[Illustration: GARRY CASTLE, KING’S COUNTY.]
Among the many singular characters who figured in Ireland during the
last century, by no means the least remarkable was Thomas Coghlan, or
Mac Coghlan, the last descendant of a long and ancient family, the ruins
of whose fortalice are the subject of the sketch at the head of this
article, at least as they appeared some five or six years ago. This
extraordinary personage may justly be regarded as the last of the Irish
tanistry, as well from his pertinacious adherence to the habits and
maxims of that defunct institution, as from his being until his death
possessed of the princely domains of his race, almost unimpaired by the
many confiscations and revolutions which have swept away so many proud
names from the records of Ireland, thus uniting in himself the influence
of traditional rank, of such magical weight here, with the influence of
territorial possessions, of such magical weight every where. Although for
many years a member of the Irish Parliament, as representative for the
King’s County, the laws which he assisted in making were not at all the
laws which he administered. At home every thing was on the patriarchal
system, in all respects conformable to the laws and regulations of the
Brehons--himself the grand centre of all authority, his will the fountain
of all justice, and his own hand in most cases the administrator of his
judgments. Such being the Mac Coghlan, or “the Maw,” as he was more
generally and rather whimsically designated, it is little wonder that he
should live in the fondest remembrance of a people so deeply attached
to old names and old ways as the Irish all over the King’s County
generally, but particularly in that district of it anciently known as the
Mac Coghlan’s country, now the barony of Garry Castle, so called from
the castle before alluded to, the ruins of which stand beside the road
leading from Birr to Banagher, and about half a mile from the latter town.
These interesting remains consist of the tall square keep seen in the
accompanying view, and the mouldering walls of some outer buildings,
the entire enclosed in a considerable area, with round towers at the
corners, and entered by a fortified gateway. They seem to be of some
antiquity, this having been the site, at all events, of the house of
the Mac Coghlans from the earliest periods, until the more peaceful
circumstances of the nation permitted them to abandon their narrow and
gloomy security for the beautiful residence of Kilcolgan, an erection
of the seventeenth century, the naked ruins of which now form the chief
feature in the landscape to the traveller by the Grand Canal before he
reaches Gillen. I am not aware that any records exist to furnish a clue
to the history of Garry Castle, nor have I been able to meet any one
able to give me any information about it, beyond the usual tirade about
Oliver Cromwell, who seems doomed to bear on his back the weight of all
the old walls in Ireland. One very old man, who in his youth had been, I
believe, a servant of the Maw, was the only person in fact who seemed to
know more about it than that it was “an ould castle, an’ a great place in
the ould times.” From him I gathered a good many anecdotes of his former
master, of which the following partly bears upon the present subject, and
gives rather a good illustration of a class of persons not unfrequently
met with, who occasionally support most extraordinary pretensions by
methods still more extraordinary, claiming to be proficients in all the
forgotten lore of past ages, and even in their rags hinting at powers,
the possession of which would be rather enviable. The story is an odd
one, but I tell it exactly as I heard it.
“I had business into Banagher one day when I was a gossoon, and just as
I came to the bill over Garry Castle, I saw a great crowd moving up the
road forninst me. ‘Lord rest the sowl that’s gone,’ says I, crossin’
myself, for by course I thought it was a corpse goin’ to All Saints’
churchyard; but when it came nearer, and I saw the Maw in the front with
a whole crowd of gentlemen, some that I knew and more that I didn’t, and
ne’er a corpse at all with them, I made bould to ax Father Madden what
might be the matther.
‘Why, my boy,’ says he, ‘there’s some gentlemen come all the ways from
Dublin to consther what’s written on the big stone over the hall chimley
in the ould castle beyant, and the rest of us are going to have the laugh
at their ignorance.’
‘’Deed, your riv’rince,’ says I, ‘an’ it’s the fine laugh we’ll have in
airnest, for sure the smallest gossoon in the country could tell them
’twas written by the Danes long ago, and that it’s an enchantment.’
‘Hould your tongue,’ says he in return; ‘whatever it is, I’ll be bound
it’ll puzzle them, for by the book I’m not able to read it myself.’
‘Troth, thin,’ says I, ‘if that be the case, it’s little sense the likes
of them will make out of it.’
