Part 3

Another strange error is popular among the Irish, and those not of the lowest class, namely, that only five Irish families are entitled to have the O prefixed; but what names these five are is by no means agreed upon, some asserting that they are O’Neill, O’Donnell, O’Conor, O’Brien, and O’Flaherty; others that they are O’Neill, O’Donnell, O’Kane, O’Dowd, and O’Kelly; a third party insisting that they are O’Brien, O’Sullivan, O’Connell, O’Mahony, and O’Driscoll; while others make up the list in quite a different manner from all these, and this according to the part of Ireland in which they are located; and each party is positive that no family but the five of their own list has any title to the O. None of them would acknowledge that even the O’Melaghlins, the heads of the southern Hy Niall race, have any claims to this prefix, nor other very distinguished families, who invariably bore it down to a comparatively late period. On the other hand, it is universally admitted that any Irish family from Mac Carthy and Mac Murrough, down to Mac Gucken and Mac Phaudeen, has full title to the prefix Mac; and for no other reason than because it is believed to have been a mark of no distinction whatever among the ancient Irish. This error originated in the fact that five families of Irish blood were excepted by the English laws from being held as mere Irishmen. But of this hereafter.

There is another error prevalent among the Irish gentry of Milesian blood in Ireland (which is the less to be excused, as they have ample opportunities of correcting it), namely, that the chief or head of the family only was entitled to have the O prefixed to his name. This is the grossest error of all, for there is not a single passage in the authentic annals or genealogical books which even suggests that such a custom ever existed amongst the ancient Irish chieftain families, for it is an indubitable fact that every member of the family had the O prefixed to his surname, as well as the chief himself. But a distinction was made between the chief and the members of his family, in the following manner:--In all official documents the chief used the surname only, as O’Neill, O’Donnell, &c. In conversation also the surname only was used, but the definite article was frequently prefixed, as _the_ O’Neill, _the_ O’Brien, &c., while in annals and other historical documents in which it was found necessary to distinguish a chief from his predecessors or successors, the chief of a family was designated by giving him the family name first, and the christian or baptism name after it in parenthesis. But the different members of the chief’s family had their christian names always prefixed as at the present day.

I have thus dwelt upon the errors respecting surnames in Ireland, from an anxious wish that they should be removed, and I trust that it will be believed henceforward that the Mac in Irish surnames is fully as respectable as the O, and that, instead of five, there are at least two thousand Irish families who have _full title_ to have the O prefixed to their surnames.

[2] Translation from original Latin MS.

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Many men would have more wisdom if they had less wit.

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Women are like gold, which is tender in proportion to its purity.

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Excessive sensibility is the foppery of modern refinement.

IRELAND’S WEALTH.

Oh do not call our country poor, Though Commerce shuns her coast; For still the isle hath treasures more Than other lands can boast.

She hath glorious hills and mighty streams, With wealth of wave and mine, And fields that pour their riches forth Like Plenty’s chosen shrine.

She hath hands that never shrink from toil, And hearts that never yield, Who reap the harvests of the world In corn or battle field.

She hath blessings from her far dispersed O’er all the earth and seas, Whose love can never leave her--yet Our land hath more than these.

Her’s is the light of genius bright, Among her children still; It shines on all her darkest homes, Or wildest heath and hill.

For there the Isle’s immortal lyre Sent forth its mightiest tone; And starry names arose that far On distant ages shone.

And want among her huts hath been; But never from them past The stranger’s welcome, or the hearts That freely gave their last.

She hath mountains of eternal green, And vales for love and health, And the beautiful and true of heart-- Oh these are Ireland’s wealth!

And she is rich in hope, which blest Her gifted ones and brave, Who loved her well, for she had nought To give them but a grave.

Through all her clouds and blasted years, That star hath never set; Will not our land arise and shine Among the nations yet?

F. B.

EXTRAORDINARY DETECTION OF MURDER.

NO. II.

