The Kiltartan History Book Part 2

THE MAN WAS GOING TO BE HANGED

"I saw O'Connell in Galway one time, and I couldn't get anear him. All the nations of the world were gathered there to see him. There were a great many he hung and a great many he got off from death, the dear man.

He went into a town one time, and into a hotel, and he asked for his dinner. And he had a frieze dress, for he was very simple, and always a clerk along with him. And when the dinner was served to him, 'Is there no one here,' says he, 'to sit along with me; for it is seldom I ever dined without company.' 'If you think myself good enough to sit with you,' says the man of the hotel, 'I will do it.' So the two of them sat to the dinner together, and O'Connell asked was there any news in the town. 'There is,' says the hotel man, 'there is a man to be hung to-morrow.' 'Oh, my!' says O'Connell, 'what was it he did to deserve that?' 'Himself and another that had been out fowling,' says he, 'and they came in here and they began to dispute, and the one of them killed the other, and he will be hung to-morrow.' 'He will not,' says O'Connell. 'I tell you he will,' says the other, 'for the Judge is come to give the sentence.' Well, O'Connell kept to it that he would not, and they made a bet, and the hotel man bet all he had on the man being hung.

In the morning O'Connell was in no hurry out of bed, and when the two of them walked into the Court, the Judge was after giving the sentence, and the man was to be hung. '_Maisead_,' says the judge when he saw O'Connell, 'I wish you had been here a half an hour ago, where there is a man going to be hung.' 'He is not,' says O'Connell. 'He is,' says the judge. 'If he is,' says O'Connell, 'that one will never let anyone go living out of his hotel, and he making money out of the hanging.' 'What do you mean saying that?' says the judge. Then O'Connell took the instrument out of his pocket where it was written down all the hotel-keeper had put on the hanging. And when the judge saw that, he set the man free, and he was not hanged."

THE CUP OF THE Sa.s.sANACH

"He was over in England one time, and he was brought to a party, and tea was made ready and cups. And as they were sitting at the table, a servant girl that was in it, and that was Irish, came to O'Connell and she said, 'Do you understand Irish?' [IRISH: 'An tuigeann tu Gaedilge, O'Connell?' 'Tuigim,'] says he, 'I understand it.' 'Have a care,' says she, 'for there is in your cup what would poison the whole nation!' 'If that is true, girl, you will get a good fortune,' said he. It was in Irish they said all that, and the people that were in it had no ears.

Then O'Connell quenched the candle, and he changed his cup for the cup of the man that was next him. And it was not long till the man fell dead. They were always trying to kill O'Connell, because he was a good man. The Sa.s.sanach it was were against him. Terrible wicked they were, and G.o.d save us, I believe they are every bit as wicked yet!"

THE THOUSAND FISHERS

"O'Connell came to Galway one time, and he sent for all the trades to come out with the sign of their trade in their hand, and he would see which was the best. And there came ten hundred fishers, having all white flannel clothes and black hats and white scarves about them, and he gave the sway to them. It wasn't a year after that, the half of them were lost, going through the fogs at Newfoundland, where they went for a better way of living."

WHAT THE OLD WOMEN SAW

"The greatest thing I ever saw was O'Connell driving through Gort, very plain, and an oiled cap on him, and having only one horse; and there was no house in Gort without his picture in it." "O'Connell rode up Crow Lane and to Church Street on a single horse, and he stopped there and took a view of Gort." "I saw O'Connell after he left Gort going on the road to Kinvara, and seven horses in the coach--they could not get in the eighth. He stopped, and he was talking to Hickman that was with me.

Shiel was in the coach along with him."

O'CONNELL'S HAT

"O'Connell wore his hat in the English House of Commons, what no man but the King can do. He wore it for three days because he had a sore head, and at the end of that they bade him put it off, and he said he would not, where he had worn it three days."

THE CHANGE HE MADE

"O'Connell was a great councillor. At that time if there was a Catholic, no matter how high or great or learned he was, he could not get a place.

But if a Protestant came that was a blockhead and ignorant, the place would be open to him. There was a revolution rising because of that, and O'Connell brought it into the House of Commons and got it changed. He was the greatest man ever was in Ireland. He was a very clever lawyer; he would win every case, he would put it so strong and clear and clever.

If there were fifteen lawyers against him--five and ten--he would win it against them all, whether the case was bad or good."

THE MAN HE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE

"Corly, that burned his house in Burren, was very bad, and it was O'Connell brought him to the gallows. The only case O'Connell lost was against the Macnamaras, and he told them he would be even with them, and so when Corly, that was a friend of theirs, was brought up he kept his word. There was no doubt about him burning the house, it was to implicate the Hynes he did it, to lay it on them. There was a girl used to go out milking at daybreak, and she awoke, and the moon was shining, and she thought it was day, and got up and looked out, and she saw him doing it."

THE BINDING

"O'Connell was a great man, wide big arms he had. It was he left us the cheap tea; to cheapen it he did, that was at that time a shilling for one bare ounce. His heart is in Rome and his body in Glasnevin. A lovely man, he would put you on your guard; he was for the country, he was all for Ireland."