By this time, sir, we got inside the ould gateway, and as the Maw’s groom
was a cousin of my aunt Peg’s, he let me into the hall with the rest
of the quality. There was the stone, sure enough: a long narrow stone,
all the length of the room, with four lines of writing cut on it, over
the chimley. It was in the part of the ould castle that’s down now.
Well, sir, one ould gentleman--they said he belonged to that college off
there in Dublin--takes his spectacles out of his pocket, an’ he puts
them on his nose, quite grand like, and he looks at the writing. ‘It’s
not English,’ says he, ‘nor is it French,’ says he after a little, ‘nor
Jarman;’ and then he takes another look. ‘It’s not Latin,’ says he, and
the rest of the quality shook their heads very wisely; ‘it’s not Greek,’
says he, and they shook their heads again; ‘it’s not Hebrew,’ says he,
‘nor Chaldee, nor--pursuin’ to me if I know what it is.’
‘Baidershin!’ says Father Madden quietly: an’ with that, sir, you’d think
the vault above our heads ’ud split with the roars of laughing. But the
great scholar didn’t join in it at all, but pulls the spectacles off his
nose, and crams them into his pocket, and looking very big at the priest,
‘I’m thinking it’s Baulderdash, gentlemen,’ says he.
Well, sir, one after another they all tried their skill on it, and one
after another they all had to acknowledge their ignorance.
‘By the powers,’ says the priest, ‘by yer talk one ’ud think the
hiryglyphics themselves were a Readin’-med-aisy to ye, an’ here a plain
bit of writin’ puzzles ye.’
‘Maybe, Father Madden,’ says the Maw, ‘you’d favour us by consthering it
yerself.’
‘No, sir,’ says the priest; ‘my vow won’t let me read magic; but if you’d
wish me to thransport the stone anywhere for you, or do any other little
miracle that way, I’d be most happy to obleedge you.’
‘Oh, no,’ says the Maw, ‘we’ll not put you to that trouble; but perhaps
you would come down with us as far as the inn, and have a bit of lunch.’
‘With all the pleasure in life, sir,’ says the priest, ‘the rather that
I’d like to be discoorsing these larned gentlemen here;’ but indeed the
larned gentlemen didn’t seem a bit too glad of his company, and small
blame to them sure, for may the heavens be his bed, there wasn’t a
funnier man in the nine counties, or one fonder of followin’ up a joke,
an’ well they knew he wasn’t goin’ to let them down aisy.
It wasn’t long until we were on the road again, makin’ for the town; an’
as we were goin’ along, who did we meet but a spalpeen from the county
Galway, that came over as soon as he met us to beg among the quality; an’
sure enough he was as poor-lookin’ a crathur as ever axed a charity. His
legs were bare, and all blue and brackit with could an’ hardship, an’
the sorra a skreed of dacint clothin’ he had on him but an ould tattered
breeches an’ a blanket thrown over his shoulders and fastened at the
throat with a big skiver; he had a bag on his back, an’ a mether in one
fist, an’ a boolteen in the other; an’ if he had any more wealth about
him, sure enough it was hid safely. By the discoorse we had one with
another, he soon larned about the big stone, and how it puzzled all the
scholars in the parish, not to say them from Dublin, an’ how the priest
refused to read it because it was magic; and betther nor all, how the Maw
offered five goold guineas to any poor scholar, or the like, that could
explain it.
‘I’d like to see that stone,’ says the spalpeen. ‘Poor-lookin’ as I am,’
says he, ‘maybe I could insinse ye into the maining of it.’
Well, sir, the words were scarce out of his mouth when Mac Coghlan was
tould of them. ‘What’s that you say, honest man,’ says he; ‘can you
decypher the writing?’
‘I’d like to try anyhow, yer honour,’ says the spalpeen, ‘worse than fail
I can’t.’
‘Bedad,’ says Father Madden, ‘it ’ud be a pity not to let you; sure if
you say you know nothin’ about it, wiser men nor you had to confess that
same; an’ as for us, why, our time will be as well spent listening to one
dunce as to another.’
‘Oh, by all manes,’ says the Maw, ‘we’ll go back and hear what he makes
of it.’ So we all turned back with the spalpeen.
When he came to the stone, it’s a different kind of look he gave it
entirely from what the quality scholars did; you’d know by the way he
fixed his eye on it at the very first, that it was no saycret to him, an’
he walked up an’ down from one end of the lines to the other, until he
had them all read.
