CONTENTS
Transcriber's Note: The Table of Contents for this issue is in the Vol I., so all the main divisions have been added to this etext for ease of navigation.
The Columbian Abbey of Derry.
One bright sunny day last summer I found myself in the city of Derry, with some hours to spare. I passed them in rambling aimlessly about whither fancy or accident led me,—now on the walls, endeavoring to recall the particulars of that siege so graphically described by Macaulay, now in the Protestant Cathedral musing on the proximity of luxuriously-cushioned pew and cold sepulchral monument along which the sun, streaming through the stained windows, threw a mellow glow that softened but did not remove the hideousness of the death's emblems on them—now wandering down the busy street and admiring the beauties of the Casino College, which, like the alien cathedral a little distance up, rejoices in the patronage of St. Columb and is built on the site of his old monastery. Here I lingered long, trying to picture to myself the olden glories of the spot on which I stood, for
"I do love these ancient ruins;
We never tread upon them
But we set our foot upon some reverend history;"
although here not an ivy-clasped gable, or even a mossy stone remains to claim the "passing tribute" of a sigh, or a vain regret for the golden days of our Irish Church. Yet its very barrenness of ruins made it dearer to my heart, for one never clings more fondly to the memory of a dear friend than when all mementoes of him are lost. As warned by the stroke of the town-clock, I hurried down to the station to be whirled away to Dublin, I thought that perhaps my fellow-readers of the Magazine would bear with me while I gossiped for half an hour on the story of this grand old monastery, the mother-house of Iona.
You know where Derry is, or if you don't your atlas will tell you, that it is away up in the north of Ireland, where, situated on the shores of the Lough Foyle, coiling its streets round the slopes of a hill till on the very summit they culminate in the cross-crowned tower of St. Columb's Cathedral, it lies in the midst of a beautiful country just like a cameo fallen into a basket of flowers. The houses cluster round the base of the hill on the land side, spread themselves in irregular masses over the adjoining level, or clamber up the opposite rise on the brow of which stands St. Eugene's Cathedral, yet unfinished, and the pile of turrets which constitute Magee College. A noble bridge spans the Foyle, and through a forest of shipmasts one may see on the other side the city rising up from the water, and stretching along the bending shore till it becomes lost in the villa-studded woods of Prehen.
The massive walls, half hidden by encroaching commerce, the grim-looking gates, and the old rusty cannon whose mouth thundered the "No" of the "Maiden City" to the rough advances of James, in 1689, give the city a mediæval air that well accords with its monastic origin. For, let her citizens gild the bitter pill as they may, the cradle of Derry—the Rochelle of Irish Protestantism—was rocked by monks—aye, by monks in as close communion with Rome as are the dread Jesuits to-day.
Fourteen hundred years ago the Foyle flowed on to mingle its waters with ocean as calmly as it does to-day, but its peaceful bosom reflected a far different scene. Then the fair, fresh face of nature was unsullied by the hand of man. "The tides flowed round the hill which was of an oval form, and rose 119 feet above the level of the sea, thus forming an island of about 200 acres."[1] A Daire or oak grove spread its leafy shade over the whole, and gave shelter to the red deer and an unceasing choir of little songsters. It was called in the language of the time "Daire-Calgachi." The first part of the name in the modern form of Derry, still remains—though now the stately rows of oak have given way to the streets of a busy city, and the smoke of numerous factories clouds the atmosphere.
One day, in the early part of 546, there visited the grove, in company with the local chieftain, a youth named Columba, a scion of the royal race of the O'Donnells. He was captivated by its beauty. It seemed the very spot for the monastery he was anxious to establish. He was only a deacon; but the fame of his sanctity had already filled the land, and the princes of his family were ever urging him to found a monastery whose monks, they hoped, would reflect his virtues and increase the faith and piety of their clan. This seemed the very spot for such an establishment. The neighborhood of the royal fortress of Aileach, that
"Sits evermore like a queen on her throne
And smiles on the valleys of green Innishowen,"
promised security; the river an unfailing supply of fish; the woods material to build with; and, better than all, the lord of the district was his cousin Ainmire, from whom Columba had only to ask to receive. He did ask the island for God, and his request was joyfully complied with.
