Chapter VII: Part 7

If Cashel is the most remarkable ecclesiastical ruin in Ireland owing to its situation, Dunluce Castle is, for the same reason, the most remarkable military one. Cashel has, however, the advantage of being remarkable from whatever side it is looked at; but Dunluce is remarkable only when seen from the sea, or from the strand from which the rock the ruins rest on rises. From the road that goes along the shore, Dunluce looks absolutely disappointing, because the road is as high, apparently somewhat higher, than the castle itself. But seen from a boat on the sea under it, or from the base of the cliffs on which the road to it runs, it forms the grandest and most imposing sight of a Viking's ruined stronghold that is to be seen anywhere in Europe. The rock on which the ruins stand rises sheer from the sea to the height of over a hundred feet. Before the castle was built on it, the rock was completely isolated, and must have been an island, standing about thirty feet from the mainland. Across the profound gulf that separated the rock from the land, a mighty bridge of solid masonry has been erected, over which all who enter the castle must pass. This bridge is only about twenty inches wide, and few, except masons, or those who are accustomed to ascend heights, would care to cross it, for there is not, or at least there was not in 1873, a rope, railing, or protection of any kind for those who wanted to visit the ruins of the castle. No one but such as have steady nerves and good heads should think of crossing this bridge, for a fall from it would mean certain death on the jagged rocks more than a hundred feet below.

The first thing that strikes one after examining the ruins is the unusual thinness of the walls. They are no thicker than those of a modern stone-built house. The reason of this is easily understood; for when the castle was built, which must have been before cannons were so perfected that they could be used for battering down buildings, it was absolutely impregnable, as no battering-ram, or mediaeval siege-engine, could by any possibility approach near enough to the walls to be used against them. There was, therefore, no necessity that the walls should be thick. The space on the top of the rock is entirely covered with the ruins of the castle. The walls rise up sheer from the most outward margins of the rock. On looking out from one of the narrow windows the sea is straight below one. When the castle was inhabited its inmates must have had an awful experience during the storms that so often sweep over the wild west and north coast of Ireland, when the giant waves of the stormiest ocean in the world beat against the rock on which the ruins stand. If such a place was secure against the assaults of men, it was not secure against the fury of the elements; and it would seem that some of the cliff did at one time give way, for there are some gaps in the walls that appear to have been caused by rock, upon which they were built, having given way.

The Giant's Causeway and Dunseverick Castle are both in the immediate vicinity of Dunluce, only a few miles west of it; both are well worth seeing; but nothing on all that magnificent, iron-bound, cliff-guarded coast of Antrim can compare in interest with Dunluce. The isolated, almost sea-surrounded rock on which it stands, the great bridge that connects it with the mainland, the narrow and dangerous footpath overlooking horrible depths, and over which the castle can only be entered, make it one of the grandest and most suggestive ruins in the world. Dunluce is a revelation. It shows, perched on its storm-beaten, once impregnable rock, the awful savagery of the time when might was the only law recognised by humanity; and that only a few centuries ago life and property were no safer in Christendom than they are to-day in the Soudan.

The name Dunluce is a combination of the two most generally used Irish words to express a military stronghold _dun_ and _lios_, and may be translated "strong fort"; and strong it must have been in olden times, when cannons were either unknown altogether, or principally remarkable for the noise they made, and the greater danger they were to those who used them than to those they were used against. The name of this place is spelled _Dunlis_ or _Dunlios_ in ancient annals. The earliest mention of it by the Four Masters, and in the "Annals of Loch Key," is under the year 1513. It does not appear to be mentioned in any of the other Irish annals, unless it is mentioned in the "Annals of Ulster"; but as they have been as yet translated only down to the year 1375, the question cannot be yet decided.

It is remarkable that so little is known about the early history of such a remarkable place as Dunluce Castle. No trustworthy statement as to when and by whom it was built has, so far, come to light. It was in the possession of the Mac Quillins, spelled _Mac Uidhlin_ by the Four Masters, in 1513. It then, by conquest or in some other way, passed into the hands of Sorley Boy, one of the Scotch McDonnells, who kept it until 1584, when it was besieged and taken by Sir John Perrott, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. Fifty thousand cows, and all his land in Antrim County, of which he had an immense quantity, were taken from Sorley Boy. But he repaired to Dublin, made his submission to Queen Elizabeth, and was reinstated in his possessions in Antrim, but we are not told if he got back his cows. Dunluce seems to have become a ruin early in the seventeenth century, and is becoming more ruined every day, for it is not in the nature of things that the sea is not gradually undermining and weakening the rock on which the ruins stand, exposed as it is to the wrath of the stormiest ocean probably in the world. It is said that long before Dunluce was abandoned, the kitchen and its staff of cooks were swallowed up on a night of a fearful gale of wind. This could only have happened by part of the rock foundations of the castle having been washed away by the sea. The gap in one part of the walls would seem to indicate that some such catastrophe did occur.

