NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 35, 7 September 1922, Page 26

NOTES

The Women of Erin v ' Mrs. Concannon has laid us under a deep obligation, by giving us a most delightful book about Irish-. women of all ages and of all classes. There is no other book in the world like Daughters of Bwiba. Only on reading it have we realised what a vacancy it has filled^' We know of old that she can write; we know what infinite charm and pathos she-put into her Women of ,'98.; we know, that her soul is drenched in Gaelic learning and inspired by passionate love for Ireland; but it needed : Daughters of Banla to teach us how all these could be put into one book, to enchant, to elevate, to edify the sons and daughters of the women of Ireland all over the world. Her book is a book of patriotism its pages are prose poems that tell of lives and of examples that left the whole world better; it contains the secret of the mystery of Ireland's wonderful survival, of Ireland's immortal vitality, of Ireland's faithfulness to the faith; for it tells us what manner of women were they who reared the sons who died for the faith, or for Ireland /which as a rule meant the same thing. In the making of her book she has ; drawn lovingly on the wealth of Irish legend, Irish history and Irish poetry; and she has created a literary gem more enchanting than any romance. But no .ro- ~. mance is in it at all,. but the wonderful, stimulating,, inspiring truth about the women of ancient Ireland, about the saints of Ireland, about the mothers of Ireland, about the warrior-women of Ireland, and about the women who moved Irishmen to write the haunting, deathless love songrs which surpass any similar songs ever sung on earth. Irish Names Her book opens with a few thoughts about old Irish names of women. We quote the passage, for it is a sample of what is to follow: ,' , "If hardly heard''in the melodious speech of the Blessed Damosel, the ' virginal chaste names ' of the five handmaidens of the Lady Mary in the Paradisal Groves '.•'•. . are .five sweet symphonies " 'Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalene, Margaret and Eosalys,' the names with which the Old Irish crowned the beauty of their women are veritable pictures. Fionnghuala, Finabhair, Blathnait, Muirgeal,—the cadenced syllables fall musical enough on ears to which they are but sounds. But to the Understanding Gael the music, is less than the picture. As he hears them there come forth for him from the high burial cairns (where they have been dust for nearly two thousand years) clad' again in their blonde, blossom-like, foam-bright beauty, the Princesses who wore them as part of their own loveliness. Etain comes once more from fairyland, and stands again by the edge of the well in the forest,. where in the lovely morning-tide, centuries ago, King Eochaid finding her, gave her his love for ever: ' She stood at the edge of the well, combing her hair with a bright silver comb adorned with gold. The hue of her hair was like the flower of the iris in summer, or like .red gold after burnishing. . . White as the snow .'■ of one night were her two hands, and red as the fox- • glove her. two fair cheeks. Blue as the hyacinth her , eyes.; Red as the rowan-berry her lips. The bright radiance: of the moon was in "her noble face; soft womanly dignity in her voice; her steos were stately and slow as the gait of a queen. Verilv of the world's women she was the dearest and loveliest and most perfect that the eye of man had ever beheld." "Dear and shapely," men said of , her, "are all.'women until i:-. Etain comes beside them." 'V ;, : '''.-■H : p':' : ' "It is very curious and interesting to observe that ; the old Gael, not content with defining the"' six gifts

of (womanhood and with, them -his; feminine ideal-— % ' so often chose the names of some of these gifts ; as the .' names of his women. In the old tale, The Wooing of].: timer, these gifts are set forth: the gift of beauty, .the.... ■ gift of voice, the gift of sweet speech, the gift of needlework, the gift of wisdom, the gift of chastity. A very ■ beautiful ideal 'is thus disclosed; and if it were not ' always realised, the fact does not detract from the honor it does to -our ancestors, who, while yet pagan, conceived it." ■• ■'.'.'■■.■•■'■•.".. '•;; ■• '''•-'■" 'ySaints --;■•,.': Of Brigid, Mrs. Concannon writes: "Broicsech's daughter was the first Abbess of Kildare, the head of a system founded on the twin principles of the essential dignity of pure womanhood, and the reverence men owe. '. to it. It cannot be too strongly insisted onand. our G-aelic ancestors for their part were never tired of insisting on it.that this tremendous social revolution was effected by a woman whose chief equipment for her task consisted in her chastity and her charity, . and. whose life was spent in a round of homeliest and low- 1 liest duties. That is the keynote to the rightful interpretation of the stories the Gael has gathered up about Brigid. He loved to take the whitest and purest ; things to symbolise her chastity whiteness of milk, the sheen of fire. Only the purest of food might nourish her pure body. Even the most sordid tilings were purified as by fire when she was near. The touch of her hand on the altar, whereat she made her vow of virginity, turned the dry wood into green.. Thus did the Gael bring home to himself the marvels of Brigid's chastity. As for her charity, he saw her exercise it unceasingly from the days when she helped her sick mother in the mountain dairy, and set aside ' the thirr teenth portion' of each churning (and that portion • greater than any of the others) for Christ, whom she saw in the person of ' every faithful guest.' It was because of her charity that God wrought miracles for • her. ' For every that Brigid would ask of the Lord was granted tq her at once. For this was her. desire: to satisfy the poor, to expel hardship, to spare . every miserable man.' ~ "A no less feminine role has been assigned to St. Ita in Gaelic tradition. Her charming task was that of fostering little boy-saints. Here again old Cuimmin of Conor crystallised the Gael's conception of her: ' My Ida loves a great fostering.' : Now it was her own nephew, St. Mocgoemoc, whom she reared and educated until he was of an age to start off with the 'Bell of his resurrection' in his hand to take up his studies for the priesthood in 'St. Comghall's great monastery of Bangor. Now it was little Brendan of Clonfert, whom Bishop Eric brought to her cell, a tiny year-old baby to be fostered in saintsliip. And sometimes, as the exquisite story has it, it was losagan Himself: ' • ' Jesukin Lives my little cell within: What were wealth of cleric hi oh— All is lie but Jesukin.' " There are beautiful chapters that tell of the women of the towns, of the women of the country, of the women of the castles, and a chapter steeped in tears that tells of the women in exile. ( But passing all these by, as pressure of space compels us, let. us end with a quotation on the women who were the mothers of Ireland's saints: " .) ; .' '■'■■% 'Si.l'.-''.D 'One does not know . whether it is the v art or the sincerity of the old Hadologists which makes these women seem to us' so lifelike. The misty centuries have no power to dim the living colors in which the portraits have been painted for us. When we see the face of Brigid (worn and lined with trouble, but beautiful with love) bending over her sleeping boy; or Eithne, voung and lovely in her sunny bower, grazing oh the flower face nestled against her. ; silken, robe; or : Cara listening with delight to the tales Ita has to tell

her of -Brendan’s angel-nurses or Cumne, lonely for her ! little lame boy,’ we feel that these indeed are real women who have lived, and worked, and suffered, and dreamed, under this dear Irish sky . of ours, in this land, which their sons’ dust has made the sacred place it is.” •. <XK> — : —