he had built for them, they fell in with Morty and some of his friends on the way. Angry words were exchanged; a quarrel ensued, and, whether by accident or design, Puxley was shot dead by Morty Oge.I

This deplorable incident created a great sensation throughout the country. The Government party took prompt action. A military force was despatched from Cork to seize the offender and return with his body alive or dead. They made their way to Berehaven; but when they got there Morty was not to be found. He had gone off to France. There he might have lived safely to the end of his days had he been so minded; but his native place had a fascination for him, and he made several trips to and fro

Even as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue,
Pants to the place from whence at first he flew.

so would Morty pay furtive visits to his old home, to see again his wife and child in his mountain cottage at Eyries, and be welcomed and watchfully guarded by kinsmen who loved him. But he was caught at last. Information of his being in the place was conveyed to the authorities; another expedition-this time by sea -was sent from Cork to Berehaven, with all the secrecy possible under the circumstances; the vessel reached the shore on a dark, wet, and stormy night, without attracting attention; the soldiers at once disembarked, and-guided presumably by someone who knew the ground-crept stealthily up to the cottage of the outlaw.

1 Mr. J. A. Froude, in his "Two Chiefs of Dunboy," gives a purely fanciful and very absurd account of this occurrence. He frankly calls his work a "romance," but as it is written on a historical basis and purports to present a picture of the time, he should have given a less offensive tone and turn to his inventions. His description of the scene in the forge where "Colonel Goring," (i.e. Puxley) lost his life, and of the contrivance by which he and Morty Oge were brought to meet there, is worthy only of a "penny dreadful.”

The noise of the rainstorm prevented the occupants from hearing the approaching footsteps; but the keener ears of O'Sullivan's watch-dog caught the sounds, and the animal gave the alarm by loud barking. Morty grasped the situation at once; he had been in bed, and his friends in the house were sleeping or drowsing after the day's toil, but all were immediately on their feet and preparing to offer what resistance they could to the foe. The struggle that ensued is thus recorded in a publication called The Cork Remembrancer, printed in that city in 1783

Sullivan and his party took the alarm directly. Sullivan came to the door and opened it in his shirt, with a blunderbuss in his hand; at the same time they might have taken away his life, but the commanding officer, choosing rather to take him alive, did not fire at him. Sullivan and his men fired several blunderbusses out of the house at the party, but finding them too strong, he thought on a stratagem, by sending them out one man at a time, thinking by that means the party would leave the house to follow them, by which he may get off; but he was prevented by the officer, who only fired at the men as they went off. At length Sullivan's wife, with her child and nurse, came out and asked for quarter, which was granted. The officer asked her who was in the house; she answered no one but her husband and some of his men; upon which he ordered the house to be set on fire, which they were a long time doing, the men's arms being rendered quite useless from the heavy rains; but the house being at last set on fire, they were obliged to come out. Sullivan behaved with great bravery, as did his men; he stood and snapped his blunderbuss twice at the party, and missed fire; likewise the party snapped at him twice and missed fire, and cocking the third time, shot him through the heart dead.

The soldiers brought away with them the dead body of Morty Oge, and two prisoners named Sullivan and Connell. Morty's body they lashed to the stern of their vessel, and so towed it from Berehaven to Cork, where its head was cut off and spiked over the South Gaol. like fate befel the gallant fellows Sullivan and Connell ; their heads were similarly displayed for the edification of his majesty's subjects, loyal and disloyal.

A

Tradition has it that the giver of the information which brought the soldiery upon O'Sullivan's house was a servant of his named Scully, but there is no reliable record to that effect; doubts have been thrown upon the story, and as the statement can neither be proved nor disproved, I think it would be only fair to pass in this case the Scotch verdict of "Not Proven." It was, however, made the subject of a vigorous ballad by the Cork poet, J. J. Callanan, a rendering of a Gaelic lamentation for her beloved master supposed to have been uttered by the old nurse of the family. I here quote it in part:

The sun on Ivera

No longer shines brightly;
The voice of her music
No longer is sprightly;
No more to her maidens
The light dance is dear,
Since the death of our darling
O'Sullivan Beare.

Had he died calmly

I would not deplore him;

Or if the wild strife

Of the sea-war closed o'er him;
But with ropes round his white limbs
Through ocean to trail him,

Like a fish after slaughter,

'Tis therefore I wail him.

In the hole which the vile hands
Of soldiers had made thee,
Unhonour'd, unshrouded,

And headless they laid thee;

No sigh to regret thee,

No eye to rain o'er thee,

No dirge to lament thee,

No friend to deplore thee;

Dear head of my darling,

How gory and pale

These aged eyes see thee
High spiked on their jail;
That cheek in the summer sun
Ne'er shall grow warm,
Nor that eye e'er catch light
But the light of the storm.

A curse, blessed ocean,

Is on thy green water,
From the harbour of Cork
To Ivera of slaughter,

Since thy billows were dyed

With the red wounds of fear,
Of Muiertach Oge,

Our O'Sullivan Beare.

It is obvious to anyone having even a slight acquaintance with our olden tongue that the poem from which I have quoted is founded on a Gaelic original. The verses of imprecation, which I omit, are further evidence in that direction, for, as regards both curses and prayers, the swing, fervour, and force of the Irish language are unequalled. But a more beautiful and touching lamentation is that of O'Sullivan's faithful follower and brave comrade Connell, written in Cork Gaol on the night before his execution. It is thus given in the Rev. Mr. Gibson's History of the City and County of Cork, published in 1861

Morty, my dear and loved master, you carried the sway for strength and generosity. It is my endless grief and sorrowsorrow that admits of no comfort—that your fair head should be gazed at as a show upon a spike, and that your noble frame is without life. I have travelled with you, my dear and much loved master, in foreign lands. You moved with kings in the royal prince's army; but it is through the means of Puxley I am left in grief and confinement in Cork, locked in heavy irons without hopes of relief. The great God is good and merciful; I ask his pardon and support, for I am to be hanged at the gallows to-morrow, without doubt. The rope will squeeze my neck, and

thousands will lament my fate. May the Lord have mercy on my

master;

Kerryonians, pray for us. Sweet and melodious is your voice. My blessing I give you, but you will never see me again among you alive. Our heads will be put upon a spike for a show; and under the cold snow of night, and the burning sun of summer. Oh, that I was ever born; Oh, that I ever returned to Berehaven; Mine was the best of masters that Ireland could produce, May our souls be floating to-morrow in the rays of endless glory;

The lady his wife: Heavy is her grief, and who may wonder at that, were her eyes made of green stone, when he, her dear husband was shot by that ball. Had he retreated, our grief would be lighter; but the brave man, for the pride of his country, could not retreat.

He has been in King's palaces. In Spain he got a pension. Lady Clare gave him robes bound with gold lace, as a token of remembrance. He was a captain on the coast of France, but he should return to Ireland for us to lose him.