tion than it has hitherto received. It is a county rich in attractions for the geologist and naturalist, and interesting in the highest degree to the lovers of the picturesque. With a surface singularly broken and diversified, full of mountains, hills, lakes, and rivers, dotted all over with every class of ancient remains, its scenery is peculiarly Irish, and though of a somewhat melancholy aspect, it is never wanting in a poetic and historic interest. Such a district is not indeed exactly suited to the tastes of the common scenery-hunter, for it possesses but little of that woody and artificially adorned scenery which he requires, and can alone enjoy; and hence it has usually been described by tourists and topographers with a coldness which shows how little its peculiarities had impressed their feelings, and how incompetent they were to communicate to others a just estimate of its character. Let us take as an example the notice given by the writers of Lewis's Topographical Dictionary, of one of the Clare beauties of which the natives are most proud-the caverns called the To-meens or To-mines, near Kiltanan :

"At Kiltanan is a succession of limestone caverns, through which a rivulet takes its course: these are much visited in summer; many petrified shells are found in the limestone, some of which are nearly perfect, and-very curious !"

This it must be confessed is cold enough; but the description of the same locality given by our friend the author of the Guide through Ireland, is, as our readers will see, not a whit warmer. It is as follows:

"A mile from Tulla is Kiltanan, the handsome residence of James Moloney, Esq.; and in addition to the pleasure of a well-kept residence, in a naked and sadly neglected country, some interest is excited by the subterraneous course of the rivulet called the To-meens, which waters this demesne!" Now, would any person be induced by such descriptions as these to visit the said To-meens? We suspect not. But hear with what delight a native writer of this county actually revels in a description of these remarkable caves :-

"About a mile N. W. of Tulla lies the river of Kiltanan, and Milltown, famous for its ever-amazing and elegant subterraneous curiosities, called the To-mines: they form a part of the river, midway between Kiltanan House and the Castle of Milltown, extending under ground for a space, which (from its invisible winding banks and crystal meanders) may reasonably be computed a quarter of an English mile: they are vaulted, and sheltered with a solid rock, transmitting a suff. ciency of light and air by intermediate chinks and apertures gradually offering at certain intervals.

"At each side of this Elysian-like river are roomy passages or rather apartments, freely communicating one with the other, and scarcely obvious to any inclemency whatsoever: they are likewise decorated with a sandy beach level along to walk on, whilst the curious spectators are crowned with garlands of ivy, hanging in triplets from the impending rocky shades: numbers of the sporting game, the wily fox, the wary hare, and the multiplying rabbit, &c. merrily parading in view of their own singular and various absconding haunts and retreats. Ingenious nature thus entertains her welcome visitants from the entrance to the extremity of the To-mines. Lo! when parting liberally rewarded, and amply satisfied with such egregious and wonderful exhibitions, a bridge or arch over the same river, curiously composed of solid stone, appears to them as a lively representation of an artificial one. What can the much boasted of Giants' Causeway, in the north of this kingdom, produce but scenes of horror and obscurity? whilst the To-mies of the barony of Tulla, like unto the artificial beauties of the Latomi of Syracuse, freely exhibit the most natural and pleasing appearances.

Let the literati and curious, after taking the continental tour of Europe, praise and even write of the imaginary beauties and natural curiosities of Italy and Switzerland-pray, let them also, on a cool reflection, repair to the county of Clare, view and touch upon the truly subterraneous and really unartificial curiosities of the To-mines: they will impartially admit that these naturally enchanting rarities may be freely visited, and generously treated of, by the ingenious and learned of this and after ages."-A Short Tour, or an Impartial and Accurate Description of the County of Clare, by John Lloyd, Enais; 1789.

Excellent, Mr Lloyd! Your style is indeed a little peculiar, and what some would think extravagant and grotesque; but you describe with feeling, and we shall certainly visit your To-meens next summer. But in the mean time we must notice another Clare lion, of which you have given us no account

the lake and castle, which we have drawn as an embellishment to our present number. This is a locality respecting the beauty of which there can be no difference of opinion: it has all the circumstances which give interest to a landscapewood, water, lake, mountain, and ancient ruin-and the effect of their combination is singularly enhanced by the surprise created by the appearance of a scene so delightful in a district wild, rocky, and unimproved.

