creditable funeral, and have managed every thing with great propriety;
let me request, therefore, that you will not get drunk, nor permit
yourselves to enter into any disputes or quarrels; but be moderate in
what you take, and go home peaceably.”
“Why, thin, your Reverence,” replied the widow, “he's now in his grave,
and, thank God, it's he that had the dacent funeral all out--ten good
gallons did we put over you, asthore, and it's yourself that liked the
dacent thing, any how--but sure, sir, it would shame him where he's
lyin', if we disregarded him so far as to go home widout bringing in our
friends, that didn't desart us in our throuble, an' thratin' them for
their kindness.”
While Kelly's brother was filling out all their glasses, the priest, my
brother, and I, were taking a little refreshment. When the glasses were
filled, the deceased's brother raised his in his hand, and said,--
“Well, gintlemen,” addressing us, “I hope you'll pardon me for not
dhrinking your healths first; but people, you know, can't break through
an ould custom, at any rate--so I give poor Denis's health that's in his
warm grave, and God be merciful to his sowl.”
The priest now winked at me to give them their own way; so we filled our
glasses, and joined the rest in drinking “Poor Denis's health, that's
now in his warm grave, and God be merciful to his soul.”
When this was finished, they then drank ours, and thanked us for our
kindness in attending the funeral. It was now past five o'clock; and we
left them just setting into a hard bout of drinking, and rode down to
his Reverence's residence.
“I saw you smile,” said he, on our way, “at the blundering toast of Mat
Kelly; but it would be labor in vain to attempt setting them right. What
do they know about the distinctions of more refined life? Besides, I
maintain, that what they said was as well calculated to express their
affection, as if they had drunk honest Denis's memory. It is, at least,
unsophisticated. But did you hear,” said he, “of the apparition that was
seen last night, on the mountain road above Denis's?”
“I did not hear of it,” I replied, equivocating a little.
“Why,” said he, “it is currently reported that the spirit of a murdered
pedlar, which haunts the hollow of the road at Drumfurrar bridge, chased
away the two servant men as they were bringing home the coffin, and that
finding it a good fit, he got into it, and walked half a mile along the
road, with the wooden surtout upon him; and, finally, that to wind
up the frolic, he left it on one end half-way between the bridge and
Denis's house, after putting a crowd of the countrymen to flight. I
suspect some droll knave has played them a trick. I assure you, that a
deputation of them, who declared that they saw the coffin move along of
itself, waited upon me this morning, to know whether they ought to have
put him into the coffin, or gotten another.”
“Well,” said my brother, in reply to him, “after dinner we will probably
throw some light upon that circumstance; for I believe my brother here
knows something about it.”
“So, sir,” said the priest, “I perceive you have been amusing yourself
at their expense.”
I seldom spent a pleasanter evening than, I did with Father Miloy (so
he was called), who was, as my brother said, a shrewd, sensible man,
possessed of convivial powers of the first order. He sang us several
good songs; and, to do him justice, he had an excellent voice. He
regretted very much the state of party and religious feeling, which he
did every thing in his power to suppress. “But,” said he, “I have little
co-operation in my efforts to communicate knowledge to my flock, and
implant better feelings among them. You must know,” he added, “that I
am no great favorite with them. On being appointed to this parish by my
bishop, I found that the young man who was curate to my predecessor had
formed a party against me, thinking, by that means, eventually to get
the parish himself. Accordingly, on coming here, I found the chapel
doors closed on me: so that a single individual among them would not
recognize me as their proper pastor. By firmness and spirit, however, I
at length succeeded, after a long struggle against the influence of
the curate, in gaining admission to the altar; and, by a proper
representation of his conduct to the bishop, I soon made my gentleman
knock under. Although beginning to gain ground in the good opinion of
the people, I am by no means yet a favorite. This curate and I scarcely
speak; but I hope that in the course of time, both he and they will
begin to find, that by kindness and a sincere love for their welfare on
my part, good-will and affection will ultimately be established among
us. At least, there shall be nothing left undone, so far as I am
concerned, to effect it.”
