1860.]

At the period of which we are writing, Father Mooney was Provincial of the Irish Franciscans, and Father Purcell taught belles lettres, philosophy, and theology to the small community, the first of whom had been admitted to the noviciate in the year 1607. Next to his desire of beholding a spacious monastery erected for the Irish Franciscans in the old Flemish city, Father Mooney had nothing so much at heart as to leave behind him a history of the houses of his own order in Ireland; but although thoroughly acquainted with the annals that chronicled their foundation, and having been a personal witness of the terrible calamities that befel most of them, he nevertheless felt himself incompetent to write anything like a succinct narrative of their rise and fall. A history of the Irish Franciscan monasteries should be written in Latin, and Mooney's imperfect knowledge of that language deterred him from undertaking such a task. A man, the greater part of whose early life had been spent among kerne and galloglass, bivouacking in the glens of Aharlow, driving preys, and making fierce inroads on the bawns of the English, when they were wresting the fair valleys of Munster from the followers of Desmond, had little time, and perhaps less inclination, for the study of Thucydides or Tacitus. Nevertheless, from the moment he had renounced sparth and matchlock, and taken the cowl in Donegal, his mind was constantly set upon his cherished project, and he resolved to collect every available fragment of the history of the Irish Franciscan monasteries, trusting that he might one day meet some member of his Order able to digest and fashion them into a readable and interesting memoir.

This laudable ambition was stimulated by other considerations. The great families of O'Neill and O'Donnell had long been the benefactors of the Irish Franciscans in Ulster, nay, founders of their monasteries, and protectors of their Order at a time when English law proscribed their very existence, and decreed the dissolution of their time-honoured institutions. During the entire of that war which those two princes waged against Elizabeth, and which did not terminate till the crowning victory at Kinsale, Father Mooney passed much of his time in the camps of the chieftains, ministering to the wounded and dying on many a well-fought field, where their valour stemmed for a while the tide of English conquest. In fact, he witnessed all their fitful triumphs on the Blackwater, in Tyrone, as well as in the passes of the Curlew mountains in Connaught, and he finally beheld the French brigantine sailing away from Lough Swilly, freighted with the chief families of the old Celtic nobility, whose banishment and ruin involved that of his entire Order. At the time when he conceived the idea of writing a history of the Franciscan monasteries in Ireland, most of those chieftains were lying in their foreign graves, one, the greatest of them all, in Valladolid, and the others in the crypts of the Janiculum at Rome; but their representatives were still living on the precarious bounty of the Spanish government, some serving in the armies and fleets of that Power, and one in particular-Bernard, the son of

the great Earl of Tyrone-occupying the distinguished place of page to the Infante in the court of Albert and Isabella at Brussels. Gratitude for benefits conferred on the Irish Franciscans by the ancestors of those fallen chieftains, nay, and the remembrance of the protection which the latter extended to the Order during the reign of Elizabeth, were of themselves sufficient motives for leaving a lasting record of both-a record, too, which in all likelihood might advance the interests of the exiled nobles in the homes of their adoption, and secure for them the esteem and veneration of their compatriots, should Heaven (ah! the delusive hope!) ever restore them to their forfeited domains.

Influenced by such motives, Father Mooney spent the greater part of the year 1608 visiting the various monasteries of his order in Ireland, collecting, as we have already observed, every waif and stray that related to their early history, carefully treasuring the legends pertaining to each of them; and what is still of greater interest to us, faithfully chronicling the vicissitudes of those venerable institutions after the friars, or, as the annalists term them, "the sons of life," had been obliged to emigrate and seek shelter either in the unfrequented glens of their own land, or in the hospitable asylums which were thrown open to them on the Continent.

The memorabilia which he had thus gleaned and rescued from oblivion needed some careful hand to give them shape and order; and to the end that such a work might deserve a place in the library of the Irish convent of St. Antony at Louvain, then fast approaching completion, Father Purcell, in obedience to his superior, undertook the task of digesting the valuable papers which were committed to his charge, and translating them into Latin. On the evening we have already specified, the two friars were seated together poring over the pages which Father Purcell had just then perfected, and no sooner did Mooney's clear grey eye light upon the word "Donegal," than the tears streamed hot and fast down his channelled cheeks, and then, after a moment's pause, he turned to his companion and said: "Dear brother, read for me the history of that monastery I loved so well, aye, and that I love still, though it is now a lonely, rifted ruin. From time to time you must refresh my memory out of the pages which owe so much to your graceful Latinity; but mind that you read slowly, for my comprehension is growing dull, and, -if you can,-without that Italian pronunciation, to which these aged ears are but ill accustomed."

