THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
The Irish of the eighteenth century being almost wholly deprived by
law of all possibilities of bettering their condition, and having the
necessary means of education rigidly denied them, turned for solace to
poetry, and in it they vented their wrongs and bitter grief. I have
met nothing more painful in literature than the constant, the almost
unvarying cry of agony sent out by every one of the Irish writers
during the latter half of the seventeenth and the first half of the
eighteenth century.
There seems to have been very great literary activity amongst the
natives in almost every county of Ireland during this period, and the
poets it produced were countless; during this period, too, the Irish
appear to have translated many religious books from French and Latin
into Irish. In one way the work of the eighteenth century is of even
more value to us than that of any earlier age, because it gives us the
thoughts and feelings of men who, being less removed from ourselves
in point of time, have probably more fully transmitted their own
nature to their descendants--the Irish of the present day. Unhappily,
however, though many volumes of the work of the eighteenth century
have survived, yet countless others have been lost during the last
fifty years, and the only body in Ireland competent to secure Irish
manuscripts by purchase, takes unfortunately not the slightest heed of
any modern Irish writings, which are daily perishing in numbers.
Of the poets of what I have called the New School, towards the end of
the seventeenth century, the most noted was certainly David O'Bruadar,
or Broder, whose extant poems would fill a volume. They are in the most
various forms of the new metres, but their vocabulary and word-forms
are rather those of the more ancient bards, which renders his poetry
by no means easy of translation. He appears to have been the bard _par
excellence_ of the Williamite wars, and bitter is his cry of woe after
the Boyne and Aughrim.
"One single foot of land there is not left to us, even as alms from
the State; no, not what one may make his bed upon, but the State will
accord us the grace--strange! of letting us go safe to Spain to seek
adventures!
"They [the English] will be in our places, thick-hipped, mocking,
after beating us from the flower of our towns, full of pewter, brass,
plates, packages--English-speaking, shaven, cosy, tasteful.[1]
"There will be a beaver cape on each of their hags, and a silk gown
from crown to foot; bands of churls will have our fortresses, full of
Archys (?), cheeses and pottage.
"These are the people--though it is painful to relate it--who are
living in our white moats, 'Goody Hook' and 'Mother Hammer,' 'Robin,'
'Saul,' and 'Father Salome'!
"The men of the breeches a-selling the salt,[2] Gammer,' 'Ruth,' and
'Goodman Cabbage,' 'Mistress Capon,' 'Kate and Anna,' 'Russell Rank,'
and 'Master Gadder'!
"[They are now] where Déirdre, that fair bright scion used to roam,
where Emer[3] and the Liath Macha[4] used to be, where Eevil[5] used
to be beside the Crag, and the elegant ladies of the Tuatha De Danann.
"Where the poet-schools, the bards, and the damsels were, with
sporting, dance, wine and feasts, with pastime of kings and active
champions."
For a moment, after the accession of James II. and during the
viceroyalty of Tyrconnel, courage and hope returned to the natives.
Their poetry, wherever preserved, is a veritable mirror wherein to read
their transitions of feeling.
"Thanks be to _God_, this _sod_ of misery
Is changed as _though_ by a _blow_ of wizardry;
James can _pass_ to _Mass_ in livery,
With priests in _white_ and _knights_ and chivalry."[6]
"Where goes John [_i.e._, John Bull], he has no red coat on him [now],
and no 'who goes there' beside the gate, seeking a way [to enrich
himself], contentiously, in the teeth of law, putting me under rent in
the night of misfortune.[7]
"Where goes Ralph and his cursed bodyguard, devilish prentices, the
rulers of the city, who tore down on every side the blessed chapels,
banishing and plundering the clergy of God.
"They do not venture [now] to say to us, 'You Popish rogue;' but our
watchword is, 'Cromwellian Dog.'
"The cheese-eating clowns are sorrowful, returning every greasy lout
of them to their trades, without gun, or sword, or arm exercise; their
strength is gone, their hearts are beating....
