Youghal

“ Ah yes! that was a most beautiful place there just running out into the Blackwater. It was a gentleman owned it; he lived there a good deal, and he fished. Ah! there’s no such river in the whole world for salmon as the Blackwater; indeed, there is not! Everything was better when he was a lad. There was more money going, and less talking. Father Keller was a very good man; but he was a new man, and came to Youghal from Queenstown.”
[pg 78] We passed on our way the ruins of Dromaneen Castle, the birthplace of the lively old Countess of Desmond, who lies buried at Youghal. ”

“ Raleigh's grant comprised property at Youghal and along the Blackwater to Affane, already mentioned. In the garden attached to Myrtle Grove he is supposed to have planted the potato, the first planted in Ireland.
The strand at Youghal is very fine, and sea-bathers are afforded every opportunity of enjoying themselves. In summer time the watering-place is much patronized, and every year is becoming more attractive. There are good hotels, and plenty of residences and lodgings to accommodate visitors during the season. ”

“ The railway line runs direct from Youghal to Cork, passing the thriving market town of Midleton, the granary of Cork County, and Carrigtwohill, where there are the ruins of a Norman Castle.
A ferry from Youghal brings the passenger into Waterford County. The road above Whiting Bay leads to the fishing village of Ardmore. It was perhaps, the first place in Ireland where the light of Christianity shone, as St. Declan is generally agreed to have been a precursor of the National apostle. In the country districts surrounding, as in the fishing village itself, the language most in use is Gaelic. ”

“ He founded a college at Youghal for a warden, eight fellows, and eight choristers (Hayman, Notes of the Religious Foundations of Youghal, p. xxxiii) , and procured an act of parliament allowing the corporation to buy and sell of the Irishry (Hayman, Annals of Youghal, p. 13) . He was buried at Drogheda, but Sir Henry Sidney removed his tomb to Dublin (Lodge, i. 70) . ”

“ From the nature of the case, and from what we know of Inchiquin, it is not likely that the work was very gently done; but it is nowhere alleged that any life was lost. Similar measures were taken at Youghal and Kinsale. Broghill was governor of the former town, and he forbade all officers, soldiers, and others ‘to break [Pg 74] open the houses of any persons who have in obedience to my proclamation left this town,’ or to plunder any Irish Papists ‘on pain of death.’ On August 24 eleven parliamentary ships entered Cork harbour, while seven appeared at Youghal and six at Kinsale. ”

“ An Englishman’s heart was plucked out in his wife’s presence, and she was forced to lend her apron to wipe the murderer’s fingers. Of the English fugitives who flocked into Youghal, some had lost their tongues and noses, and some had their throats cut, though they still lived. Irish tenants and servants, but yesterday fed in the settlers’ houses, were now conspicuous by their cruelty. Among those who escaped to England were Edmund Spenser and his wife, but one of their children perished in the flames. The poet lost all his property, and of his life’s work in Ireland only his books remain. ”

“ Between Cork—with its poetic associations of the Shandon Bells, the river Lee, and of Blarney Castle—and the glens and vales of Wicklow, there is no spot to equal in pictur{238}esqueness and romantic environment the celebrated valley of the Blackwater, which, forming a broad estuary, mingles with the waters of the Atlantic at Youghal Harbour. The great beauties of the Blackwater only unfold themselves as one ascends the stream some twenty miles above Youghal, but the whole lower river has a placid charm which is quite inexplicable. ”

“ His Irish estate afforded sufficient ground for absence from Court, though no less agreeable motive had concurred. He had rounded off his huge concession by procuring from the Bishop of Lismore, in 1587, a lease of Lismore Manor at a rent of £13 6s. 8d. He was building on the site of the castle a stately habitation, which his wealthy successors have again At Youghal. transformed out of all resemblance to his work. He had conceived an affection for the Warden's house attached to the Dominican Friary at Youghal, Myrtle Grove, or Ralegh's House, as it came to be styled. ”

“ From 1841 to 1847 he was curate of Glanworth, from 1847 to 1849 of Glanmire, and from 1849 to 1863 of Youghal, his native parish. He was collated in 1863 to the rectory of Ardnageehy, and in 1867 to that of Doneraile, where he remained until 1872, when, under the new arrangements of the church of Ireland, he was elected to the rectory of Carrigaline, with the chapelry of Douglas annexed. ”