Father Purcell crossed his arms on his breast, bowed reverently to his superior, and then opening the volume at the place indicated, read in the original Latin, (of which we give a faithful version) the following history of the monastery of Donegal:

It was in the year 1474, when the Franciscans were holding a provincial chapter in the monastery of Rosriel, that Nuala O'Connor, daughter of O'Connor Faily, one of the most potent of the Lagenian princes,

Near Tuam.

and wife of Hugh Roe O'Donnell, came accompanied by a brilliant following of high-born ladies, and goodly escort of kerne and galloglass, to present an humble memorial to the assembled fathers. When the latter had duly considered the prayer of the Lady Nuala's memorial, they deputed the Provincial to inform her that they could not comply with her request at that moment, but that at some future time they would cheerfully send a colony of Franciscans to the principality of Tirconnell. "What!" replied the princess, sorely pained by the refusal, "I have journeyed fully a hundred miles to accomplish the object that has long been dearest to my heart, and will you now venture to spurn my prayer? If you do, beware of God's wrath; for I will appeal to his throne, and charge you with the loss of all the souls, which your reluctance may cause to perish in the territory of Tirconnell !" Earnest and energetic was the lady's pleading; so much so, indeed, that she ultimately overcame the hesitation of the friars, some of whom professed themselves ready to accompany her to Tirconnell. Proud of her success, the Lady Nuala then set out on her journey homewards, followed by a goodly number of Franciscans, who, when they arrived in the barony of Tir-Hugh, immediately commenced building the farfamed monastery at the head of the lovely bay of Donegal. Indeed the site was happily chosen, and nothing could excel the beauty of the prospect which it commanded. Hard by the windows of the refectory was the wharf, where foreign ships took in their cargoes of hides, fish, wool, linen cloth and falding; and there, too, came the galleons of Spain, laden with wine in exchange for the merchandise which the Lords of Tirconnell sent annually to the Brabant marts, then the great emporiums for the north of Europe. In sooth it was a lovely site, and sweetly suggestive of holy meditations. In the calm days of summer, when the broad expanse of the estuary lay still and unruffled, mirroring in its blue depths the over-canopying heaven, was it not a fair image of the unbroken tranquillity and peace to which the hearts of the recluses aspired? And in the gloomy winter nights, when the great crested waves rolled in majestic fury against the granitic headlands, would not the driving storm, wreck, and unavailing cry of drowning mariners remind the inmate of that monastery that he had chosen the safer part by abandoning a world where the tempest of the passions wreaks destruction far more appalling! But the Lady Nuala died before the building was finished, and good reason had the friars to cherish lasting remembrance of her piety and munificence. Her remains were interred in a vault which her widowed lord caused to be constructed almost under the grand altar, and he also determined that thenceforth his entire posterity should repose in the same crypt.

In the course of that year (1474), Hugh Roe O'Donnell took to his second wife, Fingalla, daughter of Conor O'Brien, king of Thomond; and this lady, emulating the virtues of her predecessor, spared no pains in forwarding the work, till at length she saw the monastery, with its church, cloisters, chapter-house, refectory, library, and other appurtenances, entirely completed.

The dedication of the sacred edifice took place in the same year, and a more solemn spectacle was never before witnessed in Tir-Hugh, nay not even in the days of blessed Columba-that greatest of all church-builders. The munificence of O'Donnell and his wife Fingalla to our friars was unbounded; for not satisfied with presenting rich altar furniture to the church, they also bestowed some cantreds of fertile glebe on the monastery, and, furthermore, gave the friars a perpetual right to fish for salmon, nay, and authorised them to build a weir just where the Esk empties its silvery waters into the bay. This was matter of great convenience to the monastery during the Lenten and other fasts which the rule of St. Francis prescribes; and indeed so much did salmon abound in the waters of the bay, that I myself, in the time of my noviciate, have often seen the friars taking, right under the windows of the infirmary, multitudes of this delicious fish at one haul of the net.