"After transplanting us, and every conceivable treachery, after
transporting us over-sea to the country of Jamaica, after all whom
they scattered to France and Spain.
"All who did not submit to their demands, how they placed their heads
and hearts on stakes! and all of our race who were valiant in spirit,
how they put them to death, foully, disgustingly!
"After all belonging to our church that the Plot hanged, and after the
hundreds that have died in fetters from it, and all whom they had
deep down in the jail of every town, and all who were bound in the
tower of London.
"After all their disregard for right, full of might and injustice,
without a word [for us] in the law, who would not even write your
name, but ever said of us 'Teigs and Diarmuids,' disrespectfully.
"There is many a Diarmuid _now_, both sensible and powerful! and many
a Teig, too, both merry and jubilant! in the county of Eber, who is
strong on the battlefield--the foreigners all everlastingly hated that
name....
"Friends of my heart, after all the thousands we lost, I cry
impetuously to God in the heavens, giving thanks every day without
forgetting, that it is in the time of this king[8] we have lived....
"Having the fear of God, be ye full of almsgiving and friendliness,
and forgetting nothing do ye according to the commandments; shun ye
drunkenness and oaths and cursing, and do not say till death 'God
damn' from your mouths," etc.
But Aughrim and the Boyne put an end to the dream that the Irish would
ever again bear sway in their own land, and the carefully-devised Penal
laws proceeded to crush all remaining independence of spirit out of
them, and to grind away their very life-blood. Once more their poets
fell back into lamentations over the past and impotent prophecies of
the return of the Stuarts and the resurrection of Erin. Despite their
sentimental affection for the paltry Stuarts, who ever used them as
their tools, many of the poets were perfectly clear-sighted about them.
"It is the coming of King James that took Ireland from us,
With his one shoe English and his one shoe Irish.
He would neither strike a blow nor would he come to terms,
And that has left, so long as they shall exist, misfortune upon the Gaels."[9]
"Our case," says another poet, "is like the plague of Egypt; whoever
chooses to break your lease, breaks it, and there is no good for you
to go arguing your right."
"King's rent, country's rent, clergy's rent, rent for your nose, rent
for your back, rent for warming yourself, head-money at the head of
every festival, hearth money, and money for readying roads![10]
"His goods are not taken from any one all at once, at one time; he
must pay for being allowed to keep them first, and be forced to sell
them afterwards.
"If you happen to be alive, then you are the 'Irish rogue,' if you
happen to be dead, then there's no more about you, except that your
soul is [of course] in the fetters of pain, like the bird-flock that
is among the clouds.
"It is the King of Kings--and King James, the Pope, the friars, and
the fasting, and King Louis, who put Christendom under a settlement,
that sent this ban upon the children of Milesius."
Every poet describes the condition of the native Irish in almost the
same strains.
"Their warriors are no better off than their clergy; they are being
cut down and plundered by them [the English] every day. See all that
are without a bed except the furze of the mountains, the bent of the
curragh, and the bog-myrtle beneath their bodies.
"Under frost, under snow, under rain, under blasts of wind, without a
morsel to eat but watercress, green grass, sorrel of the mountain, or
clover of the hills. Och! my pity to see their nobles forsaken!
"Their estates were estimated for, and are now in the hands of
robbers, their towns are under the control of English-speaking
bastards, their title deeds which were firm for a while, are now in
the hands of foreigners, whose qualities are not mild.
"Their forts are under the sway of tradespeople; none of their
fortresses is to be seen remaining for them, but black prisons and
the houses of the fetters, and some of their heads parted from their
tender bodies.
"And some of them in the clutch of famine so that they die, and some
of them hunted to Connacht of the slaughter, [shut in], under the lock
of the Shannon, not easy to open, and without provision to feed their
mouths there--their warm dwellings under the control of the perjurers."
