 290 or 296, and the militia of Finn was totally destroyed. It
would seem that neither Knock Aillinn nor the hill of Allen has been since
then inhabited.
It may not be out of place to state here that students of Gaelic are often
puzzled on seeing the name of Finn spelt _Fionn_. It seems certain that
_Finn_ is the proper orthography. The name is invariably so spelt in all
cases in the "Book of Leinster," one of the most correct of all the great
Gaelic books; but the editor of "Silva Gadelica" makes it _Fionn_ in all
cases except in the genitive. It is difficult to understand why, when
copying from a manuscript of such high authority as the "Book of
Leinster," he did not follow its orthography. In the northern half of
Ireland the name is pronounced according to its correct orthography, but
in the south of Ireland it is pronounced as if written _Fyun_.
Those who visit Knock Aillinn and its mighty _dun_ should also visit the
hill of Allen. If there is nothing to be seen on it, there is a great
deal to be seen from it, for the view is very extensive. If any one wanted
to know how vast the bog of Allen is, he should ascend the hill of Allen,
from which he will see a very large part of it. If he is in any doubt as
to the exact place in which Finn had his dwelling and _dun_, he will at
least be in the locality that has given birth to the most colossal
folk-lore that perhaps ever existed,--stories that in the far-back past,
before the world was tormented by newspapers and bewildered by
politicians, beguiled many a tedious hour and delighted many a sad heart.
"KILDARE'S HOLY FANE"
Those in search of the picturesque alone will not find very much to
interest them in Kildare or its immediate vicinity. There may be said to
be hardly any remarkable scenic beauties in its neighbourhood. There is
the broad expanse of the Curragh not far from the town, one of the finest
places for military manoeuvres in the British Isles. It is strange why it
is called a curragh--more correctly, _currach_--for the word means a
marsh, a place that _stirs_ when trodden on. There is only a very small
part of the land to which the name is applied that is a marsh. It is
almost all perfectly dry upland. However, it was called _Currach Life_
from very early times, that is the marsh or swamp of the Liffy. It would
seem as if the word _Life_ meant originally the country through which the
river Liffy flows, and that the river took its name from the country; for
when King Tuathal wanted revenge on Leinstermen, for the death of his two
daughters, who have been mentioned in the article on Tara, he says--
"Let them be revenged on Leinstermen,
On the warriors _in_ the Life."
It is thought that the name Liffy comes from the adjective _liomhtha_,
meaning smooth, or polished, for part of the country through which the
river flows is very smooth and beautiful.
Hardly a vestige of the ancient buildings of Kildare remain save the round
tower. It is over one hundred and thirty feet in height, and therefore one
of the highest in Ireland. It seems as perfect as it was the day it was
finished. It is sad to say that it is the most completely
spoiled--bedevilled would probably be a better word--of all the Irish
round towers; for some person or persons whose memories should be held in
everlasting abhorrence by every archaeologist, have put an incongruous,
ridiculous, castellated top on it that makes it look as unsightly and as
horrible as a statue of Julius Caesar would look with a stove-pipe hat on
its head. The people of Kildare and its vicinity should at once raise
funds and have a proper, antique roof put on their tower, for it is an
absolute disgrace to them as it is at present. The top of the tower may
have been destroyed by lightning, or, like many other round towers, it may
have been left unfinished, and may never have had a top or roof on it. But
whatever may have happened to it, its present castellated roof is a
disgraceful incongruity.
The cathedral of Kildare is a modern and rather plain building of mediocre
interest. It is supposed to be built in, or nearly in, the place where the
old church stood that was founded by St Brigit in the sixth century.
