Irish poets and novelists

Front matter

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Ay*'

4^ i

Preface

IN presenting this volume to the public, the editor claims for his share no other merit than that of accuracy in the biographical data which have been collected from different sources at the cost of considerable time, and not without labor. All other merits belong to the gifted children of the Gael whose life-trials and triumphs he has endeavored to portray.

Irish literature is not wanting in collections of songs and ballads. It is admitted on every side that the songs of Erin stand unrivaled; and both in quantity and quality her ballad-poetry ranks next after that of Scotland. But, up to a very recent date, comparatively little has been done towards preserving biographies of those to whom she is indebted for such priceless treasures. A few books have of late been printed in the United States with a view to remedy this defect; but they are all so bulky and, in many instances, so badly bound as to render them useless, except as works of reference. Besides, the price of those tomes is so high that it places them

beyond the reach of the mass of our people.

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IV. PEEPACE.

It is, therefore, to supply a popular want that these sketches and poems have been collected from the pages of the Celtic Magazine, in v/hich they first appeared under the title they still retain.

The portrait of Kichard D 'Alton Williams which appears in this work is the only one ever published of that graceful and gifted writer. The miniature ivory portrait, of which our frontispiece is a faithful copy, was made when " Shamrock" had the honor of being a political prisoner, in Newgate, on account of his participation in the 'Forty-Eight movement. This is the first and only one ever taken of him. As the reader will readily observe, he was sketched in prison garb. His sole surviving son, Mr. Dalton Williams of New Orleans, was good enough to have a cop3^ made specially for Irish Poets and Novelists — a favor which is highly appreciated.

The portrait of that sweet charmer of the lyre, James Joseph Callanan, so far as can be learned, has never before appeared in print. The one that accompanies his life-sketch in the present work is supposed to have been taken in his native city before he left forever the land of his love.

Here also the reader will find, for the first time in extenso,a memoir of that genuine poet and patriotic Irishman, Bartholomew Dowling, who has done good work in the domain of Irish literature. Like

PREFACE.

most men of genius he was modest, and wrote seemingly without any intention of leaving his work behind him in a collective form. The disjecta membra poetae have, however, been gathered together in this volume. The consciousness of having assisted in rescuing the poems of this excellent author from the brink of oblivion more than compensates for the labor expended on the entire book.

It may be objected that we have omitted many of Ireland's best poetical writers here. Very true; the author of the Irish Melodies is not mentioned; nor are many others of greater note than some of those represented, because we seek not so much to increase the fame of well-known poets as to popularize those comparatively unknown, but whose works, nevertheless, entitle them to our gratitude and admiration.

The Editor.

Introduction

HE ruthless efforts of the British Government to degrade and stifle the mental energies of the Irish people are little known to the great mass of their descendants in these later days of intellectual freedom. Occasional mention is made of the atrocious Penal Code, which, even as recently as the beginning of the present centviry, was enforced by those of whom the immortal Davis wrote:

' They bribed the flock, they bribed the son,

To sell the priest and rob the sire; Their dogs were taught alike to run Upon the scent of wolf and friar."

But how few, even amongst the friends of the Irish cause, are intimately familiar with the text and the means employed for the execution of those monstrous enactments against the acquirement and dissemination of human knowledge !

The question involves one of the darkest pages of history and possesses a deep import for all who belong either closely or remotely to that widelyscattered but ambitious and hopeful part of the world's population known as the Irish Nation. The Goths and Vandals, sweeping down from the shores of the Baltic and razing to the earth the temples of art and science, were less malignant in their purpose

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vm. INTRODUCTION.

than the statesmen who framed those statutes for the suppression of education in Ireland. The former, rude and barbarous, destroyed the fountain of knowledge but spared the stream that supplied it, whilst the latter, with ripe experience in the ways of civilization, not only shattered the receptacle but also penetrated to the depths in order to obstruct the current upon which a nation depended for intellectual existence. All the furies of a merciless tyranny were directed against the schoolmasters of Ireland by a monarchy which boasted of its own wealth of learning and the liberality of its patronage of art and literature. It was not the semi-barbarous Goth but the civilized Anglo-Norman of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that proved the greatest scourge of knowledge in Ireland. It was not the wild tribesmen from the mountains of Northern Europe, but the titled courtiers and mail-clad warriors from the land of Shakespeare, of Bacon, of Macauley and of Locke, that rifled the archives of the Irish monasteries and wantonly destroyed the ancient treasures of a nation of scholars. The spectacle of a people made helplessly illiterate by process of law should excite resentment in the mind of every lover of justice. It should also stand as a barrier for the protection of their descendants, so frequently subjected to humiliation and reproach by those .who are either ignorant of or otherwise blindly prejudiced to the facts of history.

