ANCIENT IRISH LITERATURE—No. II.
In a preceding paper under this heading we lately gave a sample from the lighter class of native Irish poetry of the seventeenth century, namely, “The Woman of Three Cows.” We have now to present our readers with a specimen of a more serious character, belonging to the same age—an Elegy on the death of the Tironian and Tirconnellian princes, who having fled with others from Ireland in the year 1607, and afterwards dying at Rome, were there interred on St Peter’s Hill, in one grave.
The poem is the production of O’Donnell’s bard, Owen Roe Mac an Bhaird, or Ward, who accompanied the family in their flight, and is addressed to Nuala, O’Donnell’s sister, who was also one of the fugitives. As the circumstances connected with the flight of the Northern Earls, and which led to the subsequent confiscation of the six Ulster Counties by James I., may not be immediately in the recollection of many of our readers, it may be proper briefly to state, that their departure from this country was caused by the discovery of a letter directed to Sir William Ussher, Clerk of the Council, which was dropped in the Council-chamber on the 7th of May, and which accused the Northern chieftains generally of a conspiracy to overthrow the government. Whether this charge was founded in truth or not, it is not necessary for us to express any opinion; but as in some degree necessary to the illustration of the poem, and as an interesting piece of hitherto unpublished literature in itself, we shall here, as a preface to the poem, extract the following account of the flight of the Northern Earls, as recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters, and translated by Mr O’Donovan:—
“Maguire (Cuconnaught) and Donogh, son of Mahon, who was son of the Bishop O’Brien, sailed in a ship to Ireland, and put in at the harbour of Swilly. They then took with them from Ireland the Earl O’Neill (Hugh, son of Ferdoragh) and the Earl O’Donnell (Rory, son of Hugh, who was son of Magnus) and many others of the nobles of the province of Ulster. These are the persons who went with O’Neill, namely, his Countess, Catherina, daughter of Magennis, and her three sons; Hugh, the Baron, John and Brian; Art Oge, son of Cormac, who was son of the Baron; Ferdoragh, son of Con, who was son of O’Neill; Hugh Oge, son of Brian, who was son of Art O’Neill; and many others of his most intimate friends. These were they who went with the Earl O’Donnell, namely, Caffer, his brother, with his sister Nuala; Hugh, the Earl’s child, wanting three weeks of being one year old; Rose, daughter of O’Doherty and wife of Caffer, with her son Hugh, aged two years and three months; his (Rory’s) brother son Donnell Oge, son of Donnell, Naghtan son of Calvach, who was son of Donogh Cairbreach O’Donnell, and many others of his intimate friends. They embarked on the Festival of the Holy Cross in Autumn.
This was a distinguished company; and it is certain that the sea has not borne and the wind has not wafted in modern times a number of persons in one ship more eminent, illustrious or noble, in point of genealogy, heroic deeds, valour, feats of arms, and brave achievements, than they. Would that God had but permitted them to remain in their patrimonial inheritances until the children should arrive at the age of manhood! Woe to the heart that meditated, woe to the mind that conceived, woe to the council that recommended the project of this expedition, without knowing whether they should, to the end of their lives, be able to return to their native principalities or patrimonies.”
AN ELEGY
ON THE TIRONIAN AND TIRCONNELLIAN PRINCES BURIED AT ROME.
“A bhean fuair faill air an ffeart!”
O, Woman of the Piercing Wail,
Who mournest o’er yon mound of clay
With sigh and groan,
Would God thou wert among the Gael!
Thou wouldst not then from day to day
Weep thus alone.
’Twere long before, around a grave
In green Tirconnell, one could find
This loneliness;
Near where Beann-Boirche’s banners wave
Such grief as thine could ne’er have pined
Companionless.
Beside the wave, in Donegall,
In Antrim’s glens, or fair Dromore,
Or Killilee,
Or where the sunny waters fall,
At Assaroe, near Erna’s shore,
This could not be.
On Derry’s plains—in rich Drumclieff—
Throughout Armagh the Great, renowned
In olden years,
No day could pass but Woman’s grief
Would rain upon the burial-ground
Fresh floods of tears!
O, no!—from Shannon, Boyne, and Suir,
From high Dunluce’s castle-walls,
From Lissadill,
Would flock alike both rich and poor,
One wail would rise from Cruachan’s halls
To Tara’s hill;
And some would come from Barrow-side,
And many a maid would leave her home
On Leitrim’s plains,
And by melodious Banna’s tide,
And by the Mourne and Erne, to come
And swell thy strains!
O, horses’ hoofs would trample down
The Mount whereon the martyr-saint[1]
Was crucified.
From glen and hill, from plain and town,
One loud lament, one thrilling plaint,
Would echo wide.
There would not soon be found, I ween,
One foot of ground among those bands
For museful thought,
So many shriekers of the keen[2]
Would cry aloud, and clap their hands,
All woe-distraught!
Two princes of the line of Conn
Sleep in their cells of clay beside
O’Donnell Roe:
Three royal youths, alas! are gone,
Who lived for Erin’s weal, but died
For Erin’s woe!
Ah! could the men of Ireland read
The names these noteless burial-stones
Display to view
Their wounded hearts afresh would bleed.
