Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 1 (of 3). Jonah Barrington
time, execution was punctually proceeded on; and so far as tying up the colonel to the cross-bar of his own gate, the sentence was actually put in force. But at the moment the first haul was given to elevate him, Ned Doran, a tenant of the estate, who was a trooper in King James’s army, rode up to the gate – himself and horse in a state of complete exhaustion. He saw with horror his landlord strung up, and exclaimed, —
“Holloa! holloa! blood and ouns, boys! cut down the colonel! cut down the colonel! or ye’ll be all hanged yeerselves, ye villains of the world, ye! I am straight from the Boyne Water, through thick and thin: Ough, by the hokys! we’re all cut up and kilt to the devil and back agin – Jemmy’s scampered, bad luck to him, without a ‘good bye to yees!’ – or, ‘kiss my r – p!’ – or the least civility in life!”
My grandfather’s hangmen lost no time in getting off, leaving the colonel slung fast by the neck to the gate-posts. But Doran soon cut him down, and fell on his knees to beg pardon of his landlord, the holy Virgin, and King William from the Boyne Water.
The colonel obtained the trooper’s pardon, and he was ever after a faithful adherent. He was the grandfather of Lieutenant-colonel Doran, of the Irish brigade, afterward, (if I recollect right,) of the 47th regiment – the officer who cut a German colonel’s head clean off in the mess-room at Lisbon, after dinner, with one stroke of his sabre.3 He dined with me repeatedly at Paris about six years since, and was the most disfigured warrior that could possibly be imagined. When he left Cullenagh for the continent, in 1784, he was as fine, clever-looking a young farmer as could be seen; but he had been blown up once or twice in storming batteries, which, with a few sabre-gashes across his features, and the obvious aid of numerous pipes of wine, or something not weaker, had so spoiled his beauty, that he had become of late absolutely frightful.
This occurrence of my great-grandfather fixed the political creed of my family. On the 1st of July, the orange lily was sure to garnish every window in the mansion: the hereditary patereroes scarcely ceased cracking all the evening, to glorify the victory of the Boyne Water, till one of them burst, and killed the gardener’s wife, who was tying an orange ribbon round the mouth of it, which she had stopped for fear of accidents.
The tenantry, though to a man Papists, and at that time nearly in a state of slavery, joined heart and hand in these rejoicings, and forgot the victory of their enemy while commemorating the rescue of their landlord. A hundred times have I heard the story repeated by the “Cotchers,”4 as they sat crouching on their hams, like Indians, around the big turf fire. Their only lament was for the death of old John Neville, the game-keeper. His name I should well remember; for it was his grandson’s wife, Debby Clarke, who nursed me.
This class of stories and incidents was well calculated to make indelible impression on the mind of a child, and has never left mine. – The old people of Ireland (like the Asiatics) took the greatest delight in repeating their legendary tales to the children, by which constant, unvarying repetition, their old stories became hereditary, and I dare say neither gained nor lost a single sentence in the recital, for a couple of hundred years. The massacres of Queen Elizabeth and Cromwell were quite familiar to them; and by an ancient custom of every body throwing a stone on the spot where any celebrated murder had been committed, upon a certain day every year, or whenever a funeral passed by, it is wonderful what mounds were raised in numerous places, which no person, but such as were familiar with the customs of the poor creatures, would ever be able to account for.
I have often thought that people, insulated and shut out from society and external intercourse, ignorant of letters and all kinds of legends save their own local traditions, are as likely to be faithful historians as the plagiarists and compilers of the present day.
I have heard the same stories of old times told in different parts of the country by adverse factions and cotchers, with scarcely a syllable of difference as to time or circumstance. They denote their periods, not by “the year of our Lord,” or reigns, or months; but by seasons and festivals, and celebrated events or eras, – such as “the Midsummer after the great frost” – “the All-hallow eve before the Boyne Water” – “the Candlemas that Squire Conolly had all the hounds at Bally Killeavan” – “the time the English Bishop5 was hanged,” &c. &c.
ELIZABETH FITZGERALD
My great-aunt, Elizabeth – Besieged in her castle of Moret – My uncle seized and hanged before the walls – Attempted abduction of Elizabeth, whose forces surprise the castle of Reuben – Severe battle.
A great-aunt of mine, Elizabeth Fitzgerald, was married to Stephen Fitzgerald, who possessed the castle of Moret, near Bally-Brittis, not very far from Cullenagh.6 She and her husband held their castle firmly during the troubles. They had above forty good warders; their local enemies had no cannon, and but few guns. The warders, protected by the battlements, pelted their adversaries with large stones, when they ventured to approach the walls; and in front of each of that description of castle, there was a hole perpendicularly over the entrance, wherefrom any person, himself unseen, could drop down every species of defensive material upon assailants.
About the year 1690, when Ireland was in a state of great disorder, and no laws were regarded, numerous factious bodies were formed in every part of the country to claim old rights, and re-take possession of forfeited estates, by mere force, when their factions were strong enough.
My uncle and aunt, or rather my aunt and uncle (for she was said to be far the most effective of the two), at one time suffered the enemy, who were of the faction of the O’Cahils of Timagho, and who claimed my uncle’s property, (which they said – very truly – Queen Elizabeth had turned them out of,) to approach the gate in the night-time. There were neither outworks nor wet fosse; the assailants therefore, counting upon victory, brought fire to consume the gate, and so gain admittance. My aunt, aware of their designs, drew all her warders to one spot, large heaps of great stones being ready to their hands at the top of the castle.
When the O’Cahils, in great numbers, had got close to the gate, and were directly under the loop-hole, on a sudden streams of boiling water, heated in the castle coppers, came showering down upon the heads of the crowd below: this extinguished their fire, and cruelly scalded many of the besiegers.
The scene may be conceived which was presented by a multitude of scalded wretches, on a dark night, under the power and within the reach of all sorts of offensive missiles. They attempted to fly; but whilst one part of the warders hurled volleys of weighty stones beyond them, to deter them from retreating, another party dropped stones more ponderous still on the heads of those who, for protection, crouched close under the castle-walls: the lady of the castle herself, meantime, and all her maids, assisting the chief body of the warders in pelting the Jacobites with every kind of destructive missile, till all seemed pretty still; and wherever a groan was heard, a volley of stones quickly ended the troubles of the sufferer.
The old traditionists of the country say, that at day-break there were lying one hundred of the assailants under the castle-walls – some scalded, some battered to pieces, and many lamed so as to have no power of moving off; but my good aunt kindly ordered them all to be put out of their misery, as fast as ropes and a long gallows, erected for their sakes, could perform that piece of humanity: – her faithful old partizan, Keeran Karry, always telling them how sorry the lady was that she had no doctor in the castle, she being so tender-hearted that she could not bear to hear their groaning under the castle-walls, and so had them hanged out of pure good-nature.
After the victory, the warders had a feast on the castle-top, whereat each of them recounted his own feats. Squire Fitzgerald, who was a quiet easy man, and hated fighting, and who had told my aunt, at the beginning, that they would surely kill him, having seated himself all night peaceably under one of the parapets, was quite delighted when the fray was over. He walked out into his garden outside the walls to take some tranquil air, when an ambuscade of the hostile survivors surrounded and carried him off. In vain his warders sallied – the squire was gone past all redemption!
It
Sir Neil O’Donnel,
A corruption of “
Arthur, Bishop of Waterford, was hung at Dublin for an unnatural crime – a circumstance which the prejudiced Irish greatly rejoiced at, and long considered as forming an epocha.
I have heard the