I never met his brother Maurice, but I could imagine his a more congenial spirit with the "Young Irelanders" than any other of the O'Connell family. He, too, is represented in "The Spirit of the Nation" by his rousing "Recruiting Song of the Irish Brigade" which, sung to the air of "The White Cockade," has always been a favourite of mine.
A fine, genial old priest, full of gossip and old-time stories, was Father MacMahon, of Suncroft. If he met one of us on the road he would stop to have a gossip, and was always delighted when he found, as he often did, along with an English tongue an Irish heart. From him it was I heard the legend of St. Brigid's miraculous mantle and the origin of the Curragh—how the saint, to get "as much land as would graze a poor man's cow" made the very modest request from the king for as much ground as her mantle would cover; how he agreed, and she laid her mantle down on the "short grass;" how, to the king's astonishment, it spread and spread, until it covered the whole of the ground of what is now the Curragh; and how it would have spread over all Ireland but that it met with a red-haired woman, and that, as everybody knows, is unlucky. Whenever, in our rambles along the country roads we afterwards met a red-haired woman, we used to wonder was she a descendant of the female who stopped the growth of the Curragh of Kildare.
Father MacMahon could also tell us of the gallant fight made by the men of Kildare, and the massacre of the unarmed people on the Curragh in 1798. Many of the men from the Curragh used to come to Mass on Sundays at Suncroft, and often in his sermons—which were none the less edifying because they were given in the same free and easy style as his gossips with us on the road—he would tell his people of the talks he had had with the men from the Camp, and what good Irishmen he found among them. They, in their turn, were very fond of the good father, and most of them took a practical way of showing their feeling when it came to the offertory.
Dear old Father MacMahon! I took up an Irish Church Directory the other day and looked for the little village of Suncroft, in the dioceses of Kildare and Leighlin, to see if your name was still there, foolishly forgetting that it is over fifty years since we met—you an old man and I a young one. I am an old man now, and you—you dear good old soul—must have gone to your reward long ago, where you in your turn will be hearing from St. Brigid herself, and from the fine old Irish king who gave the Curragh, the true story of the miraculous mantle; and how the king did not make such a bad bargain after all, for, in exchange for his gift, he now, doubtless, has what St. Brigid promised, a kingdom far greater than even her mantle would cover—the Kingdom of Heaven.
On Sundays we used to have long walks. We did not often go near Newbridge—it was too much like an ordinary English military station. We preferred going to Kildare, where stands the first Irish Round Tower I ever saw, and where the fine old ruined church of St. Brigid put us in mind of the patron saint of Ireland; or to Kilcullen, where the brave Kildare pikemen routed General Dundas in 1798; and to others of the neighbouring places. We reviewed, too, every part of the famous Curragh itself, so full of memories—glorious and sad—of Irish history.
As fast as we finished them, the huts we were building were occupied by the military, and, whether regulars or militia, I found among them, driven to wear the uniform by stress of circumstances, as good Irishmen as I ever met. Coming home from work one evening, I met on the road to the Curragh a party of them, carrying, for want of a better banner, a big green bush, and singing "The Green Flag." Then, as they came in sight of the famous plain itself, a man struck up:—
Where will they have their camp?
Says the Shan Van Voct
When, as if moved by one impulse, all joined in:—
On the Curragh of Kildare,
And the boys will all be there,
With their pikes in good repair—
Says the Shan Van Voct!
"Igoe's porter!" a cynic might say. True, there may have been a glass or two and a little harmless rejoicing, but this was too spontaneous to be anything but the outpouring of the good, honest warm hearts of the poor fellows, burning with love for the land that bore them.