The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 26, December 26, 1840Various
History
The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 26, December 26, 1840
Various
Ireland -- Periodicals
Patrick, the glory of our isle and gown,
First sat a bishop in the see of Down.
I wish that I, succeeding him in place
As bishop, had an equal share of grace.
I served thee, England, fifty years in jars,
And pleased thy princes in the midst of wars;
Here where I’m placed I’m not; and thus the case is,
I’m not in both, yet am in both the places. 1621.
He that judgeth me is the Lord.--1 Cor. iv.
Let him who stands take care lest he fall.
Harris remarks, that the Roman Catholics of his diocese have a tradition
that he returned to his original faith previously to his death, and that
though it was pretended that he was buried in his own cathedral, yet
he had given private orders for burying his body elsewhere, to which
circumstance, as they say, the two last lines of his epitaph allude.
“But,” says Harris, “although he was no good man, and had impoverished
his see by stripping it of much of its ancient estate, yet I do not
find any room to call his sincerity as to his religious profession
in question, living or dying. These lines rather seem to hint at the
separate existence of the soul and body.” But however this may be, there
is another tradition relative to him less doubtful, inasmuch as it is
common to the peasantry of different creeds, namely, that he was the
handsomest man in Ireland in his day!
The Castle of Termon, like most edifices of the kind erected in the
sixteenth century, consisted of a strong keep with circular towers at two
of its angles, and encompassed by outworks. It was battered by Ireton
from the neighbouring hill in the parliamentary wars; but its ruins are
considerable, and by their picturesqueness add interest to the northern
shore of the lower Lough Erne.
P.
THE IRISH MIDWIFE.
BY WILLIAM CARLETON.
Introductory.
Of the many remarkable characters that have been formed by the spirit and
habits of Irish feeling among the peasantry, there is not one so clear,
distinct, and well traced, as that of the Midwife. We could mention
several that are certainly marked with great precision, and that stand
out in fine relief to the eye of the spectator, but none at all, who
in richness of colouring, in boldness of outline, or in firmness and
force, can for a moment be compared with the Midwife. The Fiddler for
instance lives a life sufficiently graphic and distinct; so does the
Dancing-master, and so also does the Matchmaker, but with some abatement
of colouring. As for the Cosherer, the Shanahie, the Keener, and the
Foster-nurse, although all mellow toned, and well individualized by the
strong power of hereditary usage, yet do they stand dim and shadowy, when
placed face to face with this great exponent of national temperament.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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