John F. Finerty

“ I never thought piety was a reproach to soldiers, and it was, perhaps, the enthusiasm of Oliver’s troops that made them so victorious. This battle was, certainly, a bloody and decisive one. The stake was great, the Irish knew the value of it, and, though very inferior to 356their enemies in numbers and appointments, and chagrined by repeated losses, yet it must be owned they fought it well. Accidents which human wisdom could not foresee, more than the superior courage of their flushed enemies, snatched from them that victory, which already began to declare in their favor. ”

“ With him disappeared, for that century at least, the hope of an independent Ireland.
After the battle of Athenry, the power of the De Burgo family, and of all the allies of their house, became predominant in Connaught, but all these Anglo-Norman chiefs became, also, much more Irish in manners and sympathy than they had ever been before. The desperate bravery displayed by O’Conor’s clansmen had aroused the admiration of those born warriors, and they felt that to ally themselves in marriage with so martial a race was an honor, not a degradation, such as the English sought to make it appear. ”

“ Taken for all in all, he was not alone the bravest, but the ablest, of Irish princes and warriors since the days of King Brian, and it was a sad day for Ireland when the word went through Leinster and rang around the island that King Art was dead. Many a dark generation passed away before such another chief, or any one worthy to be mentioned as a rival of his fame, arose in that unfortunate land. ”

“ Let us, as Americans, be thankful that we live under a government which recognizes the equal rights of all the creeds, and permits every citizen to worship God in peace, after his own fashion. May the day never come when it shall be different in this Republic!
The frightful event we have chronicled naturally aroused the worst passions of the angered Catholic population of Ulster, and some cruel reprisals resulted. We are sorry to be obliged to state that credible history ascribes most of the violence committed on the Irish side to Sir Phelim O’Neill ”

“ It may be asked, why did not the clansmen—the rank and file of the Irish people—put a stop to the insane feuds of their kings, princes, and chiefs? Because, we answer, they were accustomed to the tribal system and idea. Doubtless, they loved Ireland, in a general way, but were much more attached to their family tribe-land, and, above all, they adored the head of their sept and followed where he led, asking no questions as to the ethics of his cause. Had they been more enlightened regarding the art of government, they might have combined against their selfish leaders and crushed them. ”

“ More than thirty centuries have faded into eternity since first its soft, yet powerful, accents were heard on Ireland’s shore, but still nearly a million people out of four and a half millions speak it, and hundreds of thousands have more or less knowledge of the venerable tongue in its written form. Great efforts have been put forth of late years to promote its propagation throughout the island, and it is a labor of love in which all classes, creeds, and parties in Ireland cordially work together. ”

“ Thus, you will see, Ireland was left pretty much to herself, during those thirty years of English civil war, in which twelve murderous pitched battles were fought. Most of the old nobility were killed in battle or executed, or otherwise destroyed, and more than one hundred thousand Englishmen of the middle and lower classes were immolated on the smoking altars of family pride and savage ambition. Every prince of the race of Plantagenet was exterminated when, in 1599, Henry VII ordered the beheading of the young Earl of Warwick, son of the Duke of Clarence. ”

“ But Chesterfield was, in reality, friendly to the Irish. He liked their wit and esprit and took no pains to conceal the fact, greatly to the disgust of the Ascendency clique. But Charles Edward’s attempt to recover the British crown utterly failed. Highland Scotland fought for him heroically. The Jacobites of England held, for the most part, aloof, and, beyond the officers of the Irish Brigade, who went with him from France, Ireland hardly furnished a man to aid his hardy and romantic enterprise—thus showing how completely her spirit was subdued during that momentous crisis. ”

“ Lorcan O’Tuhill, who appears to have been the only man among the entire Irish hierarchy who comprehended the iron grip the Normans had on the throat of Ireland. Had all the prelates been like St. Lorcan, and preached a war of extermination against the invaders at the outset, Ireland could, undoubtedly, have thrown off the yoke, because the princes would have been forced by their people, over whom the bishops had great moral sway, to heal their feuds and make common cause for their country. King Roderick, despite his errors, deserves honor for his patriotic spirit. ”

“ Well-meaning foreign writers, who did not make a study of Anglo-Irish relations in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, have expressed astonishment at the paucity of Irish industries, outside of linen, and have ascribed it to Irish non-adaptability to manufacturing pursuits! Not alone did England compel Ireland to fine her own traders, by levying export duties on their output, but she also, as we have seen, by her own Parliament, limited such exports to the meanest possible proportions! ”

“ But the Irish still held out, fighting desperately and losing half their men. This prolonged resistance alarmed the French, who now, thoroughly aroused, gallantly seconded their Irish comrades, and, after a terrible carnage of eight hours’ duration, Prince Eugene, with all that remained of the flower of the Austrian cavalry, gave up in despair, and was hurled pell-mell through the gates of St. Margaret, by the victorious garrison. This exploit of the Irish saved northern Italy to the French monarch—the Austrians retreated to the Alps. All Europe rang applause. ”

“ Swift, although an Irish patriot, was a Protestant bigot, and detested the Celtic Catholics quite as much as he did the English, whom, from a political standpoint, he hated. Yet, he was the idol, during his long lifetime, of the Catholics, because he had stood by Ireland against the common enemy. This brilliant man, whose writings have made him immortal, and whose private sorrows can not be estimated, finally “withered at the top,” and died insane, after having willed his property to be used for the building of a lunatic asylum. ”

“ There is hardly anything in Old World history more ghastly than the long, desultory, and deadly war of tenant against landlord in Ireland, from the days of George II to the latter part of Victoria’s reign. It is a chapter we gladly turn away from, with the remark that the cruel oligarchy, who wantonly provoked a naturally humane people to crime, were infinitely more criminal than the poor, oppressed peasants they made desperate. ”