The feelings of the native Irish, smarting under the cowardice,
selfishness, and incompetence of James II., were but moderately excited
by the rather feeble attempt of his son to regain his father's kingdom
by the sword. One or two stray bards, however, saluted his undertaking
with poems:
"Long in misery were we,
No man free from English gall,
Now our James is on the sea
We shall see revenge for all.[11]
Flowering branch of royal blood,
Soon his bud shall burst to flame,
James our friend is on the flood,
Learned and good and first in fame.
Luther's louts, and Calvin's clan,
Every man who loved to lie,
Boar-hounds of the bloody fang
We shall see them hang on high."
But this and its fellows were only spasmodic rhapsodies. The Irish kept
their real enthusiasm for the gallant attempt of Charles Edward, and
the Jacobite poems of Ireland would, if collected, fill a large-sized
volume.[12] So popular did Jacobite poetry become that it gave rise to
a conventional form of its own,[13] which became almost stereotyped,
and which seems to have been adopted as a test subject in bardic
contests, and by all new aspirants to the title of poet. This form
introduces the poet as wandering in a wood or by the banks of a river,
where he is astonished to perceive a beautiful lady approaching him.
He addresses her, and she answers. The charms of her voice, mien, and
bearing are portrayed by the poet. He inquires who and whence she is,
and how comes she to be thus wandering. She replies that she is Erin,
who is flying from the insults of foreign suitors and in search of her
real mate. Upon this theme the changes are rung in every conceivable
metre and with every conceivable variation, by the poets of the
eighteenth century. Some of the best of these allegorical pieces are
distinctly poetic, but they soon degenerated into conventionalism, so
much so that I verily believe they continued to be written even after
the death of the last Stuart. The possibility of a Jacobite rebellion
gave rise to some fine war-songs also, calling upon the Irish to break
their slumbers, but they were too exhausted and too thoroughly broken
to stir, even in the eventful '45.
One of the earliest writers of Jacobite poetry, and perhaps the most
voluminous man of letters of his day amongst the native Irish, was JOHN
O'NEAGHTAN of the county Meath, who was still alive in 1715. One of
his early poems was written immediately after the battle of the Boyne,
when the English soldiery stripped him of everything he possessed in
the world, except one small Irish book. Between forty and fifty of
his pieces are enumerated by O'Reilly, and I have seen others in a
manuscript in private hands.[14] These included a poem in imitation
of those called "Ossianic," of 1296 lines, and a tale written about
1717 in imitation of the so-called Fenian tales, an amusing allegoric
story called the "Adventures of Edmund O'Clery," and a curious but
extravagant tale called the "Strong-armed Wrestler." Hardiman had
in his possession a closely-written Irish treatise by O'Neaghtan of
five hundred pages on general geography, containing many interesting
particulars concerning Ireland, and a volume of Annals of Ireland from
1167 to about 1700.[15] He also translated a great many church hymns
and, I believe, prose books from Latin. His elegy on Mary D'Este, widow
of James II., is one of the most musical pieces I have ever seen, even
in Irish--
"_SLOW cause_ of my fear
_NO pause_ to my tear.
The br_I_ghtest and wh_I_test
_LOW_ l_I_es on her bier.
_FAIR I_slets of green,
_RARE_ s_I_ghts to be seen,
Both h_I_ghlands and _I_slands
_THERE_ s_I_gh for the Queen."
TORLOUGH O'CAROLAN, born in 1670, and usually called "the last of
the bards," was one of the best known poets of the first half of
the eighteenth century. He was really a musician, not a bard, and
his advent marked the complete break-down of the old Gaelic polity,
according to which bard and harper were different persons. Carolan
was born in Meath, but usually resided in Connacht, and having become
blind from small-pox in his twenty-second[16] year he was educated
as a harper, and achieved in his day an enormous renown. He composed
over two hundred airs, many of them very lively, and usually addressed
to his patrons, chiefly to those of the old Irish families. He
composed his own words to suit his music, and these have given him the
reputation of a poet. They are full of curious turns and twists of
metre to suit his airs, to which they are admirably wed, and very few
are in regular stanzas. They are mostly of a Pindaric nature, addressed
to patrons or to fair ladies; there are some exceptions, however, such
as his celebrated ode to whiskey, one of the finest bacchanalian songs
in any language, and his much more famed but immeasurably inferior
"Receipt for Drinking." Very many of his airs and nearly all his poetry
with the exception of about thirty pieces are lost.[17] He died in 1737
at Alderford, the house of the Mac Dermot Roe.
