‘Sir—Having brought the army and my cannon near this place, according to my usual manner in summoning places, I thought fit to offer you terms honourable for soldiers, that you may march away with your baggage, arms, and colours, free from injuries or violence; but if I be, notwithstanding, necessitated to bond my cannon upon you, you must expect what is usual in such cases. To avoid blood, this is offered to you by

Your servant,

O. Cromwell.

For the Governor at Cahir Castle,
24th February 1649’ (1650.)

“Notwithstanding the strength of the place, and the unseasonableness of the time of the year, this summons struck such a terror in the garrison, that the same day the governor, Captain Mathews, immediately came to the general and agreed for the surrender,”—&c.

It was well for Captain George Mathews, or Mathew, as the name is now generally written, and his garrison too, that he had not the hot-headedness of an Irishman, or he would probably have set this “thundering summons” at defiance, and Cahir Castle would not only have shared the fate of most Irish fortresses at that period, but, what would have been a far greater loss, the Apostle of Temperance, who has done as much to regenerate the people of Ireland as Cromwell did to destroy them, would in all human probability never have existed.

But we are exceeding the limits assigned to us, and can only add a few words of general description. Cahir Castle is built upon a low rugged island of limestone, which divides the water of the Suir, and which is connected by a bridge with the two banks of the river. It is of considerable extent, but irregular outline, consequent upon its adaptation to the form and broken surface of its insular site, and consists of a great square keep, surrounded by extensive outworks, forming an outer and an inner ballium, with a small court-yard between the two; these outworks being flanked by seven towers, four of which are circular, and three of larger size, square. From a very interesting and accurate bird’s-eye view of the castle, as besieged by the Earl of Essex, given in the Pacata Hibernia, we find, that notwithstanding its great age, and all the vicissitudes and storms it has suffered, it still presents, very nearly, the same appearance as it did at that period; and from the praiseworthy care in its preservation of its present lord, it is likely to endure as a beautiful historical monument for ages longer.

P.

IRISH MUSICIANS OF THE LAST CENTURY,
STORY OF DOCTOR COGAN.

In this grave cigar-smoking age of ours, in which Irishmen exhibit so little of the love of fun and merriment—the drolleries and escapades which distinguished them in preceding ages—it is a pleasant thing to us septuagenarians to look back occasionally to our youthful days, and call up from the storehouse of our memories the merry men whom and whose merry freaks we were either familiar with, or at least had heard of or seen. One of these choice spirits is just now present with us in our mind’s eye, and we are certain that we have only to mention his name, to bring him equally before a great number of our Dublin readers. We mean the late musical doctor, John Cogan. There, now, Dublin readers, some thousands of you at least have the man before you, though many of you are unfortunately too young to have heard his exquisitely delicate and expressive hands on the piano, extemporising with matchless felicity upon Garryowen or some other melody of Old Ireland; or participated in his playful and always inoffensive merriment and good humour. Even the youngest of you, however, must surely remember the little man—little indeed in size, but every inch of him a gentleman, who but a few years since might be occasionally seen taking an airing, when the sun shone on him, in Sackville Street, sometimes leaning on his servant’s arm, and at others driven in his pony-phaeton, which his prudence in youth had enabled him to secure for his days of feebleness and old age. That pleasant intellectual countenance, bright and playful as his own music even to the last, has disappeared from amongst us; but the memory of such a man should not be allowed to die, and we will therefore, while in the vein, devote a column of our Journal to a sketch of one of the many incidents remembered of his long life, as illustrative in some degree not only of his character, but also of that of society in Dublin during the last century.