It was just three years after the deacon-abbot of Monte Casino had passed to his reward, that the young Irish deacon began his monastery. To erect monastic buildings in those days was a work of very little labor. A wooden church, destined in the course of time to give place to a more durable edifice—the seat of a bishopric—was first erected. Then the cells of the monks were put up. They were of circular form and of the simplest construction. A stout post was firmly planted in what was to be the centre, and a number of slighter poles were then placed at equal distances round it. The interstices—space however having been left for a door—were filled up with willow or hazel saplings in the form of basketwork. From the outer poles rafters sprang to the centre-posts, and across them were laid rows of laths over which a fibry web of sod was thrown, and the whole thatched with straw or rushes. The inside of the wall was lined with moss—the outside plastered with soft clay. A rough wooden bed—and in the case of Columba himself and many of his monks—a stone pillow, a polaire or leathern satchel for holding books, a writing-desk and seat, formed the furniture of this rude cell, which was the ordinary dwelling of monk and student during the golden age of the Irish Church.
Only a few weeks elapsed from the time that the first tree was felled till the new community, or rather order, took up their abode in it, and the swelling strain of their vespers was borne down the Lough by the rippling breeze and echoed by the religious, whose convents, presided over by SS. Frigidian and Cardens sentinelled the mouth of the Lough at Moville and Coleraine. The habit of these monks—similar to that of Iona and Lindisfarne, consisted of "[2]the cowl—of coarse texture, made of wool, retaining its natural color and the tunic, or under habit, which was also white. If the weather was particularly severe an amphibalus, or double mantle, was permitted. When engaged at work on the farm the brethern wore sandals which were not used within the monastery."
Though their time was mainly devoted to prayer, meditation and the various other religious exercises, yet their rule made them apply every spare moment to copying and illuminating MSS. or some other kind of manual or intellectual labor, according as their strength and talents permitted. By this, people were attracted to the spot. Houses sprang up in the neighborhood of the monastery, that continually increasing in number, at length grew into a city, just as from a similar monastic germ have sprung nearly all the great German cities.
Columba in the busy years that elapsed between 546 and his final departure from Ireland in 563, looked upon Derry as his home. It was his first and dearest monastery. It was in his own Tyrconnell, but a few miles from that home by Lough Gartan, where he first saw the light, and from his foster home amid the mountains of Kilmacrenan, that, rising with their green belts of trees and purple mantles of heather over the valleys, seemed like huge festoons hung from the blue-patched horizon. Then the very air was redolent of sanctity. If he turned to the south, the warm breezes that swayed his cowl reminded him that away behind those wooded hills in Ardstraw, prayed Eugene, destined to share with him the patronage of the diocese, and that farther up, St. Creggan, whose name the Presbyterian farmers unconsciously preserve in the designation of their townland, Magheracreggan, presided over Scarrabern, the daughter-house of Ardstraw. Then turning slowly northwards he would meet with the persons, or relics, of St. O'Heney in Banagher, St. Sura in Maghera, St. Martin in Desertmartin, St. Canice in Limavady, St. Goar in Aghadoey, St. Cardens in Coleraine, St. Frigidian in Moville, St. Comgell in Culdaff, St. McCartin in Donagh, St. Egneach in the wildly beautiful pass of Mamore, St. Mura in Fahan, and his own old teacher, St. Cruithnecan in Kilmacrenan. All these, and many others, whose names tradition but feebly echoes, were contemporary, or nearly so, with him; and with many of them, he was united in the warmest bonds of friendship,—a friendship that served to rivet him the more to Derry. Even the budding glories of Durrow and Kells could not draw him away from his "loved oak-grove;" and at length, when the time had come for him to go forth and plant the faith in a foreign land, it was the monks of Derry who received his last embrace ere he seated himself with his twelve companions, also monks of Derry, in his little osier coracle, and with tearful eyes watched his grove till the topmost leaf had sunk beneath the curving wave.
When twenty-seven years after he visited his native land, as the deputy of an infant nation and the saviour of the bards, on whom, but for his kindly intercession, the hand of infuriated justice had heavily fallen, his first visit was to Derry. It was probably during this visit that he founded that church on the other side of the Foyle, whose ivy-clad walls and gravelled area the reader of "Thackeray's Sketch Book" may remember; but few know that it was wantonly demolished by Dr. Weston (1467-1484), the only Englishman who ever held the See of Derry; and "who," adds Colgan, "began out of the ruins to build a palace for himself, which the avenging hand of God did not allow him to complete."
