“1233. Felim, the son of Charles the Red-handed, led an array into Connaught. Cormac, the son of Tomaltagh (Lord of Moylurg), went to meet him, and brought him to Moylurg, where they erected a camp at Druim Greagraighe, and were joined by Cormac, by Conor his son, the inhabitants of the three Tuathas, and by the two sons of Mortogh Mac Dermot, Donogh and Mortogh. They here consulted with each other, and resolved upon going in pursuit of Hugh (King of Connaught) and the other sons of Roderic. After overtaking them, they defeated Hugh, slew himself, his brother, Hugh Muimhneach his son, and Donogh More, the son of Dermot, who was the son of Roderic, and many others besides. There were also slain Raghallach O’Flanigan, Thomas Biris, Constable of Ireland, his relative John Guer, and many other Englishmen. This was after the bells and croziers had been rung against them, after they had been cursed and excommunicated by the clergy of Connaught; for Hugh Muimhneach had violated and plundered Tibohine and many other churches, so that he and his adherents fell in revenge of their dishonour to the saints whose churches they had violated. The kingdom and sovereignty of Connaught were wrested from the sons of Roderic, the son of Torlogh, on that day. Felim, the son of Charles the Red-handed, then assumed the government of Connaught, and demolished the castles which had been erected by the power of the sons of Roderic O’Conor and Mac William Burke, namely, the Castle of Bon Gaillimbe, Caislen-na-Circe, Caislen-na-Caillighe, and the Castle of Dunamon.”
In subsequent times the Hen’s Castle reverted to the O’Flahertys, and was repaired and garrisoned by them till the time of Cromwell, when, as we are informed by Roderick O’Flaherty, it was finally dismantled and left to decay. Still, however, enough remains to exhibit its original plan, which was that of an Anglo-Norman castle or keep, in the form of a parallelogram, with three projecting towers on its two longest sides; and the architectural features of the thirteenth century are also visible in some of its beautifully executed windows and doorways.
The Hen’s Castle is not without its legendary traditions connected with its history anterior to its dilapidation; and the following outline of one of these—and the latest—as told at the cottage firesides around Lough Corrib, may be worth preserving as having a probable foundation in truth.
It is said that during the troubled reign of Queen Elizabeth, a lady of the O’Flahertys, who was an heiress and a widow, with an only child, a daughter, to preserve her property from the grasp of her own family and that of the De Burgos or Burkes, shut herself up with her child in the Hen’s Castle, attended by twenty faithful followers, of tried courage and devotion to her service, of her own and her husband’s family. As such a step was, however, pregnant with danger to herself, by exciting the attention and alarm of the government and local authorities, and furnishing her enemies with an excuse for aggression, she felt it necessary to obtain the queen’s sanction to her proceedings; and accordingly she addressed a letter to her majesty, requesting her permission to arm her followers, and alleging as a reason for it, the disaffected state of the country, and her ardent desire to preserve its peace for her majesty. The letter, after the fashion of the times, was not signed by the lady in her acquired matron’s name, but in her maiden one, of which no doubt she was more proud; it was Bivian or Bevinda O’Flaherty. The queen received it graciously; but not being particularly well acquainted with the gender of Irish Christian names, and never suspecting, from the style or matter of the epistle, that it had emanated from one of her own sex, she returned an answer, written with her own hand, authorising her good friend “Captain Bivian O’Flaherty” to retain twenty men at her majesty’s expense, for the preservation of the peace of the country; and they were maintained accordingly, till the infant heiress, becoming adult, was united to Thomas Blake, the ancestor of the present Sir John Blake of Menlo Castle, and proprietor of the Castle of the Hen.
To these brief notices of an ancient castle, not hitherto described, or its age ascertained, we shall only add, that there are few military structures of lime and stone now remaining in Ireland that can boast an equal antiquity.
P.
OCCUPATIONS FOR THE YOUNG.
BY MARTIN DOYLE.
Habit is said to be a second nature, and it is often stronger than the first. At first we easily take the bend from the hand of the master, but the second nature, which is of our own making, is frequently proof against any alteration. How important, then, is education, which gives the turn and moulding to the mind while it is flexible, fixes the habits, and forms the character! The discipline of the mind, with respect to its natural bias, is either misdirected or misunderstood in nine cases out of ten, and latent talents or tendencies, which by proper culture might be rendered sources of enjoyment to the possessor, and useful to the community, are restrained, if not too powerful for suppression, from their proper developement, by absurd and artificial treatment.
In the upper classes, a parent, perhaps, incapable of estimating the capacity of his son, determines with himself that the profession, suppose of divinity, of law, or of medicine, is the most lucrative, gentlemanlike, or otherwise eligible, and that the boy shall be educated accordingly.