This is a wonderful verse by one of our excellent modern Ullans poets, a worthy successor to the Rhyming Weavers and I love it. It was written by Wullie Logan , oor ain Bard o Dunloy, known to the general public as Liam Logan, one of Northern Ireland’s leading Ulster-Scots enthusiasts and commentators. Liam has made a significant contribution to the recent interest in the language as a native speaker, broadcaster, journalist and writer. He is an esteemed member of the Ullans Academy.

Originally a native of Galdanagh, a townland of Dunloy in the northern part of County Antrim, (the Hame o the Hamely Tongue, a phrase he originally coined for the BBC programme “A Kist o Wurds”), although he has been resident in Bangor, Co Down for many years. Liam was educated at St. Joseph’s Primary School, Dunloy and St Macnissi’s College, Garron Tower. He holds an MBA from the University of Ulster. Employed in the National Health Service since the mid-1970s, Liam worked as Senior Planning Officer for the North and West Belfast Health and Social Care Trust. He was seconded to the [Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure] from 2007 until 2008 to head the Secretariat of the Ulster Scots Academy Implementation Group.

In 2009, Liam retired from public service to concentrate on his language consultancy work with the Language Diversity Project and is involved with a number of film and television projects currently in development. Additionally, Liam has provided voiceovers for websites as well as interactive media located at Ballymena Town Hall Museum, Civic and Arts Centre. 

If ye minded ivry minute o yer life, ye couldnae think

Aal ye mine is bits an bobs, whiles it’s jist a blink

There stuff that’s kina hazy an ither bits that’s clear

Here’s a tale haes styed wae me for nearly fifty year

McClements toul his story comin back frae some oul night.

We wur aal jammed in a motor squashed thegither brave an tight

Nae in car entertainment, nae heater, only crak

An I can mine thon story gye an clear when I luk bak.

McClements’ turn had come aroon, tae spin a yarn or two

Says he Ye’ll naw believe it but this story here is true.

O aal the jobs I iver dane, there wan I couldnae thole

Apprentice undertaker tae a boady Uel McDowell.

Thon furst day’s undertakin wus the last I iver done

A shepherd in the mountains by the name o Johnny Munn

A nighbour got him deed in bed in naethin but his socks

They sent for Sam an me tae get his boady in a box.

He’d lived up on thon hillside aal his working life

Too busy lambin yows an sich to get himsel a wife

Thon boady had a powerfu hump an crooked in ivry limb

He wudnae fit intae the box McDowell had brung wae him.

The hoose was wee, nae size ava, the stairs was steep an thin

We got thon coffin up the stairs an tried tae jam him in

His fit went doon, his heed cum up, the same the ither way

We tried it ivry road we could, wur heids was near astray.

So we dressed him an we pressed him an moved him tae the stair

Doonstairs some neighbour weemen pit a soart o wake on there

As we come roon a gye tight turn, oul Johnny near fell oot

But we spaltered doon the stairs ok an laid him at the fit.

McDowell he tuk a hemmer an he nailed his claes a flet

An he tuk a beer gye handy for his thrapple needed wet.

Wae the yin thing an anither sure we had couple mair

An a bite tae eat forby for thon oul boy had wrocht us sair.

A wheen o nighbours waked him weel wae sandwiches an drinkin

An shane ye cudnae hear yersel for chat an bottles clinkin

The oul wake yarns, the bits o crack, some eyes were gye an glazed

When in the dour come Reverend Moore, ye cud see he wasnae plaised.

He guldered, “Yes are sittin, drinkin, eatin, here deed sowl

An Johnny Munn is lyin there his body harly coul.

Ye mocked him hard in life” he gowled “Ye lached behin his bak.

Haes crookedness was made intae a target for yer crak.

Ye caaled him Humpy Dumpy an thon Oul Humpy Heed

An noo ye sit an yarn an drink laik he’s naw ower there deed”.

“The steuch o your hypocrisy wud mak a boady boak

I only hope ye mine the times ye made John Munn a joke.

