Title: The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 42, April 17, 1841
Author: Various
Language: English
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                        THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

       NUMBER 42.       SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 1841.       VOLUME I.

[Illustration: ANTRIM CASTLE, THE RESIDENCE OF THE EARL OF MASSARENE]

The fine old mansion of the noble family of Skeffington, of which
our prefixed wood-cut will give a very correct general idea, is well
deserving of notice, not only from its grandeur of size and the beauty
of its situation, but still more as presenting an almost unique example,
in Ireland, of the style of domestic architecture introduced into the
British islands from France, immediately after the Restoration.

This castle is generally supposed to have been erected in or about the
year 1662, by Sir John Clotworthy, Lord Massarene, who died in 1665, and
whose only daughter and heir, Mary, by her marriage with Sir John, the
fifth baronet of the Skeffington family, carried the Massarene estate and
title into the latter family. But though there can be no doubt, from the
architectural style of the building, that Antrim castle was re-edified
at this period, there is every reason to believe that it was founded
long before, and that it still preserves, to a great extent, the form
and walls of the original structure. The Castle of Antrim, or Massarene,
as it is now generally called, appears to have been originally erected
early in the reign of James I., by Sir Hugh Clotworthy, who, by the
establishment of King James I. had the charge of certain boats at
Massarene and Lough Sidney, or Lough Neagh, with an entertainment of five
shillings Irish by the day, and 18 men to serve in and about the said
boats, at ten-pence Irish by the day each. This grant was made to him by
patent for life, in 1609; and on a surrender of it to the king in 1618,
it was re-granted to him, and his son and heir John Clotworthy, with a
pension of six shillings and eight pence per day, and to the longer liver
of them for life, payable out of the revenue. For this payment Sir Hugh
Clotworthy and his son were to build and keep in repair such and so many
barks and boats as were then kept upon the lough, and under his command,
without any charge to the crown, to be at all times in readiness for
his Majesty’s use, as the necessity of his service should require. John
Clotworthy succeeded his father as captain of the barks and boats, by
commission dated the 28th January 1641, at 15s. a-day for himself; his
lieutenant, 4s.; the master, 4s.; master’s mate, 2s.; a master gunner,
1s. 6d.; two gunners, 12d.; and forty men at 8d. each.

On the breaking out of the rebellion shortly afterwards, the garrison at
Antrim was considerably increased, and the fortifications of the castle
and town were greatly strengthened by Sir John Clotworthy, who became
one of the most distinguished leaders of the parliamentary forces in the
unhappy conflict which followed. Still commanding the boats of Lough
Neagh, that magnificent little inland sea, as we may not very improperly
call it, became the scene of many a hard contest between the contending
parties, of one of which Sir R. Cox gives the following graphic account.
It took place in 1642.

“But the reader will not think it tedious to have a description of
a naval battel in Ireland, which happened in this manner: Sir John
Clotworthy’s regiment built a fort at Toom, and thereby got a convenience
to pass the Ban at pleasure, and to make incursions as often as he
pleased into the county of Londonderry. To revenge this, the Irish
garrison at Charlemont built some boats, with which they sailed down the
Black-water into Loughneagh and preyed and plundered all the borders
thereof. Hereupon, those at Antrim built a boat of twenty tun, and
furnished it with six brass guns; and they also got six or seven lesser
boats, and in them all they stowed three hundred men, under the command
of Lieutenant-Colonel Owen O’Conally (the discoverer of the rebellion,
who was a stout and active man) and Captain Langford. These sailed over
the lough, and landed at the mouth of the Black-water, where they cast
up two small forts, and returned. But the Irish found means to pass
by these forts, in dark nights, and not only continued their former
manner of plundering, but also raised a small fort at Clanbrazill, to
protect their fleet upon any emergency. Upon notice of this, Conally and
Langford manned out their navy again, and met the Irish near the shore
of Clanbrazill; whereupon a naval battel ensued: but the rebels being
fresh-water soldiers, were soon forced on shore; and the victors pursuing
their fortune, followed them to the fort, and forced them to surrender
it: and in this expedition sixty rebels were slain, and as many were
taken prisoners, which, together with the boats, were brought in triumph
to Antrim.”

But Sir John Clotworthy’s little fleet were not always so successful
against the Irish as on this occasion. In an Irish MS. journal of the
rebellion it is stated that on the 15th September 1645, a boat belonging
to the governor of Massarene was captured by Sir Felim O’Neil, in which
were two brass cannon, ten muskets, twelve barrels of salted fish, some
sailors, and a company of soldiers. They brought it to the mouth of the
river Black-water, at Charlemont. The journalist coolly adds, “Some of
the men were hanged, and some redeemed!” And again, according to the same
authority, in May 1646, Sir Felim had the good fortune to capture seven
boats, taking fourteen men prisoners, and killing above twenty more.
However, upon the whole, the governor of Massarene did good service to
the cause of the Protector, for which, in consideration of the surrender
of his pension of 6s. 8d. a-day, &c. an indenture was perfected on the
14th of August 1656 between the Protector and him, whereby a lease was
granted him for 99 years of Lough Neagh, with the fishing and soil
thereof, and the islands therein, and also the lough and river of Ban,
and as far as the Salmon-leap, containing six salmon-fishings, and
two mixed fishings of salmon and eels, &c.; and being instrumental in
forwarding the restoration of King Charles II. after Cromwell’s death,
he was raised to the peerage by patent, dated at Westminster, Nov. 21,
1660, by the title of Baron of Lough Neagh and Viscount Massarene,
entailing the honours, in case of failure of his issue male, on Sir John
Skeffington and his issue male, with whom they have since remained. A new
patent, constituting Sir John Skeffington captain of Lough Neagh, was
granted to him in 1680.

We shall conclude with a few words upon the castle itself, which is
beautifully situated at the extremity of the principal street of the town
of Antrim, on the banks of the Six-mile-water river, and immediately
contiguous to Lough Neagh. The entrance from the town is through a fine
gate-house, in the Tudor style of architecture, built of cut lime-stone,
and closed by two folding-doors of cast iron, which are opened from a
room overhead by means of machinery. The principal front of the castle
faces the gate-house, and is in the centre of a curtain wall, connecting
two large square towers placed at the angles of the building, and which
again have smaller circular towers at three of their angles. This front
is approached by a magnificent double stone staircase, and presents a
great variety of enrichments in the French style of the seventeenth
century, and is also decorated with shields having the armorial bearings
of the founder’s family, and with medallions containing the portraits
of Charles I. and II. The greatest length of the castle, however, runs
parallel with the river, from which it is separated only by a low parapet
wall, while the terraces of the gardens are situated on the other side.
These gardens are no less attractive than the castle itself, with which
they appear to be of equal age; they are laid out in the French style,
the flower-beds being formed into a variety of patterns, among which
that of the _fleur-de-lis_ is the most common and conspicuous. This
design is in its way extremely beautiful, and to carry it out fully, no
expense or trouble seems to have been spared. The borders are often of
triple and quadruple rows of box, between which is laid fine gravel of
different colours, which adds greatly to the effect. It is said that
a red kind of this gravel was imported from Holland, and cost upwards
of 1s. 2d. a quart. This garden is traversed from east to west by a
succession of fish-ponds, of which the most central one is circular, and
the rest oblong: and miniature cascades conduct the water from the most
elevated of these ponds to the lowest. The timber in this garden is of
great age and beauty, particularly the lime and oak; and it contains two
or three specimens of the rhododendron, which are celebrated for their
magnificence, being fully fifteen feet in height, and of corresponding
circumference.

