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ST. BRENDAN.

Amongst the remarkable men that there clustered, were St. Kieran, founder of Clonmacnoise, who died in 549, and St. Brendan. The history of the latter abounds with fable, but it is admitted that a thousand years before Christopher Columbus, he crossed the Atlantic and landed on the coast of Florida, where there is a strip of country which, according to Humboldt, in his Cosmos, bore the name of Irland it Milka, "Ireland of the white man." The visit of St. Brendan to Aran, previous to his departure to the great western continent, has been described by one of the most musical of our poets – Denis Florence MacCarthy – as follows: —

 
"Hearing how blessed Enda lived apart,
Amid the sacred caves of Aran-mör,
And how beneath his eye, spread like a chart,
Lay all the isles of that remotest shore;
And how he had collected in his mind
All that was known to the man of the "old sea,"³
I left the hill of miracles behind,
And sailed from out the shallow sandy Leigh.
 
 
"Again I sailed and crossed the stormy sound,
That lies beneath Binn-Aite's rocky height,
And there upon the shore, the saint I found
Waiting my coming through the tardy night.
He led me to his home beside the wave,
Where with his monks the pious father dwelled,
And to my listening ear he freely gave
The sacred knowledge that his bosom held.
 
 
"When I proclaimed the project that I nursed,
How it was for this that I his blessing sought,
An irrepressible cry of joy outburst
From his pure lips, that blessed me for the thought.
He said that he, too, had in visions strayed,
O'er the untrack'd ocean's billowing foam;
Bid me have hope, that God would give me aid,
And bring me safe back to my native home.
 
 
"Thus having sought for knowledge and for strength,
For the unheard-of voyage that I planned,
I left those myriad isles, and turned at length
Southward my barque, and sought my native land.
There I made all things ready day by day;
The wicker boat with ox-skins covered o'er,
Chose the good monks, companions of my way,
And waited for the wind to leave the shore."
 

ST. FINNIAN.

Another of St. Enda's disciples was St. Finnian of Moville – and it was from Aran he set out on his pilgrimage to Rome. Soon after he returned to Ireland, bringing with him a copy of the Gospels, the Papal benediction, and the Canons of St. Finnian. Again departing for Italy, he was made Bishop of Lucca, in Italy, where he died in 588.

ST. COLUMBA.

St. Columba spent years in Aran, and deeply was he grieved at leaving it for Iona. His bitter lament in Irish verse has been translated into English metre by the late Sir Aubrey De Vere, Bart., in part as follows: —

1

 
"Farewell to Aran isle, farewell!
I steer for Hy; my heart is sore,
The breakers burst, the billows swell,
'Twixt Aran's isle and Alba's shore.
 

2

 
"Thus spake the son of God, 'Depart!'
Oh Aran isle, God's will be done!
By angels thronged this hour thou art:
I sit within my barque alone.
 

3

 
"Oh Modan, well for thee the while!
Fair falls thy lot and well art thou,
Thy seat is set in Aran isle,
Eastward to Alba turns my prow.
 

4

 
"Oh Aran, sun of all the west!
My heart is thine! as sweet to close
Our dying eyes in thee as rest
Where Peter and where Paul repose.
 

5

 
"Oh Aran, sun of all the west,
My heart its grave hath found;
He walks in regions of the blest,
The man that hears thy church bells sound.
 

6

 
"Oh Aran blest – oh Aran blest!
Accursed the man that loves not thee;
The dead man cradled in thy breast
No demon scares him – well is he."⁴
 

ST. FURSA.

