Beauties and Antiquities of Ireland Part 7

The country round Trim is most interesting and full of ruined fanes. The church of Trim was believed to contain an image or picture of the Virgin, at which we are told many and extraordinary miracles were performed. Trim was a sort of Irish Lourdes in the middle ages, to which the sick and suffering used to go in mult.i.tudes. There was also the Abbey of Newtown, the ruins of which still stand on the banks of the Boyne close by Trim. It was founded in the year 1206 by Simon Rochefort, Bishop of Meath, the first Englishman that is known to have had so high an ecclesiastical position in Ireland after the invasion. The ruins of Bective Abbey are only a few miles up the river from Trim, in a beautiful situation on the banks of the "clear, bright Boyne," as the old Gaelic poets loved to call it. Bective was founded for the Cistercian order by O'Melachlinn, King of Meath, about the middle of the twelfth century. It is a beautiful ruin, and in a beautiful locality.

There is, perhaps, no part of Ireland more interesting to the antiquarian, the historian, or the lover of rich landscapes than the valley of the Boyne. That little stream is the most historic waterway in Ireland. Its name occurs oftener in Irish history and legend than that of any other river. On its banks are to be seen the pre-historic tumuli of New Grange and Dowth, the oldest monuments of pre-historic civilisation that have yet been discovered on Irish soil. The Boyne may be said to be the river of Tara, for it flows almost at the foot of that hill so celebrated in Irish history, legend, and song.

CONG ABBEY

It is doubtful if there is in Ireland--there certainly is not in the province of Connacht--a more interesting ruin than Cong Abbey. Its situation is beautiful, between two great lakes, with a background of some of the wildest and ruggedest mountains in Ireland. It would be hard to conceive of a place more suited for a life of religious meditation than this venerable pile, into which he who is called Ireland's last chief king retired to bewail his sins and lament for the power that his own pusillanimity and carelessness had allowed to pa.s.s away from him and his family for ever. If Roderick O'Connor was the last of Ireland's monarchs, he was also one of her worst. History hardly tells of a good act of his except the endowment of the Abbey of Cong; and the greater the light is that is thrown on the history of Ireland by the translation of her ancient annals, the weaker and more imbecile the character of Roderick appears, and the more just and merited that which Moore says of him in his history of Ireland:--"The only feeling the name [of Roderick] awakens is that of pity for the doomed country which at such a crisis of its fortunes, when honour, safety, independence, and national existence were all at stake, was cursed for the crowning of its evil destiny with a ruler and leader so entirely unworthy of his high calling." If the Anglo-French invasion of Ireland had occurred in the reign of his brave and warlike father, Turloch, one of the greatest of those who claimed the chief sovereignty of Ireland, the invaders would almost certainly have been all killed within a month after they landed, and the subsequent history of Ireland would probably be very different from what it has been.

Irish annals tell us that the first religious establishment in Cong was founded by St Fechin in the year 624; but John O'Donovan says in a note in his translation of the Four Masters that Roderick O'Connor founded and endowed the Abbey of Cong. That a religious house of some kind was founded in it by St Fechin there can be no doubt at all, for up to a recent period it was known as Cunga Fechin, or Cong of Fechin. O'Donovan may have meant that Roderick O'Connor endowed and founded the abbey, the remains of which exist at present, for not a vestige of the original building founded by St Fechin remains. It was, like most of the very early churches and religious houses of ancient Ireland, built entirely of wood, and has consequently long ago disappeared. Cong was originally a bishopric. There were five bishoprics in the province of Connacht--namely, Tuam, Killala, Clonfert, Ardcharne, and Cong. The Synod that settled the question of the bishoprics of Connacht met at Rathbra.s.sil, in what is now the Queen's County, in 1010. The abbey, the remains of which still exist, was founded in 1128 by the Augustinians, during the reign of Roderick O'Connor's heroic father, Turloch. Roderick subsequently endowed it, and ended his days in it. It is an interesting and suggestive fact that most of the great religious establishments of Ireland were not only founded but built in the material that now remains of them before the Anglo-French invasion, showing clearly that that event put a stop to almost everything that could be called progress. The invaders, although professing the same faith as the invaded, were much more anxious to build castles than churches. There was hardly a castle in Ireland before the time of Strongbow. This was not caused by ignorance of the art of building among the Irish, for some of the round towers and churches erected long before the time of Strongbow are as perfect specimens of architecture as were erected in any country at the same period. The native Irish king, or chief, was contented with a wooden house surrounded by an embankment, capped with a palisade of wood; but the Norman raised mighty edifices of stone to protect him from the wrath of those he had robbed.