A kindly word, a helpin han was missin whun he leeved

I doot that this would be the way he wanted tae be grieved”.

A lock o whited sepulchres, clean rotten tae yer herts

A gether up o naebodies, a wheen o cheeky blerts

Yes haesnae ony right tae sit an yarn wae drink an mate

An Johnny restin in his box is aff tae meet his fate

But then an odd thing happened; I heerd the tearin cloths

McDowell’s wee nails had ripped Munn’s claes an lowsed him in the box

He ris up frae the coffin an he gin a mighty groan

He seemed tae sprachle forrit an he let anither moan.

McDowell, the only man in there that kep a level heed

“It’s jist trapped gas” he says tae me, “it happens when yer deed”.

But ivry ither boady there ris up an run fer oot

An the screamin an the yellin could be heerd for miles aboot.

The Reverend Moore he went tae rin but cudnae reach the dour

Haes lang blak coat was cleeked on tae a nail stuck in the flure.

He lot a gowl an guldered as he tried tae get it loose

He pulled an tried tae free himsel, tae get oot o the hoose.

He must a thocht oul Johnny Munn was houlin brave an tight

But the very reverend gentleman was pittin up a fight

Wud Johnny drag him tae the grave or tak him doon tae hell?

Oul Reverend Moore he rowled his eyes an lut a powerfu yell

Leggo o me this minute, ye humpy heeded cur.

The reverend made a sprachle as he tried tae reach the dour.

Release me noo, Oul Humpy, ye crooked twisted blert

But aal that Reverend Moore heared wus the thump o his ain hert.

Ye dirty humpy divil, may yer fate be doon below,

May Oul Nick be oot tae meet ye wae haes pitchfork aal aglow.”

Wae that the Reverend’s claes they ripped, he brusted an got loose

An niver stapped haes rinnin till he made his ain wee hoose.

Though aal the folk had vanished, McDowell an me wur there

We got him in the in box again an tuk him tae the car

The hearse was parked in Johnny’s yard, we loaded him an went

An tuk him tae the church below an left him in the front.

I quet McDowells, McClements says, I niver heerd again

O Reverend Moore or Johnny Munn or his hoose up the glen

I doot thon undertakin job jist wasnae meant tae be

But thon’s the tale o Uel McDowell, oul Johnny Munn an me.

McClements finished takkin but naw yin word was heered

The maist o folk was sleepin an the rest was sorta feared

It’s been a lock o years since then, it seems laik yesterday

An I’ll mine it jist as clearly til they put me in the clay.

I was born in Bangor, County Down, and reared in the nearby little village of Conlig (a). In the Ulster Gaelic or Ulidian, this means “the stone of the hound” and the whole area was Gort-na-lig, “the field of stones”, so since childhood I have learned to live between a rock and a hard place. This is where I, as an Ulster Scot, am happiest to be, having been “ born and bred in a briar patch”. Bangor, the Light of the World (b), was once the site of one of the largest Christian schools in Ireland and became the focus of a religious life of great depth and power in the early medieval period of Europe. Here, were compiled the Ulster Cycle of Tales and the story of Cú-Chulainn (c), the Hound of Ulster, from whom Conlig is named.

My two Grannies were sisters, of the Sloan family, and spoke the Ulster Scotch Leid of the Ards. Granny Martha married her cousin, an English soldier of Highland Scottish descent called Samuel Adamson. She moved to England and died there in 1945, a year after I was born. My Granny’s cousin William lived in a little cottage in the bottom of the Tower Road in Conlig which leads directly to Helens’ Tower. He died at the Somme on 1st July, 1916 and has no known grave.

In his Foreword to the Belfast Poet Dennis Greig’s Morning in Belfast, which I published in 1983 under my imprint Pretani Press, John Hewitt wrote on 10th April 1983, “I first encountered the name of Dennis Greig in 1977 in the booklet Worklines, Belfast working class poetry 1930-1975. Last Autumn I was introduced to him by his friend Dr Ian Adamson, that effective exponent of our Ulster Identity, Since then I have been able to give some attention to a significant body of Greig’s work.”

