Notes to O’Connor’s Child
Note to Page 77
Their tribe, they said, their high degree,
Was sung in Tara’s psaltery.
The pride of the Irish in ancestry was so great, that one of the O’Neals being told that Barrett of Castlemone had been there only 400 years, he replied,—that he hated the clown as if he had come there but yesterday.
Tara was the place of assemblage and feasting of the petty princes of Ireland. Very splendid and fabulous descriptions are given by the Irish historians of the pomp and luxury of those meetings. The psaltery of Tara was the grand national register of Ireland. The grand epoch of political eminence in the early history of the Irish is the reign of their great and favourite monarch Ollam Fodlah, who reigned, according to Keating, about 950 years before the Christian era. Under him was instituted the great Fes at Tara, which it is pretended was a triennial convention of the states, or a parliament; the members of which were the Druids, and other learned men who represented the people in that assembly. Very minute accounts are given by Irish annalists of the magnificence and order of these entertainments; from which, if credible, we might collect the earliest traces of heraldry that occur in history. To preserve order and regularity in the great number and variety of the members who met on such occasions, the Irish historians inform us that when the banquet was ready to be served up, the shield-bearers of the princes, and other members of the convention, delivered in their shields and targets, which were readily distinguished by the coats of arms emblazoned upon them. These were arranged by the grand marshal and principal herald, and hung upon the walls on the right side of the table; and upon entering the apartments, each member took his seat under his respective shield or target, without the slightest disturbance. The concluding days of the meeting, it is allowed by the Irish antiquaries, were spent in very free excess of conviviality; but the first six, they say, were devoted to the examination and settlement of the annals of the kingdom. These were publicly rehearsed. When they had passed the approbation of the assembly, they were transcribed into the authentic chronicles of the nation, which was called the Register, or Psalter of Tara.
Colonel Vallancy gives a translation of an old Irish fragment, found in Trinity College, Dublin, in which the palace of the above assembly is thus described as it existed in the reign of Cormac:—
“In the reign of Cormac, the palace of Tara was nine hundred feet square; the diameter of the surrounding rath, seven dice or casts of a dart; it contained one hundred and fifty apartments; one hundred and fifty dormitories, or sleeping-rooms for guards, and sixty men in each: the height was twenty-seven cubits; there were one hundred and fifty common drinking-horns, twelve doors, and one thousand guests daily, besides princes, orators, and men of science, engravers of gold and silver, carvers, modelers, and nobles.” The Irish description of the banqueting-hall is thus translated: “Twelve stalls or divisions in each wing; sixteen attendants on each side, and two to each table; one hundred guests in all.”
Note to Page 78
And stemmed De Bourgo’s chivalry.
The house of O’Connor had a right to boast of their victories over the English. It was a chief of the O’Connor race who gave a check to the English champion De Courcy, so famous for his personal strength, and for cleaving a helmet at one blow of his sword, in the presence of the kings of France and England, when the French champion declined the combat with him. Though ultimately conquered by the English under De Bourgo, the O’Connors had also humbled the pride of that name on a memorable occasion: viz., when Walter De Bourgo, an ancestor of that De Bourgo who won the battle of Athunree, had become so insolent as to make excessive demands upon the territories of Connaught, and to bid defiance to all the rights and properties reserved by the Irish chiefs, Aeth O’Connor, a near descendant of the famous Cathal, surnamed of the bloody hand, rose against the usurper, and defeated the English so severely, that their general died of chagrin after the battle.
Note to Page 78
Or beal-fires for your jubilee.
The month of May is to this day called “Mi Beal tiennie,” i.e., the month of Beal’s fire, in the original language of Ireland, and hence I believe the name of the Beltan festival in the Highlands. These fires were lighted on the summits of mountains (the Irish antiquaries say) in honour of the sun; and are supposed, by those conjecturing gentlemen, to prove the origin of the Irish from some nation who worshipped Baal or Belus. Many hills in Ireland still retain the name of “Cnoc Greine,” i.e., the hill of the sun; and on all are to be seen the ruins of druidical altars.
Note to Page 78
And play my clarshech by thy side.
The clarshech, or harp, the principal musical instrument of the Hibernian bards, does not appear to be of Irish origin, nor indigenous to any of the British islands.—The Britons undoubtedly were not acquainted with it during the residence of the Romans in their country, as in all their coins, on which musical instruments are represented, we see only the Roman lyre, and not the British Teylin, or harp.