HIS MONUMENT

"There is a nice monument put up to O'Connell in Ennis, in a corner it is of the middle of a street, and himself high up on it, holding a book.

It was a poor shoe-maker set that going. I saw him in Gort one time, a coat of O'Connell's he had that he chanced in some place. Only for him there would be no monument; it was he gathered money for it, and there was none would refuse him."

A PRAISE MADE FOR DANIEL O'CONNELL BY OLD WOMEN AND THEY BEGGING AT THE DOOR

"Dan O'Connell was the best man in the world, and a great man surely; and there could not be better than what O'Connell was.

"It was from him I took the pledge and I a child, and kept it ever after. He would give it to little lads and children, but not to any aged person. Pilot trousers he had and a pilot coat, and a grey and white waistcoat.

"O'Connell was all for the poor. See what he did at Saint Patrick's Island--he cast out every bad thing and every whole thing, to England and to America and to every part. He fought it well for every whole body.

"A splendid monument there is to him in Ennis, and his fine top coat upon him. A lovely man; you'd think he was alive and all, and he having his hat in his hand. Everyone kneels down on the steps of it and says a few prayers and walks away. It is as high as that tree below. If he was in Ireland now the pension would go someway right.

"He was the best and the best to everyone; he got great sway in the town of Gort, and in every other place.

"I suppose he has the same talk always; he is able to do for us now as well as ever he was; surely his mercy and goodness are in the town of Gort.

"He did good in the world while he was alive; he was a great man surely; there couldn't be better in this world I believe, or in the next world; there couldn't be better all over the world.

"He used to go through all nations and to make a fight for the poor; he gave them room to live, and used to fight for them too. There is no doubt at all he did help them, he was well able to do it."

RICHARD SHIEL

"As to Shiel, he was small, dressed very neat, with knee-breeches and a full vest and a long-skirted coat. He had a long nose, and was not much to look at till he began to speak, and then you'd see genius coming out from him. His voice was shrill, and that spoiled his speech sometimes, when he would get excited, and would raise it at the end. But O'Connell's voice you would hear a mile off, and it sounded as if it was coming through honey,"

THE t.i.tHE WAR

"And the t.i.thes, the tenth of the land that St. Patrick and his Bishops had settled for their own use, it was to Protestants it was given. And there would have been a revolution out of that, but it was done away with, and it is the landlord has to pay it now. The Pope has a great power that is beyond all. There is one day and one minute in the year he has that power if it pleases him to use it. At that minute it runs through all the world, and every priest goes on his knees and the Pope himself is on his knees, and that request cannot be refused, because they are the grand jury of the world before G.o.d. A man was talking to me about the burying of the t.i.thes; up on the top of the Devil's Bit it was, and if you looked around you could see nothing but the police. Then the boys came riding up, and white rods in their hands, and they dug a grave, and the t.i.thes, some image of them, was buried. It was a wrong thing for one religion to be paying for the board of the clergy of another religion."

THE FIGHT AT CARRICKSHOCK

"The t.i.the War, that was the time of the fight at Carrickshock. A narrow pa.s.sage that was in it, and the people were holding it against the police that came with the Proctor. There was a Captain defending the Proctor that had been through the Battle of Waterloo, and it was the Proctor they fired at, but the Captain fell dead, and fourteen police were killed with him. But the people were beat after, and were brought into court for the trial, and the counsel for the Crown was against them, Dougherty. They were tried in batches, and every batch was condemned, Dougherty speaking out the case against them. But O'Connell, that was at that time at Cork a.s.sizes, heard of it, and he came, and when he got to the door the pony that brought him dropped dead. He came in and he took refreshment--bread and milk--the same as I am after taking now, and he looked up and he said 'That is no law.' Then the judge agreed with him, and he got every one of them off after that; but only for him they would swing. The t.i.thes were bad, a farmer to have three stacks they's take the one of them. And that was the first time of the hurling matches, to gather the people against the t.i.thes. But there was hurling in the ancient times in Ireland, and out in Greece, and playing at the ball, and that is what is called the Olympian Games."

THE BIG WIND

"As to the Big Wind, I was on my elder sister's back going to a friend beyond, and when I was coming back it was slacked away, and I was wondering at the holes in the houses." "I was up to twelve year at the time of the Big Wind that was in '39, and I was over at Roxborough with my father that was clearing timber from the road, and your father came out along the road, and he was wild seeing the trees and rocks whipped up into the sky the way they were with the wind. But what was that to the bitter time of the Famine that came after?"

THE FAMINE

"The Famine; there's a long telling in that, it is a thing will be remembered always. That little graveyard above, at that time it was filled full up of bodies; the Union had no way to buy coffins for them.

There would be a bag made, and the body put into it, that was all; and the people dying without priest, or bishop, or anything at all. But over in Connemara it was the dogs brought the bodies out of the houses, and asked no leave."

THE CHOLERA