Kildare seems to owe its origin to St Brigit, for the name means the cell
or church of the oak; and as Brigit was contemporary with St Patrick, hers
must have been the first Christian establishment founded at Kildare. It is
stated in the _Trias Thaumaturga_ of Colgan that when she returned to her
own district, a cell was assigned to her in which she afterwards led a
wonderful life; that she erected a monastery in Kildare, and that a very
great city afterwards sprang up, which became the metropolis of the
Lagenians, or Leinster folk. It requires a great stretch of imagination to
conceive how Kildare could ever have been a "very great city," for it is
now, and has for many years, been a small, a very small country town,
hardly any more than a village. It seems strange that Kildare is not
larger and more prosperous, for if not situated in a picturesque part of
the island, the country round it is very fair and fertile, and beautiful
as any flat country could be. There is, however, a passage in the
"Calendar of Oengus," written in the latter end of the eighth or the
beginning of the ninth century, that goes far to prove that what is said
in the _Trias Thaumaturga_ about Kildare having been once a large place is
true. Speaking of the fall of the strongholds of the Pagans, and the rise
of Christian centres, Oengus says--
"Aillinn's proud burgh
Hath perished with its warlike host:
Great is victorious Brigit:
Fair is her multitudinous city."
The "multitudinous city" was, of course, Kildare. It is curious that
Oengus should mention Aillinn, and not mention Allen, the supposed seat of
Finn, for wherever he had his stronghold must have been, in his epoch, the
most important place in Ireland, Tara alone excepted.
Kildare is famous and historic solely on account of St Brigit. Of all
Irish Saints, she is the most to be loved. Her charity, her love for
humanity, was so absolutely divine, that reading her life as narrated in
the _Leabhar Breac_, we are moved to our very heart's depths. The miracles
she is said to have performed are so wondrous, and show such a love for
mankind, especially for the poor, that when we read them we long to be
children again in order that we might unhesitatingly believe such
beautiful fables. It was in Kildare that that wondrous lamp was which is
said to have
"Lived through long ages of darkness and storm,"
without having been replenished by human hand; and it was this legend that
inspired Moore to compose the noblest national lyric ever written, "Erin,
O Erin." If he never wrote a line of poetry save what is contained in that
song, the Irish people would be justified in raising a statue of gold to
his memory. It is, beyond anything of the kind known to humanity,
"Perfect music set to noble words";
yet, heart-sickening to think of, the masses of the Irish people hardly
know it at all!
When St Brigit is contrasted with St Patrick, she appears very different
from him. The lives of Ireland's three great Saints are in the _Leabhar
Breac_, an Irish manuscript compiled early in the fourteenth century; but
the greater part of it is made up of transcripts from documents that were
probably many hundred years old when they were copied into it. The three
Saints whose lives appear in it are Patrick, Brigit, and Columba, or Colum
Cill, as he is generally called in Ireland. These lives were translated
some years ago by Mr Whitley Stokes, the greatest of living Gaelic
scholars; but as only a few dozen copies were printed for private
circulation, the book is practically as unknown to the general public as
if it never had been printed at all. Extracts from it, therefore, cannot
fail to be interesting to the readers of this book.
Brigit shines out a star of the first magnitude, totally eclipsing the
lesser two lights, Patrick and Columba. Nothing shall be said about
Columba at present, but it has to be admitted that Patrick, as he is
represented in the _Leabhar Breac_, makes a poor show when contrasted with
glorious St Brigit. Patrick is represented as spending a large part of his
time in cursing and killing, but St Brigit spends most of hers in blessing
and relieving. If St Patrick converts a great many, he is represented as
killing a great many; but St Brigit kills nobody. The narrative of her
life in the _Leabhar Breac_ is probably as wonderful a piece of biography
as ever was written. There is no effort at style in it, and no attempt at
book-making. The narrative is simplicity in the true sense of the word.
One of the wonderful things about it is the side light it throws both on
the social and political conditions of ancient Ireland; but, curiously
enough, no such light is thrown on the state of the country by the lives
of St Patrick and St Columba, written in the same book and probably by the
same author.
