XCV. Fleetwood, Ludlo, Ualler, is Érton, Sluaż teann na n-eaċ n-garb 's na n-ésdead; Carbine clisde is fireloc gléasda. This hath been a Mar those that did are in safe custody for Barbadoes. vellous Great Mercy. There were about 3000 horse and foot (in the garrison) under their best officers. I do not believe, neither do I hear, that any officer escaped with his life, save only one lieutenant. I wish that all honest hearts may give the glory of this to God alone, to whom indeed the praise of this mercy belongs !!! "Plant Ireland with Puritans, and root out the Papists, and then secure it."-Book entitled the "Cromwellians," p. 55. No savage nation under the sun, at any time, not even New Zealand, perpetrated such diabolical deeds. Had the villain cut a canal through Ireland, and had he brought all his victims, young and old, men, women, and babes to its banks, and let their innocent blood flow into such canal he might have floated his infernal troops in their ships along its surface. The House of Commons approved his infernal acts, and proclaimed a THANKSGIVING DAY throughout the nation.-Parl. His., vol. iii. p. 1334. All our readers are aware of the 300 women butchered by Cromwell about the Cross of Wexford. With regard to the massacre of 3000 men, women, and children-Catholics-all innocent, not being concerned in the wars-the reader is referred to the work "Collection of Irish Massacres;" also to Leland, book v. c. 3. Reference to the former work is made relative to the depredations, burnings, and slaughter of O'Sullivan Beare's country, in Bantry, wherein they butchered man, woman, and child, and turned many into their houses to be burned therein, and that, though the great O'Sullivan was a most humane man, and foolishly protected the very wretches that afterwards aided in his ruin and that of his people. The same writer says, "that seventeen children were taken by the legs by the soldiers, who knocked out their brains against the walls." 66 Inchiquin, in the Church of Cashel, put 3000 to the sword, taking the priests even from under the altar."-Ludlow's "Memoirs," vol. i. p. 106. That ruffian was the ancestor of the Marquis of Thomond. For similar inhuman, guilty acts, see vol. xi. p. 7 (Introduction), of Rev. Dr. Nelson, a Protestant. These are the wholesale assassins with whom the renegade Beling and the corrupt Friar Walsh would have the holy prelate, Rinuccini, make terms. Terms with such men of blood! Terms with such sacrilegious blasphemers! The idea of a peace with such black spirits XCV. Fleetwood, Ludlow, Waller, and Ireton; The ready2 carbine,' and polished firelock, shocks every feeling of humanity, every sentiment of honour, every principle of religion. A truce with Satan would not be more abominable in the eyes of the God of Mercy! The glorious Nuncio immortalized himself, enshrined his memory in every honest heart, as having shrunk from the abomination of recognizing Inchiquin, and his furious myrmidons, ever gorging, always devouring, and mangling unoffending Christians. Oh God! it is no wonder that the Right Rev. Dr. O'Connell exclaimed, in the first stanza, that when he called to mind the cruel deeds "My heart within my breast is torn," "bjon mo crosòse a' mo ¿ljab d a reubad.” These are words for which the English language does not afford a sufficiently strong translation. Leland and Warner state, "a gentlewoman big with child was hanged, with others, by order of Sir Charles Coote." For other more sanguinary perpetrations, see Carte's "Ormond," vol. iii. p. 51. We feel our flesh creep at the mere narration of the following fact, from the above work: "Sir William St. Leger, ordered, among others, a woman great with child to be ripped up, from whose womb three babes were taken out, through every part of whose little bodies his soldiers thrust their weapons." History has no parallel for the above. It needs no comment-" ex uno disce omnes." Nero was harmless, compared to St. Leger and the Cromwellian furies. Yet to some of such fiends Lord Ormond gave relief and supplies, as we already showed from Carte's "Ormond." He offered to extirpate the Papists if the Lords Justices would only empower him. What a man he was in whom Catholics were called upon by Bishop Dease, of Meath, Secretary Beling, and Father Walsh to place confidence. The result proved that no reliance should be reposed either in any of the faithless Stuart family, nor in Ormond.-See Carte's "Ormond," vol. ii. p. 301, wherein it is expressly written, that they who had murdered Charles I., had the greatest share in the plunder of the property and lands of the Irish nobles who supported royalty. The rapacious Ormond was deeply concerned in the plunder. He was a comparative beggar, worth about £7000, annually, upon his appointment to the viceroyalty, and when peace was restored he could count £80,000 a-year. The regicides were confirmed in their XCVI. Is jada so do rinne' concuest Éireann, XCVII. Ni naċ measfasd dójb do déanaṁ, Is tiġearnua na Mide bud mór féile. ill-gotten plunder, and insane Irish loyal slaves were treated as they deserved; as the immortal O'Connell, in his “Memoirs,” said of the garrison of Drogheda. In all the eloquent remarks of that illustrious champion of Ireland he speaks with pity, if not with contempt of the mistaken loyalty of Irish Catholics in those eventful days. Throughout his work we could plainly see that, had he lived in Inchiquin's time, he would think himself contaminated by any connexion with that apostate Catholic. In these days, in which we write, we hear misguided persons led away with the notion, that if England be not supported in her present difficulty-we might add, in her dangerous position-our country will be overrun by the Russians. Our own opinion is, that bad as the late Emperor of Russia was, our condition could not be within a hundred-fold as bad as it was in the days of the Charleys, Elizabeth, and Cromwell, not excepting Mary. Even Satan on the throne, matters could not be more terrible, nor could his black majesty have enacted bloodier laws than did England to establish her domination in this country.