perceived or suspected, that he was speedily deserted by the multitudes that first flocked around

the most whereof are coyned after things are done,") that he was often told by the Earl of Thomond about an ancient book of Irish prophecies, which the Earl himself had seen, in which it was mentioned, that, "towards the latter days," there should be a battle fought between the Irish and the English near Kinsale, in a place, the name of which was exactly stated; that this circumstance was often mentioned by the Earl, during the siege of Kinsale, previous to the battle; and that, the day after the engagement, the Earl and he, having ridden out together to view the dead, and, having asked some people who happened to be there, what was that place called, they, with out knowing why the question was asked, stated the very name "which the Earl so often before had reported!" (Pacata Hibernia, p. 235 & 6.) The existence and exact accomplishment of this prediction is also certified by the Secretary of the commander of the English army, Lord Deputy Mountjoy.،، The same day," says that writer, meaning that on which the action was fought, 66 an old written book was shewed to the Lord Deputy, wherein was a PROPHECY naming the ford and hill where the battle was given, and foretelling a great overthrow to befal the Irish in that place!" (Moryson, Hist. vol. 11. p. 52.) And in Cox's account of the battle of Knocknaclashy, the last engagement fought between the Irish loyalist forces under Lord Muskerry and the Cromwellian commander, Lord Broghill, on the 20th of July, 1652, it is related, that the English General, having passed the Blackwater early on the morning of the action, "met with some Irish gentlemen under his protection, who told him they came thither out of curiosity, because of a PROPHECY amongst them, that the LAST battle in Ireland should be fought at KNOCKNACLASHY!.. Whereupon the Lord Broghill asked them, who was to have the victory by their prophecy; they shook their heads and said, the ENGLISH!" (Cox, Hist. vol. II. p. 67 & 8.) At various other periods of Irish history, allusions are likewise made to old national prophecies, of which numbers yet exist in writing; as, for instance, in the Harleian Library, amongst the catalogue of whose MSS. mention is made of a copy of Irish history and prophecies, written in the 10th century, or about 200 years before the English invasion, "in the old Irish language;" and again, in the Bodleian Library, where, on an old vellum MS. of 140 large pages, there are the alleged prophecies of the famous Columbkill and several other Irish saints. (Selections from the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. II. p.31. Nicholson's Irish Historical Library, chap.111.p.34.) "The fall of Ireland," says honest Taaffe, " was prophecied by its great

him, and he was compelled to retire from amongst the comparatively enlightened population about Limerick and the other great garrison towns, to recruit his lost numbers among the ruder and more credulous inhabitants of the extreme western or less civilized districts of Connaught." There, by profess

Apostle Saint Patrick, and afterwards by many of its Saints, who ALL agreed in promising it a GLORIOUS RESURRECTION!" (Hist. vol. 1. p. 371.) The former part of this assertion respecting the predicted “fall” of Ireland is remarkably countenanced by the following lines, translated and printed along with the original Irish by Mr. Hardiman (Irish Minstrelsy, vol. 11. p. 136.) from St. Brecan, or Braccan, who flourished A.D. 640, and who is mentioned by Cambrensis, above 500 years after, and nearly 4 centuries before the Reformation, as one of the 4 celebrated Irish Saints and prophets, namely, Patrick, Columbkill, Moling, and Braccan, whose works, in Irish, were extant in his time. (Ware's Irish Writers by Harris, p. 29 & 32.) The prophetic verses run thus—

Erin's white-crested billow shall sleep on the shore, And its voice shall be mute, while the spoilers glide o'er ; And the stranger shall give a new priest to each shrine, And the sceptre shall wrest from her own regal line! A prediction strictly verified in the fine season of the year in which the earlier Anglo-Norman adventurers came over to Ireland, and in the prosperous passage of the remainder at a later or less propitious season, as well as in the other generally-known and more fatal consequences, in "church and state," of that invasion, to the Milesian Irish. From motives of patriotic enthusiasm, if not from considerations of mere literary and philosophical curiosity, such old Irish works are therefore not unworthy of examination.

117 Mr. O'Driscol's character of this impostor and traitor is too well drawn to be omitted. "He was," says that gentleman, "a man of a class of which many specimens have been seen in Ireland: he was a great boaster, suspected to be a coward, known to be a knave, noisy, insolent, presumptuous and corrupt. He used his popularity to collect round him some thousands of the peasantry; and he employed the impor tance he derived from this multitude of followers to betray their cause, and to sell himself at a better price to the British commander." (Hist. vol. 11. p. 288 & 9.) More of this, by and by.

