[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF TERMON MAGRATH, COUNTY OF DONEGAL.]
In a recent number of our journal we called the attention of our readers
to the little-appreciated beauties of Lough Erne; and we now present
them with another vista of that delightful locality in connection with
the Castle of Termon Magrath, or Termon, as it is more usually called,
which is situated at its northern extremity, in the county of Donegal.
Considered as a sheet of water, the lower lake appears from this side to
the greatest advantage; but its distant shores are but little improved by
plantations, and consequently look comparatively bleak and barren. In the
immediate vicinity of our subject, however, the scenery is of the rich
character for which Lough Erne is so remarkable, the shores of the lake
being fringed with the plantations of the glebe of Templecarn and those
of Waterfoot, the beautiful seat of Colonel Barton.
The Castle of Termon is situated in the parish of Templecarn, about half
a mile to the west of the pleasant and improving little town of Pettigoe,
which, if it had a comfortable inn, would be a good station for pleasure
tourists wishing to enjoy the scenery of the lower Lough Erne and that of
Lough Derg, with its celebrated purgatory of St Patrick.
The foundation of this castle, according to popular tradition, is
ascribed to the celebrated Malmurry, or, as he was usually called, Myler
Magrath, the first Protestant Bishop of Clogher; and there is every
reason to believe this tradition correct. The lands on which the castle
is situated anciently constituted the Termon of St Daveog of Lough Derg,
of which the Magraths were hereditarily the termoners or churchwardens;
and of this family Myler Magrath was the head; so that these lands
properly belonged to him anteriorly to any grant of them derived through
his bishopric. He was originally a Franciscan friar, and being a man of
distinguished abilities, was advanced by Pope Pius V. to the see of Down;
but having afterwards embraced Protestantism, he was placed in the see of
Clogher by letter of Queen Elizabeth, dated 18th May 1570, and by grant
dated the 18th September, in the same year. He remained, however, but a
short time in this see, in which he received but little or nothing of the
revenues, and in which he was probably surrounded by enemies even among
his own kindred, and was translated to the archbishopric of Cashel on
the 3d of February, in the year following. He died at Cashel at the age
of one hundred, in the year 1622, and was interred in the choir of that
ancient cathedral, where a splendid monument to his memory still exists,
with a Latin inscription penned by himself, of which the following quaint
translation is given in Harris’s Ware:--
Patrick, the glory of our isle and gown,
First sat a bishop in the see of Down.
I wish that I, succeeding him in place
As bishop, had an equal share of grace.
I served thee, England, fifty years in jars,
And pleased thy princes in the midst of wars;
Here where I’m placed I’m not; and thus the case is,
I’m not in both, yet am in both the places. 1621.
He that judgeth me is the Lord.--1 Cor. iv.
Let him who stands take care lest he fall.
Harris remarks, that the Roman Catholics of his diocese have a tradition
that he returned to his original faith previously to his death, and that
though it was pretended that he was buried in his own cathedral, yet
he had given private orders for burying his body elsewhere, to which
circumstance, as they say, the two last lines of his epitaph allude.
“But,” says Harris, “although he was no good man, and had impoverished
his see by stripping it of much of its ancient estate, yet I do not
find any room to call his sincerity as to his religious profession
in question, living or dying. These lines rather seem to hint at the
separate existence of the soul and body.” But however this may be, there
is another tradition relative to him less doubtful, inasmuch as it is
common to the peasantry of different creeds, namely, that he was the
handsomest man in Ireland in his day!
The Castle of Termon, like most edifices of the kind erected in the
sixteenth century, consisted of a strong keep with circular towers at two
of its angles, and encompassed by outworks. It was battered by Ireton
from the neighbouring hill in the parliamentary wars; but its ruins are
considerable, and by their picturesqueness add interest to the northern
shore of the lower Lough Erne.