[Illustration: HOLY ISLAND LOUGH DERG. (_From a painting by Watkins._)]
The Story of the Nations
THE
STORY OF IRELAND
BY
THE HON. EMILY LAWLESS
AUTHOR OF "HURRISH: A STUDY," ETC
WITH SOME ADDITIONS BY
MRS. ARTHUR BRONSON
NEW YORK
LONDON
1896
To
THE EARL OF DUFFERIN, K.P., G.C.B., F.R.S., &c.,
VICEROY OF INDIA.
* * * * *
SGEUL NA H-ÉIREANN
DON ÉIREANNACH AS FIÚ.
PREFACE.
Irish history is a long, dark road, with many blind alleys, many sudden
turnings, many unaccountably crooked portions; a road which, if it has a
few sign-posts to guide us, bristles with threatening notices, now upon
the one side and now upon the other, the very ground underfoot being
often full of unsuspected perils threatening to hurt the unwary.
To the genuine explorer, flushed with justified self-confidence, well
equipped for the journey, and indifferent to scratches or bruises, one
may suppose this to be rather an allurement than otherwise, as he spurs
along, lance at rest, and sword on side. To the less well-equipped
traveller, who has no pretensions to the name of explorer at all, no
particular courage to boast of, and whose only ambition is to make the
way a little plainer for some one travelling along it for the first
time, it is decidedly a serious impediment, so much so as almost to
scare such a one from attempting the _rôle_ of guide even in the
slightest and least responsible capacity.
Another and perhaps even more formidable objection occurs. A history
beset with such distracting problems, bristling with such thorny
controversies, a history, above all, which has so much bearing upon that
portion of history which has still to be born, ought, it may be said, to
be approached in the gravest and most authoritative fashion possible, or
else not approached at all. This is too true, and that so slight a
summary as this can put forward no claim to authority of any sort is
evident enough. National "stories," however, no less than histories,
gain a gravity, it must be remembered, and even at times a solemnity
from their subject apart altogether from their treatment. A good reader
will read a great deal more into them than the mere bald words convey.
The lights and shadows of a great or a tragic past play over their easy
surface, giving it a depth and solidity to which it could otherwise lay
no claim. If the present attempt disposes any one to study at first hand
one of the strangest and most perplexing chapters of human history and
national destiny, its author for one will be more than content.
CONTENTS.
I.
PRIMEVAL IRELAND
Early migrations--The great ice age--Northern character of the fauna and
flora of Ireland--First inhabitants--Formorian, Firbolgs,
Tuatha-da-Dannans--Battle of Moytura Cong--The Scoto-Celtic
invasion--Annals and annalists, how far credible?
II.
THE LEGENDS AND LEGEND-MAKERS
The legends--Their archaic character--The pursuit of Gilla Backer and
his horse--The ollamhs--Positions of the bards or ollamhs in
Primitive Ireland.
III.
PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND
Early Celtic law--The Senchus Mor and Book of Aicill--Laws of
inheritance--Narrow conception of patriotism.
IV.
ST. PATRICK THE MISSIONARY
St. Patrick's birth--Capture, slavery, and escape--His return to
Ireland--Arrives at Tara--Visits Connaught and Ulster--Early Irish
missionaries and their enthusiasm for the work.
V.
THE FIRST IRISH MONASTERIES
"The Tribes of the Saints"--Small oratories in the West--Plan of
monastic life--Ready acceptance of Christianity.
VI.
COLUMBA AND THE WESTERN CHURCH
Birth of Columba--His journey to Iona--His character and
humanity--Conversion of Saxon England--Schism between Western Church and
Papacy--Synod of Whitby--The Irish Church at home.
VII.
THE NORTHERN SCOURGE
Ireland divided into five kingdoms--The Ard-Reagh--Arrival of
Vikings--Thorgist or Turgesius?--Later Viking invaders--The round
towers--Dublin founded--Hatred between the two races.
VIII.
BRIAN OF THE TRIBUTE
Two deliverers--Defeat of the Vikings at Sulcost--Brian becomes king of
Munster--Seizes Cashel--Overcomes Malachy--Becomes king of
Ireland--Celtic theory of loyalty--Fresh Viking invasion--Battle of
Clontarf--Death of Brian Boru.
IX.
FROM BRIAN TO STRONGBOW
Result of Brian Boru's death--Chaos returns--Struggle for the
succession--Roderick O'Connor, last native king of Ireland.
X.
THE ANGLO-NORMAN INVASION
First group of knightly invaders--Their relationship--Giraldus
Cambrensis--Motives for invasion--Papal sanction--Dermot McMurrough--He
enlists recruits--Arrival of Robert FitzStephen--Wexford, Ossory, and
Kilkenny captured--Arrival of Strongbow--Struggle with Hasculph the Dane
and John the Mad--Danes defeated--Dublin besieged--Strongbow defeats
Roderick O'Connor, goes to Wexford, and embarks at Waterford--Meets the
king--Arrival of Henry II.
XI.
HENRY II. IN IRELAND
Large military forces of Henry--The chiefs submit and do homage--Irish
theory of Ard-Reagh or Over-Lord--Henry in Dublin--Synod at
Cashel--Henry recalled to England.
XII.
EFFECTS OF THE ANGLO-NORMAN INVASION
Effect of Henry's stay in Ireland--His large schemes--Their practical
failure--Rapacity of adventurers--Contrast between Irish and their
conquerors--Civil war from the outset.
XIII.
JOHN IN IRELAND
John's first visit--His insolence and misconduct--Recalled in
disgrace--Second visit as king--His energy--Overruns Meath and
Ulster--Returns to England--Effect of his visit.
XIV.
THE LORDS PALATINE
The Geraldines--Their possessions in Ireland--The five palatinates--The
heirs of Strongbow--The De Burghs--The Butlers--Importance of the great
territorial owners in Ireland.
