Another curious piece of historical narrative by a religious is the account given of the Irish wars from November, 1641, to January, 1647, by a northern friar called O'Mellon, who was an eye-witness of much of what he relates.[17]
Of a somewhat similar nature is the interesting account of Montrose's wars in the Book of Clanranald, a manuscript written in pure Irish and in Irish characters, by a Gael from the Islands, Niall Mac Vurich, the hereditary bard and historian of the Clanranald.[18] The Mac Vurichs, who are descended from a celebrated bard, Muireach O'Daly,[19] who fled into Scotland from O'Donnell about the year 1200, enjoyed the farm of Stailgarry and the "four pennies of Drimsdale, in South Uist, down to the middle of the last century, by virtue of their hereditary office." The object of Mac Vurich in writing the history of Montrose's campaign is to vindicate and extol the career of Alaster Mac Donald and the Gael. "Nothing," says the writer, "is here written except of the people whom I have seen myself and with a part of whose deeds I am acquainted from my own recollection." He gives detailed accounts of several of Montrose's battles in which the Gael, Irish and Scottish, were engaged. His account of the fight of Auldearn is an interesting specimen of his style. He tells us how Alaster Mac Donald, son of Coll Ciotach, son of Gillespie,[20] commanded on the right of the army that day, and was in the act of marshalling his foot when
"a gentleman from Lord Gordon came with a message to him and spoke in this manner: 'Mac Donald, we have heard that there was an agreement and a friendship between our ancestors, and that they did not strike a blow against one another, whatever strife might have been between the other Scots and them; neither was the fame of any other tribe for valour greater than theirs; therefore, by way of renewing the agreement, I would wish to receive a favour from you, namely, an exchange of foot on the first day of my service to my earthly king, that is, you taking my foot forces and you sending me your own.
"That (arrangement) was promptly carried out by Alaster, son of Colla. He sent four score and ten of the veteran soldiers who had often been tested in great dangers in many places; and there came in their stead three hundred foot of the men of the Bog of Gight, Strathbogey, and the Braes,[21] who were not accustomed to skirmishing, hard conflict, or the loud, harsh noise of battle. Although that was a bad exchange for Alaster it was good for his men, for they were never in any battle or skirmish from which they came safer—it seemed to them that the cavalry of the Gordons had no duty to perform but to defend the foot from every danger!
"Alaster drew up his men in a garden which they had come to, and he found that there remained with him of his own men but two score and ten of his gentlemen. He put live and twenty of these in the first rank, and five and twenty of them in the rear rank, and drew up his three hundred foot of the Gordons in their midst and marched before them. The men who opposed him were the regiment of the laird of Lawers, well-trained men, and the gentlemen of Lewis along with them. The clamour of the fight began as is usual in every field of battle, which the foot who were behind Alaster son of Colla, could not well endure, for some of them would not hear the sough of an arrow or the whistling of a ball without ducking their heads or starting aside. Alaster's defence was to go backwards, beckoning to his party with his hand to be of good courage and march on quickly while his gentlemen were entirely engaged in keeping their companies in order, but they failed to do it; and I knew men who killed some of the Gordons' foot in order to prevent them from flying. And when the enemy perceived this they prepared to attack them and charge. Alaster ordered his men then to gain the garden which they had forsaken before, but they were attacked with pikes and arrows and many of them were slain on every side of the garden before the party got into it. Alaster's sword broke, and he got another sword into his hand, and he did not himself remember who gave it to him, but some persons supposed it was his brother-in-law, Mac Cáidh [Davidson] of Ardnacross, who gave him his own sword. Davidson [himself], Feardorcha Mackay, and other good gentlemen fell at that time at the entrance of the garden who were waiting to have Alaster in before them."
Mac Vurich goes on to describe what happened to one of Alaster's gentlemen, Ranald Mac Ceanain of Mull, who found himself assailed by numbers of the enemy on the outside of this garden.
"He turned his face to his enemy, his sword was round his neck, his shield on his left arm, and a hand-gun in his right hand. He pointed the gun at them, and a party of pikemen who were after him halted. There happened to be a narrow passage before them, and on that account there was not one of his own party that had been after him but went before him. There was a great slaughter made of the Gordons' foot by the bowmen.[22] It happened at that moment that a bowman was running past Ranald, and he shooting at the Gordons. The bowman looked over his shoulder and saw the halt to which Ranald had brought the pikemen, and he turned his hand from the man that was before him, and aimed his arrow at Ranald, which struck him on the cheek, and he sent a handbreadth of it through the other cheek. Then Ranald fired the shot, but not at the bowman. He threw the gun away and put the hand to his sword, whilst his shield-arm was stretched far out from him in front, to defend himself against the pikes. He made an effort to get the sword, but it would not draw, for the belt turned round, and the sword did not come out. He tried it the second time by laying the shield-hand under his [other] armpit against the scabbard of the sword, and he drew it out, but five pikes were driven into him between the breast and chin on his thus exposing (?) himself. However, not one of the wounds they gave him was an inch deep. He was for a while at this work, cutting at the pikes, and at all that were stuck in the boss of the shield. He set his back against the garden to defend himself, and was with difficulty working his way towards the door. The pikemen were getting daunted by all that were being cut, except one man who was striking at him desperately and fiercely. That man thought that he would keep his pike from being cut, and that his opponent would fall by him. Ranald was listening all the time to Alaster (inside the wall) rating the Gordons for the bad efforts they were making to relieve himself from the position where he was, and he was all the time step by step making for the door of the garden. At last when he thought that he was near the door he gave a high ready spring away from the pikeman, turning his back to him and his face to the door, stooping his head. The pikeman followed him and stooped his own head under the door, but Alaster was watching them and he gave the pikeman a blow, so that though he turned quickly to get back, his head struck against Ranald's thigh, from the blow Alaster gave him, and his body falls in the doorway and his head in the garden, and when Ranald straightened his back and looked behind him to the door, it was thus he beheld his adversary. The arrow that was stuck in Ranald was cut, and it was taken out of him, and he got it drawn away, and he found the use of his tongue all right, and power of speech—a thing he never thought to get again."
This book, which is in pure Irish, was meant to be read not only by the Highland Gaels, but by Irishmen as well, and indeed the Black Book of Clanranald was picked up on a second-hand bookstall in Dublin.
There were several other prose writers during the seventeenth century, whose books, unlike those of Keating, Mac Firbis, O'Clery, and others we have mentioned, had the good fortune to be printed, but their works are mostly religious. Florence Conry published in 1626 at Louvain a book called "the Mirror of the Pious"[23]; Hugh Mac Cathmhaoil, Archbishop of Armagh, published in 1618, also at Louvain, a book called "the Mirror of the Sacrament of Penance"[24]; Theobald Stapleton published at Brussels in 1639, a "Book of Christian Doctrine," one side Latin and the other Irish; Anthony Gernon published at Louvain in 1645, a book called "The Paradise of the Soul"[25]; Richard Mac Gilla Cody printed in 1667, a book on Miracles in Irish and English; Father Francis O'Mulloy published a long book called "The Lamp of the Faithful"[26] in Irish at Louvain in 1676, and in the following year his rare and valuable Irish Grammar in Latin and Irish, one half of which is dedicated to the subject of prosody, and is the fullest, most competent, and most interesting account which we have of the Irish classical metres as practised in the later schools, by one who was fully acquainted both with them and their methods.
Several minor romantic stories, mostly fabulous creations unconnected with Irish history, seem to have been written during this century, and many more were translated from French, Spanish, Latin, and possibly English.[27] Of the more important works of Michael O'Clery, we shall speak in the next chapter.