Historic Trivia
"Such," says Croften Croker, in his "Researches in the South of Ireland," is the history of the once powerful Mac Cartys of Muskerry; that of the other branches of the same family, as well as of most Irish clans, closely resemble it; attainder, forfeiture of property and exile form the melancholy termination of each, and the circumstances and situations which have arisen and still arise out of such violent events are numerous and deeply affecting. Instances have occurred where the lineal descendants of the most distinguished houses have laboured from day to day for precarious support on the lands over which their ancestors exercised unlimited sovereignty.
A pathetic incident connected with the Mac Cartys has such claims on the feelings that I will not conclude this narrative of their fortunes without the mention of it. A considerable part of the forfeited estates of that family in the county Cork, was held by Mr. S-- about the middle of the last century. Walking one evening in his demesne, he observed a figure, apparently asleep, at the foot of an aged tree, and on approaching the spot, found an old man extended on the ground, whose audible sobs proclaimed the severest affliction. Mr. S-- inquired the cause, and was answered- "Forgive me, sir; my grief is idle, but to mourn is a relief to the desolate heart and humbled spirit. I am a Mac Carty, once the possessor of that castle, now in ruins, and of this ground;-this tree was planted by my own hands, and I have returned to water its roots with my tears. To-morrow I sail for Spain, where I have long been an exile and an outlaw since the Revolution. I am an old man, and to night, probably for the last time, bid farewell to the place of my birth and the home of my forefathers."
The satirical Survey of Ireland, written in the early 17th century by Aengus O’Daly, tells us of the owners’ gift of the blarney. On a visit to McDermod McCarthy at Blarney Castle, he says “Flattery I got for food in great Musgraidhe of MacDiarmoda.”
The Druids
