All this ancient history pales, in the minds of the native bar-parlour frequenters one meets in these parts, before the more vivid, or at least more readily recollected “little affair” of Vinegar Hill and “the Men of ’98,” the site of which, with Enniscorthy, lies just to the northward. A half-century ago historians wrote of this as a “matter yet fresh in the memory of living men,” and the great rebellion—so great at least to Ireland—has been dealt with by writers of all shades of opinion ad infinitum. Even the music-hall songs have perpetuated the belligerent aspect of the inhabitants of Enniscorthy, to say nothing of Killaloe. Nevertheless, the incident of the Norman invasion of Ireland, and the parts played therein by Fitzgerald, Diarmid, the traitorous M’Murrogh, Roderick, Strongbow the Dane, and Prendergast,—named in Irish history as “the faithful Norman,”—presents an inextricable tangle of creeds and races which requires a singularly astute historian to place in line.
It is now seven hundred years since the name of Prendergast was linked with honour and chivalry in Ireland; but something of his earnestness and spirit still lives amongst those who bear his name, if we may judge from the tenor of a modern work by one Prendergast, entitled “The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland.”
Aubrey de Vere, in his “Lyrical Chronicle of Ireland,” has emblazoned Prendergast’s valour in verse:
THE FAITHFUL NORMAN
“Praise to the valiant and faithful foe!
Give us noble foes, not the friend who lies!
We dread the drugged cup, not the open blow:
We dread the old hate in the new disguise.
“To Ossory’s king they had pledged their word.
He stood in their camp, and their pledge they broke;
Then Maurice the Norman upraised his sword;
The cross on its hilt he kiss’d, and spoke:
“ ‘So long as this sword or this arm hath might,
I swear by the cross which is lord of all,
By the faith and honour of noble and knight,
Who touches you, prince, by this hand shall fall!’
“So side by side through the throng they pass’d;
And Eire gave praise to the just and true.
Brave foe! the past truth heals at last:
There is room in the great heart of Eire for you!”
Round the coast from Wexford to Waterford one passes the famous Tuskar lighthouse, which, with the Saltee light-vessel, thirty miles to the southward, and Carnsore Point, which lies between, forms the turning-point—or the corner which must be rounded—of the vast sea-borne traffic bound up the St. George’s Channel from the Atlantic.
The chief historical monument of Waterford, with the exception of the reconstructed castle and Ballinakil House, the last halting-place of the fleeing Stuart king, is a squat circular building known as “Reginald’s Tower.” It sits close to the quayside, and is by far the most notable landmark, viewed from either sea or land, which the city possesses. Its erection is credited to Reginald, the Dane, some nine hundred and odd years ago. Kingsley, in “Hereward the Wake,” weaves much of romance around its sturdy walls.