I have to confess that it was not thro' deep and industrious research, that I am thus enabled to challenge the truth, of the accepted records.
It was thro' the chance, afforded by an hour of breezing sea-scape recreation, that I discovered the mysterious chronicle.
The popular tradition, is thus related by Dr. Walsh. "The celebrated Grana Uille or Grace O'Mally, noted for her piratical depredations in the reign of Elizabeth, returning on a certain time from England, where she had paid a visit to the Queen, landed at Howth, and proceeded to the castle. It was the hour of dinner—but the gates were shut. Shocked at an exclusion so repugnant to her notions of Irish hospitality, she immediately proceeded to the shore, where the young lord was at nurse, and seizing the child, she embarked with, and sailed to Connaught, where her own castle stood.
After a time, however, she restored the child; with the express stipulation, that the gates should be thrown open, when the family went to dinner—a practice which is observed to this day."
WHEN the Hill of Howth was covered, by a city great, and grand,
And nuggets still were gathered, like cockles on the strand;
On the shore, around by Sutton, a children's maid was met,
Who was wheeling of a baby, in a sky blue bassinet.
And as that maiden cycled that infant by the sea,
Down the boreen from the Bailey, came number 90 B;