AN UNKNOWN COUNTRY.

Otago Witness, Issue 1843, 18 March 1887, Page 34

AN UNKNOWN COUNTRY.

.-_ ..-O; r ' SOME NOTES ON A VISIT TO IRELAND. A OHTJEOH IN.-ANTEIM. The Irish OHureh, instead of suffering, has , actually benefited by Disestablishment, since " k the. cessation of state enpport has turned i ' towards it the > thoughful benevolence of : laymen and landowners. Also, the Catholic

>. priesthood of the north of Ireland are gene-rally-of a [superior class, and the Catholic • population fully as trustworthy as the Pro- ,-< teatanta. , , Sometimes .more so, since* they t have. less of theological .bitterness than the descendants of the Scottish' immigrants, l- who were chiefly the narrowest type of Pres- _ } byterians. ,_.'.„'•, , ."I have eat' for .fifteen years in your church, sir," aaid a parishioner of this kind, giving notice that he meant to quit it. "And , all that time I never heard you preaoh a single Protestant sermon." , • That is, a sermon which not merely attests . one's own faith, :but protests against the faith of everybody who thinks differently— which is a very general interpretation of the • word "Protestant"— rmaking the most conscientious of us feeii sometimes as if we , would rather be Catholics.' "It was said of old, 1 Thou shalt love thy . neighbour and hate thine enemy. But I say :unto you — " Do the good Protestants of , .Ireland ever pause to remember what He - said? Antrim Church dates from the fifteenth century, but glass window over the grand , pcw — Lord Massereene's — must be older even . than that. No one, knows how it came there. It is entirely of those pale colours •whioh belong to the earliest form of coloured glass; and divided into two parts, one repregenting the Virgin with saints, the other the , death of John the: Baptist, who has the comfortable expression peculiar to most medicQvally-paiuted martyrs. The daughter of . Herodias stands beside him with her charger; in the distance is seen Herod at his - banquet. The little church has another curiosity. ..Its silver communion plate, flagon, paten, { and chalice are inscribed, " The gift of Madam Abigail Parnell to ye Parish of Antrim, a.d. 1701.". And in the old register book is the record, " Abigail Parnell, buried 1715." But the grave of this excellent woman — for local tradition reports her to have been really an excellent woman — is altogether lost. No stone marks it, no one knows where it is. Could not her. " dear distant descendant," world- , known now, spare a few hours of his time, and a' few pounds of his money, to save from total obilvion the name of his paternal • grandmother, Abigail Parnell ? . . . . AN ENLIGHTENED CLEEGYMAN. - In England all shades of opinion are mixed up wholesomely together. The more phlegraatio Saxon may differ from his neighbour at the polling booth, or regret that he goes to another church, perhaps no church at all ; so much so that he might not like the said neighbour being intimate with his fAmily, or . marrying his daughter. But he meets him at dinner-parties, and in railway trains, and , interchanges social amenities with him with- • out the slightest hesitation. He does not think it necessary to knock a man down for presuming to differ from himself as to the • government of their common country, or to condemn him to eternal perdition for wishing to enter heaven by another road than his own. But in Ireland — alas 1 alas 1 However, even there there are some calmminded, sweetnatured Christian men of all parties, who dare to hold the balance even and drop the line of social demaracation, which in most cases is drawn sharp as if made of swords. 11 1 would not contradict Mr Blank, for he means well, and he does not like contradiction," said to me one of these, when I had been listening, mentally engaged the while in the interesting process of dividing truth from imagination, to an energetic Orangeman who, apropos of the Belfast troubles, had given me a long account of other riots long ago, which I had never heard of. " But it is only fair to explain to you that the Catholics, not the Protestants, began those disturbances, and that afterwards, to my certain knowledge, several benevolent Catholic families joined together to recompense the

sufferers." " And how do you, with your wide ex-

perience, judge between Catholics and Protestants?" He smiled — the large-hearted smile of a just and good man. "I do not judge at all, I merely act. Ido my best for all. As a rule I find my Catholic neighbours quite as easy to live beside as the ProtestantSi They often send for me when they are sick or dying, and I always go. The priest and I are very good friends — in matters of charity we often work into one another's hands. Why not 1 " Why not,. indeed 1 If it were oftener so, how much .better for poor Ireland ! IRELAND'S PEOPLEB. English people never can understand that Ireland is peopled by two races. Nay, by several races, as distinct from one another as 1 the Cornishman or East Anglian is from the Northumbrian or the Lowland Scot. So that vox populi by no means implies a combined voice, and the phrase " So Irish ! "—alas, too often an opprobrious adjective — includes types of character as opposite as the poles. Here, -for "instance, on this Antrim 'coast, which was populated almost entirely by immigration from Scotland, the faces, the manners, nay, the very accent, were so strongly Scotch that it was difficult to believe one's self on the western, rather than the eastern, shore' of the Irish Channel. ' Still more difficult— except when one thought of the Covenanters, whose blood, traceable through generations, yet lingers here, was it to realise that an industrious, well-to-do, thriving, peaceful population, should give way to such a Cain-and-Abel - madness. Which yet had a sort of prudent method in it — for a friend told us, laughing at our fears, that Belfast was " quite quiet in the daytime " ; that the gentlemen went up to business, and the ladies ,to do their shopping, only taking care to come away before 6 p.m., *• when the fighting began." It was extraordinary how little living on the Spot

