And strange and mournfully sound they;
Each seems a funeral cry
O’er life that long has past away,
O’er ages long gone by.”
In Connaught, next after Ulster, the greatest number of lake dwellings have been discovered, but a list of them could have only temporary value, as further explorations might greatly change, or even reverse, the numerical superiority of the crannog sites in Ulster. It is only of late that Munster can be said to be embraced within the lake-dwelling area, whose ambit now includes the entire kingdom. From the present stand-point, the northern province, however, seems to have been facile princeps the home of the lake-dweller. Its population, even to the close of the seventeenth century, followed a life of rude and primitive character. The waters of the Erne, its tributaries and lakes, stretched for a distance of nearly sixty miles; the counties of Monaghan and Cavan of the present day formed then a district of low wooded hills, interlaced with a perfect net-work of bogs and lakes, through which ran but one road—that by Carrickmacross in the barony of Farney—whilst the Few mountains, at that period wooded, served to complete a “scientific frontier” of nature’s own formation. The term “Lake Country” has often been applied to the county Fermanagh: indeed the whole territory would seem at no very remote date to have been a watery maze. Upon almost every side may be observed either marshes that had once been lakes, or else sheets of water varying in size, from what may be termed lakes to mere lakelets; and at a period when the whole neighbouring country was one mass of wood these inland loughs served as tolerably secure retreats. At the time of the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland castles on terra firma seem to have been but lightly esteemed by the northern chieftains, for the conqueror of Ulster had erected many strongholds to secure the subjugated territory, more especially in the country of Mac Mahon, who “with solemn protestations vowed to become a true and faithful subject, whereupon de Courcy gave him two castles with their demeanes to hold of him. Within one month after this Mac Mahon brake down the castles, and made them even with the ground. Sir John de Courcy sent unto him to know the cause: his answer was, that he promised not to hold stones of him, but the land.” Later on one Thomas Pettiplace, in answer to an inquiry from the Government as to what castles or forts O’Neil was possessed of, in a letter of the 15th May, 1567, states:—“For castles I think it be not unknown unto yr honors he trusteth no points thereunto for his safety, as appeareth by the raising (razing) of the strongest castles of all his countries, and that fortification that he only dependeth upon is in sartin ffreshwater loghes in his country, which from the sea there come neither ship nor boat to approach them; it is thought that there in ye said fortified islands lyeth all his plate, wch is much, and money, prisoners, and gages, wch islands hath in wars before been attempted, and now of late again by ye Lord Deputy Sr Harry Sydney, wch, for want of means for safe conduct upon ye water, it hath not prevailed.” Of the unsuccessful attack on the crannog or stockaded island, to which allusion is thus made, the account forwarded by Sir Henry Sydney to Elizabeth, dated Drogheda, 12th November, 1566, is here given:—“On Thursday, the 17th of the last September, I, your Highness’ Deputy, accompanied with the Earl of Kildare, the Marshal Francis Agarnde and Jaques Wingefelde, with the rest of the captains and soldiers of your Highness’ army—each man in his calling as willing to serve your Majesty as ever I saw men—issued out of this town of Drogheda, and encamped in the confines of the English Pale and O’Hanlon’s country, at a place called Roskeaghe, where we were forced to remain, for sundry necessary things not come as then out of the English Pale, four nights. So, on the 21st of the same month, we removed and marched towards Ardmach, and in the way, having occasion to encamp hard by a logh, in which was an island, and in the same, by universal opinion and report of divers of that country, a great quantity of the rebels’ goods and victuals kept, only without guns, as it was thought, not greatly strong as it seemed, being but hedged about, and the distance from the main not being passed five-score yards, the army coming timely to the camp, divers soldiers were very desirous to attempt the winning of it, which was granted to them, I the Deputy making choice only of such as could swim; nevertheless there was prepared for them a bridge which floated upon barrels, whereupon they went but disorderly, for many more went than were appointed, among whom Edward Vaughan, a gentleman of Wales, who being none of the army, but come over to serve this journey, as many more gentlemen and others of that country and the marches of the same did, was one who, unwitting to me your Highness’ Deputy, being gone from the place where the bridge did lie, to stay the shot of the army, least they should hurt their followers, with divers others not appointed, stepped upon the bridge and rowed away, which overcharge of men caused the bridge more to sink than else it would, and yet not so much but that it floated still and carried them over, but in such sort as the fireworks conveyed with them miscarried, so they were able therewith to do nothing. They found the place better manned than it was thought, and they of better courage than before that time the like men had ever shewed themselves in the like place. They found the hedge so bearded with stakes and other sharp wood, as it was not without extreme difficulty scaleable, and so ramparted as if the hedge had been burned—for doing whereof the fireworks failed—without a long time it was not to be digged down. Yet some scaled to the top, whereof Edward Vaughan was one, who being pushed with a pike from the same, fell between the hedge and the bridge, and being heavily armed—albeit he could swim perfect well—was drowned, and two others hurt upon the rampart and drowned; one other slain upon the bridge with a shot; a man of mine, the Deputy, slain upon the main with a shot; and Anthony Deringe, a servant of the Earl of Leycester’s, stricken through the thigh without perishing any bone, and is perfectly recovered; the rest, unhurt, returned upon the bridge to the land. We write of this trifle thus largely to your Most Excellent Majesty least some malice or ignorance might inform the same contrary to the truth; and as many of us as were at the journey by these our letters affirm this to be the truth, and the whole truth, of that fact.”
