The suburb of the town, on this side of the bridge, runs up to the demesne wall of Lord Ferrard’s residence, Antrim Castle, an antique castellated mansion, seated boldly over the river in a small park laid out in the taste of Louis XIV., from the terraced walks and stately avenues of which there are many beautiful views of the surrounding scenery.
In point of historical interest, there are but two events connected with Antrim worthy of any particular note—the defeat of the insurgents here in the rebellion of 1798, on which occasion the late Earl O’Neill lost his life; and a great battle between the English and native Irish, in the reign of Edward III., hitherto little spoken of in history, but forming one in a series of events which exercised a great influence over the destinies of this country.
Very soon after the first invasion of Ulster by John de Courcy, the English power was established not only throughout the counties of Down and Antrim, but even over a large portion of the present county of Londonderry, then called the county of Coleraine. We find sheriffs regularly appointed for these counties, and the laws duly administered, down to the time of Edward III. The native Irish, who had been pushed out by the advance of this early tide of civilization, took up their abode west of the Bann, and in the hilly county of Tyrone, from whence they watched the proceedings of their invaders, and, as opportunities from time to time presented themselves, crossed the intervening river and “preyed” the English country. The district around Antrim was from its situation the one chiefly exposed to these incursions, and the duty of defending it mainly devolved on the powerful sept of the Savages, who at that time had extensive possessions in the midland districts of Antrim, as well as in Down.
The most formidable of these incursions was that which took place immediately after the murder of William de Burgho, Earl of Ulster, who was assassinated by some malcontent English at the fords of Belfast, A. D. 1333. The earl had been a strenuous asserter of the English law, and had rendered himself obnoxious to the turbulent nobles of the country by the severity with which he prohibited their adoption of Irish customs, which, strange to say, had always great charms for the feudal lords of the English pale, arising probably from the greater facilities which the Brehon law afforded for exacting exorbitant rents and services from their tenants. The immediate object of the assassins of the earl was to prevent him carrying the full rigour of the law into operation against one of his own hibernicised kinsmen; but the ultimate consequences of their act were felt throughout all Ireland for two centuries after. For the Irish, taking advantage of the consternation attendant on the death of the chief officer of the crown in that province, crossed the Bann in unexampled numbers, and after a protracted struggle, in which they were joined by some of the degenerate English, succeeded at length in recovering the whole of the territory conquered by De Courcy, with the exception only of Carrickfergus in Antrim, and a portion of the county of Down, which the Savages with difficulty succeeded in holding after being expelled from their former possessions at the point of the sword. It was during this struggle that the battle to which we have alluded was fought at Antrim. The story is told at considerable length and with much quaintness by Hollinshed; but want of space obliges us to present it to our readers in the more concise though still very characteristic language of Cox:—
“About this time lived Sir Robert Savage, a very considerable gentleman in Ulster, who began to fortifie his house with strong walls and bulwarks; but his son derided his father’s prudence and caution, affirming that “a castle of bones was better than a castle of stones,” and thereupon the old gentleman put a stop to his building. It happened that this brave man with his neighbours and followers were to set out against a numerous rabble of Irish that had made incursions into their territories, and he gave orders to provide plenty of good cheer against his return; but one of the company reproved him for doing so, alleging that he could not tell but the enemy might eat what he should provide; to which the valiant old gentleman replied, that he hoped better from their courage, but that if it should happen that his very enemies should come to his house, ‘he should be ashamed if they should find it void of good cheer.’ The event was suitable to the bravery of the undertaking: old Savage had the killing of three thousand of the Irish near Antrim, and returned home joyfully to supper.”
Sir Henry Savage’s “castles of bones” were found insufficient in the end to resist the multitudes of the Irish; and the English colonists, as we have mentioned, notwithstanding their victory at Antrim, were finally obliged to cede the valley of the Six-mile-water to the victorious arms of the Clan-Hugh-Buide, whose representative, the present Earl O’Neill, still holds large possessions in the territory thus recovered by his ancestors.
With respect to the origin of the place, there is little to be said beyond the fact, that, like that of most of our provincial towns, it was ecclesiastical. The only remnant of the ancient foundation is the round tower, which still stands in excellent preservation about half a mile north of the town. The name is properly “Aen-druim” signifying “the single hill,” or “one mount.”
A CHAPTER ON CURS.
