Beauties and Antiquities of Ireland Part 4

Kildare is famous and historic solely on account of St Brigit. Of all Irish Saints, she is the most to be loved. Her charity, her love for humanity, was so absolutely divine, that reading her life as narrated in the _Leabhar Breac_, we are moved to our very heart's depths. The miracles she is said to have performed are so wondrous, and show such a love for mankind, especially for the poor, that when we read them we long to be children again in order that we might unhesitatingly believe such beautiful fables. It was in Kildare that that wondrous lamp was which is said to have

"Lived through long ages of darkness and storm,"

without having been replenished by human hand; and it was this legend that inspired Moore to compose the n.o.blest national lyric ever written, "Erin, O Erin." If he never wrote a line of poetry save what is contained in that song, the Irish people would be justified in raising a statue of gold to his memory. It is, beyond anything of the kind known to humanity,

"Perfect music set to n.o.ble words";

yet, heart-sickening to think of, the ma.s.ses of the Irish people hardly know it at all!

When St Brigit is contrasted with St Patrick, she appears very different from him. The lives of Ireland's three great Saints are in the _Leabhar Breac_, an Irish ma.n.u.script compiled early in the fourteenth century; but the greater part of it is made up of transcripts from doc.u.ments that were probably many hundred years old when they were copied into it. The three Saints whose lives appear in it are Patrick, Brigit, and Columba, or Colum Cill, as he is generally called in Ireland. These lives were translated some years ago by Mr Whitley Stokes, the greatest of living Gaelic scholars; but as only a few dozen copies were printed for private circulation, the book is practically as unknown to the general public as if it never had been printed at all. Extracts from it, therefore, cannot fail to be interesting to the readers of this book.

Brigit s.h.i.+nes out a star of the first magnitude, totally eclipsing the lesser two lights, Patrick and Columba. Nothing shall be said about Columba at present, but it has to be admitted that Patrick, as he is represented in the _Leabhar Breac_, makes a poor show when contrasted with glorious St Brigit. Patrick is represented as spending a large part of his time in cursing and killing, but St Brigit spends most of hers in blessing and relieving. If St Patrick converts a great many, he is represented as killing a great many; but St Brigit kills n.o.body. The narrative of her life in the _Leabhar Breac_ is probably as wonderful a piece of biography as ever was written. There is no effort at style in it, and no attempt at book-making. The narrative is simplicity in the true sense of the word.

One of the wonderful things about it is the side light it throws both on the social and political conditions of ancient Ireland; but, curiously enough, no such light is thrown on the state of the country by the lives of St Patrick and St Columba, written in the same book and probably by the same author.

St Brigit seems to have acted on some of the precepts found in the "Ancient Mariner" fourteen hundred years before the poem was written. She seems to have known that--

"He prayeth best Who loveth best All things both great and small,"

for we are told that her father, who at present would be called Duffy, "sundered a gammon of bacon into five pieces, and left it with Brigit to be boiled for his guests. A miserable, greedy hound came into the house to Brigit. Brigit, out of pity, gave him the fifth piece. When the hound had eaten that piece, Brigit gave another piece to him. Then Duffy came and said to Brigit, 'Hast thou boiled the bacon, and do all the portions remain?' 'Count them,' saith Brigit. Duffy counted them and none of them was wanting. The guests declared unto Duffy what Brigit had done.

'Abundant,' said Duffy, 'are the miracles of that maiden.' Now the guests ate not the food, for they were unworthy thereof, but it was dealt out to the poor and needy of the Lord."

The following narrative shows St Brigit's love of animals in a still stronger light:

"Once upon a time a bondsman of Brigit's family was cutting firewood. It came to pa.s.s that he killed a pet fox of the King of Leinster's. The bondsman was seized by the King. Brigit ordered a wild fox to come out of the wood. So he came, and was playing and sporting for the hosts and for the King at Brigit's order. But when the fox had finished his feats, he went safe back to the wood, with the hosts of Leinster after him, both foot and horse and hounds."

This is simply beautiful. St Brigit, while she got the poor bondsman out of trouble, managed to do so without depriving the fox of his liberty.

Here is another extract that makes one wish that the life of St Brigit in the _Leabhar Breac_, instead of containing only about twenty octavo pages, contained a thousand:--

"Then came Brigit and her mother with her to her father's house.

Thereafter Duffy (her father) and his consort were minded to sell the holy Brigit into bondage, for Duffy liked not his cattle and his wealth to be dealt out to the poor, and that is what Brigit used to do. So Duffy fared in his chariot, and Brigit along with him. Said Duffy to Brigit, 'Not for honour or reverence to thee art thou carried in a chariot, but to take thee and sell thee, and to grind the quern for Dunlang Mac Enda, King of Leinster.' When they came to the King's fortress, Duffy went in to the King, and Brigit remained in her chariot at the fortress door. Duffy had left his sword in the chariot near Brigit. A leper came to Brigit to ask alms. She gave him Duffy's sword. Said Duffy to the King, 'Wilt thou buy a bondmaid, namely, my daughter?' says he. Said Dunlang, 'Why sellest thou thine own daughter?' Said Duffy, 'She stayeth not from selling my wealth and giving it to the poor.' Said the King, 'Let the maiden come into the fortress.' Duffy went for Brigit, and was enraged against her because she had given his sword to the poor man. When Brigit came into the King's presence, the King said to her, 'Since it is thy father's wealth that thou takest, much more if I buy thee, wilt thou take of _my_ wealth and _my_ cattle, and give them to the poor.' Said Brigit, 'The Son of the Virgin knoweth if I had thy might with all Leinster and with all thy wealth, I would give them to the Lord of the Elements.' Said the King to Duffy, 'Thou art not fit on either hand to bargain for this maiden, for her merit is higher before G.o.d than before men.' And he gave Duffy for her an ivory-hilted sword. So was St Brigit saved from bondage."