Cong Abbey is a large building nearly 150 feet in length. Few of the ancient churches of Ireland are any longer, and many of them are not nearly so long. It would be a mistake to say that the ruins at Cong are in a good state of preservation, for traces of violence and vandalism are apparent almost everywhere on them. The whole place has a terribly dilapidated look. It has been said that only for ivy and the Guinnesses the Abbey of Cong would have tumbled down long ago. It is true that ivy has prevented great ma.s.ses of masonry from falling; and it is true that the late Sir Benjamin Guinness did a good deal of mending on the old walls. But it was before his time, when religious intolerance was worse than it is at present, that Cong Abbey was mutilated and defaced. It is sad to know that there is hardly an old religious edifice in Ireland that has not suffered from sectarian animosity. The ruins of Mellifont, near Drogheda, have been torn up from their foundations, so that hardly a trace of that once magnificent abbey now remains except the crypts and the vast walls and fosses by which it was surrounded. Ruthless vandals tried their best with sledges and hammers to overthrow the great cross of Monasterboice in Louth, but the stone of which it consists was too hard for them, for they only succeeded in mutilating what they could not destroy.

In its present dilapidated condition it is hardly possible to form a correct idea of what Cong Abbey was in the days of its splendour. It is almost impossible, also, to form an exact idea of its general plan, for many comparatively modern additions have evidently been made to it. Its having been used as a burying place within recent times has, as the same thing has done at Clonmacnois, sadly interfered with its picturesqueness.

But, as at Mellifont, "enough of its glory remains" to show that it must have been a building of exquisite beauty. Some of its floral capitals carved on limestone are as fine specimens of the carver's art as can be found anywhere in the world. Both Sir William Wilde and Doctor Petrie agree in this. There was probably no abbey in Ireland that contained more beautiful specimens of the carver's art than Cong. Vast numbers of its sculptured stones have been defaced by vandalism or carried away to build walls or out-houses. It is not easy to know what was the exact extent of the gardens or mensal grounds of the abbey, for the walls that enclosed them cannot be fully traced, and are not intact like the walls around the Abbey of Boyle in the County Roscommon. The Abbey of Cong seems to have been the great depository for the precious things of the province of Connacht. The Order of Augustinians, to whom it belonged, was very rich, and had vast possessions in the province, and it would seem that no abbey in it was as rich as that of Cong. In it were kept deeds, books, records, and many other precious things, all of which have disappeared save the marvellously beautiful cross now to be seen in the Dublin Museum, and which artists and connoisseurs have p.r.o.nounced to be "the finest piece of metal work of its age to be found in Europe." It is known from the Gaelic inscription on the Cross of Cong that it was made in Roscommon, for the name of the maker is identified with that town. The fact of such a priceless relic and such a gem of art having been kept in the Abbey of Cong shows that it was considered to be the most important and most secure place in the province. The Cross of Cong was supposed to be formed from part of the real cross. The Irish inscription on it is perfectly legible, and can be easily understood by any one who knows the modern language. The name of the maker is on it, and also that of Turloch O'Connor, who claimed to be chief King of Ireland, and for whom it was made in the year 1123.

