or the Lesser Aran, set down in cards of navigation. Whether it be reall and firm land, kept hidden by speciall ordinance of God, as the terrestiall paradise, or else some illusion of airy clouds appearing on the surface of the sea, or the craft of evill spirits, is more than our judgements can sound out. There is, westward of Aran, in sight of the next continent of Balynahynsy barony, Skerde, a wild island of huge rocks', the receptacle of a deale of seales thereon yearly slaughtered. These rocks sometimes appear to be a great city far of, full of houses, castles, towers, and chimneys; sometimes full of blazing flames, smoak, and people running to and fro. Another day you would see nothing but a number of ships, with their sailes and riggings; then so many great stakes or reekes of corn and turf; and this not only on fair sun-shining dayes, whereby it might be thought the reflection of the sun-beamse, on the vapours arising about it, had been the cause, but alsoe on dark and cloudy days happening. There brated by our gifted countryman, Gerald Griffin, in a pleasing poem, beginning: "On the ocean that hollows the rocks where ye A shadowy land has appeared, as they tell, For the remainder of this poem, see the The craft of evil spirits.-This is altogether an amusing passage; but, in the time of our author, people were not quite so sceptical in these matters as they are at the present day. For some examples of this, see the Additional Notes hereto. is r Huge rocks.-Now called the Skird Rocks, lying in the ocean, west of Cashin Bay; about nine miles north-west of the western extremity of Aran-more. The optical illusions here so well described by our author, seem no way inferior to the celebrated Fata morgana seen in the Straits of Messina, and which the Sicilians call the most beautiful sight in nature. For a description of the latter, given from Minai, by Father Angelucci, see Swinburne's Travels; and also that very pleasing work, Buck's "Beauties, Harmonies, and Sublimities of Nature." See also the Philosophical Magazine, vol. xiii. p. 336; and Mr. Brewer's Beauties of Ireland, for an animated description of similar exhibi is another like number of rocks, called Carrigmeacan', on the same coast, whereon the like apparitions are seen. But the inchanted island of O'Brasil is not alwayes visible, as those rocks are, nor these rocks have allways those apparitions. There is now living, Morogh O'Ley', who immagins he was him tions which took place in the neighbourhood of Youghall, about the close of the last century. $ Carrigmeacan.-In Irish Carraig mic anna, now Carrickmackan, near the mouth of Cashin Bay; and nearly due north of the Brannock isles, off the western extremity of the great island of Aran. The aerial phenomena witnessed here and at the Skerds, invest these wild regions with an air of romantic grandeur; and, combined with the surrounding scenery, present a view altogether indescribable. When with these the enchanted isle of O'Brazil appears, it completes a picture which is said to be unrivalled in any other part of the British islands. The great extent of ocean and coast, stretching from headland to headland, as far as the eye can reach, heightens the magnificence of the scene. Morogh O'Ley.-Lee or Lye. The curious story here related is still remembered, but it appears to have received some additional embellishments from fancy. One of these is the introduction of an incident which renders our author's narrative complete. It is, that Morogh O'Ley received a book from one of the inhabitants of O'Brazil, with an injunction not to look self into it for seven years. This injunction he faithfully obeyed; and when, at the end of the time prescribed, he opened the book, he at once became indued with the gift of healing, and began to practise surgery and physic with wonderful success: "Tho' he never studyed nor practised either all his lifetime before, as all we that knew him since he was a boy can averr." These words almost induce a supposition, that our author believed the story. The truth, however, seems to be, that Morogh O'Ley, whose patrimony was confiscated in the seventeenth century, turned quackdoctor to obtain a livelihood; and that he then invented the story of O'Brazil and the book, in order to attract attention. It is, moreover probable, that he was previously in possession of the book in question; and that it had descended to him from his ancestors, who, it is known, were hereditary physicians in IarConnaught. Among the records connected with the memorable Act of Settlement, the following document appears, in A. D. 1663: "To the Right Honorable His Majesty's Commissioners for executing His Gracious Declaration for the Settlement of Ireland. -The humble petition of Morogh O'Lye, self personally in O'Brazil for two days, and saw out of it the iles of Aran, Golamhead, Irrosbeghill, and other places of the west continent he was acquainted with. The manner of it he relates, that being in Irrosainhagh, in the south side of the barony of Balynahinsy, sheweth, that Edmond O'Lye of Moyaskragh, deceased, was lawfully seised in his demense as of fee, long before the rebellion, of the lands following, viz., Bollebanane, Gortnecony, and Balliskey, in the barony of Muckullin and county of Galway; and so continued seised, till, in or about the yeare 1641, he mortgaged the premisses unto one Robert Martin, for the sum of eighty pounds. That the said Edmond dyed in or about the year 1662, after and by whose decease, the power of redemption of the premisses descended to your petitioner, as son and heir unto the said Edmond. That the said Edmond and the petitioner have been inoffensive, never acted any thing against the Crown nor the English interest, embraced and are included in the Articles of peace granted by His Majesty's authority, in the year 1648, to the Irish, and constantly thereto adhered. The petitioner therefore humbly prayeth to be restored to his said reversion or power of redemption, according to His Majesty's gracious intention, by which persons innocent are to be restored, and