The Kiltartan History Book by Lady I. A. Gregory
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Lady I. A. Gregory >> The Kiltartan History Book
THE KILTARTAN HISTORY BOOK.
BY LADY GREGORY.
ILLUSTRATED
BY ROBERT GREGORY
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
Seven Short Plays
Cuchulain of Muirthemne
Gods and Fighting Men
Poets and Dreamers
A Book of Saints and Wonders
DEDICATED AND RECOMMENDED TO THE HISTORY CLASSES IN THE NEW UNIVERSITY
CONTENTS
The Ancient Times
Goban, the Builder
A Witty Wife
An Advice She Gave
Shortening the Road
The Goban's Secret
The Scotch Rogue
The Danes
The Battle of Clontarf
The English
The Queen of Breffny
King Henry VIII.
Elizabeth
Her Death
The Trace of Cromwell
Cromwell's Law
Cromwell in Connacht
A Worse than Cromwell
The Battle of Aughrim
The Stuarts
Another Story
Patrick Sarsfield
Queen Anne
Carolan's Song
'Ninety-Eight
Denis Browne
The Union
Robert Emmet
O'Connell's Birth
The Tinker
A Present
His Strategy
The Man was Going to be Hanged
The Cup of the Sassanach
The Thousand Fishers
What the Old Women Saw
O'Connell's Hat
The Change He Made
The Man He Brought to Justice
The Binding
His Monument
A Praise Made for Daniel O'Connell by Old Women and They Begging
at the Door
Richard Shiel
The Tithe War
The Fight at Carrickshock
The Big Wind
The Famine
The Cholera
A Long Remembering
The Terry Alts
The '48 Time
A Thing Mitchell Said
The Fenian Rising
A Great Wonder
Another Wonder
Father Mathew
The War of the Crimea
Garibaldi
The Buonapartes
The Zulu War
The Young Napoleon
Parnell
Mr. Gladstone
Queen Victoria's Religion
Her Wisdom
War and Misery
The Present King
The Old Age Pension
Another Thought
A Prophecy
NOTES
THE KILTARTAN HISTORY BOOK
THE ANCIENT TIMES
"As to the old history of Ireland, the first man ever died in Ireland
was Partholan, and he is buried, and his greyhound along with him, at
some place in Kerry. The Nemidians came after that and stopped for a
while, and then they all died of some disease. And then the Firbolgs
came, the best men that ever were in Ireland, and they had no law but
love, and there was never such peace and plenty in Ireland. What
religion had they? None at all. And there was a low-sized race came that
worked the land of Ireland a long time; they had their time like the
others. Many would tell you Grania slept under the cromlechs, but I
don't believe that, and she a king's daughter. And I don't believe she
was handsome either. If she was, why would she have run away? In the old
time the people had no envy, and they would be writing down the stories
and the songs for one another. But they are too venemous now to do that.
And as to the people in the towns, they don't care for such things now,
they are too corrupted with drink."
GOBAN, THE BUILDER
"The Goban was the master of sixteen trades. There was no beating him;
he had got the gift. He went one time to Quin Abbey when it was
building, looking for a job, and the men were going to their dinner, and
he had poor clothes, and they began to jibe at him, and the foreman said
'Make now a cat-and-nine-tails while we are at our dinner, if you are
any good.' And he took the chisel and cut it in the rough in the stone,
a cat with nine tails coming from it, and there it was complete when
they came out from their dinner. There was no beating him. He learned no
trade, but he was master of sixteen. That is the way, a man that has the
gift will get more out of his own brain than another will get through
learning. There is many a man without learning will get the better of a
college-bred man, and will have better words too. Those that make
inventions in these days have the gift, such a man now as Edison, with
all he has got out of electricity."
A WITTY WIFE
"The Goban Saor was a mason and a smith, and he could do all things, and
he was very witty. He was going from home one time and he said to the
wife 'If it is a daughter you have this time I'll kill you when I come
back'; for up to that time he had no sons, but only daughters. And it
was a daughter she had; but a neighbouring woman had a son at the same
time, and they made an exchange to save the life of the Goban's wife.
