Part 1

THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

NUMBER 22. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1840. VOLUME I.

English and other visitors to our metropolis who dare the perils of the deep, and various other perils now equally imaginary, to see something of our Emerald Isle, are generally directed as a matter of course to our far-famed county of Wicklow as the only picturesque lion within a few hours’ journey; and certainly in this romantic region they will find much to gratify the taste, and which will remain indelibly fixed on the memory. But, delightful as such excursion undoubtedly is, it will only convey to a stranger’s mind a partial and imperfect impression of Irish scenery; and he will be apt to conclude that however rich we may be in the possession of lakes and mountains--the grand but solitary domains of nature--we are wholly wanting in scenery of a different class, that of the richly wooded pastoral valley, blooming with artificial as well as natural beauty, the anciently chosen abodes of luxury and rank, and, as such, rich in memorials of the past, with their attendant historical associations. Scenery such as this, the proud Briton will most probably think the exclusive boast of his own favoured isle. He will not imagine that it is also to be found in equal perfection in Ireland, and even within a short distance of the metropolis. It is not in the Guide or Tour Book, and is but little known even to the well informed of the citizens of Dublin themselves, more of whom have seen and enjoyed the scenery of the Thames than that of the Boyne, which is within four hours’ journey. Yet the scenery of the Boyne, following its course upwards from Drogheda to Navan, a distance of eleven miles, and the scenery of the Blackwater, a river tributary to the Boyne, ascending from Navan to Kells, a distance of eight miles more, is, in its way, of a character as beautiful and luxuriant as could be found anywhere, or even be imagined. Scenery of this class of equal richness may be often found in England; but we do not know of any river’s course of the same length in which natural beauty so happily combines with the artificial, or in which so many interesting memorials of past ages could be found. Scattered in rich profusion along the banks of this beautiful river we find the noblest monuments of the various races of men who have held sway in Ireland: the great earthen fortresses, stone circles and dome-roofed sepulchres of the Tuatha de Dananns and the Fir-Bolgs--the raths of the Milesians--the churches and round towers of the earliest Christian times--the proud castles of the Anglo-Norman chiefs and their equally imposing architectural structures dedicated to the services of religion. In the variety, if not the number of such monuments here found, the Boyne is without a rival in any Irish river, nor do we think it could be paralleled by any river in the empire; and we might truly add, that it is on its luxuriant banks, amid so many instructive memorials of past ages, that the history of our country, as traced in its monuments would be best studied.

It is from amongst these interesting remains that we have selected the subject of our prefixed illustration--the Church and Round Tower of Donaghmore, situated a little more than a mile from Navan, on the road to Slane.

This religious establishment, which was anciently called _Dumnach-mor muighe Echnach_, owes its origin to St Patrick, as will appear from the following passage translated from the life of the Irish apostle, attributed to St Evin:--

“While the man of God was baptising the people called Luaiguii, at a place where the church of Domnach-mor in the plain of Echnach stands at this day, he called to him his disciple Cassanus, and committed to him the care of the church recently erected there, preadmonishing him, and with prophetic mouth predicting that he might expect that to be the place of his resurrection; and that the church committed to his care would always remain diminutive in size and structure, but great and celebrated in honour and veneration. The event has proved this prophecy to be a true one, for St Cassanus’s relics are there to be seen in the highest veneration among the people, remarkable for great miracles, so that scarcely any of the visitors go away without recovering health, or receiving other gifts of grace sought for.”--Tr. Th. p. 130.

But though the existing ruins of the Church of Donaghmore sufficiently indicate it to have been a structure “diminutive in size,” its architectural features clearly prove that it is not the original church of St Patrick’s erection, but a re-edification of the thirteenth century, in the usual style of the parish churches erected by the Anglo-Norman settlers within the Pale. Neither can the Round Tower, though unquestionably a structure of much higher antiquity than the present church, be referred to the time of the Irish apostle, or perhaps to an earlier age than the ninth or tenth century. At all events, its erection cannot be ascribed to an earlier date than that of the Tower of the Church of Kells--a religious establishment founded by St Columbkille in the sixth century--as these towers so perfectly agree in architectural style and masonwork, that they appear to have been constructed by the same architects or builders.

