Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American (1 of 2): (2nd ed.) (1888)Hurlbert, William Henry
History
Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American (1 of 2): (2nd ed.) (1888)
Hurlbert, William Henry
Ireland -- Description and travel; Ireland -- Politics and government -- 1837-1901
One exception I noted to the general slovenliness of the graves. A new
and handsome monument had just been set up by a man of Ennis, living in
Australia, to the memory of his father and mother, buried here twenty
years ago. But this touching symbol of a heart untravelled, fondly
turning to its home, had been so placed, either by accident or by
design, as to block the entrance way to the vault of a family living, or
rather owning property, in this neighbourhood. Until within a year or
two past this family had occupied a very handsome mansion in a park
adjoining the park of Edenvale. But the heir, worn out with local
hostilities, and reduced in fortune by the pressure of the times and of
the League, has now thrown up the sponge. His ancestral acres have been
turned over for cultivation to Mr. Stacpoole. His house, a large fine
building, apparently of the time of James II., containing, I am told,
some good pictures and old furniture, is shut up, as are the model
stables, ample enough for a great stud; and so another centre of local
industry and activity is made sterile.
Near the ruins of Killone is a curious ancient shrine of St. John,
beside a spring known as the Holy Well. All about the rude little altar
in the open air simple votive offerings were displayed, and Mrs.
Stacpoole tells me pilgrims come here from Galway and Connemara to climb
the hill upon their knees, and drink of the water. Last year for the
first time within the memory of man the well went dry. Such was the
distress caused in Ennis by this news, that on the eve of St. John
certain pious persons came out from the town, drew water from the lake,
and poured it into the well!
As we walked away one of the party pointed to a rabbit fleeing swiftly
into a hole in one of the graves. "I was on this hill," he said, "one
day not very long ago when a funeral train came out from Ennis. As it
entered the precincts a rabbit ran rapidly across the grounds. Instantly
the procession broke up; the coffin was literally dropped to the
ground, and the bearers, the mourners, and the whole company united in a
hot and general chase of bunny. Of course, I need not say," he added,
"that there was no priest with them. The fixed charge of the priest for
a burial is twenty shillings, but there is usually no service at the
grave whatever."
This may possibly be a trace of the practices which grew up under the
Penal Laws against Catholics. When Rinuccini came to Ireland in the time
of the Civil War, he found the observances of the Church all fallen into
degradation through these laws. The Holy Sacrifice was celebrated in the
cabins, and not unfrequently on tables which had been covered
half-an-hour before with the remains of the last night's supper, and
would be cleared half-an-hour afterwards for the midday meal, and
perhaps for a game of cards.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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