St Brigit seems to have acted on some of the precepts found in the
"Ancient Mariner" fourteen hundred years before the poem was written. She
seems to have known that--
"He prayeth best
Who loveth best
All things both great and small,"
for we are told that her father, who at present would be called Duffy,
"sundered a gammon of bacon into five pieces, and left it with Brigit to
be boiled for his guests. A miserable, greedy hound came into the house to
Brigit. Brigit, out of pity, gave him the fifth piece. When the hound had
eaten that piece, Brigit gave another piece to him. Then Duffy came and
said to Brigit, 'Hast thou boiled the bacon, and do all the portions
remain?' 'Count them,' saith Brigit. Duffy counted them and none of them
was wanting. The guests declared unto Duffy what Brigit had done.
'Abundant,' said Duffy, 'are the miracles of that maiden.' Now the guests
ate not the food, for they were unworthy thereof, but it was dealt out to
the poor and needy of the Lord."
The following narrative shows St Brigit's love of animals in a still
stronger light:
"Once upon a time a bondsman of Brigit's family was cutting firewood. It
came to pass that he killed a pet fox of the King of Leinster's. The
bondsman was seized by the King. Brigit ordered a wild fox to come out of
the wood. So he came, and was playing and sporting for the hosts and for
the King at Brigit's order. But when the fox had finished his feats, he
went safe back to the wood, with the hosts of Leinster after him, both
foot and horse and hounds."
This is simply beautiful. St Brigit, while she got the poor bondsman out
of trouble, managed to do so without depriving the fox of his liberty.
Here is another extract that makes one wish that the life of St Brigit in
the _Leabhar Breac_, instead of containing only about twenty octavo pages,
contained a thousand:--
"Then came Brigit and her mother with her to her father's house.
Thereafter Duffy (her father) and his consort were minded to sell the holy
Brigit into bondage, for Duffy liked not his cattle and his wealth to be
dealt out to the poor, and that is what Brigit used to do. So Duffy fared
in his chariot, and Brigit along with him. Said Duffy to Brigit, 'Not for
honour or reverence to thee art thou carried in a chariot, but to take
thee and sell thee, and to grind the quern for Dunlang Mac Enda, King of
Leinster.' When they came to the King's fortress, Duffy went in to the
King, and Brigit remained in her chariot at the fortress door. Duffy had
left his sword in the chariot near Brigit. A leper came to Brigit to ask
alms. She gave him Duffy's sword. Said Duffy to the King, 'Wilt thou buy a
bondmaid, namely, my daughter?' says he. Said Dunlang, 'Why sellest thou
thine own daughter?' Said Duffy, 'She stayeth not from selling my wealth
and giving it to the poor.' Said the King, 'Let the maiden come into the
fortress.' Duffy went for Brigit, and was enraged against her because she
had given his sword to the poor man. When Brigit came into the King's
presence, the King said to her, 'Since it is thy father's wealth that thou
takest, much more if I buy thee, wilt thou take of _my_ wealth and _my_
cattle, and give them to the poor.' Said Brigit, 'The Son of the Virgin
knoweth if I had thy might with all Leinster and with all thy wealth, I
would give them to the Lord of the Elements.' Said the King to Duffy,
'Thou art not fit on either hand to bargain for this maiden, for her merit
is higher before God than before men.' And he gave Duffy for her an
ivory-hilted sword. So was St Brigit saved from bondage."
The idea of giving a sword to a poor crippled leper because she had
nothing else to give could hardly have entered into the head of any saint
but an Irish one.
The next extract from this marvellous biography is, perhaps, the most
curious and interesting of all. In another interview that Brigit had with
the King of Leinster, "a slave of the slaves of the King came to speak
with Brigit, and said to her, 'If thou wouldst save me from the servitude
wherein I am, I would become a Christian, and would serve thee thyself.'