Dunluce must have been built before the invention of what is now known as artillery. It is not possible to tell by the style of its architecture in what century it was built, for there was practically no change in the architecture of Irish castles for nearly four centuries. The art of castle-building was just as well understood in the twelfth century as in the fourteenth. Those who pretend to be able to tell within a century of the time when a castle was built, by examining its masonry and architecture, draw greatly on their imaginations. If Dunluce was built after artillery had become so perfected that castles could be destroyed by it at half a mile, or even a quarter of a mile distant, those who built Dunluce were fools, for guns could be brought within fifty yards of it. If it was built to resist artillery, the walls would have been made three times as thick as they are. It was evidently built before artillery began to be used for battering down walls. It must, therefore, have been built before the year 1400, for even at that early date the principal use that was made of artillery was for battering down walls. Half a dozen shots from the very rude and imperfect artillery of the date mentioned would have made a heap of ruins of the thin walls of Dunluce Castle.

BOYLE ABBEY

There are very few of the once great abbeys of Ireland of which so little is generally known to the public as of Boyle Abbey. One reason of this may be the remoteness of its situation, and its invisibleness from the town of Boyle. It is not on the track of tourists, and is in a rather uninteresting part of the country in a scenic point of view. Besides, the Abbey is not in the town of Boyle, but over quarter of a mile from it, on a road not so much frequented as some others in the locality. It is a wonder that more is not known about this noble ruin. It may not be so interesting in its architecture as Holycross, or so striking in its situation as Cashel, but it is, nevertheless, one of the finest ecclesiastical ruins in Ireland.

If the country round Boyle Abbey cannot be said to be very interesting or beautiful, the place where the ruins stand is charming. They rise from the banks of the Boyle river, the first large tributary of the Shannon. The river rushes under the very walls of the monastery with a rapid current, and at its highest flood it is generally as clear as crystal, for it rises in, or at least flows through, Loch Ui Gara, which is only a few miles from Boyle, and its waters are filtered in that lake before they reach Boyle. And here it may not be out of place to say that the generally clear waters of most of the rivers of Ireland add greatly to the beauty of its scenery. Scotch rivers are also generally clear, and the reason they are clear is the reason why the Irish rivers are clear, and that is, because they are filtered in the lakes through which they generally flow. A limpid river is one of the most beautiful things in nature, but a river of dirty water would not be beautiful if it flowed through the Garden of Eden. Almost all rivers that are not filtered by passing through lakes are sure to be dirty. For this reason the St Lawrence may be said to be the only one of the great American rivers the waters of which are clear. To know what an abomination a river of dirty water is, one should see the Missouri. The river that rushes past the ruins of Boyle Monastery is not only clear but limpid. Its pure, rushing waters are one of the principal attractions in the vicinity of the ruins.

The ruins of Boyle Abbey are very fine. The monastery was a large one, one of the largest in Ireland, and was surrounded on almost every side with extensive gardens. The walls of many of those gardens still remain, and seem as sound as they were when first built. The ruins of the Monastery, and the ruins of its adjoining buildings, are covered with the most luxuriant growth of ivy to be seen on any ruins in Ireland. The thickness of its stems, and the size and deep green of its leaves, are remarkable. This extraordinary growth of ivy must eventually tumble down the walls. It may preserve them for a time, but will destroy them in the long run. But without its ivy and its limpid river, the ruined Monastery of Boyle, grand and interesting as it is, would lose a great deal of its attractions.

The ruins of the great church of Boyle, like the ruins of Cashel, and like the historic hill of Tara, have been spoiled by the erection of modern buildings near them. Some parson has erected here a new, intensely vulgar gimcrack house that almost touches the hoary ruins, it is so close to them. It entirely spoils their effect, and would disgust any one with any veneration for the past. In no other country, perhaps, in the world has the want of respect for the antique been more manifest among the masses than in Ireland. In no other country have so many monuments of the past been more wantonly destroyed, more defaced, and less respected. If it had not been for the care exercised by the Board of Works, during the last thirty years, most of the ruins of Ireland would now be either entirely uprooted, or so marred, like the Rock of Cashel, or the Monastery of Boyle, by the erection of new buildings in their vicinity, that they would have little attraction for any one in whose soul there remained the slightest reverence for the past. There are, however, unmistakable signs that more patriotic and enlightened ideas about their country, and everything relating to it, are rapidly gaining ground among all classes of the Irish people, but especially among the more educated. Irish history, Irish antiquities, and even the Irish language get more of the attention of the upper and middle classes in Ireland now than they ever got before. It seems almost a certainty that the ancient monument-defacing epoch has passed, or is rapidly passing away from a country to which it has been a disgrace so long. It is not enough that the Board of Works should continue to do the good work it has been doing for the last quarter of a century in the preservation of our ruins, it should prevent such outrageous bad taste as the erection of new buildings in the very centre of time-honoured monuments like those on the Rock of Cashel and on the Boyle river.