The lake of Inchiquin is situated in the parish of Kilnaboy, barony of Inchiquin, and is about two miles and a half in circumference. It is bounded on its western side by a range of hills rugged but richly wooded, and rising abruptly from its margin; and on its southern side, the domain surrounding the residence of the Burton family, and the ornamental grounds of Adelphi, the residence of W. and F. Fitzgerald, Esqrs. contribute to adorn a scene of remarkable natural beauty. One solitary island alone appears on its surface, unless that be ranked as one on which the ancient castle is situated, and which may originally have been insulated, though no longer so. The castle, which is situated at the northern side of the lake, though greatly dilapidated, is still a picturesque and interesting ruin, consisting of the remains of a barbican tower, keep, and old mansion-house attached to it; and its situation on a rocky island or peninsula standing out in the smooth water, with its grey walls relieved by the dark masses of the wooded hills behind, is eminently striking and imposing. It is from this island or peninsula that the barony takes its name; and from this also the chief of the O'Briens, the Marquis of Thomond, derives his more ancient title of Earl of Inchiquin. For a long period it was the principal residence of the chiefs of this great family, to one of whom it unquestionably owes its origin; but we have not been able to ascertain with certainty the name of its founder, or date of its erection. There is, however, every reason to ascribe its foundation to Tiege O'Brien, king or lord of Thomond, who died, according to the Annals of the Four Masters, in 1466, as he is the first of his name on record who made it his residence, and as its architectural features are most strictly characteristic of the style of the age in which he flourished.

But though the erection of this castle is properly to be ascribed to the O'Briens, it is a great error in the writers of Lewis's Topographical Dictionary to state that it has been from time immemorial the property of the O'Brien_family. The locality, as its name indicates, and as history and tradition assure us, was the ancient residence of the O'Quins, a family of equal antiquity with the O'Briens, and of the same stock-namely, the Dal Cas or descendants of Cormac Cas, the son of Ollioll Oluim, who was monarch of Ireland in the beginning of the third century. The O'Quins were chiefs of the clan called Hy-Ifearnan, and their possessions were bounded by those of the O'Deas on the east, the O'Loughlins and O'Conors (Corcomroe) on the west and north-west, the O'Hynes on the north, and the O'Hehirs on the south. At what period or from what circumstance the O'Quins lost their ancient patrimony, we have not been able to discover; but it would appear to have been about the middle or perhaps close of the fourteenth century, to which time their genealogy as chiefs is recorded in that invaluable repository of Irish family history, the Book of Mac Firbis; and it would seem most probable that they were transplanted by the O'Briens about this period to the county of Limerick, in which they are subsequently found. Their removal is indeed differently accounted for in a popular legend still current in the barony, and which, according to our recollections of it, is to the following effect: In the youth of the last O'Quin of Inchiquin, he saw from his residence a number of swans of singular beauty frequenting the west side of the lake, and wandering along its shore. Wishing, if possible, to possess himself of one of them, he was in the habit of concealing himself among the rocks and woods in its vicinity, hoping that he might take them by surprise, and he was at length successful: one of them became his captive, and was secretly carried to his residence, when, to his amazement and delight, throwing off her downy covering, she assumed the form of a beautiful woman, and shortly after became his wife. Previous to the marriage, however, she imposed certain conditions on her lover as the price of her consent, to which he willingly agreed. These were-first, that their union should be kept secret; secondly, that he should not receive any visitors at his mansion, particularly those of the O'Briens; and, lastly, that he should wholly abstain from gambling. For some years these conditions were strictly adhered to; they lived in happiness together, and

two children blessed their union. But it happened unfortunately at length that at the neighbouring races at Cood he fell in with the O'Briens, by whom he was hospitably treated; and being induced to indulge in too much wine, he forgot his engagements to his wife, and invited them to his residence on a certain day to repay their kindness to him. His wife heard of this invitation with sadness, but proceeded without remonstrance to prepare the feast for his guests. But she did not grace it with her presence; and when the company had assembled, and were engaged in merriment, she withdrew to her own apartment, to which she called her children, and after embracing them in a paroxysm of grief, which they could not account for, she took her original feathery covering from a press in which it had been kept, arrayed herself in it, and assuming her pristine shape, plunged into the lake, and was never seen afterwards. On the same night, O'Quin, again forgetful of the promises he had made her, engaged in play with Tiege-an-Cood O'Brien, the most distinguished of his guests, and lost the whole of his property.

