Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin

“ Oh foul is the treason, that bids us our truth abjure.
Our faith to our own regal race—oh! dark and impure
The breast that devised, and the traitor lip that proclaims
Our throne and our truth to belong to any but James. ”

“ The work of enchantment—a flattering dream.
Thou, who man hast redeemed by dire suffering and toil.
This redemption, oh! grant to my dear native soil;
May the woes that o'er Erin her foemen would spread,
With vengeance alight on their own guilty head! ”

“ But waft the right king to his fond Grana Weal.
Raise your hearts and exult, my beloved! at my words.
Your eyes to your king, and your hands to your swords!—
The Highlands shall send forth the bonnetted Gael,
To grace the glad nuptials of Grana Weal.
And Louis, and Charles, and the heaven-guided Pope,
And the king of the Spaniards shall strengthen our hope;
One religion—one kindred—one soul shall they feel. ”

“ Banba no more her sons can trace,6
In failing heart and feeble hand.
An alien race o'erruns her breast,
Endenizened by strange controul;
The stranger is no more her guest,
While exile wrings her children's soul. ”

“ Glandillough is a grassy valley, fit for feeding sheep, but a great part of it marshy, with many rocky precipices and surrounded with thick shrubby woods, so that the paths and passes are scarce known even to the inhabitants. When the army came to this place, Cosby, general of the light Irish foot, which are called Kernes, who was thoroughly acquainted with the place, apprised the rest of the leaders how very dangerous it would be to attack them in that valley, so fit for ambuscades ”

“ The best proof of conviction in religious opinions is an earnest endeavour to disseminate those opinions in order to bring people over to the truth. This has never been attempted by the Protestant divines in Ireland. On the contrary, every measure which could render their doctrine odious, seems to have been studiously resorted to. Hence the words of our text. It may therefore be concluded, that as England is now a Protestant, and Scotland a Presbyterian, country, so Ireland is, and ever will continue to be, pre-eminently Catholic. ”

“ These works, if they belonged to any other nation of Europe, even to the island of Iceland, would long since have been deemed worthy of publication; but alas ! the literature, language, and native genius of unhappy Ireland, have hitherto experienced unmeritted neglect. As a poet and miscellaneous writer, O'Neachtan holds the same rank in Irish literature, that Doctor Young, the author of the Night Thoughts, occupies in English. With equal genius and learning, the Irish bard's compositions are more equal and correct, and his style less diffuse than those of the favored English author. ”

“ No liberal, or well informed Protestant of the present day can be surprised at these strong expressions of the past, if he call to his recollection the cruel persecutions which the Irish suffered, and the sweeping confiscations of their estates since the days of Elizabeth. Until a recent period, arms and penal laws were the principal instruments of the Reformation in Ireland. ”

“ Ireland has been rendered a paralyzed limb on the empire, but sufficient nerve remains, by which, in some frenzied or convulsive moment, it may inflict a sudden and deadly wound on the body which it ought to protect, support, and adorn. ”

“ Francis Cosby, a person of slender fortune in England, betook himself to Ireland as an adventurer, in the reign of Queen Mary. He directed his course to the territory of Leix, recently converted into Shire-ground by the name of the Queen's County, and the scene of the horrid massacre of Mullamast. Having recommended himself to the attention of the chief governor, he was, by patent dated 10 Sept. 1558, appointed "general" of the "Kerne," as the then police was called, after the ancient Irish foot-soldiers. ”

“ Wolves—hunters—hounds, were there in headlong race;
There too, the broidery portrayed the brave
Who gathered laurels o'er the bounding wave.
With faltering tongue, I said, celestial fair!
Vouchsafe a gracious answer to my prayer.
From some high region—thy resplendent home,
To mortal converse, since thou deign'st to come ”

“ Mac Donnell, a man of great erudition, and a profound Irish antiquarian and poet, whose death I sensibly feel, and from whom, when a boy, I learned the rudiments of our language, constantly kept up this custom, (i. e. public sessions of the poets, at stated times, to exercise their genius.) He had made valuable collections, and was writing in his native tongue a history of Ireland; but a long sickness prevented his finishing this work. He proposed to some gentlemen in the County of Clare, to translate Homer into Irish ”

