Guth & Tuairim, Nollaig 1979

. Highways and Byways 13 out to fish without a handful of earth from the Nun's Grave carefully deposited in the stern. No oqe may take more than a pinch of the .clay, "and no wDnderJor mant a father of a in DonePa/ and Antrim family, many a poor widow's so~ has it rescu&:d, from . b' drowning.• J · __; · BY STEPHEN GWYNN ·Within sigbt.O£ Tory Island was fought oneofthe many ..Tory Island, wnicb lies seven miles out j lesser ~ons of the great Napoleonic Wars; but) it gaip& a to ~ north-west, looking for all lhe world like some great ce!Uin importance from the fact that it ended the ~of the towered and -battlemented castle. Its iwne "Torach" means 'Irish rebel who did most .to endanger Englaild's supremacy in _iri Irish "lowery"-t.1r'ls a tower-and much legend and many his country. Theobald Wolfe Tone, a young man of great stories hang about it, . ~t wu owned, .the legends )Say, by the talent and good education, •·as the agent of the United Irish– Foinorians, a race of giants who liYC4 in Ireland when Paris men in France, where he anived in 1 February, 1796. Within a loved Helen and Troy was being sacked. There is on it a part few weeks he had entirely gained the ear of Hocbe, then at the of a . ruined tower, built of undressed boulders of red gr&\lite, height o'f his reputation and burning with ambitio.ri . ·The result which Conaing, .one of the Fomorians, built. The chief of was first the expedition of -December, 1796, when a fleet of forty· the island was Balor of the Mighty Blows, and he, they sa'/, _three sail got clear out ofJ Brest with )s,ooo men on board, carried oft" from the mainland, Glasgavlen, a famous . c~~ that Hocbe commanding ;- they were sCattered by· weather, but gave milk enough for a whole barony ; and when her oWner, the thirty sail. ~ed Cape Pear on December a ut. Hoche'~ chief MacKineely, plotted revenge, Balor crossed again, seized ves&el wu ·missing, and Grouc;hy, his second in command, him and cut his head oft" on a . sto~te which keeps the red marks waited for him> but finally reSolved to land,and was instaritlypre- . to this day, and is treasured in -'the grounds of Ballyconnell, vented by weather from entering Bantry Bay, and at last driven ~. Olphert's place, near Falc:arragh. · It is a large block of off the cout by a tiemendolls storm.. Tone came b&c:k disap– wbite quiut! placed on a raised platform ascended by steps. Pointed but indefatigable; and in June of the next year, when But in the dffffnls tJf 1114 .Fottr N'asltn a more romantic story the. Nore mutiny paralyaed the British navy, a Dutchfleet was .i• told. Balor was not only a giant but a monster with an eye preparing in the TexeL Again fuck stood to· the British, and ) .in the bilck of his head ; and he h~d a daughter who, according .for almost a month it blew dead into the harbour, while slowly to the prophecy, would bear a son that would be the death ·the ~glisb fleet wllected ; and when Duncan sailed in October of him. So Balor kept his daughter sh~:~t up like Danae, but :it was only to .be defeated. .But even before· that Ton~'s the c~ief Kineely made his way over .in wom~n's dress, was _sheet-anchor was gone ;, H~e had died of consumption, and taken 10, as one.of her attendants, and m due t~e made love Buonaparte, now left without a rival, .:was hostile to the Irish to the;g~ant's daughter. The end was that a child was born, plan, if only because it had been identifieii with Hocbe. w~om Balor threw into ~he sea; Kineely he pursue? and cut Yet though fortune bad thus twice prevented him at the last h1s head ~tr on Clogh·l·neely stone, Bu~ the. ch1ld floated moment, when it seemed absolutely certain that a large force and was p1ck~ up· o~ the coas! by a ·sm1th, who reared the would be landed to form a spear-head for the revolutionary forces· . boy and brej hiDI to b11 trade; bll one~~· aner many Y~ which.then existed througll Ireland, from Belfast to Cork, Tone Bal~r ~e 1nto the forge, and the boy ~wng a red hot ~n still persevered. In 1798 came the outbreak, which, disorganised ran 1t mto Balor's ey~ and ~ avenged b1~ fathe~. · and unsupported as it :was, England had no easy task 'in crushing. A step nearer to h11to~ IS marked by the rums of churches Buonaparte was in Egypt; but the Directory called on TQne on Tory, where Columbkill founded a monastery. to organise a new expedition. , In mid-August, when -~ revolt In short, Tory is a place with no want of picturesque legend was already quelled, Hu~;~~bcrt, ~tbout waiting for instructions, about it, but the few people who have been there are more set out from La Rochelle on his foolhardy Yenture, and landed struck with its present than its past. The islanders live almost his thousand men in Connal!ght, who after a brilliant struggle SWffNfY'S DRAPfRY Falcarrach lADIES MENS CHILDREN'S WEAR ~tirely by fishing, and the whole soil is covered, one hears, were sunounded and taken at Balli.namuck. Matthew Tone, Prop.ANN SWEENEY With the fish heads. Tory is now in the highway of the world, Wolfe Tone's brother, was with him. Before the news of FALCARRAGH compared with what it was; a telegraph wire connects it with their defeat came, another expedition-one sail of the line 0 Pollaguill Bay on the west of the Horn ; there is a signal with eight frigates-was sent out to support the wild stroke. ·station·of Lloyd's shipping agency there, and a lighthouse. Admital Bompart took them far out west, and then came down ST. CRONE 1 S PENANCE Steamers call there weekly for the take of fish 8.1Jd lobsters, and from the north-west, making a course for Lough Swilly. But ThroUgh heather and brac~en, there llfe few of the people who have not been on the he had been dogged all thewayfrom Brest by two English O'er ditches of stone, mainland, and