66 of his journey into Ireland, and his patent of creation as Earl of Desmond, copies of which may be found in the Pacata Hibernia. The President sent the young Earl to Kilmallock, whither the news of his coming had preceded him, and the followers of the Desmond family crowded to welcome their chief, " insomuch as all the streets, doores, and windowes, yea the very gutters and tops of the houses were filled."-"That night the Earle was invited to supper to Sir George Thornton's, who then kept his house in the town of Kilmallock; and although the Earle had a guard of soldiers which made a lane from his lodgings to Sir G. Thornton's house, yet the confluence of the people that flockt thither to see him was so great, as in half an hour he could not make his passage through the crowd, and after supper he had the like encounters at his returne to his lodging." Old and young hurried into Kilmallock from the surrounding districts, the former showered their blessings on the Earl, the latter offered their vow of allegiance; and, according to an ancient custom, every one flung upon him handfuls of wheat and salt, as a prediction of future peace and plenty, so powerful was the bond of feudal clanship. James, the young Earl, had been brought up a protestant in England, and the day following his arrival at Kilmallock, being Sunday, he attended service in the parish church. On his return his followers collected around him, and with tears and groans reproached him with his apostasy. They implored him on their knees not to forsake the religion of his fathers. James meekly urged, in reply to their vehement entreaties, the plea of religious toleration to be the true spirit of the Gospel; but this reasoning did not satisfy his adherents; they looked on him as an agent of the English government, sent amongst them to sap the foundation of their faith; and the very voices that yesterday were loudest in acclamations of joy, swelled the uproar of imprecations poured upon James Fitzgerald, for they denied his right to the title of his ancestors, whose religion he had renounced. Every mark of ignominy and insult was heaped upon him by the infuriated crowd-they cursed him, they spit upon him; and abandoning Kilmallock, left the Earl of Desmond to return to England, where he died in obscurity a few months after. His dissolution is announced in the Pacata Hibernia, with an air of the greatest sang-froid." The eleventh (January, 1601) the Lord President had intelligence from England that James (the late restored Earle of Desmond) was dead, and that eighteen hundred quarters of oates were sent into Munster for the reliefe of our horses." The fate of the Sugan Earl, as he is styled, was little more fortunate than that of his predecessor. After one or two defeats he was hunted from place to place, and so closely followed that it was often known to his pursuers where he had been concealed the preceding night.* The Galtee mountains were the chief retreat of the Sugan Earl; and his kinsman, the White Knight, being induced by money or fear, perhaps both, betrayed and seized him as he lurked in the cave of Skeenarinky, not far distant from Mitchelstown. Being forcibly carried to Kilmallock, he was thence conveyed to Cork, where he was tried and found guilty of being a traitor, on the 14th of August, 1601. But his life was spared by a piece of state policy; and the Earl, transmitted to the Tower of London, died there a prisoner, after seven years confinement, and was buried in its chapel. His brother John emigrated to Spain, and was distinguished as Earl or Count of Desmond, which title was also given to his son, Gerald, * Sir Richard Cox, in the narration of one of his escapes, strongly depicts the wretched state of the country. "The President, having notice that the Sugan Earl and Dermod Magragh, titular Bishop of Cork, were at Lisbarry, in Drumfinin Woods, sent a party thither, who were so near surprizing them that the Sugan Earl was fain to run away barefoot; and the Bishop got some old rags about him, and so well personated an old impotent beggar, that the English who met him did not think him worth a hanging, and therefore suffered him to pass." who died in the service of a foreign court, without issue, about the year 1632. 66 The inhabitants of Kilmallock received a charter from Elizabeth, dated the 15th of April, 1584, granting them some valuable privileges on account of their good services against that " arch-traitor” Desmond, during whose rebellion the place had been more than once plundered and set on fire. In the subsequent contests which have distracted Ireland, the town was used as a garrison, but there is nothing memorable recorded of it. The title of Viscount Kilmallock was bestowed on Sir Dominick Sarsfield; and the circumstances attendant on that creation are somewhat remarkable from the title of Viscount Kinsale having been first conferred on him, notwithstanding its existence in the De Courcy family, who immediately petitioned the King on this usurpation of their right; and the Privy Council having confirmed it, Sir Dominick was forbidden to use the name of Kinsale and styled Viscount Sarsfield, with permission to make choice of any other, and he accordingly took that of Kilmallock, which was confirmed by letters patent, dated the 17th of September, 1627. CHAPTER V. FAIRIES AND SUPERNATURAL AGENCY. "Such airy beings awe th' untutored swain, Nor thou, tho' learn'd, his homelier thoughts neglect." IN common with other countries, particularly the Highlands of Scotland, a traditional belief exists amongst the Irish peasantry in those romantic little sprites denominated Fairies; and it is wonderful, considering their being creatures of imagination, that the superstitions respecting them should have remained so much confined, and so very similar. Whether the fairy mythology of Ireland has been derived from the East, and transmitted thence through the medium of Spain, or has, as some believe, a northern origin, it is of little import to inquire, particularly as nothing more than conjecture can now be advanced on the subject. It is, however, evident, that the present fairies of Ireland, if not Gothic creations, were at least modelled in the same school and age with the elves of northern Europe. There is an odd mixture of the ridiculous and the sublime in the prevalent notions respecting such beings. Nor could there have been invented a more extraordinary medium between Man and his Maker. The most esteemed novelist of the present day has happily described these curious creations of the mind, as Partaking both of the human and spiritual nature, having immaterial bodies, with the feelings and passions of mortality, fairies are supposed to possess both the power and the inclination to revenge an affront; and the motive of fear, which induces some savage nations to worship the Devil, prompts the vulgar in Ireland to term fairies "good people," and in Scotland " guid folk;" nor is it uncommon to see a rustic, before drinking, spill a small part of his draught upon the ground, as a complimentary libation to the fairies. Such as use the word fairy, are often corrected in a whisper, which caution arises from conceiving that these beings are invisibly present, and the appellation is considered offensive, as denoting an insignificant object. Thus, hoping to deceive by flattery, the maxim most attended to in the intercourse with these "little great ones," is, that "civility begets civility." Doubtless, on the same principle, the Greeks, as observed by Augustus Schlegel, called their fairies Eumenides, or the benevolent, and assigned for their habitation a beautiful grove. "I cannot think of this policy," said my friend C—————, “without fancying a grin on Medusa, and those little urchins the northern fairies, holding their sides with laughter." The same system of fear and flattery seems to have existed amongst the Irish, even towards animals, in the time of Elizabeth; for Camden tells us, they take unto them wolves, to be their godsibs (gossips), whom 66 1 |