Columba's heart ever yearned to Derry. In one of his poems he tells us "how my boat would fly if its prow were turned to my Irish oak grove." And one day when "that grey eye, which ever turned to Erin," was gazing wistfully at the horizon, where Ireland ought to appear, his love for Derry found expression in a little poem, the English version of which I transcribed from Cardinal Moran's "Irish Saints."
"Were the tribute of all Alba mine,
From its centre to its border,
I would prefer the sight of one cell
In the middle of fair Derry.
"The reason I love Derry is
For its quietness, for its purity;
Crowded full of heaven's angels,
Is every leaf of the oaks of Derry.
"My Derry, my little oak grove,
My abode and my little cell,
O eternal God in heaven above,
Woe be to him who violates it."
With the same love that he himself had for his "little oak grove," he seems to have inspired the annalists of his race, for on turning over the pages of the Four Masters, the eye is arrested by such entries as,—
"1146, a violent tempest blew down sixty oaks in Derry-Columbkille."
"1178, a storm prostrated one hundred and twenty oaks in Derry-Columbkille."
These little tokens of reverence for the trees, which had been sanctified by his presence and love, show us how deep a root his memory had in the affections of the Donegal Franciscans, when they paused in their serious and compendious work to record every little accident that happened to his monastery. But, alas, all the protection that O'Donnell's clan might afford, all the fear that Columba's "Woe" might inspire, could not save his grove. Like many a similar one in Ireland, storms, and the destructive hand of man, have combined to blot it off the face of the landscape, and nothing now remains but the name.
The monastery, too, shared the same fate. Burned by the Danes in 812, 989, 997 and 1095, phœnix-like it rose again from its ashes, each time in greater beauty. The church, after one of these burnings, was rebuilt of stone; and from its charred and blackened appearance after the next burning, received the name of Dubh-Regles or Black Church of the Abbey—a name by which in the Annals the monastery itself is often called.
But Derry had other enemies than the Danes. In 1124 we find "Ardgar, Prince of Aileach, killed by the ecclesiastics of Doire-Columbkille in the defence of their church. His followers in revenge burned the town and churches." The then abbot was St. Gelasius, who, after presiding sixteen years over the monastery, which he had entered a novice in early youth, was, in 1137, raised to the Primatial See of Armagh; and dying in 1174, nearly closes the long calendar of Irish Saints. The first year of his abbacy (1121) had been marked by the death in the monastery of "Domwald Magloughlin Ardrigh of Erin, a generous prince, charitable to the poor and liberal to the rich, who, feeling his end approaching, had withdrawn thither,"—a fact which shows the great veneration in which this monastery was held.
The name of the next abbot, Flathbert O'Brolcan, or Bradley, is one of the brightest in the Annals of Derry. He was greatly distinguished for his sanctity and learning, but still more for his administrative abilities. As abbot of Derry he was present at the Synod of Kells in 1152. Six years after, at the Synod of Brightaig (near Trim, county Meath), a continuation or prorogation of that of Kells, Derry was created an Episcopal See and Flathbert appointed its first bishop. A much more honorable distinction was given him, when by the same synod, he was appointed "prefect general of all the abbeys of Ireland," an appointment which must probably be limited to the Columbian Abbeys, which were at the time very numerous. Some idea of the wealth and power of the Columbian order may be gathered from the records that the Masters have given us of Flathbert's visitations. "In 1150 he visited Tireoghain (Tyrone), and obtained a horse from every chieftain; a cow from every two biataghs; a cow from every three freeholders; a cow from every four villeins; and twenty cows from the king himself; a gold ring of five ounces, his horse and battle-dregs from the son of O'Lochlain, king of Ireland." "In 1153 he visited Down and Antrim and got a horse from every chieftain; a sheep from every hearth; a horse and five cows from O'Dunlevy, and an ounce of gold from his wife." And in 1161 he visited Ossory, and "in lieu of the tribute of seven score oxen due to him, accepted four hundred and twenty ounces of pure silver."
But though thus honored by the hierarchy and people, enemies were not wanting to him. In 1144 the monastery had been burned and hostile clouds were again gathering round it, when in 1163 Flathbert erected a cashel or series of earthen fortifications, which baffled for a time the enmity of the plunderer. A passing calm was thus assured him, of which he took advantage, in 1164, to commence the building of his Cathedral, called in Irish "Teampull-mor," a name which one of the city parishes still retains. But the times were troublous, and hardly was the Cathedral finished than we find in 1166 "O'More burning Derry as far as the church Dubh-Regles."
