Through Newcastle to Downpatrick--Grave of St. Patrick--His Life
and Work--The Old Grave-Digger--Belfast and Ballygalley
Bay--O'Halloran the Outlaw.
It is nearly six o'clock when we start from Newry towards Newcastle. Our
road lies down the river, and so on by the sea the entire distance.
The highway is excellent all the way, some thirty-two miles, and the car
speeds onward like a bird. The scenery is lovely, the glimpses of
mountain and meadow, sea and sky enchanting.
About 7.20 brings us to the hotel at Slieve Donard, a very large costly
establishment built by the railway company. It is evidently a
watering-place of some importance, and next month (July) will see it
crowded. The place is pleasantly situated by the sea and presided over
by the Mourne Mountains. There are golf-links and the walks and drives
are fine, but otherwise there is nothing of interest, and we shall move
northward to Dundrum.
The morning is clear and crisp as we leave Newcastle, getting lost at
once in the many byways, but that is rather a pleasure than an
annoyance. All the roadbeds are fine hereabouts and we roll merrily
along over hill and down dale until Downpatrick comes into view, and we
pass up her streets to her ancient cathedral, and there pay our
devotions at the grave of St. Patrick.
The church stands well above its ancient city and is visible from all
the country round about. Several places claim the birthplace of St.
Patrick, but that benign Scotchman was born near Dunbarton. He himself
says that his father was a deacon and his grandfather a _priest_. He was
a nephew of St. Martin of Tours, the sister of that holy man having been
the mother of the Irish patron. His name was Succat, but it is by his
Latin name of Patricius that he is known best to the millions who revere
his memory.
Ireland during its first millennium was called Scotland, and its people
"Scots," and by these St. Patrick was taken prisoner when he was but
sixteen years of age and carried to Antrim, where he was held for six
years and forced to care for the swine of Michu, a chieftain. We are
told that this occurred in the mountain of Llemish near Ballymena.
During this period his thoughts were ever turned towards Christianity
and after having effected his escape he is next heard of at Auxerre with
its Bishop, Germanus, by whom he was admitted to holy orders. His
thoughts always turned towards Ireland and here he landed when he was
sixty years of age near the present church of Saul on Strangford Lough
in 432 A.D. This was but four miles from Downpatrick, and there the
Lord promptly blessed his work by enabling him to convert the chieftain
of the district, Dichu, to Christianity, receiving as a gift the barn of
that same chieftain, which formed the first Christian church of this
island. The present church of Saul stands on the spot and that name is
but a corruption of the ancient one of "Patrick's Sabball," or barn.
From here the faith spread until it covered all the land, and here in
492 he died.
Both Armagh and Dundalethglass--Downpatrick--claimed a right to provide
him with a tomb, and to settle the dispute two untamed oxen were yoked
to his bier, and they stopped on this hill of Downpatrick. As to what
sort of a wild ride they gave his saintship before, out of wind, they
rested on this hill, history is silent, but, being Irish, there is no
doubt but that he thoroughly enjoyed it.
I have always regretted that during an ocean voyage which I once made
with the late Bishop Donnelly, I did not make inquiry concerning this
funeral progress, for I have no doubt but that his reverence--he was not
a Bishop then--knew all about it. I have never met any one who more
thoroughly appreciated the sunshine and sorrow, the laughter and tears
of the land he loved so well, and I greatly regret that that voyage was
so short and that the good Bishop so soon thereafter entered into his
rest. But to return.
As far as the actual grave of St. Patrick is concerned, there is, of
course, no certainty; that he was buried somewhere on this hill appears
beyond doubt, and probably near the spot the church was built on, but
that his body remained long in the grave after he was elevated to the
sainthood is clearly doubtful. Probably every church in Ireland has at
one time contained a relic of his. As for this original church here, it
is spoken of way back in the sixth century and again in the eleventh.
The first claimed to have been erected by the saint himself.
The relics of Columba were brought from Iona here and it is related that
it was that saint who enshrined those of St. Patrick just three-score
years after his death. In his tomb were found his goblet, his Angel's
Gospel, and the Bell of the Testament.
Into St. Patrick's tomb went also the bones of St. Brigid. The Danes
came here, and Strongbow and King John passed by.
The present church is supposed to be only the choir of the great
edifice--the second church--built by De Courcey and destroyed by Edward,
Lord Cromwell in 1605; but it is so completely restored that it is of
little interest, though very comfortable withal.
[Illustration: Photo by Wm. Lawrence
Terrace at Tanderagee Castle]
Just outside there stands a venerable gravedigger amongst the tombs,
who might almost have been here fifteen hundred years ago, and certainly
he would resent any insinuation that he was not well informed upon all
which may or may not have occurred since the death of the saint. He is
leaning upon his rake near the church door, and returns our salutation
in an antique manner, nothing about him as it were, belonging to this
latter day or date. "Yes, the cathedral can be visited, but perhaps
'twould be as well to visit the tomb, I will show you that,--who
better?"
It is off amongst a tangle of tombstones and high grasses, a great flat
irregular boulder engraved with a Celtic cross and the saint's
name--evidently the sinful dead have crowded as closely as possible
around the saintly ashes in order perhaps to pass into the heavenly
gates unobserved with such great company to chain the attention of St.
