cises of the "Patron" were exclusively confined to the well, or to the bason or reservoir into which it empties itself; and all the miraculous cases said to have been effected there took place in this bason, and on the night of the eve of the Saint's day, the 24th June. These practices would seem to have been modelled on the Gospel accounts of the well or pond at Jerusalem called Probatica, which had five porches, and in which "lay a great multitude of sick, of blind, of lame, of withered, waiting for the movement of the water. And an angel descended at certain times into the pond, and the water was moved; and he that went first down into the pond after the motion of the water was made whole of whatsoever infirmity he lay under." To some of those wells, including the last named, tradition and popular repute have assigned a general efficacy, whilst to others the curative powers of the water has been confined to special infirmities. In the parish of Rathlogan, about four miles north of Freshford in this county, is a well called Tobar-na-Suil, at which innumerable cures of sore eyes are said to have been effected; and the peculiarity of this case is that this well is visited for this purpose at all times in the year: the custom is to bathe or wash the eyes three times in the water of the fountain, and to recite certain prayers during the lavation. This well, its customs and its nature, remind us of the Scripture anecdote where the blind man was sent to wash his eyes, in the pool of Siloe. Tobar-na-Suil means the Well of the Eyes: does the pool of Siloe mean the same, or was our Irish word Suil derived from the Scripture word Siloe? Those wells are profusely distributed over every part of the country generally, investing their respective localities with no small degree of romantic interest. In the secluded glen they spring up amidst the perfume of verdure: on the slope of the mountain you find them fresh amidst the rudeness of nature. In the ancient grave-yard we meet them draped in the pious associations of mortality and faith. In the village green the silent witness of the social joys and traditional observances of many gone by generations. Here one gushes in great volume through an aperture in a solid rock. There another boils, and sparkles beneath the covering of an ancient stone-roofed house; now beneath the shade of venerable plantations, musically gurgling through copse and cresses, refreshing in its course the sweet-brier, the cowslips and field flowers, thence gently rippling through stones covered with moss; again sweetly meandering over beds of glistening sand; now rushing and foaming through mountain chasms; next falling in spray over terraces of rock, commingling its effervescence with the fragrance of the fields and ultimately expanding into brooks and mill streams, frequently the most picturesque and generally the most useful objects in the landscape. The march of social and agricultural progress, the reclamation and enclosing of wastes and commons, the construction of new roads and the closing up of old ones, and the great decrease in the population of the rural districts have done much of late years to obliterate the traditions and customs peculiar to our Holy Wells as well as of our Patron Days. In the present essay, I propose to place on record the names and sites of these venerable fountains, and as far as practicable the customs peculiar to each of them. It is true that our notes in many cases must be necessarily meagre; but if we can succeed in procuring even a list of these Holy Wells, with the names of the patron Saints after whom they may have been respectively called, and of the ancient churches to which each of them belonged, before the memory of them shall have been completely obliterated, we shall have done something towards advancing the objects of this Association; and as the city of Kilkenny has the first claim on our services, we shall commence with some few notes on its Holy Wells, ancient churches, &c. (To be continued.) THE FALL OF THE CLAN KAVANAGH. BY THE REV. JAMES HUGHES. FROM the arrival of the English in Ireland down to the Tudor times, the Clan Kavanagh, which was the chief Clan of the Leinster Irish, never had such real independence, as it enjoyed during the Wars of the Roses. As far as we know, none of the clan at that time, or indeed at any other, discharged the office of agent or factor or seneschal for the great English Absentees' who, inheriting Strongbow's conquest, had claims upon their country. The district commonly known by the name of "the Kavanagh's Country" comprised nearly all Carlow, and North and Northwest Wexford skirting the mountains, and in this territory at that time, not only were the rights and jurisdiction of the absentee lords set aside, but even the authority of the Crown was not acknowledged by the clan, or put forward by the Government. None of the King's subjects could travel "in the dominions of the McMurrough," without protection from the chief, and even in the Pale, an AngloIrish colony, life and property were more secure, when protected by the McMurrough, than by the King's laws. The McMurrough, in truth, for the forbearance which he exercised, and for the security which he conferred, received