Amongst the other ecclesiastical notabilities that frequented Aran in the sixth century was St. Fursa, whose life has been written by scores of writers, as well by the Venerable Bede as by Archbishop Usher, the greatest ornament of the Protestant Church in Ireland. The visions of Fursa were, we are informed by the Rev. J. Carey, in his admirable translation of Dante, the groundwork of the Inferno. The beautiful imagery of Fursa's fancy, which threw a charm over every subject that he handled, may be well illustrated by his rhapsodies on seeing for the first time the city of Rome, as staff in hand he wended his way to the Eternal City. Falling on his knees, with outstretched arms, he exclaimed, "Rome! oh, Rome! I hail thee, admirable by apostolic triumphs. Rome, decorated by the roses of the martyrs, whitened by the lilies of the confessors, crowned by the palms of the virgins, thou that containest the bones and relics of the saints, may thy authority never fade!"⁵ Strange, is it not, that the first sight of the city of Rome should produce in the minds of men feelings which words almost fail to convey!

GIBBON.

It was eleven hundred years after Fursa's first salutation to the city of Rome that Edward Gibbon, when musing amid the ruins of the Capitol whilst the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, formed the idea of writing "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," and what his feelings were on seeing for the first time the holy city he thus in that immortal work informs us: "My temper is not very susceptible of enthusiasm, and the enthusiasm which I do not feel I have ever scorned to affect, but at the distance of twenty-five years, I can neither forget nor express the strong emotions which agitated my mind as I first approached and entered the Eternal City. After a sleepless night I trod with a lofty step the ruins of the Forum." St. Fursa, returning on foot through France, died at Peronne, and his body was conveyed to the island of Aran, where amongst his quondam brethren he now, awaiting the resurrection of the just, reposes.

Of the monuments, as well pre-Christian as Christian, in these islands, there are twenty-one, vested in the secretary of the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland, to be preserved as national monuments. (See next page.)

RUINS.

Ruins everywhere meet the eye of the tourist in Aran – ruined abbeys, ruined monasteries, ruined nunneries, ruined cells, ruined churches, ruined schools, ruined forts, ruined forests, and ruined towers. With one exception the churches of Aran face the east. I heard somewhere, when on the islands, that that is not exactly true, but that they faced the point of the compass at which the sun rose on the day that the foundation stone was laid. Be that as it may, there is the Oratory of St. Banon, which directly faces the north. It is fifteen feet long, by seventeen feet high to the summit of the gables, by eleven feet in breadth.

COUNTY OF GALWAY.

BARONY OF ARAN.

CLOGHAUNS.

Close by are the remains of the hermitage, partly sunk in the rock, and of some cloghauns, or stone-roofed dwellings. How those solitaries, who for centuries held up the lamp of learning which shone across Europe during the long night which followed the breaking up of the Roman empire, could live in such comfortless cells, it is impossible to apprehend: circular chambers about twenty feet in exterior diameter, with a hole in the stone beehive roof for a chimney, and with an Egyptian-like doorway that a tall man could with difficulty enter. Teampul-Chiarain has a beautiful eastern window, with some crosses. Four miles from Kilronan are Kilmurvey and Teampul McDuach, a sixth-century church, consisting of nave and choir in beautiful preservation. There are windows there of remote antiquity, with lintels formed of two leaning stones; and there is a semicircular window of great beauty of a more recent date. There is a stone leaning against the eastern gable with a rudely cut opening which seems to have been the head of the more ancient window. The narrow doorway is like the entrance to an Egyptian tomb. Another small church, Teampul-beg, together with a holy well and monastic enclosure, is worthy of inspection. At the north-western side of the Inishmore island, and six miles from Kilronan, are the remains of the seven churches, one of which is called Teampul Brecain– the church of St. Braccan, who was the founder of the monastery of Ardbraccan, now the cathedral church of the diocese of Meath. The ruined church of Teampul-saght-Machree is an object of interest on the middle island. The eastern island in ancient times was called Aran-Coemhan in honour of St. Coemhan (St. Kevin), brother of St. Kevin of Glendalough. He was one of the most renowned of the saints of Aran, and is believed to have not unfrequently abated storms after being piously invoked.

CHILDLESS MARRIAGES.

