saken me, but the Lord taketh me up."-Ps. 26. It was this. But in Ireland the children are not so forsaken, and the remedial measures called for in England are not, therefore, demanded. It is worth consideration which is the best policy-to do that which may tend to relieve parents of their duties and responsibilities as regards their children and teach them that others are undertaking these duties and will attend to them-or whether the old system, which is the keystone of Christian civilization and Christian character is still the best, to strain every nerve to preserve and maintain good homes as the best of all places. of religious education.

J. G. WENHAM.

A

AMONG THE GRAVES.

GOOD deal has been done within the last few years to rescue our ancient monuments from ruin and oblivion. The Board of Works, the public department to which they have been entrusted by the Irish Church Disestablishment Act, has been doing its part slowly indeed but surely. Of course there is the usual vis inertiae to be overcome before it is put in motion; then there is the redtapism inseparable, it would seem, from official life; and lastly, the results are not always adequate to the expenditure. This last grievance may be fairly met, however, by the fact that the remoteness of the places where the works are carried on, not only involves much additional cost, but also precludes that diligence which the Wise Man tells us is brought about by the constant presence of the master. But on the whole the results are satisfactory, and Mr. Deane may be congratulated on the success of his labours hitherto.

And surely it was high time that a strenuous effort should be made to arrest the utter ruin that threatened our ancient buildings. A considerable number of our Round Towers have been swept away within the present century, so that not even a stone is left on a stone to tell us where they stood. It is only two years ago that the castle of Lycadoon, near Limerick, the birth place of the martyred Archbishop of Cashel, Dermot O'Hurley, fell to the ground. Petr e deplored the loss, even within his own

memory, of many an ancient tombstone at Clonmacnoise. Thirty years ago O'Curry gathered round him the people of Aran, and besought them in their own sweet and touching tongue to save the remnant of the ancient treasures that adorned their holy island. That good man's heart was sad when he saw Dun Enghus, the most ancient non-sepulchral stone monument of Europe, pulled down piecemeal, and Cahir-na-ban a shapeless heap of ruins. In that same island of Aran may be seen at this moment two large Irish crosses in no way inferior in graceful outline and beauty of ornament to the crosses of Kells and Durrow, the admiration of every one ever so little acquainted with art in our times. And yet they are lying on the ground side by side wholly uncared for!

Nearer home, have we not seen one-half of Dunbrody Abbey allowed to fall because of a petty pique? Carrick Castle, once a "plentiful mansion with sunlit gables and embroidery-covered walls," is now lone and desolate enough to gratify the destructive tastes of the famous Sultan Mahmoud. And the Grey Abbey of Kildare, the resting-place of some of the noblest and bravest of the Leinster Geraldines, has come to be an unsightly ruin under the very eyes of generations of "Ireland's only Dukes," and has been saved from utter destruction, and its graves from constant profanation, by the Poor-Law Guardians expending on it the money collected for the support of the poor. Let us hope that the time is coming when the history of their country will no longer be a closed book to our Irish youth. Then they will begin to look with pious reverence on the spots where their forefathers prayed and suffered, and they will visit the homes of the great men of their country in pious pilgrimage, as the Spaniard does the birth-place of St. Ignatius, or with that patriotic feeling which the Scotchman displays to the home of Wallace and of Scott.

There is one class of our antiquities which the Board of Works seems to feel little concern about. And indeed it is not easy to see how to save them from decay more or less rapid. The "imber edax," the corroding rain of our climate, is a sure solvent of stone and brass alike exposed to its wasting influence. Miss Stokes has given to very many of the earlier inscriptions in the Irish tongue that immortality which a good book gives to the subject of which it treats. Unhappily, owing to the devastations of this country by the Danes for four centuries, and to the

constantly recurring burnings of the churches and the slaughter of the clergy by these fierce marauders, not merely along the sea-coast but even in the very heart of the country, in Roscrea and Lorrha as well as Kildare and Glendalough, few, if any, monuments of that time are in existence. During the short interval of peace that elapsed between the defeat of the Danish power at Clontarf and the coming of the English, the revival of religious life was almost as wonderful in its effects as the preaching of St. Patrick. We will mention but one fact in proof of that assertion. Within the last thirty years of this period nearly twenty Cistercian monasteries were erected throughout the country, not merely in one territory or under the sway of one prince, but in every part of it: at Mellifont, the Fountain of Honey, in Louth, and at Corcomroe, the Fertile Rock, in Thomond, at Boyle, in Connaught, and at Holy Cross, in the richest part of Munster. But maraudings and burnings, as fierce and relentless as those of the Danes, and wars as unceasing as theirs but conducted with more skill, followed quick on this peaceful time, and have continued, with few and short exceptions, almost to our own time. Many still living have seen the tithe war, and it needs no long memory to go back to the time when the parson claimed payment from the Catholics who wished to bury their dead in the tombs of their forefathers, and refused to allow a cross to be erected over a Catholic grave.