as much payment, if not more, than the most powerful of the Anglo-Irish nobles. The Crown itself paid him tribute in the shape of" black rent" (£40 annually from the Exchequer), for the security of the Pale; and in a similar way, for the protection of the English Settlement in Wexford, the Earl of Shrewsbury, the Count Palatine, paid him a like sum. From these facts we may gather the state of power and independence then enjoyed by the clan. 1 The Act, by which the Irish property of the Absentees was confiscated, was passed in the year 1537; the Earl of Kildare's Carlow claims having been before set aside, this Act of Parliament gave all the property of the Carlow Absentees to the King. These are the words of the Treaty of 1536, made between the Lord Deputy and the Lord Charles MYncrosse Kavanagh, otherwise McMurgho. Carew Calendar," Vol. I., p. 93, No. 6.. When Henry VIII., who assumed the Kingship of Ireland, began to reign, the royal style and title of King of Leinster existed in the Clan Kavanagh. Morogh the Woodkerne, also called Ballogh, the Freckled, was then King, and was the founder of many septs, who inhabited the Carlow side of the mountains. None of his sons, though they were many and powerful, ever attained the rank or authority of their father, in consequence of Sir Peter Carew's conquest of Idrone, which was their country. The chief title, whether it was "King," or " McMurrough," or "leading man of the Kavanaghs," was no longer within their reach, reduced as they were to a state of tenancy and subjection to the Carews and Bagenals. The title, whatever it happened to be, with the authority and supremacy which it indicated, passed after the death of Morogh Ballogh to the sons of Donnell Reagh, namely, Art the Yellow, and Gerald of Ferns, and to their sons Cahir Morogh McInnycross' and Muriertagh Kavanagh. Art the Yellow ruled Leinster from 1511 to 1518, when he was succeeded by his brother, Gerald of Ferns. The reign of the latter lasted but for four years (to 1522) when his son Morogh succeeded and after him Cahir McInnycross was elected (1531) to the title through the favour and influence of the Earl of Kildare. He was the last of the Kavanaghs who bore the title of King of Leinster, and when he died, his cousin Muriertagh Kavanagh, the son of Art the Yellow, was made, not King but McMurrough, which title he held until the year 1547. On the death of this last chieftain, the clan title and power, taken from the sons of Donnell Reagh, were bestowed on the descendant of Dermot Lavderg, the famous chief Cahir M'Art Kavanagh of St. Mullins and Polmonty. With the exception of this interval, in which the descendants of Dermot Lavderg had supremacy, and which con The genealogists are not agreed as to the descent of Cahir McInnycross. Some make him a younger son of Morogh Ballogh, while others, we believe more correctly, say that he was the second son of Gerald of Ferns. Hence the name of Cahir McGerald. In the Pedigree the latter descent is adopted. 2 "This Dermond aforesaid had for his portion of living and the line that should tinued until, towards the end of the century, the leading part in the affairs of the clan, if indeed it could then be called a clan, was taken by the descendants of Art the Yellow. It was resumed by Donnell Spaniagh, who led the clan in their last effort against the Crown in Tyrone's war, by his son Sir Morgan, and his grandsons Daniel and Colonel Charles Kavanagh, all of whom had a large share in the political troubles of the time. As we have said already, Cahir McArt of St. Mullins and Polmonty became the McMurrough in 1547. It was in his time that the crisis came, and not only the clan title, which we have been considering, but also all the essential elements of clanship and clan life were destroyed. It is true, that the different septs of which the clan was composed held together for many years afterwards, up to the time of James I., but they never exercised their clan rights, and their Celtic laws and usages, formally abrogated, were gradually falling into disuse. With regard to the clan title of McMurrough, it was publicly renounced by Cahir M'Art in Dublin,' and never afterwards resumed by any of the chiefs. In compensation, he received two other titles, the first was Baron of Ballyanne by which he was made a Lord of Parliament, though he never took his seat in the House of Peers, his patent of creation being made out a very short time before. his death, and the second given by the Government, which designed it to be the medium of restoring to him some of his privileges, was that of "Captain of his country." The Kavanaghs, however, still continued to call him the McMurrough. In "the Captainry," the eldest son of Cahir McArt succeeded his father, who died in 1554. This was Murtogh Kavanagh the Baron of Cowellyn; and to him by royal favour, and title, and not by the exercise of clan rights, his brother Dermot was appointed Tanist. On the death of these two chiefs without lawful issue, their next brother, Bryan McCahir Kavanagh of Borris Idrone, became the leading man of the Kavanaghs. He is mentioned On the 4th November, 1550, before St. Leger and in the presence of a great many Lords. "Cox, Hibernia Anglicana," p. 288. |