Part 5

_Tara._--On a hill in the County Meath stood a court called Tara, where the Kings of Ireland were crowned. Daniel O'Connel, the Liberator, held a repeal meeting there which was attended by one million persons. The Irish protested against this being added to tithes of the Earl of Aberdeen, the last Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

_Tenants' Defense League._--This was an offshoot of the suppressed Land League, and Irish National League. It was formed after the latter was suppressed by Balfour's Coercion Act of 1887. The object of this league was to defend the tenant farmers against tyrannical landlords, and to obtain the land for the people at just rents. This league was announced by Parnell and William O'Brien in July of 1888. In the winter of that year a branch of it was started in Castle Gregory by the Rev. John Molyneaux, then P. P. of Castle Gregory.

_Tenant League._--This league was organized in 1850. On the 4th of July, 1851, a great meeting was held on the site of the Battle of the Boyne. In 1852 a general election took place and about fifty-eight leaguers were elected. However, their leaders broke their pledges, betrayed the Irish people, destroyed the party and within a few years after killed themselves. A branch of this league was established in Dingle. (See the Pope's Brass Band, also Supplementary History of the County Kerry, for more particulars.)

_Thierna-Dubh's Raid, or the Black Earl's Raid._--This was applied to the Earl of Ormond, who was Lord Governor of Munster. During the Great Desmond Wars, in 1580, he converted the whole barony of Corkaguiny into one great slaughter-house. He went to oppose the Spaniards, then with a Pope's banner, at Fort-del-Ore, in Smerwick Harbor, and also to capture the 15th Earl of Desmond, a Catholic, because the latter was suspected of favoring his cousins in a rebellion against the British crown, and Ormond was anxious to possess Desmond's confiscated estates. At Tralee, Ormond, the Black Earl, divided his forces into three divisions, and from thence marched westward towards Dingle, through Slieve-Mish. In this journey the English soldiers slaughtered every man, woman and child they met. At Standbally, they tossed the children for pastime from pike to pike and next stabbed to death the feeble mothers. Father Dominick O'Daly calls it "Cooling their impious thirst with the blood of Catholics." Classing Father O'Daly as a supporter of the Desmonds and rejecting his evidence and taking their own evidence, the author finds that in the commander's letters to Queen Elizabeth they promised "If God will give us bread, we doubt not but to make as bare a country as ever a Spaniard put a foot on," meaning the Dingle peninsula. (Pelham's Letters to Queen Elizabeth.) "non was spared the toddling child, the feeble old man, the blind, the lame, the idiot, the strong man and the weak shepherd." As the soldiers of Queen Elizabeth entered a village they had the laggards set on fire. Mothers clasping their babies together with the dwellers were surrounded and driven into the flames or cut off with the sword. The English soldiers were hunting defenseless poor people for pleasure. The only way to receive pardon was to bring the bleeding head of one of their countrymen and throw it at the head of an English commander in order to sow hatred for one another amongst the Irish. This wicked journey of the Earl of Ormond, such was the blight that it brought on the homes of everybody that it left a memory everywhere through which he passed, which can never fade while a Father can speak to a son. The soldiers under Ormond, like ravenous beasts, having once tasted human blood, could not quench their craving for slaughter. Young women, who refused to be outraged were hanged from trees by the hair of their heads. When they could not subdue men they turned their weapons against women and children.

"His hosts are all gather'd, his cordon is set, Strong and close wove the meshes--wide stretches the net, As it sweeps the doom'd district, its progress thus trace'd, All before as a garden--behind as a waste.

Their course is unsparing and searching as fire, Leaves not sheaf in the barn, nor hoof in the byre, While hymning their triumph, in concert combined, The wild wail of women, with the lowing of kine.

The raid is accomplished--the war waves roll back, Smoke, ember, and bloodprints are left on the track, And long the scared mother, her infant will tame, With the terrors attached to the _Thierna-Dubhs'_ name."