Peter. But some of these around started on their last journey hundreds
of years after St. Patrick,--still, as we are told that "in His sight a
thousand years are but as yesterday," perhaps they all arrived together,
and I doubt not that for his beloved Irish the holy Patrick would delay
his entry as long as possible and even come back again from that farther
shore at the calling of some late comers.
When I ask this gravedigger whether this be indeed the grave of the
holy man, he looks wise, plucks a bit of grass from a near-by grave, and
seizes his opportunity for an oration. It is useless to stop him with
questions, he will answer as and when it pleases him; and so, sitting
upon the tomb with the sunlight falling in a glowing benediction upon
us living and upon the old cathedral and its silent company, he speaks
on and on. "There's many, your honour, phwat has heads but don't use
thim. Is this _the_ grave you ask. Well I have puzzled out the question
for many years. I _don't_ believe it is, as I suggested this spot to the
antiquary society myself. In owlden days the spot prayed upon as his
tomb was under yonder middle window of the church, but whin a bishop
came along who wanted more silf-glory than one driveway would give him,
he made that one there, and in so doing moved the owld tombstone,--not
that I am claiming that even that was the first one laid upon the
blessed corpse, for an owld woman of eighty who lived here until she was
ten and then moved away, came back to bid farewell to her native town on
going to America, and upon being shown the tomb undher the window asked
since whin had the dead taken to moving their graves, for whin she left
here it was below there in the valley. But we know it was around here
some place, and this new spot is as good as any other." "Did St.
Pathrick build that church?--no, sure, yer honour, he was not the kind
of a man who wint around glorifying himself. If he had had as much money
as that cost 't would be the poor who would have got it. Still, the
church yonder is fifteen hundred years old, though it has been so built
over that it is hard to believe it."
The old man would have talked on for ever, but, like most of his age, it
would have been but vain repetition, and so we move off and away,
feeling sure that the spirit of the benign old saint returns now and
then in floods of warm sunlight to his ancient cathedral of Downpatrick.
Like most grave-diggers, the man up there knew more of the past than of
the present, and when he told us that we would find a fine ferry from
Strangford across the outlet of the lough of that name he spoke without
advisement. We found a proposition to place some planks from one boat to
another and so to ferry us and our great machine over one of the
deepest, swiftest currents passing outward to the sea. It is useless to
say that I vetoed this proposition, so we rolled backward almost to
Downpatrick, and then turned north-west towards Belfast, which we
reached for luncheon.
When I pass a city like Belfast without notice, it is not that there is
not much of interest there, but that it has been so often described, and
I would confine these notes to those more unfamiliar spots with which
Ireland abounds, places of which the general run of travellers knows
nothing. Yet Belfast, like its great neighbour Glasgow, possesses much
of interest of which the guide-books make no note.
Leaving the busy city of the north, our route lies towards the sea and
by the sea for some hours, the roads all very good. We pass
Carrickfergus and Larne and on the shores of Ballygalley Bay, coming to
a sudden stoppage, discover on investigation that our stupid chauffeur
has allowed the gasoline to run out. What to do is a problem, as we are
some miles from any town and the road is a lonely one. To assist in a
solution of the question Boyse goes to sleep in the motor and I go out
on a lonely rock at sea where O'Halloran, that most renowned outlaw in
Irish history, built his tower,--all in ruins now. For ten years he kept
all this district in subjection and was killed in 1681.
There is but little left of his stronghold here--an angle of a tower, an
outline of a wall or two,--all on a tiny island around which murmur the
waters of the Irish Sea, while far out, seemingly afloat, in the hazy
distance rise the shadowy shores of Scotland. That is Cantyre and Arran
over yonder. There are no sails in sight and the sea is asleep. The
high-road winds away close down by the shore on either hand, while high
behind it the fantastic cliffs tower some three hundred feet and more,
wild and desolate. To have passed this way in the days of O'Halloran,
without paying heavy tribute, if he allowed you to go at all, would have
been well-nigh impossible, and our further progress, unless that petrol
comes, is as effectively prohibited.
[Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard
The Tomb of St. Patrick]
But there is peace about just now, the drifting clouds above, the
lapping waters and silent hills all around, Boyse still sleeping, and
the auto seemingly dead, while Yama occupies a pinnacle of an adjacent
rock, a bronze Buddha on its travels, as it were. But far down the coast
road a white speck shortly evolves into a jaunting-car laden with petrol
cans--we had sent word back by a passing cyclist--whose contents are
promptly transferred into our tank, and then with all paid for we glide
away to the north, with one last glimpse at the ruined tower in its bay
of Ballygalley.
I should make the chauffeur pay for his stupidity about that petrol, but
I don't suppose I shall do so.
The ride to Ballycastle is joyous, the road very fine and smooth,
running now by the glistening sea and then far up a thousand feet amidst
the silence of the hill and moors, over which flocks of sheep are
browsing upon grass rich and thick.
Several towns are holding fairs, and we have met two "Irish gentlemen"
returning home who would not care to-day whether the Emerald Isle got
her freedom or not. One led a huge stallion which pranced and snorted at
our passing, but while unable to stand straight, his keeper held on to
his charge, and I doubt not got him home safely, occupying most all the
roadway in his progress. It will be a very sorry day indeed when an
Irishman, no matter what his condition, cannot hold on to a horse.
Ballycastle is reached at eight o'clock and we find quarters in a very
comfortable inn--the Marine Hotel,--after a run of over one hundred
miles.