(She answers.) "Hold your tongue, stubborn priest! read your Litany and Confiteor: earn your half-crown and begone: I will keen my brother.” These examples of the keen, notwithstanding their inequality of sentiment, and the injury sustained by a literal translation, will not, I am confident, appear wholly destitute of merit, although it is evident there are many passages and allusions, which those unacquainted with local manners and history, can neither feel nor understand correctly. But under any circumstances, the natural expression of sorrow awakens our sympathy, for the simple language of grief is always poetical. 66 The national exclamations used on the death of a friend or an acquaintance are often very figurative: May the heavens be his perch to-night!" is no uncommon ejaculation, on first hearing of the loss of such. What an original metaphor is this, and what a fine allegorical picture does it present! the soul springing upwards like a bird, and resting its weary wings after the flight, in some "bower of bliss." Nor are keens merely orally preserved amongst the peasantry. I have three original Irish death-songs in M.S. now lying before me, the most recent of which, on a namesake of my own, is dated 21st January, 1822, and consists of thirteen verses, not worth translating, but the English preface prefixed to it is curious, as a specimen of the modern bardic spirit, and is transcribed verbatim. “I can most undoubtedly testify that since the death of Captain O'Sullivan Beer Haven, I did not see nor hear any man died so much regretted for, nor even so free from the least stain or blemish attached to his character, as the most worthy and much lamented Edward Croker, Esq. near Curriglass. Declared and certified by me the poet, William Cremon." Keens are also a medium through which the disaffected circulate their mischievous principles, and this they do without much attempt at concealment, the Irish language being a sufficient cloak for the expression of seditious sentiments; few, if any, of the gentry being acquainted with it, as they consider it too vulgar and inelegant to form a part of their studies. Those criminals whose lives have been forfeited in the cause of rebellion, derive no small consolation from the idea of martyrdom, which they imagine they have attained, and in this they are encouraged by the popular voice, apostrophising their shade as that of an hero and a patriot. Their countrymen are called upon to revenge their death, and to recover the estates of their Milesian ancestors, whose spirit has alone descended to them; on that spirit and what it will achieve, many verses are frequently bestowed. It is compared to the mountain-eagle, that, even in bondage, the hand of strangers could not tame; to the mountain-torrent, that would suddenly burst forth with overwhelming inundation, and destroy the lands where the cold hearted Saxons revelled. When the awful sentence of death has been pronounced by the judge on an Irish culprit, it is not unusual for him to petition that his body may be given to his friends after execution, and, if this is granted, he meets his fate with fortitude and resignation. Those, who from their official capacity have been obliged to witness such distressing scenes, have often expressed their surprize at the dying declaration of men who were convicted on the clearest and most unquestionable evidence, that they were innocent of the crime for which they were about to suffer, and this assertion has been supported by the most solemn appeals to the Deity. It is only charitable to consider so palpable a falsehood uttered by those on the very brink of eternity, as the result of absolution on the ignorant mind; the doctrine by which the murderer can conscientiously declare his innocence has something in it irreconcilably opposed to truth and reason. If a complete account of the crimes and conduct at the place of execution of those who had been convicted by the law in Ireland since the Articles of Limerick, could now be drawn up, I am persuaded it would afford a moral and political view of the country, the result of which would surprize even the best acquainted with these subjects. Dean Swift appears to have entertained the same idea, and he accordingly made a collection of the printed dying speeches of Irish culprits, which he enriched with his own invaluable comments: one of the volumes of this series was in my possession for a short time, whence I take some extracts, to give an idea of the general tenour of the dying speeches of the last century. The first of these explains the point of copyright in such matters, the others are distinguished by their soundness of reasoning. "The last speech and dying words of Valentine Kealy and Cornealus Sulivan, who is both to be executed near St. Stephen's green, this present Saturday, being the 13th instant, March, 1724-5, for robberys committed by them. Good people, The Speech of Valentine Kealy. I am advised by several of my acquaintances to give my speech from my own mouth to some printer, in order to prevent others of that trade from printing sham speeches of me; therefore (by their perswations) I sent for the printer in MONTRATH STREET, to whom I made the following true speech, and if any other prints it, I assure you it is false," &c. The Speech of Cornealus Sulivan. Dear Christians, I at first had no thoughts to make any speech, by reason I am far from am far from my friends or relations, but seeing my fellow sufferer doing it I thought fit to do the same, which is in manner following," &c. Captain M'Dermot, who was hanged at Cavan on the 30th March, 1725, for murder, explains his situation thus "And I, who was taught to read the Latin, English, and Irish tongues, and was naturally complaisant to all mankind, am here made an example for the sins of my forefathers." As a companion to this, is " an elegy on the death of Mr. Jo. Poe, who unfortunately departed this life at Kilmainham gallows, October 20th, 1725." The first edition of the Cork Remembrancer, a book which should rather be entitled the Cork Criminal Recorder, published in 1783, and compiled by a Mr. Fitzgerald, contains the particulars of almost every execution in that city, during the preceding half century. I have been told that the author of this singular chronicle made a point of being present at the death of every criminal whose exit he has recorded, and he generally marched in the procession from the gaol to the gallows on one occasion it is reported of Mr. Fitzgerald, that, being confined to his bed by a severe illness, he actually petitioned the judge to postpone an execution, until he was sufficiently recovered to become a spectator. CHAPTER X. CORK. "Then towns he quicken'd by mechanic arts, Thomson. CORK is entirely a commercial city, and the principal town for exports in Ireland. From the traffic carried on here, and the natural advantages of its situation for trade, an old rhyme may possibly prove prophetic. Alluding to the military consequence of Limerick at the close of the seventeenth century, it tells us that Places of trade, however important to the prosperity of a country, seldom possess attractions for strangers who may visit them on other than mercantile pursuits; nor will the origin of the name of Cork excite expectations, its supposed derivation being from the Irish word Corcagh or Curkig, signifying a swamp or morass; the city standing BB |