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(An t.Sea Bhean Bhocht).
Von. II.-No. 11.
Roilig Nit Riogh.
Where the plain of Comain stretches to the sunrise
Slopes Cruachan to the sky;
And the warriors of Olnemacht, mere battle vesturedy
In solemn silence lie.
There, beneath a ameless pillar, slumbers Dathi,
Who the blazing sunburst bore
Triumphant to the marchlands of Imperial Caesar,
And anear him Ugaine Mor.
There they laid to rest the three Danaan brothers,
Coill and Cecht and Greine wise;
And their queens beside them, Fodhla fair and Banba constant,
And Eire of the wistful eyes.
There Dagda of the songs and Lugh Lam fada
And Midir, Danaans all.
With many a lusty champion of th eclans of Miledh
Sleep together-Gael and Gall.
There Maeve, whose conquering chariots shook the island
And dimmed Craeh Ruadh’s star,
From conflict rests beside her fray-maintaining brothers,
Lothar and Breas and Nar.
Oh! countless are the sons of Conn who slumber
' ’Neath the grass-grown burial rings,
And the cairns, crushed to powder by the feet of Ages,
On Cruachan of the Kings!
But no story of their daring stirs their people
Nor sounds to wake them throng,
Save the lowing of the cattle from the fertile shallows
Or the river’s drowsy song.
For the olden memories fast are going from us-
Oh! that some fond hand would come
And bind them in a garland, ere the preseat hardens
And the past grows cold and dumb.
CRAIDHAIRB, Celtic Lit. Soc., Dublin.
ABOUT six miles from Boyle, and close to the town of
Elphin, is Croghan. Hill. It is the site of the celebrated
Rath Cruacham, the residence of the Kings of Connaught,
and capital of the province. It has been celebrated from
the earliest ages and nearly a thousand years before the
Christian era. Muimne, Monarch of Ireland and son of
Heremon, died there. On it was the burial-place of the
Pagan Kings of Connaught, called “Roilig na Riogh,” or
the cemetery of the Kings. Many mounds and sepulch-
ral remains yet exist, notably a red-sandstone pillar, which
tradition records as the gravestone of Dalhi, the last King of
the Pagan Eiriann. A poem by Toma Eigeas, one of the
BELFAST, 1s1‘ NOVEMBER, 1897.
Peron Twopnncn.
most famous of the old bards, gives an account of all the
notabilities buried there, and on it are founded the following
verses. Olnemacht is one of the very old names of Con-
naught, and‘ all the personages mentioned below figure pro-
minently in the early history of Ireland. See O’Curry,
O’Connallon’s “Four Masters,” etc.
The Coming of Maire Ban.
(ALL SOULS’ Nrcnr.)
ERMOT LALLY swept up the hearth after dusk
%had fallen, and set his dead wife’s chair in its old
place by the fire. “She will be glad to see it there
when she comes,” he thought; “she always liked that warm
comer, poor Maire.” He sighed heavily as he looked round
the lonely kitchen, and his eyes fell upon a wicker cradle
perched on top of a high chest that almost touched the
rafters, where it rocked gently backwards and forwards when
the quick, sharp gusts of wind ruffled the thatch.
“ The child, too-God help us-it never had breath-it
cannot come with her. I hardly saw its little face that day,
for how could I look at it with my Maire drifting from me,
and my arms that are strong, enough for other work,” he
threw them. out in a stress of bitter impotence, “too weak
to hold her back. My darling, ’tis the black world surely
since you went away and left me here behind in sorrow.”
He bent to pile more turf on the fire, stopping once or
twice to listen to the clamour of the storm outside. Then
he crossed himself afrightedly and crouchal down on the
hearth, a desolate figure, with his back leaned against the
whitewashed wall and his feet gathered under him. The
light fell full on his face, whose strong youth gleamed
strangely through the intenseness of its agony. And, as he
cowered there, keeping watch on All Souls’ Night for his
year-dead wife, Dermot Lally seemed to see the shine of her
eyes in the leaping flames, and his heart forget its pain
for a moment while it went wandering back to the joy-time
of the past before he learned in his hour of trial that even
Love itself cannot prevail against Death.
How curiously clear those days rose out of the deeps of
memory-days when Maire, his little playmate, was his all
in all; his companion when he went forth to herd the sheep
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