There are not many places in Ireland more interesting than this strange and weird glen. It can hardly be called beautiful. It is gloomy and grand; and there is something depressing about it even in the finest day in autumn when the sombre mountains by which it is surrounded on all sides but one are mantled in their most gorgeous crimson drapery of full-blooming heather. It is just such a spot as an anchorite like St Kevin would choose as a place for contemplation and prayer.
Glendaloch—it oughtnotto be spelledGlendalough—is very nearly in the centre of the romantic county of Wicklow. It is a good central point from which to make excursions to the many beautiful and interesting places in its vicinity, such as Glen Molur, the Glen of Imail, the Meeting of the Waters, and the Mountain of Lugnacuilla, the highest in Leinster. The interior of the County Wicklow may be said to be a vast wilderness of mountains, bogs, and glens. But its mountains have, with one exception, the defect of beinground-topped. They lack the boldness of the hills of Connemara and Donegal. The mountain that is the most bold and alpine in the county, and that forms an exception to the general contour of its hills, is the famous one called the “Sugar-loaf,” near Bray. The Dublin grocer, or whoever he was that gave this beautiful hill such an abominable name, should have his memory held in everlasting contempt. Its real name is a grand one, Sleeve Coolan,rectèSliabh Cualann. But in spite of the generally rounded outlines of the Wicklow Mountains, there are some splendid alpine views to be seen among them; and none finer than from the Glen of Lugalaw, about seven or eight miles from Bray.
GLENDALOCH.
But of all places in Wicklow, Glendaloch is the most famous. It ought to be so, for there is nothing like it in Ireland. There are many glens as wild and as gloomy as it, but they lack the historic interest and the legendary halo that make Glendaloch dear to the archæologist, the poet, and the dreamer. Its history goes back almost to the beginning of Christian times. For five hundred years it was one of the most important ecclesiastical and educational places in Ireland. Its name constantly occurs in Irish annals and history; and its history was for centuries as gloomy as itself, for the Danes plundered it and burned it so often that it seems strange that it was not abandoned many centuries sooner. It was so near their great stronghold, Dublin, that it was harried by them on and off for over two hundred years.
St Kevin’s name is indissolubly associated with Glendaloch, or the Seven Churches, as it is most frequently called, for it is supposed that there were seven churches in it at one time. St Kevin, according to the best authority who ever wroteon Irish history and archæology, the famous John O’Donovan, came of a distinguished family in the County Wicklow. His name, in correct orthography,Coemhgen, means “fair offspring.” He seems to have been predestined to be a Saint, for many miraculous things are told of his infancy and early youth. When he was a baby a white cow is said to have come miraculously to supply him with milk. The story about his having murdered Kathleen, the girl with eyes of “unholy blue,” by throwing her into that lake that the “Skylark never warbles o’er,” is a mere fable. It seems a pity that the story upon which Moore founded his very beautiful lyric, “By that Lake, whose gloomy Shore,” should have hardly any foundation in fact. That a certain girl fell in love with him and caused him a good deal of annoyance is quite true; but he did not kill her or throw her into the lake. He only administered a rather mild castigation, as shall be seen. O’Donovan says that the following extract, taken from theCodex Killkenniensis, which, there are good reasons to believe, has never yet been made public by translation, is the oldest and most trustworthy account of the transaction known to exist; and that the trouble between St Kevin and the girl did not take place in Glendaloch, but in another place in the CountyWicklow. O’Donovan’s translation of the story is the one now given:—
“While the most holy Caemhgen (Kevin) was as yet remaining in the house of his parents, the Lord performed many miracles through him.... The parents of Kevin observing so great a grace in him, committed him to the care of the holy seniors, Eoganus, Lochanus, and Enna, in order that he might in their cell be brought up for Christ; and St Kevin was sedulously reading with those saints. When he was grown up in the first flower of his youth, a young girl saw him out in a field along with the brethren, and fell passionately in love with him, for he was exceedingly handsome. And she began to make known her friendship for him in astute words. And she was always laying snares for him in every way she could, by looks, by language, and sometimes by messengers. But the holy youth rejected all these allurements. On a certain day she sought the opportunity of finding him alone, and on a day when the brethren were working in a wood, she passed by them, and seeing St Kevin working by himself in the wood, she approached him, and clasped him in her arms with fondest embrace. But the soldier of Christ arming himself with the sacred sign, and full of the Holy Ghost, made strong resistance against her,and rushed out of her arms in the wood; and finding nettles, took secretly a bunch of them, and struck her with them many times on the face, hands, and feet. And when she was blistered with the nettles, the pleasure of her love became extinct. And she being sorrowful of heart, asked on her bended knees pardon of St Kevin in the name of the Lord. And the Saint praying for her to Christ, she promised him that she would dedicate her virginity to the Lord. The brothers finding them discussing together, wondered very much; but the virgin related to them what had passed; and the brethren hearing such, were confirmed in their love for chastity. And that little girl afterwards became a prudent and holy virgin, and diligently observed the holy admonitions of St Kevin.”