probably also one or two who have been in frigates, and they had sent word to Sir John Borlase Warren, I scramble, thro\18h bramble, England, Scotland, or America. They fish, too, in yawls who lay cruising with his main body off Malinmorc: Head, near To the shrine of Saint Crone. n~wa~ys, which are weatherly ~.ts, though .no boat. that .5!ieve ~e, while frig~tes scouted up as far as Tory.. BomPa.rt My bunions like onions, sails.w1ll take you to and from Tory m all weathers, and tf you ,With h1s squadron was stghted on October uth, runmng south- 'MV· 1 ~ll f th go there you risk having to stay a fortnight. But in the old days 'east with a wind out of the north-west, and the signal for a ·-v so es 0 · orns' the islanders_owned just their cunaghs, and fished fortheirliving. ·lerieral chase was made. The French altered their course due From briars and thistles • Curing was unknown to them (nowtheCongested Districts Board :~~·noping to ge·t clear. round · the north of Ireland. It was · Oh God help me oul · corns • has es~blished a small station there), but they used to try and \ilowing a gale with a hollow &ea, and in the night the HtKIIe, My face is all stung, keep alive not only crabs and lobsters, but also the choicest of J Bompart's ship, earned away her main topmast, which in falling With midgies and clegs their fish, such :~ turbot, which they tethered by the tail and j did further damage; and as a forlorn hope they tried to escape While nettles and tick~ kept in IJ?Ols of thfl rocks. Tory was a lonely place in those , by shifting their course and making to the south-west. Dawn Have "rus" lumps on me le~. days. There was a king in the island who adjudicated · : found them virtually surrounded by the English fleet, and · the:office, which was hereditary, has, I believe, lapsed, .. ~ Bompart ordered his frigates and the Biclle schooner to hold And I say to myself, To this day, perhaps, Tory is hardly over civilised; yet by on and attempt escaping;' he himself had no chance to do so. 'nlere 1 d be nothing to loose, its' 'VI!fY door passes a great highway of the nations. All the The French officers begged Tone to transfer himself to the It next year at the Turras' northern line of transatlantic steamers call at Moville·in Lough Bi,he, which had the best chance to escape-as she actually I kept on my shoes. Foyle, arid put out from thence for Canada and the States did-because his fate, if taken, would be certain execution. But th t ll in T .withlmndreds of poor folk turning their backs on the country' But Tone refused to fly while the French fought for his country, · f ~y e bme b . ermon, whence they cannot be roo~ed up without anguish. ·-Many a and commanded a battery in the action which followed. At My ee must e are,· man from Gweedore or Dunfanaghy has stood, with straining seven o'clock, the Rosses bearing five leagues S.S.-W., firing For to · mak~ the real 'l'urras' eyes, on the deck as the big ship, steering ber way between began. The Ho' he fought against four..English vessels of her own You need PENANCE and Pz:ayer• Tory and the land, headed straight out for the open AtlantiC: size till reduced to a complete wreck. She struck at I 1.20 A.M., So now a week later nothing any longer interposing between her and the other side. ! and was taken into Lough Swilly. The prisoners were landed, I sit here alone ' "The ~ntinel of the Atlantic," a poetic engineer called Tory according to on: acc~unt . at~:Rathmull~ according_ to_others-.Picking ticks, while I wonder when be P,llt up the-s_ignal station there;, but Tory kept ill at Bu_ncrana. _lone, m hts French untform, passed wtth the If ticks picked Saint Crone! guard one day of September, r884, when the unfortunate Wasp i rest, ttll r~o~1sed at Letterkenny by a ma~ w~. had been at · ~ "Michael Colm" gunboat ran against its reefs, and all hands but six were . collese w1th htm. He was taken to Dublm, tned by court– )QSt. c . , martial, defended himself with dignity and courage, and when . Ther!_~~ a_"ve_IY.~~ti!lll story told llY Dr. Macdevitt in his sentencedto behange~, onlypleaded the right due to the unifo~m .Dtmegal Higllla"tls, which I have heard from no other' source. he wore as a ~eneral m th~ French_anny. But the Court, w1th Long ago, after a terrible storm, the body of a nun was washed needless sev:nty, refused ~o. treat h1~ as an hono~)ll~ enemy, up on Tory. The islanders had never seen the religious habit ~d s_hoot h_1m. '{one ':" bclpat.ed his fate by ~ttlng his thr(}llt before, but the )eathern girdle and .beads made them think > m pnson w~th a -~n-km~e. L1fe was not ex_~~_Dct w~en he was that surely a blessing' .was on the body, and "they praye? I found, and, 1ncred1?Ie as 1t sounds, the auth~nbes bavmg caused earnestly for light what ·to do."· In response, they thought the wound to be tied up s~ as to p~lon.g life a few hours, pro– they heard a voice telling them that the body was that of a . posed to proceed to hang htm. T~s od1ous ~tep was prevented holy nun, and bidding them bury itunder the sod, where it was by the e_nergy of ~urran, ~ho Obtame? a .wnt of llakas (Orju$ laid in the dress that was on it. This they did as lovingly as from the Lord Chtef Justice, Lord Kilwarden, on the ground they could, "and from that time the 'Nun's Grave' is usually that-if Tone was held to be a British subject, holding no military graced with the presence of some poor islander, prostrated commission, a court-martial had no jurisdiction over him. Such before· it in humble petition to God, through favour of her was the lamentable but not ignominious end of a fo!'lllidable whose b!>nes are intened thereiR.• And not a bo&t ever puts enem · ta the En lish rule in Ireland , JDSfPH DDDHAN Falcarrach Quality :Butcher Turkey& Ham Fal.197