The ancient name of Boyle was _Ath da laarg_, that is, the "ford of two forks." It is not easy to understand why such a curious name should have been given to it, for the river at Boyle, even in time of floods, is fordable, and has usually not over six or eight inches of water in it. It has, however, been proved that the rivers of Ireland, and probably of most other countries, had much more water in them in ancient times than at present. The other name for Boyle was _Buil_, whence Boyle. The word _Buil_ is entirely obsolete. It is supposed to mean handsome or beautiful. The Monastery, of which the ruins exist, was founded in 1161 by Maurice O'Duffy, a noted ecclesiastic of the period, but it is known that a smaller and more ancient monastery occupied the site on which the larger one was built at the date mentioned. Boyle Abbey was an offshoot of the great Abbey of Mellifont in the County Louth, that had been founded some twenty years before the Abbey of Boyle. Both abbeys belonged to the Cistercian order; and it would appear that so many monks flocked to Mellifont that accommodation could not be made for them all there, so the Abbey of Boyle was erected for them. The "Annals of Boyle," known also as the "Annals of Loch Ce, or Key," say that the Church of Boyle was consecrated in 1220; but that the church was built in 1161 there seems no reason to doubt. The Four Masters mention it under the year 1174. Their last mention of it is under the year 1602, and it must have been abandoned very soon after. It was granted to Sir John King in 1603, when it must have ceased to be a monastery.

No one should visit Boyle and its grand ruins and not see the two very beautiful lakes that are near it, Loch Key and Loch Arrow. Loch Key is not over a mile from the town, and Loch Arrow not more than three. The very fine domain of Rockingham may be said to be almost surrounded by Loch Key. It was on an island in this lake that the McDermotts, chieftains of Moylurg, had a stronghold. The island has a castle on it at present, but, seen from the shore, both island and castle appear very small. The fortress the McDermotts had on the island must have been a sort of _cranniog_, or wooden castle, like so many that have been discovered both in Ireland and Scotland in the tracks of dried-up lakes. Those _cranniogs_ were sometimes built entirely on piles, and sometimes on islands, with extensions on piles if the water was not too deep. This last must have been the kind of fortress the McDermotts had on Loch Key, for it must have been much larger than the present island, and must have been large enough to give space to a multitude of people to assemble on it. We read in the annals of Loch Key of the following awful catastrophe that happened on it in 1184: "The Rock of Loch Key was burned by lightning--_i.e._, the very magnificent, kingly residence of the Muintir Maolruanaigh (the McDermotts) where neither goods nor people of all that were there found protection; where six or seven score of distinguished persons were destroyed, along with fifteen men of the race of kings and chieftains, with the wife of McDermott ... and every one of them who was not burned was drowned in that tumultuous consternation in the entrance of the place; so that there escaped not alive therefrom but Connor McDermott with a very small number of the multitude of his people." The same catastrophe is mentioned by the Four Masters, but under the year 1187. This account of the burning of the castle, or, as the annalist calls it, a residence, shows that it was a wooden structure, for it would hardly have been possible to burn a building of stone so quickly that the people in it would not have had time to escape, even if it were on an island.

Loch Arrow is the least known of all the beautiful lakes of Ireland, and beautiful it is in very nearly the highest style of beauty. There are no mountains round Loch Arrow, and none to be seen from its waters; but its numberless attractions in the way of wooded islands, bold promontories, and swelling shores render it one of the lovely lakes of Ireland; and yet, few, except those living in its immediate vicinity, know anything about it, or have ever heard of it. The land near it seems to be, for the most part, in the hands of small farmers; and neater or more attractive peasant homesteads cannot be found in any part of Ireland than on the banks of Loch Arrow. It is not more than four miles from Boyle; and small as it is, not more than five miles long, and from two to two and a half miles broad, it is a gem of a lake that seems to be forgotten by the world.

THE LAKES OF WESTMEATH

The lakes of Westmeath, like Loch Arrow in Sligo, are almost unknown to those who go to Ireland in search of the picturesque. These lakes are, for the greater part, in the centre of the County. Loch Ree is not included in them. There may be said to be only four of them worthy of the attention of those who see something to be admired in a lake besides the excellence of the fish that is in it. Those in search of the beautiful very seldom go to see the lakes of Westmeath. The only people who generally visit them are fishermen, very few of whom would turn round their heads to gaze on the fairest prospect the lakes afforded, for seldom, indeed, do those usually styled sportsmen trouble themselves very much to see the beauties of nature, and they are, unfortunately, about the only class of people who come from afar to visit the lake district of Westmeath.