The house contains some fine pictures and curious articles of antique
furniture.

                                                                       P.



ORIGIN AND MEANINGS OF IRISH FAMILY NAMES.

BY JOHN O’DONOVAN.

Second Article.


In returning to the subject of the origin of Irish family names, I feel
it necessary to adduce two or three additional instances of the erroneous
statements put forward by Mr Beauford, as they have had such an injurious
influence with subsequent Irish writers on this subject:--

3. “OSRAGH, derived from _Uys raigagh_, or the kingdom between the
waters, the present Ossory, called also Hy Paudruig, or the district of
the country between the rivers, &c., the hereditary chiefs of which were
denominated _Giolla Paudruig_, or the chief of the country between the
rivers, called also _Mac Giolla Padruic_,” &c.

This seems an exquisite specimen of etymological induction, and I have
often heard it praised as beautiful and ingenious; but it happens that
every assertion made in it is untrue! _Osragii_ is not the Irish name of
this territory, but the Latinized form of the name of the inhabitants.
Again, _Osragii_ is not compounded of _Uys_ and _raigagh_; and even if
it were, these two vocables are not Irish words, and could not mean
what is above asserted, the kingdom between the waters. Again, Ossory
was never called _Hy Pau-druic_, and even if it were, _Hy Pau-druic_
would not mean “district of the country between the rivers.” Next, the
hereditary chiefs were not denominated _Giolla Paudruic_, but _Mic
Giolla Paudruic_ (a name afterwards anglicized Fitzpatrick), from an
ancestor called _Giolla Paudruic_, who was chief of Ossory in the tenth
century, and who is mentioned in all the authentic Irish annals as
having been killed by Donovan, the son of Imar, king of the Danes of
Waterford, in the year 975. Moreover, _Giolla-Phadruic_, the name of
this chieftain, does not mean “chief of the country between the rivers,”
as Mr Beauford would have us believe, but _servant of Saint Patrick_,
which, as a man’s name, became very common in Ireland shortly after the
introduction of Christianity, for at this time the Irish were accustomed
to give their children names not only after the Irish apostle, but also
after other distinguished saints of the primitive Irish church; and the
names of these saints were not at this period adopted as the names of
the children, but the word _Giolla_, or _Maol_, servant, was generally
prefixed to the names of the saints to form those of the children:
thus, _Giolla Padruic_, the servant of St Patrick; _Giolla Ciarain_,
the servant of St Kieran; _Giolla Caoimhghin_, the servant of St Kevin;
_Giolla Coluim_, the servant of St Columb, &c.

4. “CONMAICNE MARA, or the chief tribe on the great sea, comprehending
the western parts of the county of Galway on the sea coast; it was
also called _Conmaicne ira_, or the chief tribe in the west, and _Iar
Connaught_, that is, west Connaught; likewise _Hy Iartagh_, or the
western country: the chiefs of which were denominated Hy Flaherty or
O’Flaherty, that is, the chief of the nobles of the western country, and
containing the present baronies of Morogh, Moycullen, and Ballinahinch.”

This is also full of bold assertions, unsupported by history or
etymology. _Conmaicne_ does not mean the chief tribe, but the race of
a chieftain called Conmac; _Conmaicne mara_, which is now anglicised
Connamara, was never called _Conmaicne ira_, and _Conmaicne mara_ and
_Iar Connaught_ are not now coextensive, nor were they considered to be
so at any period of Irish history. _Conmaicne mara_ was never called
Hy Iartagh, and O’Flaherty was not the ancient chief of _Conmaicne
mara_, for O’Flaherty was located in the plains of Moy Seola, lying
eastwards of Lough Corrib, until he was driven across that lake into
the wilds of Connamara by the De Burgos in the 13th century. Again, the
surname O’Flaherty does not mean “the chief of the nobles of the western
district,” but is derived from _Flaithbheartach_, who was chief of _Hy
Briuin Seola_, not of _Conmaicne mara_, in the tenth century; and this
chief was not the first who received the name, for it was the name of
hundreds of far more distinguished chieftains who flourished in other
parts of Ireland many centuries before him, and O’Flaherty became the
name of a far more powerful family located in the north of Ireland; which
shows that the name has no reference to north or west, but must look for
its origin to some other source. Now, to any one acquainted with the
manner in which compound words are formed in the Irish language, it will
be obvious that the name _Flaithbheartach_ is not derived from a locality
or territory, but that it is formed from _flaith_, a chief, and _beart_,
a deed or exploit, in the following manner: _flaith_, a lord or chief,
_flaithbheart_, a lordly deed or exploit; and by adding the adjective
and personal termination _ach_ (which has nearly the same power with
the Latin _ax_), we have _flaithbheartach_, meaning the lordly-deeded,
or a man of lordly or chieftain-like exploits. According to the same
mechanism, which is simple and regular, are formed several other compound
words in this language, as _oirbheart_, a noble deed; _oirbheartach_,
noble-deeded, &c.

Finally, Mr Beauford is wrong in the extent which he gives to _Conmaicne
mara_. He is wrong in giving _Morogh_ as the name of a modern barony,
for there is none such in existence; and we have the most indisputable
evidence to prove that the territory of _Conmaicne mara_, now called
Connamara, never since the dawn of authentic history comprised more than
one barony. It is to be regretted that these etymological phantasies of
Mr Beauford about the country of O’Flaherty are received as true history
by the O’Flahertys themselves, and repeated in modern topographical and
literary productions of great merit.

I shall give one specimen more of this writer’s erroneous mode of
explaining topographical names, and I shall then have done with him.

5. “CAIRBRE AOBHDHA, or the district on the water, from _cairbre_, a
district, and _aobhdha_, waters; the present barony of Kenry, in the
county of Limerick. This country was also denominated _Hy dun na bhan_,
or the hilly district on the river; the ancient chiefs whereof were
called Hy Dun Navan or O’Donovan, that is, the chiefs of the hilly
country on the river.”

Here every single assertion comprises a separate error. _Cairbre_ does
not mean a district, and _aobhdha_ does not mean waters. This territory
was not otherwise called Hy Dunnavan; and even if it were, that name
would not mean “the hilly district on the river.” Again, the territory
of _Cairbre Aobhdha_ is not the barony of Kenry, neither is it a hilly
district, but one of the most level plains in all Ireland; and lastly,
the name O’Donovan does not moan “chiefs of the hilly district on the
river,” for this family name was called after Donovan, the son of Cathal,
chief of the Hy Figeinte, a people whose country extended from the river
Shannon to the summit of Slieve Logher in the county of Kerry, and from
Bruree and the river Maigue westwards to the verge of the present county
of Kerry. He flourished in the tenth century, and was killed by the
famous Brian Boru in a pitched battle, fought in the year 977; and his
name was derived, not from his “hilly country on the river” Maigue, as
Mr Beauford would have us believe (though it must be acknowledged that
he resided at Bruree, which is a _dun-abhann_, or dun of the river), but
from the colour of his hair; for the name is written by Mac Firbis and
others _Dondubhan_, which signifies _brown-haired chief_.