Their tears gush forth again, their groans
Resound anew!
The youths whose relics moulder here
Were sprung from Hugh, high Prince and Lord
Of Aileach’s lands;
Thy noble brothers, justly dear,
Thy nephew, long to be deplored
By Ulster’s bands.
Theirs were not souls wherein dull Time
Could domicile Decay or house
Decrepitude!
They passed from Earth ere Manhood’s prime,
Ere years had power to dim their brows
Or chill their blood.
And who can marvel o’er thy grief,
Or who can blame thy flowing tears,
That knows their source?
O’Donnell, Dunnasava’s chief,
Cut off amid his vernal years,
Lies here a corse
Beside his brother Cathbar, whom
Tirconnell of the Helmets mourns
In deep despair—
For valour, truth, and comely bloom,
For all that greatens and adorns,
A peerless pair.
O, had these twain, and he, the third,
The Lord of Mourne, O’Niall’s son,
Their mate in death—
A prince in look, in deed, and word—
Had these three heroes yielded on
The field their breath,
O, had they fallen on Criffan’s plain,
There would not be a town or clan
From shore to sea,
But would with shrieks bewail the Slain,
Or chant aloud the exulting rann[3]
Of jubilee!
When high the shout of battle rose,
On fields where Freedom’s torch still burned
Through Erin’s gloom,
If one, if barely one of those
Were slain, all Ulster would have mourned
The hero’s doom!
If at Athboy, where hosts of brave
Ulidian horsemen sank beneath
The shock of spears,
Young Hugh O’Neill had found a grave,
Long must the North have wept his death
With heart-wrung tears!
If on the day of Ballach-myre
The Lord of Mourne had met, thus young,
A warrior’s fate,
In vain would such as thou desire
To mourn, alone, the champion sprung
From Niall the Great!
No marvel this—for all the Dead,
Heaped on the field, pile over pile,
At Mullach-brack,
Were scarce an eric[4] for his head,
If Death had stayed his footsteps while
On victory’s track!
If on the Day of Hostages
The fruit had from the parent bough
Been rudely torn
In sight of Munster’s bands—Mac-Nee’s
Such blow the blood of Conn, I trow,
Could ill have borne.
If on the day of Ballach-boy
Some arm had laid, by foul surprise,
The chieftain low,
Even our victorious shout of joy
Would soon give place to rueful cries
And groans of woe!
If on the day the Saxon host
Were forced to fly—a day so great
For Ashanee[5]—
The Chief had been untimely lost,
Our conquering troops should moderate
Their mirthful glee.
There would not lack on Lifford’s day,
From Galway, from the glens of Boyle,
From Limerick’s towers,
A marshalled file, a long array.
Of mourners to bedew the soil
With tears in showers!
If on the day a sterner fate
Compelled his flight from Athenree,
His blood had flowed,
What numbers all disconsolate
Would come unasked, and share with thee
Affliction’s load!
If Derry’s crimson field had seen
His life-blood offered up, though ’twere
On Victory’s shrine,
A thousand cries would swell the keen,
A thousand voices of despair
Would echo thine!
O, had the fierce Dalcassian swarm
That bloody night on Fergus’ banks,
But slain our Chief,
When rose his camp in wild alarm—
How would the triumph of his ranks
Be dashed with grief!
How would the troops of Murbach mourn
If on the Curlew Mountains’ day,
Which England rued,
Some Saxon hand had left them lorn,
By shedding there, amid the fray,
Their prince’s blood!
Red would have been our warriors’ eyes
Had Roderick found on Sligo’s field
A gory grave,
No Northern Chief would soon arise
So sage to guide, so strong to shield,
So swift to save.
Long would Leith-Cuinn have wept, if Hugh
Had met the death he oft had dealt
Among the foe;
But, had our Roderick fallen too,
All Erin must, alas! have felt
The deadly blow!
What do I say? Ah, woe is me!
Already we bewail in vain
Their fatal fall:
And Erin, once the Great and Free,
Now vainly mourns her breakless chain,
And iron thrall!
Then, daughter of O’Donnell! dry
Thine overflowing eyes, and turn
Thy heart aside!
For Adam’s race is born to die,
And sternly the sepulchral urn
Mocks human pride!
Look not, nor sigh, for earthly throne,
Nor place thy trust in arm of clay—
But on thy knees
Uplift thy soul to God alone,
For all things go their destined way
As He decrees.
Embrace the faithful Crucifix,
And seek the path of pain and prayer
Thy Saviour trod;
Nor let thy spirit intermix
With earthly hope and worldly care
Its groans to God!
And Thou, O mighty Lord! whose ways
Are far above our feeble minds
To understand,
Sustain us in these doleful days,
And render light the chain that binds
Our fallen land!
Look down upon our dreary state,
And through the ages that may still
Roll sadly on,
Watch Thou o’er hapless Erin’s fate,
And shield at least from darker ill
The blood of Conn!
M.
[1] St Peter. This passage is not exactly a blunder, though at first it may seem one: the poet supposes the grave itself transferred to Ireland, and he naturally includes in the transference the whole of the immediate locality around the grave.—Tr.
[2] Caoine.
[3] Song.
[4] A compensation or fine.
[5] Ballyshannon.