“ Being asked by the insurgents to take the command of their army, he replied, ‘I will first take an offer from my brother, Dungarvan, to be hangman-general at Youghal.’ Lord Dungarvan was a son of the Earl of Cork, who had stationed him with troops in Youghal for the defence of that town against the rebels. When Barrymore received a threat that his house of Castlelyons would be destroyed, he declared that he would defend it while one stone stood upon another, being resolved to live and die a faithful subject of the English crown. ”

“ Who would come to any other conclusion, except from the pages of the Bible?
But we have sailed far past Kinsale point. Now blue and shadowy loom up the distant form of the Youghal Mountains, (pronounced Yoole.) The surface of the water is alive with fishing boats, spreading their white wings and skimming about like so many moth millers.
About nine o'clock we were crossing the sand bar, which lies at the mouth of the Mersey River, running up towards Liverpool. Our signal pennants are fluttering at the mast head, pilot full of energy on one wheel house, and a man casting the lead on the other. ”

“ He was stationed by Sir William Pelham [q. v.] at Youghal, with twenty horse and two hundred foot, as lieutenant of the counties of Cork and Waterford, in which capacity he displayed great activity against the rebels in south Munster, particularly the seneschal of Imokilly. ”

“ Norris’s English sheep were stolen from Mallow; his park wall was broken down, and his deer let loose. Many settlers fled with their clothes only, and being stripped of these they died of cold on the mountains. The churches and other vacant places in Cork were filled with starving wretches. Youghal was full of them too, and so closely pressed that men scarcely dared to put their heads outside the gates. The most fortunate of the settlers were those who reached Waterford and got a passage to England. Here and there alliances among the Irish saved individual colonists from utter destruction. ”

“ A Privy Seal warrant in February, 1586, confirmed by letters patent in the following October, awarded to the three three seigniories and a half in Waterford, Cork, and perhaps Tipperary. A certificate of March, 1587, stated that, if the lands assigned to them and their tenants should not be found to amount to 'three seigniories of twelve thousand acres apiece, and one seigniory of six thousand acres, then other lands should be added.' The patronage of the Wardenship of Our Lady's College of Youghal was added to Ralegh's share with several other lucrative privileges. ”

“ I am also beholding to some small friends that make (as I understand) the Queen mislike of me for the spoil of Youghal, who most traitorously have played the villains, as by their own examina [Pg 38] tion appeareth, an abstract of which I send to the Council, with letters written by the Earl of Desmond and his brethren to procure rebellion. There be here can write lies, as in writing Kilkenny was burned, before which, though it be a poor weak town, the rebels never came. ”

“ Youghal and Kinsale were also corporate towns. The latter received a charter from Edward III. in 1333, and the former, which had been long identified with the Desmond family, seems not to have been regularly incorporated till 1462. The Kinsale charter recites that the town was surrounded by Irish enemies and English rebels, and that the burgesses were worn out in repelling the same. The mediæval kings commonly granted the customs and tolls of loyal towns to be expended by the inhabitants in repairing their walls. ”

“ Yet the parliament sent men to Ireland without arms, for no purpose, wrote Inchiquin to Ormonde, 'unless it be to plot that these men shall with jawbones kill so many rebels' (Carte, letter 11 3) . At the end of May 1643 he took the field with four thousand foot and four hundred horse, but could only threaten Kilmallock, 'for want of provisions and money for the officers,' and he begged Cork to lend or borrow 300l. for victualling Youghal (Smith, ii. 142) . While threatening Kinsale himself, he sent one detachment as far as Tralee, who had to subsist on a country then in Irish hands. ”

“ Desmond himself came to Sidney at Dungarvan, and ‘very humbly offered any service that he was able to do to her Majesty.’ The town was half ruined by the late rebellion of James Fitzmaurice, but Henry Davells, the constable, was labouring with some success to restore it, and to punish malefactors. The people of Youghal pleaded that they had suffered too much by the rebellion to bear the cost of a viceregal reception, and Sidney passed by Castle Martyr to Barry’s Court, and thence to Cork. ”