XV.
EDWARD BRUCE IN IRELAND
Want of landmarks in Irish history--Edward the I.'s reign--Battle of
Bannockburn--Its effect on Ireland--Scotch invasion under Edward
Bruce--Ravages and famine caused by him--The colonists regain courage:
Battle of Dundalk--Edward Bruce killed--Result of the Scotch invasion.
XVI.
THE STATUTE OF KILKENNY
Reign of Edward III.--A lost opportunity--Duke of Clarence sent to
Ireland--Parliament at Kilkenny--Statute of Kilkenny--Its objects--Two
Irelands--Weakness resorts to cruelty--Effects of the statute.
XVII.
RICHARD II. IN IRELAND
Richard the II.'s two visits to Ireland--Utter disorganization of the
country--The chieftains submit and come in--"Sir Art"
McMurrough--Richard leaves, and Art McMurrough breaks out again--Earl of
March killed--Richard returns--Attacks Art McMurrough--Failure of
attack--Recalled to England--His defeat and death--Confusion redoubles.
XVIII.
THE DEEPEST DEPTHS
Monotony of Irish history--State of Ireland during the Wars of the
Roses--Pillage, carnage, and rapine--The seaport towns--Richard Duke of
York in Ireland--His conciliatory policy--Battle of Towton--The Kildares
grow in power--Geroit Mor--His character.
XIX.
THE KILDARES IN THE ASCENDANT
Effect of the battle of Bosworth--Kildare still in power--Lambert Simnel
in Ireland--Crowned in Dublin--Battle of Stoke--Henry VII. pardons the
rebels--Irish peers summoned to Court--Perkin Warbeck in
Ireland--Quarrels between the Kildares and Ormonds--Sir Edward
Poynings--Kildare's trial and acquital--Restored to power--Battle
of Knocktow.
XX.
FALL OF THE HOUSE OF KILDARE
Rise of Wolsey to power--Resolves to destroy the Geraldines--Geroit Mor
succeeded by his son--Earl of Surrey sent as viceroy--Kildare restored
to power--Summoned to London and imprisoned--Again restored and again
imprisoned--Situation changed--Revolt of Silken Thomas--Seizes
Dublin--Archbishop Allen murdered--Sir William Skeffington to
Ireland--Kildare dies in prison--"The Pardon of Maynooth"--Silken Thomas
surrenders, and is executed.
XXI.
THE ACT OF SUPREMACY
Lord Leonard Grey deputy--Accused of treason, recalled and executed--Act
of Supremacy proposed--Opposition of clergy--Suppression of the
abbeys--Great Parliament summoned in Dublin--- Meeting of hereditary
enemies--Conciliatory measures--Henry VIII. proclaimed king of Ireland
and head of the Church.
XXII.
THE NEW DEPARTURE
A halcyon period--O'Neill, O'Brien, and Macwilliam of Clanricarde at
Greenwich--Receive their peerages,--Attempt at establishing
Protestantism in Ireland--Vehemently resisted--The destruction of the
relics--Archbishop Dowdal--The effect of the new departure--The Irish
problem receives fresh complications.
XXIII.
THE FIRST PLANTATIONS
Mary becomes queen--Religious struggle postponed--Fercal Leix and Offaly
colonized--Sense of insecurity awakened--No Irish Protestant
martyrs--Commission of Dean Cole--Its failure--Death of Mary.
XXIV.
WARS AGAINST SHANE O'NEILL
Elizabeth becomes queen,--Effect of change on Ireland--Shane
O'Neill--His description, habits, qualities--His campaign against
Sussex--Defeats Sussex--His visit to Court--Returns to Ireland--Supreme
in the North--His attack on the Scots--Sir Henry Sidney marches into
Ulster--The disaster at Derry--Shane encounters the O'Donnells--Is
defeated--Applies to the Scots--Is slain.
XXV.
BETWEEN TWO STORMS
Sir Henry Sidney Lord-deputy--A lull--Sidney's policy and
proceedings--Provincial presidents appointed--Arrest of Desmond--Sir
Peter Carew--His violence--Rebellion in the South--Sir James
Fitzmaurice--Relations between him and Sir John Perrot--He surrenders,
and sails for France.
XXVI.
THE DESMOND REBELLION
An abortive tragedy--State of the Desmond Palatinate--Sir James
Fitzmaurice in France and Spain--Nicholas Saunders appointed
legate--Stukeley's expedition--Fitzmaurice lands in Kerry--Desmond
vacillates--Death of Sir James Fitzmaurice--Concerted attack of Ormond
and Pelham--Horrible destruction of life--Arrival of Spaniards at
Smerwick--Lord Grey de Wilton--Defeat of English troops at
Glenmalure--Attack of and slaughter of Spaniards at Smerwick--Wholesale
executions--Death of the Earl of Desmond and extinction of his house.
XXVII.
BETWEEN TWO MORE STORMS
State of Munster--The new plantations--Perrot's administration--Tyrlough
Luinagh,--Sir William Fitzwilliam--Executions without trial--Alarm of
northern proprietors--Earl of Tyrone--Character of early loyalty--Causes
of dissatisfaction--Quarrel with Bagnall--Preparations for a rising.
XXVIII.
BATTLE OF THE YELLOW FORD
The Northern Blackwater--Attack of Blackwater Fort by Tyrone--Death of
the deputy, Lord Borough--Bagnall advances from Dublin--Battle of the
Yellow Ford--Defeat and death of Bagnall--Retreat of the English
troops--The rising becomes general.
XXIX.
THE ESSEX FAILURE
Essex appointed Lord-Lieutenant--Arrival in Ireland--Mistakes and
disasters--Death of Sir Conyers Clifford in the Curlews--Essex advances
north--Holds a conference with Tyrone--Agrees to an armistice--Anger of
the Queen--Essex suddenly leaves Ireland.
