Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American (2 of 2): (2nd ed.) (1888) — John Shaqi
Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American (2 of 2): (2nd ed.) (1888)Hurlbert, William Henry
History
Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American (2 of 2): (2nd ed.) (1888)
Hurlbert, William Henry
Ireland -- Description and travel; Ireland -- Politics and government -- 1837-1901
In the churchyard is a hillock, bare of grass, about a tomb. There lies
buried, according to tradition, a public functionary who attested a
statement by exclaiming, "If I speak falsely, may grass never grow on my
grave." One of his descendants is doubtless now an M.P. Mr. Cameron had
kindly written from Cork to the officer in charge of the constabulary
here asking him to get me a good car for Lismore. So Father Keller very
kindly walked with me through the town to the "Devonshire Arms," a very
neat and considerable hotel, in quest of him. On the way he pointed out
to me what remains of a house which is supposed to have served as the
headquarters of Cromwell while he was here, and a small chapel also in
which the Protector worshipped after his sort. Off the main street is a
lane called Windmill Lane, where probably stood the windmill from which
in 1580 a Franciscan friar, Father David O'Neilan, was hung by the feet
and shot to death by the soldiers of Elizabeth because he refused to
acknowledge the spiritual supremacy of the Queen. He had been dragged
through the main street at the tail of a horse to the place of
execution. His name is one of many names of confessors of that time
about to be submitted at Rome for canonisation. We could not find the
officer I sought at the hotel, but Father Keller took me to a livery-man
in the main street, who very promptly got out a car with "his best
horse," and a jarvey who would "surely take me over to Lismore inside of
two hours and a half." He was as good as his master's word, and a
delightful drive it was, following the course of Spenser's river, the
Awniduffe, "which by the Englishman is called Blackwater." Nobody now
calls it anything else. The view of Youghal Harbour, as we made a great
circuit by the bridge on leaving the town, was exceedingly fine. Lying
as it does within easy reach of Cork, this might be made a very pleasant
summer halting-place for Americans landing at Queenstown, who now go
further and probably fare worse. One Western wanderer, with his family,
Father Keller told me, did last year establish himself here, a Catholic
from Boston, to whom a son was born, and who begged the Father to give
the lad a local name in baptism, "the oldest he could think of."
I should have thought St. Declan would have been "old" enough, or St.
Nessan of "Ireland's Eye," or Saint Cartagh, who made Lismore a holy
city, "into the half of which no woman durst enter," sufficiently
"local," but Father Keller found in the Calendar a more satisfactory
saint still in St. Goran or "Curran," known also as St. Mochicaroen _de
Nona_, from a change he made in the recitation of that part of the Holy
Office.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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