The reader is at liberty to believe as much or as little of this story as he pleases: but at all events the legend is valuable in a historical point of view, as indicating the period when the lands of Inchiquin passed into the hands of the O'Brien family; nor is it wholly improbable that under the guise of a wild legend may be concealed some indistinct tradition of such a real occurrence as that O'Quin made a union long kept hidden, with a person of inferior station, and that its discovery drew down upon his head the vengeance of his proud compeers, and led to their removal to another district of the chiefs of the clan Hy-Ifearnan.

Be this, however, as it may, the ancient family of O'Quin -more fortunate than most other Irish families of noble origin has never sunk into obscurity, or been without a representative of aristocratic rank; and it can at present boast of a representative among the nobility of the empire in the person of its justly presumed chief, the noble Earl of

Dunraven.

We have thus slightly touched on the history of the O'Quins, not only as it was connected with that of the locality which we had to illustrate, but also as necessary to correct a great error into which Burke and other modern genealogists have fallen in their accounts of the origin of the name and descent of this family. Thus it is stated by those writers that "the surname is derived from Con Ceadcaha, or Con of the hundred battles, monarch of Ireland in the second century, whose grandson was called Cuinn (rather O'Cuinn), that is, the descendant of Con, when he wielded the sceptre in 254." But those writers should not have been ignorant that Con, which literally signifies the powerful, was a common name in Ireland both in Christian and Pagan times; and still more, they should not have been ignorant of the important fact for a genealogist, that the use of surnames was unknown in Ireland till the close of the tenth century. The story is altogether a silly fiction; and as the real origin of the family appears to be now unknown even to themselves, and as their pedigree has never as yet been printed, we are tempted to give it in an English form, translated from the original, pre

served in the books of Lecan and Duald Mac Firbis :

"Conor O'Quinn,

the son of Donell,

Donell,

Thomas,

Donell,

Donogh,

Giolla Seanain, Donogh, Morough,

Corc, who was the tutor of Murtogh O'Brien (the great grandson of Brian Boru), Feidhleachair,

Niall, who was henchman to Morough, the son of Brian Boru, whose fate he shared in the battle of Clontarf,

Conn, from whom the name is derived." The pedigree is carried up from this Con through eighteen generations to Cormac Cas, the son of Ollioll Oluim, and the common progenitor of all the tribes of the Dal-Cassians.

In this notice we may add, as an evidence of the ancient rank of the family, that the Irish annalists at the year 1188 record the death of Edaoin, the daughter of O'Quin, Queen of Munster, on her pilgrimage at Derry in that year. She appears to have been the wife of Mortogh O'Brien, who died

without issue in 1168, and was succeeded by his brother Donald More, the last king of all Munster.

The Castle of Inchiquin is referred to in the Irish Annals as the residence of the chiefs of the O'Brien family, at the years 1542, 1559, and 1573; but the notices contain no interest to the general reader. P.

ANCIENT IRISH LITERATURE-No. II. IN a preceding paper under this heading we lately gave a sample from the lighter class of native Irish poetry of the seventeenth century, namely, "The Woman of Three Cows." We have now to present our readers with a specimen of a more serious character, belonging to the same age-an Elegy on the death of the Tironian and Tirconnellian princes, who having fled with others from Ireland in the year 1607, and afterwards dying at Rome, were there interred on St Peter's Hill, in one grave.