XXX.
END OF THE TYRONE WAR
Mountjoy appointed deputy--Contrast between him and Essex--Reasons for
Mountjoy's greater success--Conquest by starvation--Success of
method--Arrival of Spanish forces at Kinsale: Mountjoy and Carew marched
south and invests Kinsale--Attack of Mountjoy by Tyrone--Failure of
attack--Surrender of Spaniards--Surrender of Tyrone.
XXXI.
THE FLIGHT OF THE EARLS
The last chieftain rising against England--Condition of affairs at close
of war--Tyrone's position impossible--Reported plot--Tyrone and
Tyrconnel take flight--Confiscation of their territory--Sir John
Davis--The Ulster Settlement.
XXXII.
THE FIRST CONTESTED ELECTION
Parliament summoned--Anxiety of government to secure a Protestant
majority--Contested election--Narrow Protestant majority--Furious
quarrel over election of Speaker--Parliament dissolved--The king
appealed to--Attainder of Tyrone and Tyrconnel--Reversal of statute
of Kilkenny.
XXXIII.
OLD AND NEW OWNERS
Further plantations--The Connaught landowners--Their positions--Charles
I.'s accession and how it affected Ireland--Lord Falkland appointed
viceroy--Succeeded by Wentworth.
XXXIV.
STRAFFORD
Arrival of Wentworth in Ireland--His methods and theory--Dissolves
parliament--Goes to Connaught--Galway jury fined and imprisoned--His
ecclesiastical policy--His Irish army--Return to England--Attainder,
trial, and death.
XXXV.
'FORTY-ONE
Confusion and disorder--Strafford's army disbanded, but still in the
country--Plot to seize Dublin Castle--Plot transpires--Sir Phelim
O'Neill seizes Charlemont--Attack upon the Protestant
settlers--Barbarities and counter barbarities.
XXXVI.
THE WATERS SPREAD
The rising at first local--Attitude of the Pale gentry--They resolve to
join the rising--Disorganization of the northern insurgents--Incapacity
of Sir Phelim O'Neill--Arrival of Owen Roe O'Neill and Preston--Meeting
of delegates at Kilkenny--Charles decides upon a _coup de main_.
XXXVII.
CIVIL WAR
Effect of the Ulster massacres on England--An agrarian rather than
religious rising--The Confederates' terms Glamorgan sent to Ireland, The
secret treaty transpires, Arrival of Rinucini, Battle of Benturb, Ormond
surrenders Dublin to the Parliament.
XXXVIII.
THE CONFUSION DEEPENS
Total confusion of aims and parties, The "poor Panther" Inchiquin,
Alliance between Jones and Owen Roe O'Neill, Ormond advances upon
Dublin, Battle of Baggotrath and defeat of the Royalists, Arrival
of Cromwell.
XXXIX.
CROMWELL IN IRELAND
Cromwell's mission, Assault of Drogheda, and slaughter of its garrison,
Wexford garrison slaughtered, Cromwell's discipline, The "country
sickness," Confusion in the Royalist camp, Signature of the Scotch
covenant by the king, Final surrender of O'Neill and the Irish army.
XL.
CROMWELL'S METHODS
Loss of life during the eight years of war, Punishment of the
vanquished, Executions, Wholesale scheme of eviction, The New Owners,
"The Burren," Sale of women to the West Indian plantations,
Dissatisfaction amongst the soldiers and debenture holders, Irish
Cromwellians.
XLI.
THE ACT OF SETTLEMENT
The Restoration, Henry Cromwell, Coote and Broghill, Court of claims
established in Dublin, Prolonged dispute, Final settlement, Condition of
Irish Roman Catholics at close of the struggle.
XLII.
OPPRESSION AND COUNTER OPPRESSION
Effects of the Restoration upon the Ulster Presbyterians--A new Act of
Uniformity--Exodus of Presbyterians from Ireland--The Popish
plot--Insane panic--Execution of Archbishop Plunkett--Sudden reversal of
the tide--Tyrconnel sent as viceroy--Terror of Protestant
settlers--William of Orange in England--James II. arrives in Ireland.
XLIII.
WILLIAM AND JAMES IN IRELAND
Popular enthusiasm for James--Struggle between his English and Irish
adherents--James advances to Londonderry--Siege of Londonderry--Its
garrison relieved--Debasing the coinage--Reversal of the Act of
Settlement--Bill of Attainder--Arrival of William III.--Battle of the
Boyne--Flight of James--First siege of Limerick--Athlone captured by
Ginkel--Battle of Aughrim.
XLIV.
THE TREATY OF LIMERICK
Sarsfield refuses to surrender--Second siege of Limerick--The Limerick
treaty--Its exact purport--The military treaty--Departure of the exiles.
XLV.
THE PENAL CODE
A new century and new fortunes--Mr. Lecky's "Eighteenth
Century"--Reversal of all the recent Acts--The Penal Code--Burke's
description of it--How evaded--Its effects upon Protestants and
Catholics.
XLVI.
THE COMMERCIAL CODE
The "Protestant Ascendency"--England's jealousy of her Colonists, Act
passed prohibiting export of Irish woollen goods, Effects of the Act
upon Ireland, Smuggling on an immense scale, Collapse of industry,
Strained relations.
XLVII.
MOLYNEUX AND SWIFT
The "Ingenious Molyneux," Irish naturalists, Molyneux's "Case of
Ireland," Effect of its publication, Death of Molyneux, Dean Swift, His
position in Irish politics, The "Drapier Letters," Their line of attack,
Effect on popular opinion, Wood's halfpence suspended.
XLVIII.
HENRY FLOOD
Forty dull years, Parliamentary abuses, Charles Lucas, Flood enters
Parliament, His struggle with the Government, Lord Townsend recalled,
Flood accepts office, Effect of that acceptance, Rejoins the Liberal
side, Tries to outbid Grattan, Failure and end.