Extracts that here follow, from notices of crannogs contained in native annals,[160] trace back their existence in Ireland during a period of over a thousand years from the seventeenth century.
After the surrender of Charlemont, Sir Phelim O’Neil “retired to a fortified island called Raghan (? Roughan) Isle, and was there captured in February, 1653, by William Lord Charlemont.”[161]
A small lake situated somewhat to the north-west of the village of Desertmartin has given title to the barony of Loughinsholin, lying south of the city of Londonderry; it was so named from Inis Ua Fhloinne (O’Lynn’s Island), a stockaded dwelling near its eastern margin. The lake itself is now known as Lough Shillen. The oak piling that formerly surrounded the island was removed for firewood, leaving a mere bank covered with reeds and low bushes. In Father O’Mellan’s Journal (written in Irish) of the rebellion of 1642, he mentions two attacks on the island by the English, in the years 1642, 1643; and again in 1645, its final abandonment and destruction by fire on the part of the Irish, owing to inability to hold out from want of provisions. He states that on the “27th April, 1642, the Coleraine detachment (i.e. the English) came upon Cormac O’Neill, son of Fedhlim Oge, at Rayleagh, and robbed and killed his people, namely the Clann William; thence they proceeded to Lough-inis-olyn, and to Moneymore, until the two forces were near one another. They collected a great deal of spoil, and the creaghts fled to Dungannon. After plundering far and near, the English returned to Lough-inis-olyn. They sent Rory Ballagh O’Mellan to demand the island from Shane O’Hagan, son of John, son of Edmond Oge. It was refused them. They then fired three shots from a cannon, which they had with them, and departed from the place, returning to their homes laden with spoil.”
Again, on “August 25, 1643, Inis-O’Luin was garrisoned by Shane O’Hagan. The enemy came and called on them to surrender, which they refused to do. They then stopped up a stream which ran out of the lake, and turned the course of another into it, so that they contrived to flood the island. The garrison kept watch in the island house, and one of their men was killed by a cannon ball while on watch. However, they refused to surrender the island on any terms. One man in attempting to swim away had his legs broken. The enemy at length departed.” The latest entry occurs under date 7th March, 1645, when “The people of O’Hagan burned Inis-O’Lynn, for want of provisions, and followed the general eastwards.”[162]
The crannog of Mac Navin,[163] county Galway, was taken in the year 1610; it is previously mentioned under date 1601. G. H. Kinahan, who searched for but could find no trace of this crannog, imagined its site must have been somewhere in the large alluvial flat and bog that extends south of the townland of Crannagh, in the parish of Tynagh, county Galway. This supposed site lies about four miles E.N.E. of the crannog of Ballinlough. The difficulty experienced in identifying the site is the more remarkable as the descendants of the sept of Mac Navin still reside in the locality, and the crannog was inhabited up to a very late period.[164] In 1603, after the subjugation of Leitrim by the Crown, “O’Rourke was obliged to remain with a small force in the woods, in the remote glens and on the islands in the lakes in his country;” whilst the same year Hugh Boy O’Donnell was conveyed by his adherents to the retirement of a crannog, to be healed of his wounds. This retreat, called “Crannog-na-n-Duini, in Ross Guill, in the Tuathas,” was situated in the parish of Mevagh, county Donegal, between Redhaven and Sheephaven. In 1599 the crannog of Lough Gur, county Limerick, was taken from the “Queen’s people” by the Earl of Desmond, then in rebellion against Elizabeth. Sir George Carew relates that the Lord President of Munster, who reconnoitred the crannog for the purpose of its recapture in the following year, i.e. 1600, observed two small islets (the crannogs) and one large island; this latter “he found to be a place of exceeding strength, by reason that it was an island encompassed with a deep lough, the breadth thereof being, in the narrowest place, a caliver’s shot over. Upon one side thereof standeth a very strong castle, which at this time was manned with a good garrison, for there was within the island John Fitz Thomas with two hundred men at the least.”[165] “After much parade in the preparation of ordnance to reduce Lough Gur, its surrender was purchased for sixty pounds from Owen Grome, who had been entrusted with its defence.”[166] There yet lingers here “the reflex of a legend past,” for it is supposed that beneath the waters of the lake lie enchanted the grand old castle of the Desmonds, the great earl himself, his beautiful countess, and all the retinue that surrounded him in the days of his splendour. “In one of the lakes is a small island, rocky and wooded, which is believed by the peasantry to represent the top of the highest tower of the castle, which sank under a spell to the bottom.”[167]