For the boys we know in part how it was done. They were smuggled off to the Continent with other forbidden “cargoes,” and at the great colleges in Spain, and France and the Low Countries found “bourses” provided by the pious generosity of their wealthier countrymen, or were supported by remittances from home which no threatened penalty could prevent their devoted parents from sending.[[33]] Or a tutor was provided for them in some hunted bishop, perhaps, or friar, who found safety in the lowly disguise of a gardener or farm-servant working on their father’s place,[[34]] or who came there for a time, as one of the Bishops of Clogher is recorded to have made the rounds of his diocese, in the character of a wandering harper. Or they would get a course of lessons from some of the numerous scribes, who perambulated the country, stopping for a season at the houses of the gentry of the old race, and copying out manuscripts for them—Keating’s History of Ireland,[[35]] tales of the Red Branch and the Fenians, pseudo-historical accounts of the old families—as Sean MaGauran did for Brian Maguire.[[36]]
[33]. The statute dealing with their case runs thus: “In case any of his Majesty’s subjects of Ireland shall go or send any person to any public or private Popish school, in parts beyond the seas, in order to be educated in the Popish religion, and there be trained in the Popish religion, or shall send money or other thing towards the maintenance of such person gone or sent, and trained as aforesaid, or as a charity for relief of a religious house, every person so going, sending or sent, shall, on conviction, be disabled to sue, in law or in equity, or to be guardian, executor, or administrator, or take a legacy or deed of gift, or bear any office, and shall forfeit goods and chattels for ever, and lands for life.”—7th William III, ch. 4, s.), 1694.
[34]. See “Religious Songs of Connacht,” passim.
[35]. It is instructive to note the dates of the MSS. of Keating in the British Museum. The larger number were written during the Penal Days.
[36]. See “Maguires of Fermanagh,” edited by Fr. Dinneen, p. 140.
The girls in some instances shared the lessons of their brothers. Dr. Costello of Tuam tells me that his great-grandmother was taught Latin by a man working on her father’s farm—a disguised friar. The scribes put aside their copying for a time to form the little maidens’ hands to the delicate Italian script which was the admiration of the time. The wandering harper, who honoured their father’s house with a visit, could sometimes be induced to give the daughters of the family a course of lessons on his sweet instrument. Arthur O’Neill tells us of teaching the harp to two young ladies in Longford, Miss Farrell and Miss Plunkett. “Miss Farrell played handsomely; Miss Plunkett middling.”[[37]] Most of the old Catholic families had members settled abroad, and intercourse with the Continent was therefore so close and intimate that the outlook of the Irish at home was far less insular than it is at present. Occasionally uncles and cousins, who had won fame as soldiers in foreign services, came home to visit their people, and as they liked to have their nephews and nieces able to converse with them in French, or Spanish, or German, as the case might be, the little ones were stimulated to learn as much as they could in expectation of their kinsmen’s coming. Little Mary Ann McCracken had to learn her French from an old weaver, but little Mary Taaffe and her sisters had all around them priests, who had studied abroad, and were only too anxious to keep up their practice of foreign languages by speaking them with their little parishioners. And so when the Taaffe uncle who had fought at Fontenoy, or his son, who witnessed the dispersal of the Brigade, came home to Ireland, their fastidious ears were not tortured by the halting French or vile accents of their young kinswomen. In many a country house, as in that of the O’Connors of Belanagare, were living ladies, like Madame O’Rorke, Charles O’Connor’s grandmother, widows of distinguished Irish officers in the French, or Spanish or Imperial service, who had spent their youth in the most brilliant circle in Europe, had been the friends and confidantes of Queens, and who now took delight in forming their little grandchildren and nieces to the exquisite manners and gracious bearing which, in their own case, had won the admiration of the most polished society on the Continent. In other houses were other ladies who under the secular garb which the necessities of the time imposed on them, carried out as well as they could, in their kinsmen’s homes, the religious rule of life to which they had bound themselves in their suppressed convents. When the convents were closed, and the nuns scattered, those who, instead of going abroad, found refuge with their relatives and friends, devoted themselves largely to the education of the little girls of the household. They trained them to their own exquisite skill in needlework, they taught them something of the art of healing, and above all they filled their minds with sweet and lovely images through their stories of the girl saints who had been their own unseen but constant companions in cell, and garden, and church; they turned them steadily to the imitation of the virtues by which the Elizabeths, the Cecilias, the Catherines, the Agneses had won their place as hand-maidens of the Heavenly Queen.
[37]. “Annals of Irish Harpers,” p. 179.
There is no story more beautiful in our national annals than the story—yet untold in its completeness—of the Irish nuns during the ages of persecution. We see them avail themselves of the slightest lull in the storm to found their convents, and carry out the Magnum Opus to which they had vowed their life. The days of the Confederation of Kilkenny saw the foundation of the Dominican Convent at Galway,[[38]] the days of James II saw its restoration, and the establishment of the Benedictines in Dublin. To such institutions the Catholic gentry sent their daughters to be educated, and we have only to turn to the pages of O’Heyne[[39]] to learn what manner of women these were who had the training of their young compatriots.
[38]. O’Heyne states that the convent was established at the end of the reign of James I. but it was only in 1644 that the church was built and a house arranged in conventural style. The foundation was confirmed by Rinuccini in 1647.
[39]. Admirably edited by Rev. Ambrose Coleman, O.P., who has contributed an Appendix full of the most valuable historical information (Dundalk, 1902).