The Charm Of Ireland Part 39

The relief of the Maiden City was followed by the complete defeat of the royal army before Enniskillen, and no further attempt was made to subjugate the north of Ireland. James took up headquarters at Dublin, and every nerve was strained to recruit an army capable of withstanding the one which William was certain to bring into Ireland. The king of France sent seven thousand veterans, with a park of artillery and large stores of arms and ammunition, every device of religious and racial hatred was employed to persuade Irishmen to enlist; so that when, on June 30, 1690, the Protestant and Catholic armies stood facing each other on either side Boyne River, a few miles above Drogheda, the Protestants had no very great numerical advantage. In discipline and general efficiency, however, their advantage was immense, and the odds against James were so great that it was folly for him to risk a battle; but he could not make up his mind what to do, and in consequence, when William threw his troops across the river, he caught the Irish unprepared, and defeated them after a brisk engagement.

James was the first to gallop from the field. He reached Dublin that night, s.n.a.t.c.hed a few hours' rest, and then pressed on to Waterford, where he took ship for France. Deprived of their cowardly leader, and perhaps with some comprehension of how they had been betrayed, the Irish would have been glad to lay down their arms on terms of a general amnesty, which William, for his part, was willing to grant. But the English settlers intervened. They had been compelled to restore to the Irish a third of the estates which the Commonwealth had confiscated; there were thousands of other fertile acres which the settlers coveted; and, as a result of their influence, the amnesty, when finally published, was confined to the tenant and the landless man. In consequence, the Irish army was held together by Tyrconnell and Sarsfield, and the rebellion did not end until Athlone, Cork, Kinsale, Limerick, and finally Galway had been captured by the English. The Irish troops were permitted to go to France and enlist in the king's army, as has been told already; and so ended the hope of placing a Catholic monarch on the English throne. So ended, too, for more than two centuries, Catholic liberty in Ireland.

It is this Protestant triumph which is so dear to Ulster, and which the walls of Derry have been preserved to commemorate. Their preservation is a great inconvenience to the inhabitants of that town, but any one who proposed to remove them would be treated as a traitor. They circle the steep hill upon which the oldest part of the town is built, and when one wishes to enter it, one must go around to one of the gates. There are seven gates, now, instead of the original four; but it takes quite a walk, sometimes, to get to one, for the walls are something over a mile around. But no patriotic resident would think of objecting to this--indeed, the walk gives him time to meditate upon his city's glory and to thank the Lord that he was born there. I suspect that the Catholics of Derry are just as proud of the walls as the Protestants are.

It so happened that there was a gate not far from our hotel, so we pa.s.sed through it, and found ourselves confronted by one of the steepest streets I have ever seen. The hill on which the old citadel was built slopes very abruptly on this side toward the river, and no attempt has been made to cut it down. We managed to climb it, and came out upon the so-called Diamond--the square at the centre of the town where the old town hall once stood, but which has now, to quote Murray, "been converted into a pleasant garden by the London Companies." For it should be remembered that the grant made to the London Companies three hundred years ago is still in force.

The Diamond is the heart of the town, and from it four arteries radiate, running to the four original gates; other smaller streets zig-zag away in various directions, and everywhere is the vigorous flow of life and trade. The shops are bright and attractive, and that evening crowds of girls, freed from the day's labour in the factories, were loitering past them, arm in arm, staring in at the windows and chattering among themselves. They were distinctly livelier than the factory girls of Athlone, and I judge that life is easier for them and that they are better paid.

We walked about for a long time, and then, for want of something better to do, went to a moving-picture show. I have forgotten all the pictures but two--a meeting of the Knights of the Garter at Windsor and a review of a body of English cavalry. In the former, King George and Queen Mary twice pa.s.sed slowly before the audience; in the latter, the king, on a spirited horse, cantered down the field and then took his station in the foreground while his troops galloped past. It was a stirring scene; but the audience watched it in stony, almost breathless silence, without the shadow of applause--and this in "loyal Derry"! I am inclined to think that, with reference to England, the north of Ireland and the south of Ireland are "sisters under their skins."

We had been wondering, during the final reel, how we were going to find our way back to the hotel through the dark and unfamiliar streets, for it was nearly ten o'clock; and we came out into them with a start of astonishment, for it was still quite light, with the street lights not yet on. So we loitered about for half an hour longer; and then, from the balcony in front of our window, sat watching for an hour more the fascinating life flowing past below us.

One feature of it was a boy quartette,--one of the boys with a clear, high soprano voice,--which sang very sweetly, "It's a long way to Tipperary"; and then, just as we began to think everybody had gone to bed, there came a blast of martial music down the street, and the tramp of feet, and a company of men swung past, going heaven knows where; but the fife-and-drum corps which marched at their head was making the windows rattle with

"The Maiden on her throne, boys, shall be a Maiden still!"

