Dún Laoghaire

“ In Ireland every king had his dun. This was an enlarged rath with an outer court in which he held his hostages, for the law required this: “He is no king who has not hostages in lock-up.”
Dun in Welsh is din, and dinas is but another form of the same word, and signifies a royal residence.
A gloss to an old Irish law tract says that a royal dun must have two walls and a moat for water.
Dun in Scotland is applied to any fort. According to the Gaelic dictionaries, it is “a heap or mound,” and even a dung-hill is a dun.
In fact, the French dune and the Cornish towan derive from the same root. ”

“ As there is little aristocracy in Dublin there are few lordly dwellings besides the Vice-regal castle. This is very striking in this country of lords and serfs. The masters of the land, mostly of English origin, do not care at all to live in the capital of Ireland; all the time that they do not spend on their property they prefer to beguile away in London, Paris, Naples or elsewhere. Few of their tradesmen are Irish; and the greatest part of the rents they raise on their lands merely accumulate in the banks of Dublin to be afterwards spent on the foreign markets. ”

“ To thee, O Angus, son of the Dagda, as thou art the king of the Tuatha De Danann, I assign the best earth-house in Ireland, the white-topped brugh of the Boyne. [210] As for the rest, each one can select an earth-house for himself." Against this grotesque decision there was, obviously, no appeal, and the Dananns surrendered the surface of Ireland to the Gaels; "and retaining only the green mounds, known by the name of Sidh, and then being made invisible by their enchantments, became the Fir Sidhe, or Fairies, of Ireland." ”

“ The old men in the corner, dressed in black coats that had something of the antiquity of heirlooms, talked all night among themselves in Gaelic. The young girl beside me lost her shyness after a while, and let me point out the features of the country that were beginning to appear through the dawn as we drew nearer Dublin. She was delighted with the shadows of the trees—trees are rare in Connaught—and with the canal, which was beginning to reflect the morning light. ”

“ The first difficulty is one which meets us at all stages of early Irish history. It is impossible to determine the compass of the power and authority of the High Kings in the under-kingdoms. It seems probable that Loigaire was able to exercise as much influence, at least in northern Ireland, as was permitted to any king by the political and social organisation of the country. We have seen that the efforts of his grandfather, Eochaid, and his father, Niall, had extended the power of the family throughout a great part of north Ireland. His cousin, Amolngaid, was king of Connaught. ”

“ It was not till the following spring that Raleigh took possession of certain vast estates in Ireland. The Queen had named him among the 'gentlemen-undertakers,' between whom the escheated lands of the Earl of Desmond were to be divided. He received about forty-two thousand acres in the counties of Cork, Waterford, and Tipperary, and he set about repeopling this desolate region with his usual vigour of action. He brought settlers over from the West of England, but these men were not supported or even encouraged at Dublin Castle. ”

“ He was a scholar and scientist of reputation, president of the Royal Irish Academy and the Royal Dublin Society, and interested in important manufactories and enterprises. He was especially active in developing the steam turbine.
All of that section of Ireland covered by the journey between Dublin and Cork is associated with heroic struggles. It has been fought over time and again by the clans and the factions that have struggled to rule the state. Every town and every castle has its tragic and romantic history. Almost every valley is associated with a legend or an important event. ”

“ In Connemara the "bawneen" or sleeved waistcoat of whitish flannel is general and very becoming to its wearers, among whom are to be found the handsomest men in Ireland. Kerry women, who in certain parts really have the "black-blue Irish hair and Irish eyes", may perhaps hold their own even with the girls of Connaught; but for fine-looking men I would back Galway against any county in the British Isles. ”

“ Such is the complete scheme of oppression presented to us, that it can only be likened to a monstrous spider-web spread from the centre of the Island over its fairest and most populous districts. Glendalough, Ferns, Castle-Dermid, and Kildare in the east; Lismore, Cork, Clonfert, in the southern country; Dundalk, Bangor, Derry, and Armagh in the north; all groaned under this triumphant despot, or his colleagues. In the meanwhile King Nial seems to have struggled resolutely with the difficulties of his lot, and in every interval of insubordination to have struck boldly at the common enemy. ”