seemed to trouble themselves about ft state of things which had 1 seemed so, dreadful to us at a distance. • ' " We'll not talk about' it, since we can't mend it," was the wise though sad conclusion that we came to on this heavenly 'dayj J when, as tee drove through the -sleepy little town of Antrim, -it seemed' liardly possible to believe there was a beginning,, within fifteen miles of us, that civil war -which, English newspapers . declared, was - already inevit* able. ' • ■ • " - ; ■ -< •• J • . ? !- SfiANBS OA9TLB, •: • "•" v' •*We' dp not get- too many such" days in Ireland-^even 'in-'flammer"(it wasttie 17th of August, I "' but 'seemeel- full' "summer- still). " Let us not waste" an -' hour, 'but go direct to Shanes Castle,"- ' ">l J -- ' - ;' : My friends seemed to think I knew all about that place, but in truth I was in a state of. total ignorance concerning 'Shanes ! Castle and the great Irish chieftains, the j O'Neills, to whopa it belonged. I had never even- heard of the first O'Neill, the Red Hand of Ulster — who; colonising that country by the usual means — invasion, heard his Viking , leader say that it should belong- to the first man who ' " touched land," and < accordingly out off his own left hand and flung it ashore. The descendants' of this hardy if rather savage gentleman still 'live in the' desirable modern mansion, which has replaced the original Shanes Castle, as well as the second one, destroyed by fire in 1816. They are " excellent people," I was .told, fulfilling all their social and domestic 'duties, muoh respected in the country, -and having nothing of the wild O'Neills of old except the blood arid the name.

A wild race, indeed, these must have been, and their doings and sufferings fill an important page in Irish history. I shall not attempt to lift it. Perhaps there is no civilised country except "Italy, in which are kept up as in Ireland the vendettas of generations, and decent, respectable, modern men and women "work themselves up into hurricanes of rage over the wrongs of their great-great-grandfathers •" centuries ago. ■To the phlegmatic Saxon all this seems very foolish, and yet — Well, I must not enter on this subject, Let the O'Neills sleep I—as1 — as they do, very soundly, in a netfcle-and bramble-covered old burial-place, to which we^came by a green avenue, seven '"miles long. ' "Shanes Castle is said to be the" finest " place " in Ireland — except the Marquis of Waterfofd's seat, Curraghmore. Such' masses of underwood, of flowering shrubs growing half wild, and of majestic forest trees— Nature semi-culbi-vated. But in the burial-ground Nature was left all to herself—too much to herself, perhaps— for it was rather sad to have to scramble through a wilderness of thorns and briars, and broken head-stones, in order to read one of the latest inscriptions :

This vault was built by Shane Mcßrlen MoPhelln MoShane Mcßrien MoPholim O'Neill, Esq , in the year 1722, for a burial-place to himself and family of Clanneboye.

Doubtless meant for Clandeboye — the early home of the present Lord Dufferin, near Holywood, Belfast, who has made himself much more noted than his name. But how that worthy " Esquire," who put his whole pedigree into his name, must have clung to his ancestral home, and planned for himself and his descendants this gloomy tomb 1 where he and they are alike deserted and forgotten — for the present O'Neills bury their dead elsewhere. Still, could not they, who have made a neighbouring garden, called the Rockery, into a perfect Eden of beauty, spare a little thought, time, and money to clear away the weeds from over their deceased ancestors 7 It matters little, of course ; we shall all sleep sound under any coverlet ; yet if I were an O'Neill I should not like to see those nettles growing rampant over my forefathers' bones.

Scarcely a stone's throw from this gloomy place we came out suddenly upon the glittering expanse of Lough Neagh,' the largest lake in the three kingdoms, twenty miles long by fifteen broad, loooking like an inland sea. Not a ship or a boat of any sort dotted its vast smooth surface; its long level shores — for there is not a mountain near — added to the sense of silent, smiling, contented desolation.