I trust I have now clearly proved the fallacy of Mr Beauford’s mode of
investigating the origin and meaning of the names of Irish families
and territories. It is by processes similar to the five specimens
above given that he has attempted to demonstrate his theory, that the
names of Irish tribes and families were derived from the territories
and localities in which they dwelt, a theory never heard of before his
time; for up to the time of the writers of the _Collectanea de Rebus
Hibernicis_, all were agreed that the Irish tribes took their surnames
from certain distinguished ancestors, while the Saxons and Anglo-Normans
took theirs generally from their territories and places of residence. For
further information on this subject I refer the reader to Verstegan’s
work, entitled “Restitution of Decayed Intelligence” and Camden’s
“Remains.” The learned Roderic O’Flaherty, in his Ogygia Vindicated,
p. 170, speaks on this subject in terms which Mr Beauford could not
have mistaken. “The custom of our ancestors was not to take names and
creations from places and countries as it was with other nations, but to
give the name of the family to the seigniory by them occupied.”

To prove that I am not alone in the estimate that I have thus formed of
the speculations of Mr Beauford, I shall here cite the opinions of a
gentleman, the best acquainted of all modern writers with this subject,
the venerable Charles O’Conor, of Belanagare, who, in a letter to the
Chevalier Thomas O’Gorman, dated May 31, 1783, speaking of two tracts
which he had published, to refute some errors of Dr Ledwich and Mr
Beauford, says--

“Both were drawn from me to refute very injurious as well as very false
representations published in the 9th number of the same Collectanea by
Mr Ledwich, minister of Achaboe, and Mr Beauford, a schoolmaster in
Athy. Little moved by any thing I have written against these gentlemen,
the latter published his Topography of Ireland in the 11th number, the
most flagrant imposition that I believe ever appeared in our own or in
any age. This impelled me to resume the subject of our antiquities, and
add the topography of Ireland, as divided into districts and tribes in
the second century; a most curious record, preserved in the Lecan and
Glendalough collections, as well as in your Book of Ballymote. I have
shown that Beauford, a stranger to our old language, had but very slight
materials for our ancient topography, and distorted such as he had to a
degree which has no parallel, except perhaps in the dreams of a sick man
in a phrenzy.”[1]

Again, the same gentleman, writing to his friend J. C. Walker on the same
subject, expresses himself as follows:--

“Mr Beauford has given me satisfaction in his tract on our ancient
literature, published in the Collectanea, and yet, in his ancient
topography of Ireland, a book as large as his own might be written to
detect his mistakes.”

It is quite obvious from the whole testimony of authentic Irish history
that the names of tribes in Ireland were not derived from the territories
and localities in which they dwelt, but from distinguished ancestors; for
nine-tenths of the names of territories, and of the names of the tribes
inhabiting them, are identical. The tribe names were formed from those of
the progenitors, by prefixing the following words:--

    1. _Corc_, _Corca_, race, progeny, as _Corc-Modhruadh_, now
    Corcomroe in Clare, _Corca-Duibhne_, now Corcaguinny in Kerry.

    2. _Cineal_, race, descendants; _cineal Eoghain_, the race of
    Eoghan; _cineal Conaill_, the race of Conall. This word is
    translated _Genus_ throughout the Annals of Ulster.

    3. _Clann_, children, descendants; as _clann Colmain_, the tribe
    name of a great branch of the southern Hy-Niall.

    4. _Dal_, tribe, descendants, as _Dal-Riada_, _Dal-Araidhe_,
    _Dal-g-cais_, _Dal Mesincorb_, &c. This word has been explained
    by the venerable Bede, and from him by Cormac Mac Cullenan,
    archbishop of Cashel, as signifying _part_ or _portion_ in
    the Scottic language; but from the manner in which it is used
    in Irish genealogies, this would appear to be but a secondary
    and figurative meaning. O’Flaherty seems to doubt that this
    word could be properly translated _part_; but Charles O’Conor,
    who gave much consideration to the subject, writes in a note
    to Ogygia Vindicated, p. 175, “that _dal_ properly signifies
    posterity, _or descent by blood_; but in an enlarged and
    figurative sense it signifies a district, that is, the division
    or part allotted to such posterity: that of this double sense
    we have numberless instances, and that in this _second sense_
    Bede’s interpretation is doubtlessly admissible.”

    5. _Muintir_, family, people; as _Muintir Murchadha_, the tribe
    name which the O’Flahertys bore before the establishment of
    surnames.

    6. _Siol_, seed, progeny; as _Siol Aodha_, seed of Hugh, the
    tribe name of a branch of the Mac Namaras in Thomond; _Siol
    Maoluidhir_, the progeny of Maeleer, a great tribe in Leinster,
    who gave name to the territory of Shelmalier, in the county of
    Wexford.

    7. _Tealach_, family; as _Telach Eathach_, the family of Eochy,
    the tribe name of the Magaurans in Breffney.

    8. _Sliocht_, posterity; as _Sliocht Aodha Slaine_, the progeny
    of King Hugh Slany in Meath.

    9. _Ua_, grandson, descendant; nominative plural, _ui_; dative
    or ablative, _uibh_. This prefix in its upright uninflected
    form appears in the names of Irish tribes oftener than any of
    the other seven. Some ignorant Irish scribes have supposed
    that it signifies a region or country, and some of the modern
    transcribers of Keating’s History of Ireland have taken the
    liberty to corrupt it to _aoibh_, a form not to be found in any
    ancient or correct MS. In support of the meaning above given may
    be adduced the high authority of Adamnan, abbot of Iona in the
    7th century, who, in his life of his predecessor St Columbkille,
    invariably renders _ua_, _ui_, _uibh_, _nepos_, _nepotes_,
    _nepotibus_, in conformity with his habitual substitution of
    Latin equivalents for Irish tribe names, as often as he found it
    practicable. Thus, in the 16th chapter of the second book, he
    renders _Ua Briuin_, _nepos Briuni_; in the 5th chapter of the
    third book he translates _Ua Ainmirech_, _nepos Ainmirech_; in
    the 17th chapter of the same book he translates _Ua Liathain_,
    _nepos Liathain_; in the 49th chapter of the first book he
    renders _Ui Neill_, _nepotes Nelli_, i.e., the race of Niall; and
    in the 22d chapter of the same book he translates _Ui Tuirtre_,
    _nepotes Tuitre_.

We have also for the same interpretation the authority of the annalist
Tigernach, who, in his Annals of Ireland at the year 714, translates _Ui
Eachach_ (now Iveagh, in the county Down), _nepotes Eochaidh_.

On this subject it may not be uninteresting to the reader to hear the
opinion of the learned Roderic O’Flaherty. Treating of the Hy Cormaic, a
tribe located near Lough Foyle, in the present county of Londonderry, he
says--

“_Hy_ or _I_ (which calls for an explanation) is the plural number
from _Hua_ or _O_, a grandson, and is frequently prefixed to the names
of progenitors of families, as well to particularize the families as
the lands they possess, as _Dal_, _Siol_, _Clann_, _Kinel_, _Mac_,
_Muintir_, _Teallach_, or any such name, pursuant to the adoptive power
of custom.”--_Ogygia_, Part III. Chap. 76.