In the year 1505, Hugh O'Donnell, who at the instance of his first and second wife, conferred so many benefits on the Franciscans of Donegal, died in the castle which he had erected within bow-shot of the monastery, and was buried with great solemnity in the sepulchre that he caused to be built for his last restingplace. After his demise the lordship of Tirconnell devolved on his son, Hugh Oge, who was duly inaugurated at Kilmacrenan. As soon as his mother saw him in undisputed possession of his rights, she abandoned all the pomp and state of a princess, and caused a small residence to be erected for her near the monastery, and there passed the remainder of her days in prayer, almsgiving, and penitential austerities, till she was finally laid in the same tomb with her husband. indeed, was a full moon of hospitality, and during his reign such was the security for life and property in all the borders of Tirconnell, that the people only closed their doors to keep out the wind!

He,

In the person of his successor the Donegal monastery had a faithful friend and zealous patron, who desired nothing so much as to have the vacancies caused by the decease of its early colonists, most of whom came from Connaught, filled up by natives of his own principality. And, indeed, his wish was ultimately realised, nor was it long till he saw a community of forty Franciscans, mostly his own native-born subjects, domiciled in Donegal,

In 1510 this Hugh Oge set out on a pilgrimage to Rome, where he spent two years, and on his way back to Ireland tarried sixteen weeks at the court of Henry VIII., who received him as an independent potentate. The career of this prince was singularly fortunate; for during his reign the seasons, and the sea itself, were favourable to the people of Tirconnell. As for the Franciscans, he was their constant benefactor, so much so, that when a general chapter of the Order met in the monastery of Donegal, he generously supplied that large assemblage with food and Spanish wines. Always triumphant in the field, he achieved the still grander victory over self, by taking the habit of St. Francis in

our monastery where he died and was buried in 1537. Two and twenty years previous to that period, Menelaus Mac Carmagan, Bishop of Raphoe, took our habit, and was buried in the same monastery; and in the year 1550, Rory O'Donnell, Bishop of Derry, feeling death approach, requested to be clothed in our coarse serge, and ordered that his remains should be laid in our cloister. Nor was it as a resting-place after their earthly race was run that the great and high-born desired our peaceful solitude: far otherwise indeed, for many a valiant chieftain, tired of life's transient glories, and many a noble of the oldest lineage, famed in bardic lay or chronicled in history, severing every tie that bound him to the world, came to Donegal, and there cast away sword, scutcheon, and all worldly vanities, for our poor habit and holy conversation. Long before the great emperor Charles abdicated an empire for the solitude of St. Just, princes of Conal Gulban's line might be seen in the cloistered shades of Donegal, enjoying that peace which nor he nor they could ever find in mundane glories.

Indeed during the one hundred and twenty seven years of its existence, no house of our Order, at home or abroad, could boast of men more distinguished for their virtues. But to anticipate all accidents of time, and rescue from oblivion the memory of one of our brotherhood whose wonderful sanctity shed lustre on the monastery of Donegal, I deem it my duty to record in these pages what I have learned of him from the lips of those who were living witnesses of his holy life; for, indeed, he was singularly blessed with the gift of miracles.

Father Bernard Gray,-surnamed "Pauper," from his unparalleled love of holy poverty-was a native of the ancient city of Clogher, where his opulent parents bestowed sedulous pains on his early education. Even from his infancy the child was the admiration of all who came in contact with him, and as he grew up, his virtues were the theme of every tongue. Arrived at man's estate, a powerful chieftain of Fermanagh offered him the hand, heart, and wide domains of his fair daughter; but the proposal was hardly made when Bernard disappeared from the scene of his childhood, and entered on his noviciate in the monastery of Donegal. During the entire of the probationary period his whole life was a practical commentary on the rules of our saiuted founder, whose self-denial, and above all, love of poverty, were the constant subjects of his meditations. After completing his studies, and receiving the order of priesthood, Father Bernard's eminent virtues shone out, if possible, still more conspicuously, his love of retirement and total seclusion from the world, notwithstanding. Faithful in the discharge of all the monastic duties-always the first in the choir, when the midnight bell called the friars from their hard pallets, and glorying in the coarse habit for which he had cheerfully exchanged purple and fine linen; he, to all appearances, seemed to have inherited the glowing fervour, and profound humility for which holy Francis was celebrated during his mortal term.