“ Such is the effect true courage produces on even the most brutal natures.
Owen Roe O’Neill, who, of all the Irish generals, was alone fitted, both by nature and experience, to combat the able Cromwell, died soon after that tyrant’s arrival in Ireland, as some say by poison. He was on the march to attack the English army, when he surrendered to death at Clough Oughter Castle, in Cavan, bitterly mourned by all who had dreamed of an independent Ireland. ”

“ Constant defeat is a poor tonic on which to build up a boldly aggressive patriotism.
The news of the landing at Kinsale reached Red Hugh O’Donnell while he was in the act of besieging his own castle of Donegal, surreptitiously seized by Niall Garbh, “the Queen’s O’Donnell,” while he was absent “at the front,” with O’Neill. He instantly raised the siege, and, summoning all of his forces, marched southward without an hour’s delay, as became his ardent and gallant nature. ”

“ The reply was: “They mean to pass there and flank our left!” St. Ruth observed them for a moment, laughed incredulously, having still “that fatal confidence in the strength of his left flank,” and exclaimed in his impetuous fashion: “Pardieu! but they are brave! What a pity they should be so exposed!” A few minutes previously, exhilarated by the splendid prowess of the Irish infantry, in the centre and at Urachree, he threw his plumed hat in the air and shouted: “Well done, my children! The day is ours! Now we will beat them back even to the gates of Dublin!” ”

“ It is a pity that the ability and bravery displayed by Dr. Walker have been made causes of political and religious irritation in the north of Ireland for upward of two centuries. Lundy, when his authority was defied, escaped from the city at night, in the disguise of a laborer, and cut no further figure in Irish history. Before his flight, King James’s flatterers in Dublin had persuaded him to advance against Derry in person and demand its surrender. Tyrconnel opposed the idea in vain. He well knew that Lundy was in correspondence with Hamilton and De Rosen for the surrender of the city. ”

“ In Ireland, Ulster, Connaught, and Munster remained tranquil for the most part, but, in Leinster, the royal house of MacMurrough—lineal descendants of the traitor of Strongbow’s time—showed a determination to drive the remnant of the English garrison into the sea. They were as loyal to Ireland as their accursed ancestor had been faithless. King Art I, after a long series of successes and failures, died, and was succeeded on the Leinster throne by King Art II—one of the bravest, wisest, and truest characters in Irish history. ”

“ In hand-to-hand conflicts, whether mounted or on foot, the Irish soldiery, in whatever service, ever excelled, with sword or battle-axe, pike or bayonet. Clontibret and the Yellow Ford, Benburb and Fontenoy, Almanza and Albuera, Inkerman and Antietam bear witness to the truth of this assertion. As a charging warrior, the Irishman has never been surpassed, and, no matter 353how bloodily repulsed, an Irish regiment or an Irish army is ever willing to try again. There may be soldiers as brave as they, but none are braver, even when they fight in causes with which they have no natural sympathy. ”

“ The Norse invaders, whenever successful in their enterprises against the Irish chiefs, invariably demolished the churches and colleges, murdered the priests, monks, and nuns—often, however, carrying the latter into captivity—and burned many of the priceless manuscripts, the pride and the glory of the illustrious scholarship of ancient Ireland. In the middle portion of the ninth century—about 840—when Nial III was Ard-Righ of Ireland, came the fierce Dane Turgesius, at the head of an immense fleet and army. ”

“ Where a monarchy exists at all, the succession should be so regulated that the lineal heir, according to primogeniture, whether a minor or not, must succeed to the throne, except when the succession is, for some good and sufficient reason, set aside by the legislative body of the nation. This was done in England in the case of Henry IV, who, with the consent of Parliament, usurped the crown of Richard II; and also in the case of William and Mary, who were selected by the British Parliament of their day to supplant James II, the father-in-law and uncle of the former and father of the latter. ”

“ History contains no stricter instance of the influence of an individual mind. Before the insurrection broke out the people had learned to know and expect their Deliverer, and it became a popular proverb, and the burden of national songs, that the hope of Ireland was in ‘God, the Virgin, and Rory O’More.’ It is remarkable that O’More, in whose courage and resources the great insurrection had its birth, was a descendant of the chieftains of Leix, massacred by English troops at Mullaghmast a century before. ”

“ Brian, in his day of pride, had been hard on the Ossorians, and their chief, Fitzpatrick, Prince of Ossory, basely visited his wrath, as an ally of the Danes, on the Dalcassian contingent of the Irish army returning from Clontarf encumbered by their wounded. But these dauntless warriors did not for a moment flinch. The hale stood gallantly to their arms, and the wounded, unable to stand upright, demanded to be tied to stakes placed in the ground, and thus supported they fought with magnificent desperation. ”

“ Strafford took the king at his word and did proceed so fearlessly in Ireland that his name of terror has been overshadowed in that country by only one other—that of Oliver Cromwell. Every Parliament called to meet by the tyrant in the conquered country—for so the earl regarded Ireland—was used simply as an instrument wherewith to extort still more tribute from the impoverished Irish people. This terrible despot, having accomplished his deadly mission in Ireland, returned to England and there, as before, became chief adviser to the weak and wicked monarch. ”

“ The invitation was sent through Gerald of Kildare, O’Neill’s cousin. The Irish prince accepted and proceeded to court with a following of three hundred galloglasses, or heavy infantry, clad in saffron-colored jackets, close-fitting pantaloons, heavy shoes, short cloaks, and with their hair hanging down their backs, defiant of Poynings’ Law, and all other English enactments. They were gigantic warriors—all more than six feet tall—and with huge mustaches, the drooping ends of which touched their collarbones. ”