The lakes best worth seeing in Westmeath are Loch Deravarragh, Loch Ouel, Loch Ennel, usually called Belvedere Lake, Loch Iron, and Loch Sheelin. The last mentioned lake lies on the borders of four counties--Longford, Cavan, Meath, and Westmeath. It cannot be claimed by the most devoted admirer of the Westmeath lakes that there is very much historic interest attached to any of them. It would be hardly possible to find a square mile of Irish soil wholly devoid of historic interest; but while it may truly be said that there is no country in Europe, not excepting even Greece, where so many places of historic interest are to be found as in Ireland, some parts of it are richer than others in memorials of the past. From whatever cause it happened is not very clear, but it is a fact that Westmeath is one of the least historic of Irish counties. The hill of Uisneach is its most historic spot. There are, at the same time, some other places of historic interest in it. Its most beautiful lake, Loch Ouel, anciently called Loch Uair, is the one in which Malachy the First drowned Turgesius the Dane. Turgesius seems to have had what Americans would call "a high old time" in Ireland for some years--robbing churches and monasteries, and living on the fat of the land; until the Irish, under Malachy, at length defeated him in battle, took him prisoner, and drowned him in one of the most beautiful lakes in Ireland. It seems queer that Malachy, instead of giving him a grave in such a beautiful sheet of water, did not fling him into a bog hole, and it is a pity that there should not be any really trustworthy authority for the legend according to which it was love for King Malachy's beautiful daughter that was the means of entrapping Turgesius. Keating gives a very interesting account of the capture of the Danish Viking in his History of Ireland; how Turgesius asked Malachy for his daughter: how Malachy said that the marriage, or rather the _liaison_ should not be made public for fear of giving offence to the Irish; and how fifteen beardless youths, dressed as girls, conducted Malachy's daughter to the Dane, overpowered his guard, took himself prisoner, and then drowned him. A great deal of romance has been written about this affair, but it remained for the inimitable Sam Lover to write the funniest thing in the way of a poem about it. He said that the tyranny of the Danes was so heavy on the Irish that the clergy ordered them a long time of prayer and fasting to seek Divine aid to rid themselves of their persecutors. But it would appear that the unfortunate Irish had been keeping a compulsory fast for a long time previous, for the Danes had left them nothing to eat. They could not understand being ordered to fast still more, and said to the clergy:--

"We can't fast faster than we're fastin' now."

The account of the drowning of Turgesius is given with tantalising curtness in the "Book of Leinster": "This is the year, A.D. 843, that Turgesius was taken by Maelseachlainn (Malachy). He was then drowned in Loch Uair."[15] The "Book of Leinster" does not say that Turgesius was taken in battle, but those who do not believe Keating's story think he was. If he had been taken in battle and defeated, it must be admitted that it is strange that Irish annalists did not say so and give particulars of the battle. This omission makes it appear probable that there is some truth in the version of his capture as given by Keating, although it is altogether discredited by those best read in Irish History.

Loch Ouel can be seen from the train on the Sligo division of the Great Western Railway. Passing as the glimpse of it is from the train, it is enough to reveal some of the beauties of this fairest of Westmeath lakes. But to see it properly one should wander by its pebbly shores, for not a yard of them is swampy, or ascend one of the hills of brilliant green that are on all sides of it. Loch Ouel has the great defect of being almost islandless. There are only one or two small ones in it. If it had proportionately as many islands in it as Loch Erne, it would be one of the fairest sheets of water of its size in Ireland.

Belvedere Lake is a good deal larger than Loch Ouel, and its shores are better wooded, but part of them, in fact a very large part of them, is boggy. Its banks are adorned with gentlemen's seats, and in spite of the swampy shore on one side of it, it is a very beautiful lake.

Loch Derravaragh is the most peculiarly-shaped of all the Westmeath lakes. It is shaped something like a tadpole, only that, unlike a tadpole, it is its head that is narrow, and its tail, or lower part, that is wide. It has bolder shores than any other lake in the county, some of the hills near it being almost mountains. It has hardly any islands, and its shores are wilder than any other of the Westmeath lakes. It wants the woods that do so much to adorn the swampy shores of Belvedere Lake; but comparatively bare as the shores of Loch Derravaragh are, it is a most picturesque lake, and some think it more beautiful than Loch Ouel. Both Loch Derravaragh and Loch Iron are formed by the river Inny, but it does not, as most rivers do, flow through the lakes it forms and feeds, for it flows out of them within a short distance of where it enters them, and the lakes extend in an opposite direction from where they receive their water. This is rather a strange fact in physical geography.

The next most important of the Westmeath lakes is Loch Sheelin, but as three other counties--Longford, Meath, and Cavan--border it, it cannot be strictly called a Westmeath lake. However, as it is so close to the very picturesque sheets of water which are the chief scenic attractions of the county they adorn, it has been thought best to include it when describing them. Loch Sheelin has only a few islands, but its shores, although low, are very well wooded. Seen from the hills in the vicinity of Oldcastle in Meath, it is as fair a sight as can well be imagined, with its wood-crowned, indented shores. If there are fairer lakes in Ireland than Loch Sheelin, there are few that have a more beautiful name. It is euphony itself. Its name is the original one of Moore's sweet melody, "Come, rest in this Bosom." It has often been said, "What's in a name?" There is a great deal. A name so beautiful as Loch Sheelin would give a certain charm to a bog hole. It must be confessed that Celtic, of all European languages, seems to contain the most sonorous place names. Such names as Bassenthwaitewater, Ullswater, Conistonwater, Derwentwater, Thuner See, and Zuger See, sound very tame compared with Loch Lomond, Loch Erne, Loch Awe, Loch Ree, Loch Layn, and Loch Sheelin. There is, however, one continental place-name of wonderful beauty of sound, and that is Lorraine. Its German name is Lothringen, but the French, by eliding its consonants, or by what is generally called aspiration in Gaelic grammar, have turned the harsh German name into one of the most euphonious and beautiful in the world.