The Abbey of Cong was never plundered by the Danes; if it was, no record of its having been plundered is to be found in the Annals of the Four Masters, or in the Annals of Loch Key. This fact of Cong not having suffered from the Danes would seem to show that it did not contain much wealth during the ninth and tenth centuries, when the maraudings of the Nors.e.m.e.n were at their worst. If the Abbey of Cong was worth plundering, it is hard to conceive how it could have been spared by them. It is probable that the church founded there by St Fechin was very small, and that the establishment became important only when the O'Connor family rose to prominence in the province, for it was richly endowed by Turloch and by Roderick O'Connor, both of whom claimed to be chief kings of Ireland.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CROSS OF CONG.]

None of our ancient seats of piety and learning will repay a visit better than Cong. In it and around it there is a great deal to interest the antiquarian, the tourist, and the lover of Nature. The neck of land that lies between Loch Corrib and Loch Mask is one of the most curious, varied, and beautiful spots in Ireland. It has rus.h.i.+ng, limpid rivers above, and boiling, roaring ones below. The whole country in the vicinity of Cong seems to be honeycombed by subterranean waters. There is probably as much running water underground and overground in the narrow strip of country between Loch Corrib and Loch Mask as would turn all the grist mills in Ireland, but unfortunately there is hardly a wheel moved by it.

There is much in the vicinity of Cong, outside of its glorious old abbey, to interest both the antiquarian and the tourist. It was close to it that the greatest battle history records as having been fought on Irish soil took place--namely, that of Moy Tuireadh, between the Firbolgs and the Tuatha de Danaans, a full account of which will be found in Sir William Wilde's charming book "Loch Corrib," which should be read by every one who desires to visit Cong or its vicinity.

Cong is very nearly on the road to Connemara, which, with the exception of parts of Donegal, is the wildest, most savage, and most extraordinary part of Ireland. Those who want to see all the wildness of Connemara, its chaotic mountains, its innumerable lakes, far-entering bays, and illimitable bogs, should drive from Cong, or from Oughterard to Clifden, and go from there to Galway by rail. Whoever travels that route will see some of the most charming as well as some of the most terrific scenery in Ireland. He will see more lakes than can be found on an area of equal size in any part of the known world. If the visit is made when the heath is in full bloom, he will have such a world of flowers to feast his eyes on as can hardly be seen anywhere else, not even in Ireland.

Loch Corrib, at the head of which Cong is situated, is one of the great lakes of Ireland. The traveller going to Cong sails up it from Galway.

There is not very much of antiquarian interest on its sh.o.r.es or on its islands, save the ruins of _Caislean na Ceirce_, or the Hen's Castle. They are on a promontory on the lake. It is not a very old building, being probably of the fourteenth century, and was built, it is supposed, by one of the O'Flaherties.

There are the ruins of what antiquarians think are those of one of the oldest churches ever erected in Ireland, on the bleak island of Incha-goile. There are also the ruins of another church on the same island; but judging from the extremely archaic architecture of the one first mentioned, it must be many centuries older than the other. Both churches must have been very small.

But although the lower part of Loch Corrib cannot boast of much scenic beauty, its upper part is magnificent. It thrusts its sinuous arms up into the wildest recesses of the Joyce Country, and among mountains of fantastic forms. The Joyce Country, _Duthaigh Sheoghach_ in Gaelic, has ever been remarkable for the gigantic size of its men. There have been scores of Joyces who were from six feet four to six feet six in height, and stout in proportion. There are still some of its men of immense size.

It is said that not so very long ago a giant Joyce was going home from a fair or market, and that a faction of ten men who were not on perfectly friendly terms with him, followed him to beat or perhaps kill him. Joyce had no weapons or means of defence of any kind, so he unyoked the horse from the cart or dray on which he was riding, tore it to pieces, armed himself with one of its shafts as a "s.h.i.+llelagh," and awaited his enemies; but they seem not to have liked being hit with the shaft of a cart and retreated. Those who like can believe or not believe this story. It is given as the writer heard it from a very respectable gentleman who knew Joyce.