‘Now, my man,’ says the Mac Coghlan, ‘if you read it, the reward is
yours,’ an’ he took the five goold guineas out of his purse an’ showed
them to him.
‘I can read it, yer honour,’ says the spalpeen; ‘but what it says might
be displeasin’ to some of this company, an’ I had betther hould my
tongue.’
‘By my word,’ says Mac Coghlan, ‘let who will be offended by it, no part
of the blame shall rest on your shoulders, so speak out, an’ speak true.’
‘Well, yer honour,’ says the spalpeen, takin’ courage, ‘what it says is
this, that this castle was built on such a time, an’ that it will stand
whole an’ sound for three hundred years an’ no more; an’ that it’s to be
held by eleven Mac Coghlan heirs, and the eleventh will be the last of
his race.’
‘Bad news for the twelfth,’ says Father Madden, ‘to have an ould stone
barrin’ him out of the world that way;’ and with that they all laughed,
all but the Maw, an’ he was as pale as death an’ stupid-like, for the
three hundred years were just run out, an’ he was the eleventh heir; but
in a minute or two he recovered himself and joined in the laugh as well
as the rest.
‘Well, my man,’ says he at last, ‘you have done what all the learned men
in the land couldn’t do, an’ though the news isn’t the pleasantest, you
must have your reward. Now listen to me: give up your wandering life and
settle here; I’ll give you a house an’ five acres free of rent for ever:
this money will set you up, an’ I promise you that you shall never want
in my time, short as it is to be. Will you take my offer?’
‘Why, thin,’ says the spalpeen, ‘many thanks by coorse to yer honour for
makin’ it; but for all the land yer honour has, or one of your name ever
had, I wouldn’t live other than I do: though I’m here now, ’tis many
a mile from where I slept last night, or maybe from where I’ll sleep
to-night. Goold or silver avails me little, or if they did, maybe I could
tell where to find what ’ud buy Galway ten times over.’
‘Bedad, honest man,’ says Father Madden, ‘if you know so much as all
that, it ’ud be a great charity entirely for you to stop awhile an’ open
school here; I’ll be bound you’ll have a fine lot of scholars, an’ I
don’t say but myself ’ud be among the number.’
‘Troth there’s many a man ’ud like to have my knowledge, I have no
doubt,’ says the spalpeen; ‘but I’m thinkin’ there’s few here or
elsewhere ’ud like to learn in the school where I got it.’
‘Lord save us!’ says the priest; ‘you didn’t sell yourself to the ould
boy for it, did you, you nasty brute?’
‘I bought it with the past an’ not with the future,’ says the spalpeen;
‘an’ what ye saw of it is nothing to what I could show if I had a mind:
the blessin’ of the poor be with your honour, if it be any use to you,
an’ it’s wishin’ I am that I had a luckier story to tell you,’ and he
turned to go away.
‘Well, my good fellow,’ says the Maw, ‘any how you’re not goin’ to quit
so soon. Neither gentle nor simple passes this road without eating with
the Mac Coghlan, an’ you must follow the rule as well as another: stay
as long as you like, an’ go when you like; an’ I give you my word you
shall have the best of tratement, an’ no one shall bother you with any
questions you don’t like.’
‘Yer honour,’ says the spalpeen, ‘I’m not a young man, an’ yet my head
was never this many a night twice on the same pillow, an’ you’d be a long
day findin’ out the spot that in that time I hav’n’t visited.’
‘Maybe you’re the Wanderin’ Jew,’ exclaimed Father Madden.
‘Jew or Gentile,’ says the spalpeen, ‘a wanderer I am, an’ a wanderer I
must be; an’ now good bye to ye all, an’ God bless ye;’ and with that
away he walked, an’ the never a sight of him did any one in Banagher lay
his eyes on since. Some said he was this and some said he was that, and
more said he was a sperrit; but what do ye think but the great scholars
from Dublin, to hide their ignorance, gave out that he was somebody that
Father Madden tuthored for the purpose to make little of thim an’ their
larnin’, and have the laugh against thim.’
Next morning when all the counthry went out of curiosity to see the big
stone, they found it torn down an’ carried off, for Mac Coghlan got it
taken down in the night an’ buried somewhere; but, any how, it tould
nothin’ but the truth, for in a few years afther, the castle fell with
the frost, an’ not long afther that Mac Coghlan died; an’ sure you know
yourself that he was the last of his name.”