It was now near nine o'clock, and my brother was beginning to relate an
anecdote concerning the clergyman who had preceded Father Molloy in the
parish, when a messenger from Mr. Wilson, already alluded to, came up in
breathless haste, requesting the priest, for God's sake, to go down into
town instantly, as the Kellys and the Grimeses were engaged in a fresh
quarrel.
“My God!” he exclaimed--“when will this work have an end? But, to tell
you the truth, gentlemen, I apprehended it; and I fear that something
still more fatal to the parties will yet be the consequence. Mr. D'Arcy,
you must try what you can do with the Grimeses, and I will manage the
Kellys.”
We then proceeded to the town, which was but a very short distance from
the Priest's house; and, on arriving, found a large crowd before the
door of the house in which the Kellys had been drinking, engaged in hard
conflict. The priest was on foot, and had brought his whip with him, it
being an argument, in the hands of a Roman Catholic pastor, which tells
so home that it is seldom gainsaid. Mr. Molloy and my brother now dashed
in amongst them: and by remonstrance, abuse, blows, and entreaty, they
with difficulty succeeded in terminating the fight. They were also
assisted by Mr. Wilson and other persons, who dared not, until their
appearance, run the risk of interfering between them. Wilson's servant,
who had come for the priest, was still standing beside me, looking on;
and, while my brother and Mr. Molloy were separating the parties, I
asked him how the fray commenced.
“Why, sir,” said he, “it bein' market-day, the Grimeses chanced to be
in town, and this came to the ears of the Kellys, who were drinking in
Cassidy's here, till they got tipsy; some of them then broke out,
and began to go up and down the street, shouting for the face of
a murdhering Grimes. The Grimeses, sir, happened at the time to be
drinking with a parcel of their friends in Joe Sherlock's, and hearing
the Kellys calling out for them, why, as the dhrop, sir, was in on both
sides, they were soon at it. Grimes has given one of the Kelly's a great
bating; but Tom Grogan, Kelly's cousin, a little before we came down,
I'm tould, has knocked the seven senses out of him, with the pelt of a
brick-bat in the stomach.”
Soon after this, however, the quarrel was got under; and, in order to
prevent any more bloodshed that night, my brother and I got the Kellys
together, and brought them as far as our residence, on their way home.
As they went along, they uttered awful vows, and determinations of the
deepest revenge, swearing repeatedly that they would shoot Grimes from
behind a ditch, if they could not in any other manner have his blood.
They seemed highly intoxicated; and several of them were cut and abused
in a dreadful manner; even the women were in such a state of excitement
and alarm, that grief for the deceased was, in many instances,
forgotten. Several of both sexes were singing; some laughing with
triumph at the punishment they had inflicted on the enemy; others of
them, softened by what they had drunk, were weeping in tones of sorrow
that might be heard a couple of miles off. Among the latter were many
of the men, some of whom, as they staggered along, with their frieze
big coats hanging off one shoulder, clapped their hands, and roared
like bulls, as if they intended, by the loudness of their grief then, to
compensate for their silence when sober. It was also quite ludicrous to
see the men kissing each other, sometimes in this maudlin sorrow, and at
others when exalted into the very madness of mirth. Such as had been
cut in the scuffle, on finding the blood trickle down their faces, would
wipe it off--then look at it, and break out into a parenthetical volley
of curses against the Grimeses; after which, they would resume their
grief, hug each other in mutual sorrow, and clap their hands as before.
In short, such a group could be seen nowhere but in Ireland.
When my brother and I had separated from them, I asked him what had
become of Vengeance, and if he were still in the country.
“No,” said he; “with all his courage and watchfulness, he found that
his life was not safe; he, accordingly, sold off his property, and
collecting all his ready cash, emigrated to America, where, I hear, he
is doing well.”
“God knows,” I replied, “I shouldn't be surprised if one-half of the
population were to follow his example, for the state of society here,
among the lower orders, is truly deplorable.”
“Ay, but you are to consider now,” he replied, “that you have been
looking at the worst of it. If you pass an unfavorable opinion upon
our countrymen when in the public house or the quarrel, you ought to
remember what they are under their own roofs, and in all the relations
of private life.”