John Harold Hewitt (28 October 1907-22 June 1987), born in Belfast,  was the most significant Irish poet to emerge before the 1960s generation of poets which included Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon and Michael Longley. He was appointed the first writer-in-residence at Queen’s University Belfast in 1976. His collections include The Day of the Corncrake (1969) and Out of My Time: Poems 1969 to 1974 (1974).

John was also made a Freeman of the City of Belfast in 1983, and I was delighted when he asked me to attend. I sat with the great Paddy Devlin. I have since  been honoured to attend similar ceremonies for Van Morrison and my other friend Michael  Longley. And like these other two great Bards of Ulster, John was awarded honorary doctorates by the University of Ulster and Queen’s University Belfast.

From November 1930 to 1957, John held positions in the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery. His radical socialist ideals proved unacceptable to the mediocre Belfast Unionist establishment and he was passed over for promotion in 1953. Instead in 1957 he moved to Coventry, a city still rebuilding following its devastation during the Second World War. John was appointed Director of the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum where he worked until retirement in 1972.

John had an active political life, like myself describing himself as “a man of the left”, and was involved in the British Labour Party, the Fabian Society and the Belfast Peace League. My father John Adamson was a founder member of the Northern Ireland Labour Party and stood for election in North Down . Like most of my own  family John Hewitt was attracted to the Ulster dissenting tradition and was drawn to a concept of regional identity within the island of Ireland, describing his identity as Ulster, Irish, British and European. John officially opened the Belfast Unemployed Resource Centre (BURC) Offices on May Day 1985.

Words by John Hewitt on the Cushendun Stone.

His life and work are celebrated in two prominent ways – the annual John Hewitt International Summer School – and, less conventionally, a Belfast pub is named after him – the John Hewitt Bar and Restaurant, which is situated on the city’s Donegall Street and which opened in 1999. The bar was named after him as he officially opened the Belfast Unemployed Resource Centre, which owns the establishment. It is a popular meeting place for local writers, musicians, journalists, students and artists. Both the Belfast Festival at Queen’s and the Belfast Film Festival use the venue to stage events.

“Cultural divisions in Northern Ireland – Myth or Reality” are notes for a Radio Interview I gave in Paris at 10.30 am on Friday 29th April 1983, when I was asked to speak to senior scholars at the Sorbonne University. I have always been well received there and have since lectured in the university on my work, which academics here wish to burn, trapped as they are in reactionary nationalist ideologies. The notes also formed the basis of a talk given there to 23 Young people from the Farset Youth Project , under the leadership of Jackie Hewitt, Ann Brown and the inestimable Fred Proctor from the Shankill Road.

But this sweep, ample as it was, did not reconcile Chichester to the disappointment of not being able to secure, as his share, the great Irish territory in Upper Clannaboy, then and still known as Castlereagh, extending southward from the shore of Belfast Lough, below Holywood, to the neighbourhood of Lisburn ; its green slopes overlooking the valley of the Lagan and much of the Antrim coast. On this great territory, now divided into the two modern baronies of Upper and Lower Castlereagh, he had set his heart, first riding about its fields and around its boundaries at the head of his flying column from Carrickfergus. Its chieftain, Con O’Neill, had taken a prominent place in the then northern revolt against Elizabeth, and, as a matter of course, had thus forfeited his lands to the Crown ; which lands Chichester felt pretty confident he would very soon be able to secure for himself. It so happened, however, that suddenly, and to the great surprise of both friends and foes, Con O’Neill deserted the Irish cause and surrendered himself to the Queen. As a likely means of encouraging other Irish leaders to follow in Con’s footsteps, Elizabeth gladly accepted his surrender and restored him to his lands : thus Chichester’s cherished anticipations were frustrated, and to make matters worse, he was obliged to assist Con in re-entering and keeping possession of his castle and lands ; for no sooner did his desertion of the Irish become known, than his kinsman, Bryan MacArt O’Neill, seized Castlereagh and held it for the Northern Lords until Chichester and Con together succeeded, after much delay, in regaining the castle for its rightful owner.