There is a legend in the islands worthy of remembrance by those whose marriages are as yet unblest with children. We speak of that of St. Braccan's bed, where many a fair devotee has prayed and has had her prayers granted, as Anna of old had in the temple of Silo,⁶ when the Lord bestowed on her childless marriage a child who was afterwards the prophet Samuel.

ARAN CHURCHES.

The churches are all of small dimensions – never more than sixty feet in length – at the eastern end of which is not unfrequently a chancel in which the altar was placed. Between the nave of the church and the chancel was the chancel arch of a semicircular form, a very beautiful specimen of which exists in the Protestant cathedral of Tuam. These temples, very imperfectly lighted by small windows splaying inwards, do not appear to have ever been glazed. The chancel had usually two or three windows – one of which is always in the centre of the east end, with another in the south wall, another in the south wall of the nave, sometimes, though rarely, two in number. The windows are frequently triangular-headed, but more usually arched semicircularly, whilst the doorway is almost universally covered by a horizontal lintel consisting of a single stone. In all cases the sides of the doorways incline like the doorways in the old Cyclopean buildings, to which they bear a striking resemblance. The smaller churches were usually roofed with stone, whilst the larger ones were roofed with wood covered with thatch. The wells are carefully preserved, the scarcity of water rendering the possession of a well almost as precious to them as to the Eastern shepherds in the days of Rebecca.

The Aran churches, it must be admitted, have little in them to interest the mind or captivate the senses; nevertheless, in their symmetrical simplicity, their dimly lighted naves, in the total absence of everything that could distract attention, there is an expression of fitness for their purpose too often wanting in modern temples of the highest pretensions.

LIVES OF THE MONKS.

The monastic establishments close by contained little that would savour of luxury. The cells of the friars were low, narrow huts, built of the roughest materials, which formed, by the regular distribution of the streets, a large and populous village, enclosing within a common wall a church and hospital, perhaps a library. The austere inmates slept on the ground, on a hard mat or a rough blanket, and the same bundle of palm leaves, served them as a seat by day and a pillow by night. The brethren were supported by their manual labour, and the duty of labour was strenuously recommended as a penance, as an exercise, and as the most laudable means of securing their daily subsistence. "Laborare est orare" was a monastic maxim. The garden and the fields which the industry of the monks had rescued from the forest or the morass were cultivated by their ceaseless toil. In the evening they assembled for vocal or mental prayer, and they were awakened by a rustic horn, or by the convent bell in the night, for the public worship of the monastery. Even sleep, the last refuge of the unhappy, was rigorously measured; and it was to lives of self-denial like this that great multitudes in the first century of the Christian era betook themselves. Pliny, who lived when Christ was crucified, surveyed with astonishment the monks of the first century, "a solitary people," he says, "who dwelt amongst the palm trees near the Dead Sea, who increased, and who subsisted without money, who fled from the pleasures of life, and who derived from the disgust and repentance of mankind a perpetual supply of voluntary associates."⁷

ORDNANCE SURVEY.

On Inisheer island is a signal tower, and near it is an old castle on an eminence. Here is shown the "bed of St. Coemhan," much famed for its miraculous cures. On the south-west point is a lighthouse showing a light one hundred and ten feet in height. It is stated in the Leabhar-braec that one of the Popes was interred in the great island of Aran. The same is repeated in one of the volumes of the Ordnance Survey, a work which, never printed, is stowed away on the shelves of the Royal Irish Academy, liable at any moment to be destroyed by a conflagration. In the three or four volumes on the county of Galway are contained, and in the English language, the inquisitions of Elizabeth, the subsequent patents of James I., and much learning touching tithes, fisheries, abbeys, abbey lands, priories, and monasteries, as well as letters on these subjects between Petrie and O'Donovan and other antiquarians employed on that survey.

CHAPTER III

ISLES OF ARAN, 14TH-18TH CENTURIES

 
"Long thy fair cheek was pale,
Erin Aroon—
Too well it spake thy tale,
Erin Aroon—
Fondly nursed hopes betrayed,
Gallant sons lowly laid,
All anguish there portrayed,
Erin Aroon."
 