Scarcely the most youthful reader needs now to be informed that for an indefinite period our country has unfortunately seldom been without bands of misguided men, more or less numerous, combined for illegal purposes, and who have from time to time wrought much ruin and misery to themselves and others, whether they went under the denomination of rapparees, defenders, peep-o’-day-boys, steelboys, whiteboys, united Irishmen, carders, houghers, thrashers or ribbonmen, the last of the species--may they prove the _last_ indeed! The manifold causes that produced those lawless and destructive combinations the nature of this Journal wisely precludes us from meddling with; their objects were perfectly apparent. We therefore pass both by with a single remark, namely, that since the disastrous and desolating insurrection and invasion of ’98, there has been no person of weight or property connected with any of the numerous confederacies that have continued unceasingly to distract the country, with the exception of that which involved the fate of the wild but amiable visionary Robert Emmett--certainly not in Connaught; nor would it appear that in any one of them since was any serious opposition to _government_ contemplated. In fact, the conspirators being, with but few exceptions, invariably of the very lowest class, their object, however guilty, was limited to the obtainment of personal advantage, the gratification of private revenge, or petty opposition to tithes and the local authorities.

In 1806, the combinators were designated in Connaught, _thrashers_. Their vengeance seemed to be chiefly wreaked on the haggards of such gentlemen or middlemen as excited the wrath or suspicions of the brotherhood; and frequently, where at evening had been seen a large and well-filled haggard, nought was visible in the morning but empty space, the wasted grain and the _then_ valuable hay being scattered over the adjacent fields and roads, often to a considerable distance.

Tirawley, the northern barony of Mayo, was at this period infested with a gang of thrashers of peculiar daring and activity, the most prominent of whom was Murtagh Lavan, usually termed “Murty the Shaker,” a _soubriquet_ which he derived from his remarkable dexterity in scattering the contents of the various haggards; and for a considerable period this reckless gang was a terror to the entire barony. But there is, fortunately, neither union nor faith among the wicked. After having been the principal in numberless acts of destruction and lawlessness, Murty became a private informer against guilty and innocent, in consequence of the large rewards offered by government for the detection of the offenders, and had given in the names of a large number of accomplices, as well as of those who he knew were likely to be suspected, when his career was cut short by a violent death.

Secretly as his informations were given, it appears it was discovered that he had become an informer; and in consequence, a band of the most desperate of his former accomplices planned and accomplished his murder in a singularly daring manner. His wife and himself were guests at a christening when he was called out: she followed him, and in her presence he was assailed by a number of blackened and partly armed men, one of whom felled him with a hatchet like an ox in the slaughter-house. He was never allowed to rise, for the others trampled on him when down, and struck him with various weapons. The wretched woman fled into a corner, and remained there an unharmed spectatress of the whole murderous scene, and, what has rarely occurred in similar circumstances, without making any attempt to fling herself between her husband and the murderers.

Immediately on information being forwarded to the government of the audacious murder of the informer, proclamations offering large rewards for the discovery and conviction of the perpetrators were issued; great activity was exhibited by the magistrates and the yeomanry, put under permanent pay, as is well remembered in the localities where they were stationed, the inhabitants of which were soon left minus their geese and hens with miraculous rapidity, after the arrival of their _defenders_. The yeomen! God forgive us: dark as is our theme, so strangely does levity mingle with gloom and even with sorrow in our national temperament, that a host of humorous recollections come rushing on us, called up by the name, as we recall our boyish enjoyment in witnessing some of their inspections. Their motley dress--their arms--the suggaun often binding a dislocated gun--and their discipline--oh, their discipline! Why, reader, believe us or not as you please, we knew of a captain of yeomanry standing in front of his corps, during an inspection of all the yeomen in the district by a distinguished general officer, with his drawn sword held with great gallantry in his _left_ hand, till his serjeant-major besought him in a whisper to change it to the other hand, until the general should have passed him. But we say avaunt to the evil temptation that has beset us at so awkward a time, to descant on yeomanry frolics, though we promise the readers of the Journal a laugh at them on some more fitting occasion.

Five of the murderers were apprehended and executed together in 1806; and, some years afterwards, one of them, named M’Ginty, whose troubled conscience would not permit him to remain in England, whither he had fled after the commission of the crime, and who was apprehended the very night after his return to this country, died a fearful death. Indeed, in our experience of public executions we never witnessed a more terrible one. He was a man of a large, athletic frame, and when on the lapboard ramped about with frightful violence, got his fingers several times between the rope and his neck, and attempted to pull down the temporary beam, and drag out the executioner with him, the latter of which objects he nearly effected. He spurned at all exertions to induce him to forgive his prosecutors and captors, and was in the act of denouncing vengeance against them, dead or alive, when he was flung off.

