The Old Irish World

When Morrison left Downpatrick there came Captain Edward Cromwell – descendant of Thomas Cromwell, minister of ill-fame to Ireland under Henry viii. – to be Governor of Lecale (1605): “this son of earth and foul spot on the human race,” by whose army the cathedral of Down was burned, and in that conflagration sacred monuments and very ancient writings; and many other churches too, very few of which have been since then restored. The very tombstones were used in building houses and fences; while the people watching lamented the devastation of what had been to them and their fathers “the place of their resurrection,” so that they might go in the fellowship of their saints “to the great assembly of Doom.” To Edward Cromwell the people gave the name “Maol-na-teampull” for his impiety, and numbers of men born in that terrible year of ruin reckoned their age over sixty years after from the days of his sacrilege, as if from a national visitation. In those days perhaps the Irish inhabitants were driven off the fertile land to the very rim of the sea, to set their cabins, as may still be seen, on the last refuge of the shingle itself round the Dundrum bay, or to cluster together on some bare crag.

After the wars of Mountjoy and of Cromwell and the plantations of their officers the fortunes of Lecale, as of all Ireland, declined. With the final ruin of the O’Neills the clouded title of the Fitzgeralds revived, in a dim shadow of their old pride. A branch of the family built, in the eighteenth century, a sober mansion over the “New Works” that had been raised when Ireland claimed her right to trade, and around the towers that marked ancient centuries of battle. Even there the old Fitzgerald fires of patriotism and indignation at inhuman wrong broke out anew. The character of Lord Edward Fitzgerald is as little comprehended as the spirit of his country. A Protestant brought up in the days of penal laws and Protestant ascendancy; a member of the great house of the Duke of Leinster in Ireland and the Duke of Richmond in England; trained in an army fighting for “the Empire” against American “rebels”; his life till twenty-seven was chiefly spent in France, America, and England, amid military and aristocratic society – conditions that have made many a man cosmopolitan, denationalised, and indifferent. The liberal traditions of his father, the first Duke of Leinster, had practically died with him when the boy was only ten. Ardently devoted to his family, there was not one of them, or one of his early friends, to whom he could speak of his national beliefs. And out of all this came the lover of the poor and the oppressed, the friend of all men, the intrepid martyr to the freedom of Catholic Ireland, dying alone in prison with a prayer for the salvation of all who died at the hangman’s hands for the sake of Ireland. No wonder that the people of Ardglass still show the tower chamber in the old castle which was searched for Lord Edward, the room in the great house where he was said to have hidden, the rude bridge that gave him shelter from the yeomanry, and the desolate site of Bone castle where he slept for one night, in an ancient possession of his family.

In the course of the gloomy years that followed the old house fell into decay. Last June (1911) the whole derelict property, long deserted by its landlords, both land and village, was sold for the benefit of English mortgagees and bought by local people. Nothing more “loyal” could be imagined than the apparent community of Ardglass – nothing more to the heart of the party in Down and Antrim of superiority and supremacy which claims sole right to a place in the sun. The Imperial flag flew from a high-lifted residence, on the site of two of the old forts. The FitzGerald house and demesne were bought by a golf club, reputed to be faithful above all to English interests. The old castle was bid for by a spirit-dealer of the right persuasion, as a suitable storage place for whiskey. Not a breath as to the destiny of Ardglass and its fishermen disturbed the peace of Orangemen and stalwart Protestants of the ascendancy.