My purpose is to put in print, and in this way to save, perhaps, from destruction, some of the inscriptions found on the tombs of the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. Most of them, owing to the language in which they are written, and still more to the style of lettering, and to the almost universal system of abbreviation, are unknown and consequently uncared for. Yet, I trust that a perusal of some of them will interest not only the antiquarian but the general reader. I will begin with the tombs in the church of

1. RATHMORE.

This church is about two miles north-east of Athboy, itself a place of considerable importance, as being one of the last strong places on the western border of the Pale for the defence of the English settlers. On the way we pass by the Hill of Ward, known in Irish history by the name of Tlachtgha, and celebrated in ancient times for the Druidic

fires lighted there on the first of November, and later for the games and sports instituted there by King Tuathal. Here, too, as we learn from the Annals of the Four Masters, under the date 1173, "Tiernan O'Rourke, Lord of Brefny and Conmaine, a man of great power for a long time, was treacherously slain by Hugo De Lacy and Donnell O'Rourke. He was beheaded by them, and his head and body carried ignominiously to Dublin. The head was placed over the gate of the fortress as a spectacle of intense pity to the Irish, and the body was gibbeted with the feet upwards at the northern side of Dublin."

In the low ground at the foot of the hill is the old church of Rathmore. Its size is considerable, fully 80 feet in length by nearly 30 in breadth. The walls and belltower are still standing. The beautiful east window has its original tracery nearly complete; few windows in Ireland are equal to it in the tasteful proportion of its parts and the exquisite details of its tracery.

There is a stone lying flat on the ground almost opposite the northern door by which we enter. Formerly it lay close to the east window. Some years since it was moved to its present position. It bears the following inscription. The end of each line is marked with a

star:

undo die

Hic jacet Alexander Plunket de Rathmore miles quondam* cancellarius hibernie cum domina anna Harward uxore sua qui obiit Xo. die Mensis angusti anno domini MCCCCCII* et Dicta anna obiit Mensis Aprilis anno Domini MCCCCC*XXF. quorum animabus propicietur Deus amen. Miserere nostri domine miserere nostri fiat misericordia tua domine super nos quemadmodum speravimus in te.

[Here lies Alexander Plunket of Rathmore, Knight, formerly Chancellor of Ireland, with the lady Anne Marward, his wife ; who died on the 10th day of the month of August, in the year of our Lord 1503, and the said Anne died on the second day of the month of April, in the year of our Lord 1525. On whose souls may the Lord have mercy. Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us. Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, as we have hoped in thee.]

The Plunkets, like some of the Galway "tribes," seem to have come to Ireland before the English invasion.

They are very probably of the stock known by the name of Fingallians, or the "white strangers," to distinguish them from the Danes or Dubh-Galls, i.e., " black strangers ;" and from them the eastern coast between Dublin and Drogheda, where they settled, has been styled Fingal. They would seem to have thrown in their lot with the English, and to have made common cause with them against the Irish enemy. And true to their family tradition, they have been, with very few exceptions, constant adherents of the English interest in Ireland. Hence we find them at all times employed in positions of importance and trust. In 1358, Richard Plunket was appointed by Lionel, Duke of Clarence, one of his attorneys-general for the provinces of Connaught and Ulster, "to do and answer in all things for him in Ireland." Indeed some of the highest legal offices were so often held by members of this family as to be almost heir-looms. Yet their zeal did not always come up to the requirements of their masters. Thus the Lord Deputy Gray writes to Cromwell

in 1537:—

"There be in the marches of Meath three lords of one nation called the Plunkets, that is to say, the Lord of Dunsany, the Lord of Killeen, and the Lord of Rathmore. They be neither men of wisdom to give counsel, nor yet men of activity; and having the same possessions that their fathers had, they keep in manner no men for the defence of the marches, but suffer the same to be oppressed, overrun, and wasted by Irishmen, whereby the king's profits and strength are daily diminished there."

During centuries of sore trial and suffering, they held fast to the ancient faith: and if some few have fallen away, the glory of the name has been well upheld by Oliver Plunket, who died a martyr at Tyburn.

De Verdon, one of De Lacy's barons, who became possessed of the Lordship of Brefny, the O'Reillys' country, left four daughters. În the division of his lands among them as co-heiresses, Margery, the third daughter, had Brefny for her portion. By her marriage with one of the Cruise family, Rathmore descended to Sir John Cruise. His grand-daughter and heiress, Marian, married Sir Thomas Plunket, third son of the first Lord Killeen, who in her right became possessed of Rathmore, Girly, Kilshir, and Kilsaughlan. He and his descendants were in consequence styled Lords of Rathmore.

Their son was Alexander Plunket, mentioned in the

VOL. VI.

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