"When his death was known," says Hardiman, "it is related that upwards
of sixty clergymen of different denominations, a number of gentlemen
from the surrounding counties, and a vast concourse of country people,
assembled to pay the last mark of respect to their favourite bard. All
the houses in Ballyfarnon[18] were occupied by the former, and the
people erected tents in the fields round Alderford House. The harp was
heard in every direction. The wake lasted four days. On each side of
the hall was placed a keg of whiskey, which was replenished as often
as emptied. Old Mrs. Mac Dermot herself joined the female mourners
who attended, 'to weep,' as she expressed herself, 'over her poor
gentleman, the head of all Irish music.' On the fifth day his remains
were brought forth, and the funeral was one of the greatest that for
many years had taken place in Connacht."
Another good poet was TEIG O'NAGHTEN, who lived in Dublin, and is well
known for a voluminous manuscript Irish-English dictionary, at which he
worked from 1734 to 1749. Some twenty or thirty of his poems remain.
Another learned poet and lexicographer was HUGH MAC CURTIN of the
County Clare. With the assistance of his friend, a priest called Conor
O'Begley, he produced a great English-Irish dictionary in Paris in
1732. He had previously published a grammar at Louvain in small octavo
in 1728. This was no work to commend him to the powers that were, and
he appears to have been cast into prison, for in a touching note at p.
64 of the last edition of his grammar he asks the reader's pardon for
confounding an example of the imperative with the potential mood, which
he was caused to do "by the great bother of the brawling company that
is round about me in this prison."[19] What became of him eventually I
do not know.
Contemporaneous with him lived O'GALLAGHER, bishop of Raphoe, who
had the unique distinction of publishing a book--a volume of Irish
sermons--which went through over twenty editions. He, also, pursued
letters in the midst of difficulties, at one time escaping from the
English soldiers who were sent out to take him by the start of only a
few minutes, the parish priest O'Hegarty of Killygarvan being captured
in his stead, and promptly shot dead by the officer in command so soon
as a rescue was attempted. His Irish is remarkable for its simplicity
and its careless use of English and foreign words, carefully eschewed
by men like Mac Curtin and O'Neaghtan.
Amongst the Southerns JOHN "CLÁRACH" MAC DONNELL was perhaps the finest
poet of the first half of the eighteenth century, but his pieces
have never been collected. It was in his house, near Charleville in
the County Cork, that the poets of the south used to meet in bardic
session to exercise their genius in public. He wrote part of a history
of Ireland in Irish and translated a portion of Homer into Irish
verse, but these are probably lost. He, too, cultivated letters under
difficulty, and had, according to Hardiman, "on more occasions than one
to save his life by hasty retreats from his enemies the bard-hunters."
Some of his poems give dreadful descriptions of the state of the Irish
and the savage cruelty of their new masters. Here is how he describes
one of them:--
"Plentiful is his costly living in the high-gabled lighted-up mansion
of Brian, but tight-closed is his door, and his churlishness shut up
inside with him, in Aherlow of the fawns, in an opening between two
mountains, until famine cleaves to the people, putting them under its
sway.
"His gate he never opens to the moan of the unhappy wretches, he never
answers their groans nor provides food for their bodies; if they were
to take so much as a little faggot or a scollop or a crooked rod, he
would beat streams of blood out of their shoulders.