It occurred, however, to a good Irishman and antiquary, a Protestant from Belfast, that there might be a nobler use for the Castle of Ardglass. He bought the castle. He replaced the vanished floors and ceilings with beams and boards of Irish timber. A few broken pieces of masonry were repaired. The inside walls were left in their rough state, merely dashed with white. At the door was laid the anvil of an Irish smith to be held between the knees, a stone with the centre cut out and fitted with iron. The great fire-places were filled with logs from a local plantation. Over the flaming fires huge pots steamed, hanging from iron crooks. Old Ulster ironwork for kitchen use hung round the hearth. A dresser, such as Captain Bodley might have seen, was stocked with pewter plates and old crockery, brought, like the ironwork, by willing givers who possessed any relic of Ireland of former days. Tables of Irish oak, and Irish carved benches of the old fashion, and Irish cupboards and settles furnished the rooms. They were lighted by Irish-made candles in the iron taper-holders of over a hundred years ago, by a very remarkable bronze chandelier of the eighteenth century, and by a still more striking floreated cross and circle of lights, made in the penal days by some local metal-worker with the ancient Irish tradition of ornament still with him. In the chief room a few old prints and portraits hung on the walls, amid new banners representing O’Neill, O’Donnell, and the black Raven of the Danes; most prominent of all, Shane O’Neill himself, standing proud in his full height in regal saffron kilt and flowing mantle, a fine design by a young Irish artist of Belfast. A tiny round-apsed oratory opened off this chief room. It was hung with golden Irish linen; between the lights on the altar stood a small crucifix of the penal times, and interlaced Irish patterns hung on the walls. The columbary in one of the towers, perhaps unique in early castles, with its seventy-five triangular recesses or resting-places for the pigeons built in the walls, and entries to north and south – one a square opening with sill inside and alighting slab outside, the other a space cut below the narrow window exactly the size through which a bird might pass – was again stocked with pigeons given by a local admirer, and the tower named after St. Columba. From a pole flew the flag of O’Neill, the Red Right Hand, in memory of old days. In three months the deserted ruin was transformed into a dwellinghouse, where Mr. Bigger and his helpers could sleep and cook and live. The workmen in a fury of enthusiasm worked as if a master’s eye was on them at every minute.

The design of the new owner was to bring the people of Ardglass and the Lecale of Down into touch with the Irish past, and give them some conception of the historic background of their life. For it must be remembered that through all conquests and plantations the people of the soil of Lecale have still remained of the old stock, an Irish people who have a natural country to love. For them there need be none of the perplexities which must confront those who in their successive generations of life in Ireland still consent to be designated by The Times as “the British Colony on the other side of St. George’s Channel.” I was present on the Saturday night when the ruin was opened to the people. There was no moon, and a gale was blowing down the Irish Sea – a wind from the north. A little platform was set against the sheltered west wall of the castle. A beacon flamed on one of the towers, and the ceremony began with a display of limelight pictures on the wall. I was in the middle of an audience packed as tight as men could stand in the castle yard and across the wide street. There had been no public announcements and no advertisement. But word had passed round the people of Lecale, and it seemed as if thousands had gathered under the resplendent stars. “I do not mean to show you,” said Mr. Bigger, “China or Japan; I mean to show you Ardglass.” The audience went wild with delight to see their fishermen and women, their local celebrities, the boats laden with fish, the piles on the pier, the Donegal girls packing them, the barrels rolled out to the tramp steamers. But the delight reached its utmost height at views of the sea taken from a boat out fishing, the dawn of day, the early flight of birds, the swell of the great waters. The appeal of beauty brought a rich answer from the Irish crowd.

Then there was Irish dancing and singing on the little platform, with the grey wall of the castle as a background and the waving ivy branches and tree shadows in the limelight, a scene of marvellous light and shade. But the great moment of all came when a huge Irish flag was flung out on the night wind from the Columba tower. I have never seen so magic a sight. Lights blazed from the castle-roof, rockets flamed across the sky, and in the midst suddenly appeared like a vision among the host of stars (for no flag-staff could be seen against the night-sky) a gleaming golden harp hanging secure in immensity, crossed and re-crossed by balls and flames of fire, so that it seemed to escape only by a miracle.