Brigit said, 'I will ask that of the King.' So Brigit went into the
fortress and asked her two boons of the king, the forfeiture of the sword
to Duffy, and his freedom for the slave. Said Brigit to the King, 'If thou
desirest excellent children and a kingdom for thy sons, and heaven for
thyself, give me the two boons I ask.' Said the King to Brigit, 'The
kingdom of heaven, as I see it not, and as no one knows what thing it is,
I seek it not; and a kingdom for my sons I seek not, for I shall not
myself be extant, and let each one serve his time. But give me length of
life in my kingdom, and victory always over the Hui Neill, for there is
often war between us; and give me victory in the first battle, so that I
may be trustful in the other fights.' And this was fulfilled in the
battle of Lochar which was fought against the Hui Neill."
By the "Hui Neill" the people of the entire north of Ireland, including
Meath, were meant. They represented the national party because the chief
kings, for some centuries previous, were of the race of Niall of the Nine
Hostages. Mr Stokes says, speaking of the above extract in his preface to
the translation, "The conversation between Brigit and Dunlang (King of
Leinster) seems to preserve the authentic utterance of an Irish pagan
warrior."
One extract more to show in a still stronger light the angelic kindness
and love for humanity, especially for suffering humanity, that glowed in
the heart of this wonderful woman:
"Once upon a time the King of Leinster came unto Brigit to listen to
preaching and celebration on Easter Day. After the ending of the form of
celebration the King fared forth on his way, and Brigit went to refection.
Lomman, Brigit's leper, said he would eat nothing until the warrior
weapons, _arm gaisgedh_, of the King of Leinster were given to him, spear,
sword, and shield, that he might move to and fro under them. A messenger
was sent after the King. From mid-day to evening was the King going
astray, and attained not even a thousand paces, so that the weapons were
given by him and bestowed on the leper."
This instance of going to such trouble to please a poor crippled pauper,
for Lomman was evidently such, and of working a miracle so that the King
of Leinster should lose his way, and not go so far that he could not be
overtaken, is one of the most extraordinary instances of trouble taken to
please a pauper that is to be found in all the records of benevolence and
charity.
The "Annals of the Four Masters" say that St Brigit was buried in
Downpatrick, in the same grave with St Patrick; but the learned editor and
translator of their annals says that she and Bishop Conlaeth were buried,
one on the right, and one on the left of the altar, in the church of
Kildare, and he gives Colgan's great book, _Trias Thaumaturga_, as his
authority, and no authority could be higher.
GLENDALOCH
There are not many places in Ireland more interesting than this strange
and weird glen. It can hardly be called beautiful. It is gloomy and grand;
and there is something depressing about it even in the finest day in
autumn when the sombre mountains by which it is surrounded on all sides
but one are mantled in their most gorgeous crimson drapery of
full-blooming heather. It is just such a spot as an anchorite like St
Kevin would choose as a place for contemplation and prayer.
Glendaloch--it ought _not_ to be spelled _Glendalough_--is very nearly in
the centre of the romantic county of Wicklow. It is a good central point
from which to make excursions to the many beautiful and interesting places
in its vicinity, such as Glen Molur, the Glen of Imail, the Meeting of the
Waters, and the Mountain of Lugnacuilla, the highest in Leinster. The
interior of the County Wicklow may be said to be a vast wilderness of
mountains, bogs, and glens. But its mountains have, with one exception,
the defect of being round-topped. They lack the boldness of the hills of
Connemara and Donegal. The mountain that is the most bold and alpine in
the county, and that forms an exception to the general contour of its
hills, is the famous one called the "Sugar-loaf," near Bray. The Dublin
grocer, or whoever he was that gave this beautiful hill such an abominable
name, should have his memory held in everlasting contempt. Its real name
is a grand one, Sleeve Coolan, _recte_ Sliabh Cualann. But in spite of
the generally rounded outlines of the Wicklow Mountains, there are some
splendid alpine views to be seen among them; and none finer than from the
Glen of Lugalaw, about seven or eight miles from Bray.
[Illustration: GLENDALOCH.]
