The Lunatic--Insanity and its Causes in Ireland--The Usual Old Lady
and Donkey--Sunshine and Shadow--Clonmines and its Seven
Churches--The Crosses around the Holy Tree--Baginbun and the
Landing of the English--The Bull of Pope Adrian--Letter of Pope
Alexander--Protest of the Irish Princes--Legends--Death of Henry
II.
"To some men God hath given laughter, and tears to some men he hath
given."
To-day it is tears and sadness for one poor woman.
B. is a magistrate here and last night at dinner a warrant for his
signature was brought to the house. It was for the commitment of a poor
woman to an asylum for the insane and this morning we roll away to the
village to conclude the matter. The "Court" awaits our arrival, but I
have no mind for such scenes; indeed I do not think it right that mere
lookers-on should be permitted, any more than curiosity seekers should
be allowed to stare at men in prison. So I stay out in the car while B.,
followed by the "Court," which has been sunning itself outside, passes
within.
However, I am not to escape in all ways, as, turning my eyes towards a
window to the left, I see the poor woman staring out at me, the sadness
and misery of her expression passing description,--life is so absolutely
over for her, with nothing save the horror of increasing insanity to
look forward to throughout all the years which may remain of existence.
Her mother died in an asylum and her fate is certain. The curse of
intermarriage has pronounced her doom as it does for so many in Ireland.
It is also claimed that much of the insanity so prevalent here is caused
by excessive use of tea, and _such_ tea. Placed on the stove and allowed
to simmer and stew all day, it acquires a strength that would destroy in
time the strongest of nerves.
This poor woman goes to the asylum by her own wish, and is glad to go,
knowing the hopelessness of it all for her. Ah, the pity of it, and one
is so absolutely powerless to do aught to help! The law is soon complied
with and leaving her sad face still at the window we roll away.
The day is especially brilliant and the air like wine, laden with the
fragrance of the hawthorn and wild grasses; while the hedgerows
bordering the lanes are a mass of blossoms, and the world is
beautiful,--all the more beautiful by contrast with that glimpse of
sadness we have just left.
[Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard
Hallway, Curraghmore House]
Our car goes rushing and singing along until we round a bend of the
road and are immediately involved in wild confusion. An old lady--as
usual--seated on the smallest of carts, drawn by a most diminutive
donkey,--Ireland is full of old ladies in carts, in fact one rarely sees
any others in them,--is vainly trying to stop the wild circles it is
describing, cart and all, in fright at our appearance. It whirls her
around at least a half-dozen times before a passing postman seizing the
bridle leads it by us, while the ancient dame, the flowers on her much
awry bonnet trembling with her indignation, hurls curses at us. "Blarst
yer sowls" comes back at us as she is borne away.
Truly sunshine and shadow, laughter and sadness chase each other closely
in this Isle of Erin. Don't for a moment imagine, though you may seem to
be in the densest solitude of the country, that there is nobody about;
any instant a sudden turn may find you in the midst of shrieking women,
flying chicks, quacking ducks, and scoffing geese, where clatter and
confusion and curses reign supreme, but again those curses imply nothing
generally here, they are only a form of salutation, and rarely mean what
is said.
We pass down long stretches of road with the sparkling sea spread out
before us until we draw up near the ruins of the seven churches of
Clonmines, close down by the placid waters of the river.
Of the churches there is little left, save a few ruined towers. In the
centre of one where the sunshine falls warmest and many flowers grow,
the late priest of the parish has found his resting-place.
After all there seems to have been close connection between the far
east and this Emerald Isle. At these seven churches of Clonmines, there
was once held a Moorish slave market, and one cannot but think that
that keening for the dead must have come from the chant which one may
still hear amongst the followers of the prophet.
Clonmines, which is named from the silver mines near-by, was "a very
ancient corporation but quite ruinated" even in 1684 when we find it so
described in an old manuscript of Wexford. In the time of the Danes it
possessed a mint for silver coining and was surrounded by a fosse. On
the shores of its river or tide inlet, called the Pill, the descendants
of the first English conquerors still lived in the days of Elizabeth, in
fact we find yet living in one of these ancient towers, the descendant
of the man, Sir Roger de Sutton, who built it _seven centuries ago_--a
love of home which passes understanding, for that abode to-day could not
be considered as agreeable under any circumstances.
This little river was considered of such importance in the days of Henry
VI. that an act of Parliament was passed for the building of towers upon
its banks "that none shall break the fortifications or strength of the
waters of Bannow."