In 1175, on the death of their abbot the monks of Iona elected Flathbert; but he felt that the shadows of death were gathering round him, and he would not leave his own monastery of Derry. He died the same year, and "was buried in the monastery, leaving a great reputation for wisdom and liberality;" but before his death he had the pleasure of knowing that "1175, Donough O'Carolan perfected a treaty of friendship with the abbey and town, and gave to the abbey a betagh townland of Donoughmore and certain duties."
Some years before his death Flathbert had resigned the See of Derry in favor of Dr. Muredach O'Coffey,[3] who, having been consecrated bishop of Ardstraw had, in 1150, transferred that See to Maghera or Rathlure, thus uniting Ardstraw and Rathlure. His accession to Derry joined the three into one, to which under Dr. O'Carolan in the next century, Innishowen was added, thus forming the modern diocese.
Dr. O'Coffey took up his residence in the abbey where, on the 10th of February, 1173, he breathed his last. Archdall in his Monasticon calls him "St. Muredach;" but the old Annalists content themselves with saying that "he was the sun of science, the precious stone and resplendent gem of knowledge, the bright star and rich treasury of learning; and as in charity so, too, was he powerful in pilgrimage and prayer." The Masters add that "a great miracle was performed on the night of his death; the dark night was illumined from midnight to day-break; and the neighboring parts of the world which were visible were in one blaze of light; and all persons arose from their beds imagining it was day."
But I must now hasten to the end, for there is little in the history of the next four centuries over which one loves to linger. The story it tells is the old one of robberies and murders and burnings. It records the first rumblings of that storm so soon to break over that land and make of our island a vast coliseum, drenching it with the blood of martyrs. I have often thought what a pang it must have cost the heart of Brother Michael Oblery to pen such entries as these:
"1195, Rury, son of Dunlere, chief of Ulidia, plunders Derry-Columbkille with an English force."
"1197, Sir John De Courcy plunders the abbey of Derry."
"1198, Sir John De Courcy again plunders Derry abbey."
How his eyes must have filled as he glanced in memory over the long tale of his country's sufferings, on the record of which he was about to enter. 'Twas bad enough to see the Dane lay sacrilegious hands on the sacred vessels; but it was worse still to behold one's fellow-Catholic apply the robber's torch to the church of God where, perhaps, at that very moment our Lord himself lay hid under the sacramental veils. Yet these were the men who, from the Loire to the Jordan had fought the church's battle so gallantly,—whose countrymen would only hold the Calabrian kingdom, that their lances had purchased so dearly, as vassals of the Pope,—the very men who themselves were studding the Pale with those architectural gems, of which the ruins of Dunbrody and its sister abbeys still speak so eloquently. It was a strange fancy that made them tumble the Irish monastery to-day, and lay the foundation of an Anglo-Irish one to-morrow. Yet so it was; for in the charters of many of those monasteries, in which, it was enacted in 1380, that no mere Irishman should be allowed to take vows, the name of John De Courcy is entered as founder or benefactor. One hardly knows whether to condemn him for destroying Columba's favorite abbey, or praise him for the solicitude he expresses in his letter to the Pope for the proper preservation of Columba's relics. The acts of the man and his nation are so contradictory, that the only reasonable conclusion we can draw from them is the practical one, never again to wonder that the faith of such men withered at the first blast of persecution.
Nevertheless, the monastery survived these attacks; for in the early part of the fifteenth century, we find the then abbot of Derry negotiating a peace between the English and O'Donnell. But in its subsequent annals nothing more than the mere date of an inmate's death meets us till we come to the great catastrophe, which ended at once the monastery and order of Columba. Cox thus tells the story: "Colonel Saintlow succeeded Randolph in the command of the garrison and lived as quietly as could be desired, for the rebels were so daunted by the former defeat that they did not dare to make any new attempt; but unluckily on the 24th of April, 1566, the ammunition took fire and blew up the town and fort of Derry, so that the soldiers were obliged to embark for Dublin."[4] "This disaster was regarded at the time as a divine chastisement for the profanation of St. Columba's church and cell, the latter being used by the heretical soldiery as a repository of ammunition, while the former was defiled by their profane worship."[5]
J. McH.
An actor once delivered a letter of introduction to a manager, which described him as an actor of great merit, and concluded: "He plays Virginius, Richelieu, Hamlet, Shylock, and billiards. He plays billiards the best."