It was the first of many such processions we were to see during our remaining weeks in Ireland.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE GRAINAN OF AILEACH

DERRY has a charm--the charm of the hive--for it is a busy town, and a cheerful one. It is only on mooted anniversaries, I fancy, or when some fire-brand politician comes to town, that the Protestants and Catholics amuse themselves by breaking each other's heads. At other times they must work amicably side by side. At least, I saw n.o.body idle; and Catholics and Protestants alike were plainly infected by the same spirit of hustle.

The cause of the difference between the north and south of Ireland has been hotly debated for a hundred years. Why is the north energetic and prosperous, while the south is lazy and poverty-stricken? Some say it is the difference in climate, others the difference in religion.

I could perceive no great difference in the climate, and as for religion--strange as it may seem to those who think of Ulster only in the light of Orange manifestoes--there are almost as many Catholics as Protestants in the north of Ireland. My own opinion is that the Celt is easy-going in the south and industrious in the north because of the environment. "Canny" is undoubtedly the best of all adjectives to apply to the Scotch--they are congenitally thrifty and industrious. The Celt, on the other hand, is congenitally easy-going and unambitious. Left to himself, among his own people, weighted with centuries of repression, he falls into a lethargy from which it is impossible to awaken him--from which, I sometimes think, he will never be awakened. But put him in another environment, and he soon catches its spirit. At least, his children catch it, and their children are confirmed in it--and there you are. Put them back in the old environment, and in another generation or two they will have slipped back into the old habits of carelessness and improvidence. This, it seems to me, is the Irishman's history not only in the north of Ireland, but here in America. He is adaptable, impressionable, and plastic.

It would be absurd for any one to go to Derry without making a circuit of the walls, and this we proceeded to do next morning. We mounted them at the New Gate, where they are at least twenty-five feet high. There is a promenade on top about fifteen feet wide, and along the outer edge the old cannon given by the London companies still frown down through the embrasures of the battlement. Outside the wall there was originally a moat, but this has disappeared, and so have many of the old bastions. A few of them still remain--the double bastion where the fruitful gallows stood, and from which the noisy old gun, affectionately christened "Roaring Meg," still points out over the town. And back of the cathedral, the old wall stands as it stood during the siege, with its high protecting parapet, crowned with little loop-holed turrets.

The cathedral itself is a quaint, squat structure, with pinnacled tower, standing in the midst of a crowded graveyard, the most prominent object in which is an obelisk erected over the bodies of those who fell in the siege. The inscription, as is fitting, is long and eloquent. The church itself is comparatively modern and uninteresting, but it is filled with trophies of the siege--a bomb-sh.e.l.l containing a summons to surrender which fell in the cathedral yard, the flags taken from the French during a sally, memorials of the Rev. Mr. Walker, and so on. It is still called after St. Columba, although the abbey built by the Saint stood outside the present walls.

A little distance past the cathedral is another bastion which has been turned into a foundation for the great monument to Walker--a fluted column ninety feet high, surmounted by a statue of the hero, his Bible in one hand. Time was when he held a sword in the other, but legend has it that the sword fell with a crash on the day that O'Connell won Catholic emanc.i.p.ation for Ireland.

A fierce controversy has raged about the part Walker really played in the siege; and it is probable that he at least shared the honours with Murray and Baker. However that may be, he must have been an inspiring figure, as he walked about the walls, with his white hair and impa.s.sioned face and commanding vigour--a vigour which his seventy-two years seem nowise to have impaired; and his end was inspiring, too, for he did not rest quietly at home, content with his laurels, as most men would have done. Instead, he joined William's army, was in the forefront at the Battle of the Boyne, and managed to get killed there while exhorting the troops to do their duty.

The town of Derry has long since outgrown the old walls, but there is little else worth seeing there, unless one is interested in a busy port, or in humming factories, or rumbling mills, or clattering foundries. Of these there is full store. But a few miles to the west, on the summit of a hill looking down upon Lough Sw.i.l.l.y, is the cashel which was once the stronghold of the Kings of Ulster, and for it I set out that afternoon.

Murray, with that vagueness delightful in the Irish but exasperating in a guide-book, remarks that "it can be reached from Bridge End Station on the Buncrana line," so I proceeded to the station of the Buncrana line on the outskirts of the town, and bought a ticket to Bridge End Station.

The ticket seller had apparently never heard of the Grainan of Aileach, as the cashel is called, and seemed rather to doubt if such a thing existed at all; but I determined to trust to luck, and took my seat in the little train which presently backed in along the platform.

The Buncrana line is, I judge, a small affair; at any rate, the train was very primitive, and the two men who shared the compartment with me complained bitterly of the poor service the railroads give the people of Ireland. They said it was a shame and a disgrace, and that no free people would put up with the insults and ignominy which the railroads heap upon the Irish, and much more to the same effect. I had heard this complaint before and have read it in more than one book; but I never had any real cause of complaint myself. Beyond a tendency to let the pa.s.sengers look out for themselves, the guards are as courteous as guards anywhere; and only once, on the occasion of the race-meeting at Charleville, did we suffer from crowding. This was not because we travelled first, because we didn't--we travelled second; and when I was alone, I always travelled third, as I would advise any one to do who wishes really to meet the people.