Even in Henry IV.'s time one John Neville was appointed keeper of this
water, and the feudal tenure by which the Hore family held their manor
of Pole was for the keeping of a passage over the Pill when the Sessions
were held at Wexford. But King and noble reckoned without the storms of
winter, which year after year drove the sands of the sea inward, filling
the harbour and finally destroying all the towns on its banks. One of
them, Old Bannow, we have already visited, and we leave this of
Clonmines, to-day a ruin past all redemption, inhabited by that one
family whose members have watched the years go by just here for seven
centuries.
As we glide off through the winding lanes, the birds are talking to
themselves in the hedgerows, and could tell us much about it all I doubt
not, while far away on the soft air sounds the throbbing and the sobbing
of the sea.
Close by the roadside we come upon an evidence of one of the quaint
customs still to be met with in this section. There is a certain
tree--why so selected does not appear--which is regarded as holy, and
every funeral which passes leaves a small cross at its base, so that
to-day the pile of rude wooden emblems of our faith reaches half way up
its trunk. There are no shrines around the place or any other evidence
that it is regarded as sacred or used as a point for devotion, simply
that mass of plain wooden crosses mounting high around its trunk, and
numbering many thousands, each one representing the passing of some poor
soul out of this earthly sunshine and into the shadow of the grave.
Our day is not over yet. This section of Ireland so abounds in points of
interest that fearing we may pass any of them the speed of the car is
reduced to that of a donkey-cart, in fact, several of the latter pass us
with great show of speed and scornful glances cast by ancient dames at
our crawling monster, while the donkey kicks dust in our faces--whether
from contempt of us or a desire to get home to supper he takes no time
to state, but the fact remains.
Our way leads down by the sea, and leaving the car to puff itself to
sleep, we pass through the downs on the cliffs and out on to the point
of Baginbun. If you are not versed in Irish history, you will wonder why
you are brought here--it is pretty, yes, certainly, but you have seen
other places far more so. There is a little cove just under you where
the waters murmur and whisper, but what of that? Well, that is Baginbun
and just there, though time and tide have long since obliterated the
marks of their ships' prows, landed the English for the first time in
Ireland. Fitzstephens and his band of adventurers in May, 1169, landed
there and doubtless climbed this hill where we stand knee deep in the
grass to day. What that meant to Ireland is told in the history of all
the ensuing years down to this latter day. How many readers are aware of
the Bull of Pope Adrian IV. handing Ireland body and soul over to Henry
II. of England,--let us quote a bit of it just here.
"Adrian, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to our well
beloved son in Christ, the illustrious King of the English, health
and apostolical benediction.
[Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard
Dining-room, Curraghmore House
Seat of the Marquis of Waterford]
"Your highness is contemplating the laudable and profitable work of
gaining a glorious fame on earth, and augmenting the recompense of
bliss that awaits you in heaven, by turning your thoughts, in the
proper spirit of a Catholic Prince, to the object of widening the
boundaries of the Church, explaining the true Christian faith to
those ignorant and uncivilised tribes, and exterminating the
nurseries of vices from the Lord's inheritance. In which matter,
observing as we do the maturity of deliberation and the soundness
of judgment exhibited in your mode of proceeding, we cannot but
hope that proportionate success will, with the Divine permission,
attend your exertions.
"Certainly there is no doubt but that Ireland and all the Islands
upon which Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, hath shined, and
which have received instruction in the Christian faith, do belong
of right to St. Peter and the Holy Roman Church, as your grace
also admits. For which reason we are the more disposed to
introduce into them a faithful plantation and to engraft among
them a stock acceptable in the sight of God, in proportion as we
are convinced from conscientious motives that such efforts are
made incumbent on us by the urgent claims of duty.
"You have signified to us, son, well-beloved in Christ, your
desire to enter the island of Ireland in order to bring that
people into subjection to laws, and to exterminate the nurseries
of vices from the country; and that you are willing to pay to St.
Peter an annual tribute of one penny for every house there, and to
preserve the ecclesiastical rights of that land uninjured and
inviolate. We, therefore, meeting your pious and laudable desire
with the favour which it deserves, and graciously according to
your petition, express our will and pleasure that, in order to
widen the bounds of the Church, to check the spread of vice, to
reform the state of morals and promote the inculcation of virtuous
dispositions, you shall enter that island and execute therein what
shall be for the honour of God and the welfare of the country. And
let the people of that land receive you in honourable style and
respect you as their Lord. Provided always that ecclesiastical
rights be uninjured and inviolate, and the annual payment of one
penny for every house be secured for St. Peter and the Holy Roman
Church.