The fame of this man's sanctity and wisdom soon

sped beyond the borders of Tirconnell, and reached the ears of Gerald, Earl of Kildare, who was then lorddeputy.* Desirous of ascertaining what credit he should give to the marvellous anecdotes related of Father Bernard, the earl summoned him to Drogheda to preach in the presence of his entire court. Bernard obeyed; and so charmed was Kildare with his eloquence and piety, that he not only invited him to dine at his table, but gave him precedence of all his nobles. After dinner, Kildare requested him to entertain the company by narrating some passages in the life of St. Francis, and proving, at the same time, that God had bestowed the choicest privileges on this holy personage. Bernard did as he was told, and when he came to speak of the singular privileges with which God invested our holy founder, he pithily remarked: "Were there no other evidence of the transcendent honour with which the Lord has crowned blessed Francis, I think that what you have witnessed here to-day should be amply sufficient. Surely, my lord, when you treat with such deference a man wearing this poor habit, nay, and give him precedence of all your nobles, it must be manifest that God has exalted St. Francis to the highest place in the heavenly court." "I agree with you," replied the earl; "and I now proclaim to this noble company that you have read my inmost thoughts. I summoned you hither in order to test you in person, and when I gave you the most distinguished place at my board, I was actually thinking of the honour with which your holy founder has been received at the banquet of the heavenly court. I a am now convinced that you are a special favourite of the Most High." Next day the earl craved his blessing, and dismissed him with many presents for the convent of Donegal.

As a complete narrative of the miracles wrought through the instrumentality of Father Bernard would fill many a goodly page, I will mention only a few of them here. One night in Lent, when it was his turn to serve the brethren at supper, the guardian playfully remarked that the fish was very bad, and that the salmon seemed to have deserted the weir which prince O'Donnell built for the benefit of our community. "The Cistertians of Ashro,"† said the guardian, "have salmon in abundance, and surely the Esk was ever fishful a river as Saimer of the blue streams. How comes it, then, Father Bernard, that we take no salmon in our weir ?" "I know not," replied the latter. Well, then," continued the guardian, "I command you to bless the weir in the name of him, at whose word Simon's net was filled with fish till the meshes snapped asunder in the Lough of Genesareth. I know that you are a special instrument in the Almighty's hands; do then as I tell you." Bernard obeyed, and thenceforth the weir of our monastery never more lacked abundance of salmon and trout. On another

6.

occasion a creaght,* who used to receive alms for our monastery, came to tell him that a fatal distemper was destroying his sheep and cows. Bernard pitied the poor man, and gave him a vessel of water which he had blessed, telling him to sprinkle his flocks with it in the name of the Trinity. Avoid," said he, "the spells and incantations of wicked people calling themselves fairy-men, but recite the credo and angelic salutation." The creaght hastened home, did as he was directed, and lo! his sheep recovered, and his cows, ever afterwards, gave more than the usual quantity of milk. In gratitude to God and Father Bernard, the man erected a mound of stones on the summit of Drombearr,† to commemorate such signal mercy, and even to this day that mound is called Brian's Cairn.

Singularly remarkable were the circumstances of this holy man's death; for when worn down by penitential austerities, Heaven forewarned him of the very hour of his dissolution. One evening, after vespers, the friars hastened to the infirmary, for they knew that he was in his last agony, and when they knelt round his poor pallet, after the supper-bell had rung, he raised himself up, and told them to go to the refectory. "Go, go," said he, "for my soul shall leave earth to-night, in company with that of the chanter of Armagh Cathedral." The friars obeyed his command, and on their return they found him kneeling, though dead, his sightless eyeballs turned heavenwards, and his rigid arms outstretched in attitude of prayer. This occurred in May, 1549, and the guardian lost no time in sending messengers to Armagh, to ascertain if Bernard's friend was still living. On their arrival they learned that the chanter had died at the very moment of Bernard's departure, and after telling those about him that on that same night a sanctified soul should leave Donegal Monastery for the kingdom of the just.