Without doubt I am a benevolent character: the grudge gratuitous to my nature is unknown: I never take offence where no offence is given. Hence, on most animals I look with complacency—for most animals never intermeddle with my comfort—and on only a few with antipathy, for only a few so behave as to excite it. High up on the list of the latter—I was going to say at the very top, but that pestering, pertinacious fly impudently alighting, through pure mischief alone, on the tickle-tortured tip of—but he’s gone—no, he’s back—there now I have him under my hat at last—tut! he’s out again under the rim—up with the window and away with him! At the head, then, ay, at the very head—how my grievances come crowding on my brain!—I unhesitatingly place that thrice-confounded breed of curs, colleys, mongrels, or whatever else they may be called, with which the rural regions of this therein much-afflicted country are infested. The milk of my humanity—yea, I may say the cream, for such it was with me—has in respect to them been changed to very gall—an unmitigable hostility has possessed me, which—did not the scars of the wofully-remembered salting, scrubbing, scarifying, and frying (to say nothing of two months’ maintenance of an hospital establishment of poultices and plasters), to which my better leg was twice submitted, counsel me to mingle discretion with my ire—would absolutely make me turn Don Quixote for their extirpation.
Let flighty philosophers frolic as they list with the flimsy phantasies no optics save their own can spy—let political economists prate about public problems, till other people’s pates are nearly as addled as their own—let flaming patriots propound and placid placemen promise this, that, and t’other, as grievous burdens or great concessions; but let men of sense give heed to things of substance—let them exclaim with me, “Out upon all abstract gammon—out upon all squabbling about what we can only hear, but neither see nor feel, taste nor smell—bodily boons—real redress—and first and foremost, ‘to the lamp-post’ with the curs!” I have suffered more at their teeth, both in blood and broad-cloth, than all the benefactions I have ever received at the hands of any government would balance. The inviolable independence of British subjects, forsooth! the parental guardianship of the constitution, the security for life and person—faugh!—away with the big inanities, so long as a peaceful pedestrian cannot take an airing along a highway, much less adventure on a devious ramble, without exposing person and personalities to the cruel mercies of a tribe of half-starved tykes issuing from every cabin, scrambling over every half-door, and almost throttling themselves in their emulous ambition to be the first to tatter the ill-starred wight who has stumbled on their haunts. Let no one urge in their behalf that they are faithful to the misguided men who own them: so much the worse, since in their small system, fidelity to one must needs manifest itself in malice, hatred, and uncharitableness to every creature else, dead or alive. No, there is no redeeming trait—they are curs, essentially biting, barking, cantankrous, crabbed, sneaking, snarling, treacherous, bullying, cowardly curs, and nothing else. This, under all circumstances, I undertake to maintain against all gainsayers, though at the same time I am free to confess that I write under considerable excitement, having just returned from the country (whither—besotted mortal not to be content with the flag way of a street, and the scenery of brick and mortar—I had repaired, forsooth, for air, exercise, and rural sketching) with a couple of new coats, to say nothing of trousers, curtailed beyond recovery, a bandaged shin smarting beyond description, and a host of horrid hydrophobic forebodings consequent thereon. It chanced that in an evil hour I made an engagement with an ailing friend, whose house was situate in what I may emphatically term a most canine locality, which constrained me to make several calls upon him. Unhappily it was only approachable by one road, the sides of which were here and there dotted with a clutch of cabins, in each of which was maintained a standing force of the aforesaid pests. This ambushed defile, about three miles in length, dire necessity compelled me to traverse thrice, and never did general more considerately undertake a march through a hostile country, or an enemy more vigilantly guard a pass therein, than did I and they respectively. On each and all of these occasions have I debated with myself whether I should not fetch a secure though sinuous compass through the fields, even with the addition of a few miles and other discomforts to my walk; but as often—with honest, though, as I look upon my leg, with melancholy pride I write it—did my pluck preserve me from so disgraceful a detour. What! my indignant manhood would exclaim, shall I, one of the lords of the creation—shall I, who have dared and have accomplished so and so—recalling some of my most notable exploits by flood and field, in crossing the Channel and cantering in the Park—shall I, one of her majesty’s liege subjects, a grand jury cess-payer and a freeholder to boot, be driven from the highway which I pay to support, and obliged to skulk like a criminal from view, scramble over walls and splutter through swamps, daub my boots, rend mayhap my tights, and risk other contingencies, and all by reason of such vile scrubs? No, perish the thought!—though their name be Legion, and their nature impish, I will face them, ay, and write the fear of me upon their hides too, if they dare molest me—that I will. Thus spoke the man within me, as I fiercely griped my cane; and if, as I cooled, an occasional shrinking of the calves of my legs in fancied supposition of a tooth inserted therein, betokened aught like quailing, I recalled Marlborough’s saying on the eve of battle, “How this little body trembles at what this great soul is about to perform!” and felt that I too was exemplifying that loftiest courage in which the infirmity of the flesh succumbs to the vigour of the spirit.