Loch Iron and Loch Lene, pronounced Loch Layne, are small sheets of water, but are well worth a visit, even from those who are neither fishers of fish nor of men. The country all round the Westmeath lakes is as beautiful as it is possible for any country to be in which there are neither mountains nor waterfalls. It is never flat, and never uninteresting, covered almost everlastingly with verdure, for although most of the county is hilly, it is one of the most fertile in Ireland. Its still, clear lakes, undulating surface, and rich soil, make it, even in the absence of mountains (and, unfortunately, in the absence of good hotels in its small towns and villages), one of the most picturesque of the counties of Leinster.

KELLS OF MEATH

Kells, the ancient name of which was Ceannanus, and the one by which it is still known in Irish, is one of the most ancient towns in Ireland. According to Irish annalists it was founded by an over-king called Fiacha, 1203 years B.C. If its situation and environs are of no great beauty, it is yet a place of great historic interest. It can boast of the possession of one of the finest round towers in Ireland, a very ancient cross, and a still more ancient stone-roofed church. If there are no mountains or romantic scenery round Kells, it has the advantage of being situated in the midst of the most generally fertile of Irish counties. It is on the river Blackwater, a tributary of the historic Boyne. Nothing can exceed the fertility of the land round Kells; but that does it no good, for the land is almost all in grass, the rural population sparse, and consequently, of very little outside support to the town. But Kells is no worse off than the other towns of Meath. It is, as far as soil is concerned, the richest county in Ireland, but its towns are either in a state of absolute decay, or at a standstill. There is hardly any tilled land in the county; its herds are large, and its population consequently declining. Where cattle abound, people are generally scarce.

For those who visit Kells merely to see the wondrous luxuriance of its grassy environs, the best thing they can do is to ascend the hill of Lloyd, which is close to the town, and go to the top of the tower that crowns the summit of the hill. It is over a hundred feet high, with a winding flight of stairs, and a turret on top, capable of containing a dozen people. The view from the tower is very fine, and will well repay those who see it. Almost the whole of Meath, Louth, Cavan, and parts of other counties can be seen. The tower was built more than a hundred years ago by the first Earl of Bective. It is sometimes called "Bective's Folly," because it serves for nothing except giving a fine view to those who ascend it. It is generally known as the tower of Lloyd.

To the antiquarian, the neighbourhood of Kells is of supreme interest. Four miles south-east of it, on the banks of the Blackwater, lies the site of what is considered, next to Tara, the most ancient spot of Irish soil--namely, the place where the games of Tailltean were, for some thousands of years, celebrated. The place is now called Telltown, an evident Anglicisation of its Irish name; but it is still called Tailltean by any old persons in its vicinity who speak Irish. If any credence can be given to Irish annals and history, the antiquity of this place is astounding. The sceptic has to admit that the mere fact of the preservation down to the present day of the name by which it was known from remote antiquity is in itself an extraordinary fact. The games or sports of Tailltean were somewhat similar to the Olympic games of Greece, except that those of Tailltean were celebrated every year. The whole of Ireland used to assist at them, and they seem to have been celebrated every year down to 1168, when they were for the last time celebrated by the unfortunate and foolish Roderick O'Connor, the last of those who were, even in name, chief kings of Ireland. In spite of internal wars, Danish invasions and plunderings, a single year does not appear to have elapsed from the time they were first established down to the twelfth century in which they were not celebrated. It would also seem that no matter what wars or troubles were distracting the country, the games of Tailltean were never omitted. They took place at the beginning of August, as has been mentioned in the article on Tara, and from them the Irish name of the month of August--_Lughnasa_--is derived. The name Tailltean is the genitive case of Taillte, the woman in whose memory they were established by her son, Lugh, who lived and reigned in Tara, according to the chronology of the Four Masters, which differs only slightly from that of other annalists, 1824 years B.C.! It is no matter how we may smile or shake our heads when this astounding antiquity is mentioned, the preservation of those two names, _Lughnasa_ and _Tailltean_, down to the present day, drives away the smile and makes us look serious. Such collateral proofs of the existence of historic personages of such antiquity cannot be furnished by any other nation in the world, not even by Egypt or by Greece.

We must not pooh-pooh the statement of Irish annalists as to the enormous antiquity they give to persons who figure in early Irish history. Here is what the late Sir William Wilde says in his book, "Loch Corrib": "With respect to Irish chronology, we believe it will be found to approach the truth as near as that of most other countries; and the more we investigate it and endeavour to synchronise it with that of other lands, the less reason we shall have to find fault with the accounts of our native annalists."