For fully half a century after the decease of this venerable brother, our monastery continued to flourish in peace and happiness under the fostering protection of the princes of Tirconnell. In the interval, countless fugitives from the Pale came with strange tidings to our friars, telling them how King Henry of England had decreed the spoliation of the religious houses, and how his immediate successor, and his wicked counsellors, had laid sacrilegious hands on the gold and silver of many a time-hallowed sanctuary. The Franciscans pitied their plundered brethren of the Pale, but they never dreamt that similar horrors were one day to overtake themselves. Wars, fierce and bloody, it is true, harried Tirconnell, when Shane O'Neill, in his mad ambition, strove to reduce all Ulster to his sway; but although the fields of Tir-Hugh were desolated by fire and sword, and the prince and princess of Tirconnell lay fettered in the stronghold of Shane the Proud, still no faggot reached our roof-tree, and no hand profaned our altars. Nor is it to be supposed that we lacked

wherewithal to tempt the cupidity of the sacrilegious, were such to be found among the clansmen of Tyrone or Tirconnell. Quite the contrary; for many years afterwards, when I was sacristan, no monastery in the land could make a goodlier show of gold and silver than ours. During the time I held that office I had in my custody forty suits of vestments, many of them of cloth of gold and silver-some interwoven and brocaded with gold-the remainder silk. We had also sixteen silver chalices, all of which, two excepted, were washed with gold; nor should I forget two splendid ciboria inlaid with precious stones, and every other requisite for the altars. This rich furniture was the gift of the princes of Tirconnell, and, as I said before, no matter what preys the Tironians might lift off O'Donnell's lands, there was no one impious enough to desecrate or spoil our sacred treasure. We fed the poor, comforted them in their sorrows, educated the scions of the princely house to whom we owed everything; chronicled the achievements of their race, prayed for the souls of our founders and benefactors, chanted the divine offices day and night with great solemnity, and while thus engaged, the tide of war swept harmless by our hallowed walls.

But it was not heaven's will that our peaceful domicile should always be exempted from outrage and invasion, for, alas, the mad dissensions of the native princes precipitated their own ruin, which involved ours. The O'Donnell who then ruled the principality had grown old and imbecile; and were it not for the energy of his wife, who possessed the heart of a hero and the mind of a warrior, her younger son Donnell would have wrested the wand of chieftaincy from the feeble grasp of his hoary parent. The latter, it is true, had been valiant in his day; but his wars against Turlogh O'Neill, then the ally of Queen Elizabeth, and the blood and treasure he lavished in defeating domestic treason, rendered him unable to repel the encroachments of the English. To add to his miseries, his eldest son Hugh had been captured by the deputy Perrott, and recommitted to the dungeon of Dublin Castle, after an unavailing effort to baffle his pursuers. A second attempt, however, proved successful; for when the avaricious Fitzwilliam replaced his attainted predecessor, the former, for a bribe of a thousand pounds, given, as was said, by the Baron of Dungannon,§ connived at the flight of the illustrious captive, who, after tarrying ten days in the fastnesses of Glenmalure, spurred hard across the English Pale, and finally reached his father's castle of Ballyshannon.

Good reason had the people of Tirconnell to rejoice at the escape of Hugh Roe; for during his imprisonment the entire principality was plundered by Fitzwilliam's sheriffs and captains to whom he sold the appointments. The more remote the shire and the more Irish, the larger the sum paid. One Boen, for example, obtained a captaincy for a bribe of two gold

+ 1600-1.

§ Hugh O'Neill.

chains which he gave to the sordid deputy's wife, and another named Willis, got a similar preferment for sixty pounds. These unscrupulous marauders pillaged the country and held the heads of families in their gripe till ransomed, some for two hundred, others for three hundred, cows; and when the cattle were not forthcoming, they tortured their prisoners by frying the soles of their feet in seething butter and brimstone. As for our friars, they were obliged to betake themselves with their muniments and altar plate to the fastnesses of the mountains, to avoid Willis and his brigands, who, a few months before Hugh Roe's return, swooped down on Donegal in the dead of night, killing thirty of the inhabitants, and occupying the monastery as a garrison. But the day of deliverance was nigh, for Hugh Roe had hardly been inaugurated at Kilmacrenan, when he marched with his trusty clansmen on Donegal, and laid siege to the monastery into which Willis and his rabble had driven three hundred head of cattle. Sen

sible of the straits to which he was reduced, Willis threatened to fire the buildings, but the young prince, anxious to preserve the sacred edifice, suffered him and his people to depart unharmed. The friars returned immediately afterwards, and O'Donnell (for such was now his name and title) seeing the poverty of the districtswept so bare by the English-offered to support the community and repair the buildings out of his own revenues, if we would forego our usage of questing from door to door. The proposal, however, was declined, and the people, their scant means notwithstanding, shared their last morsel with us.