--Three verses of twenty published in the Kerry Magazine, a publication under the control of a Protestant minister.

Spenser the poet described the people "as emerging like ghouls to feed on corpse, carrion and grass." "All such people as they met they did without mercie putte to the sworde. By this means the whole countrie having no cattel nor kine left they were driven to such extremities for want of vittels they were either to die or perish in the famine or to die under the sword."--The Black Earl's Raid on Corkaguiny in 1580 in Hooker's Chronicle A. D. 1580.

(The Burning of Dingle, Lord Gray Slaughter at Fort-del-Ore and the torture of Kerry martyrs and other subjects are lost in the Dublin fire.)

Before the Fitzmaurices arrived in Dingle, or Fort-del-Ore, three persons landed in Dingle off Spanish ships. They were seized by government spies, and first taken before the Earl of Desmond. The vain creature ordered them to be taken before the authorities in Limerick. Two persons turned out to be Dr. Patrick O'Haly, Bishop of Mayo, and Father Cornelous O'Rourke. To extract a confession the English had them tortured. When this failed they were hanged to a tree and used as targets by the soldiers. Desmond, in his pretentions of loyalty, took credit for this act.

The reader is referred to the following Protestant authorities: Hooker's Chronicle, 1590, Smith's History of Kerry, Pelham's Letters and the State Papers from 1579 to 1585.

_Thomas-An Aehig._--Parson Moriarty, late of Mill-street, County Cork, a native of the Dingle District, was so-called because in his writings addressed to outsiders he placed under false colors the religious practices of his Catholic neighbors, and manufactured crimes on paper out of trifles.

(See my book on the Skellig, Blasket Islands and the West of Dingle for the state of religion in those parts during the Souper Campaign.)

_Tithes._--This was a tax of one-tenth of the produce or its value authorized by law to be paid for the support of the clergy and the Church of England. Because the Church of England was not the church of the people of Ireland, the payment of tithes by Roman Catholics caused famines and was resisted with bloodshed. Often a poor man's cow was seized in our parts and sold for eight shillings (less than two dollars) to satisfy the tithes. The case was still worse when he did not belong to that church for which he had to pay. A short time ago the tithes were transferred from the tenants to the landlords, but the landlords saddled them on to the tenants again by increasing their rents.[11]

It appears payment of tithes to Pagan priests existed long before the Christian era. Until the English introduced their system into Ireland, the Irish Catholic clergy were content with a voluntary offering, mostly in kind.

_Tithes Artificial Famine._--This famine started in the winter of 1739 and ended in 1748. The start of it was caused by a frost which penetrated very deep into the ground, destroying potatoes. In an effort to escape payment of tithes to ministers of the established church, people sowed only as much potatoes and grain crops as were absolutely necessary. A dreadful famine came. Black '46 and '47 were no comparison to the famine which ended in 1748.

(See Supplementary History, Co. Kerry-Corkaguiny.)

_Treaty of Limerick._--The Treaty of Limerick was made on the 3rd of October, 1691, between King William's army (English), and the Irish, on the fall of Limerick and Athlone. By the articles of the treaty, full religious liberty and the exercise of their trades, professions and callings were guaranteed by the English to the Irish Catholics. The Irish soldiers sailed away to France. Immediately England broke every article of the treaty and for religious liberty gave Penal Laws allowing no man to live in Ireland, possess property, exercise a trade or profession, if he was a Catholic.

_Turn Coats._--Persons who changed their religion for lucre during the Souper Campaign were called "Turn Coats" by their Catholic neighbors.

_United Irishmen._--The Society of United Irishmen was founded by T. W. Tone, a Protestant. His object was to unite Protestants and Catholics of the North and South to join hands for the freedom of Ireland. The United Irishmen rebelled against the English in 1798.

_Wicker Baskets._--Carrying loads on horseback by means of wicker baskets suspended on both sides of the horse is now almost everywhere out of practice. I remember clearly when the first common cart entered the villages of Ballynalockon, Cloghane, and places in Dunquin Parish.