XLIX.
HENRY GRATTAN
Unanimity of opinion about Grattan, His character, Enters Parliament,
The "Declaration of Rights," Carried by the Irish Parliament,
Declaratory Act of George I. repealed, A spell of prosperity, Rocks
ahead, Disaster following disaster, Grattan and the Union,
Grattan's death.
L.
THE IRISH VOLUNTEERS
Revolt of the American Colonies, Its effect on Ireland, Disastrous
condition of the country, Volunteer movement begun in Belfast, Rapid
popularity, Its effect upon politics, Free Trade, Declaratory Act
repealed, The Volunteers disband.
LI.
DANGER SIGNALS
Reform the crying necessity of the hour--Corruption steadily
increasing--Attempt to obtain free importation of goods to England--Its
failure--Disturbed state of the country--Its causes--"White boys," "Oak
boys," and "Steel boys"--Faction war in the North--Orange
lodges--"Society of United Irishmen"--The one hope for the future.
LII.
THE FITZWILLIAM DISAPPOINTMENT
General desire for Catholic Emancipation--Lord Sheffield's evidence--The
Catholic delegates received by the king--Lord Fitzwilliam sent as
Lord-Lieutenant--Popular enthusiasm--Recalled--Result of his recall.
LIII.
'NINETY-EIGHT
Wolfe Tone, his character and autobiography--The other leaders of the
rebellion--England and France at war--Hoche's descent--Panic--Habeas
Corpus Act suspended--Misconduct of soldiers--Arrest of Lord Edward
Fitzgerald--Outbreak of the rebellion--The rising in Wexford--Bagenal
Harvey--Arklow, New Ross, and Vinegar Hill--Suppression of the
rebellion--Final incidents--Death of Wolfe Tone.
LIV.
THE UNION
State of Ireland after the rebellion--Pitt resolved to pass the
Union--Inducements offered--Discrepancy of statements upon the
subject--Bribery or not bribery?--Lord Cornwallis and Lord
Castlereagh--The Union carried.
LV.
O'CONNELL AND CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION
The Union not followed by union--The Emmett outbreak,--Young Daniel
O'Connell--The new Catholic Association--The Clare election--Catholic
Relief Bill carried--The "Incarnation of a people"--Repeal--The
O'Connell gatherings--The meeting proclaimed at Clontarf--Prosecution
and condemnation of O'Connell--Released on appeal--Never regained his
power--Despondency and death.
LVI.
"YOUNG IRELAND"
"The Nation"--Sir C. Gavan Duffy--Thomas Davis--Smith O'Brien--Effect of
O'Connell's death on the "Young Ireland" party--James Lalor--His
influence on Mitchell--The "United Irishmen" newspaper started--Arrest
and transportation of Mitchell--The end of the "Young Ireland" movement.
LVII.
THE FAMINE
First symptoms of the potato disease--The fatal night--Beginning of
Famine--Rapid mortality--Mr. Forster's reports--Relief works--Soup
kitchens--Failure of preventive measures--Famine followed by
ruin--Clearances and Emigration--Emigrant ships--Permanent effects of
the Famine on Ireland.
LVIII.
THE LATEST DEVELOPMENT
Encumbered Estates Act--Tenant League of North and South--The "Brass
Band"--A lull--The Phoenix organization--The Fenian "scare"--Rescue of
Fenian prisoners at Manchester--The Clerkenwell explosion--The Irish
Church Act--The Irish Land Act of 1870--Failure of Irish Education Act,
and retirement of the Liberals--Mr. Butt and Mr. Parnell--The Land
League established--Return of the Liberals to power--The Irish Land Act
of 1881--Arrest and release of Land League Leaders--Murders in the
Phoenix Park--James Carey--- His death--The agrarian struggle--Home
Rule--Its eventual destiny--The untravelled Future.
LIX.
CONCLUSION
Irish heroes--Causes of their want of popularity--Irish _versus_ Scotch
heroes--"Prince Posterity".
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
[Nearly all the archaeological illustrations in this volume are from
"The Early Christian Architecture of Ireland," by Miss M. Stokes, who
has kindly allowed them to be reproduced. The portraits are chiefly from
engravings, &c., kept in the Prints Room of the British Museum.]
HOLY ISLAND, LOUGH DERG.
MAP OF IRELAND IN REIGN OF HENRY VII.
CROSS IN CEMETERY OF TEMPUL BRECCAN.
WEST CROSS, MONASTERBOICE.
DOORWAY OF MAGHERA CHURCH.
KILBANNON TOWER.
KELLS ROUND TOWER.
BASE OF TUAM CROSS.
DOORWAY OF KILLESHIN CHURCH.
INTERIOR OF CORMAC'S CHAPEL (CASHEL).
WEST FRONT OF ST. CRONAN'S CHURCH.
WEST DOORWAY OF FRESHFORD CHURCH.
SIR HENRY SIDNEY (PORTRAIT OF).
ASKEATON CASTLE.
CATHERINE, THE "OLD" COUNTESS OF DESMOND.
SIR JOHN PERROT (PORTRAIT OF).
CAHIR CASTLE (IN 1599).
CAPTURE OF THE EARL OF ORMOND BY THE O'MORES.
IRELAND IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I.
THOMAS WENTWORTH, EARL OF STRAFFORD, 1641.
ARCHBISHOP USSHER (PORTRAIT OF).
JAMES, DUKE OF ORMOND (PORTRAIT OF).
HENRY CROMWELL (PORTRAIT OF).
"TIGER" ROCHE.
DEAN SWIFT (PORTRAIT OF).
PHILIP, EARL OF CHESTERFIELD (PORTRAIT OF).
RIGHT HON. HENRY FLOOD (PORTRAIT OF).