118

ing to advocate extreme political measures, the usual scheme of traitors to gain the vulgar, or, in other words, by announcing his intention of making Ireland a completely separate kingdom from England, and of placing the government in the hands of the ancient Irish alone, he became a sort of independent commander, and raised no less than 8 regiments-most probably infantry, which, according to the general amount of King James's foot regiments would, exclusive of officers, make 6,240 men. With these and a crowd of disorderly vagabonds, he lived at discretion upon the country, to the ruin of the inhabitants. And thus were the Irish regular forces doubly weakened, first by being deprived of the services of so many men when their aid was most requisite, and next by the diminution even of the scanty subsistence which it was absolutely necessary to draw from the people, in the absence of any greater allowance of pay to each soldier than the miserably inadequate sum of a penny a day! 119 At last, on the 8th of May, when the distress of the Irish had reached its highest pitch, the French fleet, with Lieutenant General St. Ruth and other officers of his nation, arrived at

118 King James, vol. 11. p. 434 & 461. Story, Cont. Hist. p. 31.

119 King James, vol. II. p. 451. From the general picture given by the royal author of the excessive privations and miseries to which the Irish were reduced through the barbarous neglect of the French minister Louvois, I question whether any other troops in the world, except, perhaps, the Poles, would have continued to serve and fight as the Irish did for James.

Limerick. This fleet, whose appearance in the Shannon the Irish welcomed with their characteristic enthusiasm, hailing its arrival, says King James, with a "Te Deum, like the gaining of a victory," brought over some arms, ammunition, provisions and clothes-the provisions and clothes being, however, so deficient both in quantity and quality as to give general dissatisfaction; while, of money,which was most wanted, none at all came! Yet, notwithstanding the wretchedness of such a supply, at a time when necessaries for an army of 25,000 men were expected, the Irish had to furnish Louvois with 1,200 recruits for the BRIGADE in France. 120 These recruits, without taking into account the great "wear and tear" of the military population of Ireland by the war, completed the number of above 21,000 men, whose assistance the country was unfortunately deprived of, from the commencement of the struggle against England to the period now in question. Near 4,000 of the flower of the Irish regular army had been sent over to England to King James at the time of the Revolution, and detained there by William ;121 6,000, as we have seen, went to France under Lord Mountcashel; more than 8 regiments, or upwards of 6,200 men, were now subtracted from the national strength by the traitor O'Donnell: and the 1,200 recruits exacted by Louvois, in addition to between 3 and 4,000 men who

120 King James, vol. 11. p. 437, &c. Story, Cont. Hist. p. 77, 78, & 92. Harris, p. 312.

121

Harris, p. 141 & 186.

went to France at various periods not particularized, make up the total of this heavy loss! 122 Under these circumstances, the difficulty of levying from about 8 harassed counties, and with such miserably inadequate supplies, a force, capable of at all meeting Ginckle's in the field, may be easily conceived! At length, by the generous alacrity and high national spirit of the people themselves, who, however divided, betrayed, or unfortunate they may have been, have never yet been "found wanting" to the cause of their country; by the indefatigable assiduity of the honest and zealous Duke of Tyrconnel, who had strained every nerve during the winter and spring to equip the soldiery for the approaching campaign; by a Proclamation of his, on the 12th of May, summoning all the Rapparees into Connaught to supply recruits for the army; by the incessant activity of those vigilant and daring irregulars, in

122 This last-mentioned body of between 3 and 4,000 Irish are thus accounted for. King James states that the Irish who came over to France, after the surrender of Limerick, made, with those who came before, "near 30,000 men." (Mem. vol. II. p. 465.) The army which arrived in France from Limerick, consisted of 19,059 men. (Mac Geoghegan, vol. 111. p. 465.) Lord Mountcashel's BRIGADE of 6,000 men and the 1,200 recruits given to Louvois would form, along with 19,059, but 26,259 men—thus leaving a complement of between 3 and 4,000 men necessary in order to make up the above-stated number of "near 30,000." I am inclined to think, that this body of between 3 and 4,000 Irish were shipped away from time to time to France, for the purpose of keeping up the numbers of the BRIGADE, in its hard service on the Continent. If Ireland, by the way, had the benefit, at the Boyne or Aughrim, of the 21,000, or even of half of the 21,000 absentees, specified in the text, where would the "British heart and the British arm" be then?