The “Party Fight,” described in the foregoing sketch, is unhappily no
fiction, and it is certain that there are thousands still alive who
have good reason to remember it. Such a fight, or I should rather say
battle--for such in fact it was--did not take place in a state of civil
society, if I can say so, within the last half century in this country.
The preparations for it were secretly being made for two or three months
previous to its occurrence, and however it came to light, it so happened
that each party became cognizant of the designs of the other. This
tremendous conflict, of which I was an eye-witness,--being then but
about twelve years of age--took place in the town, or rather city, of
Clogher, in my native county of Tyrone. The reader may form an opinion
of the bitterness and ferocity with which it was fought on both
sides when he is informed that the Orangemen on the one side, and the
Ribbonmen on the other, had called in aid from the surrounding counties
of Monaghan, Cavan, Fermanagh, and Derry; and, if I mistake not, also
from Louth. In numbers, the belligerents could not have been less than
from four to five thousand men. The fair day on which it occurred is
known simply as “the Day of the great Fight.”
THE LOUGH DERG PILGRIM.
In describing the habits, superstitions, and feelings of the Irish
people, it would be impossible to overlook a place which occupies
so prominent a position in their religious usages as the celebrated
Purgatory of St. Patrick, situated in a lake that lies among the bleak
and desolate looking mountains of Donegal.
It may also be necessary to state to the reader, that the following
sketch, though appearing in this place, was the first production from my
pen which ever came before the public. The occasion of its being written
was this:--I had been asked to breakfast by the late Rev. Caesar Otway,
some time I think in the winter of 1829. About that time, or a little
before, he had brought out his admirable work called, “Sketches in
Ireland, descriptive of interesting portions of Donegal, Cork, and
Kerry.” Among the remarkable localities of Donegal, of course it was
natural to suppose, that “_Lough Derg_,” or the celebrated “_Purgatory
of St. Patrick_,” would not be omitted. Neither was it; and nothing
can exceed the accuracy and truthful vigor with which he describes its
situation and appearance. In the course of conversation, however, I
discovered that he had never been present during the season of making
the Pilgrimages, and was consequently ignorant of the religious
ceremonies which take place in it. In consequence, I gave him a pretty
full and accurate account I of them, and of the Station which I myself
had made there. After I had concluded, he requested me to put what I had
told him upon paper, adding, “I will dress it up and have it inserted in
the next edition.”
I accordingly went home, and on the fourth evening afterwards brought
him the Sketch of the Lough Derg Pilgrim as it now appears, with the
exception of some offensive passages which are expunged in this edition.
Such was my first introduction to literary life.
And here I cannot omit paying my sincere tribute of grateful
recollection to a man from whom I have received so many acts of the
warmest kindness. To me he was a true friend in every sense of the word.
In my early trials his purse and his advice often supported, soothed,
and improved me. In a literary point of view I am under the deepest
obligations to his excellent judgment and good taste. Indeed were it
not for him, I never could have struggled my way through the severe
difficulties with which in my early career I was beset.
“Green be the turf above thee,
Friend of my early days;
None knew thee but to love thee,
Or named thee but to praise.”
