Page:Irish essays; literary and historical.pdf/28

 We are living in brighter days than the Four Masters lived in. Now there is everything to encourage students to pursue the study of Irish literature and of Irish history. A wider and more general interest is being awakened in all that concerns the antiquities of Ireland. Continental scholars eagerly scan the Celtic glosses of our ancient manuscripts, and our old romantic tales are translated and read with the greatest interest. Not so in the time of the Masters. Their lot was cast on dark and evil days. They had no motive to inspire them but a lofty sense of duty, and the hope of a supernal reward:—

Ail that time Donegal itself was a vivid picture of Erin’s and castle and abbey were despoiled and dismantled. The six counties of the North were confiscated and were just then in process after the flight of the Earls of sub-division and occupation by the stranger. The hungry Scot and greedy Saxon were settling down in every fair valley of green Tirconnell, and the remnant of its owners were being driven to the bogs and mountains. The bawns of the newcomers were rising up in hated strength by all The gallant chiefs of the North, who their pleasant waters. at Kinsale had made their last vain stand for Irish independence, were now all dead some from the poisoned cup of hired assassins, and some from broken hearts. At the very time that the Masters were writing, Strafford was

woe



school



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in Dublin for further despoiling the native yet escaped the sword and the halter. The present hour was dark, and the future was darker still

maturing his plans chiefs

who had



“ Each morrow brought sorrow and shadows of dread, And the rest that seemed best was the rest of the dead.”

And yet it was in the deepening gloom of those darkest days, when the religion, the patriotism, and the learning of the Gael were all proscribed together, that the Masters sat down in that ruined Convent of Donegal the fit emblem of

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