The above translation has not, to the writer’s knowledge, ever been previously published. John O’Donovan, the greatest authority on such matters that ever lived, says in his unpublished letters, while on the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, that the above extract “is the oldest and only authority for the story about St Kevin and the lady, and shows clearly that the scene of it is erroneously placed at Glendaloch by oral tradition and modern writers. It will also be sufficient evidence that this Saint did not murder the lady Kathleen, butinflicted a somewhat mild punishment by flogging her with a bunch of nettles!”
So poor St Kevin’s memory is cleared. It is a pity that Moore did not see theCodex Killkenniensisbefore he wrote the beautiful lyric that casts such a cloud on Wicklow’s greatest saint. That the name of St Kevin was highly esteemed not only in Wicklow in ancient times, but all through Leinster, there is ample proof in ancient Gaelic literature. A poet named Broccan, writing in the tenth century in praise of his native province of Leinster and the great people it produced, said:
“I never heard in any province,Between earth and holy heaven,Of a nun like St BrigitOr a cleric like Kevin.”[6]
Glendaloch must have been founded in the latter part of the sixth century, for St Kevin died in 617, aged 120 years. There cannot be any doubt that it was he who founded Glendaloch. We are told that he sought the sombre valley for a retreat in which to contemplate and pray, and that before there were any buildings in it he lived for a long time in a hollow tree, and subsisted on wild fruit and water. The cave in the cliff overhanging thelake, known as St Kevin’s Bed, the entrance to which is not only difficult but dangerous, seems also to have given him shelter for a long time before there were any habitations in the glen. It is said that ifnouvelles mariéessucceed in getting into this dark and dismal cavern, they are sure to be blessed with large families. Why such a belief should be current is not easy to understand, because St Kevin, after whom the cavern is called, not only had no children, but was a decided woman-hater. If he did not drown Kathleen, he at least whipped her with nettles, a thing that no gallant man would think of doing to a girl who loved him. It will, however, be the general opinion of most of those who read this version of the story, that St Kevin “served her right.”
Glendaloch has been ruined and uprooted in a shocking manner. Of all its edifices there are only two that still stand—namely, the round tower and the building known as “Kevin’s Kitchen.” This latter is stone-roofed, and is considered to be one of the oldest buildings of the kind in Ireland. Archæologists are not agreed as to what particular use it was originally intended, but that it was an ecclesiastical edifice of some kind seems to be the opinion of everyone. There are, it is said, the remains of seven churches still to be seen inGlendaloch. It appears to have been a walled city, and Petrie, one of the most painstaking and learned archæologists that ever Ireland produced, claimed to have traced the tracks of the walls in many places. That it contained a large population in the eighth and ninth centuries seems to admit of little doubt. Oengus the Culdee, whose verse in which Glendaloch is mentioned has been given in the article on “Emania the Golden,” calls it “multitudinous Glendaloch,” and “the Rome of the western world.” Allowing for the exaggeration of which ancient Gaelic poets may have been rather too fond, it must be admitted that what they say cannot be entirely ignored; and it is more than probable that immediately before the Danes and other northern nations began their raids on Ireland, Glendaloch may have been, and probably was, a large monastic city, as cities were in those days. The Irish monasteries of the eighth and ninth centuries were probably the wealthiest in the world, if not in lands, at least in gold and silver. Where or how they got, or where or how the ancient Irish got, such quantities of the precious metals is a mystery that may never be solved; but that Ireland had an enormous amount of gold and silver in ancient times there can be no doubt at all. This would be sufficiently proved by the quantity,not of coined money, for they had not any, but of ornaments of almost every kind that have been found in all parts of the country, more, it is said, than have been found in the rest of Europe. There is hardly a barony in Ireland, it might be said hardly a parish, in which stories are not told of people having become suddenly rich by finding, it is naturally supposed, treasure trove in the shape of gold ornaments, very few of which have been preserved, for they were generally melted down. Sir Wm. Wilde mentions, in one of his catalogues of articles in the Royal Irish Academy, a find of £3000 worth of gold ornaments in the County Clare some fifty years ago. It seems a well-ascertained fact that two labourers found over £20,000 worth of gold ornaments when working on a railway in Munster some forty odd years ago. The founder of one of the largest jewellery houses in Ireland told a friend of the writer’s that his first “rise” in business was brought about by buying antique gold ornaments, at sometimes not half their value, from people who brought them to him from the country.
