St Kilda

“ In Borrera the marvellous combination of spiry ridges, deep gullies and clefts, notched crests and splintered pinnacles, at once reminds the visitor of the outlines of the Cuillin Hills of Skye. The same features are repeated on a less magnificent scale in Soay and along the whole of the south-western precipitous coast-line of St. Kilda.
In marked contrast to these varied outlines, the eastern half of St. Kilda rises with a smooth green surface, varied with sheets of grey screes, up to the rounded summit of Conagher, the highest point in the island. ”

“ The Council remitted to the magistrates ‘to consider the said representation, and to do therein as they shall find just and right.’ [207]
June 1. St Kilda, a fertile island of five miles’ circumference, placed fifty miles out from the Hebrides, was occupied by a simple community of about forty families, who lived upon barley-bread and sea-fowl, with their eggs, undreaming of a world which they had only heard of by faint reports from a factor of their landlord ‘Macleod,’ who annually visited them. ”

“ Kilda, the inhabitants of which, alarmed at the sight of the fleet, fled and concealed themselves in the cliffs of the rocks. Landing with some of his forces, the general inquired at some of the inhabitants, whom he discovered in their recesses, what had become of the “Pretender;” but these people answered, with great simplicity, that they had never heard of such a person,—that they had indeed been informed that their laird (Macleod) had lately been at war with a woman a great way abroad, and that he had overcome her. ”

“ The island of St Kilda, to which we called attention, exhibits a small population with no means of learning English, and who for religious instruction in Gaelic are wholly dependent on the Rev. John M’Kay, a minister appointed by the Free Church. This worthy individual, who is a bachelor of advanced age, and whom, by mistake, we spoke of as being married, can speak and read English; but with the exception of the imported wife of one of the natives, he is the only individual on the island who can do so, and acts as a general interpreter on the occasion of visits from strangers. ”

“ Kilda has no rival throughout the Western Isles. Its russet-coloured cone, though rising on the west side with gentle green slopes from the central valley, plunges on the eastern side in one vast precipice from a height of 1000 feet or more into the surge at its base. Nowhere among the Inner Hebrides, not even on the south-western side of Rum, is there any such display of the capacity of the youngest granite to assume the most rugged and picturesque forms. ”

“ In 1697 Martin visited the island, and wrote a quaint but faithful account of it. At present there is no regular communication between St Kilda and any other place except by a boat called 'the smack,' which is sent out by the proprietor (MacLeod of MacLeod) twice a year—namely in summer and autumn, to collect the rents, to carry away the produce, and to furnish supplies. Some bold yachtsman generally pays the island a hurried visit about the end of summer; but as the anchorage is dangerous, he seldom or never remains more than two or three hours. ”

“ If we suppose that the lady was carried under circumstances of such profound mystery, and by the agency of some conspicuous and distinguished personages, to the distant island of St Kilda, merely because she was a lunatic who required to be in custody, we only see that many important and sagacious people were taking a very complex and cumbrous method of accomplishing what might have been done with ease ”

“ Many of its breeding-places are a most valuable property to those who live near them and take the eggs and young, which, from the nature of the locality, are only to be had at a hazardous risk of life. In St Kilda a large number of the young are killed in one week of August, the only time when, by the custom of the community, they are allowed to be taken. ”

“ These, after the oil is extracted from them, serve the islanders with food for the winter. The oil has been chemically analysed and found to be a fish-oil, and to possess nearly all the qualities of that obtained from the liver of the cod, with a lighter specific gravity. It, however, has an extremely strong scent, which is said by those who have visited St Kilda to pervade every thing and person on the island, and is certainly retained by an egg or skin of the bird for many years. Whenever a live example is seized in the hand it ejects a considerable quantity of this oil from its mouth. ”