petitioner will ever pray: MOROGH O'LYE." This claim, with thousands of a similar nature made at the time, was rejected; and it is probable that then the claimant began to turn his thoughts to medicine, as already related. The book above alluded to, lay for some time in the possession of the editor. It is now called the Book of O'Brazil; and certainly was well calculated to suggest and keep up the singular deception it happened to be connected with. It is a medical manuscript on vellum, in good preservation, containing forty-six large 4to. folios, very well written in Irish and Latin, in the fifteenth century (the year 1434 occurs on p. 76), and it appears to have remained until a late period in the possession of the Lee family; for the name P. Lee is inscribed on the first folio, in modern handwriting. The pages are curiously ruled and divided, each presenting somewhat the appearance of a complex astrological figure. It presents lists of various diseases, with their cures, mostly arranged in parallel columns, headed Prognostics, Region, Season, Age, Constitution, Causa, Signum, Evacuatio, &c. An account of this volume, given by that excellent Irish scholar, Mr. Curry, appears in Doctor Wilde's valuable Report, upon the tables of deaths, contained in the Return of the Commissioners appointed to take the Census of Ireland, 1841. The "Book of O'Brazil" is now preserved in the library of the Royal Irish Academy. hinsy, about nine leagues from Galway by sea, in the month of Aprill, Anno Domini 1668, going alone from one village to another, in a melancholy humour, upon some discontent of his wife, he was encountered by two or three strangers, and forcibly carried by boat into O'Brazil, as such as were within it told him, and they could speak both English and Irish. He was ferried out hoodwink'd, in a boat, as he immagins, till he was left on the sea point by Galway; where he lay in a friend's house for some dayes after, being very desperately ill, and knowes not how he came to Galway then. But, by that means, about seaven or eight years after, he began to practise both chirurgery and phisick, and so continues ever since to practise, tho' he never studyed nor practised either all his life time before, as all we that knew him since he was a boy can averr. In the Western Ocean, five or six leagues from the continent, there is a sand bank", about thirty fathoms deep in the sea, and of "A sand-bank. This is the well-known Cod fishing Bank, which lies about sixty miles west of Achill Head; and runs southward by Shark Island, parallel with the western coast of Ireland. Upon it are vast quantities of cod and ling. In the sixteenth century, and even later, the Dutch fished here with considerable success. The poor fishermen of Iar-Connaught are now unable to reach this bank, except in fine weather; for their boats are not fit to stand the sea on the bank, and they have neither fishing-tackle nor skill to carry on this deep-sea fishing to any profitable extent. There can be no doubt, that, during the summer months, with good vessels and proper tackle, the deep very sea fishing on the west coast of Ireland would become a source of national wealth and strength. Franklin has said: "He that puts seed into the ground reaps forty-fold; but he that puts a line into the sea and pulls out a fish, pulls out a piece of silver." On this subject see the evidence of William Bald, Esq., before the Select Committee on the Public Works of Ireland, A. D. 1835. The above bank is described in an Account of a Tour through Ireland, by Dr. Pococke, A. D. 1752, preserved in MS. in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, I. 4, 15, as follows: "About ten leagues off (i.e. west of Clare Island, on the western coast) is a bank where there are plenty of very small breadth, which extends from Ulster to Munster, all along the western coasts of Connaught. It is called in Irish Imaireboy, or the yellow ridge; and, in English, the Cod Fishing Bank, where people in summer season use to goe in boats a fishing from Bofin. the Owles, Irros Downan', and some parts of the barony of Balynahinsy, and are there in their boats over night. From this bank, about twenty years agoe, a boat out of the Owles was blown westward by night; next day about noon, they spyed land so near them, that they could see sheep within it, and yet durst not, for fear of illusions, touch shore, imagining it was O'Brasil; and they were two dayes coming back towards home. Soe much of the inchanted island whence we come back again to Aran. W The isles of Aran are fameous for the numerous multitude of saints there living of old and interred, or there trained in religious austerity, and propagating monasticall discipline in other parts; ve cod, and it is supposed that it is part of that bank which extends to Newfoundland, being supposed to be hills in the sea where the fish lye. On this they have between forty and fifty fathom water: the fish have very much failed on all the coast, since they have burned the sea-weed for kelp, which they not only take away as the sea leaves it, but they cut it off in the sea, that it may be thrown up, the fish spawning on this weed."-p. 62. ▾ Irros Downan.-lorrus Doṁnann, the present barony of Erris, in the county of Mayo. See the interesting description of this barony, entitled, "Erris in the Irish Highlands," by P. Knight, Civil Engineer: Dublin, 1836. Until the publiIRISH ARCH. SOC. 15. L nerable cation of Mr. Knight's book, this now rapidly improving and important district remained "almost unnoticed and unknown."-Preface, p. vi. "Saints. Of the multitude of holy men who lived and died on these islands, for a period of more than a thousand years after the introduction of Christianity, the names of few only are recorded: "Nemo scit numerum sanctorum qui sepulti sunt ibi, nisi solus Deus." Nobody but God alone knows the number of saints that lie buried there, as our author, further on, quotes from the life of St. Albeus. Colgan, Acta SS. p. 714; and Ware, Ant. 249. "Et magna est illa insula, et est terra sanctorum.” |