_White Boys._--These were a body of young men who appeared in many places in Munster between 1761 and 1763. The reason they were called White Boys was because they wore white linen frocks and shirts over their coats. They openly resisted the enclosure of commons and the compulsory payment of excessive tithes levied on Roman Catholics for the support of ministers, wardens, preachers and the upkeep of Protestant churches. Because the tax was raised chiefly on tillage lands, consequently it forced the farmers to sow very little potatoes and let their lands for grazing. The horrors of the artificial famines created by the tithes between 1739 and 1748 when mothers devoured their own children and children ate their dead parents was fresh in the memory of the people. Then the Protestant Church of Ireland was not the church of the people. In one of the White Boy uprisings, by hamstringing and like methods they killed and destroyed cattle in thousands making certain that if a potato famine existed that year there would be plenty of meat to prevent starvation. In this great cattle slaughter farmers' sons, unknown to their fathers, took the lead in maiming their own cattle. At Ballynalackon in the Parish of Cloghane, is a place called _Cnockane-na-bouchaelee-bawna_, where local White Boys of that place assembled. The White Boys were suppressed by military force and the ringleaders hanged.

_Wild Geese._--These were young Irish immigrants who in the 18th Century went to France; there many of them joined the Irish Brigade in the service of France. In the Battle of Fontenoy they trampled the British flag in the dust and swept before them in the wildest rout England's columns of reserves to the war cry of "Revenge! Remember Limerick!! Dash down the Sassenach!!!" Immediately after that England cancelled some of her Penal Laws.

Many persons from the Dingle Peninsula about this time went as "Wild Geese" and settled in France.

_Wreck of the "Port-Yorack."_--This Glasgow iron-clad barque was wrecked in Brandon Bay on the 29th of January, 1894, and all the crew of twenty-one drowned. The vessel was laden with copper ore. On inquiry it was found that the barque was insufficiently manned, badly provisioned and the crew suffered great hardships during the voyage, especially returning from South America. The owner was fined £70.

* * * * *

_Fenianism._--This was a secret society formed for the purpose of establishing an Irish Republican Brotherhood and severing all connection with the British crown. James Stephens was the leader and supreme chief of the Fenian revolutionary movement. It went as far as to decree a republic established. It destroyed some of the best regiments in the British army and extended to the navy, as well as to parts of France, America and England. The Fenians took the field in Cahirsciveen in February, 1867, and in the counties of Cork, Limerick, Clare, Waterford and Tipperary, Dublin and South on the 5th of March following.

This revolution did not succeed in its purpose.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A marriage ceremony does not in itself wholly complete a marriage in the Catholic Church. (See the Catholic Encyclopedia.)

[2] The anniversaries of the Battles of the Boyne and Aughrim are celebrated on the 1st and 12th of July in Belfast, by Orangemen wrecking Catholic churches and assaulting women and old people.

[3] Brien Borue: Borue was only a nickname given to Brien. His father's name was Kennedy. Brien Borue and his father were of the family of Cormac.

[4] In America, Parnell was offered twenty-five dollars, five thereof to buy bread and twenty to buy lead, i. e., for the Land League. It was accepted.

[5] The Union came into force on the 1st of January, 1801. Ever since the fight to restore to Ireland her Parliament has gone on without intermission. The members of Grattan's Parliament were all Protestants yet the majority of Roman Catholics in Ireland prefer it to a union with England.

[6] Bess Rice and Clara Hussey were Catholics and belonged to the last century. While they held sway to the west of Dingle they both caused so much misery to their unfortunate tenants that the tears which fell from mothers, wives, children and husbands would, I am told, water those ladies' whole properties. The way in which they oppressed their victims would, it appears, be their most fitting epitaph.