Note to Page 79
And saw at dawn the lofty bawn.
“Bawn,” from the Teutonic “Bawen”—to construct and secure with branches of trees, was so called because the primitive Celtic fortification was made by digging a ditch, throwing up a rampart, and on the latter fixing stakes, which were interlaced with boughs of trees. This word is used by Spenser; but it is inaccurately called by Mr. Todd, his annotator, an eminence.
Note to Page 81
To speak the malison of heaven.
If the wrath which I have ascribed to the heroine of this little piece should seem to exhibit her character as too unnaturally stript of patriotic and domestic affections, I must beg leave to plead the authority of Corneille in the representation of a similar passion: I allude to the denunciation of Camilla, in the tragedy of Horace. When Horace, accompanied by a soldier bearing the three swords of the Curiatii meets his sister, and invites her to congratulate him on his victory, she expresses only her grief, which he attributes at first only to her feelings for the loss of her two brothers; but when she bursts forth into reproaches against him as the murderer of her lover, the last of the Curiatii, he exclaims:—
“O Ciel! qui vit jamais une pareille rage:
Crois-tu donc que je sois insensible à l’outrage,
Que je souffre en mon sang ce mortel déshonneur!
Aime, Aime cette mort qui fait notre bonheur.
Et préfère du moins au souvenir d’un homme
Ce que doit ta naissance aux intérêts de Rome.”
At the mention of Rome, Camille breaks out into this apostrophe:—
“Rome, l’unique objet de mon ressentiment!
Rome, à qui vient ton bras d’immoler mon amant!
Rome, qui t’a vu naître et que ton cœur adore!
Rome, enfin, que je haïs, parce qu’elle t’honore!
Puissent tous ses voisins, ensemble conjurés,
Sapper ses fondemens encore mal assurés;
Et, si ce n’est assez de toute l’Italie,
Que l’Orient, contre elle, à l’Occident s’allie!
Que cent peuples unis, des bouts de l’univers
Passent, pour la détruire, et les monts et les mers;
Qu’elle-même sur soi renverse ses murailles,
Et de ses propres mains déchire ses entrailles;
Que le courroux du Ciel, allumé par mes vœux,
Fasse pleuvoir sur elle un déluge de feux!
Puissai-je de mes yeux y voir tomber ce foudre,
Voir ses maisons en cendre, et tes lauriers en poudre;
Voir le dernier Romain à son dernier soupir,
Moi seule en être cause, et mourir de plaisir!”
Note to Page 81
“And go to Athunree!” I cried.
In the reign of Edward the Second, the Irish presented to Pope John the Twenty-second a memorial of their sufferings under the English, of which the language exhibits all the strength of despair:—“Ever since the English,” say they, “first appeared upon our coasts, they entered our territories under a certain specious pretence of charity, and external hypocritical show of religion, endeavouring at the same time, by every artifice malice could suggest, to extirpate us root and branch, and without any other right than that of the strongest; they have so far succeeded by base fraudulence, and cunning, that they have forced us to quit our fair and ample habitations and inheritances, and to take refuge like wild beasts in the mountains, the woods, and the morasses of the country;—nor even can the caverns and dens protect us against their insatiable avarice. They pursue us even into these frightful abodes; endeavouring to dispossess us of the wild uncultivated rocks, and arrogate to themselves the property of every place on which we can stamp the figure of our feet.”
The greatest effort ever made by the ancient Irish to regain their native independence, was made at the time when they called over the brother of Robert Bruce from Scotland. William de Bourgo, brother to the Earl of Ulster, and Richard de Bermingham, were sent against the main body of the native insurgents, who were headed rather than commanded by Felim O’Connor. The important battle, which decided the subjection of Ireland, took place on the 10th of August, 1315. It was the bloodiest that ever was fought between the two nations, and continued throughout the whole day, from the rising to the setting sun. The Irish fought with inferior discipline, but with great enthusiasm. They lost ten thousand men, among whom were twenty-nine chiefs of Connaught. Tradition states that after this terrible day, the O’Connor family, like the Fabian, were so nearly exterminated, that throughout all Connaught not one of the name remained, except Felim’s brother, who was capable of bearing arms.