“ In the month of April 1864 a boat left St Kilda for Stornoway with a woman and seven men on board. Every man had a chest, and the woman a small box; and they took provisions with them, and some salt-fish and home-spun cloth to pay expenses. The islanders went up the hill{285} called Oswald or Osimhal and watched the boat for several hours. ”

“ Every meal is preceded by a grace, nor will they take a drink of milk or water without uncovering the head.
The St Kildans are quite as industrious as they are pious. Every family has a croft of ground, which they carefully cultivate, although their method of husbandry admits of improvement. ”

“ Kilda it is most abundant and of excellent quality, each spring being celebrated for some particular virtue it is imagined to possess, and named accordingly.
We were much struck with the good looks of the inhabitants as they turned out, men, women, and children, to receive us. They are of rather short stature, but present neat compact specimens of the human form, set off by lively intelligent countenances, adorned almost always with beautifully white teeth. ”

“ At the back of the village is an old cellar, said to have been erected by one man in a single day. It is built of huge stones, some of them too ponderous to be lifted by any two men of these degenerate times. The people refer to this cellar as a proof of the superior strength of their ancestors. The builder had very nearly stumbled on the principle of the arch, which is as yet unknown in St Kilda. ”

“ All are very polite in their own way. When they meet one of a morning they lift their bonnets with the left hand, and hold out the right, and never fail to ask for one's health and how one has slept.
When I had acquired some little knowledge of the language, I made inquiries about Lady Grange, who had been forcibly sent to St Kilda in 1734, and kept there for seven years. Her name was familiar to all the old people and to some of the young. Tradition says that she slept during the day and got up at night. She never learned Gaelic. ”

“ Kildare and Grey respectively asserted rights as governors, and presided over rival parliaments of the English settlement in Ireland. After the termination of the contest Kildare was, in 1481, appointed as deputy in Ireland for the viceroy, Richard, duke of York, and during the closing years of Edward IV advanced much in wealth and influence. He married Alison, daughter of Sir Rowland Fitzeustace, baron of Portlester, and formed alliances with the most important Irish and Anglo-Irish families. ”

“ Kilda was cut off from intercourse with the world, except through supply expeditions sent from Skye by its Macleod landlords, or through chance visits, when the rare stranger would be warmly welcomed and attended by all the male population, as MacCulloch was, like “a Jack Pudding at a country fair followed by a mob of boys.” Nature, it is said, serves them as a leisurely postman, when a letter sealed in a bottle will drift on to the mainland in time ”

“ In these circumstances, the husband felt himself at liberty in conscience—pious man as he notedly was—to have his wife spirited away by night from her lodgings in Edinburgh, 579|1732.| hurried by night-journeys to Loch Hourn on the West Highland coast, and thence transported to the lonely island of Heskir, and put under the care of a peasant-farmer, subject to Sir Alexander Macdonald of Sleat. After two years, she was taken to the still more remote island of St Kilda, and there kept amongst a poor and illiterate people, though not without the comforts of life, for seven years more. ”

“ The St Kildans probably trusted to hiding themselves in times of danger. There is not a single weapon of war in the island; but bows and arrows are mentioned in the traditions. The Dun, comparatively tame{315} on the side next the bay, is wild and picturesque where it faces the ocean. Some of the crags are crowned by pinnacles and fantastic protuberances, and the base is perforated with caves, into which the foaming billows rush and rage for ever.
On my return from The Dun I found a boat at the shore laden with puffins. ”

“ I am in a county where the lamp of Kildare's holy shrine burned with its sacred fire, through ages of darkness and storm—that fire which for six centuries burned before the high altar without being extinguished, being fed continuously, without the slightest interruption, and it seemed to me to have been not an inapt representation of the continuous fidelity and religious love of country of the men of Kildare.
Yes, you have those high qualities—religious fidelity, continuous love of country. ”

“ In a very short time after its foundation Kildare grew to be a great religious establishment, having two monasteries separate, yet side by side, one for women and one for men—and both, to a certain extent, under her own supervision. ”