When Con, however, had time to look over his lands, he found that he had not returned a moment too soon to preserve his tenantry from the attacks of Chichester and his soldiers. It happened, unfortunately, soon afterwards, in the closing days of Elizabeth’s life, that some of Con’s servants had engaged in a brawl with certain of the Queen’s tax-gatherers, who had been appointed at Belfast, and in this fight one of the latter was killed. Thereupon Chichester instantly sprang upon Con, had him thrown into a dungeon at Carrickfergus, and had judges and jurors prepared to try him on a charge of high treason in levying war on Her Majesty, and what not. Chichester believed that he had here another, and a still better, opportunity of finally disposing of Con, and of thus, after all, securing the green slopes of Castlereagh that looked down so temptingly upon the ford of Belfast ; but he was again doomed to fail, and this second disappointment he must have felt even more bitterly than his first.

During Con’s imprisonment at Carrickfergus his devoted wife kept hovering constantly around his place of confinement, thus attracting the notice and sympathy of Anna Dobbin, the daughter of the chief gaoler in the old castle. On an evening when these two ladies were talking not unlikely condoling together over the approaching doom of the prisoner, in came two Scottish gentlemen brothers named Montgomery, one of whom was Anna Dobbin’s accepted suitor, and soon afterwards became her husband. Being formally introduced to Lady O’Neill (for Con had been dubbed an English knight), these gentlemen announced that the Queen was dead, and that their King, James VI., was being everywhere proclaimed as her successor. From this starting-point the little company entered into a free and friendly talk about public affairs in general. The Montgomerys had heard of Con O’Neill’s arrest, and expressed their abhorrence in no measured terms of Chichester’s conduct in the affair. From Irish topics the conversation turned to Scotland, where, as the visitors stated, there was then a widespread expectation that Ulster was soon to be planted with English and Scottish settlers. These Montgomerys, although from Largs, were nearly related to the Montgomerys of Braidstane, who had been then taking much pains to understand the exact position in Ulster, and regularly communicating to the Scottish king whatever information they could obtain on the subject. For much of this information the Braidstane Montgomerys were indebted to these gentlemen from Largs, who owned two trading vessels, and had thus frequent opportunities of visiting the coasts of Ulster.

To this conversation Lady O’Neill kept listening intently, and when it drew to an end she came forward solemnly to the speakers and said that her husband and she would willingly and thankfully give the half of their whole lands to anyone who would obtain his pardon from the King. The two Montgomerys seemed at first astounded : they stared for an instant at each other ; then consulted together ; and finally turning to Lady O’Neill, they proposed that she should return with them that afternoon to Largs ; that they would accompany her the next day to Braidstane, and that she could there make her offer to the laird of that ilk, as there was certainly no time to be lost in making any efforts that could yet possibly be made for her husband’s safety. Lady O’Neill accepted their counsel with grateful emotion, and delightedly rendered her entire acquiescence in the arrangement thus proposed. They found the Laird of Braidstane eagerly anxious to assist, but only on the condition that Con O’Neill should be rescued by some means from prison, and thus enabled to accompany him into the presence of the King.

The party from Largs then returned thither in hot haste, re-crossing the channel to Carrickfergus. Hugh Montgomery of Braidstane, afterwards Lord Viscount Montgomery of the Great Ardes, saw at a glance how significant this offer on the part of Lady O’Neill might be made, both for himself and his two kinsmen, who had so interested themselves in the affair ; but he felt also that whilst he would be engaged in negotiations with the King, the prisoner might be executed, as the time of his trial drew very near, and therefore he urged on all concerned the absolute necessity of Con’s immediate rescue. Fortunately, Anna Dobbin, through sympathy and pity for the O’Neills, and from the urgent solicitations of her intended husband, not only connived at Con’s escape, but even arranged the only means by which it could be accomplished. The escape was not discovered until Con had time to hide himself in the ruins of an old church at Donaghadee ; and before Chichester could find his place of concealment, a little boat had carried him out into the channel to a friendly vessel that soon conveyed him to Largs ; and so Chichester lost his second and last opportunity of getting into Castlereagh.