“ The “Annals of the Four Masters” relate that there were fierce lords upon the road from Dublin to Tara, and that if the traveler was not robbed by the Lord of Dunsany Castle he would be robbed by the Lord of Killeen, and if he managed to escape Killeen he was sure to be robbed at Dunsany. These two famous places stand on both sides of the highway not more than a mile apart, and, although both have been restored and remodeled for modern occupants they are still very old and associated with much interesting history. ”

“ King Laeghaire had at Tara Druids and enchanters, who used to foretell the future by their druidism and heathenism; [10] and they announced the coming of the tailcend, or shaven-crown, that is St. Patrick, long before his arrival. They were powerful in charms and spells. They could bring snow on the plain, but could not, like Patrick, take it away; they could cover the land with sudden darkness, but could not, like him, dispel it. They were powerful for evil, but not for good ”

“ Near here we flew over Curraghmore, the stately mansion of the Marquis of Waterford. The desmesne covers 5000 acres, and is a beautiful natural park, with many slopes, and dells. There is an ancient castle beside the modern mansion.
In this part of Ireland Sir Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spencer lived. We soon saw Youghal, on the coast, where Raleigh lived, and where his old house still stands.
Edmund Spencer was a close friend of Raleigh’s. He was an English poet but became associated with Ireland because he wrote the “Fairy Queen in the Emerald Isle” in 1589 and 1590. ”

“ This was the third race of heroes in Ireland, namely the Clan Gamanrad of Irross Donnan (the peninsula of Donnan) , and (the other two were) the Clan Dedad in Temair Lochra, and the Clan Rudraige in Emain Macha. But both the other clans were destroyed by the Clan Rudraige.
But the men of Ulster arise, and with them the people of Medb and of Ailill; and they laid waste the castle, and take Flidais out of the castle with them, and carry off the women of the castle into captivity ”

“ Megalithic monuments and dolmen are equally found in great numbers in Ireland. Donegal presents at Raphre a circus of raised stones absolutely similar to that of Stonehenge, while in Derry one sees in the Grianan of Aileach the finest fortified temple that was ever raised in honour of the sun. In many districts all the hills or mountains without exception are crowned with the funeral hillock or Celtic rath. ”

“ As befitting a prince of the blood royal, the duke made a triumphal entry into Dublin, and, guided by his wife, wisely conciliated the native chiefs and the leaders of the Anglo-Irish. They gave many banquets and entertainments in Dublin Castle, at which Irish and English mingled, quarrels being forgotten in the presence of the woman who was known as 'The Rose of Raby.' And when on October 21, 1449, she gave birth in Dublin Castle to her ninth child, George, afterwards Duke of Clarence, she diplomatically invited the Earls of Desmond and Ormonde to stand as sponsors. ”

“ Davenport Dunn's residence was in Merrion Square, his house of business was in Henrietta Street,—one of those roomy old mansions which, before the days of the Union, lodged the aristocracy of Ireland, but which have now fallen into utter neglect and decay. Far more spacious in extent, and more ornate in decoration, than anything modern Dublin can boast, they remain, in their massive doors of dark mahogany, their richly stuccoed ceilings, and their handsome marble chimney-pieces, the last witnesses of a period when Dublin was a real metropolis. ”

“ The excitement proved fatal; and the brave and good King Conor Mac Nessa died [135] avenging, in his own wild pagan fashion, the death of his Creator.
The secular history of Ireland, during the mission of St. Patrick, affords but few events of interest or importance. King Laeghairé died, according to the Four Masters, A.D. 458. The popular opinion attributed his demise to the violation of his oath to the Leinster men. It is doubtful whether he died a Christian, but the account of his burial [136] has been taken to prove the contrary. ”