“ The Gael, like a tempest, shall burst on the foe!—
The bards shall exult, and the harp string shall tremble,
And love and devotion be poured in the strain;
Ere "Samhain"5 our chiefs shall in Temor assemble—
The "Lion" protect our own pastors again:
The Gael shall redeem every shrine's desecration;
In song shall exhale our warm hearts adoration ”

“ The "ferocious" laws against the Catholics of Ireland, so strikingly resemble those imposed by the Mahomedan Caliph Omar, on the Christians of Jerusalem, when he captured that city in 637, that, if the spirit of persecution were not always the same, it might be supposed that the Irish Parliament had the Moslem restrictions in view, when framing those laws.—See the History of the Turks for the following Articles, and the History of the Irish penal laws for more copious comments. ”

“ O'Heffernan, the author of this allegorical poem, was a native of the county of Tipperary, and appears to have been living, an old man, within the last fifty years. He composed many poetical pieces which are deservedly popular, but, if he had left no other than the present, it would in itself, be sufficient to rescue his memory from oblivion, and stamp him with the name of poet. ”

“ Whose bonds with worse corrosion eat,
Through breasts that panted free before.
Their power is feebleness—their worth,
Their manly worth, a rankling stain;
Once heroes! now, disastrous dearth.
Their hearts have shriveled to the chain. ”

“ A new colony of new settlers, composed of all the various sects which then infested England, Independents, Anabaptists, Seceders, Brownists, Socinians, Millenarians, and Dissenters of every description, many of them infected with the leaven of democracy, poured into Ireland, and were put into possession of the ancient inheritance of its inhabitants: and I speak with great personal respect of the men, when I state that a very considerable portion of the opulence and power of the Kingdom of Ireland, centers at this day in the descendants of this motley collection of English adventurers. ”

“ A prouder theme the pealing anthem fills;
When bards with loftiest strains indignant vie,
Proclaiming that false broods mendacity.
Truth beams upon the crest of Cashell's son;
Hosts gird him round; our own, our righteous one ”

“ Many excellent productions of his, are extant, composed in his native language, which prove him to have been a man of genius and a poet. Although it may be considered presumptuous to compare an unknown Irish Bard, with the celebrated English poet of Twickenham, yet the comparison might be hazarded without much apprehension for the result. In point of learning Mac Donnell was equal, and neither in genius, judgment, nor power of exquisite versification, was he inferior to Pope. ”

“ The queen declared herself paramount over the souls of the Irish as well as their bodies, and this prerogative has been since stiffly maintained, formerly by the sword, and afterwards by penal laws, even to the present day. In the commencement of the reign of James the first, the principal charge brought against a refractory Irishman in Cork was, that "he swore an othe not to be governed by any Kinge, but such as should give him the libertie of his conscience."—Orig. MS. in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin. ”

“ The situation therefore of the Irish nation at the Revolution stands unparalleled in the history of the inhabited world." Such were the novel statements made by this noble Earl, in the Irish House of Lords, on the 10th Feb. 1800, to induce a Legislative Union between Great Britain and Ireland. They are here introduced as forming a tolerable comment on our Jacobite Relics. After their perusal, the most prejudiced must hesitate, and, perhaps, even excuse the feelings so warmly expressed throughout these National effusions by our indignant bards. ”

“ THE EXPULSION OF SHANE BUI!1
BY JOHN D'ALTON.
Ye daughters of loveliness! dim not your eyes,
By sorrow unclouded too seldom;
The days are at hand when your heroes shall rise.
And your foes be in trouble and thraldom. ”

“ The Cosby party being entirely routed, O'More ransacked the Abbey, but conveyed the infant and widows to a place of safety. Queen Elizabeth granted pensions to the latter in consequence of their husband's laudable services, and the O'Mores having been declared traitors, their estates were confiscated. The feuds, however, between them and the Cosbies still raged with violence. The infant having died, Richard Cosby succeeded to the Estate, and became leader of the kerne. Eager to revenge the deaths of his father and brother, he challenged the O'Mores to fight a pitched battle. ”

