23 directed against the chiefs of the principal ancient Irish fami lies, and such of the descendants of the Anglo-Normans as had adopted their customs and formed alliances with them, in order that an easy conquest might be made of the country by dint of assertion and bare-faced effrontery, which were likely to stir up their angry passions. The boast of the Irish was hospitality, and even their enemy Sir Richard Cox acknowledges that they were recklessly hospitable. Aenghus executed his task, by attempting to prove in detail, by force of assertion, that they were not hospitable nor generous; that they were too poor to afford being so; which was the mode of proceeding to excite their anger. He received, however, that kind of reward which he did not anticipate, but which all recreant betrayers of their race, richly deserve: for on appearing at a banquet in the sweet Palatine County of Tipperary, he was stabbed through the heart by the order or command of O'Meagher, chief of Ikerrin, at the rudeness of whose mansion he had made some scurrilous remark. He is said to have composed extempore, a remarkable quatrain respecting his having so recklessly lampooned his countrymen. This quatrain the reader will find at the end of the poem. On undertaking to produce this poem, he made a regular circuit of the kingdom,-which was then in a most deplorable state of distress,-satirizing the different families in his progress, which he did with an unsparing pen, dipped in gall, and poison, and sometimes in filthier ink; but he was so much afraid of some of them that he did not venture to defame them. He does not lampoon Red Hugh O'Donnell, because he was, as he of the Saint who made the prophecy, but we suspect it was St. Aenghus Ceile-Dé-moin ! !— “Ticfaid do ċeart" [no ċairċ+] an Charúnaiż, Go mad hastreać lib a idéntájde ; Bud honda Glór allmúraiż, D'a scaoiled cois na Mjażlaiże.‡ [no Mianlaiże.] "It will proceed of Carew's right, You will regret your private actes; 'Ceane, a man's title, a man's interest, more fitly a man's lawful estate, or a man's right." "Cane, an evidence of any thing, escripts, charters, or deeds of conveyance." "Myathlagh, a river in Muynter-Vary, in Carebry, Myan Leay [mjanlac] the pleasant ryver of the Leay." acknowledges, in dread of his vengeance; and he had not the stomach to satirize Mac Cann of Clann Breasail at the upper Bann, because he did not deserve it. Other exceptions are also observable, but it is to be suspected that local scribes have corrupted some quatrains, and foisted in others for their own amusement; for no original, or very old copy of the poem has yet been discovered. The poet displays a thorough knowledge of the private and general history of the different tribes and chieftains, and of the localities of their respective territories,—as well as of the manners and customs of the period. From the numerous references to bread and butter throughout the poem, it would appear that these formed the staple food' of the country at the time. The celebrated Florence Mac Carthy, the son-in-law of the Earl of Clancare; (and, who was elected Mac Carthy More, by the arch-rebel Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone) wrote a letter2 to the English Government when he was confined in the tower of London, advising the bribing of the Bards to bring over the Irish gentry to the English interest; and there can be but little doubt that it was at his suggestion our author was employed to write this poem. In this letter, which was written in August, 1602; and addressed to Cecil, the great Florence,3 writes:"The two sorts of people of the greatest ability and authority to persuade the Irish gentlemen are the priests and rimers: both dislike the English Government inore than other classes do. The priests may not be trusted to do service for the Queen; while of the Rimers only some may, if employed by those gentlemen whose followers they are by lineal descent." He then goes on to say, that "he means to employ one of special trust and sufficiency."-Boasts that "he was the chiefest cause of cutting off the Earle of Desmond," and says that he is called "a damned counterfeit Englishman, whose only employment was to practise how to destroy his countrymen the Irish." It appears from various letters in the State Papers' Office, London, that many of the native Irish were employed at this 1 See Four Masters. O'Higgin vowed that he would not give bread and butter together to any guest. 2 This Letter is preserved in the State Papers' Office, London. 3 This Florence was a man of gigantic stature, and possessed of such talents that it was thought safer to keep him a prisoner. period as interpreters, and in low situations as spies and underlings, from which some of them crept into rank and station. Of these, the most notable was, Sir Patrick Crosbie, who was the son of Mac-An-Crossan, O'More's Bard, or Rhymer, and the ancestor of the Glandore family and of Crosby of Ardfert, in Kerry. In a tract in the State Papers' Office, dated 3rd July, 1600, it is stated that "Patrick Crosby, or Crossan, was a mere Irishman, by birth, and UNSOUND IN BODY AND MIND;"" that "his father had been Rhymer or Bard to the O'Mores;" that "he was an underling of the Government in Dublin, and procured patents of pardon for such of the Irish as applied to him;" that "he was in the habit of passing patents which purposely contained defects;" that being a Deputy to Sir Geoffrey Fenton, the Surveyor-General, "he surveyed forfeited Estates in a corrupt and false manner, at estimates much under their real value; and on one occasion he made out a pretended title for the Queen to forty parcels of land, for part of which he then obtained a patent for himself." It is added that owing to these proceedings divers men in Munster had been driven into rebellion." A. D. 1601, December 2. The aged Earl of Ormonde, in a letter to Sir Robert Cecil, on the subject of the fraudulent and atrocious conduct of the subordinate Government Officials of the day, observes that