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PARNELids IND US ANGESURY
BY THOMAS SHERLOCK,
[Regular Dublin Correspondent of Redpath’s Weekly.]
CHAPTER I.—HIS ANCESTORS.
LX
FORE sketching the career of Mr. Parnell from his birth to the
present hour, we deem it proper to give some account of the
sources whence he sprang. It will be found that on the maternal as
well as on the paternal side he had a distinguished ancestry; the
former being as noted for honest, hearty hate of English oppression
and love of domination as the latter for sincere and practical Irish
patriotism.
The story we have to tell must naturally possess a powerful inte-
rest for the Irish people; but even if Charles Stewart Parnell were
not so endeared to them as he is, the record would have intrinsically
a strong attraction for every reader, for it deals with a number of
people eminent or illustrious in their day, some of whom played lead-
ing parts on the world’s great stage, and some, again, about whose
lives there is all the brilliancy of romance. In this latter category
stands the Irish-American Admiral Stewart, whose
daring and successful exploits on the ocean, in
especial against the British in the war of 1812, were
extraordinary, and whose splendid career will be
traced with considerable fulness of detaif in a
subsequent paper. Another of Mr, Parnell’s ma-
ternal ancestors, Judge Tudor, took a stern ‘part
against the British in the American war of inde-
pendence; so that we have the interesting fact
that the gallant member for Cork has in his veins
the blood of men who fought against ‘England in
the two wars between that country and the United
“States. We may_add here that the facts we shall
set down will be drawn from authentic sources,
inany of which are not generally available.
Il.
Beginning with the Parnells, we must say at the
outset that they were originally an English family,
settled for many centuries in the neighborhood of
Congleton, in Cheshire. Whatever English preju-
dices concerning Ireland they may have had at first
they soon lost ; the English sympathies they must
have brought with them in the beginning grew more
and more modified as generation after generation
intermarried in Ireland ; until at length the family
obtained renown for its Irish patriotism.
Strange it is, but true, that many of our most
honored patriots of the past—the men whose mem-
ory the Irish people will ever cherish and rever-
ence—sprang originally from the alien race. They
saw the great mass of the people ground into
powder, and at the same time cut off from their
natural leaders by the infamous penal laws; and
with generous hearts aflame with indignation they
sprang to the front, and thought, wrote, spoke,
fought, and died in the effort to right Ireland's
wrongs. So we had Tones and Emmets, Sheareses
and Fitzgeralds, leading the people, when O'Briens
and MacCarthys, Kavanaghs and O'Neills, were
hidden away in enforced obscurity, Times have *
changed since then, and numbers of men of the
old race have taken and are taking the part that be-
fits them in the front rank of our political life; but
leep down in Ireland’s grateful heart—rooted,
fixed, immovable—is the passionate recollection of
services rendered and sacrifices made in her cause
by so many whose ancestors of a few generations
, before were as English as the towers of Windsor
Castle.’ Never again will it be possible to create
disunion, as in former days, between “the old .
. Irish” and ‘the new Irish,” The unalterable creed of our people
is the creed so well preached by Thomas Davis :
“ Yet start not, Irish-born man—
If you're to Ireland true,
. We heed not blood, nor creed, nor clan—
We have no curse for you,
“ And oh! it were a gallant deed
To show before mankind
How every race and every creed
Might be by love combined—
Might be combined, yet not forget
The fountains whence they rose,
As filled by many a rivulet
The stately Shannon flows.”
UL
‘The founder of the Parnell family in Ireland was one Thomas,
who came over from Cheshire about the time of the restoration of
the Stuart dynasty to the British throne in the person of Charles the
* Second, y ¢ °
NEW YORK—FOR THE WEEK ENDING APRIL 7, 1883,
Thomas Parnell bought2an estate in the Queen’s County, and so
came by it in an honester way than three-fourths of the ancestors of
the present landed proprietors of Ireland. He throve on this estate;
his affairs prospered; and he gave an excellent education to his two
sons, John and Thomas, whom he respectively devoted to law and
the Church.
John, the younger, who finally came into the family estates, both
in Ireland and England, was a man of ability and prominence in his
day. He attained a seat in the Court of Queen’s Bench, and died
leaving behind him accumulated property.
‘The parson was also a man of much «bility, and enjoyed, not only
in his own day, but even up to a generation ago, considered re-
nown asa poet. He was also a scholar and a wit. He was born in
Dublin in 1669, and educated at Trinity College where he took his
degree of M.A. in 1700. Three years afterwards he was ordained ;
and in 1705 he received the appointment of Archdeacon of Clogher.
But his predilictions leaned more towards literary work than to
ministerial duties, and he preferred to mingle with Swift and Addi-
son, Steele, Congreve, and Pope, in the warm London coffee-houses,
than to mumble through written-out homilies in the cold church of
Clogher. Some excuse may be found for him, however; for,
although he was probably never reduced to the extremity. of his
COM. STEWART, GRANDFATHER OF CHARLES PARNELL.
friend Dean Swift at Laracor, when unable truthfully to begin his
sermon with the formal ‘‘ Dearly beloved brethren,” he commenced
his‘address to his sole listener, the parish clerk, with the famous
“Dearly beloved Roger,” Parson Parnell’s congregation must of ne- | to the double line of irregular and strangely-cut
cessity have been scanty. So in London he spent much of his time,
Price Five Cents,
“TO HELL OR CONNAUGHE.”