RIGHT HON. HENRY GRATTAN, M.P. (PORTRAIT OF).
JAMES CAULFIELD, EARL OF CHARLEMONT (PORTRAIT OF).
RIGHT HON. EDMUND BURKE (PORTRAIT OF).
THE EARL OF MOIRA ("A MAN OF IMPORTANCE").
RIGHT HON. EDMUND BURKE (SKETCH FROM LIFE).
THEOBALD WOLFE TONE (PORTRAIT OF).
LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD (PORTRAIT OF).
THE FOUR COURTS, DUBLIN.
MARQUIS CORNWALLIS (PORTRAIT OF).
ROBERT EMMETT (PORTRAIT OF).
DANIEL O'CONNELL, M.P. (SKETCH OF).
LESSER ILLUSTRATIONS (AT ENDS OF CHAPTERS).
CROMLECH ON HOWTH.
MOUTH OF SEPULCHRAL CHAMBER AT DOWTH.
ST. KEVIN'S CHURCH.
CORMAC'S CHAPEL AND ROUND TOWER.
ROUND TOWER AT DEVENISH.
SOUTH WINDOW OF ST. CAEMIN'S CHURCH.
FIGURES ON KILCARN FONT.
TRIM CASTLE.
FIGURES ON KILCARN FONT.
INITIAL LETTER (FROM THE BOOK OF KELLS).
ST. PATRICK'S BELL.
INITIAL LETTER (FROM THE BOOK OF KELLS).
CINERARY URN.
TARA BROOCH.
DOORWAY OF ST. CAEMIN'S CHURCH.
SHRINE OF ST. PATRICK'S BELL.
ST. COLUMBA'S ORATORY.
INITIAL LETTER (FROM THE BOOK OF KELLS).
CRYPT OF CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL.
THE STORY OF IRELAND.
I.
PRIMEVAL IRELAND.
"It seems to be certain," says the Abbé McGeoghehan, "that Ireland
continued uninhabited from the Creation to the Deluge." With this
assurance to help us on our onward way I may venture to supplement it by
saying that little is known about the first, or even about the second,
third, and fourth succession of settlers in Ireland. At what precise
period what is known as the Scoto-Celtic branch of the great Aryan stock
broke away from its parent tree, by what route its migrants travelled,
in what degree of consanguinity it stood to the equally Celtic race or
races of Britain, what sort of people inhabited Ireland previous to the
first Aryan invasion--all this is in the last degree uncertain, though
that it was inhabited by some race or races outside the limits of that
greatest of human groups seems from ethnological evidence to be
perfectly clear.
When first it dawns upon us through that thick darkness which hangs
about the birth of all countries--whatever their destiny--it was a
densely wooded and scantily peopled island "lying a-loose," as old
Campion, the Elizabethan historian, tells us, "upon the West Ocean,"
though his further assertion that "in shape it resembleth an egg, plain
on the sides, and not reaching forth to the sea in nooks and elbows of
Land as Brittaine doeth"--cannot be said to be quite geographically
accurate--the last part of the description referring evidently to the
east coast, the only one with which, like most of his countrymen, he was
at that time familiar.
Geographically, then, and topographically it was no doubt in much the
same state as the greater part of it remained up to the middle or end of
the sixteenth century, a wild, tangled, roadless land, that is to say,
shaggy with forests, abounding in streams, abounding, too, in lakes--far
more, doubtless, than at present, drainage and other causes having
greatly reduced their number--with rivers bearing the never-failing
tribute of the skies to the sea, yet not so thoroughly as to hinder
enormous districts from remaining in a swamped and saturated condition,
given up to the bogs, which even at the present time are said to cover
nearly one-sixth of its surface.
This superfluity of bogs seems always in earlier times to have been
expeditiously set down by all historians and agriculturists as part of
the general depravity of the Irish native, who had allowed his good
lands,--doubtless for his own mischievous pleasure--to run to waste;
bogs being then supposed to differ from other lands only so far as they
were made "waste and barren by superfluous moisture." About the middle
of last century it began to be perceived that this view of the matter
was somewhat inadequate; the theory then prevailing being that bogs owed
their origin not to water alone, but to the destruction of woods, whose
remains are found imbedded in them--a view which held good for another
fifty or sixty years, until it was in its turn effectually disposed of
by the report of the Bogs Commission in 1810, when it was proved once
for all that it was to the growth of sphagnums and other peat-producing
mosses they were in the main due--a view which has never since been
called in question.
A great deal, however, had happened to Ireland before the bogs began to
grow on it at all. It had--to speak only of some of its later
vicissitudes--been twice at least united to England, and through it with
what we now know as the continent of Europe, and twice severed from it
again. It had been exposed to a cold so intense as to bleach off all
life from its surface, utterly depriving it of vegetation, and grinding
the mountains down to that scraped bun-like outline which so many of
them still retain; had covered the whole country, highlands and lowlands
alike, with a dense overtoppling cap of snow, towering often thousands
of feet above the present height of the mountains, from which "central
silence" the glaciers crept sleepily down the ravines and valleys,
eating their way steadily seaward, and leaving behind them moraines to
mark their passage, leaving also longitudinal scratches, cut, as a
diamond cuts glass, upon the rocks, as may be seen by any one who takes
the trouble of looking for them; finally reaching the sea in a vast
sloping plateau which pushed its course steadily onward until its
further advance was overborne by the buoyancy of the salt water, the
ends breaking off, as the Greenland glaciers do to-day, into huge
floating icebergs, which butted against one another, jammed up all the
smaller bays and fiords; were carried in again and again on the rising
tide; rolled hither and thither like so many colossal ninepins; played,
in short, all the old rough-and-tumble Arctic games through many a cold
and dismal century, finally melting away as the milder weather began
slowly to return, leaving Ireland a very lamentable-looking island
indeed, not unlike one of those deplorable islands scattered along the
shores of Greenland and upon the edges of Baffin's Bay--treeless,
grassless, brown and scalded, wearing everywhere over its surface the
marks of that great ice-plough which had lacerated its sides so long.