But when the boy began to grow up he had no wit, and the Goban knew by
that he was no son of his. That is the reason he wanted a witty wife
for him. So there came a girl to the house one day, and the Goban Saor
bade her look round at all that was in the room, and he said 'Do you
think a couple could get a living out of this?' 'They could not,' she
said. So he said she wouldn't do, and he sent her away. Another girl
came another day, and he bade her take notice of all that was in the
house, and he said 'Do you think could a couple knock a living out of
this?' 'They could if they stopped in it,' she said. So he said that
girl would do. Then he asked her could she bring a sheepskin to the
market and bring back the price of it, and the skin itself as well. She
said she could, and she went to the market, and there she pulled off the
wool and sold it and brought back the price and the skin as well. Then
he asked could she go to the market and not be dressed or undressed. And
she went having only one shoe and one stocking on her, so she was
neither dressed or undressed. Then he sent her to walk neither on the
road or off the road, and she walked on the path beside it. So he said
then she would do as a wife for his son."
AN ADVICE SHE GAVE
"One time some great king or lord sent for the Goban to build a
_caislean_ for him, and the son's wife said to him before he went 'Be
always great with the women of the house, and always have a comrade
among them.' So when the Goban went there he coaxed one of the women the
same as if he was not married. And when the castle was near built, the
woman told him the lord was going to play him a trick, and to kill him
or shut him up when he had the castle made, the way he would not build
one for any-other lord that was as good. And as she said, the lord came
and bade the Goban to make a cat and two-tails, for no one could make
that but himself, and it was meaning to kill him on it he was. And the
Goban said he would do that when he had finished the castle, but he
could not finish it without some tool he had left at home. And they must
send the lord's son for it--- for he said it would not be given to any
other one. So the son was sent, and the Goban sent a message to the
daughter-in-law that the tool he was wanting was called 'When you open
it shut it.' And she was surprised, for there was no such tool in the
house; but she guessed by the message what she had to do, and there was
a big chest in the house and she set it open. 'Come now,' she said to
the young man,' look in the chest and find it for yourself.' And when he
looked in she gave him a push forward, and in he went, and she shut the
lid on him. She wrote a letter to the lord then, saying he would not get
his son back till he had sent her own two men, and they were sent back
to her."
SHORTENING THE ROAD
"Himself and his son were walking the road together one day, and the
Goban said to the son 'Shorten the road for me.' So the son began to
walk fast, thinking that would do it, but the Goban sent him back home
when he didn't understand what to do. The next day they were walking
again, and the Goban said again to shorten the road for him, and this
time he began to run, and the Goban sent him home again. When he went in
and told the wife he was sent home the second time, she began to think,
and she said, 'When he bids you shorten the road, it is that he wants
you to be telling him stories.' For that is what the Goban meant, but it
took the daughter-in-law to understand it. And it is what I was saying
to that other woman, that if one of ourselves was making a journey, if
we had another along with us, it would not seem to be one half as long
as if we would be alone. And if that is so with us, it is much more with
a stranger, and so I went up the hill with you to shorten the road,
telling you that story."
THE GOBAN'S SECRET
"The Goban and his son were seven years building the castle, and they
never said a word all that time. And at the end of seven years the son
was at the top, and he said 'I hear a cow lowing.' And the Goban said
then 'Make all strong below you, for the work is done,' and they went
home. The Goban never told the secret of his building, and when he was
on the bed dying they wanted to get it from him, and they went in and
said 'Claregalway Castle is after falling in the night.' And the Goban
said 'How can that be when I put a stone in and a stone out and a stone
across.' So then they knew the way he built so well."
THE SCOTCH ROGUE
"One time he was on the road going to the town, and there was a Scotch
rogue on the road that was always trying what could he pick off others,
and he saw the Connemara man--that was the Goban--had a nice cravat, and
he thought he would get a hold of that. So he began talking with him,
and he was boasting of all the money he had, and the Goban said whatever
it was he had three times as much as it, and he with only thirty pounds
in the world. And the Scotch rogue thought he would get some of it from
him, and he said he would go to a house in the town, and he gave him
some food and some drink there, and the Goban said he would do the same
for him on the morrow. So then the Goban went out to three houses, and
in each of them he left ten pounds of his thirty pounds, and he told the
people in every house what they had to do, and that when he would strike
the table with his hat three times they would bring out the money. So
then he asked the Scotch rogue into the first house, and ordered every
sort of food and drink, ten pounds worth in all. And when they had used
all they could of it, he struck with his hat on the table, and the man
of the house brought out the ten pounds, and the Goban said 'Keep that
to pay what I owe you.' The second day he did the same thing in another
house. And in the third house they went to he ordered ten pounds worth
of food and drink in the same way. And when the time came to pay, he
struck the table with the hat, and there was the money in the hand of
the man of the house before them. 'That's a good little caubeen,' said
the Scotch rogue, 'when striking it on the table makes all that money
appear.' 'It is a wishing hat,' said the Goban; 'anything I wish for I
can get as long as I have that.' 'Would you sell it?' said the Scotch
rogue. 'I would not,' said the Goban. 'I have another at home, but I
wouldn't sell one or the other.' 'You may as well sell it, so long as
you have another at home,' said the Scotch rogue. 'What will you give
for it?' says the Goban. 'Will you give three hundred pounds for it?' 'I
will give that,' says the Scotch rogue, 'when it will bring me all the
wealth I wish for.' So he went out and brought the three hundred pound,
and gave it to the Goban, and he got the caubeen and went away with it,
and it not worth three halfpence. There was no beating the Goban.