This very beautiful tower is built entirely of limestone undressed, except around the doorway and other apertures, and is of admirable masonry. It has two projecting ledges or steps at its base, and six rests for stories, with intermediate projecting stones or brackets in its interior. These stories are each, as usual, lighted by a single aperture, with the exception of the upper one, which has two openings, one facing the east, and the other the west; and the apertures present all the architectural varieties of form observable in our most ancient churches. The circumference of this tower, near its base, is 66 feet 6 inches, and its height, to the slant of the roof, which is wanting, is about 100 feet. The wall is 3 feet 9 inches in thickness, and the doorway is 12 feet from the ground. This doorway--which is of very beautiful execution, and, as usual, faces the west end of the church--is 5 feet 2 inches in height, and has inclined sides, and a semicircularly arched top. It is 2 feet 3 inches wide at bottom, and 2 feet beneath the spring of the arch at top. Over the door there is a figure of the Saviour sculptured in relief, partly on the keystone and partly on the stone over it; and on each side of the architrave there is a human head also in relief, as on the doorway of the church of Kells.

Some antiquaries, in their zeal to support the theory of the Pagan origin and the antiquity of the Round Towers, have asserted that this doorway is not the original one, but an “after work.” But there is not the slightest ground for such a supposition, and this sculpture, as a profoundly skilled architectural antiquary, the late Sir Richard Colt Hoare, well observed, furnishes “a decided proof that these buildings were not (as some writers have conjectured) built by the Pagans.”

A similar argument against the application of the Round Towers to the purposes of a belfry, has been grounded on the circumstance of the western front of the church having three apertures for bells above its gable. But it should not be forgotten that this structure has no claim to an earlier date than the thirteenth century, when a variety of bells, and a different mode of hanging them, were brought into use by the Anglo-Norman settlers.

The Church of Donaghmore has been confounded by Archdall and subsequent writers with the ancient church of Domnach-Tortain, also founded by St Patrick, but which was situated near Ardbraccan.

P.

THE DRUNKARDS, A TOO TRUE STORY.

In one of those admirable tales which Mrs Hall is now publishing with the praiseworthy object of the melioration of the Irish character, the ordinary effects of a too faint resistance to the fascinations of strong drink are faithfully detailed. The moral which our generous countrywoman intended to convey is undoubtedly of universal application, but I am afraid that the circumstances I am about to relate will convey no moral. It is the simple and true record of an appalling calamity which befell the subjects of my story, with all the melancholy unaccountableness and fatality of lunacy. No one would warn his fellow-creatures against the danger of madness--against any unforeseen dispensation of God’s wrath: it is in this sense, then, that I am afraid I have no moral to convey in narrating an event of which I was all but a spectator.

It must have struck every observer of human character that there are two classes of drunkards in this country. One class is composed of those persons, who, at first being well enough disposed to be temperate in all things, are insensibly led on by the charm of good fellowship to create for themselves an artificial want, which in the end leaves them the helpless victims of a miserable disease: they begin with a little--they continue the draught under the self-deceiving sophism “it’s only a drop”--they fall into excess--they lose all sense of decorum and proper spirit--they become mean and unbashful in their craving after spirituous liquor, which condition unfits them for an upright and honourable course of thought and action in any of the details of daily existence--a mental dissipation accompanies the bodily languor: while the hand trembles, the brain wanders, and the last scene of the tragedy is delirium tremens.

But there is another class of drunkards--God forbid that I should attribute any thing to the decrees of Providence inconsistent with mercy and justice--but I am almost tempted to designate this class the drunkards by _necessity_. However worldly condition, education, or other causes, may modify the result in individual cases, it is not the less certain that there are persons--very many of them--who appear to have come into the world predisposed to an inordinate desire for intoxicating liquors. These wretched people do not begin with thimblesful, and end with gills--the stroke seizes them like a thief in the night--sometimes in the prime of manhood--sometimes in the flush of youth--sometimes (it is a fearful truth) in the thoughtlessness of boyhood. It is a passion with them--a madness. You may know one of these unhappy beings, especially if he be a very young man, by the sullen and dogged air with which, early in the morning, he enters the public house, and sits down in solitude and silence to his double-shotted measure of undiluted whisky--whisky is the only drink for one of this calibre--alas! the worst and fiercest stuff that can be made is the most acceptable to him--his palate is too long palled to distinguish between tastes and flavours--it is the _liquid fire_ he wants; you may know him at other times by the pitiable imbecility which prompts him in his awful craving to reach his tumbler to his lips with both his hands, till he finishes the draught with all the apparent eagerness of intense thirst; you may know such a one by his frightful sleeps, begun, continued, and closed in terrific dreams! The wife and family of the progressive or occasional drunkard are wretched enough as every body knows; but, oh! who can possibly estimate the amount of misery which the wife and children of a madman like this are destined to endure.