There are not many monuments of the past to be seen at Tailltean save an earthen fort of about a hundred paces in diameter, and two small lakes that bear evidence of having been formed artificially. To show how long traditions live in countries that even partially preserve their ancient language, it need only be said that up to about a hundred years ago, the peasantry of the neighbourhood used to meet on the first of _Lughnasa_, or August, at Tailltean to have games and athletic sports of different kinds. The meeting was called a _pattern_, but it was not held on any patron saint's day. It was merely the traditional remembrance of the old games that had not been celebrated for seven hundred years previously, that caused the peasantry to meet at Tailltean. It is said that on account of the drinking and consequent fighting that used to take place, the clergy forbid the people to assemble. Irish history and annals, while they constantly mention the games of Tailltean, leave us a good deal in the dark about the nature of the sports that used to take place. But they do say that marriages, or, rather, alliances of a somewhat evanescent kind used to be contracted; and to this day, all through the part of the country in the neighbourhood of Tailltean, when a matrimonial alliance turns out badly, or when the parties separate, it is called "a Telltown marriage." No one who has ever written about Telltown, not even such profound archaeologists as O'Donovan and Petrie, has ever had any doubt about its being the exact place where the games of Tailltean were held in ancient times.

There cannot be said to be any very ancient monuments of Christian times to be seen in Kells save a very fine round tower, the top of which is gone; a very ancient cross in the market-place, two in the churchyard, and a stone-roofed church or oratory. The last is the oldest and most interesting ancient monument in Kells. It is a small building, only nineteen feet long, fifteen broad, and twenty-five high. It is one of the most ancient edifices built with cement that exists in Ireland. Its foundation is attributed to St Columba; and it is considered to be at least of his time, or the middle of the sixth century. It is apparently as sound and as solid as it was the day it was built. Everything that could with any certainty be believed to have been part of the great monastery that was in Kells has disappeared. Its stones were probably taken to build the present church that stands near to where the monastery was. The stones of the ancient building that has been described would also probably have been used for some purpose if they could have been easily removed, but it is so solid, and the stones are so firmly bound together by grouting, that the labour of tearing it down deterred the vandals from destroying it.

Kells was so often burned and so often plundered by the Northmen that it is a wonder how anything in it remains. According to the annals it was burned twenty-one times, and plundered seven times, before the twelfth century! Every vestige of the great castle, that was built either by Hugo de Lacy or John de Courcy, has disappeared. This castle must have been nearly as large as that of Trim, for it was built for the protection of some of the most valuable country conquered by the invaders. It is said that the monastery was in a ruined condition at the close of the twelfth century, and that de Lacy renovated it and richly endowed it.

That wondrous manuscript known as the Book of Kells, although it is not believed to have been written in that town, has been named from it, and consequently should be mentioned in connection with it. That the book found its way to Kells, and that it was there for many centuries, there cannot be any doubt. Neither can there be any doubt that it belonged to the Church of Kells, for there are curious charters in it, written in Irish of a very archaic kind, relating to the clergy of that town. It seems to have been in Kildare in the twelfth century, for it is evidently of it that Giraldus Cambrensis speaks when he says, "Of all the wonders of Kildare, I found nothing more wonderful than the marvellous book that was written in the time of St Brigit." It was in the church of Kells until 1620, when Archbishop Ussher saved it from being destroyed. It is a Latin version of the Gospels, with some Gaelic charters, relating to the Church of Kells, that were bound into it many centuries after it was written. It was taken by the Danes, it is believed, and the golden cover torn off it; it was found buried in the ground some time after. This is recorded to have happened in 1006. It is the most wonderful work of art of its kind known to exist in any country, and it is no wonder that in a credulous age it should have been believed to be the work of angels. Westwood, an Englishman, and author of the greatest work on illuminated manuscripts ever written, says of it: "It is unquestionably the most elaborately executed manuscripts of so early a date now in existence." Doctor Waagen, Conservator of the Royal Museum of Berlin, says of it: "The ornamental pages, borders, and initial letters exhibit such a rich variety of beautiful and peculiar designs, so admirable a taste in the arrangement of colours, and such an uncommon perfection of finish, that one feels absolutely struck with amazement." Where and when the Book of Kells was executed, and by whom, will probably never be known; but it must have been written as early as the sixth century. Tradition attributes it to Columba, or, as he is usually called, Columb Cille. The late Dr Todd, one of the most learned archaeologists, and one of the best Gaelic scholars that ever Ireland produced, believed that it was as early as the time of Columba. The author of _Topographia Hiberniae_ says of it: "The more frequently I behold it, the more diligently I examine it, the more I am lost in admiration of it." No one who has not seen the Book of Kells can form an idea of its beauty. In the pages that have not been soiled the colours are as pure and as bright as if they were laid on only yesterday. The naked eye cannot follow all its delicate and minute tracings; to see it aright, it should be seen through a microscope. It is beyond any doubt the most wonderful book of its kind in the world. In it and in the Tara Brooch Ireland possesses two works of ancient art, two gems of artistic beauty which are unequalled of their kind and of their age. The art treasures of metallurgy exhumed in Pompeii, and all that have been found in Greece and Asia Minor by Schliemann, contain nothing equal in exquisite finish to the Tara Brooch; and in all the treasures of illuminated manuscripts in the libraries of the world, there is nothing of its kind equal to the Book of Kells. The Tara Brooch can be seen in the Museum, Kildare Street, Dublin, and the Book of Kells in Trinity College, in the same city.