[7] Many in America unacquainted with Irish politics are under the impression that moonlighting is "moonshining," i. e., making poteen whisky. Moonshining is pretty common in backward portions of Florida and Virginia. Moonshiners have no welcome for strangers for fear of informing on them. They denounce the laws which compel them to work by night boiling the produce of their toil in the wilderness while no law stops ladies from wearing aigrettes or slaughtering fine birds of Florida for their feathers. On the approach of strangers moonshiners hide the still, extinguish their campfires and hide themselves in the forests very quickly.

[8] Edward Harrington, M. P. for West Kerry, addressing a meeting held by Parnell in the Square Tralee, said: "We will have no half measures of Home Rule, and we will have no Chief but Charlie."

[9] The following is a copy of a letter addressed by the author to Mr. Thomas O'Donnell, M. P., on the 1st of January, 1916:

San Francisco, January 1, 1916.

STOP RECRUITING IRISHMEN, PREACH PEACE, AND VOTE AGAINST CONSCRIPTION.

Dear Sir: I understand that it is the intention of the British Government to introduce a bill for conscription. Since I left Ireland, I notice many strange changes have come over the National leaders of Ireland. They are not as fearless as they were in the days of Parnell and they completely lost or destroyed their independence. I suppose England will now want Irishmen to fight for her and therefore extend conscription to Ireland:

My views are:

1. FOR PEACE, first and last.

2. NEUTRAL as between the leading nations responsible for the war, viz., England, Germany and Russia.

3. STRONGLY OPPOSED TO IRISHMEN being sent OUT OF IRELAND to fight.

4. England is not fighting to protect the nuns of Belgium from the ravages of the Germans, because the British soldiers destroyed the women of their own land by thousands before leaving for the battlefront.

5. England is not fighting for the protection of little nationalities, because that country was the greatest exterminator that ever appeared on the face of the globe. She put out of existence the two Boer Republics, as recently as 1902.

6. That the war is a mass murder of human beings carried on for greed.

7. Opposed to secret treaties or invisible governments, especially those binding the people without the full knowledge, consent and vote of the people of the contracting countries, especially treaties made in support of an unjust cause.

The history of this war now raging in Europe is still in its making. To the one standing here it appears to be a monstrous mass murder of human beings who are made the victims of a scramble of European financiers, their rulers and supporters, for many years plotting to rob one another of trade profit and territory. It is plain to a child that each of the nations of Europe for many years were struggling to out do each other in building murderous equipment and forming compacts for the same purpose. The sudden killing of the Crown Head of Austria was like setting a lighted match to oil barrels already in position for the blaze.

The plain leading facts as they appear to me are that Germany wants the expansion of territory and sea power, and England is jealous of the rapid growth of sea commerce of Germany, and therefore avails herself of this opportunity to destroy it for ages. I honestly believe that all the other arguments about militarian little nationalities, etc., ought to at once be rejected as manufactured excuses to justify war.

Having come to the conclusion that this is legalized murder of the people carried on in the false color and pretense of patriotism for the benefit of gold crazed human wolves, as between the three leading nations at war, the author is neutral. However, he is opposed to the shedding of blood in such a wicked cause, or fond Irish mothers raising children to be targets for rifles at the becking of every false leader. Look at the fruits those rulers and politicians of Europe produced; they have washed the frontier red with a sea of human blood; peaceful homes are in ruins; the wild wail of women, children or aged parents cannot stop their hungry craving for human slaughter; by soldiers at home and abroad women are ravaged; the flower of Europe are drawn from the common people by thousands, and most of them must pay for militarism with their life's blood in the trenches. Cattle, sheep, hares and deer, will take the places of Irish, Scotch, Welsh, and English, shot down in this war.

England, contrary to the rules of warfare, tries to starve the civil population of Germany, and in return Germany in a more scientific manner does the same thing to England by sinking great liners, thereby causing death on the ocean, of innocent people. =Hatred for the people of the nations at war with each other, will live in Europe for the next generation.= The slaughter of human beings, now going on, is shocking. It is clearly against the mandate of God, reason and common sense. Civilization is trampled on; barbarism is substituted; bands of legalized murderers sit in gilt chambers, drinking wine bought with the blood of their countrymen in the trenches. They fill their pockets with gold, make their homes comfortable, while their neighbours hearts are sad, their hearths cold, their pockets empty and their sons and relatives slaughtered in the battle fields. I honestly believe that it is much nobler to die in thousands in the cause of humanity and freedom than to draw a single sword in this disgraceful war. You leaders of destruction and legalized criminals in power, remember God's commandment--"Thou shalt not kill."