Wherever he got it, he had got the gift."
THE DANES
"The reason of the wisps and the fires on Saint John's Eve is that one
time long ago the Danes came and took the country and conquered it, and
they put a soldier to mind every house through the whole country. And at
last the people made up their mind that on one night they would kill its
soldiers. So they did as they said, and there wasn't one left, and that
is why they light the wisps ever since. It was Brian Boroihme was the
first to light them. There was not much of an army left to the Danes
that time, for he made a great scatter of them. A great man he was, and
his own son was as good, that is Murrough. It was the wife brought him
to his end, Gormleith. She was for war, and he was all for peace. And he
got to be very pious, too pious, and old and she got tired of that."
THE BATTLE OF CLONTARF
"Clontarf was on the head of a game of chess. The generals of the Danes
were beaten at it, and they were vexed; and Cennedigh was killed on a
hill near Fermoy. He put the Holy Gospels in his breast as a protection,
but he was struck through them with a reeking dagger. It was Brodar,
that the Brodericks are descended from, that put a dagger through
Brian's heart, and he attending to his prayers. What the Danes left in
Ireland were hens and weasels. And when the cock crows in the morning
the country people will always say 'It is for Denmark they are crowing.
Crowing they are to be back in Denmark.'"
THE ENGLISH
"It was a long time after that, the Pope encouraged King Henry to take
Ireland. It was for a protection he did it, Henry being of his own
religion, and he fearing the Druids or the Danes might invade Ireland."
THE QUEEN OF BREFFNY
"Dervorgilla was a red-haired woman, and it was she put the great curse
on Ireland, bringing in the English through MacMurrough, that she went
to from O'Rourke. It was to Henry the Second MacMurrough went, and he
sent Strongbow, and they stopped in Ireland ever since. But who knows
but another race might be worse, such as the Spaniards that were
scattered along the whole coast of Connacht at the time of the Armada.
And the laws are good enough. I heard it said the English will be dug
out of their graves one day for the sake of their law. As to
Dervorgilla, she was not brought away by force, she went to MacMurrough
herself. For there are men in the world that have a coaxing way, and
sometimes women are weak."
KING HENRY VIII.
"Henry the Eighth was crying and roaring and leaping out of the bed for
three days and nights before his death. And he died cursing his
children, and he that had eight millions when he came to the Throne,
coining leather money at the end."
ELIZABETH
"Queen Elizabeth was awful. Beyond everything she was. When she came to
the turn she dyed her hair red, and whatever man she had to do with, she
sent him to the block in the morning, that he would be able to tell
nothing. She had an awful temper. She would throw a knife from the table
at the waiting ladies, and if anything vexed her she would maybe work
upon the floor. A thousand dresses she left after her. Very
superstitious she was. Sure after her death they found a card, the ace
of hearts, nailed to her chair under the seat. She thought she would
never die while she had it there. And she bought a bracelet from an old
woman out in Wales that was over a hundred years. It was superstition
made her do that, and they found it after her death tied about her
neck."
HER DEATH
"It was a town called Calais brought her to her death, and she lay
chained on the floor three days and three nights. The Archbishop was
trying to urge her to eat, but she said 'You would not ask me to do it
if you knew the way I am,' for nobody could see the chains. After her
death they waked her for six days in Whitehall, and there were six
ladies sitting beside the body every night. Three coffins were about
it, the one nearest the body of lead, and then a wooden one, and a
leaden one on the outside. And every night there came from them a great
bellow. And the last night there came a bellow that broke the three
coffins open, and tore the velvet, and there came out a stench that
killed the most of the ladies and a million of the people of London with
the plague. Queen Victoria was more honourable than that. It would be
hard to beat Queen Elizabeth."