LOCH DERG

This is another of the great lakes of Ireland. It is over twenty miles long and between two and three miles in average breadth. It is really curious that a small island like Ireland should have so many immense lakes in it. There is, probably, no other country in the world of the same size--there is certainly no island of the same size--on which so much fresh water is to be found. It would seem as if nature intended Ireland for a continent, and not for an island, by giving it lakes so entirely disproportioned to its size.

Loch Derg, anciently called Deirgdheirc, and at present p.r.o.nounced Dharrig by the peasantry, would be the most beautiful of all the great lakes of Ireland if its islands were as numerous as those of Loch Erne, or even of Loch Ree. It has the defect that almost all lakes have whose sh.o.r.es are mountainous or hilly. Want of islands is the great drawback to the picturesqueness of most of the Scotch lakes and those of the north of England. A few islands do not add much to the beauty of a lake. There must be plenty of them to produce full effect. The few islands in Loch Lomond, because they are so few, hardly add to its beauty. The islands in Loch Derg are very few, and the most picturesque of them are so near the sh.o.r.e that they seem part of it to the voyager on the lake. There is one very large island, Illaunmore--the great island, as its name signifies--but it does not add very much to the scenic attractions. The charms of Loch Derg are its semi-mountainous sh.o.r.es. It would be incorrect to call the bold hills on either side of the lake mountains, for very few of them reach an alt.i.tude of more than a thousand feet; but they are most graceful in their outlines, and are, for the most part, covered with luxuriant gra.s.s up to their very summits. The lake is by no means straight; its sh.o.r.es are tortuous and full of indentations, so that there is a good deal of change of scene when sailing on it. But if the tourist or traveller who wishes to sail on Loch Derg is not what is usually called a "good sailor," he should consult the barometer before he goes on to this great lake, for sometimes, when the south-west wind sweeps up its twenty or twenty-five miles of water, a sea almost worthy of the Channel will sometimes rise in a very short time. Many a sea-sick pa.s.senger used to be seen in the good times long ago on Loch Derg, when large side-wheel pa.s.senger boats used to run regularly between Athlone and Killaloe. Those boats were large enough to carry over a hundred pa.s.sengers without being in the least crowded, and the cabins were large enough to accommodate fifty people at dinner. A trip from Athlone to Killaloe on a fast boat would, on a fine summer day, be one of the most enjoyable things in the way of an excursion by water that can be imagined. It is over thirty years since the writer experienced the pleasure of it, and the remembrance of its enjoyableness haunts him still. The sh.o.r.es of Loch Derg are much wilder than the sh.o.r.es of Loch Erne or Loch Ree. Very few houses, and nothing that could be called a town, can be seen through the whole twenty-five miles of the lake. The hills that bound it both on the Munster and on the Connacht sides are almost altogether gra.s.s land, and very little cultivation is therefore to be seen. But the bold, winding sh.o.r.es and the green hills form a landscape of a very striking kind, and there are many who maintain that the scenery of Loch Derg is finer than that of Loch Ree. Both lakes are magnificent sheets of water, and environed with a fair and goodly country; and were they anywhere else but in Ireland, their waters would be the highway for dozens of steamers, while at present they are almost deserted, and may be said to be

"As lone and silent As the great waters of some desert land."

Loch Derg is full of interest for the antiquarian, especially its lower part. One of the most ancient and important ecclesiastical establishments of ancient Ireland, Iniscealtra, the island of the churches, is on its western sh.o.r.e, close to the land, separated from it only by about a quarter of a mile of water. Iniscealtra was one of the most important places of its kind in the south of Ireland. It was founded by St Cainin certainly not later than the end of the sixth or beginning of the seventh century, for he died in 653. John O'Donovan in his unpublished letters says that he is represented in ancient Irish literature as "A very holy man, a despiser of the world, and an inexorable chastiser of the flesh. He is said to have been author of commentaries on the Psalms. He was buried in Iniscealtra." There is a fine round tower in Iniscealtra which is traditionally supposed to have been built by St Sena.n.u.s. It is eighty feet in height, and in fairly good preservation, but it wants the top. The ruins of St Cainin's Church show it to have been a small building. There are the ruins of two other churches on the island, one called St Mary's and the other St Michael's. The establishments on Iniscealtra are of very great antiquity. It is first mentioned in the Annals of the Four Masters under the year 548, recording the death of St Colam in the island. The oldest church in it was dedicated to St Cainin, who was evidently the founder of the place, and the first who sought it as a retreat. He is said to have lived for a long time in a solitary cell, until the fame for holiness he acquired brought an immense number of disciples, for whom he erected a n.o.ble monastery in the island, which afterwards became famous.