Murder, no matter whether judicial, legalized or church sanctioned, will still remain murder, and will continue to cry to heaven for vengeance. "To-day thou art," great and mighty men; "to-morrow thou art not"--yes, a cold lump of clay with the skeletons of murdered men, the tears of widows and the crying orphans you caused, standing before you. You may be sure a just God will not be fooled by the arguments of cunning counselors, judges, ministers, priests, bishops or pious frauds, who may be hired or engaged to bring their country's youth to the slaughter house.

God protect the children of Erin from being drawn in amongst those mad dogs. Those who do the fighting ought to ask themselves what are their interests in the war, and what is the price agreed upon to be paid before they are thrown to the wolf-dogs.

GOD SAVE IRELAND.

Yours, etc.,

P. M. FOLEY.

[10] When Jamison raided South Africa the Boers did not shoot him, although his crime was the most serious one. Yet the English Government under Premier Asquith had James Connelly, a wounded, dying soldier, propped up against the wall because he was not able to stand on his limbs and shot dead.

[11] Parnell and the Land League put a stop to landlords increasing tenants' rents above the fair value of the land.

Curious Customs

PREFACE.

This little hand book deals with the curious customs and traditions, chiefly in West Kerry, in common with other parts of Ireland. It is the fourth book issued by the author on Corkaguiny, of a series designated to present to the reader all essential historical, curious customs, and traditional information, relating to the County of Kerry.

In undertaking the toils of this particular volume, the principal object the writer has in view is first and foremost to destroy the hatcheries of all objectionable remains of foreign superstitions, customs, fraudulent practices, and like diseases imposed upon us, and which may still be found here and there lingering in the district. By discriminating between truth and falsehood, giving reason and common sense for what is nonsensical and discreditable, the author expects to weed out of the minds of the future manhood of this locality the superstitious poison of foreign countries, handed down to us through "wise, sensible and truthful" old women, and instead thereof he is endeavoring to kindle in the breast of every young man the spirit of being reasonably fearless in supernatural affairs, self-reliant, careful, truthful and just in other matters.

The second aim of the author is to record a few of the most important curious customs and traditions of the people in the past. This is done both for the amusement and the information of the coming generation. However, it is well to remember that this is not a complete list. The author left behind him sufficient materials for others to follow on the trail which he is the first to "blaze" in those parts.

Writers and tourists visiting West Kerry and reading this book, might be inclined to go away under the impression that the people of Corkaguiny are exceptionally superstitious and peculiar, as compared with those of other portions of the United Kingdom and the world. If we will but calmly examine the records and customs of the world, we will at the first glance see that even in our darkest hour we were far in advance of many of them in that respect. About the Thirteenth or Fourteenth Century, superstitions began to creep in amongst Christians. They increased in many forms immediately. In Ireland slight traces of the old Pagan superstitions lingered amongst the people, but between 1580 and 1736 in England, _no less than thirty thousand persons were publicly hanged for being witches_, and most of the poor innocent creatures were burned at the stake. The most learned judges of the English courts declared from their benches that witchcraft existed, and that persons in one league with the devil could raise storms, destroy life and property, by no further act than taking off their stockings and steeping them in soap and water. They even went so far as to force their victims to believe and confess that they were witches. Only that England was so much engaged in hounding to death the Catholic priests, Heaven knows how many more would have fallen.

In 1716 it appears one Mrs. Hicks and her little daughter were hanged for selling their souls to the devil, and their accusers charged them with raising a storm by soaking stockings in a lather of soap.