The poem is the production of O'Donnell's bard, Owen Roe Mac an Bhaird, or Ward, who accompanied the family in their flight, and is addressed to Nuala, O'Donnell's sister, who was also one of the fugitives. As the circumstances connected with the flight of the Northern Earls, and which led to the subsequent confiscation of the six Ulster Counties by James I., may not be immediately in the recollection of many of our readers, it may be proper briefly to state, that their departure from this country was caused by the discovery of a letter directed to Sir William Ussher, Clerk of the Council, which was dropped in the Council-chamber on the 7th of May, and which accused the Northern chieftains generally of a conspiracy to overthrow the government. Whether this charge was founded in truth or not, it is not necessary for us to express any opinion; but as in some degree necessary to the illustration of the poem, and as an interesting piece of hitherto unpublished literature in itself, we shall here, as a preface to the poem, extract the following account of the flight of the Northern Earls, as recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters, and translated by Mr O'Donovan :

66

Maguire (Cuconnaught) and Donogh, son of Mahon, who was son of the Bishop O'Brien, sailed in a ship to Ireland, and put in at the harbour of Swilly. They then took with them from Ireland the Earl O'Neill (Hugh, son of Ferdoragh) and the Earl O'Donnell (Rory, son of Hugh, who was son of Magnus) and many others of the nobles of the province of Ulster. These are the persons who went with O'Neill, namely, his Countess, Catherina, daughter of Magennis, and her three sons; Hugh, the Baron, John and Brian; Art Oge, son of Cormac, who was son of the Baron; Ferdoragh, son of Con, who was son of O'Neill; Hugh Oge, son of Brian, who was son of Art O'Neill; and many others of his most intimate friends. These were they who went with the Earl O'Donnell, namely, Caffer, his brother, with his sister Nuala; Hugh, the Earl's child, wanting three weeks of being one year old; Rose, daughter of O'Doherty and wife of Caffer, with her son Hugh, aged two years and three months; his (Rory's) brother son Donnell Oge, son of Donnell, Naghtan son of Calvach, who was son of Donogh Cairbreach O'Donnell, and many others of his intimate friends. They embarked on the Festival of the Holy Cross in Autumn.

"This was a distinguished company; and it is certain that the sea has not borne and the wind has not wafted in modern times a number of persons in one ship more eminent, illustrious, or noble, in point of genealogy, heroic deeds, valour, feats of arms, and brave achievements, than they. Would that God had but permitted them to remain in their patrimonial inheritances until the children should arrive at the age of manhood! Woe to the heart that meditated, woe to the mind that conceived, woe to the council that recommended the project of this expedition, without knowing whether they should, to the end of their lives, be able to return to their native principalities or patrimonies."

AN ELEGY

ON THE TIRONIAN AND TIRCONNELLIAN PRINCES BURIED
AT ROME.

“A bhean fuair faill air an ffeart!"
O, Woman of the Piercing Wail,

Who mournest o'er yon mound of clay
With sigh and groan,

Would God thou wert among the Gael!
Thou wouldst not then from day to day
Weep thus alone.

O, no! from Shannon, Boyne, and Suir,
From high Dunluce's castle-walls,
From Lissadill,

Would flock alike both rich and poor,

One wail would rise from Cruachan's halls To Tara's hill;

And some would come from Barrow-side, And many a maid would leave her home On Leitrim's plains,

And by melodious Banna's tide,

And by the Mourne and Erne, to come
And swell thy strains!

O, horses' hoofs would trample down
The Mount whereon the martyr-saint*
Was crucified.

From glen and hill, from plain and town,
One loud lament, one thrilling plaint,
Would echo wide.

There would not soon be found, I ween,
One foot of ground among those bands
For museful thought,

So many shriekers of the keen†

Would cry aloud, and clap their hands,
All woe-distraught!

Two princes of the line of Conn

Sleep in their cells of clay beside
O'Donnell Roe:

Three royal youths, alas! are gone,
Who lived for Erin's weal, but died
For Erin's woe!

Ah! could the men of Ireland read
The names these noteless burial-stones
Display to view,

Their wounded hearts afresh would bleed,
Their tears gush forth again, their groans
Resound anew!

The youths whose relics moulder here

Were sprung from Hugh, high Prince and Lord
Of Aileach's lands;

Thy noble brothers, justly dear,
Thy nephew, long to be deplored
By Ulster's bands.

Theirs were not souls wherein dull Time
Could domicile Decay or house
Decrepitude!

They passed from Earth ere Manhood's prime,
Ere years had power to dim their brows
Or chill their blood.

And who can marvel o'er thy grief,
Or who can blame thy flowing tears,
That knows their source?
O'Donnell, Dunnasava's chief,
Cut off amid his vernal years,

Lies here a corse

St Peter. This passage is not exactly a blunder, though at first it may seem one: the poet supposes the grave itself transferred to Ireland, and he naturally includes in the transference the whole of the immediate locality around the grave.-TR.