“ For admitt, there be but now 200,000 Irish papists in actual rebellion, which I conceive to be the least number that they are, it must not be the worke of a second conquest, to proceed slowly and sparingly, but roundly and really with plentiful provisions of all kynde to support a warre, I assure your lordship it infinitely comforts all us good subjects, that his Majesty hath been graciously pleased, now at the last, to issue proclamations from thence, whereby the rebells, with their abbettors, adherents and releivers, are proclaimed Traytors ”

“ The original is adapted and sung to the Irish air, "Staca an Mhargaidh," or the "Market Stake," (which may be seen in Bunting's collection of Irish Music, p. 69,) but, in the translation, it was found impracticable to retain the air without falling short of the beauty of the original.
The machinery (if the term be allowable,) of this ode, or the vision introduced by the poet, has been a favorite form of composition with our later bards. They delighted in decorating these visionary beings with all the charms of celestial beauty ”

“ The ancient Milesian families of Ireland, after braving the storms of thousands of years, began to yield in the sixteenth century. The disastrous warfare of the succeeding age, and the perfidy of the Milesian Stuart, hastened their political downfall, which was finally completed by their ill-fated en- deavours to restore the second James. ”

“ His muse never seemed so delighted as when holding them up to the scorn and derision of his Countrymen. His poem on James Dawson is a chef d'œuvre in the bitter and sarcastic style. Among other productions, the present verses to the air of Grana Uile, and the "Lament," which follows, have been always admired. It may be necessary here to observe, that a custom prevailed among our modern bards, to supply stanzas, particularly of a political nature, for the finest national tunes; and these compositions, in general, supplanted the older words, which fell into disuse and were soon forgotten. ”

“ The last, and it is hoped it will be the last, signal act of treachery in Ireland was committed by the descendant of a settler, Colonel Henry Luttrell, who "sold the pass" at Limerick to King William's forces. Lord Westmeath afterwards endeavoured, but ineffectually, to acquit this unhappy man of the charge; see Ferrar's History of Limerick, 354. He survived, an object of general execration, until the year 1717, when he was shot in a sedan chair in Stafford-street, Dublin. The following Epigram was composed on his death—
If heaven be pleased when mortals cease to sin. ”

“ The original was addressed principally to the Native Chieftains, whose tottering and degraded state, and horrible persecutions during the reign of Elizabeth, are so powerfully portrayed. O'Gnive may be considered as the Tyrtæus not only of Ulster, but of Ireland. His poems, particularly the present, had no small influence in exciting O'Nial to carry fire and sword through the North, and rousing the ancient Irish nobility to arms against their oppressors in the other parts of the kingdom. ”

“ He was a learned man, and an ingenious poet, and enriched his native language with many original compositions and translations. Several of these are in the possession of the writer; and among others, a copious Treatise, in Irish, on General Geography, extending to nearly five hundred closely written pages, and containing many interesting particulars concerning this country; also, curious annals of Ireland, from A. D. 1167, to the beginning of the last century. ”

“ This learned and worthy man died in the year 1751, near Charleville, and I have never since been able to find how his papers were disposed of, though I am told he left them to me."—Though grateful to Mr. O'Halloran for preserving even these few particulars, yet the feeling would be greater, had he saved the papers to which he has alluded. They could not have been confided to better hands, and there can be no doubt, but they were well worthy of preservation. ”

“ From an obscure adventurer, this man gradually became the most powerful individual in Ireland, and it is related, that Cromwell, a kindred spirit, when he visited Munster, declared that if there had been an earl of Cork in each of the provinces, there would have been no rebellion ”

“ One of these was Colonel John O'Dwyer, a distinguished officer who commanded in the Counties of Waterford and Tipperary, in 1651, and soon after embarked at the former port with 500 of his faithful followers for Spain.—Original Irish Privy Council Book, 1651—4. On the occasion of his departure the present fine ode was composed, and it has ever since contained a general favourite, being well known in every part of Ireland. The air is an excellent specimen of our plaintive music. ”