" See how we Irish throw away our blessings," said my companion, as we stood looking at the lovely sight. "In England .such a splendid sheet of water would have been utilised in many ways, arid made a centre of both business and pleasure. Factories would have sprung up along its shores, yachts, steamers, fishing-boats, would have covered it from end to end. Now, Moore's solitary fisherman, who is supposed to stray on its banks - • At the clear cold eve's declining '— (probably bent on catching pullau, the only fish attainable here) — might easily imagine he saw 1 The round towers of other days, In the wave beneath him shining.' .- " But did he ? " I was foolish enough .to ask ; because most fiction has a grain of fact at its core. " Was there ever anything curious seen at the 'bottom of Lough Neagh 1 » - " I have dredged it from end to end, and found many submarine curiosities, but never a round tower or a king's palace 1 •■ Bventhe fossilising power whichjs said to be in its waters, I believe lies not in .the lake itself, but in one_ of its tributaries,. the Crumlin nver, which has probably the same petrifying., and preserving, qualities that exist in bog. At. any rate $he fossil wood,. which is often found in the Lough, is extremely beautiful." " "And there is really no re.cord of submerged cities?" said I, still craving after my pleasant fiction. ; " The. waters , must cover such an enormous surface, which was dry land once." " Certainly. It is said that about a.d. 100 the river Barm overflowed, and drowned a prince of Ulster with all his kingdom. Or, if you prefer it, your own Caxton declared that the prince and his people, .being 'men of evyle lyvinge,' opened a holy well which was always kept closed. , A woman went to draw water with her child, ;the child cried, she rap. to it, leaving the well uncovered, when up welled the waters, destroying the whole country-- including the -woman and

child. This is said to have happened A.D. 65. So you 'can choose, between -two coni ■flioting dates and traditions, and please yourself, as you mostly can in -all histories. But here's an undeniable 'fact ' the Castle."

i Not the original fortress, built by the 'first ! O'Neill on the shores of Lough Neagh, with the good right hand yet left to him, but the half-modern, half-mediseval one which was burnt to the ground as late as 1816. Its ruins,"' picturesque and . ivyigrown, r showed what «. fine building it must have-been, li iwaa '.shown " Lord O.'NeilTs safe "^-'a'ibrt of cupboard in the enormously thick wall-^till left standing in what had. been ani upper room.\ : Alao'-the black stone, 'once a carved head, fixed in the outer masonry, to which dings a tradition that when it fall* the family of .O'Neill will end.

Of course they have a Banshee— air real old Irish families have. Not t£e modern Anglo-Irish, who cam© over with Edmund Spenser, Oliver Cromwell, or. King James, but the true Celts. " A friend, whose uncle was present at the burning of Shanes Castle, told me the story of it. Lord O'Neill — a bachelor— had a party of gay bachelor friends dining with him. In the midst of their jollifications fire broke out in a distant room. Nobody minded it much at first— nobody doea mind evil in Ireland till too late to mend it — and then they inquired for the fire-engine. It had been carried off that very day a dozen miles to destroy a wasp's nest in a cottage roof 1 So there was nothing for it but to remove the pictures, furniture, and valuables— or as much of them as they could— and let the castle born. Lord O'Neill and his companions, who must have been pretty sober now, sat on an old box and watched it burn. With the Lough and its waters only a few yards off they yet. could do nothing, unless it was to ouree their, own folly in letting go the only means of safety — the fire-engine. While they sat, 1 helplessly gazing, my friend's uncle always declared he saw, and several .of the other guests affirmed the ; same, a female figure, all in white, stand, wringing her hands, and then pass .and repaas from window to window of the burning house, in which they were certain there was no living .creature. Of course it was the Banshee of the O'Neills.

After this, no one attempted to rebuild the old castle, but a new one was planned close by, its foundation being made of the enormous underground passages found in many ancient fortresses ; probably meant first as refuges in war-time, and then as rooms for the servants, who must have been treated little better than serfs, or brute beasts. " , . There are. yet living, I was told, persons who remember what their grandparents have said about the manners and customs in these Bplendid aoodesj Shanes Castle and Antrim Castle; how that the under-servahts were never allowed to appear, these tunnel-like places being made that they, might get out to the town or elsewhere, unobserved by their superiors. -

Doubtless, the lower class were not pleasant to look at theu- no more than they are now to " your honour " and " her ladyship." The great gulf between gentry and commonalty is a relic of those barbaric days, which seem less distant here than they do in England, where the constant immigration of other races has brought about a wider civilisation. One can hardly enter into the mind of that Lord O'Neill, who, when his castle was burnt, made these underground vaults, dark, damp, and unwholesome, for his servants — planning for himself an enormous kitchen, dining-ball, and reception-room the walls of which still stand, up to the window-ledges. There money failed, the building was stopped* the builder died. His wiser heir has converted the old lord's Btables into-a comfort* able modern house, further inland, and left both castles, the ruined old one and the never-finished new one, to moulder away in picturesque peace on the shores of lovely Lough Neagh. — Leisure Hour.