For fully nine years after the inauguration of Hugh Roe, the monastery of Donegal enjoyed uninterrupted happiness, for indeed the young prince, or as he was more generally styled, "the son of prophecy," ever proved himself our special benefactor. After joining his forces with O'Neill's, these two great princes defeated Queen Elizabeth's armies on many a hard-fought field; nay, and so routed them, that her craftiest deputies and bravest marshals were often fain to sue for truce and peace, no matter how humiliating the conditions. Right heartily did the friars of Donegal pray for the success of their prince, for the repose of the clansmen who fell in his cause; and oh! how their jubilant voices made vault and cloister ring when forty throats pealed out "Te Deum" for the defeat of Norris at Clontibret, Bagnal, on the field of the Yellow Ford, and Clifford, in the passes of the Curlew mountains! The father of Hugh Roe always assisted at those grand solemnities; for, after resigning the name and title of O'Donnell, he lived almost constantly among us, preparing himself for the better life, and doing penance for his sins, the weightiest of which was a cruel raid on the wrecked Spaniards of the Armada, whom he slew in Innishowen, at the

The prediction that when two Hughs should succeed each other as O'Donnells, frightened even Deputy Fitzwilliam; for writing to Burghley, June, 1593, he suggests that the matter should be referred to Dr. Daniel, a Protestant divine, who was afterwards Archbishop of Tuam, and translated the New Testament into Irish.

He died full of years,

bidding of Deputy Fitzwilliam. and we buried him, clothed in our habit, in the tomb of the lords, his predecessors.

And lest it might be thought that the Franciscans were uncharitable to the enemies of O'Donnell, I will now state a fact which clears them of such an imputation. When Morrogh, Lord Inchiquin, was slain by our prince's troops at the ford of Ballyshannon,† Burrogh, the defeated deputy, had the body interred in the Cistercian church of that place. Three months afterwards, our friars claimed the remains; and when O'Donnell and two bishops decided the controversy in favour of us, we exhumed the corse, and buried it with great solemnity in the cloister of Donegal. Inchiquin was the foeman of our liege lord, but the O'Briens were always buried in Franciscan churches; and was not this Morrogh a scion of the race of the noble lady who did so much for the Franciscans when they first settled in Tir-Hugh?

In 1601 our community consisted of forty friars, and in that same year so memorable for direst calamities, the English government landed a large force of horse and foot under the command of Dowkra, on the shores of Lough Foyle. This General was instructed to sow dissensions among the Irish by setting up chieftain against chieftain, and holding out every bribe that might induce officers and men to abandon the standard of their liege lord. The scheme prospered, and, alas, that I should have to record it, Nial Garv, our prince's brotherin-law, went over to the enemy with a thousand of his followers. The perfidious wretch stipulated that he should have all Tirconnel as a reward for his treason, which placed Derry, Lifford, and many other strong places in the hands of the English. O'Donnell was in Thomond when the news of the revolt reached him, and he lost not a moment in hastening homewards to inflict summary vengeance on his faithless kinsman, who combined the venom of a serpent with the impetuosity of a lion. Having had timely notice that Nial, with the revolted Irish and his English auxiliaries, were marching on Donegal, we placed all our sacred furniture in a ship, and removed it to a place of safety. I myself was the last to go on board that vessel; and as for the rest of the brotherhood they fled to the woody country, where they awaited the issue of the impending contest. On the tenth of August, the feast of St. Laurence martyr, Nial's troops took possession of our monastery and of another belonging to the Franciscans of the third Order, that lay close to it at Magharabeg. Assisted by engineers from an English war ship at anchor in the bay, the traitor threw up earthworks before the two monasteries, strengthened the castle of Donegal, then considerably dilapidated, and made every preparation for a vigorous defence. Meanwhile O'Donnell arrived, pitched his camp at Carrig, within two thousand paces of Donegal, and resolved to give Nial and his followers

† A.D. 1597.-Athcoolowing, on the Erne, between Belleck and Ballyshannon,

The little plain.