When the marauding Northmen first raided Ireland, they seem not to have had the most remote idea of either conquering the country or making permanent settlements in it. They may not havedespised Irish beef and mutton, but what they wanted above all was gold and silver. When Christianity was firmly established in Ireland, the monasteries became the great depositories of the wealth of the country, and the clergy may be said to have become its bankers. The monasteries, therefore, became, to a certain extent, what banks are now, and it was to the monasteries the Danes gave their first attention. It can hardly be proved from Irish history that the Danes ever tried to conquer Ireland but once, and that was at the battle of Clontarf. Even under Turgesius, when they succeeded in establishing themselves almost everywhere there was salt water or fresh water to float their ships, they played the part of raiders and not of conquerors, and never formed a permanent settlement out of sight of their galleys. In England and in France they acted quite differently. They conquered and kept all England and a considerable part of France. They went to England and France to establish themselves, but they went to Ireland to plunder. The question to be solved is, Why did the Danes act so differently in Ireland from the way they acted in England and in other countries? There seems to be no way to answer this question except by saying that there was so much more of theprecious metals in Ireland, that to get them, and not to conquer the country or form permanent settlements in it, was their prime object. If history was absolutely silent about the doings of the Northmen in Ireland, we would, from a surer guide than history, know that plunder and not settlement was what they had in view. That guide is place names. There are more Scandinavian place names to be found in some parishes in the north-east of England than there are in all Ireland. There are hardly a dozen Scandinavian place names in Ireland, and they areallon the sea coast butone. That one is Leixlip, and it is only a few miles from the sea, on a river which the galleys of the Northmen could easily ascend. The only time at which a serious attempt seems to have been made by the Northmen to become possessed of Ireland was shortly before the battle of Clontarf, and that attempt seems to have owed its origin to that horrible but beautiful woman, Gormfhlaith, sister to the king of Leinster, and whose last of many husbands was Brian Boramha. That attempt utterly failed, and no other was ever made. If the Northmen cannot be said to have seriously contemplated the conquest of Ireland prior to the time immediately before the battle of Clontarf, it does not seem to have beenfrom lack of men in the country, for Irish annals and history speak of their vast numbers in such a way as hardly leaves a doubt as to the awfulness of the scourge they were to the country at large. So great were their numbers at one time during the ninth century that we are told that it seemed as if the sea vomited them forth, and that there was hardly a harbour on the Irish coasts in which there was not a Danish or a Norwegian fleet. It has to be admitted that the Irish fought them with the most astonishing persistency and valour. In spite of the way the country was split into petty kingdoms, with chief kings, who were generally such only in name, the reception the Northmen got in Ireland was very different from that which they got in England. The Saxons often got rid of them by paying them to go away, but the Irish got rid of them only by the sword. Those who want to know what Ireland suffered from the raids of the Northmen should read the “Wars of the Gael and the Gaill.” The book is generally believed to have been written by M’Liag, who was living when the battle of Clontarf was fought, and who was chief poet, or secretary, to Brian Boramha.
Although the Northmen were allies of Leinster for a long time, they plundered Glendaloch inthe years 833, 886, and 982. It was so near Dublin and so near the sea that their alliance with Leinster did not prevent them from raiding it. It was one of the rich ecclesiastical establishments in Ireland, and one of those most exposed to the incursions of the Northmen. Its round tower was, therefore, in all probability, one of the first that was erected. It is now generally believed by those most competent to form an opinion that the round towers of Ireland were erected as places of security against the Northmen, and that they were sometimes used as belfries. Their Irish name,cloigtheach, means a bell house and nothing else; but it is quite clear that, although they sometimes served as belfries, the primary object of their erection was to secure a place of safety for the treasures of the church or monastery, close to which they were invariably erected. Of the hundred and eight round towers which are known to have been erected in Ireland, and of which remains exist, every one of them is known to have been erected close to where a church or monastery stood. More than half of them are in ruins; of some only a few feet of the walls remain; and of some others the foundations only remain. It may seem hard for some, in these days of far-reaching projectiles to imaginehow those slender towers, so chaste and beautiful in their construction, could serve as places of defence or security against the Danes. They could not have served as such if the Danes had come as conquerors to form permanent settlements, but as they were only raiders the towers were generally perfect defences against them. A dozen men shut into a round tower, the door of which was generally from ten to fourteen feet from the ground, could laugh at an army of Danes who had neither battering rams nor artillery of any kind. There was only one way by which a round tower could be taken or destroyed by men like the plundering hosts of the Vikings, who did not, and could not, take ponderous implements like battering rams with them on their raids, and that was by undermining it—digging its foundations so that it would fall. But this would have been a very tedious business, for the foundations of many of the round towers are six and even ten feet below the surface. A few dozen resolute men in a round tower might defy an army of Danes, provided the besieged had enough of food and drink in their stronghold. It must, however, be admitted that the Northmen did sometimes succeed in taking and plundering round towers, but by what means we do not know.