Crosby's real surname was Mac-yCrossane; and that his ancestor had been Chief Rhymor to the O'Mores and O'Connors. In 1601, May, 2. Sir George Carey writes to Cecil, recommending Patrick Crosby; who, he declares, was greatly hated by the Irish "as a continual worker of means for their overthrow." He became the chief agent for the removal of the unfortunate seven Septs of Leix, into Kerry; and for these and like services he obtained large grants of land in Kerry and elsewhere.' Another native Irishman, and employed by the Government, at this period, was Sir Francis Shane, who was knighted by the Lord Deputy, Sir George Carey, in 1602. He was a member of the sept of the Clan-Shane O'Farrell of Longford. He obtained considerable grants of land from the Crown, and successfully exposed great corruption in the Surveyor's, Eschcator's, and Patent Oflices in Dublin. In 1605 (September 28), Lord 1 Letter of Herbert F. Hore, Esq., of Poll-Hore, County of Wexford, to the Editor, dated 1st August, 1851. and Lady Delvin wrote to the Earl of Salisbury complaining of Sir Francis Shane, for disturbing them from lands in Longfordshire. They mention that he asserted he was one of the O'Farrell Clan, and wished to be chief of them; whereas it was well known he was the son of one Nicholas Shane, son to one Shane some time Smith of Ardeath, and not of the O'Farrell family. From documents in the State Papers' Office, it appears that his mother, Margaret Bathe, had been concubine to Sir William Brabazon, Treasurer of Ireland, who enriched her so much that she found other husbands in Sir Thomas L'Estrange, and Dillon, by whom she was mother of Justice Dillon of Connaught. Francis Shane and Sir Thomas L'Estrange were knights of the Shire for the County of Galway, in 1585. Another successful man of the mere Irish at this period was William Doyne. He was interpreter of Irish to the State before the year 1589. He was of the O'Duinn family of Iregan, and was probably ancestor of the now Anglicised and highly respectable family of Doyne. Another very successful interpreter of Irish to the State at this period was Sir Patrick Fox, who during the various rebellions acted as intelligencer. In 1588, he was a clerk to the Clerk of the Dublin Privy Council, which important and lucrative office he afterwards filled himself in 1610. In 1607, he was one of the Commissioners for Defective Titles-a much abused officeand he obtained large grants of land from king James. His son, Nathaniel Fox, is the ancestor of the family of the Fox's of Foxhall, in the County of Longford. Nothing has been discovered to prove directly that our Bard was employed by the Government, but it looks very likely that he received a small portion of the secret service money, which was at the disposal of Crosbie, Fox, and others. O'Reilly gives the following account of Acnghus na-n-Aor: "On the 16th day of December, 1617, died Acngus, or Encas Roe O'Daly, as appears by an Inquisition taken at the old Castle in Cork, on the eighteenth day of September, 1624. By this Inquisition it was found that Angus O'Daly was seized in his life time of the town and lands of Ballyorroone, containing three carrucates of land, value ten shillings per annum; and being so seized, did, on the last day of March, 1611, enfeoff Thadeus Mc Carthy, Richard Waters, John O'Daly, and Farfasa O'Canty,' and their heirs for ever, to the use of said 1 Farfasa O'Canty composed a poem of one hundred and eighty verses on the death of Donnell O'Keeffe of the territory of Ealla, in Angus O'Daly, during his natural life, and after his death to the use and benefit of Angus O'Daly, junior, his son and heir, and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten; and that the said fcoffees, Thadeus, Richard, John and Farfasa, the foresaid premises, without the king's license being first obtained, together with Angus O'Daly, senior, did, by their deed, dated tenth of April, 1617, enfeoff Carolus O'Daly, his heirs, and assigns, in the western part of the land of Ballyorroone aforesaid, with the appurtenances, containing one carrucate of land, under this condition, that, when the said Angus O'Daly, senior, his heirs and assigns, should pay said Carolus O'Daly, his heirs or assigns, the sum of thirteen pounds, then the said Angus O'Daly, senior, his heirs, or assigns, should be at liberty to re-enter and possess said land and premises, as before the making of said deed. And that afterwards the said Angus O'Daly died on the sixteenth of December, 1617." From his general abuse of the Irish Tribes he exempts the Clann Dalaigh, or O'Donnells; because as he says, he was afraid of their vengeance. We have not met any of his compositions besides the present, except a poem of one hundred and sixty-eight verses, on the death of Donnchadh Fionn Mheic Carrthaigh (Donogh Mac Carthy, the fair), which begins thus: “Tajnje lêan do leaċ Mhoża," Misfortune bath befallen Leath Mhogha." There was also a poet who signed himself Fear dorċa O'Dalaj (i.e., the dark-visaged, or blind, O'Daly), and sometimes mac Chormaje Uj Dhalaiż (i. e., the son of Cormac O'Daly), of whom O'Reilly in his Irish Writers makes no mention whatever; unless he was son to Cormac O'Daly, who flourished A. D. 1590. He was author of a bitter satire of thirty-one stanzas, on a celebrated Almanack-maker, or rather the County of Cork, and on that of the poet Angus O'Daly, com monly called the Red Bard or Angus the Satirist. See O'Reilly's Irish Writers, p. clxxvii. We have seen a copy of these Astrological Almanacks, published at the Sign of the Pot, Stephen's green, Dublin, A.D. 1696. Dr. Whaley, the Author, is said to be the son of an Englishman who came to Ireland in Cromwell's train; and is stated to be instrumental in the hanging of a brother to the bard; which circumstance provoked this bitter invective. We understand that there are original documents in the hands of a gentleman in town, relative to his father's arrival in Ireland; and that many of his progeny are still living in Dublin. |