Montgomery, however, obtained eventually one-third of Con O’Neill’s lands. For although the King had sanctioned the conditions of the original agreement for the full half thereof, James Hamilton, afterwards Lord Viscount Clandeboy, had also supplied James VI. with much information about Ireland, and had rendered other services, and was thus able to induce him to divide Con’s estates into three parts one for Con, one for Montgomery, and one for Hamilton. Out of Con’s third part, however, one of that generous Irish chieftain’s first grants indeed we think the very first was made by him to the two Montgomerys of Largs, and an ample grant of lands in perpetuity it was whereon Anna Dobbin and her husband lived happily until the end of their days.

Concluded

The region over which Sir Arthur Chichester thus became Governor had been known time immemorial as one of the most important in Ulster. Its original extent varied somewhat in the lapse of time and according to local circumstances, but it was generally understood to comprehend the greater portions of the present counties of Down and Antrim, stretching from Carlingford Bay in the south to the mountain of Sliev Mis in the north. Its earliest recorded name was Dalaraidhe (Dalaradia), or the country owned by the family or descendants of Araidhe a prince who lived at an early period in Ulster history. With this people were afterwards associated many members of a kindred tribe known as Cruithne (Cruthin or Pretani), or wheat-growers sometimes called Picts, or painted, from Cruith, ” colour” and descended from Irial Glunmore (son of the famous Conall Cearnach) and a daughter of Eochy, the ruler or King of the Cruithne in Scotland. Dal-Araidhe, however, continued to retain its original name, although its limits were then supposed to be Newry on the south and Glenravel on the north.

When the three Collas conquered southern Ulster in the fourth century, the dwellers on the conquered lands were obliged to seek shelter in Dalaraidhe, which from that time, although only a fragment of Ulster, was known as Ulaidh, or Ulidia. In later times, and because of some unknown territorial arrangements, the name of this section or division of Ulster appears in public records as Trian Congal, or ” Congal’s Third,” Congal being, no doubt, a prince of the royal house of the Ui Cairill (O’Carroll), and this division his allotted share. By this last name it was known on the arrival of the English under De Courcy ; but after its seizure by the O’Neills, the whole region, until the seventeenth century, was called Clannaboy Clann-Aedh-buidhe from a chieftain named Hugh O’Neill, surnamed Buidhe, “of the yellow hair.” The River Lagan divided the whole region into nearly two equal parts, the southern part being designated as Upper and the northern as Lower Clannaboy.

When Chichester entered on his work he was put in command of a strong military force of picked men, including, of course, the garrison at Carrickfergus, whilst his officers were men specially after his own heart ; in other words, thoroughly in sympathy with their commander’s policy and aims. During the seven years of his governorship at Carrickfergus, from 1597 until 1604, among his officers were Moses Hill, Fulke Conway, Hugh Clotworthy, Francis Stafford, Robert Norton, Henry Upton, Roger Langford, and John Dalway. It speaks volumes for the zeal and determination with which these men must have ” served their Queen,” that they all succeeded in carving out and obtaining large estates for themselves, and that they all, coming to Dalaraidhe, or Clannaboy, with nothing but their clothes, and perhaps their swords, accomplished, with one exception, the grand ambition of founding families throughout this celebrated portion of Ulster.