But to my theme, which will be better understood, as will my description
of the wild rites performed on the shores of its most celebrated island,
by the following extracts, taken from this able and most vivid describer
of Irish scenery:
“The road from the village of Petigo leading towards Lough Derg, runs
along a river tumbling over rocks; and then after proceeding for a time
over a boggy valley, you ascend into a dreary and mountainous tract,
extremely ugly in itself, but from which you have a fine view indeed
of the greatest part of the lower lake of Lough Erne, with its
many elevated islands, and all its hilly shores, green, wooded,
and cultivated, with the interspersed houses of its gentry, and
the comfortable cottages of its yeomanry--the finest yeomanry in
Ireland--men living in comparative comfort, and having in their figures
and bearing that elevation of character which a sense of loyalty and
independence confers. I had at length, after traveling about three
miles, arrived where the road was discontinued, and by the direction of
my guide, ascended a mountain-path that brought me through a wretched
village, and led to the top of a hill. Here my boy left me, and went
to look for the man who was to ferry us to Purgatory, and on the ridge
where I stood I had leisure to look around. To the south-west lay Lough
Erne, with all its isles and cultivated shores; to the north-west lay
Lough Derg, and truly never did I mark such a contrast. Lough Derg under
my feet--the lake, the shores, the mountains, the accompaniments of all
sorts presented the very landscape of desolation; its waters expanding
in their highland solitude, amidst a wide waste of moors, without one
green spot to refresh the eye, without a house or tree--all mournful in
the brown hue of its far-stretching bogs, and the gray uniformity of its
rocks; the surrounding mountains even partook of the sombre character
of the place; their forms without grandeur, their ranges continuous and
without elevation. The lake itself was certainly as fine as rocky shores
and numerous islands could make it: but it was encompassed with such
dreariness; it was deformed so much by its purgatorial island; the
associations connected with it were of such a degrading character,
that really the whole prospect before me struck my mind with a sense of
painfulness, and I said to myself, 'I am already in Purgatory.' A person
who has never seen the picture that was now under my eye, who had read
of a place consecrated by the devotion of ages, towards which the tide
of human superstition had flowed for twelve centuries, might imagine
that St. Patrick's Purgatory, secluded in its sacred island, would have
all the venerable and gothic accompaniments of olden time; and its ivied
towers and belfried steeples, its carved windows, and cloistered arches,
its long dark aisles and fretted vaults would have risen out of the
water, rivalling Iona or Lindisfarn; but nothing of the sort was to be
seen. The island, about half a mile from the shore, presented nothing
but a collection of hideous slated houses and cabins, which gave you
an idea that they were rather erected for the purpose of tollhouses or
police-stations than any thing else.
“I was certainly in an interesting position. I looked southerly towards
Lough Erne, with the Protestant city of Enniskillen rising amidst its
waters, like the island queen of all the loyalty, and industry, and
reasonable worship that have made her sons the admiration of past
and present time; and before me, to the north, Lough Derg, with its
far-famed isle, reposing there as the monstrous birth of a dreary and
degraded superstition, the enemy of mental cultivation, and destined to
keep the human understanding in the same dark unproductive state as the
moorland waste that lay outstretched around. I was soon joined by my
guide and by two men carrying oars, with whom I descended from the ridge
on which I was perched, towards the shores of the lake, where there
was a sort of boat, or rather toll-house, at which the pilgrims paid a
certain sum before they were permitted to embark for the island. In a
few minutes we were afloat; and while sitting in the boat I had time to
observe my ferrymen: one was a stupid countryman, who did not speak;
the other was an old man with a Woollen night-cap under his hat, a
brown snuff-colored coat, a nose begrimed with snuff, a small gray eye
enveloped amidst wrinkles that spread towards his temples in the form of
birds' claws, and gave to his countenance a sort of leering cunning
that was extremely disagreeable. I found he was the clerk of the island
chapel; that he was a sort of master of the ceremonies in purgatory, and
guardian and keeper of it when the station time was over and priests and
pilgrims had deserted it. I could plainly perceive that he had smoked me
out as a Protestant, that he was on his guard against me as a spy,
and that his determination was to get as much and to give as little
information as he could; in fact, he seemed to have the desire to obtain
the small sum he expected from me with as little exposure of his cause,
and as little explanation of the practices of his craft as possible.
The man informed me that the station time was over about a month, and he
confirmed my guide's remark that the Pope's jubilee had much diminished
the resort of pilgrims during the present season. He informed me also
that the whole district around the lough, together with all its islands,
belonged to Colonel L------, a relation of the Duke of Wellington; and
that this gentleman, as landlord, had leased the ferry of the island to
certain persons who had contracted to pay him L260 a year; and to make
up this sum, and obtain a suitable income for themselves, the ferrymen
charged each pilgrim five pence. Therefore, supposing that the
contractors make cent, per cent, by their contract, which it may be
supposed they do, the number of pilgrims to this island may be estimated
at 13,000; and, as my little guide afterwards told me (although the
cunning old clerk took care to avoid it), that each pilgrim paid the
priest from 1s. 8d. to 2s. 6d., therefore we may suppose that the profit
to the prior of Lough Derg and his priests was no small sum.
