'SHELAH LEA'S LAMENTATION: AN ANCIENT IRISH

KEEN.

(To the Editor of the Mirror.)

"SIR,—I send you the annexed trifle as printed from an original MS.; it has not come from the press for the purpose of circulation, except amongst the friends of the gentleman who possesses the writing. Should you think it has sufficient interest to occupy a column in the Mirror, it is at your service. I am, sir, your obedient servant,

66

J. P.

Sing the wild keen of my country, ye whose heads bend in sorrow, in the house of the dead!— Lay aside the wheel and flax, and sing not in joy, for there's a space left in my cabin !-Oweneen the pride of my heart is not here!-did ye not hear the cry of the Banshee crossing the lonely Kilcrumper? Or was there a voice from the tomb, far sweeter than song, that whistled in the mountain wind, and told ye that the young oak was fallen? Yes, he's gone!-He went off in the spring of life, like the blossom of the prickly hawthorn, scattered by the merciless wind, on the cold clammy earth;-never again will he lift in his clasp'd hands the cross of the Holy Virgin, or bend his strong limbs before her altar.—The Gorsoons may hurl now in the mountains, but the strong arm of my Oweneen is not there!—the

cold dew of death is upon it, and his eyes which were bright lights to his poor mother's soul, are closed and sunk in darkness for ever!-The Banshee will come on the morrow, when ye are keening the last keen of sorrow over his head,-its cry will drown your death-song, for Oweneen was the pride of all !—The howl will be heard in the heath, on the mountain, and o'er the grave of his foster brother, who's gone before him.-Raise the keen ye whose notes are well known, tell your beads ye young women who grieve ;-lie down on his narrow house in mourning, and his spirit will sleep and be at rest!-Plant the shamrock and wild fir near his head, that strangers might know who is the fallen! Soon again will your keen be heard on the mountain, for before the cold sod is clodded over the breast of my Oweneen, Shelah the mother of keeners will be there! the voice which before was loud and plaintive, will be still and silent, like the ancient harp of her country!-Let the long green grass grow thickly near the graves of my forefathers, that the little mountain daisy might not sprout up alone.-Let Elleen Bawn, the best of all keeners, lay me clean on my death-bed, that the last of the Ryans might go in peace to her grave. -See that the lights at my wake be as many as my grey hairs, which I'll carry in pride to my tomb; for I am Shelah-Lea, the grey-headed

d

keener. The Pillabeen-meek will scream round my

cabin door, when your song of grief is singing.— There will be lights seen dancing on Cairn Thierna, and moving quickly across the wet bog, and let ye not follow, for the evil spirit is the guide, and will lead you to darkness.-Come to my grave when the yellow leaves off the trees are upon it, and say, "rest, the soul of Shelah the keener! whose tongue is now silent in the place where the rain nor the storms cannot enter."-Take your rounds at my head-stone, count your beads, that my ghost might be quiet in the shroud, that was made by Elleen. There's a tree in Kilcrumper that hangs over the lonely, in its branches the dark bird of night keens the whole night long.-I go there when Shain Ogen has done ploughing, when the bat flaps its wings round the hill, when all is dark as the silence of night.-Once I went as the moon shone upon the bed of my Oweneen,-the grey stone that marked his head was bright, yet my soul was as dark as before.-Moss and weeds flourished around me, and the wind was not heard on the hill - there was a voice from the furze-brake close by me, that howled like a funeral keen; and I knew that the Banshee had warning that Shelah was soon to come there.-The croak of the raven was heard thrice in the barn that Oweneen built, and I felt that I soon would be borne to the grave of my WHITE-HEADED BOY."

What has been stated, when taken in connexion with the following pages, will show that the custom of keening has materially tended to keep alive the memory of past circumstances in the heart of the Irish peasant, which it were better for his sake, and for the honour of England, should be buried in oblivion. But there they rankle; and some documentary evidence will probably shortly be laid before the public, to shew the kind of justice that Ireland has had meted out to her at the hands of England, and the means by which some of the boldest castles and fairest acres have been obtained.

"My gossips, the ways of the world I'll explain;

They are falsehood, and meanness, and cheating and squeezing," &c.-p. 97.

The hour has arrived when all men of all parties, who love their common country, must make up their mind upon an important question,- that of the repeal of the Act of Union between the two countries. A nation's voice cannot be stifled, nor can the strongest army that England ever mustered, subdue, in the mind, a conviction based on truth. In this point of view, Mr. O'Connell has done a great permanent good to Ireland, by forcing the tardy attention of England towards her people and her resources. He is, indeed, a great moral conqueror, and the blessed steps of Father

Mathew have materially aided him in his progress. O'Connell has had to lead, as well as to contend with, fierce and stormy spirits; but the path of Mathew has been love and good will towards all. And it must be the sincere prayer of all honest men, that the elements of discord will now

The fact is, justice can only be rendered to Ireland, by Englishmen of all classes making themselves better acquainted with her people, and acquiring even so slight a glimmering of knowledge, as to be able to perceive that the Irish, with certain superstitions-ideas, if the reader pleases, -have feelings much like those of other persons of other countries, with hearts much readier to forgive than to forget wrongs by which humanity has been outraged.

The editor's object is, however, not to write a political essay, but to shew how powerful an aid the keen has been, not merely in political, but in religious warfare in Ireland. At a meeting of the Irish Society held in Cork on the 14th October, 1842, the Rev. W. L. Beaufort in the chair, the following statement with reference to the keen was made by Mr. Michael Moriarty:

"Some time since, in his brother's parish, a potato boat, while conveying potatoes from Tralee to