The ruins of St Cainin's Church prove that it must have been a very beautiful building. It was thought by Petrie and other antiquarians that it and the very beautiful one of Killaloe were erected during the short time in the tenth and eleventh centuries when Brian Boramha and Malachy the Second, by their victories over the Danes, gave the country some rest from the plunderings of those marauders.

At the extreme lower end of Loch Derg is the small but ancient town of Killaloe. Its real name is Cill Dalua, it was called after an ecclesiastic of the name of Dalua, sometimes written Malua, who lived in the sixth century. He placed his disciple, Flannan, over the church. He was made Bishop of Killaloe in the seventh century. The church is known generally as St Flannan's. The Earl of Dunraven, speaking of the beauty of the ruins of this church and the buildings attached to it, says, "These ancient buildings are on a wooded hill which slopes in a gentle incline down to the brink of the Shannon. The cathedral and small stone-roofed church stand side by side, and the walls of the latter are thickly covered with ivy. Nothing can be more impressive than the aspect of this venerable and simple building, surrounded by majestic trees, and hidden in deep shadows of thick foliage. A solemn mystery seems to envelop its ancient walls, and the silence is only broken by the sound of the river that rolls its great volume of water along the base of the hill on which it stands."

But the most historic and probably the most interesting thing about Killaloe is the site of King Brian's palace of Kincora, a place so famed in history and song. Perhaps it will be better to let such a famous man on Irish history and archaeology as O'Donovan tell about Kincora. He says in his unpublished letters while on the Ordnance Survey: "On the summit of the hill opposite the bridge of Killaloe stood Brian Boramha's palace of Kincora, but not a trace of it is now visible. It must have extended from the verge of the hill over the Shannon, to where the present Roman Catholic chapel stands. I fear that it will be impracticable to show its site on the Ordnance map, as no field works are visible. Of the history of the palace of Kincora little or nothing is known, but from the few references to it we occasionally find, we may safely infer that it was first erected by Brian, _Imperator Scottorum_, and that it was not more than two centuries inhabited by his successors. Kincora was demolished in 1088 by Donnell MacLachlin, king of Aileach (Ulster), and we are told that he took 160 hostages consisting of Danes and Irish." Kincora must have been rebuilt after it was demolished by MacLachlin, for we are told in the Annals of the Four Masters that in 1107 Kincora and Cashel were burned by lightning, and sixty vats of metheglin and beer were destroyed; but it must have been again rebuilt, for the same annals say that in 1118 Turloch O'Connor (King of Connacht), at the head of a great army of Connachtmen, burned Kincora and hurled it, both stones and timber, into the Shannon.

Kincora was, like all dwelling-places in those times, built almost entirely of wood; and it is hardly to be wondered at that after having been burned so often by man and by the elements, no vestige of it should remain. It has been completely wiped out.

A description of Kincora would hardly be complete without giving MacLiag's Lament for it, translated by Clarence Mongan. MacLiag was chief poet and secretary to Brian Boramha. The poem is little known even in Ireland; to the English reader it will be absolutely new. The writer gives two prime reasons for reproducing it; one, because it is such a very fine poem; and the other, because it has heretofore never been correctly given.

MACLIAG'S LAMENT FOR KINCORA.

"Where, oh Kincora, is Brian the Great?

And where is the beauty that once was thine?