"If then, you shall be minded to carry into execution the plan
which you have devised in your mind, use your endeavour diligently
to improve that nation by the inculcation of good morals; and
exert yourself, both personally and by means of such agents as you
employ (whose faith, life, and conversation you shall have found
suitable for such an undertaking), that the Church may be adorned
there, that the religious influence of the Christian faith may be
planted and grow there; and that all that pertains to the honour
of God and the salvation of souls may, by you, be ordered in such
a way as that you may be counted worthy to obtain from God a
higher degree of recompense in eternity, and at the same time
succeed in gaining upon earth a name of glory throughout all
generations."
In such words this island, which had been faithful to the Church of Rome
for centuries, was handed over by its head to bloodshed and murder.
That the progress of the King was watched and approved of is amply set
forth in the letter of Pope Alexander III.:
"Alexander, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to our well
beloved son in Christ, Henry, the illustrious King of the English,
greeting and apostolical benediction.
"It is not without very lively sensations of satisfaction that we
have learned, from the loud voice of public report, as well as
from the authentic statements of particular individuals, of the
expedition which you have made in the true spirit of a pious King
and magnificent prince against that nation of the Irish (who, in
utter disregard of the fear of God, are wandering with unbridled
licentiousness into every downward course of crime, and who have
cast away the restraints of the Christian religion and of
morality, and are destroying one another with mutual slaughter),
and of the magnificent and astonishing triumph which you have
gained over a realm into which, as we are given to understand, the
Princes of Rome, the triumphant conquerors of the world, never, in
the days of their glory, pushed their arms, a success to be
attributed to the ordering of the Lord, by whose guidance, as we
undoubtedly do believe, your serene highness was led to direct the
power of your arms against that uncivilised and lawless people."
There exists to-day the complaint of the Irish Princes to Pope John
XXII. in answer to a letter from him to the Irish prelates empowering
them to launch the thunders of the Church against all, whether lay or
ecclesiastical, who were guilty of disaffection to the ruling powers.
This from their holy head in favour of the English was felt very keenly
all over the land and called forth the document referred to above.
"In the name of Donald O'Neill, King of Ulster, and rightful
hereditary successor to the throne of all Ireland, as well as
Princes and Nobles of the same realm with the Irish people in
general present their humble salutations approaching with kisses of
devout homage to his sacred feet."
They lay before him, "with loud and imploring cry," the treatment they
have received, and also an account of their descent from Milesius, the
_Spaniard_, through a line of one hundred and thirty-six kings unto the
time of St. Patrick, A.D. 435. From that saint's day until 1170
sixty-one kings had ruled who acknowledged no superior, in things
temporal, and by whom the Irish Church was endowed.
[Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard
Kilruddery House
Earl of Meath]
"'At length,' say the Princes, 'your predecessor, Pope Adrian, an
Englishman--although not so completely in his origin as in his
feelings and connections,--in the year of our Lord 1155, upon the
representation, false and full of iniquity, which was made to him
by Henry, King of England--the monarch under whom, and perhaps at
whose instigation, St. Thomas, of Canterbury, in the same year,
suffered death, as you are aware, in defence of Justice and of the
Church,--made over the dominion of this realm of ours in a certain
set form of words to that Prince, whom, for the crime here
mentioned, he ought rather to have been deprived of his own
kingdom; presenting him _de facto_ with what he had no right to
bestow, while the question touching the justice of the proceeding
was utterly disregarded, Anglican prejudices, lamentable to say,
blinding the vision of that eminent Pontiff. And thus despoiling us
of our royal honour, without any offence of ours, he handed us over
to be lacerated by teeth more cruel than those of any wild beasts.
For, ever since the time when the English, upon occasion of the
grant aforesaid, and under the mask of a sort of outward sanctity
and religion, made their unprincipled aggression upon the
territories of our realm, they have been endeavouring, with all
their might, and with every art which perfidy could employ,
completely to exterminate, and utterly to eradicate our people from
the country ... and have compelled us to repair, in the hope of
saving our lives, to mountainous, woody and swampy and barren
spots, and to the caves of the rocks also, and in these, like
beasts, to take up our dwelling for a length of time.'