Besides the words above enumerated, after which the names of progenitors
are placed, there are others to be met with after which the names of
territories are placed, as _Aes_, people; _Fir_ or _Feara_, men; _Aicme_,
tribe; and _Pobul_, people; as _Aes Greine_, i.e., _the people of Grian_,
a tribe located in the present county of Limerick; _Aes tri Magh_, _the
people of the three plains_, in the same county; _Feara Muighe Feine_,
_the men of Moy Feine_, now Fermoy, in the county of Cork; _Fir Rois_,
_the men of Ross_, the name of a tribe in the present county of Monaghan;
_Feara Arda_, i.e., _the men of Ard_, a tribe in the present county of
Louth; _Pobul Droma_, in Tipperary.

Many other names were formed by a mode not unlike the Latin and Greek
method, that is, by adding certain terminations to the name or cognomen
of the ancestors of the tribes. These terminations are generally
_raighe_, _aighe_, _ne_, and _acht_, as _Caenraighe_, _Muscraighe_,
_Dartraighe_, _Calraighe_, _Ciarraighe_, _Tradraighe_, _Greagraighe_,
_Ernaidhe_, _Mairtine_, _Conmaicne_, _Olnegmacht_, _Connacht_,
_Cianacht_, _Eoghanacht_, &c. &c. This is the usual form of the tribe
names among the descendants of the Belgic families enumerated in the
Books of Lecan and Glendalough, as existing in Ireland in the first
century, and it is not improbable that the tribe names given on Ptolemy’s
Map of Ireland are partly fanciful translations, and partly modifications
of them.

It appears from the authentic Irish annals, and the whole tenor of Irish
history, that the Irish people were distinguished by tribe names _only_
up to the period of the monarch Brian Boru, who published an edict that
the descendants of the heads of tribes and families then in power should
take name from them, either from the fathers or grandfathers, and that
these names should become hereditary and remain fixed for ever. To this
period we must refer the origin of family names or surnames.

Previously to this reign the Irish people were divided into various
great tribes commanded by powerful chieftains, usually called kings, and
these great tribes were further sub-divided into several minor ones,
each commanded by a petty chieftain, but who was subject to the control
of the _Righ_, or head of the great tribe. Thus, in Thomond the name of
the great tribe was _Dal Cais_, from Cormac Cas, the progenitor of the
regal family, and of all the sub-tribes into which this great race was
divided. Immediately before the establishment of surnames, Brian Boru,
whose descendants took the name of O’Brien, was the leader and supposed
senior representative of this great race; but there were various other
tribes under him, known by various appellations, as the _Hy-Caisin_
otherwise _clann Cuileain_, who after the reign of Brian took the name of
Mac Namara; the _Kinel-Fearmaic_, who took the name of O’Dea; _Muintir
Iffernain_, who took the name of O’Quin; the _Kinel Donghaile_, who
took the name of O’Grady; the _Sliocht Dunchuain_, who took the name of
O’Kennedy; the _Hy-Ronghaile_, who took the name of O’Shanaghan; the
_Hy-Kearney_, who took the name of O’Ahern, &c.

The chiefs of these tribes had generally the names of their fathers
postfixed to their own, and sometimes, but not often, those of their
grandfathers; but previous to the reign of Brian in the tenth century,
these appellations changed in every generation.

The next article shall treat of surnames.

[1] Original in possession of Messrs Hodges and Smith, College Green,
Dublin.



BOYHOOD AND MANHOOD.


    Oh, for the merry, merry month of June,
      When I was a little lad!
    When the small birds’ throats were all in tune,
      And the very fields were glad.
    And the flowers that alas! were to fade too soon,
      In their holiday clothes were clad.

    Oh, I remember--remember well,
      The scent of the morning grass,
    Nor was there a sight, sweet sound, or sweet smell,
      That can e’er from my memory pass:
    For they lie on my heart with the power of a spell,
      Like the first love I felt for a lass.

    Ay, there is the river in which I swam,
      The field where I used to play--
    The fosse where I built the bridge and the dam,
      And the oak in whose shade I lay:
    But, oh, how changed a thing I am!
      And how unchanged are they!

    Time was--ah! that was the happy time!--
      When I longed a man to be;
    When a shaven chin was a thing sublime--
      And a fine thing to be free:
    And methought I had nought to do but climb
      To the height of felicity.

    But, alas! my beard is waxen grey
      Since I mingled among men;
    And I’m not much wiser, nor half so gay,
      Nor so good as I was then;--
    And I’d give much more than I care to say
      To be a boy again.

                                                 N.

       *       *       *       *       *

OLD AGE.--Remember, old man, that you are now in the waning, and the
date of your pilgrimage well nigh expired; and now that it behoveth you
to look towards your final accounting, your force languisheth, your
senses impair, your body droops, and on every side the ruinous cottage
of your faint and feeble flesh threateneth the fall; and having so many
harbingers of death to premonish you of your end, how can you but prepare
for so dreadful a stranger? The young man may die quickly, but the old
man cannot live long; the young man’s life by casualty may be abridged,
but the old man’s term by no physic can be long adjourned; and therefore,
if green years should sometimes think of the grave and the judgment, the
thoughts of old age should continually dwell on the same.--_Remains of
Sir Walter Raleigh._



EXTRAORDINARY DETECTION OF MURDER.


It is a speculation perhaps equally interesting to the philosophic as to
the untutored mind, and dwelt on with as much placidity by the one as by
the other, to reflect on the various and extraordinary modes by which
the hand of Providence has through all ages withdrawn the dark mantle of
concealment from the murderer’s form, and stamped condemnation on his
brow--sometimes before the marks of the bloody deed were yet dried, and
sometimes after long years of security had seemed to insure final escape,
whether the detection arose from some peculiar circumstance awaking
remorse so powerfully as to compel the murderer to self-accusation
through an ungovernable impulse; from the hauntings of guilty terror;
from over-anxiety to avoid suspicion; or from some utterly slight and
unforeseen casualty.

The popular belief has always been, that of all criminals the shedder of
blood _never_ escapes detection and punishment even in this life; and
though a very limited experience may show the fallacy of such belief as
regards the vengeance man can inflict, who may conceive that inflicted by
the tortured conscience?--that hell which even the unbeliever does not
mock, which permits neither hope nor rest, invests the summer sunshine
with a deeper blackness than that of midnight, peoples the air with
moving and threatening spectres, embodies the darkness into terrible
shapes, and haunts even slumber with visionary terrors more hideous than
the worst realities.

The records of crime in our own and other countries contain numerous
striking examples of the detection of murder by singular and sometimes
apparently trivial means. These have appeared in a variety of published
forms, and are of course generally known; but we shall select a few
unpublished instances which have come within our own cognizance, and seem
to us to possess peculiar and striking features of their own, in the hope
that they may be found to possess some interest for the readers of the
Irish Penny Journal.

The case we shall first select, not so much for the manner of the
murderer’s detection as for the singular plan he struck out to escape
suspicion, and the strange circumstances connected with the crime and its
punishment altogether, is that of a man named M’Gennis, for the murder of
his wife.