“ While horses were changed we saw a very dirty town called Strabane; and had to visit the old house of the O’Donnels in Donegal during a quarter of an hour’s pause that the coach made there—and with an umbrella overhead. The pursuit of the picturesque under umbrellas let us leave to more venturesome souls: the fine weather of the finest season known for many long years in Ireland was over, and I thought with a great deal of yearning of Pat the waiter, at the Shelbourne Hotel, Stephen’s Green, Dublin, and the gas-lamps, and the covered cars, and the good dinners to which they take you. ”

“ In Dublin the mammoth brewery of Guinness and Sons can be viewed under the conductorship of a servant of the firm employed for the sole purpose of showing visitors through the great concern. But it is the lesser industries in Ireland which are really attractive. The law of the survival of the fittest stands to these—the homespuns woven in the cottages, the beautiful Dublin poplin, the delicate lace of Youghal and Limerick, the exquisite pottery of Belleek, these good things are beyond compare. ”

“ Oxen ye are, but revenge shall see;
Men who are white shall your servants be:
Rushes from Teffa are cleared away:
Grief is the price that the man shall pay:
Stones have been cleared from the rough Meath ground;
Whose shall the gain or the harm be found?
Now Mider appointed a day at the end of the month when he was to meet Eochaid, and Eochaid called the armies of the heroes of Ireland together, so that they came to Tara; and all the best of the champions of Ireland, ring within ring, were about Tara, and they were in the midst of Tara itself, and they guarded it, both without and within ”

“ Among the swift shuttles of Irish speech the ponderous questions and pronouncements of an English fisherman drove their way. The talk was, we gathered, of sport and game laws and their administration.
“Is it hares?” cried the Dublin tourist, perorating after a flight or two into the subject of poachers; “what d’ye think would happen a hare in Donegal?”
His handsome brown eye swept his audience, even, through the spokes of a bicycle, gathering in our sympathies. It left no doubts as to the tragedy that awaited the hare. ”

“ It does not, indeed, require a very great age for any of us Dublinians to remember when the country along the southern shore of our beautiful bay, from Dunleary to the land’s-end on Dalkey common, presented a nearly uniform character of wildness and solitude—heathy grounds, broken only by masses of granite rocks, and tufts of blossomy furse, without culture, and, except in the little walled villages of Bullock and Dalkey, almost uninhabited. ”

“ The Linen-Hall was erected in Dublin, under as just and nice Regulations as any commercial House in Europe.
The North of Ireland began to wear an Aspect entirely new; and, from being (through Want of Industry, Business, and Tillage) the almost exhausted Nursery of our American Plantations, soon became a populous Scene of Improvement, Traffic, Wealth, and Plenty; and is, at this Day, a well-planted District, considerable for Numbers of well-affected, useful, and industrious Subjects.
Now arose, now shone forth, the ever Honourable Dublin Society; a Society equalled by none. ”

“ And at the end of that time, Laegaire said: "Let us go and ask news of our own country." "If you have a mind to go," said Fiachna, "bring horses with you; but whatever happens," he said, "do not get off from them."
So they set out then; and when they got back to Ireland, they found a great gathering of the whole of the men of Connacht that were keening them.
And when the men of Connacht saw them coming they rose up to meet them, and to bid them welcome. But Laegaire called out: "Do not come to us, for it is to bid you farewell we are here." ”

“ The Connaught men laughed hilariously. "Sure the Dublin jackeens have never been beaten yet for cuteness," they cried. "They stripped to their pelts so as they wouldn't get the 'fluensy by means of their wet clothes. And, faix, 'twould be the greatest pity in the world anything would ail stout and hearty boys like them." As they spoke, the men of the west lay close against the embankments to let the men of the east go by. But weren't the Dublins in the divil of a hurry back to billets? ”

“ But everywhere in it the beautiful frame of nature has been modified and beautified by man.
Since it is not possible, in the small space available, to describe exhaustively the features of this great province, which stretches from the sea to the Shannon and from the Mourne Mountains to Waterford Haven, [Pg 6] a selection must be made and indicated at once. First, then, the county of Dublin itself, infringing a little on Kildare. Secondly, the Wicklow Mountains and their glens. Thirdly, that rich valley of the Boyne, which was the heart of the ancient kingdom of Meath. ”