There seems to be good geological evidence that the land connection
between Ireland and Scotland continued to a considerably later period
than between it and England, to which, and as far as can be seen to no
other possible cause is to be attributed two very striking
characteristics of its fauna, namely, its excessive meagreness and its
strikingly northern character. Not only does it come far short of the
already meagre English fauna, but all the distinctively southern species
are the ones missing, though there is nothing in the climate to account
for the fact. The Irish hare, for instance, is not the ordinary brown
hare of England, but the "blue" or Arctic hare of Scotch mountains, the
same which still further to the north becomes white in winter, a habit
which, owing to the milder Irish winters, it has apparently shaken off.
It would be pleasant to linger here a little over this point of
distribution--so fruitful of suggestion as to the early history of the
planet we occupy. To speculate as to the curious contradictions, or
apparent contradictions, to be found even within so narrow an area as
that of Ireland. What, for instance, has brought a group of South
European plants to the shores of Kerry and Connemara, which plants are
not to be found in England, even in Cornwall, which one would have
thought must surely have arrested them first? Why, when neither the
common toad or frog are indigenous in Ireland (for the latter, though
common enough now, was only introduced at the beginning of last century)
a comparatively rare little toad, the Natterjack, should be found in one
corner of Kerry to all appearances indigenously? All these questions,
however, belong to quite another sort of book, and to a much larger
survey of the field than there is time here to embark upon, so there is
nothing for it but to turn one's back resolutely upon the tempting sin
of discursiveness, or we shall find ourselves belated before our real
journey is even begun.
The first people, then, of whose existence in Ireland we can be said to
know anything are commonly asserted to have been of Turanian origin, and
are known as "Formorians." As far as we can gather, they were a dark,
low-browed, stunted race, although, oddly enough, the word Formorian in
early Irish legend is always used as synonymous with the word giant.
They were, at any rate, a race of utterly savage hunters and fishermen,
ignorant of metal, of pottery, possibly even of the use of fire; using
the stone hammers or hatchets of which vast numbers remain in Ireland to
this day, and specimens of which may be seen in every museum. How long
they held possession no one can tell, although Irish philologists
believe several local Irish names to date from this almost inconceivably
remote epoch. Perhaps if we think of the Lapps of the present day, and
picture them wandering about the country, catching the hares and rabbits
in nooses, burrowing in the earth or amongst rocks, and being, not
impossibly, looked down on with scorn by the great Irish elk which still
stalked majestically over the hills; rearing ugly little altars to dim,
formless gods; trembling at every sudden gust, and seeing demon faces in
every bush and brake, it will give us a fairly good notion of what these
very earliest inhabitants of Ireland were probably like.
Next followed a Belgic colony, known as the Firbolgs, who overran the
country, and appear to have been of a somewhat higher ethnological
grade, although, like the Formorians, short, dark, and swarthy.
Doubtless the latter were not entirely exterminated to make way for the
Firbolgs, any more than the Firbolgs to make way for the Danaans,
Milesians, and other successive races; such wholesale exterminations
being, in fact, very rare, especially in a country which like Ireland
seems specially laid out by kindly nature for the protection of a weaker
race struggling in the grip of a stronger one.
After the Firbolgs, though I should be sorry to be obliged to say how
long after, fresh and more important tribes of invaders began to appear.
The first of these were the Tuatha-da-Danaans, who arrived under the
leadership of their king Nuad, and took possession of the east of the
country. These Tuatha-da-Danaans are believed to have been large,
blue-eyed people of Scandinavian origin, kinsmen and possibly ancestors
of those Norsemen or "Danes" who in years to come were destined to work
such woe and havoc upon the island.
Many battles took place between these Danaans and the earlier Firbolgic
settlers--the native owners as no doubt they felt themselves of the
country. One of the best substantiated of these, not, indeed, by history
or even tradition, but by a more solid testimony, that of the stone
remains left on the spot, prove, at any rate, that _some_ long-sustained
battle was at some remote period fought on the spot.
This is the famous pre-historic battle of Moytura, rather the Southern
Moytura, for there were two; the other, situated not far from the
present town of Sligo, retaining "the largest collection of pre-historic
remains," says Dr. Petrie, "in any region in the world with the
exception of Carnac." This second battle of Moytura was fought upon the
plain of Cong, which is washed by the waters of Lough Mask and Lough
Corrib, close to where the long monotonous midland plain of Ireland
becomes broken, changes into that region of high mountains and low-lying
valleys, now called Connemara, but which in earlier days was always
known as Iar Connaught.
It is a wild scene even now, not very much less so than it must have
been when this old and half-mythical Battle of the West was fought and
won. A grey plain, "stone-roughened like the graveyard of dead hosts,"
broken into grassy ridges, and starred at intervals with pools,
repeating the larger glitter of the lake hard by. Over the whole surface
of this tumbled plain rise, at intervals, great masses of rock, some
natural, but others artificially up-tilted cromlechs and dolmens,
menhirs and cairns--whitened by lichen scrawls, giving them often in
uncertain light the effect of so many undecipherable inscriptions,
written in a long-forgotten tongue.
From the position of the battle-field it has been made out to their own
satisfaction by those who have studied it on the spot, that the Firbolgs
must have taken up a fortified position upon the hill called Ben-levi; a
good strategic position unquestionably, having behind it the whole of
the Mayo mountains into which to retreat in case of defeat. The Danaans,
on the other hand, advancing from the plains of Meath, took up their
station upon the hill known as Knockmaa[1], standing by itself about
five miles from the present town of Tuam, on the top of which stands a
great cairn, believed to have been in existence even then--a legacy of
some yet earlier and more primitive race which inhabited the country,
and, therefore, possibly the oldest record of humanity to-day extant
in Ireland.