"The laws of the world, he used to tear them constantly to pieces, the
ravening, stubborn, shameless hound, ever putting in fast fetters the
church of God, and Oh! may heaven of the saints be a red-wilderness
for James Dawson!"[20]
It would be impossible to enumerate here all the admirable and
melodious poets produced--chiefly by the province of Munster--during
the latter half of the eighteenth century and the beginning of this. A
few of them, however, I must notice.
MICHAEL COMYN, of the County Clare, was the author of the prose story
called "The Adventures of Torlogh, son of Starn, and the Adventures of
his Three Sons,"[21] and he revived the Ossianic muse by his exquisite
version--evidently based upon traditional matter--of "Ossian in the
Land of the Young."[22]
BRIAN MAC GIOLLA MEIDHRE, or Merriman, whose poem of the "Midnight
Court," contains about a thousand lines with four rhymes in each
line, was another native of the County Clare. This amusing and witty
poem, one certainly not intended "virginibus puerisque," is a vision
of Aoibhill [Eevil], queen of the Fairies of Munster, holding a
court, where, when the poet sees it, a handsome girl is in the act of
complaining to the queen that in spite of her beauty and fine figure
and accomplishments she is in danger of dying unwed, and asking for
relief. She is opposed by an old man, who argues against her. She
answers him again, and the court finally pronounces judgment. Standish
Hayes O'Grady once characterised this poem as being "with all its
defects, perhaps the most tasteful piece in the language,"[23] and it
is certainly a wonderful example of sustained rhythm and vowel-rhyme.
It was written in 1781.
TADHG [TEIG] GAOLACH O'SULLIVAN, of the County Cork, was another
of the most popular poets in his day. His earlier poems contained
certain indiscretions for which, in later life, he made ample amends
by devoting himself solely to religious poetry, and attempting to turn
the force of public opinion against vice in every shape, especially
drunkenness and immorality. A small volume of his religious poems,
probably the best of the kind produced by any of the New School, was
printed during his own lifetime in Limerick, and repeatedly afterwards,
at Cappoquin, and I believe elsewhere, in Roman letters, and finally by
O'Daly, of Anglesea Street, in Dublin, 1868. His poems are very musical
and mellifluous, but abound in "Munsterisms," which make them difficult
to readers from other provinces. He died in 1800.
Another fine poet of the County Clare was DONOUGH MAC CONMARA, or
Macnamara, as he is usually called in English. He was educated at Rome
for the priesthood, but being of a wild disposition he was expelled
from the ecclesiastical college there, and returning to Ireland, made
his way to a famous school in the county Waterford at Slieve Gua, in
the neighbourhood of which the people of the surrounding districts had
for over a hundred years been accustomed to support "poor scholars"
free of charge. He himself also opened a successful school, but a young
woman of the neighbourhood, whom he had satirised, put a coal in the
thatch and burnt him out. He led a rambling existence after that. He
went to America and spent two summers and a winter in Newfoundland,
which was then largely planted by the Irish. He appears to have also
wandered a good deal about the Continent. The longest of his poems is
a kind of mock Aeneid, describing his voyage to America and how the
ship was chased by a French cruiser. Eevil, the fairy queen of Munster,
brings him away in a dream to Elysium, where instead of Charon he finds
"bald cursing Conan" the Fenian acting as ferryman. But he is best
known by his beautiful lyric, "The Fair Hills of Holy Ireland," which
he composed apparently when on the Continent. He led a ranting, roving,
wild life, changed his religion a couple of times with unparalleled
effrontery, but becoming blind in his old age, he repented of his sins
and his misspent life, and died some time about the beginning of this
century.[24] He was, like all these poets, a good scholar, as a Latin
epitaph of fourteen verses, which he wrote over the pious Teig Gaolach
proves--
"Plangite Pierides, vester decessit alumnus,
Eochades[25] non est, cuncta-que rura silent."