“ Kildare, as might be expected, became, during the life and after the death of Brigid, a great city and a great school—Cogitosus, with pardonable exaggeration, describes it as the head city of all the bishops, and calls Conlaeth and his successors Arch-bishops of the Bishops of Ireland, and Brigid [Pg 133] (and her successors) the Abbess, whom all the Abbesses of Ireland hold in veneration. He says that no one could count the crowds of people coming to Kildare from all the provinces of Erin; that some come for the feasting or food—ad epulas—that the sick come to be healed ”

“ It seems strange that Kildare is not larger and more prosperous, for if not situated in a picturesque part of the island, the country round it is very fair and fertile, and beautiful as any flat country could be. ”

“ A round tower, 84 ft. in height, stands boldly on an isolated eminence. Close to Killala the French under Humbert landed in 1798, being diverted by contrary winds from the Donegal coast. Near the Moy river, south of Killala, are the abbeys of Moyne and Roserk or Rosserick, both Decorated in style, and both possessing fine cloisters. At Rathfran, 2 m. N., is a Dominican abbey (1274) , and in the neighbourhood are camps, cromlechs, and an inscribed ogham stone, 12 ft. in height. Killala gives name to a Roman Catholic diocese, the seat of which, however, is at Ballina. ”

“ From Armagh we not unnaturally turn to Kildare. If St. Patrick is the father, St. Brigid is the mother of all the saints of Erin, both monks and nuns. She may be regarded not only as the foundress of the monasteries and School of Kildare, but also, in one sense at least, of the diocese of Kildare itself. She has always been deemed one of the three great patron saints of Ireland. Her festival was honoured next after that of St. Patrick himself. The name has always been a favourite one with the daughters of Ireland. She was a woman not only of great virtues but of great talents ”

“ The renown of Bridget's unbounded charity drew multitudes of the poor and necessitous to Kildare; the fame of her piety attracted thither many persons of distinction also, who were anxious to solicit her prayers or to profit by her holy example. In course of time the number of these so much increased, (and what an additional proof does it not afford of the thirst for spiritual improvement indulged by our ancestors!) that it became necessary to provide accommodation for them in the neighborhood of the new monastery, and thus was laid the foundation and origin of the town of Kildare. ”

“ Oh, there is a starlight sparkling from the eye of a Kildare beauty that is scarcely equaled, and could not be excelled, all over the world. And remember that you are the sons, the fathers, the brothers, and the husbands of such women, and a traitor or a coward could never be connected with any of them. Yes, I am in a county, remarkable in the history of Ireland for its bravery and its misfortune, for its credulity in the faith of others, for its people judged of the Saxon by the honesty and honor of their own natures. ”

“ The two institutions—nuns and monks—planted by St. Brigit continued long to flourish side by side, and Kildare is the only religious establishment in Ireland, says Dr. Healy, which down to a comparatively recent period preserved the double line of succession, of abbot-bishops and of abbesses. The annalists always took care to record the names of the abbesses with the same accuracy as those of the abbots, and to the last the abbesses as successors of St. Brigit, were credited with, in public opinion, and probably enjoyed in fact, a certain supremacy over the bishops of Kildare themselves. ”

“ Kildare suddenly rose, and he saw for the first time how tall she was. "I am not and have never been a woman of the world, but I know men, if that is what you mean. And I know"—her voice cut like a whip—"that when these things occur among men of honor, at least the names of their victims are not mentioned." ”

“ Kildare's fortune had come from some almost forgotten lumber lands that his father had failed to heave into the Confederate maelstrom. Perhaps it had come a little soon for the very best upbuilding of the character of David Kildare, but he had stood shoulder to shoulder with them all in the fight for the establishment of the new order of things and his generosity with himself and his wealth had been superb. The delight with which he made a gift of himself to any cause whatsoever, rather tended to blight the prospects of what might have been a brilliant career at law. ”