I have not overdrawn the picture in the abstract--take an individual instance:--

In the spring of 18-- I was living, on a visit with a friend, in the neighbourhood of a small country town in one of the most fertile and prosperous districts of the island. The population was almost entirely free from that abject and squalid poverty which is the lot of the Irish peasantry beyond that of all other descriptions of civilized people. I remarked particularly of this neighbourhood that it had a larger proportion of respectable farmers and of that species of country gentlemen called _squireens_, than any other part of the country I had ever lived in. To this latter class belonged the heads of two branches of the same family, both of whom resided in the immediate vicinity of my friend’s house. Their names were Peter and James Kavanagh. Peter was by many years the elder of the two; his family consisted of three grown-up sons and one daughter. Peter had married in early life, and his wife died in giving birth to a fifth child, which did not long survive its mother. James had a large family of young children. Peter’s only daughter, Alice, had been brought up in her uncle’s house in order that she might receive the education and care which a girl of her tender age, without a mother, might expect from the kindness of her nearest female relative.

The family of Peter Kavanagh, then, consisted of himself, his three sons, and a single in-door servant as housekeeper, who was already an old woman and of indolent habits. The household of a widower in the middle and humbler ranks of life is rarely ordered with regularity and decorum, and Peter’s was no exception to the general case. Every room had an aspect of untidiness and discomfort. Seldom were the boards of the floors or staircase washed or swept--seldom were the window panes cleansed, or the hearth-flag whitened, or the tables rubbed, or the chairs dusted. Things soiled were never cleaned--things broken were never mended--things lost were never replaced. Each of the family felt in turn the inconvenience of this state of things, but one threw the blame upon the other, and nothing was done to remedy the evil. Every one thought it strange that such a good practical farmer and shrewd man-of-the-world as Peter Kavanagh should care so little about the comforts or conveniences of every-day existence--but so it was.

Peter, however, had or thought he had one especial household virtue to be proud of. Very early in life he had narrowly escaped disgrace and ruin by severing himself from a parcel of dissipated associates, who had led him step by step into all the labyrinths of premature debauchery. He receded before it was quite too late, and the recollection of what he suffered (for he _did_ suffer) was sufficient to make him resolve that _his_ sons should never be tempted in a similar manner. The eldest of these, Richard, was now one-and-twenty, the second, Matthew, nineteen, and the youngest, Gerald, fifteen years of age, at the time I lived near P----, and they had never yet partaken of any spirituous liquor at their father’s table. That father, however, was by no means so abstemious as he had compelled his boys to be. Every day since they had first learned the taste of whisky toddy had they been tantalised with the sight of the “materials” for their father’s favourite beverage. Peter Kavanagh was indeed a temperate man, but he was not a generous man. He was not one of those kind parents who cannot bear to gratify their appetite with any delicacy, whether much or little, dear or cheap, while their children are looking on with wistful eyes and watering mouths in vain expectancy. He had his reward. One day the two eldest lads, Dick and Matt, were carried home from a neighbouring fair, stupidly drunk. It was the first time they had ever been so, and the quantity they had taken was perhaps trifling; but the father was thenceforward more watchful than ever to prevent them from repeating the excess. In his usual manner to his sons Peter Kavanagh was not particularly harsh, but the least evasion of his strict commands in respect of drink was sure to be visited with great severity. How wretchedly inconsistent was this man’s practice! Other misdemeanours of infinitely a greater degree of moral crime were winked at, nay encouraged, by him. The young men were not naturally vicious; but when they found that they could with impunity curse and swear in their father’s hearing--when they found that even some of the graver offences against society could be committed without their father’s reprehension, was it any wonder that they should soon grow ripe in wickedness? Matt and Dick, in their personal appearance, showed every token of the accomplished village scamp--battered hats jauntily carried on one side of the head--rusty shooting coats of bottle green, with an amazing plurality of pockets--knee-breeches of once-white corduroy insufficiently buttoned over coarse worsted stockings, and heavy brogues with nails like the rivets of a steam-boiler. These were the hardiest betters of the ball-alley, the keenest lads at the roulette-table--the deadest shots at a mark over all the country side. Plenty of money had they, and who dared to ask them how they came by it? Their father had lots of cash lying by, and selfish as he was, and knowing as he was, many a heavy handful of hard silver was he relieved of by his dutiful sons. Hence the dashing “bit of blood” which carried Dick and Matt alternately over the stubbles--hence the couple of spaniels and the leash of greyhounds, which had the reputation of being the best noses or the fleetest feet in the county--hence the double-barrelled “Rigby” belonging to Dick, which was the admiration and envy of his acquaintances. As they grew up, and cared less for the anger of their father, vicious habits became more settled-looking and systematic with them. They drank to frightful excess whenever they had the slightest opportunity. No one ever saw them for twenty minutes at a time without having full proof that they were slaves to as odious and disgusting a tyranny as ever the depraved tastes of human creatures created for mankind--I mean, no one ever saw them for so long a time without a tobacco pipe between their teeth, and surrounded by every one of the usual nastinesses which accompany the practice when carried to a hateful extent; and yet, even as they were, the county could not boast of two manlier looking fellows than Richard and Matt Kavanagh when dressed for Sunday mass, which they still attended with a punctuality which would be more praiseworthy if it sprang from anything but a motive of vanity and pride. Under different culture they might have become excellent members of society. They had still some faint pretensions to generosity and spirit, and many a pretty girl of the neighbourhood would have trusted to her sole powers of persuasion for their reclamation.