Sir Moses Hill, the founder of the Downshire family, made his home in Upper or Southern Clannaboy ; Sir Fulke Conway, the founder of the Hertford family, got possession of Killultagh, a separate district, then belonging neither to Antrim nor to Down ; Sir Hugh Clotworthy, the founder of the Massereene family, took up his quarters on the western shore of Lough Neagh ; Sir Francis Stafford’s broad lands lay a little further north-west, and along the green banks of the Lower Bann ; Sir Roger Langford selected lands on the eastern shore of Lough Neagh, opposite Massereene, and including the celebrated Irish territory of Killmacavitt ; Sir Robert Norton’s estate lay along the Six-Mile-Water, and on it stood the old town of the Temple of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem (the estate, however, passed to the Upton family of Templepatrick) ; Sir John Dalway, after much wandering and many vicissitudes, found at last a resting-place on the picturesque slopes of Bellahill, near Carrickfergus ; and last of all, but certainly not least, Chichester himself, the founder of the Donegall family, secured a very great sweep of Lower Clannaboy, reaching northward from the Lagan to the boundaries of the Templetown and Langford Lodge Estates, and thence north-eastward until it included Carrickfergus and the adjoining lands.

To be continued

It would be unkind if we did not here parenthetically record the charitable action of MacDonnell in regard to these same Spanish castaways. Theirs, indeed, was a hard lot. The best blood of Spain young nobles from a southern clime inflated with the arrogance of power and wealth, crusading, as they thought, in a worthy cause, shattered by the elements, hunted by their enemies, unsuccoured by their friends. All along the western coast of Ireland, wherever a Spanish galleon took shelter after that awful run around the Hebrides, the poor half-famished soldiers were mercilessly butchered. Better, far better, was the lot of those who sank in mid-ocean, or yielded up their lives in the breaking waves of the strand or on the cruel rocks of an angry coast.

It was excusable in Fitzwilliam, the English deputy, to give no quarter to the Spaniard, his country’s bitterest foe ; but of many of the Irish better was expected. Had not the Spaniard assailed their conqueror, their enemy ? Were they not of their own religion, and would-be friends ? Sligo men vied with those of Clare in their inhuman actions plundering the wrecks, stripping or murdering the poor distracted wretches that clung to floating planks and spars ;or worse still, yielding them for favour to the Viceroy, to be marched in shackles to Dublin, and there butchered by dozens in the castle yard.

The inducements held out to the Irish and the threats used to act thus, scarcely excuse them in their actions. The loyalty drawn out by Sir John Perrot, the greatest and truest of all the Viceroys, should not have forced them to act so inhumanly. It is a dark passage in a dark time, and has sombre lessons. Be this as it may, to MacDonnell of Dunluce pre-eminently belongs the place of honour in having succoured those who were in dire distress defiantly refusing to hand over the wretches who had fled to him for safety, and those flung by the waves at the foot of his fortress cas tle knowing well the enemies he was thus making preferring to give them every assistance and safe transport back to Spain, through his many friends in Scotland.

MacDonnell complained angrily to the Government that soldiers from the garrison at Carrickfergus had been sent illegally over his lands to plunder and spoil such of his tenants as refused to pay the imposed taxes. The English authorities in Ireland, unwilling, through their own weakness, to drive this powerful chieftain into the ranks of the enemy, recommended that the two knights thus so threateningly opposed to each other, should have a personal meeting to arrange an amicable settlement of the several points in dispute. A day was appointed for the interview, and Sir James MacDonnell, with a multitude of his hardy Scots, went early southward to be present in due time at the place of meeting near Carrickfergus. Suspecting what afterwards really happened that some treacherous attempt might be made on his liberty or life, he left the greater part of his troops at a place called Altfracken, near the present village of Ballycarry, and went forward with a small company of personal friends and attendants.

He saw at a glance, however, that Sir John Chichester, who had come with a formidable array, had some sinister design in view, and accordingly, when MacDonnell commenced rather hastily to retire from the meeting, a rush was made upon his small party by the opposing force from the garrison. The pursuit, however, suddenly came to an end, for the whole Scottish force was up and around their leader just in time to save him and his friends. Sir John Chichester fell soon after the fight commenced, and his force fled in all directions some back to their garrison, some into Island Magee, others taking refuge in various places throughout the district. Among the refugees was Sir Moses Hill, then an unknown lieutenant, who found a hiding-place in a cave in Island Magee, which cave is known by his name to this day. Among the runners also was Lieutenant Dobbs the first of his name in the district and he ingloriously retreated under a bridge until the danger had passed. Another runaway was Lieutenant John Dalway, who concealed himself for a time in the dry flow or ooze left by the shallow water that had once separated Island Magee from the mainland.