M’Gennis, when we saw him on his trial, was a peculiarly powerful-looking
man, standing upwards of six feet, strongly proportioned, and evidently
of great muscular strength. His countenance, however, was by no means
good, his face being colourless, his brow heavy, and the whole cast of
his features stern and forbidding. From his appearance altogether he
struck us at once as one eminently fitted and likely to have played a
conspicuous part in the faction fights so common during his youth at
our fairs and markets. But though we made several inquiries both then
and since, we could not learn that he had ever been prominent in such
scenes, or remarkable for a quarrelsome disposition. He was a small
farmer, residing at a village nearly in a line between the little town of
Claremorris, and the still smaller but more ancient one of Ballyhaunis,
near the borders of Mayo. With him lived his mother and wife, a very
comely young woman, it is said, to whom he had not been long married at
the time of the perpetration of the murder, and with whom he had never
had any previous altercation such as to attract the observation or
interference of the neighbours.

It was on a market evening of Claremorris, in the year 1830, that the
mother of M’Gennis, a withered hag, almost doubled with age, and who on
our first seeing her strongly reminded us of the witches that used, in
description at least, to frighten and fascinate our boyhood, hobbled with
great apparent terror into the cabin nearest her own, and alarmed the
occupants by stating that she had heard a noise in the potato room, and
that she feared her daughter-in-law was doing some harm to herself. Two
or three of them accordingly returned speedily with her, and, entering
the room, saw the lifeless body of the unfortunate young woman lying on
the potatoes in a state of complete nudity. There was no blood or mark of
violence on any part of the body, except the face and throat, round the
latter of which a slight handkerchief was suffocatingly tied, by which
she had evidently been strangled, as both face and neck were blackened
and swollen.

Who then had perpetrated the deed? was the question whispered by all the
neighbours as they came and went. M’Gennis, according to his mother’s
account, had not yet returned from the market; the hag herself would not
have had strength to accomplish the murder even if bloody-minded enough
to attempt it, and it was next to an impossibility that the young woman
herself could have committed self-destruction in _that_ manner.

While the callous hag was so skilfully supporting her part in the
murderous drama, the chief performer, who had not been seen to return
from the market, immediately after the commission of the horrid deed,
through whatever motive he had done it, crossed a neighboring river to
Bricken, where it intersects the high-road by means of stepping-stones,
as bridge it had none,[2] though it is occasionally in winter a furious
torrent. On the opposite side he chanced to meet a country tailor (we
forget his name), who was proceeding from one village to another, to
exercise his craft in making and mending; and the devil suggesting a plan
on the spur of the moment, which was to recoil with destruction on his
guilty head, he forced the tailor to take on his knees the most fearful
oaths that he would never divulge what should then be revealed to him,
and that he would act in strict conformity with the directions he should
receive, threatening, if he refused compliance, to beat out his brains
with a stone, and then fling him into the river.

The affrighted tailor having of course readily taken the required oaths,
M’Gennis confessed to him the murder of his wife, using at the same time
horrible imprecations, that if ever a word on the subject escaped the
tailor’s lips, he would, _dead or alive_, take the most deadly vengeance
on him. He then proceeded to cut and dinge his hat in several places, and
inflict various scratches on his hands and face, directing the tailor
to assert that he had found _him_ attacked by four men on the road, on
his return from Claremorris; after which, to give the more appearance
of probability to the tale, he obliged his involuntary accessory after
the fact (as the law has it) to bear him on his back to a cabin at some
distance, as if the murderer were too weak to proceed himself after the
violent assault committed on him. And here, if we could venture to raise
a smile in the course of so revolting a detail, we would observe, that it
must have been a ludicrous sight to see the tailor, who was but a meagre
specimen of humanity, trailing along the all but giant frame of the
murderer. The poor tailor’s own feelings were, however, at the time much
more akin to mortal terror than to mirth or humour, as he found at the
same time his mind burdened with an unwished-for, terrible, and dangerous
secret, and himself in company with the murderer, who might at any moment
change his mind, repent his confession, and take _his_ life too.

On reaching the cabin, the tailor told the story of the pretended
attack, as he had been directed, while M’Gennis himself, showing his
scratches, and detailing in a weak voice the assault on him by men he
did not know, affected such faintness as to fall from the chair on which
he had been placed. A farrier was then procured at his request; and to
such lengths did he proceed with the plan he had struck out, that he got
himself blooded, though the farrier shrewdly perceived at the same time
(according to his after evidence) that there seemed to be no weakness
whatever about him, except in his voice, and that his pulse was strong
and regular.

It may seem strange at first that M’Gennis should have divulged to the
tailor, an entire stranger, the secret of his guilt, then unknown to any
being on earth but his mother; an instant’s reflection will show us that
when once the thought occurred to make use of the tailor’s assistance
in the manner described to aid him in avoiding detection, he might just
as well confess the whole terrible secret, which, coming from _him_,
would strike additional terror--the only engine on which he could rely
for procuring the secrecy and assistance he required. Accordingly, so
strongly was the terror impressed, that on the following day the tailor
disappeared from that part of the country, and reappeared not, though
M’Gennis and his mother were at once committed on suspicion, till the
approach of the ensuing assizes, when he came forward, probably as much
induced by the large reward offered for the murderer’s conviction, as
for the purpose of disburdening himself of his fearful secret in aiding
justice.

There was much interest excited at those assizes, we recollect, by the
trial of M’Gennis and his mother, who were arraigned together, and of a
grey-haired man named Cuffe, for a murder committed twenty-four years
previously, of which more anon; and with respect to the former parties,
there was unmixed abhorrence expressed by the numerous auditors. It
was indeed a revolting sight, and one not readily to be forgotten, the
towering and powerfully proportioned son in the prime of life, and
apparently with the most hardened callousness, standing side by side
to be tried for the same heinous offence with his withered parent,
whose age-bowed head scarce reached his shoulder, while her rheumed and
still rat-like eye wandered with an eager and restless gaze round the
court, as if she was only alive to the novelty of the scene, and utterly
unconcerned for the fearful position she stood in. It was absolutely
heart-sickening to see how repeatedly the wretched hag pulled her guilty
son towards her during the trial, to whisper remarks and inquiries,
frequently altogether unconnected with the evidence, and the crime she
was accused of and believed to have instigated and aided in.

Even in the strongly guarded court, it was on the side of the dock
remotest from where M’Gennis stood that the tailor ventured forward to
give his evidence, though the murderer’s reckless hardihood of bearing
altered not for a moment, either in consequence of his appearance, or
during the course of his evidence; in fact, he seemed to be principally
occupied in answering his mother’s queries, and quieting her.

The testimony of the tailor, bearing strongly the impress of truth,
singular as it was, was strengthened by that of the brother of the
deceased, who seemed greatly affected while deposing that he had
met M’Gennis in Claremorris on the day of the murder, and that the
handkerchief afterwards found round his sister’s neck had been worn by
the murderer on that occasion. There was not an iota of evidence for the
prisoners, and accordingly a verdict against the son was instantly handed
in, though the vile hag was acquitted for want of substantiating evidence
against her, to the regret of a crowded court.

After condemnation, M’Gennis was placed in the same cell with Cuffe,
the other murderer, who had been also convicted; and nothing could be
more dissimilar than their demeanour while together. Cuffe was calm,
communicative, and apparently penitent, while M’Gennis was sullen and
silent; nor could all the exertions of the clergymen who attended him
induce him to acknowledge either guilt or repentance. On the morning
after conviction, an alarm was given in the cell by Cuffe, and on
entering, the turnkeys found that M’Gennis had anticipated the hangman’s
office, by rather strangling than hanging himself. He had effected the
suicide by means of a slight kerchief appended to the latch of the door,
which was scarcely three feet from the floor, and on a level with which
he had brought his neck, by shooting the lower portion of his body along
the cell-flags from the door; and perhaps not the least remarkable fact
connected with this extraordinary suicide is, that the handkerchief was
the very one with which he had effected the murder of his wife, and
which had been produced on the trial. It is very unusual for any article
produced in evidence to find its way to the dock, but in this case it
appears the handkerchief must by some strange casualty have come into the
hands of the murderer again; and having soaped it highly (he was allowed
soap even in the condemned cell), he consummated his fearful deeds with
it.