Those who maintain that the round towers are pre-Christian structures, and that there is nothing said in Irish annals about their erection, have very little warrant for such an assertion. If they read Lord Dunraven’s work on ancient Irish architecture, they will find copies of more than one allusion to their erection from the most authentic Irish annals known to exist. Here is one taken from theChronicon Scottorum, a work of the highest authority and authenticity, compiled about the year 1124. “The greatCloigtheach(or belfry) of Clonmacnois was finished by Gillachrist Ua Maeleoin and by Turloch O’Connor.” This entry refers to the year 1120.
While speaking of the uses of round towers, the wealth of Irish monasteries, and of Ireland in general in ancient times, it may not be out of place to say that that very wealth proved a curse to the country, for if Ireland had not been so rich in precious metals, the Northmen would probably never have invaded and raided it; or if they did invade it, they would have done so with a view to subjugating it and forming permanent settlements in it, as they did in England and France,—things that might have been, and that probably would have been, ofbenefit to the country. If Ireland had been conquered by the Northmen they would certainly have destroyed the provincial kingdoms, and have brought the whole island under the sway of one ruler; and whether that ruler was Irish or Norse, it would have been of immense benefit to the country at large. Ancient Irish polity was very good theoretically, but practically it was a frightful failure. The Scandinavian invasions only added to the political confusion of Ireland. They were of benefit to England and France, for they brought an infusion of fresh blood into those countries. But to Ireland they brought destruction and ruin, with only a slight infusion of fresh blood. They made the political confusion of the country more confounded. They robbed it of an immense quantity of its wealth, but worse than that, they destroyed a large part of its literature. The monasteries were not only the repositories of wealth but of books. It was impossible that monasteries could be plundered and burnt without damage being done to the books they contained. There is positive proof in Irish annals that the Northmen were in the habit ofdrowningthe books they found in the religious houses. Books were in those days, as is well known, made of vellum, or prepared leather, a material hard to burn;they were consequently cast into the nearest lake or river, from which very few of them were probably ever recovered. If it had not been for Scandinavian burnings and plunderings, mediæval Gaelic literature would, even now, be so immense that it would command the respect of the world at large. Those who say that the bulk of mediæval Gaelic writings has come down to us—and there are those that have the unspeakable hardihood to say so—must be classed as very prejudiced, or very ignorant of Irish history.
The last entry in the Four Masters relating to Glendaloch occurs under the year 1163. It appears to have been abandoned shortly after that date; but why it was abandoned as an ecclesiastical establishment when Danish raids and plunderings had ceased does not seem to be clearly known.
Glendaloch has been thus lengthenedly treated on because it is the most interesting ecclesiastical ruin in the province of Leinster, Clonmacnois only excepted. Its strange and gloomy, yet romantic situation, its antiquity, its sad history of burnings and plunderings, the utter ruin that has overtaken most of its monuments, the halo of legend and romance that is around it, give it a charmeven to the non-imaginative and the rude. For the archæologist, the poet, the romancer, or the dreamer, it has attractions and charms greater, perhaps, than they could find on any other spot of Irish soil.
Next to Emania and Ardmagh, Aileach is the most historic spot in the province of Ulster. It lies four miles west of the city of Derry, on a round, heath-clad hill, some eight hundred feet above the level of the sea. It is one of the most ancient cyclopean fortresses in Ireland, or, perhaps, in the world. There is no scenic beauty in the immediate vicinity of Aileach, but there is a view from the hill-top on which it is situated that for wildness and sublimity can hardly be equalled anywhere in the British Isles,—a view which will amply repay any one who sees it on a clear day. On the north the hills of Inishowen obstruct the view, but west and south-west it is sublime. The eye ranges over a wilderness of fantastic-shaped mountains, some shooting up sharp as arrows, others round and ridgy, separated by sinuous sea-lochs and glittering tarns,—a land of awful ruggedness and desolation,—of rock-bound shores cleft into myriad bays and fiords by the thundering almost ever restless northern sea that beats against them. If no hoary ruincrowned the hill on which the “Lordly Aileach” of Gaelic poets stands, the view from its summit would be worth a journey of a hundred miles to see, for most of the wildness and grandeur of “Dark Donegall” are spread before the eye. On the north-east and north-west the waters of Loch Foyle and Loch Swilly spread themselves almost beneath the feet of the gazer from Aileach. It stands on a hill that commands a view of both Loch Foyle and Loch Swilly; and the site of this ancient fortress was evidently chosen on account of the view it commands of those two sea-lochs, for no fleet could enter them for any distance without being seen by the watchers on the walls of Aileach.