The Penitent on the Cross.
Few deeds of guilt are strangers to my eyes,
These hands of mine have wrought full share of sin,
My very heart seemed steeled to pity's cries:
Whence then this thought that melts my soul within?
What is there in that Form that moves me so?
So sweet a victim ne'er mine eyes beheld;
That beauteous face, that majesty of woe,
That hidden something from my sight withheld.
Cease thou at least, nor join the mocking throng,
Thou heartless sharer in our common doom!
Just meed for us, but He hath done no wrong;
All seems so strange—what means the gathering gloom?
That lonely mother, there oppressed with woe,
O'erheard me now I saw her raise her eyes;
To bless me—and with clasping hands as though
She craved a something, through the darkening skies.
Hear how the priests discuss with mocking scorn
The triple scroll above His crownèd head.
"Jesus of Nazareth," the lowly born;
"King of the Jews," in Royal David's stead.
Ah, me; but I have heard that name of old
From waylaid victims in my outlaw den.
They won me from fell purpose as they told
His deeds of love and wonder amongst men.
They told me how the sea in billows dashed
Became as marble smooth beneath His feet;
How He rebuked the winds to fury lashed,
And they were hushed to murmurs low and sweet.
He, then it was that gave the blind their sight,
And made the palsied leap with bounding tread;
And as you'd wake the sleeping in the night
From even their sleep awoke the slumbering dead.
Oh, Master, had I known Thee in those days,
Fain might I too have followed Thee as Friend;
But then I was an outlaw by the ways,
And now 'tis late—my days are at an end.
"No, not too late." Oh, God! whose is that voice
That sounds within me such a heavenly strain,
And makes my being to its depths rejoice
As if it felt creation's touch again?
What is that light, that glorious light which brings
Such wondrous knowledge of things all unseen,
And yet wherein I see fair, far-off things
To mortal vision hid, however keen.
And centred in that flood of golden light,
One truth that catches all its scattered beams—
Illumed above the rest so fair, so bright:
It is thy God whose blood beside thee streams.
Oh, God of glory! hear the outlaw's prayer,
And in Thy home but kindly think of me;
I dare but ask to be remembered there,
Nor heaven I seek, but to be loved by Thee.
From off the Cross whereon the Saviour hung
Fell on his ears response of wondrous love,
More sweet than though the cherubim had sung
The sweetest songs they sing in heaven above.
Yes, loved but not remembered thou shalt be—
The absent only may remembrance claim—
But in my kingdom thou shalt dwell with me,
Companion of my glory as my shame.
Amen, amen, I say to thee that thou,
Ere yet another day illume the skies,
With crown unlike to this that binds my brow
Shalt share the glories of my paradise.
F. E. Emon.
The Celt in America.
It is the common delusion of our day that Americans as a people are of Anglo-Saxon lineage. This has been said and reiterated, until it descends into the lowest depths of sycophancy and utter folly. It is false in fact, for above all other claimants, that of the Celt is by far the best. Glancing back to our primeval history, we find the Kelt to be the centre-figure of its legends and traditions. We are told by an old chronicle, that Brendan, an Irishman, discovered this continent about 550 A. D., and named it Irland-Kir-Mikla, or Great Eire; this is corroborated by the Scandinavians. Iceland was settled in the sixth century by Irish, and when the Norsemen settled there, they found the remains of an Irish civilization in churches, ruins, crosses and urns: thus, it is not at all improbable that the Celts of those islands sent out exploring parties who discovered for the first time the American continent. Passing over the myths and legends of that curious and quaint era, let us read the pages of authentic American history.
On that memorable October day, when the caravels of Columbus came to anchor in the New World, the Celt acted well his part in that great drama. He who first reached land, from the ships of Columbus, was a Patrick Maguiras, an Irishman. Columbus in his second voyage had on board an Irish priest, Father Boyle, and several of his crew were Celts. In the early discoveries and settlements the Kelt was ever in the van of the pioneers of Western civilization; he explored rivers, bays, and forests, while the Anglo-Saxon scarce tread on American soil until the close of the sixteenth century. The first gateway to civilization for the West, was made by priests from France, among whom were many Irish missionaries, who were forced to fly their native land and seek shelter elsewhere. St. Augustine and New Mexico were founded by the Spaniards long before a cabin was built in Jamestown, and the Spanish and French sovereigns ruled numerous flourishing dependencies in the New World ere the English Pilgrims had seen Plymouth. The Anglo-Saxons, then, were not so forward in explorations and discoveries as their neighbors, the Celts and Latins. Review the epoch of the colonial development, and we find that the Celt surpasses the Saxon.