During recent generations the people of Ireland, both at home and abroad, were but too often com-

INTEODUCTION. IX.

pelled to hear the coarsely-insulting designation, " ignorant Irish " — a phrase which found its origin upon the lips of the very enemies who despoiled their country's institutions of learning, and afterwards, by means of the most infamous legislation, sought to obliterate every vestige of their former enlightenment.

This galling insult burned deeply into the hearts of millions who keenly felt its injustice whilst beholding in the ivy-clad ruins of their beloved ''Insula Sanctorum" the proofs that they were not ignorant by choice, but because of the Nero-like persecution waged against the teachers who would have instructed them.

The skeleton of the Penal Code should not be permitted to lie undisturbed in the closet of imperial England.

Justice to the Irish people of the present, as well as to the memory of those of the past, demands that the monstrous relic should be exposed. Ours is an age of investigation and progress ; and it is due the educated Irish of to-day as well as their descendants in this thrice-blessed land of freedom that the reason of the existence of the so-called " ignorant Irish " of years gone by should be fully and effectively explained. The utterance of Burke should be known and remembered by all who would bear testimony to the iniquitous character of the Penal Code and its blighting effects upon the inhabitants of Ireland. "It was," says the eminent statesman, " a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted

INTRODUCTION, for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man." With such a machine in operation it is not at all surprising that the tree of knowledge ceased to bear fruit amongst the sons and daughters of Erin. On the contrary, being so perfectly equipped for the accomplishment of evil, it is simply a wonder that the fell purpose of those who introduced the engine of destruction was not wholly consummated. The Irish people were oppressed, impoverished, and degraded; but not all the fiendish ingenuity of their enemies could produce " the debasement in them of human nature itself." As a nation, they have never borne the taint of debasement. Even from the remote period of their exalted paganism down to the days of the present they have been distinguished as the guardians of social purity, the patrons of chivalry and the devoted conservators of song and story. The authors of the Penal Code succeeded in depriving them of the benefits of education, but struggled in vain to destroy their love and loyalty for the " Soggarth Aroon " and the everfaithful poet, by whose ministry and lays they were alone preserved from spiritual and natibn'al decay. This love and loyalty, born in the dark days of oppression and still active and unwavering in the hearts of millions, is most felicitously commemorated in the pages of the volume herewith given to the public.

The pen of the reverend author could not have

INTRODUCTION.

XI, been more fittingly employed than in spreading the fame of those who, without the expectation of material reward, devoted their genius and talents to a poor and helpless motherland in order that she might perpetuate the existence of her ancient nationhood. His patient research has brought to this work much valuable information which has never before appeared in print, and which, were it not for his exertions, might have been lost to Irish biographical literature.

This is notably illustrated in the case of that consummate poet and ardent patriot, Bartholomew Dowling, whose life and labors are here published for the first time, and whose career must possess a special interest for those whose lot like his own was cast on the golden shores of the Pacific, whence, to use his own words,

' ' That poet's song doth now go forth To many a distant shore, To fling around his land of birth A glory evermore. "

The survivors of the patriotic Boys of '65 to '67 will also read with especial pleasure the pages devoted to the biography of the gifted Dowling.

It will bring back to their minds the fervent outpourings of patriotic sentiment to which they listened, in those hidden gatherings of more than a quarter of a century ago, by the banks of the Liflfey, the Blackwater or the Shannon.

As in a dream they will listen, once again, to a deep- toned voice singing the glories of ''The Brigade

Xll. INTRODUCTION.

at Fontenoy," whilst a John Boyle O'Reilly or an Edmund 'Donovan will give ghostly approval to the author of the soul-stirring strains:

*' By our camp fires rose a murmur

At the dawning of the day, And the tread of many footsteps,

Spoke the advent of the fray. "

Another particularly interesting and most valuable feature of the volume is the publication, also for the first time, of the portrait of the versatile and sublimely-endowed Richard D'Alton Williams. The reverend biographer has aimed to present as fully as possible the distinguishing traits of this fondly-remembered poet, and that he has succeeded, is amply shown by the fascinating sketch in which he pictures the genius and virtue of him who wrote —

" When 1 slumber in the gloom Of a nameless foreign tomb By a distant ocean's boom. "

Happily, the anticipations of the exile poet were not long fulfilled. His tomb, as we are so beautifully informed, was not allowed to remain nameless. All praise to the noble-hearted soldiers who accomplished the chivalrous and patriotic duty of honoring the last resting place of Richard D'Alton Williams. '

The most liberal support should be ungrudgingly given to those who compile and preserve the " materials for a true and complete history of Ireland," and it is therefore cordially hoped that such support and patronage may be freely extended to Irish Poets AND Novelists. ^ t> t>