The first thing that should be mentioned when speaking of Aileach is the noble work that has been lately accomplished regarding it. An article appeared about it some twenty years ago in theIrish Timesof Dublin, calling attention to its antiquity, the historic and legendary renown of that ancient place; and a Mr Barnard of Londonderry became interested in Aileach and determined to make an effort to have the demolished fortress restored as far as was possible. He made a pilgrimage among the farmers living in the locality, and got promises of help in the way of men towork for so many days at the restoration of the fortress. The farmers kept their word, gave him the help of the men they had promised, and in a comparatively short time the walls of the ruined fortress, under the surveillance of Mr Barnard, once again crowned the hill of Greenan, after having been in ruins for well-nigh eight hundred years. Mr Barnard, and the farmers that gave him assistance in the good work, deserve the thanks of every one who is a patriot, or has any reverence for the ancient monuments of his country, or any respect for the hallowed past.
The early history of Aileach is “lost in the twylight of fable.” It is a pre-historic building, almost as much so as a Pyramid of Egypt. It was used as a stronghold down to the beginning of the twelfth century; but when it was built, or by whom, cannot be said to be known from authentic history, for the many poems that exist about its origin in ancient Gaelic are legendary rather than historic. There may be, and there probably is, a great deal of truth in them, but they cannot be accepted as history.
Aileach is a circular, dry-stone fortress with walls nine feet thick. It was levelled down to the ground when Mr Barnard undertook its restoration. The history of its destruction is sostrange, so unique, and so Irish, that it must be given. Let the Four Masters tell it. They say, under the year 1101, that “A great army was led by O’Brian, King of Munster, with the men of Munster, Ossory, Meath and Connacht, across Assaroe into Innishowen.... He demolished Grianan Aileach in revenge of Kinncora, which had been razed and demolished by Muircheartach O’Lochlainn some time before. O’Brian commanded his army to carry with them from Aileach to Limerick a stone of the demolished building for every sack of provisions they had. In commemoration of which was said (by some unknown poet)—
“‘I never heard of the billeting of grit stones,Though I heard of the billeting of companies,Until the stones of Aileach were billetedOn the horses of the King of the West.’”
This is the only attempt at anything like humour in all the dreary annals of the Four Masters. Such quiet sarcasm would be a credit to Mark Twain. But if the poet had said “King of the South” instead of “King of the West,” although it might not have answered his Gaelic rhyme or assonance quite so well, it would have been more correct, for although Munster is west of Aileach, it is more south than west. It can never beknown how high the walls of Aileach had been before they were pulled down by O’Brien, because we don’t know how many cavalry he had, or how many stones he carried to Limerick. Never before was an army loaded with such impedimenta; but that the story of the stones of Aileach, or at least, stones similar to them, having been brought to Limerick or its immediate vicinity, there cannot be much doubt, for they were found there.
The fortress of Aileach is nearly a hundred feet in diameter in the inside. It is not known if it was ever roofed, but it is probable that it was. There were two lines of earthen ramparts round it, but they have nearly disappeared. John O’Donovan thought that the entire hill of Grianan, on which the fortress stands, was once enclosed by a vast rampart of earth, and that cultivation has destroyed all but the faintest traces of it. It seems probable that Aileach was intended more for a stronghold than for a permanent dwelling-place. It may have been inhabited only when a siege or an invasion was expected. One of its names, or rather the first part of one of its names, “Grianan,” would indicate that it was intended only as a summer residence, like the Dunsinane =Dún soinine, fine weather fortress, of Macbeth. Those who could live in winteron top of the wind-swept hill on which Aileach stands without getting coughs or colds would require constitutions of iron and lungs of brass.
O’Donovan says that if any reliance can be placed on Irish chronology, the antiquity of Aileach must be very great, no less than upwards of a thousand years before the Christian era. He says, also, that the poet, part of whose poem on Aileach is given below, in making the Tuata de Danaan King, Eochy, generally known in Irish history and legend as the Dagda, contemporaneous with the Assyrian King, Darcylus, exactly agrees with the chronology of O’Flaherty and Usher, who say that he reigned 1053 years before the Christian era.
There is a poem in the “Book of Lecan” on Aileach by the poet to whom O’Donovan alludes, that in language andtournurebears the marks of extreme antiquity. Even O’Donovan, great a Celtic scholar as he was, had apparently extreme difficulty in translating it. It has never been published. The first dozen or so lines are given here:—
“Aileach Fridreann, arena of mighty kings. Adunthrough which ran roads under heroes through five ramparts. Hill on which slept the Dagda. Red its flowers. Many its houses. Just its spoils. Few its stones. A lofty castle is Aileach. Fort of the great man. A shelteringdunover the lime[white] schools. A delightful spot is Aileach. Green its bushes. The sod where the Dagda found the mound wherein rested Hugh.”