AN IRISH IISTORICAL ROMANCE OF OLIVER
CROMWELL’S TIME.
BY THERESE ALPHONSE KARR.
[Translated from the French by Marie Montriou de Lonchamp.]
CHAPTER L
HE little river that separates county Dublin from county Meath
crosses a pretty valley dotted here and there with rocks and flow-
ering furze, and crowned at its western extremity by the ruins of a
castle. In Cromwell's time this castle, then in all its solidity and
majestic beauty, belonged to one of the great families of the Pale,
nglo-Irish, as they were called, to distinguish them from the Celtic
race with whom they had mingled. Our readers will, no doubt, re-
member the origin of this amalgamation,
In the reign of Henry the Second (twelfth century the Anglo-
Normans took, without much trouble, possession of a small portion
of Ireland. But, for several centuries afterward, they, made vain
efforts.to extend their conquest. Until Elizabeth’s reign the con-
quered territory never exceeded a third of Ireland, and was often
much less, It was called the Pale on account of the
palings, or fortifications, that sometimes surround-
ed it. Now, the Pale was aggrandized by a victory
z
Wy treaty concluded with one of their princes, But
it grew smaller at each reverse of the Anglo-Nor-
ane Wy <g over the Irish tribes, gained through some clever
i Ii
mans, In vain had they tried to cross the ‘borders
u of the provinces of Leinster and Munster, and to
establish a footing in Ulster and Connaught.’ In
the middle of Henry the Eighth’s reign the Pale was
mference of twenty miles, But
what four hundred yeart had failed to achieve was
mplished in the course of a century—Elizabeth
and Cromwell succeeded in conquering Ireland.
All those who have studied the true history of
those times, not the disfigured one, know at what
price these personages, powerful in wickedness, at-
rived at the accomplishment of their designs,
At the period, therefore, when England was gov-
rned by the man whom a biographer has very
justly styled “ the most tarnished of great men,” in
the days when was conceived and carried into execu-
tion that iniquitous and sinister work, which his
tory designates by the title of the great Irish trans-
plantation, one cold January morning a young
girl might have been seen descending the narrow
winding path that led from the Castle above men-
tioned to the river, - A cloak of dark cloth, with a
hood, covered her from head to foot, but in spite
of its size and thickness it was barely sufficient to
defend her against the night-fog, which still robed
in its fantastic draperies towers, rocks and hedges,
and fell on the ground in drops as close and pen-
etrating as real rain. Without heeding in the least
this disagreeable weather, she followed the zig zag
course of the river that, half hidden by the furze and
brambles, ran from the east towards the sea, Ten
minutes’ walk brought her to a low, narrow cabin,
built against a projecting rock, which very probably
formed the back wall of the wretched edifice. She
halted there, turned round, and throwing back on.
her shoulders the hood that had concealed her fea~
tures, looked sadly on the valley. Notwithstanding
the cold and fog, it was a scene well worth an ad-
miring glance, even from a person already familiar
with its beauty.
a
unshed tears, there was no admiration to be read,
but rather the ardent, attentive contemplation
one who casts a last look on a loved landscape,
and who, knowing well that it is the last look, wishes to stamp its -
every detail on memory’s tablets, For a few seconds the young girl’s
glances wandered from the limpid river, flowing rapidly at her feet,
s that separ-
ated this valley from the rest of the world in as complete a manner
writing poems of a highly moral tendency, as befitted a preacher of | as if it ought to have formed a little kingdom itself.
the Gospel, occasionally trying his hand at prose, but more often
revelling in the enjoyment of the brilliant conversations of the wits
with whom he mixed.
His wife, a lady celebrated both for her beauty and her amiability,
died after a union with him of but seven years. He never recovered
‘Then, by an effort of will, she raised her eyes to the spot where
the Castle’s great square towers stood out in relief against the ob-
scure background of the sky.
It was a solid edifice, defiant of all menaces, that Castlel A
stronghold just fitted for those who, issue of an invading race, re
from the blow. Thenceforth to the end of his own life he was sub- | quire to be on guard against reprisals, But though the Castle stood
ject to fits of detpondency, and generally shuoned the gay society in | proudly on a prominent rock, like a fortress guarding the valley, the
which formerly he had taken such keen delight, Dean Swift obtained
for him the living of Finglas, near Dublin, and so added another to
the literary attractions and memories, which, through Steele, Addi-
son, Tickell, Sheridan, Delaney, and Swift himself, surrounded the
neighborhood of the old hamlet of Glasnevin,
little village that nestled at its feet, the mill-wheels turning joyously
to the music of the silver water, the terraces and sombre woods im-
mediately surrounding the massive construction, the innumerable
flocks on the rich plains that stretched as far as the eye could reach,
all seemed to indicate that the possessors had been settled long
Dr. Thomas Parnell died at a comparatively early age, on his way enough ¢ on the soil to be able to regard it as a legitimate heritage,
[Continued on Page 4.)
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But in thest dark eyes, which seemed heavy with ~