Perhaps the best known at the present day of all the Munster poets is
the witty, wicked OWEN ROE O'SULLIVAN from Slieve Luachra, in Kerry,
whose sayings and songs have been proverbial for three generations, and
whose fame has penetrated into many counties besides his own. All the
poets I have mentioned hitherto, except perhaps the pious Teig Gaolach,
were almost professional wits, but Owen Roe, to judge from the number
of his _bons mots_ that are still preserved, must have surpassed them
all. All the poets I have mentioned were also Jacobite poets, but in
elaboration of the usual Jacobite theme of the Lady Erin, Owen Roe
is easily first. His denunciations of the foreigner were incessant.
He was originally a working man, and laboured hard with plough and
spade. His poem called the "Mower" is well known. His explanation of
a Greek passage, which puzzled his employer's son fresh from a French
college,[26] first brought him into repute, and he opened a school in
the neighbourhood of Charleville as a teacher of Latin and Greek. As
was the case with very many of the Munster bards, his passion for the
frail sex was the undoing of him. He was denounced from the altar, and
his school was given up. He died, still young, about the year 1784.
WILLIAM DALL O'HEFFERNAN, JOHN O'TOOMY "the Gay," ANDREW MAC GRATH
(surnamed the Mangairè Súgach, or Merry Merchant, the frailest and
wildest of all the bards), EGAN O'RAHILLY, of Slieve Luachra in
Kerry, OWEN O'KEEFE, parish priest of Doneraile, and JOHN MURPHY, of
Rathaoineach, are a few of the names that instantly suggest themselves
to all readers of the Irish manuscripts of Munster.[27]
The north of Ireland produced a great number of poets also during the
eighteenth century, of whom PATRICK LINDON and ART MAC CÚMHAIDH, both
of the County Armagh, PHILLIP BRADY, of the County Cavan, and JAMES MAC
CUAIRT, of the County Louth, a friend of Carolan's, were some of the
best known, but owing to the fatal loss of Irish manuscripts, chiefly
those of the northern half of Ireland, and the apparent determination
of the Royal Irish Academy not to use any of the funds (granted by
Government for the prosecution of Irish studies) in the preservation
of any modern texts, it is to be feared that a great portion of
their works and of those of at least a hundred other writers of the
eighteenth century is now lost for ever.
It would be interesting to take a retrospect of the splendid
lyrical outburst produced by our brothers of the Scotch Highlands
contemporaneously with that of the poets I have just mentioned, but it
would extend the scope of this work too much. There seems to me to be
perhaps more substance and more simplicity and straightforward diction
in the poems of the Scotch Gaels, and more melody and word play,
purchased at the expense of a good deal of nebulousness and unmeaning
sound, in those of the Irish Gaels; both, though they utterly fail in
the ballad, have brought the lyric to a very high pitch of perfection.
In Connacht during the eighteenth century the conditions of life were
less favourable to poetry, the people were much poorer, and there was
no influential class of native schoolmasters and scribes to perpetuate
and copy Irish manuscripts, as there was all over Munster, consequently
the greater part of the minstrelsy of that province is hopelessly lost,
and even the very names of its poets with the exception of CAROLAN,
NETTERVILLE, MAC CABE, MAC GOVERN, and a few more of the last century,
and MAC SWEENY, BARRETT, and RAFTERY of this century, have been lost.
That there existed, however, amongst the natives of the province a
most widespread love of song and poetry, even though most of their
manuscripts have perished, is certain, for I have collected among
them, not to speak of Ossianic lays and other things, a volume of love
poems and two volumes of religious poems,[28] almost wholly taken
from the mouths of the peasantry. This love of poetry and passion for
song, which seems to be the indigenous birthright of every one born in
an Irish-speaking district promises to soon be a thing of the past,
thanks, perhaps partly, to the apathy of the clergy, who in Connacht
almost always preach in English, and partly to the dislike of the
gentry to hear Irish spoken, but chiefly owing to the far-reaching and
deliberate efforts of the National Board of Education to extirpate the
national language.