But it is in more recent times that the history and records of Aileach become supremely interesting. It was from there that Muircheartach Mac Neill, styled the Hector of the west of Europe by old annalists, started on his celebrated “Circuit of Ireland” in the year 942. He was heir apparent to the chief kingship of Ireland, and wanted to show the provincial rulers that he was fit to rulethem. So he determined to start on his circuit in the depth of winter, when it appears the ancient Irish seldom went on forays, and either make or persuade the provincial rulers to acknowledge his right to the throne when the then reigning chief king, Donacha, died. The way he is said to have chosen men for the expedition is very curious and very Irish. He caused a tent to be erected, keeping the cause of its erection unknown, and made his men to go into it at night. A fierce dog attacked every one that entered; and opposite to where the dog was, an armed man also attacked those that entered; both man and dog simultaneously attacking the intruder. If he who entered the tent flinched neither from dog nor man, but showed fight to both, he was chosen; but whoever showed the least sign of cowardicewas rejected. Out of his whole army we are told that Muircheartach could only get a thousand men, and with that small army, protected by strong leather cloaks, he started on his Circuit of Ireland to force, intimidate, or coax the provincial kings to acknowledge that he was their master, and that he was to be their next suzerain.
Our principal source of information about the Circuit comes from a poem of undoubted authority and antiquity, written by one called Cormacan Eigeas, who accompanied Muircheartach on the expedition. It is one of the most remarkable poems of its age, not only in Gaelic, but in any language. It was translated more than forty years ago, and may be seen in the “Transactions” of the Royal Irish Academy; but it is not probable that even forty persons have ever read it, so little general interest has heretofore been taken in Gaelic literature or Irish history. For these reasons it cannot be uninteresting to give some extracts from it. It commences:
“O Muircheartach, son of the valiant Niall,Thou hast taken the hostages of Inis Fail,Thou hast brought them all into Aileach,Into the stone-built palace of steeds!“Thou didst go forth from us with a thousand heroesOf the race of Eoghan of red weapons,To make the great Circuit of Ireland,O Muircheartach of the yellow hair!“The day thou didst set out from us eastwardsInto the fair province of Connor,[7]Many were the tears down beauteous cheeksAmong the fair-haired women of Aileach.”
Muircheartach carried off the King of Ulster; and, as the old chroniclers tell us, keeping his left hand to the sea, he fared to Dublin, then the greatest stronghold the Danes had, not only in Ireland but in the west of Europe. He did not have to fight the Danes of Dublin, although he had often fought them before, for their king, probably thinking that “discretion was the better part of valour,” surrendered himself a prisoner. And here one of these inconsequential incidents is related, which no one but an ancient Irish poet would dream of mentioning. Muircheartach seems to have had no objection to make love to a Danish maiden, often as he had fought Danish men. Cormacan, the poet, tells us that they
“Were a night at fair Ath-cliath [Dublin];It was not a pleasure to the foreigners:There was a damsel in the strong fortressWhose soul the son of Niall was;She came forth until she was outside the walls,Although the night was constantly bad.”
Muircheartach then proceeded south-west from Dublin to Aillinn, and carried away the King ofLeinster. He then made for Cashel, where the King of Munster lived. But Callachan, that was his name, showed fight, and Muircheartach’s men threw off their leather cloaks and prepared to stand by him. However, seeing that things were beginning to look serious, the King of Munster yielded and was carried away prisoner with a golden fetter on him. The leader of the Circuit then turned northwards into Connacht, and carried away the king of that province. So he had the four provincial kings in his power, and also the Danish King of Dublin. But he did them neither hurt nor harm, for he seems to have been in a good humour all the time he was “on circuit”; and we are told by his poet laureate that on their halts the soldiers amused themselves in many ways, especially by music and dancing, and he says—
“Music we had on the plain and in our tents,Listening to its strains, we danced awhile;There, methinks, a heavy noise was madeBy the shaking of our hard cloaks.”
The next three verses are magnificent. They are full of dramatic power and naturalness. When the triumphant army, but triumphant without having shed a drop of blood, approach Aileach, a messenger is sent forward to announce its arrival:—
“From the green of Lochan-na-neachA page is despatched to AileachTo tell Duvdaire[8]of the black hairTo send women to cut rushes.“‘Rise up, O Duvdaire (said the page),There is a company coming to thy house;Attend every man of themAs a monarch should be attended.’“‘Tell me (she said) what company comes hitherTo the lordly Aileach Rigreann,Tell me, O fair page,That I may attend them?’“‘The Kings of Erin in fetters (he replies),With Muircheartach, son of the warlike Niall.’”
The kingly prisoners were all brought to Aileach, where they were feasted for five months; and the following list of their bill of fare will show that they lived well. Let the same poet tell it:—
“Ten score hogs—no small work,Ten score cows, two hundred oxen,Were slaughtered at festive AileachFor Muircheartach of the great fetters.“Three score vats of curds,Which banished the hungry look of the army,With a sufficiency of cheering mead,Were given by magnanimous Muircheartach.”