[1] Now Castle Hacket Hill.
Three days the battle is said to have raged with varying fortunes, in
the course of which the Danaan king Nuad lost his arm, a loss which was
repaired, we are told, by the famous artificer Credue or Cerd, who made
him a silver one, and as "Nuad of the Silver Hand" he figures
conspicuously in early Irish history. In spite of this, and of the death
of a number of their fighting-men, the stars fought for the
Tuatha-da-Danaans, who were strong men and cunning, workers in metal,
and great fighters, so that at last they utterly made an end of their
antagonists, occupying the whole country, and holding it, say the
annalists for a hundred and ninety and six years--building earth and
stone forts, many of which exist to this day, but what their end was no
man can tell you, save that they, too, were, in their turn, conquered by
the Milesians or "Scoti," who next overran the country, giving to it
their own name of Scotia, by which name it was known down to the end of
the twelfth century, and driving the earlier settlers before them, who
thereupon fled to the hills, and took refuge in the forests, whence they
emerged, doubtless, with unpleasant effect upon their conquerors, as
another defeated race did upon _their_ conquerors in later days.
As regards the early doings of these Scoti, although nearer to us in
point of time, their history is, if anything, rather more vague than
that of their predecessors. The source for the greater part of it is in
a work known as the "Annals of the Four Masters," a compilation put
together in the sixteenth century, from documents now no longer
existing, and which must unfortunately, be regarded as largely
fictitious. Were names, indeed, all that were wanting to give
substantiality there are enough and to spare, the beginning of every
Irish history positively bristling with them. Leland, for instance, who
published his three sturdy tomes in the year 1773, and who is still one
of our chief authorities on the subject, speaks of Ireland as having
"engendered one hundred and seventy one monarchs, all of the same house
and lineage; with sixty-eight kings, and two queens of Great Brittain
and Ireland all sprung equally from her loins." We read in his pages of
the famous brethren Heber and Heremon, sons of Milesius, who divided the
island between them; of Allamh Fodla, celebrated as a healer of feuds
and protector of learning, who drew the priests and bards together into
a triennial assembly at Tara, in Meath; of Kimbaoth, who is praised by
the annalists for having advanced learning and kept the peace. The times
of peace had not absolutely arrived however, for he was not long after
murdered, and wild confusion and wholesale slaughter ensued. Another
Milesian prince, Thuathal, shortly afterwards returned from North
Britain, and, assisted by a body of Pictish soldiers, defeated the
rebels, restored order, and re-established the seat of his monarchy
in Meath.
As a specimen of the sort of stories current in history of this kind,
Leland relates at considerable length the account of the insult offered
to this Thuathal by the provincial king of Leinster. "The king," he
tells us, "had married the daughter of Thuathal, but conceiving a
violent passion for her sister, pretended that his wife had died, and
demanded and obtained her sister in marriage. The two ladies met in the
royal house of Leinster. Astonishment and sorrow put an end to their
lives!" The offender not long afterwards was invaded by his justly
indignant father-in-law, and his province only preserved from desolation
on condition of paying a heavy tribute, "as a perpetual memorial of the
resentment of Thuathal and of the offence committed by the king of
Leinster."
Another special favourite of the annalists is Cormac O'Conn, whose reign
they place about the year 250, and over whose doings they wax eloquent,
dwelling upon the splendour of his court, the heroism of his warlike
sons, the beauty of his ten fair daughters, the doings of his famous
militia, the Fenni or Fenians, and especially of his illustrious general
Finn, or Fingal, the hero of the legends, and father of the poet
Ossian--a warrior whom we shall meet with again in the next chapter.
And now, it will perhaps be asked, what is one in sober seriousness to
say to all this? All that one can say is that these tales are not to be
taken as history in any rigid sense of the word, but must for the most
part be regarded as mere hints, caught from chaos, and coming down
through a hundred broken mediums; scraps of adventures told around camp
fires; oral traditions; rude songs handed from father to son, and
altering more or less with each new teller. The early history of Ireland
is in this respect much like the early history of all other countries.
We have the same semi-mythical aggregations, grown up around some small
kernel of reality, but so changed, swollen, distorted, that it is
difficult to distinguish the true from the false; becoming vaguer and
vaguer too as the mists of time and sentiment gather more and more
thickly around them, until at last we seem to be swimming dimly in a
"moony vapour," which allows no dull peaks of reality to pierce through
it at all. "There were giants in those days," is a continually recurring
assertion, characteristic of all ancient annals, and of these with
the rest.
[Illustration: CROMLECH ON HOWTH.]
II.
THE LEGENDS AND THE LEGEND MAKERS.
Better far than such historic shams--cardboard castles with little or no
substance behind them--are the real legends. These put forward no
obtrusive pretensions to accuracy, and for that very reason are far
truer in that larger sense in which all the genuine and spontaneous
outgrowth of a country form part and parcel of its history. Some of the
best of these have been excellently translated by Mr. Joyce, whose
"Celtic Romances" ought to be in the hands of every one, from the boy of
twelve upwards, who aspires to know anything of the inner history of
Ireland; to understand, that is to say, that curiously recurrent note of
poetry and pathos which breaks continually through all the dull hard
prose of the surface. A note often lost in unmitigated din and discord,
yet none the less re-emerging, age after age, and century after century,
and always when it does so lending its own charm to a record, which,
without some such alleviations, would be almost too grim and
disheartening in its unrelieved and unresulting misery to be voluntarily
approached at all.