Gerald Kavanagh, the youth of fifteen, was a lad of different stamp. He was open-featured and open-hearted both. _He_ was never seen with a pipe in his mouth, or a tattered “racing calendar” sticking out of his pocket; and while his brothers were out upon their sporting expeditions, or amusing themselves in a less innocent way, it was poor Gerald’s pleasure to scamper across the fields to his uncle James’s garden, and walk, or talk, or read, or play with his pretty little sister Alley, or romp with his pretty little cousins Bill and Bess, and Peter and Dick, after school hours--the time _he_ knew he would find most company looking out for him. Alley and he were as fond as they could be of each other, and not the less so because they did not live entirely together. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” is as true a line as ever was penned, whether we apply it to the lover and his mistress, or the brother and his distant sister. Many of us, with sighs and tears, can testify this. It was a lovely sight to see that affectionate boy and his fond sister sauntering along the borheens in the wild-strawberry season, with their arms around each other’s necks in the intervals of their fruit-finding, until they bade each other good-bye for another day, and returned, “with lingering steps and slow,” to homes, alas, how different!

Such were these three youths when Peter Kavanagh, after a short illness, died, and left his property, such as it was, to be equally divided between his children.

I may venture to say that Richard and Matt were not sorry for their father’s loss. On the night of the grand “wake” they collected all the idle and profligate young men of their acquaintance together at the house, and dreadful was the depth of drunkenness to which they sank, as might be expected. Every more prudent person present saw how it was--saw that the previous restraint was about to be amply atoned for, and many a shake of the head was intended to be prophetic of coming calamity.

On that same night--early in the night too--little Alley perceived that all was not right with her brother Gerald. She had seen Richard plying him with liquor, which he at first refused, but afterwards accepted--stealthily, however, and with an abashed and crimsoning face as he met the first reproachful glance of Alice. Gradually the temptation worked, and again and again the draught was repeated with less hesitation at the request of his brothers, who seemed happy in the idea of making their innocent companion as guilty as themselves. The devil surely has those in his clutches who find comfort and consolation in the visible abandonment of the fair and innocent to the miserable pleasures for which _they_ have sold their own souls. At length she was frightened to perceive that Gerald had grown hardy and boastful of his feat--he _had asked_ for more whisky, and had been given it by Dick, who, half drunk himself already, was determined to make Gerald drunk for once in his life. The boy was now in the condition wished for by his brother; he had slunk behind Matt’s chair; Alice could see his head hanging upon one shoulder, while his eyes were closing in the stupor of intoxication--he was about to fall to the ground. Quietly she stole to his side, and leaning her head upon his shoulder she whispered,

“Gerald, darling, I didn’t think _you_ would drink so much--why did you do it?”

“Don’t tell uncle James, Alley, if he hasn’t seen me this way, and I’ll never drink so much again.”

“Hold up your head for another bucket, you dog,” said Matt, with sundry drunken hiccupings, as he heard the boy speaking behind his chair, and proffering at the same time a fresh bumper. “Come, Gerald, my boy, it will do you no harm--sorrow’s dry, they say, and Lord knows but you’ve blubbered enough all day for a little fellow.”

“Matt, dear Matt, don’t ask him,” said Alice.

Matt, however, was not to be thwarted: with a brutal cuff he struck his little sister to the ground, and tried to force the liquor upon Gerald’s acceptance. In the attempt the glass fell from his hand, and Alice rose and drew her brother softly from the room.

The funeral took place, and there was another carouse more disgraceful than the first, and another, and another, and another! until the week was out. When Gerald’s uncle saw how completely besotted his nephews had become, he took Gerald to live with him, but not until it had become too painfully evident that the boy had acquired a liking for the liquor which had turned his two brothers into human beasts. Poor little Alice wept over the change. There was no more reading, or playing, or wandering through the country together. He sat sulky and silent in the house all day, more like a poor relation on charitable allowance than the joint-heir of the largest farm in the parish. But this was to have an end!