+ Caoine, the funeral-wail.

Beside his brother Cathbar, whom
Tirconnell of the Helmets mourns
In deep despair-

For valour, truth, and comely bloom,
For all that greatens and adorns,
A peerless pair.

O, had these twain, and he, the third,
The Lord of Mourne, O'Niall's son,
Their mate in death-

A prince in look, in deed, and word-
Had these three heroes yielded on
The field their breath,

O, had they fallen on Criffan's plain,
There would not be a town or clan
From shore to sea,

But would with shrieks bewail the Slain,
Or chant aloud the exulting rann*
Of jubilee !

When high the shout of battle rose,

On fields where Freedom's torch still burned Through Erin's gloom,

If one, if barely one of those

Were slain, all Ulster would have mourned
The hero's doom!

If at Athboy, where hosts of brave
Ulidian horsemen sank beneath
The shock of spears,

Young Hugh O'Neill had found a grave,
Long must the North have wept his death
With heart-wrung tears!

If on the day of Ballach-myre

The Lord of Mourne had met, thus young,
A warrior's fate,

In vain would such as thou desire
To mourn, alone, the champion sprung
From Niall the Great!

No marvel this-for all the Dead,
Heaped on the field, pile over pile,
At Mullach-brack,

Were scarce an eric† for his head,
If Death had stayed his footsteps while
On victory's track!

If on the Day of Hostages

The fruit had from the parent bough
Been rudely torn

In sight of Munster's bands-Mac-Nee's-
Such blow the blood of Conn, I trow,
Could ill have borne.

If on the day of Ballach-boy
Some arm had laid, by foul surprise,
The chieftain low,

Even our victorious shout of joy
Would soon give place to rueful cries
And groans of woe!

If on the day the Saxon host

Were forced to fly-a day so great
For Ashaneet-

The Chief had been untimely lost,
Our conquering troops should moderate
Their mirthful glee.

There would not lack on Lifford's day,
From Galway, from the glens of Boyle,
From Limerick's towers,

A marshalled file, a long array,

Of mourners to bedew the soil
With tears in showers!

If on the day a sterner fate

Compelled his flight from Athenree,
His blood had flowed,

What numbers all disconsolate

Would come unasked, and share with thee Affliction's load!

If Derry's crimson field had seen

His life-blood offered up, though 'twere
On Victory's shrine,

A thousand cries would swell the keen,
A thousand voices of despair
Would echo thine!

O, had the fierce Dalcassian swarm
That bloody night on Fergus' banks,
But slain our Chief,

When rose his camp in wild alarm-
How would the triumph of his ranks
Be dashed with grief!

How would the troops of Murbach mourn
If on the Curlew Mountains' day,
Which England rued,

Some Saxon hand had left them lorn,
By shedding there, amid the fray,
Their prince's blood!

Red would have been our warriors' eyes
Had Roderick found on Sligo's field
A gory grave,

No Northern Chief would soon arise

So sage to guide, so strong to shield,

So swift to save.

Long would Leith-Cuinn have wept if Hugh
Had met the death he oft had dealt
Among the foe;

But, had our Roderick fallen too,
All Erin must, alas! have felt
The deadly blow!

What do I say? Ah, woe is me!
Already we bewail in vain

Their fatal fall!

And Erin, once the Great and Free,
Now vainly mourns her breakless chain,
And iron thrall !

Then, daughter of O'Donnell! dry
Thine overflowing eyes, and turn
Thy heart aside!

For Adam's race is born to die,
And sternly the sepulchral urn
Mocks human pride!

Look not, nor sigh, for earthly throne,
Nor place thy trust in arm of clay-
But on thy knees
Uplift thy soul to GOD alone,

For all things go their destined way
As He decrees.

Embrace the faithful Crucifix,

And seek the path of pain and prayer Thy Saviour trod;

Nor let thy spirit intermix

With earthly hope and worldly care
Its groans to GOD!

And Thou, O mighty Lord! whose ways
Are far above our feeble minds
To understand,

Sustain us in these doleful days,

And render light the chain that binds
Our fallen land!