We remember a curious point was saved in this man’s favour after conviction, when an arrest of judgment was moved on the ground that the principal evidence against him (an accomplice) was himself, after having been tried, and sentenced to capital punishment, and, therefore, being dead in law, could not be received as a competent witness. The objection was, however, overruled by the judges in Dublin, on the ground that the man had received a pardon, and could be, therefore, considered a living witness again.

It was twenty-four years after the murder of Murty, namely, in the spring of 1830, that a woman was making her way across a stream running through a gentleman’s grounds in the county of Sligo, when she was prevented by a caretaker, who obliged her to turn back.

“_Skirria snivurth_,” exclaimed the woman with bitter earnestness, “but don’t think, _durneen sollagh_ (dirty Cuffe) but I know you well; an, thank God, any way ye can’t murther _us_, as ye did Murty Lavan long ago.”

Her words were heard by a policeman who chanced to be angling along the stream, and who promptly brought her into the presence of a magistrate, where, after the policeman had stated what he heard, she attempted at first to draw in her horns and retract her words.

“Well, my good woman,” said the magistrate, “what expressions were those you used just now?”

“Ou, only some _ramask_ (nonsense), yer honour.”

“Did you not accuse a man of murder?”

“In onough, I dunno what I sed when the spalpeen gev us the round, and the vexation was upon us.”

“You must speak to the point, woman.”

“Wethen sure yer honour wouldn’t be after mindin’ what an oul’ hag sed when she was in the passion.”

“Policeman, repeat the expressions exactly.”

The policeman repeated his former statement.

“Now swear the hag, and I warn her if she doesn’t tell the whole truth, I will myself see her transported.”

The woman, now thoroughly frightened, admitted that she knew the person who prevented her from crossing the stream to be Cuffe or Durneen, who was charged with having been the principal in the murder of Murty the Shaker. Cuffe was accordingly apprehended, and having been fully identified by Murty’s wife, who was still in existence, having continued a pensioner of the Mayo grand jury since her husband’s murder, was committed to the Mayo jail, to the astonishment and regret of his employer.

The extraordinary part of Cuffe’s case seems to us not by any means that he should have been detected after the lapse of twenty-four years, but it does seem a singular fact indeed, that, notwithstanding a description of him in the Hue and Cry as the person who had struck the mortal blow with the hatchet, and the large rewards offered for his apprehension, he should have remained undiscovered for such a protracted period, so immediately adjacent to the scene of his crime. Most of our readers are aware that Sligo adjoins Mayo--nay, the barony of Tirawley, in which the murder was perpetrated, is only separated by the river Moy from the county of Sligo, so that one portion of the town of Ballina is in Mayo, and the other in Sligo; and yet, in all probability, were it not that Providence directed the steps of the woman to that stream for the first and last time in her life, he might have remained there undiscovered to the end of his natural life, which could not then be far distant, his head being completely silvered at the time of his apprehension.

While in prison, both before and after conviction, Cuffe’s conduct, as it had been all along prior to his detection, was peaceful, obliging, and amenable, comporting much better with a pleasant and rather benevolent countenance, in which there did not seem to be a single line indicative of an evil disposition, than with the terrible crime he had been the principal in committing.

On the morning after M’Gennis had committed the extraordinary suicide detailed in a former number, in the same cell with him, Cuffe’s gaze continued to be fastened, as if by fascination, on the body while it remained in the cell, and his countenance wore an expression resembling a smile of gratified wonder, as he frequently exclaimed in an under tone, “didn’t he do it clever?” He strongly denied, however, as was before stated, having witnessed the suicide, or known anything of its being intended.

His own death was calm and easy: in fact he seemed to have died without a struggle; and so little did his punishment after such a lapse of years seem to be considered as a necessary atonement to justice, that we heard, during his execution, Murty’s own brother, who was among the spectators, use the expression, that it was a pity so many lives should be lost for _such a rascal_.