How did Ardglass and Lecale take this revival of its older fame? That sight was not less striking than the vision on the tower. Every cottage in the village had candles set in its windows. The fisher-boats in the harbour were alight; they flew flags too, and Irish flags, as many as could get them. For hours crowds climbed and descended the narrow winding staircase in the castle turret, lighted by candles fixed in old Ulster iron holders. They thronged the rooms, themselves the guardians of all the treasures lying on the benches and shelves and suspended on the walls. When they drew aside the light curtain before the oratory and entered in, they prostrated themselves, kneeling in prayer, and came out with tears in their eyes. Young men looked at Shane O’Neill, and looked again, and took off their hats. As in other Irish gatherings where I have been, sobriety and good manners distinguished the crowd, very visible and audible to me from my little hotel fronting the castle where the visitors flocked for refreshment, under my window opening on the one street of the village. Strangers dispersed about eleven o’clock, but men of the village sat round the fire of the old guard-room for hours after, singing songs of Ireland endlessly. There was no host, and no master of the ceremonies. The castle was left absolutely to the people. Anyone who would came in. They sang, and sang, the sorrowful decadent songs of modern Ireland – songs of famine, emigration, lamentation, and woe. But still they sang of Ireland.

The next day was Sunday. The parish priest, many years among his people, shared in the joy of the festival, in the new interest come to break the long monotony of their life, and in the widening and lifting of their emotion. He preached twice on the restoration to them of their castle, and on their duty to hold it sacred, and to act with courtesy and good breeding when they entered it. He gave the children freedom from Sunday School that they might see the Irish flag flown from the tower at noon; and boys and girls poured laughing down the street. All that day, from morning till night, without a pause, lines of village and country folk filed up and down the turret stairs, holding to the rope, kept taut by its old stone weight, that served as balustrade. Protestants were intermingled with Catholics, as one could see by the badges of their societies, in a common enthusiasm for the memories of the country which was theirs. Two admirable little girls of nine and fourteen installed themselves as handmaids and hostesses of the castle, and might be seen all day carrying water to the cauldron, making tea, giving hospitality to visitors – their first free service to Ireland. At night, men and women of the village came into the guard-room and banquet-hall, and sang and sang of Ireland. They did not even smoke. One after another sang till one o’clock. One or two sentimental ditties turned up, on Shannon’s shores and Killarney’s lakes, of the feeble artificial sort favoured by so-called “National Schools,” but these found little encouragement. Many evenings since, the guard-room has been filled with villagers, and singing and old-time lore abound. Many bring presents and leave them with scarce a word; and the old oratory has not been left without gifts and flowers. Nowhere has a pin been disturbed, or a trifle broken or injured. The battlements and the glorious view are a delight to all. They examine and point out to each other the old devices, the flint weapons and the bronze, the Celtic emblems and memorials, and the Elizabethan and Volunteer arms that lie about. The people have a new pride put in them, and are learning to be their own Conservators and Board of Works.

The Bishop of Ossory has lately given us all to understand that the Church of Ireland, boasting itself to be the highest, perhaps the sole, regenerating force in the country, is at this crisis altogether absorbed in anxious contemplation of the supposed danger from the people of Ireland to its property. A material preoccupation, at such a pitch, induces a multitude of unreasoning timidities, fantastic safeguards, and voluntary solitudes. It is true, indeed, that it was only “property” in a spiritual sense which the people of Ardglass had got that day. But in that higher sense they had been given that which every Irishman lacks – something of their own. No Englishman can picture to himself that lack. He has never had it. But with us it is an old story. If the people ask to learn Irish – “Here is arithmetic; that will suit you better.” They would like something of Irish history – “I assure you that it is German grammar which you really wish to ask for.” If the talk is of schools or fisheries – “The English Treasury will see that you do not waste money on school-house or steam trawler.” Their very names are not their own. A Belfast bank the other day refused the life-long signature on a cheque of a well-known Irish writer because he signed, in English letters indeed, but with his customary Irish spelling of Padraic, and required instead the conventional English Patrick. Who can tell the needless restrictions and trivialities and imposed fashions that check expansion, experiment, and freedom of mind? A dreary emptiness has been stretched over the vivid natures of Irishmen. What is there left for them to love? Is it any wonder they desire something they may call their own? It may be that “Loyalists” imagine that a longer continuance of such destitution will end at last in a lively passion for Englishmen and the Empire. Or, perhaps, it is the Unionist idea that an enforced apathy indefinitely continued will produce the fate that comes on men doomed to imprisonment for life in solitary confinement, when after long years thought and speech are gone, and idiot prisoners may mingle harmlessly together.