The survivors of the English force were in such haste away from the Glen of Altfracken that they did not even attempt to carry with them the body of their dead Governor. Sir James MacDonnell had it brought to a flat stone and decapitated, sending the head to the camp of O’Neill and O’Donnell, who were then in Tyrone, where it was made a football by the rude gallowglass of the army. This little barbarity was done, no doubt, by way of encouragement to the Irish leaders, and also as an act of retaliation against the English, who had previously thus mutilated the body of MacDonnell’s elder brother, Alexander, sending the head to be stuck up on a spike in front of Dublin Castle. Sir James MacDonnell, after that day’s achievement, retired quietly to Dunluce Castle, where he was permitted to dwell in peace until the time of his death in 1601.

The news of the conflict at Altfracken brought consternation to the English in Ulster, and deep deliberation amongst the authorities in Dublin as to whom they should appoint to the governorship at Carrickfergus. The mandate, however, soon came from London that Sir Arthur Chichester was to succeed his brother; and although Sir James MacDonnell and others remonstrated against this appointment, the Queen quickly made it final, knowing through some influential channel that Sir Arthur would not only be well able to give a good account of the Irish throughout Upper and Lower Clannaboy, but would also keep a sharp look-out on the Scots in the Route and Glynns.

To be continued

In whatever capacity, however, Arthur Chichester was originally employed during the first year or two after his coming to Ulster, it is very certain that he must have had ample opportunities of knowing well the condition of this province, and it is equally evident that he availed himself very fully and freely of those opportunities ; in fact he must have made Ulster a special subject of study, as he afterwards, when occasion required, was able to depend upon his practical knowledge of all its leading physical features, as well as of the leading families by which the province was inhabited. He was thus able to draw up attractive and thoroughly intelligible reports for the Queen and her Council, not only on the general state of Ulster, but on any, or indeed every, part thereof; for no servitor had previously made himself so well acquainted with its mountains and glens ; its rivers, loughs, islands, and sea-coasts ; its arable lands and vast sweeps of pasturage for the rearing of young cattle ; its bogs, morasses, woods, and extensive forests. In a quiet and comparatively unobtrusive way he must also have gone about collecting information respecting the affairs, public and private, of all the great leading houses, such as those of the O’Neills (in their several branches), the O’Donnells, the O’Cahans, the O’Reillys, the O’Hanlons, and the O’Dohertys ; the Maguires, MacMahons, and even the MacDonnells, a Scottish clan who had possession of the Route and Glynns in Antrim.

All this spying out of the land, and painstaking on the part of Chichester to obtain the necessary information respecting its owners and inhabitants, were undertaken for a very special purpose ; for before he left England it was distinctly understood that Elizabeth’s policy of plantation, which was then being carried out in Munster, would be adopted also in Ulster on the defeat of the Northern Lords. The great house of Desmond, with all its numerous vassals and adherents, had been brought down to utter desolation in the course of a lengthened and bloody struggle, and now Elizabeth’s needy soldiers were dividing amongst themselves the fair lands of the Geraldines. Thus the same class of adventurers in Ulster had here before their eyes a grand precedent, and an almost illimitable reward for their toil. Chichester saw the situation at a glance ; and although there occurred several serious hitches and delays in bringing about his Ulster programme, yet he eventually succeeded in working it out according to his own will, and, as we shall see, largely to his own advantage.

He encouraged all his friends to keep gathering on the Irish spoils instead of spending themselves in the distant colonies of America, maintaining that it would be better ” to work with their hands in the plantations of Ulster than to dance and play in the plantations of Virginia.” The great deeds of Drake or the heroism of Gilbert had little charm for him. He envied not Raleigh and his arcadian dreams of a kingdom in the setting sun, whose great natural wealth should outshine the most opulent of eastern nations ; no, he preferred the more certain reward nearer home, no matter how their acquisition might be brought about, nor even the instruments he used in bringing them to pass. The poetic glamour and Queen-worship which dazzled many of the great sea pirates of Elizabeth’s time shed no ray upon him : his dark evil countenance and morose disposition shadowed forth all the bad and none of the good in that puritanic wave which, half a century later, was to sweep over the face of England. To some extent he may be styled the forerunner of Oliver Cromwell.