We should have remarked that on the morning of his execution he requested of the benevolent and intelligent inspector to allow him a tea breakfast. Indeed, it is a curious consideration that animal gratification seems to be the predominant object with a large proportion of persons on the eve of execution, when hope becomes as nearly extinct as it _can_ become while life remains. In general, in such cases among the lower class, there is a petition for a meat dinner, or a tea breakfast, or both--a petition which, we need scarcely say, is in Ireland generally granted.

We recollect an instance where two persons under sentence were breakfasting together, just previous to their execution, having, among other materials, three eggs between them, when one of them, having swallowed his first egg rapidly, seized upon the other with the utmost greediness, while his companion eyed him with a sickly smile that seemed to say “you have outdone me to the last.”

On another occasion we remember to have seen two convicts on a cart with the ropes about their necks, who were to be executed about fourteen miles from the prison, one of them bearing with him in his fettered hands the remains of a loaf he had been unable to finish at his breakfast, but still begged permission to take with him, as he purposed to eat it, and did so, on his way to the gallows.

A.

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EVIL INFLUENCE OF FASHION.--Never yet was a woman _really_ improved in attraction by mingling with the motley throng of the fashionable world. She may learn to dress better, to step more gracefully; her head may assume a more elegant turn, her conversation become more polished, her air more distinguished; but in point of _attraction_ she acquires nothing. Her simplicity of mind departs; her generous confiding impulses of character are lost; she is no longer inclined to interpret favourably of men and things; she listens, without believing, sees without admiring; has suffered persecution without learning mercy; and been taught to mistrust the candour of others by the forfeiture of her own. The freshness of her disposition has vanished with the freshness of her complexion; hard lines are perceptible in her very soul, and crows-feet contract her very fancy. No longer pure and fair as the statue of alabaster, her beauty, like that of some painted waxen effigy, is tawdry and meretricious. It is not alone the rouge upon the cheek and the false tresses adorning the forehead which repel the ardour of admiration; it is the artificiality of mind with which such efforts are connected that breaks the spell of beauty.--_Mrs Gore._

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IMPOSSIBILITY OF FORGETTING.--In these opium ecstacies, the minutest incidents of childhood, or forgotten scenes of later years, were often revived. I could not be said to _recollect_ them; for if I had been told of them when waking, I should not have been able to acknowledge them as parts of my past experience. But, placed as they were before me, in dreamlike intuitions, and clothed in all their evanescent circumstances and accompanying feelings, I _recognised_ them instantaneously. I was once told by a near relative of mine, that having in her childhood fallen into a river, and being on the very verge of death but for the critical assistance which reached her, she saw in a moment her whole life, in its minutest incidents, arrayed before her simultaneously, as in a mirror, and she had a faculty developed as suddenly, for comprehending the whole and every part. This, from some opium experiences of mine, I can believe. I have indeed seen the same thing asserted twice in modern books, and accompanied by a remark which I am convinced is true, viz, that the dread book of account which the Scriptures speak of, is in fact _the mind of each individual_. Of this at least I feel assured, that there is no such thing as _forgetting_ possible to the mind; a thousand accidents may and will interpose a veil between our present consciousness and the secret inscriptions on the mind; accidents of the same sort will also rend away this veil; but alike, whether veiled or unveiled, the inscription remains for ever; just as the stars seem to withdraw before the common light of day, whereas, in fact, we all know that it is the light which is drawn over them as a veil, and that they are waiting to be revealed when the obscuring daylight shall have withdrawn.--_Confessions of an Opium Eater._

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There are few roses without thorns, and where is the heart that hides not some sorrow in its secret depths?

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Printed and published every Saturday by GUNN and CAMERON, at the Office of the General Advertiser, No. 6, Church Lane, College Green, Dublin.--Agents:--R. GROOMBRIDGE, Panyer Alley, Paternoster Row, London; SIMMS and DINHAM, Exchange Street, Manchester; C. DAVIES, North John Street, Liverpool; JOHN MENZIES, Prince’s Street, Edinburgh; and DAVID ROBERTSON, Trongate, Glasgow.