After the time of Strongbow, several Welsh families who had followed his flag settled in Connaught. Among [{471}] these "kindly Britons" of Tirawley, were the Walshes or Wallises, the Heils (a quibus MacHale, and, possibly, that most perfect instance of the Hibernis ipsis Hibemior, the archbishop of Tuam); also the Lynotts and the Barretts, with whom we are at present more particularly concerned. These last claimed descent from the high steward of the manor of Camelot, and their end is a story fit for the Round Table. The great toparch of the territory was the MacWilliam Burke, as the Irish called the head of the de Burgos, descended from William FitzAdelm de Burgo, conqueror of Connaught, and therein commonly called William Conquer—of whom the Marquis of Clanricarde is the present lineal representative; being to Connaught even still somewhat as the MacCallummore is to Argyle, more especially when he happens to be in the cabinet, and to have the patronage of the post-office. Now the Lynotts were subject to the Barretts, and the Barretts were subject to the Burkes. But when the Barretts' bailiff, Scorna Boy, came to collect the Lynotts' taxes, he so demeaned himself that the whole clan rose as one man, even as Jack Cade, and slew him. Whereupon the vengeful Barretts gave to all mankind among the Lynott clan a terrible choice—of which one alternative was blindness; and the bearded men were all of their own preference blinded, and led to the river Duvowen, and told to walk over the stepping stones of Clochan-na-n'all; and they all stumbled into the flood and were drowned, except old Emon Lynott, of Garranard—whom accordingly the Barretts brought back and blinded over again, by running needles through his eyeballs.
But with prompt-projected footsteps, sure as ever,
Emon Lynott again crossed the river,
Though Duvowen was rising fast,
And the shaking stones o'ercast,
By cold floods boiling past;
Yet you never,
Emon Lynott,
Faltered once before your foemen of Tirawley.
But turning on Ballintubber bank, you stood
And the Barretts thus bespoke o'er the flood—
"Oh, ye foolish sons of Wattin,
Small amends are these you've gotten,
For, while Scorna Boy lies rotten,
I am good
For vengeance!"
Sing the vengeance of the Welshmen of Tirawley.
For 'tis neither in eye nor eyesight that a man.
Bears the fortunes of himself and his clan,
But in the manly mind
These darken'd orbs behind,
That your needles could never find,
Though they ran
Through my heartstrings.
Sing the vengeance of the Welshmen of Tirawley.
But little your women's needles do I reck,
For the night from heaven never fell so black,
But Tirawley and abroad
From the Moy to Cuan-an-fod,
I could walk it, every sod,
Path and track,
Ford and togher,
Seeking vengeance on you, Barretts of Tirawley!
And so leaving "loud-shriek-echoing Garranard," the Lynott, with his wife and seven children, abandons his home, and takes refuge in Glen Nephin, where, in the course of a year, a son is born to him, whom he dedicates from the first breath to his vengeance. He trains this boy with assiduous care to all the accomplishments of a Celtic cavalier;
And, as ever the bright boy grew in strength and size,
Made him perfect in each manly exercise,
The salmon in the flood,
The dun deer in the wood,
The eagle in the cloud,
To surprise,
On Ben Nephin,
Far above the foggy fields of Tirawley.
With the yellow-knotted spear-shaft, with the bow,
With the steel, prompt to deal shot and blow,
He taught him from year to year,
And trained him, without a peer,
For a perfect cavalier,
Hoping so—
Far his forethought—
For vengeance on the Barretts of Tirawley.
And when mounted on his proud-bounding steed,
Emon Oge sat a cavalier indeed;
Like the ear upon the wheat,
When the winds in autumn beat
On the bending stems his seat;
And the speed
Of his courser
Was the wind from Barna-na-gee o'er Tirawley!
Fifteen years have passed and the youth is perfected in all the accomplishments of sport and war, and the Lynott thinks it is time to return to the world and work out the scheme of his vengeance. So the father and son quit their mountain solitude, and journey southward to the bailey of Castlebar; and in a few fine touches the picture of Mac William's grandeur, as it strikes [{472}] the boy's wondering eyes, rises before us; the stone house, strong and great, and the horse-host at the gate and their captain in armor, and the beautiful Bantierna by his side with her little pearl of a daughter. Who should this be but the mighty MacWilliam! Into his presence ride the Lynotts; and, after salutations, the old man declares his business. He has come to claim, as gossip-law allows, the fosterage of MacWilliam's son. Ever since William Conquer's time, his race were wont to place a MacWilliam Oge in the charge of a Briton of Tirawley; and the young Lynott was a pledge for his father's capacity in such tutelage. When MacWilliam saw the young Lynott ride, run, and shoot, he said he would give the spoil of a county to have his son so accomplished. When Lady MacWilliam heard him speak, and scanned his fresh and hardy air, she said she would give a purse of red gold that her Tibbot had such a nurse as had reared the young Briton. The custom was allowed. The young MacWilliam was sent under the guidance of old Lynott into Tirawley, and Emon Oge remained as a hostage in Castlebar. So back to Garranard, no longer the "loud-shriek-echoing," old Lynott returns—
So back to strong-throng-gathering Garranard,
Like a lord of the country with his guard,
Came the Lynott before them all,
Once again o'er Clochan-ua-n'all,
Steady-striding, erect, and tall,
And his ward
On his shoulders;
To the wonder of the Welshmen of Tirawley.
And then the young Tibbot was taught all manner of feats of body, to swim, to shoot, to gallop, to wrestle, to fence, and to run, until he grew up as deft and as tough as Emon Oge. But he was taught other lessons as well, which were not in the bond of his foster-father.
The lesson of hell he taught him in heart and mind;
For to what desire soever he inclined,
Of anger, lust, or pride,
He had it gratified,
Till he ranged the circle wide
Of a blind
Self-indulgence,
Ere he came to youthful manhood in Tirawley.
Shame and rage track his passage, till one night the young Barretts of the Bac fell upon him at Cornassack and slew him. His body was borne to Castlebar. The Brehons were summoned to judgment; and over the bier of MacWilliam Oge began the plea for an eric to be imposed upon the Barretts for their crime; and the Brehons decreed the mulct, and Lynott's share of it was nine ploughlands and nine score of cattle. And now the ultimate hour of the blind old man's vengeance had come, not to be sated with land and kine. "Rejoice," he cried, "in your ploughlands and your cattle, which I renounce throughout Tirawley." But, expert in all the rules and customs of the clans, he asks the Brehons, Is it not the law that the foster-father may, if he please, applot the short eric? And they say it is so. Whereupon, formally rejecting his own share of the mulct, he makes his award—that the land of the Barretts shall be equally divided on every side with the Burkes, and that MacWilliam shall have a seat in every Barrett's hall, a stall in every Barrett's stable, and needful grooming from every hosteler for every Burke who shall ride throughout Tirawley for ever. And then, in a speech full of barbaric sublimity and tragic concentration of passion, he confesses "the patient search and vigil long" of his vengeance. It is almost unjust to break the closely-wrought chain of this speech by a single quotation, and we have been already unduly tempted to extract from this extraordinary poem; but, perhaps, this one verse may be separated from the rest as containing the very culmination of the old man's hideous rage.
I take not your eyesight from you as you took
Mine and ours: I would have you daily look
On one another's eyes,
When the strangers tyrannize
By your hearths, and blushes rise
That ye brook
Without vengeance
The insults of troops of Tibbots throughout Tirawley.