"The Princes enclosed a copy of Pope Adrian's Bull, along with
their Complaint, to Pope John, which Bull the latter Pope
forwarded to King Edward....
"The part which the _Church of Rome_ has taken, not only in the
bringing of _Ireland_ under _English rule_ in the first instance,
but in the _maintenance_ of that rule, has _never been understood
by the Irish people in general_.
"Dr. Lanigan, whose history of Ireland is expensive and scarce,
says of Pope Adrian that 'love of his country, his wish to gratify
Henry, and some other not very becoming reasons, prevailed over
every other consideration, and the condescending Pope, with
great cheerfulness and alacrity, took upon himself to make over to
Henry all Ireland, and got a letter, or Bull, drawn up to that
effect and directed to him, in which, among other queer things, he
wishes him success in his undertaking, and expresses the hope that
it will conduce, not only to his glory in this world, but likewise
to his eternal happiness in the next.'[8]
"Adrian's old master was one Marianus, an Irishman, for whom he
had great regard, yet, says Dr. Lanigan, 'he was concerned in
hatching a plot against that good man's country, and in laying the
foundation of the destruction of the independence of Ireland.'[9]
"This is strong language from an Irish Roman Catholic clergyman,
who enjoys the fullest confidence of his country, with regard to a
former Pope, and it must be remembered that the statement was not
made in a platform speech, when momentary excitement might impel a
speaker into the use of words which he would afterwards regret,
but that it was calmly and deliberately penned in the quietness of
the study, and, probably, read and re-read, and finally corrected,
before it was committed to print.
"The Rev. M.J. Brennan, O. S. F., who is not at all so
unprejudiced as Dr. Lanigan, states that 'Adrian, anxious for the
aggrandisement of his country,' or, as Cardinal Pole expresses it,
'induced by the love of his country, lost no time in complying
with the agent's request.'[10] The agent referred to was John of
Salisbury, who had been sent by King Henry in 1155 to ask for the
Pope's sanction for the invasion of Ireland, and who states that
the invasion was delayed until 1171 by the restraining influence
of the King's mother, the Empress Matilda. With this statement Dr.
Lanigan agrees.[11]
"It is a mistake to suppose that the Conquest of Ireland is due to
the appeal made in 1168 by Dermot MacMurrogh for King Henry's aid.
That event merely afforded to the King and the Pope a convenient
excuse for carrying out a long-determined plan.
"Attempts have been made on various grounds to justify Pope
Adrian's action. Edmund Campion, the famous English Jesuit,
alleges that the Spanish ancestors of the Irish were subject '376
years ere Christ was born' to one Gurguntius, from whom King Henry
was descended, and that, consequently, the Pope only helped to
restore to Henry his rightful authority.[12] But this notion is
too far-fetched to deserve consideration.
"A more plausible excuse is that about a century previous to the
Conquest the Irish handed over to the Pope of that time--Urban
II.--the sovereignty of this country. This theory was advocated by
the Rev. Geoffrey Keatinge, D.D.
"But a still more popular excuse is, that all the Christian
Islands of the Ocean were conferred on the Popes by the first
Christian Emperor, Constantine.
"Dr. Lanigan brushes aside all these fanciful ideas with one
sweep. 'This nonsense' he says, 'of the Pope's being the head
owner of all Christian Islands had been partially announced to the
world in a Bull of Urban II., dated 1091, in which, on disposing
of the Island of Corsica, he said that the Emperor Constantine had
given the Islands to St. Peter and his vicars. But Constantine
could not give what did not belong to him, and accordingly, as
Keatinge argues, could not have transferred the sovereignty of
Ireland to any Pope.'[13]
"As to Keatinge's own idea, namely, that the Irish had transferred
their crown to the Pope, Dr. Lanigan writes: 'Neither in any of
the Irish annals, nor in the ecclesiastical documents of those
times, whether Roman or Irish, is there a trace to be found of a
transfer of Ireland to Urban II., or to any Pope, by either the
Irish Kings or Irish nobility, although the sly Italian, Polydore
Virgil, who has been followed by two Englishmen, Campion and
Sanders (both Jesuits), and also by some Irish writers, has told
some big lies on this subject. These stories were patched up in
spite of Chronology, or of any authority whatsoever, and Keatinge
swallowed them as he did many others.'"[14]
There is much more to be read on the subject and those who are
interested in the question cannot do better than examine that very
excellent little work of John Roche Ardill, _Forgotten Facts of Irish
History_,[15] from which the foregoing pages are a quotation.