But of all places in Wicklow, Glendaloch is the most famous. It ought to
be so, for there is nothing like it in Ireland. There are many glens as
wild and as gloomy as it, but they lack the historic interest and the
legendary halo that make Glendaloch dear to the archaeologist, the poet,
and the dreamer. Its history goes back almost to the beginning of
Christian times. For five hundred years it was one of the most important
ecclesiastical and educational places in Ireland. Its name constantly
occurs in Irish annals and history; and its history was for centuries as
gloomy as itself, for the Danes plundered it and burned it so often that
it seems strange that it was not abandoned many centuries sooner. It was
so near their great stronghold, Dublin, that it was harried by them on and
off for over two hundred years.
St Kevin's name is indissolubly associated with Glendaloch, or the Seven
Churches, as it is most frequently called, for it is supposed that there
were seven churches in it at one time. St Kevin, according to the best
authority who ever wrote on Irish history and archaeology, the famous John
O'Donovan, came of a distinguished family in the County Wicklow. His name,
in correct orthography, _Coemhgen_, means "fair offspring." He seems to
have been predestined to be a Saint, for many miraculous things are told
of his infancy and early youth. When he was a baby a white cow is said to
have come miraculously to supply him with milk. The story about his having
murdered Kathleen, the girl with eyes of "unholy blue," by throwing her
into that lake that the "Skylark never warbles o'er," is a mere fable. It
seems a pity that the story upon which Moore founded his very beautiful
lyric, "By that Lake, whose gloomy Shore," should have hardly any
foundation in fact. That a certain girl fell in love with him and caused
him a good deal of annoyance is quite true; but he did not kill her or
throw her into the lake. He only administered a rather mild castigation,
as shall be seen. O'Donovan says that the following extract, taken from
the _Codex Killkenniensis_, which, there are good reasons to believe, has
never yet been made public by translation, is the oldest and most
trustworthy account of the transaction known to exist; and that the
trouble between St Kevin and the girl did not take place in Glendaloch,
but in another place in the County Wicklow. O'Donovan's translation of
the story is the one now given:--
"While the most holy Caemhgen (Kevin) was as yet remaining in the house of
his parents, the Lord performed many miracles through him.... The parents
of Kevin observing so great a grace in him, committed him to the care of
the holy seniors, Eoganus, Lochanus, and Enna, in order that he might in
their cell be brought up for Christ; and St Kevin was sedulously reading
with those saints. When he was grown up in the first flower of his youth,
a young girl saw him out in a field along with the brethren, and fell
passionately in love with him, for he was exceedingly handsome. And she
began to make known her friendship for him in astute words. And she was
always laying snares for him in every way she could, by looks, by
language, and sometimes by messengers. But the holy youth rejected all
these allurements. On a certain day she sought the opportunity of finding
him alone, and on a day when the brethren were working in a wood, she
passed by them, and seeing St Kevin working by himself in the wood, she
approached him, and clasped him in her arms with fondest embrace. But the
soldier of Christ arming himself with the sacred sign, and full of the
Holy Ghost, made strong resistance against her, and rushed out of her
arms in the wood; and finding nettles, took secretly a bunch of them, and
struck her with them many times on the face, hands, and feet. And when she
was blistered with the nettles, the pleasure of her love became extinct.
And she being sorrowful of heart, asked on her bended knees pardon of St
Kevin in the name of the Lord. And the Saint praying for her to Christ,
she promised him that she would dedicate her virginity to the Lord. The
brothers finding them discussing together, wondered very much; but the
virgin related to them what had passed; and the brethren hearing such,
were confirmed in their love for chastity. And that little girl afterwards
became a prudent and holy virgin, and diligently observed the holy
admonitions of St Kevin."
The above translation has not, to the writer's knowledge, ever been
previously published. John O'Donovan, the greatest authority on such
matters that ever lived, says in his unpublished letters, while on the
Ordnance Survey of Ireland, that the above extract "is the oldest and only
authority for the story about St Kevin and the lady, and shows clearly
that the scene of it is erroneously placed at Glendaloch by oral tradition
and modern writers. It will also be sufficient evidence that this Saint
did not murder the lady Kathleen, but inflicted a somewhat mild
punishment by flogging her with a bunch of nettles!"