Shortly after the discovery of the suicide, we among others visited the
cell to see the body, when, in a conversation with the acute and highly
intelligent physician to the prison, he observed what iron nerves the
murderer must have possessed to effect such a suicide, as from his own
height, and the lowness of the latch, he must, in order to complete the
strangulation, have persevered for several minutes in keeping his neck
strained, during any one of which, up to the last few, he might have
readily recovered himself. The body was still stretched on the flags, and
exhibited the appearance of a very powerful frame; and when we considered
the desperate and utterly fearless mind that had actuated it, it struck
us, and others who spoke on the same subject, with more surprise than
ever, that M’Gennis should not have been implicated in outrage and
bloodshed long before. Such, however, it would appear, was not the case.

On being examined at the inquest, the other occupant of that fearful
cell denied all knowledge of his brother convict’s intention to commit
suicide, or of his having committed it, until morning, stating that
he had slept soundly, and heard no noise whatever during the night--a
circumstance which seems rather curious, as the cell was but of small
dimensions, and M’Gennis must have certainly made some noise, from the
manner in which he had perpetrated the horrid deed. On the other hand, it
is well known that persons, no matter how restless or uneasy they may
have been previously, almost invariably sleep soundly on the night before
execution. All doubts and uncertainty are then over: the mental struggle
has ceased.

Rumours, indeed, were afloat that Cuffe had witnessed the commission
of the suicide, and that M’Gennis had urged him to do the like also,
in order not to give their enemies and the crowd the gratification of
witnessing their execution. But how could this circumstance be known,
as Cuffe himself did not admit it? Another rumour was, that M’Gennis’s
mother, at parting with him, had instigated him to the terrible act; and
this we would be more inclined to give credit to, from what we have heard
of her character, as well as from our own observation of her demeanour
throughout the trial.

The crime of murder is always that most revolting and abhorrent to our
nature; but when committed on our bosom partner, whom we have sworn
to defend and cherish, and who in her helplessness looks up to us as
her only stay and protection on earth, it assumes an utterly fiendish
character. That it was felt to be so in M’Gennis’s case, unfortunately
prone as we sometimes are to have sympathy for crime, we were ourselves
a witness, as, on the verdict against him being proclaimed, there was
an audible buzz of applause through the court; and when the account of
his suicide afterwards became public, men expressed the most heart-felt
gratification that the world was rid of such a fiend. Yet, singular
it is that never since has it transpired, at least as far as we could
learn, what motive M’Gennis could have had for the murder of his wife,
to whom, as was before stated, he had not been long married. Reports
there were, to be sure, that the wife and mother had led an uncomfortable
and bickering life since coming together--unfortunately a very frequent
case, and one which often produces much misery and crime in humble
life; and that it was in consequence of the division of some milk at
their homely evening meal, that an altercation arose, which, through
the hag’s instigation, led to the destruction of the daughter-in-law,
and eventually to that of the son. But as these rumours only became
current after the murder, it is not easy to attach much credit to them,
especially if we place any reliance on the statement that M’Gennis had
returned home from Claremorris through fields and bye-paths to avoid
being seen, as if he had been contemplating the crime. At all events,
whether he had contemplated it, or whether it emanated from a sudden
burst of wrath fanned by his parent’s wicked suggestions, it seems
clearly not to have arisen from jealousy, hatred, or revenge--those
passions so generally productive of such crime; and there is no one
now living to explain the mystery, as the hag died without a word in
explanation of it.

The space we have limited ourselves to, prevents us from saying more in
this number of Cuffe, whose crime was of a much more national character,
and occupied a good deal the attention of the government of the period;
and whose detection, after a lapse of twenty-four years--in fact, after
his having declined gradually from the prime of manhood to hoary-headed
age--seems to go farther in supporting the popular prejudice that
the murderer can never escape detection. But we shall take an early
opportunity to detail to the reader his case, and the state of society
that led to it.

                                                                       A.

[2] There is a bridge now in progress of erection over it at this spot.



THE BALD BARRYS, OR THE BLESSED THORN OF KILDINAN.

    “----Make curl’d-pate ruffians
    Quite bald.”

                                 SHAKSPEARE.


The breeze of the declining March day blew keenly, as I strode across the
extensive fields towards the old burial-ground of Kildinan, in the county
of Cork. On reaching the ancient church, I rested on the broken bank that
enclosed the cemetery, to contemplate the scene before me, and pause upon
the generations of men that have been impelled along the stream of time
towards the voiceless ocean of eternity, since the day on which an altar
was first erected on this desolate spot, in worship of the Deity. The
most accurate observer would scarcely suppose that this enclosure had
ever been a place of interment, save that certain little hillocks of two
or three spans long, and defined by a rude stone, were scattered along
its surface. To a fanciful imagination these would seem to have been
the graves of some pigmy nation, concerning which tradition had lost
all remembrance. But the little sepulchres were the resting-places of
unfortunate babes that die in the birth, or but wake to a consciousness
of life--utter the brief cry of pain, and sleep in death for ever. These
unbaptized ones are never permitted to mingle with Christian clay, and
are always consigned to these disused cemeteries. With this exception,
the old churchyard had long ceased to receive a human tenant, and its
foundation could scarcely be traced beneath the rank grass. The father
of the present proprietor of the land had planted the whole space with
fir-trees, and these flourishing in the rich soil formed by decomposed
human bodies for many a foot beneath, have shot up to an unusual size,
and furnish a proof that even in death man is not wholly useless, and
that, when his labour is ended, his carcase may fertilize the sod
impoverished by his greedy toil. In these tall firs a colony of rooks had
established their airy city, and while these young settlers were building
new habitations, the old citizens of the grove were engaged in repairing
the damage their homes had received from the storms of winter; and the
shrill discordant voices of the sable multitude seemed to mock the repose
of them that occupied the low and silent mansions beneath.

While indulging these _grave_ reflections, I saw a man approach by the
path I lately trod. He was far advanced in the decline of life; his tall
figure, which he supported with a long staff, was wrapped in a blue-grey
coat that folded close under a hair cincture, and the woollen hat,
susceptible of every impression, was drawn over his face, as if to screen
it from the sharp blast that rushed athwart his way. He suddenly stopped,
then fixed his glance upon a certain spot of the burial ground where
stood a blasted and branchless whitethorn, that seemed to have partaken
of the ruin of the ancient fabric, over whose gross-grown foundation it
yet lingered. Then raising his eyes to heaven, he sank upon his knees,
while his lips moved as if in the utterance of some fervid ejaculation.
Surely, thought I, this old man’s elevated devotion, at such a place
and time, proceeds not solely from the ordinary motives that induce the
penitent to pray--some circumstance, some tradition connected with this
ancient place, has wrought his piety to this pitch of enthusiasm. Thus
did my fancy conjecture at the moment, nor was I mistaken.