[Illustration: Photo by W. Leonard
Glendalough]
A very recent writer (Thomas Addis Emmet) states that
"It would be inconsistent with the truth were we to attribute the
piteous condition of Ireland to any other cause than that the great
majority of the Irish people belong to the Catholic faith. Had the
Irish been willing to cast aside, for temporal benefit, the faith
which they have unflinchingly maintained for over twelve centuries,
their country would have received every aid to advance prosperity,
which would, with their greater advantages of soil and climate,
have been far greater than that attained by Scotland."[16]
What has Mr. Emmet to say of the treatment of the Irish people by the
English _Romanists_ from Henry II. down to and including the reign of
Mary the First? He will scarcely find that the students of Irish history
will agree with his statement.
There is another tale, legend or fact, in which, of course, a woman
and her abduction from her husband, O'Roirke, Prince of Breffin, by
Dermot MacMurrogh, King of Leinster, with her own consent many think,
was the cause of the interposition of the English, and she is called
the Irish Helen. Dermot fled to England and laid his case before the
King, craving protection and swearing allegiance. Henry was too busily
engaged in France to attend, but he did issue an edict offering his
protection to all who might aid his trusted _subject_, Dermot, King of
Leinster.
This aroused Richard, Earl of Chepstow, called "Strongbow," who for his
assistance was to receive the hand of Dermot's daughter in marriage, and
a settlement of all of that Irish King's property upon them and their
children (a contract which was fulfilled), but Strongbow being tardy was
anticipated by Robert Fitzstephens, who agreed to assist Dermot, and was
to receive in payment the town of Wexford and adjoining lands, and he it
was whose boats landed on this little beach, where the water murmurs so
quietly to-night.
Dermot in his castle yonder at Ferns awaited the coming of these
invaders, and promptly sent his natural son Donald with five hundred
horse to join them, and so the game was played, and his throne restored
to him.
Then came Strongbow, then Henry II. with his armies, and the English
were here to stay.
Whatever the facts of the case are, it is certain that just here landed
the first of the English, and from here spread their rule,--whether for
good or ill is the great question of to-day in this island. There are no
relics of the event, though there appear to be some earthworks which are
thought of Celtic origin.
The leagues are not many which separate this cliff from Cardiganshire in
Wales, and a friendly intercourse was kept up until Pope and King came
together in solemn conclave.
One of that King's first acts was the bestowal of Dublin upon the "good
citizens of my town of Bristol." The capital of a kingdom bestowed upon
the _traders_ of Bristol! The original of this gift is in the Record
Office of Dublin castle.
Would it have been any satisfaction to those of the land which he had so
oppressed to have known of the ending of this "Great King"? Dying at
Chinon in a rage so terrible that even death could not smooth out the
traces from his face, Henry II.'s body was plundered like the
Conqueror's, and, like his, left stark naked. Shrouded at last in some
cast-off garments, it was placed in its coffin, a rust-broken sceptre
stuck in its hand, an old and meaningless ring of no value on its
finger, while the crown on its brow was composed of a piece of gold
fringe torn from a discarded robe of some court dame, who doubtless had
curtsied to the ground many times before the living monarch. In such
state, Henry II. was buried in the stately abbey of Fontevrault and
promptly forgotten, though the wrongs he did Ireland lived on and on.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] King's _Eccles. Hist. of Ireland_, vol. iv., p. 159.
[9] _Ib._, p. 158.
[10] _Eccles. Hist. of Ireland_, vol. i., p. 305.
[11] It is interesting to notice that the Bull was issued in
the year 1155, that is sixteen years before the invasion took place.
This was one of the earliest transactions in the popedom of Adrian and
the kingship of Henry, as it was only in December of the previous year,
1154, they were elevated to their respective thrones. In 1155 the
proposal to seize Ireland was considered at the Parliament of
Winchester. (King's _Eccles. Hist. of Ireland_, p. 492.)
[12] _History of Ireland_, p. 71.
[13] _Eccles. Hist. of Ireland_, vol. iv., p. 160.
[14] _Ib._, p. 161.
[15] Hodges, Figgis & Co., 1905.
[16] _Ireland under English Rule, or a Plea for the Plaintiff_,
by Thomas Addis Emmet, M.D., LL.D.