Sliabh Cuilinn.

ANNALS OF ARAN.

A. D. 1308. The trade of Galway, which at the time of the Anglo-Norman invasion in the twelfth century was at zero, rapidly rose to a comparatively high figure in the fourteenth century. In 1300 the customs receipts were £24 15s. 2d. at that port, and in 1392, £118 5s. 10d. This augured well for the progressive improvement of the town; but that improvement was blasted for a season by the appearance in the bay of a fleet of pirates who swept the ships from the seas. The merchants applied to their powerful neighbour,⁸ Dermot More O'Brien, lord of the isles of Aran, to succour them in their straits; and for that succour and the protection which he agreed to give them they agreed to pay him yearly twelve tuns of wine; the trade, commerce, and harbour of the town to be protected, and otherwise by him and his successors defended, from all and every attack of pirates and privateers whatsoever, to which intent and purpose, and for the considerations aforesaid, he covenanted and agreed to maintain a suitable maritime force. This Dermot More O'Brien was descended from Brian [Boru] Boroimhe, slain at the battle of Clontarf in 1014.

A. D. 1334. In this year the islands were plundered by Sir John Darcy, who sailed with fifty-six ships around the Irish coasts.

REVOLT OF ARAN.

A. D. 1400. The rebellion of the Mayo and Clanrickarde Burkes in the province of Connaught, consequent on the murder, in 1333, of William De Burgh, Earl of Ulster and fifth Lord of Connaught, caused the overthrow for nearly two hundred years, of the English power in that province. The town of Galway, oscillating in its allegiance between the Crown and the Clanricardes, joined that powerful family against Henry IV., and in their revolt they were joined by the South Isles of Aran.

ROYAL LICENSE.

Thereupon the King did by royal license permit certain persons to attack the rebels in the said island, which license is as follows: —

"The King to all and singular our admirals mayors and others in our kingdom of England and lordship of Ireland greeting At the supplication of John Roderic William Pound Edward White and Philip Taylor all of Bristol and of Nicholas Kent burgess of Galway in Ireland In as much as our aforesaid liege subjects have given to us security that they shall not nor will presume to make war or afford cause for making war against any of our faithful Irish subjects or attempt anything against the form of the truces entered into between us Wherefore know ye that we have granted and given license and do hereby grant and give licence to them the said John Roderic William Pound Edward White Philip Taylor and Nicholas Kent that they with as many men at arms as they choose to have and provide at their own expenses may take their course for and pass over to our said lordship of Ireland in four ships called by the divers names of 'The Christopher' 'the Trusty' 'the Nicholas' and 'the May of Bristol' and there make war against the rebels and enemies of us in the said town of Galway and also in the islands of Arran which lie full of gallies to ensnare capture and plunder our liege English and further know ye all men that if said John and William and Edward and Philip and Nicholas shall be able by force and armed power to obtain and take the town and islands aforesaid they may have hold and inhabit the same town and islands taking to their own use and profit all and singular the property of the aforesaid rebels and enemies of us and all that which they shall be able so to obtain and take The right nevertheless and other the rents revenues services and other moneys whatsumever to our royal prerogative there pertaining always saved unto us saving also the right of the son and heir of Roger de Mortimer late Earl of March deceased being within age and within our wardship and the rights of all other liege subjects whomsoever – given at our Palace at Westminster on the 22nd day of May in the first year of our reign – a. d. 1400 'By the King himself'"⁹ The town however returning to its allegiance, the above license was in the same year revoked.

THE REFORMATION.

A. D. 1485. A monastery was built in this year on the great island for the Franciscans of the strict observance; but this community was doomed to be short lived, for the word had gone forth from Henry VIII. to suppress the monasteries and they were suppressed; and the annalists thus, in the Annals of the Four Masters, a. d. 1537, chronicle not alone their overthrow, but the spread of a new religion in England, "A new heresy and error arose in England through pride, vain-glory, avarice, sensuality, and many strange speculations, so that the people of England went into opposition to the Pope and to Rome. They have demolished the abbeys, sold their roofs and bells, and there is not one single monastery from Aran of the Saints to the 'Straits of Dover'¹⁰ that has not been completely destroyed."