THE TRACE OF CROMWELL
"I'll tell you now about the trace of Cromwell. There was a young lady
was married to a gentleman, and she died with her first baby, and she
was brought away into a forth by the fairies, the good people, as I
suppose. She used to be sitting on the side of it combing her hair, and
three times her husband saw her there, but he had not the courage to go
and to bring her away. But there was a man of the name of Howley living
near the forth, and he went out with his gun one day and he saw her
beside the forth, and he brought her away to his house, and a young baby
sprang between them at the end of a year. One day the husband was out
shooting and he came in upon Howley's land, and when young Howley heard
the shooting he rose up and went out and he bade the gentleman to stop,
for this was his land. So he stopped, and he said he was weary and
thirsty, and he asked could he rest in the house. So young Howley said
as long as he asked pardon he had leave to use what he liked. So he came
in the house and he sat at the table, and he put his two eyes through
the young lady. 'If I didn't see her dead and buried,' he said, 'I'd say
that to be my own wife.' 'Oh!' said she, 'so I am your wife, and you are
badly worthy of me, and you have the worst courage ever I knew, that you
would not come and bring me away out of the forth as young Howley had
the courage to bring me,' she said. So then he asked young Howley would
he give him back his wife. 'I will give her,' he said, 'but you never
will get the child.' So the child was reared, and when he was grown he
went travelling up to Dublin. And he was at a hunt, and he lost the top
of his boot, and he went into a shoemaker's shop and he gave him half a
sovereign for nothing but to put the tip on the boot, for he saw he was
poor and had a big family. And more than that, when he was going away he
took out three sovereigns and gave them to the blacksmith, and he looked
at one of the little chaps, and he said 'That one will be in command of
the whole of England.' 'Oh, that cannot be,' said the blacksmith, 'where
I am poor and have not the means to do anything for him.' 'It will be as
I tell you,' said he, 'and write me out now a docket,' he said, 'that
if ever that youngster will come to command Ireland, he will give me a
free leg.' So the docket was made out, and he brought it away with him.
And sure enough, the shoemaker's son listed, and was put at the head of
soldiers, and got the command of England, and came with his soldiers to
put down Ireland. And Howley saw them coming and he tied his
handkerchief to the top of his stick, and when Cromwell saw that, he
halted the army, 'For there is some poor man in distress,' he said. Then
Howley showed him the docket his father had written. 'I will do some
good thing for you on account of that,' said Cromwell; 'and go now to
the top of that high cliff,' he said, 'and I'll give as much land as you
can see from it.' And so he did give it to him. It was no wonder Howley
to have known the shoemaker's son would be in command and all would
happen him, because of his mother that got knowledge in the years she
was in the forth. That is the trace of Cromwell. I heard it at a wake,
and I would believe it, and if I had time to put my mind to it, and if I
was not on the road from Loughrea to Ballyvaughan, I could give you the
foundations of it better."
CROMWELL'S LAW
"I'll tell you about Cromwell and the White Friars. There was a White
Friar at that time was known to have knowledge, and Cromwell sent word
to him to come see him. It was of a Saturday he did that, of an Easter
Saturday, but the Friar never came. On the Sunday Cromwell sent for him
again, and he didn't come. And on the Monday he sent for him the third
time, and he did come. 'Why is it you did not come to me when I sent
before?' said Cromwell. 'I'll tell you that,' said the White Friar. 'I
didn't come on Saturday,' he said, 'because your passion was on you. And
I didn't come on the Sunday,' he said, 'because your passion was not
gone down enough, and I thought you would not give me my steps. But I
came to-day,' he said, 'because your passion is cool.' When Cromwell
heard his answer, 'That is true,' he said, 'and tell me how long my law
will last in Ireland.' 'It will last,' says the White Friar, 'till
yesterday will come (that was Easter Sunday) the same day as our Lady
Day.' Cromwell was satisfied then, and he gave him a free leg, and he
went away. And so that law did last till now, and it's well it did, for
without that law in the country you wouldn't be safe walking the road
having so much as the price of a pint of porter in your pocket."