Upon the present century I need not touch. Its early years, during
which Irish was the general language of the nation, witnessed little
or no attempts at its literary cultivation, except amongst the people
themselves, who, too poor to call the press to their aid, kept on
copying and re-copying their beautiful manuscripts with a religious
zeal, and producing poetry--but of no very high order--over the greater
part of the country. Then came the famine, and with it collapse. In the
_sauve-qui-peut_ that followed, everything went by the board, thousands
of manuscripts were lost, and the old literary life of Ireland may be
said to have come to a close amidst the horrors of famine, fever, and
emigration.
The advent of Eugene O'Curry and John O'Donovan, however, gave a great
impetus to the work begun by O'Reilly and Hardiman, and men arose like
Petrie and Todd to take a _literary_ interest in the nation's past,
and in the language that enshrined it. Meanwhile that language was
fast dying as a living tongue without one effort being made to save
it. It is only the last few years that have seen a real re-awakening
of interest amongst the people in their hereditary language, and the
establishment of a monthly and a weekly paper, chiefly written in
Irish.[29] The question whether the national language is to become
wholly extinct like the Cornish, is one which must be decided within
the next ten years. There are probably a hundred and fifty thousand
households in Ireland at this moment where the parents speak Irish
amongst themselves, and the children answer them in English. If a
current of popular feeling can be aroused amongst these, the great
cause--for great it appears even now to foreigners, and greater it
will appear to the future generations of the Irish themselves--of the
preservation of the oldest and most cultured vernacular in Europe,
except Greek alone, is assured of success, and Irish literature, the
production of which--though long dribbling in a narrow channel--has
never actually ceased, may again, as it is even now promising to do,
burst forth into life and vigour, and once more give that expression
which in English seems impossible, to the best thoughts and aspirations
of the Gaelic race.
[1]
"Béidhid féin 'n ár n-áit go másach magaidh
D'éis ár sáruighthe, i mbláth ár mbailteadh,
Go péatrach, prásach, plátach, pacach,
Go béarla, beárrtha, bádhach (?) blasta."
[2] _I.e._, Refusing hospitality except for payment.
[3] Cuchulain's wife.
[4] Cuchulain's grey steed. See ch. XXVI, note 13.
[5] Aoibhioll [Eevil] of the Grey Crag, a queen of the Munster fairies.
See ch. XXXII, notes 28, and 31.
[6] This is the metre of the poem, a very common one among the New
School. The poet is one Diarmuid Mac Carthy. I forget whence I
transcribed his poem.
[7]
"Cá ngabhann Seón? ní'l cóta dearg air,
Ná "who goes there" re taebh an gheata 'ge,
Ag iarraidh slighe anaghaidh dlighe go spairneach,
Dom' chur fá chíos i n-oidhche an acarainn."
[8] James II.
[9]
"'Sé tigheacht Righ Séamas do bhain dínn Éire
Le n-a leath-bhróig gallda 's a leath-bhróig gaedhealach.
Ni thiubhradh sé buille uaidh ná réidhteacht
'S d'fág sin, fhad's mairid, an donas ar Ghaedhealaibh."
[10]
"Cíos righ, cíos tire, cíos cléire,
Cíos sróna, cíos tóna, cios teighte
Airgiod ceann i gceann gach féile
Airgiod teallaigh as bealaigh do réightiughadh."
I forget whence I copied this, but such pieces are innumerable.
[11]
"Fada sinn i ngalar buan
Faoi smacht cruaidh measg na nGall
O tá Séamas óg ar cuan
Bhéarfaid uatha díol d'á cheann," etc.
From a manuscript of my own.
[12] Hardiman printed about fifteen Jacobite poems in the second volume
of his "Irish Minstrelsy," and O'Daly about twenty-five more in his
"Irish Jacobite Poetry," 2nd edition.
[13] Or rather to the resurrection of an ancient theme long lost, for
as Dr. Sigerson has shown, one of the Monks of St. Gall had already
treated it in Latin nine hundred years before. See Constantine Nigra's
"Reliquiæ Celticæ," and Dr. Sigerson's "Bards of the Gael and Gall," p.