While the castle was repairing at Ardglass, an Irish visitor watched the fishermen leaning on the sea-wall. Every half-hour one might drop a word. They were passing the time as only fishermen know how. As to the castle, they looked as oblivious to it as to everything else. After watching for some time, the Irish visitor casually passed one of them, dropping an indifferent remark: “What’s the meaning of all this?” “It’s comin’,” said the fisherman. “We’re too long held in chains” – and fell back into silence.

NOTE

Bodley’s visit to Lecale, preserved in a Latin MSS. in the British Museum, has been printed with a translation in the Old Ulster Journal of Archæology II. 73. The account is concerned with six officers of high rank and fame in the veteran army of Elizabeth. The writer, Captain Bodley, brother of the founder of the Bodleian Library at Oxford, was commanding officer at Armagh, commissioned to raise fortifications or entrenchments for the army – “a very honest fellow with a black beard,” he describes himself. His companion Captain Toby Caulfield, who had fought at Carlingford and Kinsale, was the first Governor in 1602 of the new fort of Charlemont, and Governor in 1603 of the counties of Armagh and Tyrone, where he made good use of his opportunities, a skilful appropriator of lands, who secured for himself grants in nine counties, and the wealth on which the earldom of Charlemont was established. Captain John Jephson had rescued the remnant of the British army caught in the pass of the Curlew Mountains in 1599: he gained the Mallow estate by marriage with the daughter of Norreys, President of Munster. Captain Adderton, whom they picked up on the way, had distinguished himself in the Wicklow wars, and was now Governor of the newly-built fort of Mount-norris, on the road from Armagh to Newry.

Their host at Downpatrick, Sir Richard Moryson, one of the chief friends of Mountjoy, had fought in Leix and at Kinsale, was now Governor of Lecale, and this same year (1603) was promoted Governor of Waterford, and later (1607), President of Munster. With him was Captain Ralph Constable, who had followed all his campaigns from Kinsale to the Blackwater.

Four of the six, Moryson, Bodley, Jephson, and Caulfield, had been comrades in the campaigns of the Low Countries a few years before, and were among the companies of soldiers which were drafted over from the Netherlands to Ireland to strengthen the armies of Essex and Mountjoy. They were men who prospered in Irish wars – keen soldiers, and as keen dividers of lands and offices in the new country, deeply concerned in plantations and confiscations.

An Account of a Journey of Captain Josias Bodley into Lecale in Ulster, in the Year 1602 (properly 1603)

Good God! what have I taken on me to do? Truly I am an ass, otherwise I would never have undertaken so heavy a burthen; but no matter, I shall do what I can, like Coppinger’s female dog, who always took her own way.

I have taken in hand to recount what happened in a journey which Captain Caulfield, Captain Jephson, and I made to Lecale, to visit our friend Sir Richard Morrison, and divert ourselves there. And I shall narrate everything in due order; for order is a fair thing, and all love it, except the Irish men-at-arms, who are a most vile race of men, if it be at all allowable to call them “men,” who live upon grass, and are foxes in their disposition and wolves in their actions. But to our business: The aforesaid Master Morrison sent very kind letters to us, inviting us to keep the Nativity (which the English call “Christmas”) with him; but as Sir Arthur Chichester, the Sergeant-Major of the whole army, had convoked us with all our companies at that very moment to fight with Tyrone, who was then in the woods of Glenconkein with much cattle and few fighting men; we could not go at that time to Lecale, but joined the said Sir Arthur, and remained with him for sixteen or seventeen days in the field, without doing much harm to Tyrone: for that Tyrone is the worst rascal, and very wary and subtle, and won’t be beaten except on good terms. However, we fought him twice in the very woods, and made him run to his strongholds. So after leaving about that place a well-provided garrison, we each departed, with full permission and good will.

We now remembered the said invitation of Sir Richard and, after deliberation (for, in the commencement of affairs, deliberation should be used by those adventuring bold attempts, as Seneca says), we thought it good to go thither, although it was now eight days after the Nativity: because we did not doubt our being welcome though it had been Lent. This was resolved on in the city of Armagh, where there is a Governor, a very honest fellow with a black beard, who uses everyone well according to his poor ability, and would use them much better if he had more of the thing the English call “means.”