-See Curry's "Review of the Civil Wars," p. 392, et passim. In 1652, the 27th of Elizabeth was ordered to be most strictly put into execution in Ireland. Every Romish priest was deemed guilty of rebellion, and sentenced to be hanged until he was half-dead, then to have his head taken off, and his body cut in quarters, his bowels to be drawn and burned, and his head fixed upon a pole in some public place.-See above work and page. The same penalty against any one who harboured a priest (see as before). Curry, in pp. 393-4, states that five pounds were set on the head of a Romish priest as on that of a wolf, and this was the act of the Commissioners, who were the law and the Parliament. Thousands of thousands who were seduced to surrender, under pretext of protection being XCVI. It was these who made a conquest of Erin, And from the Giants' Causeway to Berehaven. XCVII. A thing that would not be thought of them to do, And the Lord of Meath that was of great generosity. afforded them, were massacred whilst under protection. Such protection as vultures give to lambs-covering and devouring them!!! Morrison, in p. 14, "Threnodia," says "Neither Israelites were more cruelly persecuted by Pharaoh, nor the innocent infants by Herod, nor the Christians by Nero, or any other of the Pagan tyrants than were the Roman Catholics of Ireland at that fatal juncture of these savage Commissioners." The few emaciated beings that outlived the carnage were ordered into Clare, Galway and Mayo, and any of them found out of that might be shot by the first person who saw the straggler.-" Clarendon's Life," vol. xi. p. 106. We regret we cannot give the passage at length. Broudin says"that not less than 100,000 were transported from their native land, several thousands of whom were sent to Jamaica, and the other West India Islands-many sold as slaves." In 1652, the Earl of Clanricarde left Ireland, as did Murtough O'Brien, the last of the Irish commanders. "Twenty-seven thousand men had been sent away by Cromwell.-Dalrymple's "Memoirs of Great Britain," vol i. part 2, p. 267. Several of the Protestant writers above cited, assert that, after a few years not more than twenty families of all those who were sold into Jamaica survived-that thousands perished on their voyage. See note, page 91. STANZA XCVI. a We have seen another copy of this poem that has convinced us, that this stanza xcv. alludes to William's times, when red ruin blazed "From Inisboffin to the Hill of Howth, From the Giants' Causeway to Cape Clear." These were rallying words of the great O'Connell, the fifth in descent after our bard. This evidently proves, that the poem was written at the XCVIII. Barruj óga is Barraiż aesda, 'S an Róisteaċ flajċeaṁujl naċ d-tug éjċeaċ close of the seventeenth century, perhaps about 1690. The reader will have observed the Bard does not say a word about James II. He dared not do so in the state of affairs, much less could he do it in the time of Anne, even if the poem were then penned, but we are certain it was not. Moreover, he thought Ireland had enough of the faithless Stuart dynasty. So said the Liberator himself, in his " Memoir of English Atrocities." The Bishop alludes, in this last verse, chiefly to the forfeitures in Munster and part of Leinster. He left to other poets to record the losses of their localities. STANZA XCVII. a The old English of a peaceful disposition. The poet expresses his surprise, that at least these unoffending parties, who took no part in the wars, were not saved from the general ruin. The poet calls them sean gall, old foreigners, that is of long standing, as having been in Ireland since the close of the twelfth century. The Irish peeple called every stranger, no matter from what country, gall. In the second century of the Christian era the continental auxiliaries of Eugene the Great, including the Spanish prince, brother of Beire, who was married to Eugene, that landed in the west of Connaught to make war on Conn of the Hundred Battles, were the first who were called gall, Galli, “Gauls," to distinguish them from the "Gael," Irish. The poet thought the unoffending old English families, who were certainly kind, good, charitable, and devout, would be left unmolested by their countrymen. All the families mentioned in these two following stanzas were of that class, and, as being Catholics, they were proscribed, and most of them left the country. A small book, written in Italian, which once fell into our hands, gives an account of ten thousand men, a corps composed chiefly of Irish, in the Austrian service, and commanded by the Irish Colonel, O'Deasy, having defeated thirty thousand Tartars in full march upon Vienna, in or about 1685. In attestation of the bravery of the Irish and their chief, the writer remarks-"These were men who needed the rein more than the spur." They routed the Tartars with immense slaughter. For other distinguished names see J. C. O'Callaghan's splendid work on the "Irish Brigade." |