The Huguenots fled from France; the Scotchman left his native heather to escape despotism; the Irishman exiled from his patrimony sought a home in the American wilds. Many a Spaniard made his Nova Iberia in the South, and the log-cabins of the French pioneers dotted the north-western wilderness. The Swedes founded Delaware, and New York was created by the stolid Dutch. The Moravians and the Welsh came hither likewise; the Puritans fled Merry England and Quakers sought religious freedom in America; but the great body of the English people believing in the State and the religion of their sovereign, had no desire to risk fortune here, especially when the laws were made for their benefit even if at the expense of the colonists. Thus, with exceptions of the Quaker and the Puritan, some few Cavaliers and the paupers, the great body of the Anglo-Saxon people remained at home. In American colonization, Anglo-Saxonism was but a drop in the bucket. Among all the famous thirteen colonies there was not one settled by Saxons exclusively; and in all of the colonies the Celt predominated. The Puritans when they founded Massachusetts, rigorously excluded all who differed from them; nevertheless the Celt waxed strong in New England. "It was," says Hawthorne, "no uncommon thing in those days to see an advertisement in the colonial paper, of the arrival of fresh Irish slaves and potatoes." Bunker Hill itself was named after a knoll in county Antrim. Faneuil Hall was the gift of a Celt, and the plan of it was drawn by Berkeley, the Irish philosopher, who said prophetically,
"Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time's noblest empire is the last."
The Boston Irish Charitable Society was organized near a century and a half ago, and the first paper mill in Massachusetts was built by a Celt named Thomas Smith. The names of Belfast, Londonderry, Ulster, Sullivan and Bangor show the nationality of their settlers. The founders of the Empire State were Teutons; but when it passed to the English realm, James II. sent over as Governor, Colonel Dongan, an Irishman. This Governor during his term of office, brought over large numbers of Irish emigrants. Pennsylvania was the most Keltic of the colonies. The first daily paper in the United States was founded by John Dunlap, an Irishman. So great was Celtic emigration to this State that in one year (1729) there came to Pennsylvania no fewer than 6,208 persons, of whom 242 were Germans, 247 English, and 5,653 Irishmen. So numerous were Celts that Washington once said, "Put me in Rockbridge County, and I'll find men enough to save the Revolution." In Maryland it was the same. The first ship that sailed into Baltimore was Irish, though the figure-head, Cecil Calvert, was English; but the town from which he derived his title, and after which the metropolis of Maryland is named, is in Galway, Ireland. In the Old Dominion, the first settlers were in good part English. The Scotch and Welsh were very powerful, and the Irish were very numerous. The impress if the Celts in Virginia is seen in Carroll and Logan counties, Lynchburg, Burkesville, Brucktown and Wheeling.
In 1652, Cromwell recommended that Irishwomen be sold to merchants, and shipped to New England and Virginia, there to be sold as wives to the colonists. A manuscript of Dr. Lingard's puts the number sold, at about 60,000; Brondin, a contemporary, places the number at 100,000. The names of these women have become anglicized, for the English law forbade the Irish to have an Irish name, and commanded them to assume English names. North Carolina was settled mainly by the Scotch and Welsh, with English and Irish additions. So was Georgia. In South Carolina the Irish predominated. "Of all the countries," says the historian of South Carolina, "none has furnished this province with so many inhabitants as Ireland. Scarce a ship leaves any of its ports for Charleston that is not crowded with men, women, and children." So much for the so-called English colonies. Among the foremost of distinguished men in the colonial times were the Celts. The first man elected to an office, not appointed by the Crown, was James Moore, Governor of North Carolina. James Logan, the successor of Penn, and William Thompson, were both Celts. Let us glance at the Revolution; it is in this struggle that the Celt was covered with glory; and either on the field or in the forum he was always in the van. The Celts of Mecklenburg made a declaration of freedom over a year before the Declaration of Independence was made.
Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, was of Welsh ancestry, and thus a Celt. John Hancock inherited Celtic blood from his mother, Nora O'Flaherty. Behold the array of Celts who signed the Declaration in 1776: Carroll, Thornton, McKean, Rutledge, Lewis, Hart, Lynch, Jefferson and Reed. A merchant of Philadelphia, John Nixon, first read to the people that immortal paper. Charles Thompson, Thomas McHenry and Patrick Henry, the Demosthenes of the Revolution, were Celts. The poetry of the loyal English writers afford abundant proof of the influence and numbers of the Celts in those days. The first blow for Independence was struck by James Sullivan of New Hampshire, and the first blow on sea was struck by Jeremiah O'Brien, of Machias, Maine. A Celt, Thomas Cargill, of Ballyshannon, saved the records of Concord when the British soldiery went out from Boston to destroy the military stores in Middlesex. Nor was it in the opening scenes alone that the Celts were prominent; but from the death of McClary on Bunker Hill, to the close of the war, they fought with a vigor and bravery unsurpassed. Who charged through the snowdrifts around Quebec but Montgomery, a Celt.
Who fought so bravely at Brandywine? at Bemis's Heights, who saved the day but Morgan's Irish Rifles. Was it not mad Anthony Wayne, a Celt, who won Stony Point? General Sullivan, a Celt, avenged the Wyoming Massacre. General Hand, a Celt, first routed the Hessians. The hero of Bennington was a Celt, General Stark; so were Generals Conway, Knox, Greene, Lewis, Brigadier Generals Moore, Fitzgerald, Hogan, Colonels Moylan and Butler. In fact, American annals are so replete with trophies of Celtic valor that it would be vain to narrate them all.
"A hundred battlefields attest, a hundred victories show,
How well at liberty's behest they fought our country's foe."
The only society that ever had the honor of enrolling the name of Washington among its members was the Friendly Knights of St. Patrick. It is an incident worthy of remark that at Yorktown it was a Celt, General O'Hara, who gave to America the symbol of England's final defeat. When the war of the Revolution was ended the Celt laid aside the sword to engage in the arts of peace and build up the industries of the country.
Twenty Irish merchants subscribed $500,000 to pay the soldiers, and they aided in every possible way the young and weak government. Then the Celtic statesmen rose to view Hamilton, Jefferson, Gov. Sullivan of New Hampshire, Gov. Sullivan of Massachusetts, De Witt Clinton of New York, John Armstrong, jr., of Pennsylvania, Calhoun, Louis McLane and George Campbell. Since those days the numbers and influence of the Celts has been constantly increasing, and were it not for the sturdy Scotchman, the Welshman, and Irishman our nation would still be a conjury of the future. On the battlefield Grant, Meade, McClellan, Scott, Sheridan, McDowell, Shields, Butler, McCook, McPherson, Kearney, Stonewall Jackson, McClernand, Rowan, Corcoran, Porter, Claiborne and Logan show the valor of the Celt. Jones, Barry, Decatur, McDonough, Stewart and Blakely are the ideals of the American sailor. Morse, McCormack, Fulton are among our greatest inventors. Jackson, Pierce, Buchanan, Wilson, Cameron, Douglas, Blaine, Arthur and Hill are our Celtic statesmen. Charles O'Conor, McVeagh, Stuart, Black, Campbell, McKinley, McLean, Rutledge are our greatest jurists. Poe, Greeley, Shea, Baker, Savage, England, Hughes, Spalding, O'Rielly, Barrett, Purcell, Keene, McCullough, Boucicault, Bennett, Connery and Jones are Celts, names famous in journalism, religion, literature and drama. The Celt, in the words of Henry Clay, are "bone of our bone" and "flesh of our flesh," thus acknowledging him to be part and parcel of our nation.
Let us leave the flowery field of rhetoric and strike the hard pan of statistics. The official census of 1870 numbers the Celts at 24,000,000, the Saxons at 5,000,000, and the whole population at 38,500,000. In proportion the Celts were five-eighths and the Saxons one-eighth of the people of the country, two-eighths being of other origin. There are now 50,000,000 inhabitants, of which (20,000,000 are Irish-Americans) five-eighths are Celts who number 32,500,000, and one-eighth Saxon, or 7,000,000, and the residue being filled with other races. Thus we see that in numbers the nation is Celtic or nearly so. Let not national vanity or prejudice of race assert itself too strongly, for here came all to obtain their just and lawful liberty.
Worcester, Mass.
J. Sullivan.