* * * * *

All the ecclesiastical establishments that have been described owed their origin to native piety, benevolence, and enterprise.

CUCHULAINN'S DUN AND CUCHULAINN'S COUNTRY

No one, whether an Irishman or a stranger, can look on the vast mound and vast earthen ramparts that mark the home of him whom the most trustworthy of Irish annalists, Tighearnach, calls _fortissimus heros Scottorum_, without feelings of indignation and shame--indignation at the way one of the greatest and most interesting monuments of Irish antiquity has been profaned, and shame that so little reverence for their country's past should be found among the Irish people. If the Copts and Arabs of Egypt sell and uproot the antiquities of that country, they can, at least, say that they are not the descendants of the men who lived under the sway of the Pharaos; but those who have, in recent times, done most to obliterate and profane the most historic monuments of Ireland are the lineal descendants of the men who raised them. Nothing that ancient Irish monuments have suffered, and they have suffered a great deal, can exceed the wrong committed by him who built a horrible, modern, vulgar, gewgaw house on top of the _dun_ of Cuchulainn! To show how utterly obtuse, and how unsympathetic with his country's past the person was who built the vulgar structure on one of the most curious and interesting historic monuments in Ireland, he has actually engraved his name and the date of the erection of the house on its front wall! seeming to glory in the vandalism he committed. The legend on the wall says that the house was built in 1780 by a person named Patrick Byrne for his nephew.

About a mile from the Dundalk railway station, crowning the summit of a hill that rises amid green fields and rich pastures, stands all that remains of the _dun_ on which the wooden dwelling of Cuchulainn stood wellnigh two thousand years ago. Before it was partially levelled to build the gewgaw house that now stands on it, it must have been the finest monument of its kind in Ireland. It is quite different from the remains of Tara, Knock Aillinn, Emania, or Dinrigh. Those places were evidently intended to accommodate large numbers of people; but Cuchulainn's _dun_ was evidently that of one person or one family. It answered to the Norman keep that some lords of the soil built for their own private protection in later times. Cuchulainn's _dun_ was immense, and its remains are even still immense in spite of the way it has been ruined. It is yet over forty feet in perpendicular height, and, like most structures of its kind, is perfectly round. It has an area of over half an acre on its summit. The _enceinte_ outside the central _dun_ encloses fully two acres, and where it has not been levelled, is still colossal, being thirty feet high in some parts. The immense labour it must have taken to raise such a gigantic mound, and to dig such vast entrenchments on so high a hill, strikes one with astonishment. If it had not been ruined and partially levelled by the utterly denationalised and soulless person who built the vulgar structure on it, it would be the finest thing of its kind in Ireland, and would attract antiquarians from all parts of these islands and from the Continent.

The existence of this fort is another collateral proof of the general truth of what has been called Irish bardic history. It says that Cuchulainn lived at Dundealgan, or Dundalk, and there his _dun_ is found. He can hardly be said to figure in what are generally known as Irish authentic annals. The "Annals of the Four Masters" do not mention him at all, although they do mention some of his contemporaries. Tighearnach, who lived in the eleventh century, is the only one of the Irish annalists who mentions him. His annals have not yet been translated or published; but the following passage occurs in them: "Death of Cuchulainn, the most renowned champion of Ireland, by Lughaidh, the son of Cairbre Niafer [chief king of Ireland]. He was seven years old when he began to be a champion, and seventeen when he fought in the Cattle Spoil of Cooley, and twenty-seven when he died." Tighearnach makes Cuchulainn and Virgil contemporary. He and Queen Meave are the two great central figures in the longest and greatest prose epic in the Irish language, the Tain Bo Cuailgne, or Cattle Spoil of Cooley, which Sir Samuel Ferguson has made familiar to the English reader in his poem, "The Foray of Meave."

Cuchulainn is the Hercules of Irish romantic history; but in spite of all the fabulous tales of which he is the hero, there cannot be any doubt that he was an historic personage, that his dwelling-place was on the _dun_ that has been described, and that he lived shortly before the Christian era. The name Cuchulainn is a sobriquet; it means "the hound Culann." This Culann was chief smith to Connor, King of Ulster. He had a fierce dog that he used to let out every night to watch and guard his premises, which were in the vicinity of Emania, the palace of the Ulster kings. Cuchulainn, who was nephew to Connor, was going to some entertainment at his uncle's; but having been out later than usual, was attacked by Culann's fierce hound. He had no weapon with which to defend himself save his hurling ball; but he cast it with such force at the dog that he killed him on the spot. Culann complained to King Connor about the loss of his great watch dog, and Cuchulainn, who was then only a boy of eight or nine years old, said that he would act as watch dog for the smith and be Culann's hound, or dog. Whether he did so or not is left untold.