“ The Gaelic word gall, a stranger, you find everywhere. Fingal himself is only Fionn-gall—the Fair Stranger; Dubh-gall—that is, the familiar Dugald—or the Black Stranger—is what the Islay people call a Lowlander. Ru-na-Gaul, that we passed the other day—that is the Foreigner's Point. I think there can be no doubt that the tribes that first brought Aryan civilisation through the west of Europe spoke Gaelic or something like Gaelic."
"Ay," said the Laird, doubtfully. He was not sure of this young man. ”

“ To the left is the range of the Antrim highlands, continued along the coast of the Lough towards Carrickfergus, and from which the Cave Hill stands out in bold relief, looking down on the numerous pretty villas with which the taste of wealthy manufacturers and merchants has adorned those pleasant suburbs. Westward towards Lough Neagh, swelling gradually—southward towards Armagh, and round to Newry, the whole surface of the country gently undulating, presents a vast picture of quiet beauty, fertility, and plenty that can be rivalled only in England. ”

“ But, says the writer, it is not fated to be always in vain, for there is a tradition in the valley that it is a Gwyđel, ‘Goidel, Irishman,’ who is to have these treasures, and that it will happen in this wise:—A Gwyđel will come to the neighbourhood to be a shepherd, and one day when he goes up the mountain to see to the sheep, just when it pleases the fates a black sheep with a speckled head will run before him and make straight for the cave: the sheep will go in, with the Gwyđel in pursuit trying to catch him. ”

“ Literally: "Fooboon to you, O host of the Gaels, not a man of you is alive: the Galls are together-dividing your lands, while ye are [unsubstantial] like a fairy host. The Clan Carthy of Leath Mogha [i.e., Southern Ireland] , and to call them out down to one man, there is not—and sad is the disgrace—one person of them imitating the [old] Gaels," etc.
[19] Yohy is the pronunciation of the Irish Eochaidh, genitive Eochach, or even Eathach. The Eochaidh here alluded to is Eochaidh Muigh-mhea-dhon [Mwee-va-on] , father of Niall of the Nine Hostages. ”

“ There is a tradition that Fyzabad or Ajoodia, and Lucknow, the distance between the two being some seventy odd miles, were once united by a series of small towns, formming one continuous and gigantic city ; another tradition asserts that the two cities were formerly connected by a secret subterranean passage, known only to the Kings of Oudh. These traditions are only worth mentioning, as showing the singular credulity for which the natives of Oudh are remarkable. The stories are of course thoroughly fabulous. ”

“ Great, however, as he probably was, Lludd, or Nudd occupies less space in Welsh story, as we have it now, than his son. Gwyn ap Nudd has outlived in tradition almost all his supernatural kin. Professor Rhys is tempted to see in him the British equivalent of the Gaelic Finn mac Cumhail. [287] The name of both alike means “white”; both are sons of the heaven-god; both are famed as hunters. Gwyn, however, is more than that; for his game is man. ”

“ Asgrim answered that well, and said there were no men with whom he would be more willing to make [Pg 46] this bargain than with them. They fell a-talking then about terms, and the end of it was that Asgrim betrothed his daughter to Helgi, and the bridal day was named. Gunnar was at that feast, and many other of the best men. After the feast Njal offered to foster in his house Thorhall, Asgrim's son, and he was with Njal long after. He loved Njal more than his own father. Njal taught him law, so that he became the greatest lawyer in Iceland in those days. ”

“ Then Gunnar spoke and said, "I will challenge thee to single combat on the island, Wolf Uggis' son, if men are not to get their rights by law; and Njal and my friend Helgi would like that I should take some share in defending thy cause, Asgrim, if they were not here themselves." ”

“ In the Landnama Bok, the Domesday Book of Iceland, no less than three Njals appear, and the Njalssaga, the history of the noble-spirited yet peaceful Icelander, who, even in the tenth century, had never shed blood, and preferred rather to die with his sons than to live to avenge them, is one of the finest histories that have come down to us from any age. Njal’s likeness to the contraction Nils, has caused many to suppose that it also is a form of Nicolas, but the existence of Nial both in Ireland and Iceland before the conversion of either country contradicts this. ”