The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 29, January 16, 1841

by Various

THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

Number 29.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 1841.

Volume I.

KILBARRON CASTLE, COUNTY OF DONEGAL.

We think our readers generally will concur with us in considering the subject of our prefixed illustration as a very striking and characteristic one—presenting features which, except among the castles of the Scottish highland chiefs, will only be found on the wild shores of our own romantic island. It is indeed a truly Irish scene—poetical and picturesque in the extreme, and its history is equally peculiar, being wholly unlike any thing that could be found relating to any castle out of Ireland.

From the singularity of its situation, seated on a lofty, precipitous, and nearly insulated cliff, exposed to the storms and billows of the western ocean, our readers will naturally conclude that this now sadly dilapidated and time-worn ruin must have owed its origin to some rude and daring chief of old, whose occupation was war and rapine, and whose thoughts were as wild and turbulent as the waves that washed his sea-girt eagle dwelling; and such, in their ignorance of its unpublished history, has been the conclusion drawn by modern topographers, who tell us that it is supposed to have been the habitation of freebooters. But it was not so; and our readers will be surprised when we acquaint them that this lonely, isolated fortress was erected as an abode for peaceful men—a safe and quiet retreat in troubled times for the laborious investigators and preservers of the history, poetry, and antiquities of their country! Yes, reader, this castle was the residence of the ollaves, bards, and antiquaries of the people of Tirconnell—the illustrious family of the O’Clerys, to whose zealous labours in the preservation of the history and antiquities of Ireland we are chiefly indebted for the information on those subjects with which we so often endeavour to instruct and amuse you. You will pardon us, then, if with a grateful feeling to those benefactors of our country to whose labours we owe so much, we endeavour to do honour to their memory by devoting a few pages of our little national work to their history, as an humble but not unfitting monument to their fame.

We trust, however, that such a sketch as we propose will not be wholly wanting either in interest or instruction. It will throw additional light upon the ancient customs and state of society in Ireland, and exhibit in a striking way a remarkable feature in the character of our countrymen of past ages, which no adverse circumstances were ever able utterly to destroy, and which, we trust, will again distinguish them as of old—their love for literature and learning, and their respect for good and learned men. It will also exhibit another trait in their national character no less peculiar or remarkable, namely, their great anxiety to preserve their family histories—a result of which is, that even to the present day the humblest Irish peasant, as well as the estated gentleman, can not unfrequently trace his descent not only to a more remote period, but also with a greater abundance of historical evidence than most of the princely families of Europe. This is, indeed, a trait in the national character which philosophers, and men like ourselves, usually affect to hold in contempt. But no species of knowledge should be despised; and the desire to penetrate the dim obscurities of time in search of our origin, as well as to speculate upon our future prospects, is one of the characteristics which distinguish the human from the lower animals of creation, and without which we should have little to boast of over them.

The family of O’Clery, or, as the name is now usually written, Cleary, and sometimes anglicized Clarke, is not of Tirconnellian origin, nor of very ancient standing in the country of the Kinel-Connell race, the present county of Donegal. Their original locality was in Hy-Fiachrach-Aidhne, a district comprising the entire of the present diocese of Kilmacduagh, in the present county of Galway, and of which their ancestors were, for a long period previous to the Anglo-Norman conquest, the hereditary lords or kings. As usual in ancient Irish topographical names, this territory derived its appellation from that of the tribe by whom it was formed into a principality, the name Hy-Fiachrach-Aidhne being the tribe name of the descendants of Fiachra, who was the son of Eochy-Moyvaine, King of Ireland in the fourth century. On the adoption of surnames, however, at the close of the tenth century, this tribe having split into several distinct families, assumed different surnames from their immediate progenitors, and of these families the most eminent were the O’Clerys, the O’Heynes, the O’Shaughnessys, the Mac Giolla Kellys, and the O’Moghans.

The occasion of the first settlement of the O’Clerys at Kilbarron, in the country of Tirconnell, will be best told in the simple statement of his descendants, as given in their genealogical work.