As the old man rose from his attitude of supplication, I approached and
said, “My friend, I hope you will pardon this intrusion, for your sudden
and impassioned devotion has greatly awakened my curiosity.”

He immediately answered in the Irish tongue, “I was only begging mercy
and pardon for the souls who in the close darkness of the prison-house
cannot relieve themselves, and beseeching that heaven would cease to
visit upon the children the guilt of their fathers. This spot brought to
my memory an act of sacrilege which my forefathers perpetrated, and for
which their descendants yet suffer; and I did not conceive at the moment
that a living being beheld me but God.

“Perhaps,” he continued, “as you seem to be a stranger in these parts,
you have never heard of the Bald Barrys, and the blessed Whitethorn of
Kildinan. It is an old tradition, and you may be inclined to name it a
legend of superstition; but yonder is the whitethorn, blasted and decayed
from the contact of my ancestors’ unholy hands; and here stands the last
of their name, a homeless wanderer, with no other inheritance than this
mark of the curse and crime of his race.” So saying, he pulled off the
old woollen hat, and exhibited his head perfectly smooth and guiltless of
a single hair.

“That old heads should become bald, is no uncommon occurrence,” I
observed, “and I have seen younger heads as hairless as yours.”

“My head,” he returned, “from my birth to this moment, never knew a
single hair; my father and grandfather endured the same privation, while
my great-grandfather was deprived of his long and copious locks in one
tearful moment. I shall tell you the story as we go along, if your course
lies in the direction of this pathway.”

As we proceeded, he delivered the following legend. The old man’s
phraseology was copious and energetic, qualities which I have vainly
striven to infuse into the translation; for an abler pen would fail in
our colder English of doing justice to the very poetical language of the
narrator.

“Many a biting March has passed over the heads of men since Colonel
Barry lived at Lisnegar. He was of the true blood of the old Strongbow
chiefs, who became sovereign princes in the land; and forming alliances
with the ancient owners of the soil, renounced the Saxon connection and
name. This noble family gloried in the title of M’Adam;[3] and the
colonel did not shame his descent. He kept open house for all comers, and
every day an ox was killed and consumed at Lisnegar. All the gentlemen
of the province thronged thither, hunting and hawking, and feasting
and coshering; while the hall was crowded with harpers and pipers,
_caroughs_ and _buckaughs_, and _shanachies_ and story-tellers, who came
and went as they pleased, in constant succession. I myself,” said the
old man, sighing, “have seen a remnant of these good old times, but now
they are vanished for ever; the genius of hospitality has retired from
the chieftain’s hall to the hovel on the moor; and the wanderer turns
with a sigh from lofty groves and stately towers, to the shelter of the
peasant’s shed!

David Barry and his seven brothers lived with M’Adam, and were of his
own name and race; and whether he enjoyed the sport of the chase, or
took the diversion of shooting, or moved among the high and titled of
the land, they always accompanied him, and formed a sort of body-guard,
to share his sports or assert his quarrels. At that time, on the banks
of the Bride, near the ruined tower of Shanacloch, lived a man named
Edmund Barry. A thick and briary covert on his farm had been for many
years the haunt of a fox celebrated all over the south of Ireland for
the extraordinary speed and prowess he evinced in the many attempts made
to hunt him down. Many gallant and noble huntsmen sought the honour of
bearing home his brush, but in vain; and it was a remarkable fact, that
after tiring out both hounds and horses in the arduous pursuit, and
though his flight might extend over a considerable part of the province,
he invariably returned at night to his favourite covert. A treaty of
peace, it would seem, had been tacitly instituted between Edmund Barry
and the fox. Barry’s poultry for a series of years, whether they sought
the banks of the Bride or the neighbourhood of the barn door, never
suffered by the dangerous vicinity: Reynard would mix with Barry’s dogs
and spend an hour of social intercourse with them, as familiarly as if
he belonged to the same species; and Barry gave his wild crafty friend
the same protection and licence that he permitted his own domestic curs.
The fame of this strange union of interests was well known; and to this
day the memory of Barry’s _madra roc_ survives in the traditions of the
country.

One evening as M’Adam and his train returned from a long and unsuccessful
chase of Edmund Barry’s fox, their route lay by the ruins of the ancient
church of Kildinan; near this sacred spot a whitethorn tree had stood,
and its beauty and bloom were the theme of every tongue. The simple
devotee who poured his orisons to God beneath its holy shade believed
that the hands of guardian spirits pruned its luxuriance and developed
its form of beauty--that dews from heaven were sprinkled by angel hands
to produce its rich and beautiful blossoms, which, like those of the
thorn of Glastonbury, loaded the black winds of December with many
a token of holy fragrance, in welcome of the heavenly advent of HIM
who left his Father’s throne to restore to the sons of Adam the lost
inheritance of heaven. M’Adam was charmed with the beauty of the tree,
and little regarding the sanctity or the superstitious awe attached to
its character, was resolved to transfer it to Lisnegar, that his lawn
might possess that rare species of thorn which blooms in beauty when all
its sisters of the field are bare and barren.

Next day, when M’Adam signified his intention of removing the whitethorn
of Kildinan, his people stood aghast at his impiety, and one and all
declared they would suffer a thousand deaths rather than perpetrate so
audacious a sacrilege. Now, M’Adam was a man of high blood and haughty
bearing, and accustomed at all times to the most rigid enforcement of
his commands. When he found his men unhesitatingly refuse to obey him,
his anger sent the glow of resentment to flush his cheek; he spurned the
earth in a paroxysm of rage, exclaiming, ‘Varlets! of all that have eaten
the bread of M’Adam, and reposed under the shadow of his protection, are
there none free from the trammels of superstitious folly, to execute his
commands?’

‘Here are seven of your own name and race,’ cried David Barry, ‘men
sworn to stand and fall together, who obey no commands but yours, and
acknowledge no law but your will. The whitethorn of Kildinan shall leave
its sacred tenement, if strong hands and brave hearts can effect its
removal. If it be profanation to disturb the tree which generations have
reverenced, the curse for sacrilege rests not with us: and did M’Adam
command us to tear the blessed gold from the shrine of a saint, we would
not hesitate to obey--we were but executing the will of our legal chief.’

Such was the flattering unction which the retainers of M’Adam applied
to their souls, as they proceeded to desecrate the spot hallowed by the
reverence of ages, and around whose holy thorn superstition had drawn a
mystic circle, within whose limit human foot may not intrude. Men have
not yet forgotten this lesson of the feudal school; the sack of cities,
the shrieks of women, the slaughter of thousands, are yet perpetrated
without ruth or remorse in obedience to superior command, and the sublime
_Te Deum_ swells to consecrate the savage atrocity.