Bridge End Station is only a few minutes' run from Derry, and when I got off there, I asked the man who took my ticket if he could direct me to the cashel.

"I can," he said; "but it is a long way from here, and a stiff climb. Do you see that hill yonder?" and he pointed to a lofty peak some miles away. "It is there you will find the fort, right on the very top."

"Have you ever been there?" I asked.

"I have not, though I'm thinking I will go some day, for them that have seen it tell me it is a wonderful sight. But 'tis a long walk."

"Well, I'm going to try for it," I said, and hitched my camera under my arm. "How do I start?"

"By that road yonder; and turn to your right at the village. Good luck to you, sir."

I could see he didn't really believe I would get to the cashel; but I set off happily along the road, between high hedges; and presently I pa.s.sed a village, and turned to the right, as he had told me; and then two barefooted children caught up with me, on their way home from school. They knew the way to the cashel very well, though they had never been there either; and presently they left me and struck off across the fields; and then I came to a place where the road forked, and stopped to ask a man who was wheeling manure from a big stable which way to go. He too was astonished that any one should start off so carelessly on such an expedition; but he directed me up a narrow by-way, which soon began to climb steeply; and then the valley beneath me opened more and more, and finally I saw to my right the summit I was aiming for, and struck boldly toward it along a boggy path.

The path led me to the rear of a thatched cottage, where two men were stacking hay. They a.s.sured me that I was on the right road, and I pushed on again for the summit, past another little house, from which a man suddenly emerged and hailed me.

"Where be you going?" he demanded.

"To the fort," I said. "It's up this way, isn't it?"

"It might be."

"Am I trespa.s.sing?" I asked, for there seemed to be an unfriendly air about him.

"You are so," he answered.

"I'm sorry," I stammered; "if there's another way--"

"There is no other way."

"Well, then, I'll have to go this way," I said. "I'll not do any harm."

"That's as may be. You must pay three-pence if you wish to pa.s.s."

I paid the three-pence rather than waste time in argument, which, of course, wouldn't have done any good; and his countenance became distinctly more pleasant when the pennies were in his hand, and he directed me how to go; and I started up again, over springy heather now, along a high wall of stones gathered from the field; and then the ground grew wet and boggy, just as it is on the mountains of Connemara, and I had to make a detour--the man who directed me, probably thought nothing of a little bog! A ploughman in a neighbouring field stopped work to watch me with interest until I pa.s.sed from sight, and two red calves also came close to investigate the stranger; and then I crested the last ridge and saw towering before me the stronghold where Owen, son of Nial the Great, established himself to rule over his province, Tyrone.

For a moment I was fairly startled at the huge apparition, grey and solitary and impressive, for I had expected no such monster edifice--a cyclopean circle of stone, looking like the handiwork of some race of giants, three hundred feet around and eighteen feet high, with a wall fourteen feet in thickness!

The outer face of the wall is inclined slightly inwards, and is very smooth and regular. It is made of flat, hammer-dressed stones of various sizes, carefully fitted together, but uncemented, as with all these old forts. The stones are for the most part quite small, very different from the great blocks used in the other cashels I had seen. There is a single entrance, a doorway some five feet high by two wide, slightly inclined inward toward the top, and looking very tiny indeed in that great stretch of wall; and then my heart stood still with dismay, for there was an iron gate across the entrance, and I thought for a moment that it was locked. With a sigh of relief I found that the padlock which held it was not snapped shut, and I opened it and entered.

It was as though I had stepped into some old Roman amphitheatre, for the terraces which run around it from top to bottom have the appearance of tiers of seats. They mount one above the other to the narrow platform at the top, which is guarded by a low parapet. Two flights of steps run up the slope, but an active man would have no need of them. On either side of the entrance door a gallery runs away in the thickness of the wall, opening some distance away on the interior, and designed, I suppose, to enable an extra force to defend the entrance.

Of the castle which once stood within that stone circle not a trace remains, and the circle itself, as it stands to-day, is largely a restoration, for Murtagh O'Brien captured it in 1101 and did his best to destroy it, and the storms of the centuries that followed beat it down stone by stone. But these fragments have all been gathered up and put back into place, so that the great fort stands to-day much as it did in the days of its glory, except that the outworks of earth and stone which formed the first lines of defence, have disappeared. The cashel was to this great fortification what the donjon tower was to the later Norman castle--the ultimate place of refuge for the garrison.

"Grainan" means a royal seat, and "Aileach," so say the Four Masters of Donegal, was a Scotch princess, "modest and blooming," who lost her heart to Owen of the Hy-Nial, and followed him back to Erin. After the division of the north of Ireland with his brother Connell, he set up his palace here--Connell's you will remember was at Donegal--and so this became the royal seat of the rulers of Tyrone. Hither came St. Patrick to baptise Owen and his family; hither came St. Columba before his exile to Iona; hither captive Danes were dragged in triumph. But at last Murtagh O'Brien, King of Munster, led a great raid to the north, and defeated the army of Tyrone and captured the mighty fortress, and made each of his soldiers carry away a stone of it in token of his triumph.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WALLS OF DERRY]