When the five kings were feasted—and it is to be hoped fattened—for five months, Muircheartach brought them to the chief king or emperor, Donacha, and gave them up to him. The following extraordinary dialogue, taken from the same poem, occurs between them. Muircheartach says:
“‘There are the noble kings for thee.’Said Muircheartach, the son of Niall;‘For thou, O Donacha, it is certain to me,Art the best man of the men of Erin.’“Donacha.“‘Thou art a better man thyself, O King,With thee no one can vie;It is thou who didst take captive the noble kings,O Muircheartach, son of the great Niall.’“Muircheartach.“‘Thou art better thyself, O Donacha the black haired,Than any man in our land;Whoever is in strong TaraIt is he that is monarch of Erin.’“Donacha.“‘Receive my blessing, nobly,O son of Niall Glundubh, bright, pure;May Tara be possessed by thee,O Prince of the bright Loch Foyle![9]“‘May thy race possess Moy Breagh,[10]May they possess the white-sided Tara,May the hostages of the Gael be in thy house,O good son, O Muircheartach!’”
It is sad to know that this extraordinary poem, with its uniqueness, its dramatic power, and its raciness of the soil and of the time, notwithstanding the fact that it was translated and published in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy over forty years ago, is to-day hardly any more known than it was when it lay unheeded and unknown in the archaic Gaelic of the tenth century. It might, for all the notice that has been taken of it, as well not have been translated at all. No other people on earth would have treated such an archaic literary gem with such coldness and contempt. It would seem as if the Irish people were losing not only their soul but their brains. If such a poem were written in Finnish or in Ojibaway it could not have been more ignored than it has been by a people who call themselves intellectual.
In this poem the same anachronism may be noticed that led Petrie so much astray aboutthe Lia Fail having been in Tara in the tenth century. Muircheartach addresses Donacha as if he were living in Tara, although Tara had been abandoned four hundred years before, and was as waste and as desolate in the time of Donacha as it is to-day; the chief kings of his epoch and for centuries before it, lived usually in Westmeath or in Donegal.
That Muircheartach Mac Neill, though a sort of Rory O’More of the tenth century, was a great man can hardly be doubted. He seems to have contemplated the entire overthrow of the pentarchy and the union of all the provinces under one sole king, namely, himself. He could hardly have been ignorant of what had occurred in England in the century previous—how Alfred had broken up the Saxon heptarchy and made himself practically sole king in England. If Muircheartach had succeeded in destroying the wretched system of provincial nationality, and had made the country a political unit, the subsequent history of Ireland would probably be very different from what it has been. But Muircheartach was killed by his old enemies the Danes, the year after he made his famous circuit. They also killed his father, Niall Glundubh, at the battle of Killmoshogue, near Dublin, in the year 917. Here is what the Four Masterssay about him under the year 941[11]: “Muircheartach of the Leather Cloaks, Lord of Aileach, the Hector of the west of Europe in his time, was slain at Ardee (in Louth) by Blacaire, the son of Godfrey, Lord of the Foreigners, on the 26th of March. In lamentation of him it was said—
“‘Vengeance and destructionHave descended on the race of Conn for ever;As Muircheartach does not live, alas!The country of the Gael will always be an orphan.’”
The situation of three of the most historic and remarkable ecclesiastical establishments in Ireland, namely, Clonmacnois, Glendaloch, and Cashel, is very peculiar. The first is on a barren sandhill surrounded by the most strange and unique scenery in Ireland, consisting of almost illimitable meadows interspersed with bogs. The second is in one of the gloomiest and weirdest glens in the island; but Cashel is on a towering rock amid some of the richest land, not only in Ireland but in the world, and overlooking as goodly a country as human eye perhaps ever gazed on. Ancient Irish monks and churchmen must have been peculiarly gifted with an appreciation of the strange, unique, and beautiful in nature, or they would not have fixed their retreats in such peculiar places. If ancient Irish kings loved to place their strongholds on hills such as Tara, Aileach, Knock Aillinn, and Uisneach, ancient Irish ecclesiastics seemed not to have cared whether their churches were on hills or in hollows, provided they were somewhere that was strange, weird, or beautiful.
The situation of Cashel is not only beautiful but superb. There is no other place of its kind in Ireland situated like it. Its situation is as peculiar as that of Glendaloch or Clonmacnois. It is, perhaps, the most imposing pile of ecclesiastical ruins in Europe. Mont St Michael in France can hardly compare with Cashel in commanding beauty of situation. One overlooks the chilly sea, but the other overlooks as warm, as fair, and as fertile a country as there is in the world.
BUILDINGS ON THE ROCK OF CASHEL.
