One Irish Summer

by William Eleroy Curtis

The O’Donaghues were connected by marriage with the MacCarthys, kings of Munster, and had their headquarters at Blarney Castle, near Cork. Twelve generations, so far as the inscriptions can be deciphered, of that proud family are lying there, and more than twenty generations of O’Donaghues. The last MacCarthy buried here was Florence, husband of Agnes Herbert, who lived in Muckross House until his death in 1770. The last O’Donaghue buried here was Donal, a direct descendant of The O’Donaghue of the Glens, who was a member of parliament and died in 1889. His son Jeffrey, “The O’Donaghue,” as the head of the family is always called, is a barrister living in Dublin, a gentleman of high reputation and much influence, although he has lost almost everything but his proud name and a lineage that is interwoven with the history of Ireland since human actions were recorded.

The grandfather of “The O’Donaghue” was a captain in the Munster Fusiliers, which were recruited in County Kerry and was stationed at Chester, near Liverpool, the home of Gladstone, in 1860, during a religious agitation. A band of rioters were making ready to burn an effigy of the pope when Captain O’Donaghue warned the leaders that if such an insult to the holy father was offered the Kerry men of his regiment would burn the city of Chester to the ground. When this threat became known the mob dispersed, and there were no more religious demonstrations while Captain O’Donaghue and the men of Kerry were in the Chester barracks.

“The O’Donaghues were ginerally prayin’ when they woren’t foightin’ or dhrinkin’,” said the ancient oracle who gave me this information. “They feared none but God, and since Maolduin O’Donaghue burned the monastery of Innisfallen and murdered the monks in 1158 they have spint much toime doin’ pinnance for his sins.”

It is customary for the heads of these old families to use the word “The” as a prefix to their names to indicate their rank, and I have seen letters signed in that way, without the initials of the writer. For example, “The MacDermott” is a barrister of importance in Dublin. “The O’Donivan” lives at Cork and retains a part of the ancestral estates. “The O’Shea” is a clergyman of the Church of England stationed at Manchester and makes much of his position as the head of the clan. “The O’Neill” is the Lord of Londonderry, and “The O’Connor” lives at Sligo—a brother of the late Sir Nicholas O’Connor, who was British ambassador at Constantinople at the time of his death. “The O’Flaherty” is a justice of the peace near Galway, and a man of importance. And members of other old families recognize the head of their clan in a similar manner, although it carries nothing but glory and gratification with it.

“The O’Sullivans, the MacCarthys, and all the old families loike the O’Donaghues, are gone; played out, as ye moight say,” remarked the oracle. “For tin cinturies the O’Sullivans ruled whole counties in Ireland, but they have lost their proid as well as their property, and are now contint to kape pooblic houses [saloons] and sit around complaining of the hard toimes. The whole country south of here is full of O’Sullivans. There’s more of thim than of any other name. If anny wan were to sail across County Kerry in a balloon and cast out a bag of corn, ivery kernel would hit an O’Sullivan, but they are only proivates in the clan. The ruling line is extinct and no O’Sullivan now owns an acre of the old estates. Nor do the O’Donaghues; they’re as poor as church mice, having lost all but the name and the spirit of the race.

“Look at that grave there; it’s filled with the bones of Black Jeffery O’Donaghue. They called him the Black Prince of the Glenflesk. He lived at Killaha Castle, situated five moiles from here and built on a rock standin’ in the middle of a bog, and nobody could find the way but those who knew it. His spirit nothing could contain. He hated the English as no man ever hated thim before or since, and whin he saw an Englishman his temper would rise like the hair on the back of an angry dog. No Englishman ever came within soight of Killaha Castle and got home aloive. But Black Jeffery died in his bed after all, of tuberculosis; ye kin see the date on the tomb—1756, age 36.

“Did yez ivir hear about the midnight marriage of the master of Blarney Castle which took place here in the ruined abbey in the year 1590, which Quane Elizabeth an’ the intire parlymint did their best to prevint? It’s a great story. The heads of the two branches of the MacCarthy family were thin united in the persons of Florence MacCarthy of Blarney Castle, the same gintleman that deludered Quane Elizabeth with his soft words and caused the invintion of the word ‘blarney’ that is used so much these days. Waal, he was in love with Aileen MacCarthy, his cousin, daughter of Donal MacCarthy Mor, Earl of Glencare. The two factions had been inemies, and it was the policy of the English to kape thim apart, because a reconciliation would bring them togither an’ make thim more dangerous to British authority. And that was what Quane Elizabeth was trying to prevint. She feared that if the MacCarthy factions made frinds they would join Hugh O’Neill and the great Earl of Desmond, thin in rebellion, and so the marriage was forbidden by her majesty. An’ that made Florence MacCarthy all the more determined to wed Aileen, who had been his sweetheart in sacrit for several years, and one day he crossed the lake wid Lady Aileen and her mother in a boat rowed by four lusty gallowglasses with their battle-axes lyin’ where the oars had been.

“They landed at midnight at the abbey, thin half in ruins, solemn and mournful, in silence and decay. The moon shone through the roofless walls and the broken windows of the crumbling shrine of Irrelagh, upon the blissed head of a vinerable friar, Florence MacCarthy’s chaplain, who was awaiting thim himself—one of thim who, in the dark days of Henry VIII. was expelled from the abbey at the point of a Protestant sword. Wid him was O’Sullivan Mor, MacFinian, the Countess of Glencare, and the beautiful Lady Una O’Leary, and that was all. No bard was there to sing the bridal song, no harp to give swate sounds, no banner to wave, no clansmen to raise a joyous cheer, an’ no spear or battle-ax gleamed in the moonlight, but the Blissed Virgin and all the saints were lookin’ down all the while, approvin’, through the roofless aisles, when Florence MacCarthy and Aileen MacCarthy pledged their vows.