Look down upon our dreary state,
And through the ages that may still
Roll sadly on,

Watch Thou o'er hapless Erin's fate,
And shield at least from darker ill
The blood of Conn!

M.

BOB PENTLAND, OR THE GAUGER OUTWITTED.

BY WILLIAM CARLETON.

Being so

invisible, unless to such as came very close to it. completely hemmed in and concealed by the round and angular projections of the mountain hills, you could never dream of its existence at all, until you came upon the very verge of the little precipitous gorge which led into it. This advantage of position was not, however, its only one. It is true indeed that the moment you had entered it, all possibility of its being applied to the purposes of distillation at once vanished, and you consequently could not help exclaiming, "what a pity that so safe and beautiful a nook should have not a single spot on which to erect a still-house, or rather on which to raise a sufficient stream of water to the elevation necessary for the process of distilling." If a gauger actually came to the little chasm, and cast his scrutinizing eye over it, he would immediately perceive that the erection of a private still in such a place was a piece of folly not generally to be found in the plans of those who have recourse to such practices.

This absence, however, of the requisite conveniences was only apparent, not real. To the right, about one hundred yards above the entrance to it, ran a ledge of rocks, some fifty feet high, or so. Along their lower brows, near the ground, grew thick matted masses of long heath, which covered the entrance to a cave about as large and as high as an ordinary farm-house. Through a series of small fissures in the rocks which formed its roof, descended a stream of clear soft water, precisely in body and volume such as was actually required by the distiller; but, unless by lifting up this mass of heath, no human being could for a moment imagine that there existed any such grotto, or so unexpected and easy an entrance to it. Here there was a private still-house made by the hand of nature herself, such as no art or ingenuity of man could equal.

Now it so happened that about the period we write of, there lived in our parish two individuals so antithetical to each other in their pursuits of life, that we question whether throughout all the instinctive antipathies of nature we could find any two animals more destructive of each other than the two we mean-to wit, Bob Pentland the gauger, and little George Steen the illicit distiller. Pentland was an old, stanch, well-trained fellow, of about fifty years or more, steady and sure, and with all the characteristic points of the high-bred gauger about him. He was a tallish man, thin but lathy, with a hooked nose that could scent the tread of a distiller with the keenness of a slew-hound; his dark eye was deep-set, circumspect, and roguish in its expression, and his shaggy brow seemed always to be engaged in calculating whereabouts his inveterate foe, little George Steen, that eternally blinked him, when almost in his very fangs, might then be distilling. To be brief, Pentland was proverbial for his sagacity and adroitness in detecting distillers, and little George was equally proverbial for having always baffled him, and that, too, sometimes under circumstances where escape seemed hopeless.

The incidents which we are about to detail occurred at that period of time when the collective wisdom of our legislators thought it advisable to impose a fine upon the whole townland in which the still head and worm might be found; thus opening a door for knavery and fraud, and, as it proved in most cases, rendering the innocent as liable to suffer for an offence they never contemplated as the guilty who planned and perpetrated it. The consequence of such a law was, that still-houses were always certain to be erected either at the very verge of the neighbouring districts, or as near them as the circumstances of convenience and situation would permit. The moment of course that the hue-and-cry of the gauger and his myrmidons was heard upon the wind, the whole apparatus was immediately heaved over the mering to the next townland, from which the fine imposed by parliament was necessarily raised, whilst the crafty and offending district actually escaped. The state of society generated by such a blundering and barbarous statute as this, was dreadful. In the course of a short time, reprisals, law-suits, battles, murders, and massacres, multiplied to such an extent throughout the whole country, that the sapient senators who occasioned such com

Behind the hill or rather mountain of Altnaveenan lies one of those deep and almost precipitous vallies, on which the practised eye of an illicit distiller would dwell with delight, as a topography not likely to be invaded by the unhallowed feet of the gauger and his red-coats. In point of fact, the spot we speak of was from its peculiarly isolated situation nearly

found how it worked. Necessity, together with being the mother of invention, is also the cause of many an accidental discovery. Pentland had been so frequently defeated by little George, that he vowed never to rest until he had secured him; and George on the other hand frequently told him for they were otherwise on the best terms that he defied him, or as he himself more quaintly expressed it, "that he defied the