CROMWELL IN CONNACHT
"Cromwell cleared the road before him. If any great man stood against
him he would pull down his castle the same as he pulled down that
castle of your own, Ballinamantane, that is down the road. He never got
more than two hours sleep or three, or at the most four, but starting up
fearing his life would be peppered. There was a word he sounded out to
the Catholics, 'To hell or Connacht,' and the reason he did that was
that Connacht was burned bare, and he that thought to pass the winter
there would get no lodging at all. Himself and his men travelled it, and
they never met with anything that had human breath put in it by God till
they came to Breffny, and they saw smoke from a chimney, and they
surrounded the house and went into it. And what they saw was a skeleton
over the fire roasting, and the people of the house picking flesh off it
with the bits of a hook. And when they saw that, they left them there.
It was a Clare man that burned Connacht so bare; he was worse than
Cromwell, and he made a great slaughter in the house of God at Clonmel.
The people have it against his family yet, and against the whole County
of Clare."
A WORSE THAN CROMWELL
"Cromwell was very bad, but the drink is worse. For a good many that
Cromwell killed should go to heaven, but those that are drunken never
see heaven. And as to drink, a man that takes the first glass is as
quiet and as merry as a pet lamb; and after the second glass he is as
knacky as a monkey; and after the third glass he is as ready for battle
as a lion; and after the fourth glass he is like a swine as he is. 'I am
thirsty' [IRISH: Ta Tart Orm], that was one of our Lord's seven words on
the Cross, where he was dry. And a man far off would have given him
drink; but there was a drunkard at the foot of the Cross, and he
prevented him."
THE BATTLE OF AUGHRIM
"That was a great slaughter at Aughrim. St. Ruth wanted to do all
himself, he being a foreigner. He gave no plan of the battle to
Sarsfield, but a written command to stop where he was, and Sarsfield
knew no more than yourself or myself in the evening before it happened.
It was Colonel Merell's wife bade him not go to the battle, where she
knew it would go bad with him through a dream. But he said that meant
that he would be crowned, and he went out and was killed. That is what
the poem says:
If Caesar listened to Calpurnia's dream
He had not been by Pompey's statue slain.
All great men gave attention to dreams, though the Church is against
them now. It is written in Scripture that Joseph gave attention to his
dream. But Colonel Merell did not, and so he went to his death. Aughrim
would have been won if it wasn't for the drink. There was too much of it
given to the Irish soldiers that day--drink and spies and traitors.
The English never won a battle in Ireland in fair fight, but getting
spies and setting the people against one another. I saw where Aughrim
was fought, and I turned aside from the road to see the tree where St
Ruth was killed. The half of it is gone like snuff. That was spies too,
a Colonel's daughter that told the English in what place St. Ruth would
be washing himself at six o'clock in the morning. And it was there he
was shot by one O'Donnell, an Englishman. He shot him from six miles
off. The Danes were dancing in the raths around Aughrim the night after
the battle. Their ancestors were driven out of Ireland before; and they
were glad when they saw those that had put them out put out themselves,
and every one of them skivered."
[ILLUSTRATION: WILLIAM III]
THE STUARTS
"As to the Stuarts, there are no songs about them and no praises in the
West, whatever there may be in the South. Why would there, and they
running away and leaving the country the way they did? And what good did
they ever do it? James the Second was a coward. Why didn't he go into
the thick of the battle like the Prince of Orange? He stopped on a hill
three miles away, and rode off to Dublin, bringing the best of his
troops with him. There was a lady walking in the street at Dublin when
he got there, and he told her the battle was lost, and she said 'Faith
you made good haste; you made no delay on the road.' So he said no more
after that. The people liked James well enough before he ran; they
didn't like him after that."
ANOTHER STORY
"Seumus Salach, Dirty James, it is he brought all down. At the time of
the battle there was one of his men said, 'I have my eye cocked, and all
the nations will be done away with,' and he pointing his cannon. 'Oh!'
said James, 'Don't make a widow of my daughter.' If he didn't say that,
the English would have been beat. It was a very poor thing for him to
do."
PATRICK SARSFIELD
"Sarsfield was a great general the time he turned the shoes on his
horse. The English it was were pursuing him, and he got off and changed
the shoes the way when they saw the tracks they would think he went
another road. That was a great plan. He got to Limerick then, and he
killed thousands of the English. He was a great general."