So poor St Kevin's memory is cleared. It is a pity that Moore did not see
the _Codex Killkenniensis_ before he wrote the beautiful lyric that casts
such a cloud on Wicklow's greatest saint. That the name of St Kevin was
highly esteemed not only in Wicklow in ancient times, but all through
Leinster, there is ample proof in ancient Gaelic literature. A poet named
Broccan, writing in the tenth century in praise of his native province of
Leinster and the great people it produced, said:
"I never heard in any province,
Between earth and holy heaven,
Of a nun like St Brigit
Or a cleric like Kevin."[6]
Glendaloch must have been founded in the latter part of the sixth century,
for St Kevin died in 617, aged 120 years. There cannot be any doubt that
it was he who founded Glendaloch. We are told that he sought the sombre
valley for a retreat in which to contemplate and pray, and that before
there were any buildings in it he lived for a long time in a hollow tree,
and subsisted on wild fruit and water. The cave in the cliff overhanging
the lake, known as St Kevin's Bed, the entrance to which is not only
difficult but dangerous, seems also to have given him shelter for a long
time before there were any habitations in the glen. It is said that if
_nouvelles mariees_ succeed in getting into this dark and dismal cavern,
they are sure to be blessed with large families. Why such a belief should
be current is not easy to understand, because St Kevin, after whom the
cavern is called, not only had no children, but was a decided woman-hater.
If he did not drown Kathleen, he at least whipped her with nettles, a
thing that no gallant man would think of doing to a girl who loved him. It
will, however, be the general opinion of most of those who read this
version of the story, that St Kevin "served her right."
Glendaloch has been ruined and uprooted in a shocking manner. Of all its
edifices there are only two that still stand--namely, the round tower and
the building known as "Kevin's Kitchen." This latter is stone-roofed, and
is considered to be one of the oldest buildings of the kind in Ireland.
Archaeologists are not agreed as to what particular use it was originally
intended, but that it was an ecclesiastical edifice of some kind seems to
be the opinion of everyone. There are, it is said, the remains of seven
churches still to be seen in Glendaloch. It appears to have been a walled
city, and Petrie, one of the most painstaking and learned archaeologists
that ever Ireland produced, claimed to have traced the tracks of the walls
in many places. That it contained a large population in the eighth and
ninth centuries seems to admit of little doubt. Oengus the Culdee, whose
verse in which Glendaloch is mentioned has been given in the article on
"Emania the Golden," calls it "multitudinous Glendaloch," and "the Rome of
the western world." Allowing for the exaggeration of which ancient Gaelic
poets may have been rather too fond, it must be admitted that what they
say cannot be entirely ignored; and it is more than probable that
immediately before the Danes and other northern nations began their raids
on Ireland, Glendaloch may have been, and probably was, a large monastic
city, as cities were in those days. The Irish monasteries of the eighth
and ninth centuries were probably the wealthiest in the world, if not in
lands, at least in gold and silver. Where or how they got, or where or how
the ancient Irish got, such quantities of the precious metals is a mystery
that may never be solved; but that Ireland had an enormous amount of gold
and silver in ancient times there can be no doubt at all. This would be
sufficiently proved by the quantity, not of coined money, for they had
not any, but of ornaments of almost every kind that have been found in all
parts of the country, more, it is said, than have been found in the rest
of Europe. There is hardly a barony in Ireland, it might be said hardly a
parish, in which stories are not told of people having become suddenly
rich by finding, it is naturally supposed, treasure trove in the shape of
gold ornaments, very few of which have been preserved, for they were
generally melted down. Sir Wm. Wilde mentions, in one of his catalogues of
articles in the Royal Irish Academy, a find of L3000 worth of gold
ornaments in the County Clare some fifty years ago. It seems a
well-ascertained fact that two labourers found over L20,000 worth of gold
ornaments when working on a railway in Munster some forty odd years ago.