Certain events occurred in the year 1597 which brought Chichester to the front more prominently than hitherto, and served to show very plainly to friends and foes what manner of man he was. His brother, Sir John Chichester, at the date named was defeated and slain in a skirmish with the Antrim Scots under Sir James MacDonnell of Dunluce. Although the latter who was the eldest surviving son and heir of the renowned Sorley Boye did not co-operate with the Northern Lords against the Government, he warmly sympathized with them ; and indeed his brothers and leading kinsmen throughout the Route and Glynns took a prominent place in the actual fighting. This course exasperated the English officials in Ulster against the Lord of Dunluce, as they would have naturally felt much more pride in attacking him as an open enemy than in conferring with him as a doubtful friend. Sir James refused point blank to permit his vast estates to be taxed for war purposes on behalf of the Government, and he also refused emphatically to surrender to Sir John Chichester certain noble young Spaniards whose lives he had saved, or hand over some pieces of cannon which he and his brethren had rescued from the wrecks of Spanish galleons and mounted on his castle of Dunluce, which the former had demanded as booty belonging to the Crown, requiring them for the fortress of Carrickfergus.

To be continued

The action by which Chichester originally introduced himself to public notice was one that did not at first commend itself to the powers that be. He was compelled to make a very hasty retreat from his native place in Devonshire, in consequence of his having been criminally concerned in a highway robbery. With the connivance or assistance of one or two associates, he lay in wait for and robbed a ” Queen’s purveyor,” as a tax-collector was then called ; which offence, however, was of very grave, indeed even terrible, significance, and more especially at that crisis, when Queen Elizabeth very much required all the money that could be hastily collected from her subjects to assist in carrying on her numerous military enterprises in almost every corner of Ireland.

It was generally believed at the time that Chichester had fled directly to France ; but this has since been found to be a mistake, as he went, in the first instance, for refuge to Ireland, where he had an elder brother, John Chichester, and two cousins named Bourchier, who were all servitors of the English at various places in the land. With their connivance, he was able to remain for a time in concealment ; but his retreat being soon discovered, he privately made his escape to France, where he was safe from further pursuit, and where he enlisted as a soldier of fortune.

His astute and daring nature in dealing with enemies soon made him a name in the French service, whilst several of his influential friends in England did not fail to inform the Queen that his exile was a serious loss to her service, especially in Ireland, where soldiers of his particular calibre were then so urgently needed. It soon afterwards came to pass that the offence which had been at first denounced in Devonshire as highway robbery of a very aggravated character, for which the perpetrator had to fly into an enemy’s country for refuge, was condoned and pardoned by the Queen, and then as a matter of course represented to her subjects as a mere youthful frolic.

Chichester was then permitted to return to England, and thence sent with all despatch to serve Her Majesty in Ireland. It was commonly remarked that whilst Elizabeth sent her eagles against Spain, she reserved her vultures for this unhappy country ; and in the present instance the Irish had a very truthful illustration of the fact. Chichester came here about the time of the commencement of the war against the Northern Lords a war which had been largely forced by the cruelties and oppressions of Fitzwilliam, the Lord Deputy, and Sir Henry Bagnall, the Field Marshal in Ulster. The new servitor, on his arrival, found the whole country in commotion, and was soon able to enter upon his work with heart and hand. It does not appear that Chichester was appointed to any military command, as his name is not mentioned in connection with any of the battles or general fighting during this war ; so his duties were probably, for a time at least, those of an assistant to his brother, who had been then recently knighted and appointed Governor of Carrickfergus or correctly speaking, Governor of Upper and Lower Clannaboy, Carrickfergus being his base of operations.

To be continued