It is very curious that in all the romantic tales in which Cuchulainn figures, and in spite of his incredible strength and prowess, there does not seem to be a passage in any tract that has been translated about him up to the present where anything is mentioned about his size or stature. We are left under the impression that he was no bigger than ordinary men; and it may have been that he was not. Size and strength do not always go together. Some of the feats that he is said to have performed are utterly incredible; such as flinging his spear haftwise, and killing nine men with the cast; and pulling the arm from its socket out of a giant whom he was unable to get the better of with weapons. It is very natural that such impossible feats would, in a credulous age, be attributed to any one who was possessed of more than ordinary prowess. Things quite as impossible are found in the classics relative to Hercules. The Irish had just as good a right to relate impossibilities about Cuchulainn as the Greeks had to do the same about Hercules. But Cuchulainn figures in Celtic legend and romance in a manner in which Hercules does not figure in the legends of Greece, for the Irish hero was more of a ladies' man than was the giant of the Greeks.

If Cuchulainn did not fill such an important place in what may be called classic Gaelic literature, the total ignorance about him in the very place where he was born and where he lived would not be such a national disgrace as it is. The mere remnant of Gaelic literature in which he is the central figure is immense. No other race in Europe would have so totally lost sight of a personage that was the hero of so many tracts and stories, and who was, besides, an historic character, and not a myth. Even sixty years ago, during the Ordnance Survey of Louth, the parties employed on it found that no one in the neighbourhood of Castletown, the modern name of the place in which Cuchulainn's fort is situated, knew or heard anything about him. They were told by the peasantry that the fort was made by the Danes! Some said it was the work of Finn Mac Cool; but of the real owner of it, they knew nothing.

It is evident that the Irish monks of early mediaeval times were much more broad-minded and liberal than their countrymen of the same class of more recent years. It is to monks and inmates of monasteries that we owe nine-tenths of the Gaelic literature that has come down to us. They produced more books in proportion to their numbers than perhaps any class of men of their kind that lived in ancient times. They were sincere Christians, but, like patriots, they loved to record the deeds of their pagan ancestors. Just as soon as national decay set in they were succeeded by men of their own calling, who appear to have thought little worth recording except the works of saints, or at least of those who professed Christianity. If the monks of the early centuries of Christian Ireland were as narrow-minded as the Four Masters, we never, probably, would know anything about Cuchulainn, Queen Meave, Conall Carnach, or any of the heroes of pagan Ireland, round whom there is woven such a wondrous web of legend, romance, and song. Every patriotic Irishman should revere the memories of those liberal-minded monks who handed down to us the doings of their pagan forefathers. To show how much those men valued the literature, and loved to recount the exploits of their pagan ancestors, it will only be necessary to give the words of the dear old soul who copied the _Tain Bo Cuailgne_, the great epic of pagan times, into the "Book of Leinster": "A blessing on every one who will faithfully remember the _Tain_ as it is [written] here, and who will not put another shape on it."

Cuchulainn, above all men who figure in ancient Irish literature, seems to have been "_gradh ban Eireann_," the darling of the women of Ireland. While yet in his teens, the nobles of Ulster came together to determine who should be a fitting wife for him. After a long search they found a lady named Eimir, accomplished in all the feminine education of the time; but her father, a wealthy chief or noble who lived near Lusk, in the present County of Dublin, did not like to give his daughter to a professional champion. Cuchulainn had seen her, and had succeeded in gaining her love. She was guarded for a year in her father's _dun_; and during all that time, Cuchulainn vainly strove to see her. At last he lost patience and became desperate, scaled the three fences that encircled her father's fort, had a terrible fight for her; killed three of her brothers; half killed half-a-dozen others who opposed him, and carried her and her maid northward in his chariot to his home in Dundalk.

Like all violent love, Cuchulainn's love for Eimir seems soon to have cooled, for we find that a lady called Fann, the wife of Manannan MacLir, King of the Isle of Man, or some place east of Ireland, fell in love with him. She came to see her father, a man of rank and wealth, who lived somewhere on the east coast of Ireland. She eloped with Cuchulainn, and Eimir, finding that she and her erring husband were staying at Newry, in the present County of Down, followed him, attended by fifty maids armed with knives, in order to kill Fann. This lady, in spite of her errors, must have been an intellectual woman, for her speech when leaving Cuchulainn and going home with MacLir is very fine, and would be a credit to the literature of any language. The tract in which it occurs is in the Book of the Dun Cow, an Irish manuscript compiled in the eleventh century, and is entitled "The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn and only Jealousy of Eimir." It was admirably translated nearly forty years ago by Eugene O'Curry, and was published in the long since dead periodical, the _Atlantis_. None but a few Celtic savants have ever read it. To the general public it will be absolutely new. Fann, finding that she must leave Cuchulainn, says:--

"It is I who shall go on a journey;
I give consent with great affliction;
Though there is a man of equal fame,
I would prefer to remain [here].

"I would rather be here
To be subject to thee without grief,
Than go, though it may wonder thee,
To the sunny palace of Aed Abrat.[16]

"Woe to the one who gives love to a person,
If he does not take notice of it!
It is better for one to be turned away,
Unless he is loved as he is loved."