During the eighteenth century, as is well known, the Celtic Irish were at a very low stage of political fortune. The entire subjugation of Ireland, for the time, occurred at the battle of Limerick. The flower of the army of Sarsfield followed its gallant leader to the plains of Minden, and made the reputation of their race as soldiers under the French banners. Those who remained in Ireland were crushed into outward subjection. The tyranny of the conquerors, exasperated by the doubtful and desperate struggle, placed no bounds to the humiliation which it endeavored to inflict. The penal laws were cruel and barbarous beyond those of any nation on record. All intellectual as well as religious education was denied the Irish people, and it was only by stealth that they could gratify their thirst for either.
The spirit of the Celtic population was crushed, but not degraded. They were conquered, and were aware that another struggle was hopeless for the present. None the less they preserved all their national feelings. The language of the common people in their daily intercourse was Irish; their only pride was in Irish tradition, and their only poetry was in the same melodious tongue. This continued long after English was the language used for business. It must not be supposed that, although the Celtic Irish were poor and deprived of all religious and political rights, they were entirely ignorant or uncultivated. The average Irish peasant of the last century was likely to have more learning than his English compeer. The hedge-schoolmaster was abroad in the land, and the eagerness with which Irish peasant lads sought for knowledge under difficulties was only second to the fervency of their religious faith under persecution. The education was not of the most valuable or practical cast in all particulars, but that it was cultivated so earnestly is the highest proof of the undegraded character of the people. The hedge-schoolmasters were more learned in Latin than in science, and taught their pupils to scan more assiduously than to add. The traditionary Irish history, the exploits of Con of the Hundred Battles, and the prophecies of Columbkille were expounded more particularly than the battles of Wolfe or Marlborough or the speeches of Chatham. This was but natural. The Irish then felt no share in English victories or interest in English literature. Poetry was especially a branch of learning in those days as it has never been since. The hedge-schoolmasters were often poets as well as pedagogues, and the amount of verse produced of one sort or another was enormous. Much of it was naturally worthless, but among the crowd of poetasters was here and there a poet who had the heart to feel and the tongue to express the woes of his country and the passions of his own heart in the language of nature. The hearts of the people answered them, and their memories treasured their songs. They were no longer bards entertained in the halls of the great. They were the wandering minstrels of the poor, but some of them were genuine poets whose power and grace were visible under every disadvantage.
In considering the fragments of this poetry three things must be kept in mind: first, that it has been preserved mostly by oral tradition; secondly, that it is translated from a language whose idiom is especially hard to be rendered into English; and, thirdly, that the lyrical form imposes additional difficulties in adequate rendering. By far the larger number of the productions of the hedge-poets are of an allegorical cast. The poet in a vision sees a queenly maiden, of exquisite beauty and grace, sitting lonely and weeping on some fairy rath by moonlight, by the side of some softly-flowing stream, or by the wall of some ruined castle of ancient splendor. He is at first confounded by her beauty. Then he takes courage at her distress, and asks whether she is Helen of old who caused Troy town to burn, or she that was the love of Fion, or Deirdre, for whom the sons of Usnach died. These are the three types of beauty almost invariably used. The lady replies, in a voice that “pierces the heart of the listener like a spear,” that she is neither of these three; she is Kathleen ni Ullachan, or Grauine Maol, Roisin Dubh, the Little Black Rose, or Sheela na Guira, these being the figurative names for the female personification of Ireland. She laments to the poet’s ear that her heroes brave, her Patrick Sarsfield, her John O’Dwyer of the Glens, are driven across the seas, and that she is the desolate slave of the Saxon churls. Then she rises into a strain, half-despairing, half-exulting, that the heroes will soon return with help from the hosts of France and Spain; that the fires of the Saxon houses shall light every glen, and the “sullen tribe of the dreary tongue” be driven into the sea; that God shall soon be worshipped once more on her desolate altars, and the kingly hero, her noble spouse, her prince of war, shall once more clasp her to his arms and place three crowns upon her head. This is the outline of almost every one of these patriotic visions, and it will be seen at once how beautiful was the conception and how capable of exhibiting the highest pathos. The Irish minstrels had to sing of their country in secret, for the ear of the conquering race must not hear of their hopes and fears. In this disguise they would give voice to their patriotic passion as to an earthly mistress, and their country’s woes and hopes could be imparted with a double intensity. This personifying the country in the form of a beautiful and desolate woman is not peculiar to Irish poets, but seems the form of expression for the passionate patriotism of all oppressed countries. It is common to the Italian, the Polish, and the Servian poets.
In the description of the beauty of the forlorn maiden one poem bears a great resemblance to another, and those beauties which are peculiar to Irish girls are her distinguishing features; thus, the long, flowing tresses, the coolun, or head of fair locks, is often most beautifully painted.
“Her clustering, loosened tresses
Flowed glossily, enwreathed with pearls,
To veil her breast with kisses
And sunny rays of golden curls”
—Sheela ni Cullenan, by Wm. Lenane.
“Her curling tresses meet