Cashel has inspired many poets; but,unfortunately, none of the great English masters of song has made it a theme; and it is strange that our own Moore, who has celebrated Glendaloch, the Vale of Avoca, and other famous places, never composed a lyric on Cashel. No other place in Ireland could have given him a grander theme to write poems of the kind in which he delighted, and in the composition of which he was such an acknowledged master. It is indeed strange that so few of those who may be called our minor poets have written about Cashel, and so seldom taken it as their theme. There exists, however, a short poem on Cashel of the class usually known as sonnets, and it is probable that neither Moore, nor any of the other great masters of song, could have written anything superior to it. It is by the late Sir Aubry de Vere. It first appeared in theDublin Penny Journalsome sixty years ago; but it has so long been partially forgotten that it can hardly be out of place to reproduce it here:
“Royal and saintly Cashel! I could gazeUpon the wreck of thy departed powers,Not in the dewy light of matin hours,Nor the meridian pomp of summer’s blaze;But at the close of dim autumnal daysWhen the sun’s parting glance thro’ slanting showersSheds o’er thy rock-throned pediments and towersSuch awful gleams as brighten on Decay’sProphetic cheek;—at such a time methinksThere breathes from thy lone courts and voiceless aislesA melancholy moral, such as sinksOn the worn traveller’s heart amid the pilesOf vast Persepolis on her mountain stand,Or Thebes half buried in the desert’s sand.”
It is strange that Cashel has not inspired more poets; but it is stranger still that the once soulful people of Ireland would have allowed it to be defaced by any modern building erected on the rock on which stands its hallowed and ruined piles. Some gentleman named Scully has erected a brand new round tower almost in the very centre of the hoary monuments that are so sanctified by antiquity. The new tower is not shown on the annexed plate, because of the horrible picture it would make. It is strange that those living near Cashel did not prevent, if they could have done so, the marring of one of the most striking, beautiful and soul-inspiring ruins not only in Ireland but in Europe. It may be that Mr Scully thought that by erecting a new monument of antique type there would not be any incongruity manifested by it, and that by having his name written on it in the Irish language and in Irish characters he would atone for the error he committed. If he thought so, he made a great mistake, foranythingnew, whether a round tower, a cross, or a brick-builtgrocery, would destroy all the antique charm of such noble ruins as those on the rock of Cashel. It may be willingly granted that it is a pity there are any ruins at all in the world, and that buildings cannot last new for ever. It should be remembered, however, that nothing can last always; and that when buildings become ruined by time, and, above all, when they have become historic like those on the rock of Cashel, and when they serve to show either the piety or the civilisation of those who have passed away, it becomes absolute barbarism to mar them and mock them by erectinganythingnew in their immediate vicinity. A modern church on the Hill of Tara is bad enough, but a new building on the Rock of Cashel is little else than a profanation.
Cashel was a seat of the kings of Munster from a time so far back in the dim past, that one almost shudders to think how long ago it is. Long before a Christian edifice crowned the Rock of Cashel, the barbaric dry stone fortress of some Munster pagan king certainly covered it; for very little work would have to be bestowed on it to render it an almost impregnable fortress in ancient times. Some have derived the word Cashel fromcios, rent, andail, a rock, making it to mean “rent rock”; for it is certain that when the kings ofMunster lived in Cashel, it was the place where they received most of their tributes or rents; but the best modern Gaelic scholars, including Dr P. W. Joyce, author of that most useful and learned book, “Irish Names of Places,” maintain that the wordCaisealmeans simply a circular building of dry stones, for the name occurs in scores of places throughout Ireland; and such a building was no doubt on this rock in pre-Christian times.
Cashel became a seat of Christian cult at a very early period, and there are good reasons to think that St Patrick founded a church there. The Rock of Cashel has for very many centuries been known asCarraig Phadraig, or Patrick’s Rock. The first Christian Irishman whose writings have come down to us was Dubhthach, or, as the name would probably now be Anglicised, Duffy, Mac U Lugair. In his poem in praise of the prowess of Leinstermen, he says, that they “unyoked their horses on the ramparts of clerical Cashel.” As this Duffy was a disciple of St Patrick’s, and one of the first converts made by him in Ireland, we are forced to think that one of the first Christian churches ever erected in Ireland was the one erected in Cashel, as it appears to have been in existence when Duffy wrote his poem, which couldhardly have been later than the middle of the sixth century. But no vestige of the church of St Patrick’s time remains. It was probably a wooden building, and may have disappeared as far back as thirteen centuries ago. The oldest building on the Rock of Cashel is the round tower, not Mr Scully’s incongruous edifice, but the original one, built probably in the ninth century. It is ninety feet high, and in a fairly good state of preservation. The cathedral is thought to have been built in 1169 by O’Brien, King of Munster, but there does not appear to be much of the building he erected to be seen now, for the ruined cathedral which exists cannot, from the style of its architecture, be older than the fourteenth century. We know from authentic history that one of the Fitzgeralds burned the cathedral in 1495, because he wanted to burn Archbishop Creagh, who, he thought, was in it; but it does not seem to be fully known whether the building was entirely or only partially destroyed by Fitzgerald. Divine service is said to have been celebrated in it so late as 1752, but it must have been in a semi-ruined condition even then.