[Illustration: CAISLEAN-NA-CIRCE, OR THE HEN'S CASTLE.]
Our prefixed illustration gives a near view of one of the most
interesting ruins now remaining in the romantic region of Connemara, or
the Irish Highlands, and which is no less remarkable for its great
antiquity than for the singularly wild and picturesque character of its
situation, and that of its surrounding scenery. It is the feature that
gives poetic interest to the most beautiful portion of Lough Corrib--its
upper extremity--where a portion of the lake, about three miles in
length, is apparently surrounded and shut in by the rocky and precipitous
mountains of Connemara and the Joyce country, which it reflects upon its
surface, without any object to break their shadows, or excite a feeling
of human interest, but the one little lonely Island-Castle of the Hen.
That an object thus situated--having no accompaniments around but those
in keeping with it--should, in the fanciful traditions of an imaginative
people, be deemed to have had a supernatural origin, is only what might
have been naturally expected; and such, indeed, is the popular belief. If
we inquire of the peasantry its origin, or the origin of its name, the
ready answer is given, that it was built by enchantment in one night by a
cock and a hen grouse, who had been an Irish prince and princess!
There is, indeed, among some of the people of the district a dim
tradition of its having been erected as a fastness by an O'Conor, King
of Connaught, and some venture to conjecture that this king was no other
than the unfortunate Roderick, the last King of Ireland; and that the
castle was intended by him to serve as a place of refuge and safety, to
which he could retire by boat, if necessity required, from the
neighbouring monastery of Cong, in which he spent the last few years of
his life: and it is only by this supposition that they can account for
the circumstance of a castle being erected by the O'Conors in the very
heart of a district which they believe to have been in the possession of
the O'Flahertys from time immemorial. But this conjecture is wholly
erroneous, and the true founders and age of this castle are to be found
in our authentic but as yet unpublished Annals, from which it appears
certain that the Hen's Castle was one of several fortresses erected, with
the assistance of Richard de Burgo, Lord of Connaught, and Lord Justice
of Ireland, by the sons of Roderick, the last monarch of the kingdom. It
is stated in the Annals of Connaught, and in the Annals of the Four
Masters, at the year 1225, that Hugh O'Conor (son of Cathal Crovedearg),
King of Connaught, and the Lord Justice of Ireland, Richard De Burgo,
arriving with their English at the Port of Inis Creamha, on the east side
of Lough Corrib, caused Hugh O'Flaherty, the Lord of West Connaught, to
surrender the island of Inis Creamha, Oilen-na-Circe, or the Hen's
Island, and all the vessels of the lake, into Hugh O'Conor's hands, for
assurance of his fidelity.
From this entry it would appear that the Hen's Island, as well as the
island called Inis Creamha, had each a castle on it previously; and this
conclusion is strengthened by a subsequent entry in the same Annals, at
the year 1233, from which it appears that this castle, as well as others,
had been erected by the sons of Roderick, who had been long in contention
for the government with Cathal Crovedearg, and his sons Hugh and Felim,
and had, during these troubles, possessed themselves of O'Flaherty's
country. On the death of Hugh O'Conor, who was treacherously slain by
Geoffry De Mares, or De Marisco, in 1228, they appear to have again
seized on the strongholds of the country, that of the Hen's Castle among
the rest, and to have retained them till 1233, when their rival Felim
O'Conor finally triumphed, and broke down their castles. This event is
thus narrated in the Annals of the Four Masters:--
"1233. Felim, the son of Charles the Red-handed, led an array into
Connaught. Cormac, the son of Tomaltagh (Lord of Moylurg), went to meet
him, and brought him to Moylurg, where they erected a camp at Druim
Greagraighe, and were joined by Cormac, by Conor his son, the inhabitants
of the three Tuathas, and by the two sons of Mortogh Mac Dermot, Donogh
and Mortogh. They here consulted with each other, and resolved upon going
in pursuit of Hugh (King of Connaught) and the other sons of Roderic.
After overtaking them, they defeated Hugh, slew himself, his brother,
Hugh Muimhneach his son, and Donogh More, the son of Dermot, who was the
son of Roderic, and many others besides. There were also slain Raghallach
O'Flanigan, Thomas Biris, Constable of Ireland, his relative John Guer,
and many other Englishmen. This was after the bells and croziers had been
rung against them, after they had been cursed and excommunicated by the
clergy of Connaught; for Hugh Muimhneach had violated and plundered
Tibohine and many other churches, so that he and his adherents fell in
revenge of their dishonour to the saints whose churches they had
violated. The kingdom and sovereignty of Connaught were wrested from the
sons of Roderic, the son of Torlogh, on that day. Felim, the son of
Charles the Red-handed, then assumed the government of Connaught, _and
demolished the castles which had been erected by the power of the sons of
Roderic O'Conor and Mac William Burke_, namely, the Castle of Bon
Gaillimbe, _Caislen-na-Circe_, Caislen-na-Caillighe, and the Castle of
Dunamon."
In subsequent times the Hen's Castle reverted to the O'Flahertys, and was
repaired and garrisoned by them till the time of Cromwell, when, as we
are informed by Roderick O'Flaherty, it was finally dismantled and left
to decay. Still, however, enough remains to exhibit its original plan,
which was that of an Anglo-Norman castle or keep, in the form of a
parallelogram, with three projecting towers on its two longest sides; and
the architectural features of the thirteenth century are also visible in
some of its beautifully executed windows and doorways.
The Hen's Castle is not without its legendary traditions connected with
its history anterior to its dilapidation; and the following outline of
one of these--and the latest--as told at the cottage firesides around
Lough Corrib, may be worth preserving as having a probable foundation in
truth.
It is said that during the troubled reign of Queen Elizabeth, a lady of
the O'Flahertys, who was an heiress and a widow, with an only child, a
daughter, to preserve her property from the grasp of her own family and
that of the De Burgos or Burkes, shut herself up with her child in the
Hen's Castle, attended by twenty faithful followers, of tried courage and
devotion to her service, of her own and her husband's family. As such a
step was, however, pregnant with danger to herself, by exciting the
attention and alarm of the government and local authorities, and
furnishing her enemies with an excuse for aggression, she felt it
necessary to obtain the queen's sanction to her proceedings; and
accordingly she addressed a letter to her majesty, requesting her
permission to arm her followers, and alleging as a reason for it, the
disaffected state of the country, and her ardent desire to preserve its
peace for her majesty. The letter, after the fashion of the times, was
not signed by the lady in her acquired matron's name, but in her maiden
one, of which no doubt she was more proud; it was Bivian or Bevinda
O'Flaherty. The queen received it graciously; but not being particularly
well acquainted with the gender of Irish Christian names, and never
suspecting, from the style or matter of the epistle, that it had emanated
from one of her own sex, she returned an answer, written with her own
hand, authorising her good friend "Captain Bivian O'Flaherty" to retain
twenty men at her majesty's expense, for the preservation of the peace of
the country; and they were maintained accordingly, till the infant
heiress, becoming adult, was united to Thomas Blake, the ancestor of the
present Sir John Blake of Menlo Castle, and proprietor of the Castle of
the Hen.
To these brief notices of an ancient castle, not hitherto described, or
its age ascertained, we shall only add, that there are few military
structures of lime and stone now remaining in Ireland that can boast an
equal antiquity.