Oh where are the princes and n.o.bles that sate At the feasts in thy halls and drank the red wine, Where, oh Kincora?

"Where, oh Kincora, are thy valorous lords, Oh whither, thou Hospitable, are they gone?

Oh where the Dalca.s.sians of cleaving swords, And where are the heroes that Brian led on, Where, oh Kincora?

"And where is Morough, descendant of kings, Defeater of hundreds, the daringly brave, Who set but light store on jewels and rings, Who swam down the torrent and laughed at the wave, Where, oh Kincora?

"And where is Donagh, King Brian's brave son, And where is Conaing, the beautiful chief, And Cian and Corc? alas, they are gone!

They have left me this night all alone in my grief, Alone, oh Kincora!

"And where are the chiefs with whom Brian went forth, The ne'er vanquished sons of Evin the Brave, The great King of Eogh'nacht,[12] renowned for his worth, And Baskin's great host from the western wave, Where, oh Kincora?

"And where is Duvlann of the swift-footed steeds, And where is Cian who was son of Molloy, And where is King Lonergan, the fame of whose deeds In the red battle-field, no time can destroy?

Where, oh Kincora?

"And where is the youth of majestic height, The faith-keeping prince of the Scotts?[13] even he, As wide as his fame was, as great as his might, Was tributary, oh Kincora, to thee, To thee, oh Kincora!

"They are gone, those heroes of royal birth, Who plundered no churches and broke no trust 'Tis weary for me to be living on earth When they, oh Kincora, lie low in the dust.

Low, oh Kincora!

"Oh never again will princes appear To rival Dalca.s.sians of cleaving swords!

I can ne'er dream of meeting afar or near, In the east or the west, such heroes and lords, Never, Kincora!

"Oh dear are the images mem'ry calls up Of Brian Boru,[14] how he never would miss To give me at banquet the first bright cup,-- Oh, why did he heap on me honour like this, Why, oh Kincora?

"I am MacLiag, and my home's on the lake; And oft to that palace whose beauty has fled Came Brian to ask me,--I went for his sake;-- Oh my grief! that I live when Brian is dead!

Dead, oh Kincora!"

So far the demolished palace of Brian, and the writer, like Brian himself, "returns to Kincora no more."

No lover of the beauties of nature should be on this part of the Shannon and not visit the great rapids of Doona.s.s. They are only about ten miles below Killaloe. If seen when the river is full they are the grandest thing of their kind in the British Isles. The Shannon here looks like a continental river, containing ordinarily a volume of water greater than any river in France. The country round Doona.s.s, though flat, is superlatively beautiful. The limpid, rus.h.i.+ng river flows on among meadows and pastures of the brightest verdure, adorned with stately trees, and bright in summer-time with innumerable flowers. There is nothing terrible or awe-inspiring about Doona.s.s. It is quiet and peaceful in the true sense of the word. Even the great rus.h.i.+ng river, as it glides down the gentle slope of the rapids, makes no noise except a deep, musical murmur that would lull to sleep rather than startle. The rapids of Doona.s.s form a scene so incomparably lovely, and so unlike anything to be seen in Great Britain, or to be seen in any other part of Ireland, that it is a wonder they are not better known. They can be reached best from Limerick, being not over three miles from that city. One of the most curious things about those grand and beautiful rapids, is the almost total ignorance which exists about them, not only in Great Britain, but in Ireland itself. If they were situated on a wild, hard-to-be-got-at part of the Shannon, the general ignorance that exists about them among seekers after the beautiful, would not excite so much wonder. A scene of such great beauty and uniqueness, so near a fine and interesting city like Limerick, to be so little known to those who go so far in search of the beautiful, shows how much the world at large, and even the Irish themselves, have to learn about Ireland. If the rapids of Doona.s.s were in England, or even in the United States, there would be not only one, but perhaps three or four hotels on their banks,--hotels which would be full of guests every summer.

Let us hope that the beauties of this charming place will be soon better known.

HOLYCROSS ABBEY