On that evening M’Adam saw the beautiful whitethorn planted in his lawn,
and many were the thanks and high the reward of the faithful few who
rose superior to the terrors of superstition in the execution of his
commands. But his surprise was great when David Barry broke in upon his
morning’s repose, to announce that the tree had disappeared during the
night, and was again planted where it had stood for ages before, in the
ancient cemetery of Kildinan. M’Adam, conjecturing that this object of
the people’s veneration had been secretly conveyed by them during the
night to its former abode, dispatched his retainers again to fetch it,
with strict injunctions to lie in watch around it till morning. The
brothers, obedient to the call of their chief, brought the whitethorn
back, and having supported its stem, and carefully covered its roots with
rich mould, after the most approved method of planting, prepared to watch
round it all night, under the bare canopy of heaven. The night was long
and dark, and their eyes sleepless; the night-breeze had sunk to repose,
and all nature seemed hushed in mysterious awe. A deep and undefinable
feeling of dread stole over the hearts of the midnight watchers; and
they who could have rejoiced in the din of battle, were appalled by this
fearful calm. Obedience to the commands of M’Adam could not steel their
bosoms against the goadings of remorse, and the ill-suppressed murmur
rose against their sacrilegious chief. As the night advanced, impelled by
some strange fear, they extended their circle round the mysterious tree.
At length David, the eldest and bravest of the brothers, fell asleep. His
short and fitful snatches of repose were disturbed by wild and indistinct
dreams; but as his slumbers settled, those vague images passed away, and
the following vision was presented to the sleeper’s imagination:--

He dreamt that as he was keeping watch where he lay, by the blessed thorn
of Kildinan, there stood before him a venerable man; his radiant features
and shining vesture lighted all the space around, and pierced awful and
far into the surrounding darkness. His hand held a crosier; his head was
crowned with a towering mitre; his white beard descended to the girdle
that encircled his rich pontificals; and he looked, in his embroidered
‘sandal shoon’ and gorgeous array, the mitred abbot of some ancient
monastery, which the holy rage of the Saxon reformation had levelled in
the dust. But the visage of the sainted man was fearfully severe in its
expression, and the sleeping mortal fell prostrate before the unearthly
eye that sent its piercing regards to search his inmost soul.

‘Wretch,’ said the shining apparition, in a voice of thunder, ‘raise thy
head and hear thy doom, and that of thy sacrilegious brothers.’

Barry did raise his head in obedience to the terrific mandate, though his
soul sank within him, before his dreadful voice and eye of terror.

‘Because you,’ continued the holy man, ‘have violated the sanctity of
the place consecrated to God, you and your race shall wander homeless
vagabonds, and your devoted heads, as a sign and a warning to future
times, shall abide the pelting of every storm, and the severity of every
changing season, unprotected by the defence which nature has bestowed
upon all men, till your name and race be faded from the land.’

At this wrathful denunciation the terrified man falls prostrate to
deprecate the fearful malediction, and awakes with a cry of terror which
alarms the listeners. As he proceeds to reveal the terrible vision which
his sleeping eyes beheld, the crash of thunder, the flash of lightning,
and the sweep of the whirlwind, envelope them. As the day dawns, they
are found senseless, at a considerable distance from the spot where
they had lain the preceding night to guard the fatal tree. The thorn
had likewise disappeared; and, strange to relate, the raven hair which
clustered in long ringlets, that any wearer of the ancient _coolin_
might well have envied, no longer adorns their manly heads. The fierce
whirlwind, that in mockery of human daring had tossed them, like the
stubble of the field, had realized the dream of the sleeper, and borne
off their long profuse hair in its vengeful sweep.”

Such was the narrative of the last representative of the “Bald
Barrys.” I bequeath it to the reader without note or comment. He of
course will regard it according to his particular bias--will wonder
how an imaginative people will attribute the downfall of families, or
the entailment of hereditary disease, to the effect of supernatural
intervention; or exclaim, as some very pious and moral men have done, that

    “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
    Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

                                                                    E. W.

[3] Dr Smith, in his History of the County of Cork, thus mentions
Colonel Barry:--“The town of Rathcormack also belongs to this gentleman,
who is descended from an ancient branch of the Barry family, commonly
called M’Adam, who have been seated here 500 years, and formerly sat
in parliament; particularly David de Barry of Rathcormack, who sat in
the upper house, in a parliament held 30th Edward I., 1302. South of
Rathcormack is a fair stone bridge over the _Bride_, upon which is this
inscription,--‘The foundation of this bridge was laid June 22, 1734;
Colonel Redmund Barry, Jonas Devonshire, and James Barry, gentlemen,
being overseers thereof.’”

       *       *       *       *       *

THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN.--How often have I seen a company of men, who
were disposed to be riotous, checked all at once into decency by the
accidental entrance of an amiable woman; while her good sense and
obliging deportment charmed them into at least a temporary conviction
that there is nothing so beautiful as female excellence, nothing so
delightful as female conversation. To form the manners of men, nothing
contributes so much as the cast of the women they converse with. Those
who are most associated with women of virtue and understanding will
always be found the most amiable characters. Such society, beyond
everything else, rubs off the protrusions that give to many an ungracious
roughness; it produces a polish more perfect and pleasing than that which
is received by a general commerce with the world. This last is often
specious, but commonly superficial; the other is the result of gentler
feelings, and a more elegant humanity: the heart itself is moulded, and
habits of undissembled courtesy are formed.--_Fordyce._

       *       *       *       *       *

OUR ATTACHMENT TO LIFE.--The young man, till thirty, never feels
practically that he is mortal. He knows it indeed, and if needs were,
he could preach a homily on the fragility of life; but he brings it not
home to himself any more than in a hot June we can appropriate to our
imagination the freezing days of December. But now--shall I confess a
truth? I feel these audits but too powerfully. I begin to count the
probabilities of my duration, and to grudge at the expenditure of moments
and shortest periods, like misers’ farthings. In proportion as the years
both lessen and shorten, I set more count upon their periods, and would
fain lay my ineffectual finger upon the spoke of the great wheel. I am
not content to pass away “like a weaver’s shuttle.” Those metaphors
solace me not, nor sweeten the unpalatable draught of mortality. I
care not to be carried with the tide that smoothly bears human life to
eternity, and reluct at the inevitable course of destiny. I am in love
with this green earth--the face of town and country--the unspeakable
rural solitudes--and the sweet security of streets. I would set up my
tabernacle here. I am content to stand still at the age to which I am
arrived--to be no younger, no richer, no handsomer. I do not want to be
weaned by age, or drop, like mellow fruit, as they say, into the grave!
Any alteration on this earth of mine, in diet or in lodging, puzzles
and discomposes me. My household gods plant a terribly fixed foot, and
are not rooted up without blood. They do not willingly seek Lavinian
shores. A new state of being staggers me. Sun and sky, and breeze and
solitary walks, and summer holidays, and the greenness of fields, and
the juices of meats and fishes, and society, and the cheerful glass, and
candle-light, and fire-side conversations, and jests and irony--do not
these things go out with life? Can a ghost laugh, or shake his gaunt
sides when you are pleasant with him?--_Life and Remains of Charles Lamb._

       *       *       *       *       *

A man cannot get his lesson by heart so quick as he can practise it: he
will repeat it in his actions.

       *       *       *       *       *

    Printed and published every Saturday by GUNN and CAMERON, at the
    Office of the General Advertiser, No. 6, Church Lane, College
    Green, Dublin.--Agents: R. GROOMBRIDGE, Panyer Alley, Paternoster
    Row, London; SIMMS and DINHAM, Exchange Street, Manchester; C.
    DAVIES, North John Street, Liverpool; SLOCOMBE & SIMMS, Leeds,
    JOHN MENZIES, Prince’s Street, Edinburgh; & DAVID ROBERTSON,
    Trongate, Glasgow.





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 42, April 17, 1841" ***

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