Although as they now stand none appear to be of earlier date than the
ninth or tenth century, these stories all breathe the very breath of a
primitive world. An air of remote pagan antiquity hangs over them, and
as we read we seem gradually to realize an Ireland as unlike the one we
know now as if, like the magic island of Buz, it had sunk under the
waves and been lost. Take, for instance--for space will not allow of
more than a sample--the story of "The Pursuit of Gilla Backer and his
Horse," not by any means one of the best, yet characteristic enough. In
it we learn that from Beltane, the 1st of May--the great Celtic festival
of the sun--to Sanim, the 1st of November, the chiefs and Fenni hunted
each day with their hounds through the forests and over the plains,
while from Sanim to Beltane they lived in the "Betas," or houses of
hospitality, or feasted high with Finn McCumal, son of Cumal, grandson
of Trenmore O'Baskin, whose palace stood upon the summit of the hill of
Allen, a hill now crowned with a meaningless modern obelisk, covering
the site of the old historic rath, a familiar object to thousands who
have looked up at it from the Curragh of Kildare, certainly with no
thought in their minds of Finn McCumal or his vanished warriors.
The tale tells how one day, after hunting on the Plains of Cliach, the
Fenni sat down to rest upon the hill of Colkilla, their hunting tents
being pitched upon a level spot near the summit. How presently, afar off
over the plain at their feet, they saw one of the conquered race of
earlier inhabitants, a "Formorian" of huge size and repulsive ugliness
coming towards them, leading his horse by the halter, an animal larger,
it seems, than six ordinary horses, but broken down and knock-kneed,
with jaws that stuck out far in advance of its head. How the heroes,
idling pleasantly about in the sunshine, laughed aloud at the uncouth
"foreigner" and his ugly raw-boned beast, "covered with tangled scraggy
hair of a sooty black." How he came before the king and, having made
obeisance, told him that his name was the Gilla Backer, and then and
there took service with him for a year, desiring at the same time that
special care should be paid to his horse, and the best food given it,
and care taken that it did not stray, whereat the heroes laughed again,
the horse standing like a thing carved in wood and unable apparently to
move a leg.
No sooner, however, was it loosed, and the halter cast off, than it
rushed amongst the other horses, kicking and lashing, and seizing them
with its teeth till not one escaped. Seeing which, the Fenni rose up in
high wrath, and one of them seized the Gilla Backer's horse by the
halter and tried to draw it away, but again it became like a rock, and
refused to stir. Then he mounted its back and flogged it, but still it
remained like a stone. Then, one after the other, thirteen more of the
heroes mounted, but still it stirred not. The very instant, however,
that its master, the Gilla Backer rose up angrily to depart, the old
horse went too, with the fourteen heroes still upon his back, whereat
the Fenni raised fresh shouts of laughter. But the Gilla Backer, after
he had walked a little way, looked back, and seeing that his horse was
following, stood for a moment to tuck up his skirts. "Then, all at once
changing his pace, he set out with long strides; and if you know what
the speed of a swallow is, flying across a mountain-side, or the fairy
wind of a March day sweeping over the plains, then you can understand
Gilla Dacker, as he ran down the hillside towards the south-west.
Neither was the horse behindhand in the race, for, though he carried a
heavy load, he galloped like the wind after his master, plunging and
bounding forward with as much freedom as if he had nothing at all on
his back."
Finn and his warriors left behind on the hill stared awhile, and then
resolved to go to Ben Edar, now Howth, there to seek for a ship to
follow after Gilla Dacker and his horse, and the fourteen heroes. And on
their way they met two bright-faced youths wearing mantles of scarlet
silk, fastened by brooches of gold, who, saluting the king, told him
their names were Foltlebar and Feradach, and that they were the sons of
the king of Innia, and each possessed an art, and that as they walked
they had disputed whose art was the greater. "And my art," said
Feradach, "is this. If at any time a company of warriors need a ship,
give me only my joiner's axe and my crann-tavall[2], and I am able to
provide a ship without delay. The only thing I ask them to do is
this--to cover their heads close and keep them covered, while I give the
crann-tavall three blows of my axe. Then I tell them to uncover their
heads, and lo, there lies the ship in harbour, ready to sail!"
[2] A sling for projecting stones, strung rather like a cross-bow.
The Foltlebar spoke and said, "This, O king, is the art I profess: On
land I can track the wild duck over nine ridges and nine glens, and
follow her without being once thrown out, till I drop upon her in her
nest. And I can follow up a track on sea quite as well as on land, if I
have a good ship and crew."
And Finn replied, "You are the very men I want; and now I take you both
into my service. Though our own trackmen, the Clan Naim, are good, yet
we now need some one still more skilful to follow the Gilla Dacker
through unknown seas."
To these unknown seas they went, starting from Ben Edar, and sailed away
west for many days over the Atlantic, seeing many strange sights and
passing many unknown islands. But at last the ship stopped short in
front of an island with vast rocky cliffs towering high above their
heads as steep as a sheet of glass, at which the heroes gazed amazed and
baffled, not knowing what to do next. But Dermot O'Dynor--called also
Dermot of the Bright-face--undertook to climb it, for of all the Fermi
he was the most learned in Druidical enchantments, having been early
taught the secret of fairy lore by Mananan Mac Lir, who ruled over the
Inis Manan or Land of Promise.
Dermot accordingly took leave of his friends and climbed the great
cliff, and when he reached the top he found that it was flat and covered
with tall green grass, as is often the case in these desolate wind-blown
Atlantic islets. And in the very centre he found a well with a tall
pillar stone beside it, and beside the pillar stone a drinking-horn
chased with gold. And he took up the drinking-horn to drink, being
thirsty, but the instant he touched the brim with his lips, lo! a great
Wizard Champion armed to the teeth, sprang up out of the earth,
whereupon he and Dermot O'Dynor fought together beside the well the
livelong day until the dusk fell. But the moment the dusk fell, the
wizard champion sprang with a great bound into the middle of the well,
and so disappeared, leaving Dermot standing there much astonished at
what had befallen him.