The founder of one of the largest jewellery houses in Ireland told a
friend of the writer's that his first "rise" in business was brought about
by buying antique gold ornaments, at sometimes not half their value, from
people who brought them to him from the country.
When the marauding Northmen first raided Ireland, they seem not to have
had the most remote idea of either conquering the country or making
permanent settlements in it. They may not have despised Irish beef and
mutton, but what they wanted above all was gold and silver. When
Christianity was firmly established in Ireland, the monasteries became the
great depositories of the wealth of the country, and the clergy may be
said to have become its bankers. The monasteries, therefore, became, to a
certain extent, what banks are now, and it was to the monasteries the
Danes gave their first attention. It can hardly be proved from Irish
history that the Danes ever tried to conquer Ireland but once, and that
was at the battle of Clontarf. Even under Turgesius, when they succeeded
in establishing themselves almost everywhere there was salt water or fresh
water to float their ships, they played the part of raiders and not of
conquerors, and never formed a permanent settlement out of sight of their
galleys. In England and in France they acted quite differently. They
conquered and kept all England and a considerable part of France. They
went to England and France to establish themselves, but they went to
Ireland to plunder. The question to be solved is, Why did the Danes act so
differently in Ireland from the way they acted in England and in other
countries? There seems to be no way to answer this question except by
saying that there was so much more of the precious metals in Ireland,
that to get them, and not to conquer the country or form permanent
settlements in it, was their prime object. If history was absolutely
silent about the doings of the Northmen in Ireland, we would, from a surer
guide than history, know that plunder and not settlement was what they had
in view. That guide is place names. There are more Scandinavian place
names to be found in some parishes in the north-east of England than there
are in all Ireland. There are hardly a dozen Scandinavian place names in
Ireland, and they are _all_ on the sea coast but _one_. That one is
Leixlip, and it is only a few miles from the sea, on a river which the
galleys of the Northmen could easily ascend. The only time at which a
serious attempt seems to have been made by the Northmen to become
possessed of Ireland was shortly before the battle of Clontarf, and that
attempt seems to have owed its origin to that horrible but beautiful
woman, Gormfhlaith, sister to the king of Leinster, and whose last of many
husbands was Brian Boramha. That attempt utterly failed, and no other was
ever made. If the Northmen cannot be said to have seriously contemplated
the conquest of Ireland prior to the time immediately before the battle of
Clontarf, it does not seem to have been from lack of men in the country,
for Irish annals and history speak of their vast numbers in such a way as
hardly leaves a doubt as to the awfulness of the scourge they were to the
country at large. So great were their numbers at one time during the ninth
century that we are told that it seemed as if the sea vomited them forth,
and that there was hardly a harbour on the Irish coasts in which there was
not a Danish or a Norwegian fleet. It has to be admitted that the Irish
fought them with the most astonishing persistency and valour. In spite of
the way the country was split into petty kingdoms, with chief kings, who
were generally such only in name, the reception the Northmen got in
Ireland was very different from that which they got in England. The Saxons
often got rid of them by paying them to go away, but the Irish got rid of
them only by the sword. Those who want to know what Ireland suffered from
the raids of the Northmen should read the "Wars of the Gael and the
Gaill." The book is generally believed to have been written by M'Liag, who
was living when the battle of Clontarf was fought, and who was chief poet,
or secretary, to Brian Boramha.
Although the Northmen were allies of Leinster for a long time, they
plundered Glendaloch in the years 833, 886, and 982. It was so near
Dublin and so near the sea that their alliance with Leinster did not
prevent them from raiding it. It was one of the rich ecclesiastical
establishments in Ireland, and one of those most exposed to the incursions
of the Northmen. Its round tower was, therefore, in all probability, one
of the first that was erected. It is now generally believed by those most
competent to form an opinion that the round towers of Ireland were erected
as places of security against the Northmen, and that they were sometimes
used as belfries. Their Irish name, _cloigtheach_, means a
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