A STORM.

A. D. 1560. A tragic occurrence occurred in this year when Teige O'Brien, lord of the isles, was returning, loaded with booty if not with honours, to Aran, from a plundering expedition which he had made into Munster; from one of the seaports of which province he had the rashness with his homeward bound barque to put to sea when a tempest was said by his sailors to be impending. Deceived by the "calm before the storm" he insisted on weighing anchor. It was weighed, and as the starless night was closing and deepening around him, the gale freshened as he advanced – his tempest-tossed vessel struggled amidst the waves, for the wind was high against it – and when the morning rolled the clouds away, a broken spar, an oarless boat, were all that remained to tell the ghastly tale, that every hand on board was lost. At the entrance of the Great Man's Bay, which was far out of their course, is even now shown the spot where on that fatal night they perished.

A. D. 1570. Morchowe O'Brien, in consideration of a sum of money to him in hand paid, conveyed these islands by way of mortgage to James Lynch Fitz Ambrose and his heirs.

THE O'BRIENS.

A. D. 1575. In June of this year it was agreed between the mortgagor and mortgagee of the islands "that in case the sept of clan Tiege O'Brien, the said mortgagor, should decease and perish, then that James Lynch Fitz Ambrose, the mortgagee, should be their sole heir, and possess, Aran, and all other their lands, and that said O'Brien should not alienate or mortgage any part or parcel of Aran to any person without the mortgagee's consent and license." It appears, however, that Tieg Eturgh, Morchowe Morowe, Conchor McMurchowe, Terrilagh Meeagh, Tieg McTerrilagh, Dermot McMurchowe, Tieg McTerrilagh Oge, and Conchor McMoriertagh, McBrene, gentlemen, all of Aran, and Dermot McCormick McConnor, of the Castle of Trowmore, afterwards on July 14, 1575, appointed Captain Morchowe McTerrilagh O'Brien their attorney for ransoming the isles of Aran from James Lynch, that all such parts as he should so ransom should belong to him (O'Brien) and his heirs for ever.¹¹

It would appear that this Captain Morchowe McTerrilagh O'Brien, of the Clantiege of Aran, on July 14 of the same year, 1575, was in Galway; and being there, was minded to claim the privilege his ancestors had, he alleged, enjoyed of lodgings and meals for two days and two nights in the town, and the "mayor calling before him auncient old credibel witnesses, they declared upon their oaths that they never heard of their parents or saw the said sept have no more than two meals in the town, and it was thereupon ordered that said sept shall have no more than two meals, they being always bound to serve attend and wait upon us and in our service as their ancestors had been, and further that it was the O'Brien sept that was bound to give lodging and entertainment to all the commons of Galway, when they shall repair to the islands of Aran. And the said mayor did grant and promise O'Brien to be aiders, helpers, maintainers and assisters, of him against all persons that would lay siege to spoil the islands or castle of Aran or otherwise wrong the said Morchowe or his sept."¹²

THE CLANRICARDES.

A. D. 1579. Queen Elizabeth, by her charter to the town of Galway, having recited that Richard III., late King of England, out of his abundant grace and for the greater security and safeguard of the town of Galway, willed and ordained that neither MacWilliam Burke, Lord of Clanricarde, nor his heirs, should have any rule or power in the said town of Galway, therein to act, exact, receive, ordain, or dispose of anything without the special license, and by the assent and superintendence of the mayor, bailiffs, and commonalty of the said town of Galway; appointed the mayor of Galway to be admiral of her and her successors within the town aforesaid and within and over the islands of Aran and from the said islands to Galway.

A. D. 1580. There died in this year in the islands of Aran an islander who had reached the extreme old age of two hundred and twenty years. This patriarchal inhabitant killed a bullock in his own house every year for one hundred and eighty years.