The idea of giving a sword to a poor crippled leper because she had nothing else to give could hardly have entered into the head of any saint but an Irish one.

The next extract from this marvellous biography is, perhaps, the most curious and interesting of all. In another interview that Brigit had with the King of Leinster, "a slave of the slaves of the King came to speak with Brigit, and said to her, 'If thou wouldst save me from the servitude wherein I am, I would become a Christian, and would serve thee thyself.'

Brigit said, 'I will ask that of the King.' So Brigit went into the fortress and asked her two boons of the king, the forfeiture of the sword to Duffy, and his freedom for the slave. Said Brigit to the King, 'If thou desirest excellent children and a kingdom for thy sons, and heaven for thyself, give me the two boons I ask.' Said the King to Brigit, 'The kingdom of heaven, as I see it not, and as no one knows what thing it is, I seek it not; and a kingdom for my sons I seek not, for I shall not myself be extant, and let each one serve his time. But give me length of life in my kingdom, and victory always over the Hui Neill, for there is often war between us; and give me victory in the first battle, so that I may be trustful in the other fights.' And this was fulfilled in the battle of Lochar which was fought against the Hui Neill."

By the "Hui Neill" the people of the entire north of Ireland, including Meath, were meant. They represented the national party because the chief kings, for some centuries previous, were of the race of Niall of the Nine Hostages. Mr Stokes says, speaking of the above extract in his preface to the translation, "The conversation between Brigit and Dunlang (King of Leinster) seems to preserve the authentic utterance of an Irish pagan warrior."

One extract more to show in a still stronger light the angelic kindness and love for humanity, especially for suffering humanity, that glowed in the heart of this wonderful woman:

"Once upon a time the King of Leinster came unto Brigit to listen to preaching and celebration on Easter Day. After the ending of the form of celebration the King fared forth on his way, and Brigit went to refection.

Lomman, Brigit's leper, said he would eat nothing until the warrior weapons, _arm gaisgedh_, of the King of Leinster were given to him, spear, sword, and s.h.i.+eld, that he might move to and fro under them. A messenger was sent after the King. From mid-day to evening was the King going astray, and attained not even a thousand paces, so that the weapons were given by him and bestowed on the leper."

This instance of going to such trouble to please a poor crippled pauper, for Lomman was evidently such, and of working a miracle so that the King of Leinster should lose his way, and not go so far that he could not be overtaken, is one of the most extraordinary instances of trouble taken to please a pauper that is to be found in all the records of benevolence and charity.

The "Annals of the Four Masters" say that St Brigit was buried in Downpatrick, in the same grave with St Patrick; but the learned editor and translator of their annals says that she and Bishop Conlaeth were buried, one on the right, and one on the left of the altar, in the church of Kildare, and he gives Colgan's great book, _Trias Thaumaturga_, as his authority, and no authority could be higher.

GLENDALOCH

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 ought _not_ to be spelled _Glendalough_--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 being round-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, _recte_ Sliabh 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 archaeologist, 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 a.s.sociated 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 wrote on Irish history and archaeology, 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 Sh.o.r.e," 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 the _Codex 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 County Wicklow. 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, Eoga.n.u.s, Locha.n.u.s, 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 pa.s.sionately in love with him, for he was exceedingly handsome. And she began to make known her friends.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed; and the brethren hearing such, were confirmed in their love for chast.i.ty. 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, but inflicted 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 the _Codex Killkenniensis_ before 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 Brigit Or 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 the lake, 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 if _nouvelles mariees_ succeed 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.

Archaeologists 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 in Glendaloch. It appears to have been a walled city, and Petrie, one of the most painstaking and learned archaeologists 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 "mult.i.tudinous 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 quant.i.ties 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 quant.i.ty, 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 have despised 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 establis.h.i.+ng themselves almost everywhere there was salt water or fresh water to float their s.h.i.+ps, 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 the precious 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 are _all_ on the sea coast but _one_. 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 been from 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 astonis.h.i.+ng 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 in the 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 imagine how 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 a.s.sertion. 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 the _Chronicon Scottorum_, a work of the highest authority and authenticity, compiled about the year 1124. "The great _Cloigtheach_ (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, of benefit 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 quant.i.ty 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 of _drowning_ the 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, mediaeval 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 mediaeval Gaelic writings has come down to us--and there are those that have the unspeakable hardihood to say so--must be cla.s.sed 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 charm even to the non-imaginative and the rude. For the archaeologist, 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.

"LORDLY AILEACH"