“In a short time I arrived at the island, and as stepping out of the
boat I planted my foot on the rocks of this scene of human absurdity,
I felt ashamed for human nature, and looked on myself as one of the
millions of fools that have, century after century, degraded their
understandings by coming hither. The island I found to be of an oval
shape.
“The buildings on it consisted of a slated house for the priests, two
chapels, and a long range of cabins on the rocky surface of the island,
which may contain about half an acre; there were also certain round
walls about two feet high, enclosing broken stone and wooden crosses;
these were called saints' beds, and around these circles, on the sharp
and stony rocks, the pilgrims go on their naked knees. Altogether I
may briefly sum up my view of this place, and say that it was filthy,
dreary, and altogether detestable--it was a positive waste of time to
visit it, and I hope I shall never behold it again.” *
* Fire at Lough Derg.--On the 15th Aug 1842, the
station at this celebrated place was brought to a
conclusion; but in the course of the night it was
discovered that some of the houses were on fire, and
four dwellings which, we believe, were recently
erected, were altogether consumed. The people of the
neighboring country directed their efforts chiefly to
the preservation of the prior's house, which adjoined
those in flames, and by pouring a continued supply of
water against its windows, succeeded in saving it. The
night being calm, and the wind in a favorable
direction, the injury sustained was less than must have
existed under different circumstances. The houses burnt
were occupied as lodgings for pilgrims when on station.
The following is extracted from Bishop Henry Jones's account, published
in 1647:
“The island called St. Patrick's Purgatory is altogether rocky, and
rather level; within the compass of the island, in the water towards
the north-east, about two yards from the shore, stand certain rocks, the
least of which, and next the shore, is the one St. Patrick knelt on for
the third part of the night in prayer, he did another third in his cell,
which is called his bed, and another third in the cave or purgatory; in
this stone there is a cleft or print, said to be made by St. Patrick's
knees; the other stone is much greater and further off in the lake,
and covered with water, called Lachavanny: this is esteemed of singular
virtue; standing thereon healeth pilgrims' feet, bleeding as they are
with cuts and bruises got in going barefoot round the blessed beds.
“The entrance into the island is narrow and rocky; these rocks they
report to be the guts of a great serpent metamorphosed into stones.
When Mr. Copinger, a gentleman drawn thither by the fame of the place,
visited it, there was a church covered with shingles dedicated to St.
Patrick, and it was thus furnished: at the east end was a high altar
covered with linen, over which did hang the image of our Lady with our
Saviour in her arms; on the right did hang the picture of the three
kings offering their presents to our Saviour; and on the left the
picture of our Saviour on the cross; near the altar, and on the south
side, did stand on the ground an old worm-eaten image of St. Patrick;
and behind the altar was another of the same fabric, but still older
in appearance, called. St Arioge; and on the right hand another image
called St. Volusianus.
“Between the church and the cave there is a small rising ground, and on
a heap of stones lay a little stone cross, part broken, part standing;
and. in the east of the church was another cross made of twigs
interwoven: 'this is known by the name of St. Patrick's altar, on which
lie three pieces of a bell, which they say St. Patrick used to carry
in, his hand. Here also was laid a certain knotty bone of some bigness,
hollow in the midst like the nave of a wheel, and out of which issue,
as it were, natural spokes: this was: shown as a great rarity, being
part of a great, serpent's tail--one of those monsters the blessed
Patrick expelled out of Ireland.
“Towards the narrowest part of the island were six circles--some call
them saints' beds, or beds of penance. Pilgrims are continually praying
and kneeling about these beds; and they are compassed around with
sharp stones and difficult passages for the accommodation of such as go
barefooted.
“In the farthest part northward of the island, are certain beds of stone
cast together; as memorials for some that are elsewhere; buried; but
who trust to the prayers and merits of those who daily resort to this
Purgatory. Lastly, in this island are several Irish cabins covered with
thatch, and another for shriving or confession; and there are: separate
places assigned for those who come from the four provinces of Ireland.