THE FEROCIOUS O'FLAHERTIES.

A. D. 1586. In this year the O'Briens, long the lords of the islands of Aran, "were expulsed from their territory by ye ferocious O'Flaherties of Iar Connaught." The matter was brought under the knowledge of the Crown, who resolved to put an end to the lawless savagery which existed in those parts, whereby one sept could, in times of peace, sail on a plundering expedition against another and expel them, wasting the country with fire and sword all the time; and accordingly a commission, under the great seal, was issued for the purpose of examining the title, if any, of the O'Flaherties to the islands. Having gone through the mockery of an inquisition, the commissioners found that the islands belonged not to the O'Briens, lords of the isles, nor yet to the O'Flaherties, who had no title at all, but that they belonged to her Majesty Queen Elizabeth in right of her crown and dignity; and accordingly she, by her letters patent dated January 15th, a. d. 1587, instead of restoring them to the ancient proprietors, granted them entire to Sir John Rawson, of Athlone, gentleman, and his heirs, on condition that he should retain constantly on the islands twenty foot-soldiers of the English nation.¹³

CLAN OF MAC TIEGE O'BRIEN.

A. D. 1588. When the return of the inquisition and subsequent patent granting the lands away from the O'Briens became known, the corporation of Galway thus petitioned the Queen, in favour of Murrough McTurlogh O'Brien: "That the Mac Tieges of Aran, his ancestors, were under her Majesty and her predecessors the temporal captains or lords of the islands of Aran, and held their territories and hereditaments elsewhere under the name of Mac Tiege O'Brien of Aran, time out of man's memory, and that they the said corporation, had seen the said Murrough McTurlogh authorized by all his sept, as chief of that name, and in possession of the premises as his own lawful inheritance, as more at large doth appear in our books of record, wherein he continued until of late he was, by the usurping power of the O'Flaherties expelled; and we say, moreover, that the sept of the Mac Tiege O'Briens of Aran, since the foundation of this city, were aiding and assisting ourselves and our predecessors against the enemies of your majesty and your predecessors in all times and places, whereunto they were called as true and faithful and liege people to the crown of England, to maintain, succour, and assist the town.

"(Signed), "John Blake, Mayor of Galway,

"Walter Martin, Bailiff,

"Anthony Kirwan, Bailiff."

Queen Elizabeth heard the appeal, but her Majesty was inexorable. It is more than probable that the O'Briens had caused, at least remotely, the alienation of their inheritance by their own domestic feuds. At the north extremity of Inishmore, the large island, not far from Port Murvey, the islanders show a field where human bones are frequently dug up, and for which reason it is called Farran-na-Cann, "the field of the sculls." Here the O'Briens are said at some remote period to have slaughtered each other almost to extermination. This sort of self-destruction is the blackest blot on the page of Irish history. It has always been, and alas! is Ireland's sad and unalienable inheritance.

AN INDUSTRIOUS DISCOVERER.

Of the patentee, John Rawson, little is remembered, save that in an instrument enrolled in the Rolls Office, in 1594, he is called "an industrious discoverer of lands for the Queen." The O'Flaherties had now the gratification of seeing the O'Briens, also an Irish sept, turned out of their inheritance, and the same granted to a stranger.

LYNCHES.

After this period the property and inheritance of the islands became and were vested in Sir Roebuck Lynch, of Galway. How Sir Roebuck became proprietor of the islands we have been unable, with certainty, to learn; but we might hazard a plausible guess that Sir John Rawson was granted whatever estate O'Brien had forfeited, and that what O'Brien did forfeit as mortgagor was the equity of redemption in the islands; that consequently Lynch, the mortgagee, remained in possession of the legal estate, and he, on Rawson failing to perform the covenants in mortgage deed contained, foreclosed the mortgage, and thus probably the fee and the equity of redemption became united in one and the same person, Sir Roebuck Lynch.