In the tenth year of the reign of Henry VII. an act passed by parliament prohibited the use of these war cries in the following quaint terms:
“Item; Prayen the commons in this present parliament assembled; that for as much as there has been great variances, malices, debates and comparisons between divers lords and gentlemen of this land, which hath daily increased by seditious means of divers idle, ill-disposed persons, utterly taking upon them to be servants to such lords and gentlemen; for that they would be borne in their said idleness, and their other unlawful demeaning, and nothing for any favor or entirely good love or will that they bear under such lords and gentlemen. Therefore be it enacted and established by the same authority; That no person nor persons, of whatsoever estate, condition or degree he or they be of, take part with any lord or gentleman or uphold any such variances or comparisons in words or deeds as in using these words, Com-Aboo, Butler-Aboo, or other words like, or otherwise contrary to the King’s laws, his crown, his dignity and his peace; but to call on St. George in the name of his sovereign lord, King of England for the time being. And if any person or persons of whatsoever estate, condition or degree he or they be of, do contrary so offending in the premisses, or any of them be taken and committed to ward, there to remain without bayle or maiprixe till he or they have made fine after the discretion of the King’s Deputy of Ireland, and the King’s Counsail of the same for the time being.”
The above is a sample of British legislation at the period that act was passed, and that conglomerate of words means simply that enthusiastic Irishmen were forbidden to excite their own emotions and the emotions of others by the cries of their clan and were admonished to use only the war cry of the King of England, who in battle is supposed to appeal to St. George.
The first glimpse of the Lakes of Killarney is obtained as the coach comes around the point of a mountain, and a great green amphitheater with a body of glimmering water at the bottom is suddenly spread out before the passengers. The outlines are fringed with forests and the lakes are studded with tiny islands of different sizes and shapes, but all glow with a vivid color that is not found anywhere else. And this picture is before the vision until the stage plunges into a tunnel of foliage at the foot of the slope, near the ancient ruins of Muckross Abbey, and follows along through a tunnel made of high stone walls and overhanging boughs until the village of Killarney is reached.
Long, long ago there were two giants, the giant of Glengariff and the giant of Killarney, and they were very jealous of each other. They kept up a continual controversy, each boasting of his own strength and valor and daring the other to cross the mountains. Finally, after everybody got tired of these threats and challenges, just as people do nowadays about the talking matches of pugilists, the giant of Killarney decided to go over to Glengariff and see what sort of a person his foe might be. Disguising himself as a monk, he crossed the divide, came down into the village, and was shown the way to his enemy’s cabin. The giant of Glengariff, having heard of the approach of his rival, became very much frightened and hastily made a cradle big enough to hold his enormous carcass, and, lying down in it, ordered his wife to tuck him up with a blanket. And there he lay, pretending to be asleep, when the giant of Killarney approached the door and politely offered the compliments of the season to the lady he saw sitting on a three-legged stool with her knitting in her lap. Her hand was on the edge of a cradle twelve feet long, and she rocked it gently, crooning an old lullaby.
“Hush, you spalpeen, lest ye wake the baby!” and she continued to sing the slumber song in a soft, sweet voice.
“Let’s see your baby,” whispered the giant of Killarney, and she lifted the blanket gently from her husband’s face.
His enemy looked at him in amazement for an instant, and then, begging the good lady’s pardon for the intrusion, started back over the mountain trail as fast as his big legs could take him.
“If the baby’s as big as that, how big must the ould man be!”
Valentine Charles Browne, Earl of Kenmare, owns all of the Lakes of Killarney, all the land that surrounds them, and, according to the grant of James I., Feb. 16, 1622, “all the islands of, or in the same, and the fisheries of said lakes, and the soil and bottom thereof.” He owns all the mountains round about, and one of his stewards told me that they comprised 999,000 acres. He owns the village and everything within it, even the ground on which the railway station stands. All of the hotels occupy his soil under lease, and the insane asylum, with its six hundred patients, and the poorhouse for County Kerry, with four hundred friendless and destitute creatures within its walls.