413.
[14] Bought by my friend Mr. David Comyn at the sale of the late Bishop
Reeves's MSS.
[15] In a MS. note by Hardiman in my copy of O'Reilly, he attributes to
him a piece called "Jacobidis and Carina," and the "Battle of the Gap
of the Cross of Brigit," which are unknown to me.
[16] In his fifteenth year, according to O'Reilly; his eighteenth,
according to Hardiman's "Irish Minstrelsy," but Hardiman seems to have
changed his opinion, for I have a note in his handwriting in which he
states that Carolan was twenty-two years old when he became blind.
[17] Hardiman has printed twenty-four of his poems in his "Ancient
Irish Minstrelsy," and I printed about twelve more, mostly from
manuscripts in my own possession. The late bookseller, John O'Daly, of
Anglesea Street, had, I believe, a number of poems of Carolan in his
possession, but the Royal Irish Academy did not buy them--or indeed any
other of his unique stock of manuscripts--at his sale, and I fear they
are now hopelessly lost.
[18] A small village on the border of the County Sligo.
[19] O'Curtin's note runs--"As tré shiothbhuaireadh na cuideachtan
cullóidighe atá timchioll orm annsa gcarcairse, do chuir mé an sompla
déigheanach so do bheanas ris an Modh gcomhachtach so ionar ndiaigh,
annso, san Modh foláirimh." This note was pointed out to me by my
friend, Father Ed. Hogan, S.J., who has also been unable to trace the
cause of Curtin's imprisonment, or his subsequent fate.
[20] I printed the whole of this ferocious poem in the _Cork
Archæological Journal_.
[21] Recently printed without a translation by Patrick O'Brien, of 46,
Cuffe Street, Dublin.
[22] First printed nearly forty years ago by the Ossianic Society,
and since then by my friend Mr. David Comyn, with a prose translation
and glossary, and recently by my friend Mr. O'Flannghaoile, with
translations in verse and prose.
[23] _See_ Ossianic Society, vol. iii. p. 36. It was printed with the
following curious title-page, "Mediæ noctis consilium, auctore Briano
Mac-Gilla-Meidhre, de comitatu Clarensi, in Momonia, A.D. MDCCLXXX.
Poema heroico-comicum, quo nihil aut magis gracile aut poeticum aut
magis abundans in hodierno Hiberniæ idiomati exolescit. Curtha a gclódh
le Tomás mhic Lopuis ag Loch an chonblaigh Oghair, MDCCC." But both
place and date are fictitious. It was almost certainly printed by
O'Daly of Anglesea Street, for after his death I found amongst some
papers of his the proof-sheets corrected with his own hand! My friend,
Mr. Patrick O'Brien, of Cuffe Street, has since printed another edition
with a brief vocabulary.
[24] His "Eachtra Giolla an Amarain" was published in 1853 by "S.
Hayes," and recently with a number of his other poems translated into
English, and republished with the late John Fleming's Irish life of the
poet, by my friend Tomás O'Flannghaoile.
[25] _I.e._, the descendant of Eochaidh Muighmheadhoin, father of Niall
of the Nine Hostages. _See_ above, p. 33.
[26] All the Irish of the eighteenth century had, when not _secretly_
educated at home, to go abroad in pursuit of knowledge.
[27] Specimens of their poetry may be found in O'Daly's two excellent
volumes, "The Poetry of Munster," and in his "Jacobite Relics" and in
Walsh's "Popular Songs," but most of them are still in manuscript.
[28] These are my "Religious Songs of Connacht," quoted more than
once in this book as though published. They were meant to have been
published simultaneously with it, but unfortunately the plates of both
volumes were melted down, while I was revising these proofs, in the
great fire at Sealy, Bryers and Walker's, Dublin.
[29] Conducted by the Gaelic League.