We set out from that city for the town commonly called Newry, which was one day’s journey. There, to speak the truth, we were not very well entertained, nor according to our qualities; for that town produces nothing but lean beef, and very rarely mutton; the very worst wine; nor was there any bread, except biscuits, even in the Governor’s house. However, we did our best to be merry and jocund with the bad wine, putting sugar in it (as the senior lawyers are used to do, with Canary wine) – with toasted bread, which in English is called “a lawyer’s nightcap.” There we found Captain Adderton, an honest fellow, and a friend of ours, who, having nothing to do, was easily persuaded to accompany us to Lecale.

So the next morning we four take horse and set out. We had no guide except Captain Caulfield, who promised he would lead us very well. But before we had ridden three miles we lost our way and were compelled to go on foot, leading our horses through bogs and marshes which were very troublesome; and some of us were not wanting who swore silently between our teeth, and wished our guide at a thousand devils. At length we came to some village of obscure name, where for two brass shillings we brought with us a countryman who might lead us to the Island of Magennis, ten miles distant from the town of Newry: for Master Morrison had promised he would meet us there.

The weather was very cold, and it began to roar dreadfully with a strong wind in our faces, when we were on the mountains, where there was neither tree nor house; but there was no remedy save patience. Captain Bodley alone had a long cloak with a hood, into which he prudently thrust his head, and laughed somewhat into himself to see the others so badly armed against the storm.

We now come to the Island of Magennis, where, alighting from our horses, we met Master Morrison and Captain Constable, with many others, whom, for the sake of brevity, I pass by. They had tarried there at least three hours, expecting our arrival, and, in the meantime, drank ale and usquebaugh with the Lady Sara, the daughter of Tyrone, and wife of the aforesaid Magennis; a truly beautiful woman: so that I can well believe these three hours did not appear to them more than a minute, especially to Master Constable, who is by nature very fond, not of women only, but likewise of dogs and horses. We also drank twice or thrice, and after we had duly kissed her, we each prepared for our journey.

It was ten or twelve miles from that island to Downpatrick, where Master Morrison dwelt; and the way seemed much longer on account of our wish to be there. At length, as all things have an end and a black pudding two (as the proverb hath it) we came by little and little to the said house. And now began that more than Lucullan entertainment, which neither Cicero, whose style in composition I chiefly imitate, (although Horace says, “O imitators! a slavish herd”), nor any other of the Latin or Greek authors, could express in suitable terms.

When we had approached within a stone’s throw of the house – or rather palace – of the said Master Morrison – behold! forthwith innumerable servants! some light us with pine-wood lights and torches because it is dark; others, as soon as we alight, take our horses, and lead them into a handsome and spacious stable, where neither hay nor oats are wanting. Master Morrison himself leads us by wide stairs into a large hall where a fire is burning the height of our chins, as the saying is; and afterwards into a bed chamber, prepared in the Irish fashion.

Here having taken off our boots, we all sit down and converse on various matters; Captain Caulfield about supper and food, for he was very hungry; Captain Constable about hounds, of which he had there some excellent ones, as he himself asserted; and the rest about other things. Master Morrison ordered a cup of Spanish wine to be brought, with burnt sugar, nutmeg, and ginger, and made us all drink a good draught of it, which was very grateful to the palate, and also good for procuring an appetite for supper, if anyone needed such.

In an hour we heard some one down in the kitchen calling with a loud voice “To the Dresser.” Forthwith we see a long row of servants, decently dressed, each with dishes of the most select meats, which they place on the table in the very best style. One presents to us a silver basin with the most limpid water; another hands us a very white towel; others arrange chairs and seats in their proper places. “What need of words, let us be seen in action” (as Ajax says in Ovid). Grace having been said, we begin to fix our eyes intently on the dishes, whilst handling our knives: and here you might have plainly seen those Belgian feasts, where, at the beginning is silence, in the middle the crunching of teeth, and at the end the chattering of the people. For at first we sat as if rapt and astounded by the variety of meats and dainties – like a German I once saw depicted standing between two jars, the one of white wine and the other of claret, with this motto: “I know not which way to turn.”