NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. NOTE 1. Macaria Excidium. [ACARIA," one of the ancient Greek names of Cyprus, according to Pliny, as μarápios, “M the "fortunate," or "blessed," and vñoos, "island," on account, says Moreri, "of its great fertility." It is not unlikely, that the Irish Colonel may have peculiarly selected the name so derived, as characteristic, in more senses than one, of his "native island;" or, with reference both to the circumstance of its fertility, and to the fact of its having been called "holy," not only in Christian, but in Heathen times. This appears by the information, which Avienus tells us he extracted from the Punic account, preserved until his time, of the north-western voyage of the Carthaginian navigator, Himilco, supposed by Heeren to have occurred, most probably, about the middle of the fifth century before Christ; but considered to have happened, at all events, before the age of Alexander the Great, or not later than the fourth. Having noticed, from this Carthaginian source, the natives of the "Insula Estrymnides," or "Scilly Islands," as a race who did not carry on traffic in the usual large vessels formed of pine, &c.,— Avienus thus proceeds: "Sed rei ad miraculum, Navigia junctis semper aptant pellibus, Corioque vastum sæpe percurrunt salum,” "Ast hinc duobus in Sacram (sic insulam Propinqua rursus insula Albionum patet.” Mr. Moore observes :-" In this short but circumstantial sketch, the features of Ireland are brought into view, far more prominently than those of Britain. After a description of the IRISH. ARCH. SOC. Y hide hide-covered boats, or currachs, in which the inhabitants of those islands," the Estrymnides, "navigated their seas, the populousness of the isle of the Hiberni, and the turfy nature of its soil, are commemorated. But the remarkable fact contained in this record-itself of such antiquity-is, that Ireland was then, and had been, from ancient times, designated The Sacred Island,'"-which, he elsewhere adds, "was a sort of type of her social position many centuries after, when again she shone forth as the Holy Island of the West". See Note 58. NOTE 2, Page 4. The family of Colonel Charles O'Kelly, &c. The branch of the O'Kellys, or that of Screen, from which the Author was descended, had, from the reign of Philip and Mary, been on good terms, or officially connected with, every English administration in Ireland, except that of the usurper, Oliver Cromwell. The Author's connexion by blood with the race of the English settlers in Ireland was through his mother, Isma, daughter of Sir William Hill, of Ballybeg, in the County of Carlow. Besides Colonel Charles O'Kelly, Author of Macariæ Excidium, Member in the Irish Parliament of 1689, for the County of Roscommon, and Colonel of a Regiment of Infantry, and his brother John, of Clonlyon, Sheriff, in 1686, for the County of Roscommon, Member, in the Parliament last mentioned, for the Borough of Roscommon, and Lieutenant Colonel and Captain of a company in his brother Charles's regiment, there were several other O'Kellys, Kellys, or Kelleys, in the service of King James II., during the War of the Revolution in Ireland. Amongst the INFANTRY of the Irish army, Edmund Kelly was Lieutenant to Captain Sir Anthony Mullady's company in "The Royal Regiment," or "The King's Foot Guards," under Colonel William Dorrington. Teige O'Kelly was Lieutenant, and Bryan Kelly was Ensign to Captain Charles Daly's (or O'Daly's) company; William Kelly was Ensign to Captain John Bourke's company; and another William Kelly was Ensign to Captain Edmond Bourke's company, in the Regiment of Richard de Burgh, or Bourke, Earl of Clanrickarde. William Kelly was Lieutenant to Captain Edmond Lally's company, in the Regiment of Ulick de Burgh, or Bourke, Lord Galway. Richard Kelly was Captain in the Regiment of Christopher Fleming, Lord Slane. Maurice Kelly was Lieutenant to Captain James Eustace's company, in the Regiment of Sir Maurice Eustace of Castlemartin. Hugh Kelly was Ensign to Captain Mathew Lynch's company, in the Regiment of John de Burgh, or Bourke, Lord Bophin, or Boffin. Daniel Kelley and John Kelley were Captains, and another Daniel Kelly Lieutenant, a Pliny, Historia Naturalis, lib. v. cap. 35. vol. ii. pp. 1018, 1019: Valpy, London, 1826.-Moreri, Grand Dictionnaire Historique, &c., tome v. p. 4: Paris, 1725.-Avienus, Descriptio Orbis Terræ, et Ora Maritima, pp. 140-141, 150, &c.: Argentorati, ex Typographiâ Societatis Bipontinæ, 1809. -Heeren, Historical Researches into the Politics, Intercourse, and Trade of the Carthaginians, Ethiopians, and Egyptians, vol. i. pp. 92, 99–101, 169-172, 502-506, 520-522: Oxford, 1832.-Moore, History of Ireland, vol. i. pp. 7-9, 52: London, 1838.) Lieutenant, in the Regiment of Colonel Oliver O'Gara. George Kelley was Ensign to Captain Robert Bellew's company, in the Regiment of Sir Michael Creagh, knight, Lord Mayor of and Member for Dublin. Hugh Kelly was Ensign to the Colonel's company, and Bryan Kelley Ensign to Captain Thomas Dowling's company, in the Regiment of Colonel Hewar Oxburgh. Denis Kelly was Captain in the Regiment of Colonel James Purcell. Amongst the HORSE of the Irish army, Denis O'Kelly, or Kelly, the son and heir of Colonel Charles, the Author, &c., was Captain of a troop, and had a horse shot under him at the battle of Aughrim, in the Regiment of Peirs, or Pierce Butler, Lord Galmoy; and John Kelly was Quarter-Master to his Lordship's own troop in the same regiment. Bryan Kelly was Lieutenant to Captain John Connor's troop in the Regiment of Colonel Henry Luttrell. Amongst the DRAGOONS of the Irish army, Thomas Kelly was, in the Regiment of Lord Dongan, Dungan, or the Earl of Limerick, a Cornet to his Lordship's own troop. Constant Kelly was Quarter-Master to Captain William Buttler's troop in the Regiment of Sir Neal O'Neill. In the list of the Irish General and Field Officers made prisoners at the battle of Aughrim, there is a Major Kelly mentioned; and different officers of this old name are likewise spoken of, on several occasions, during the War of the Revolution in Ireland, though without the regiments to which they belonged being particularized". NOTE 3, Page 4. Colonel O'Kelly's intention of writing a "more copious work" on the War of the Revolution in Ireland. Contemporary Jacobite materials for such a work. Though we have reason to be grateful to the Colonel for the account he has left us of the three years' eventful contest in Ireland, it is much to be regretted, that some Irish Jacobite b O'Donovan's Tribes and Customs of Hy-Many, commonly called O'Kelly's Country, &c., pp. 114– 116: Dublin, 1843.-List of the Officers in King James the Second's Irish Army, under the heads of the several Regiments, as given in manuscript book, marked C. F. T. 1. No. 14: Trinity College Library, Dublin.-Archdall's Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, vol. i. pp. 138-140, and vol. iv. pp. 48-49: Dublin, 1789.-Harris's Life of King William III., p. 316, and appendix, No. XXXI. pp. xxxii.-iii., No. XXXII. pp. xxxiii.-iv., and No. LIV. p. lxx. : Dublin, 1749.-Abbé Mac Geoghegan's Histoire de l'Irlande, tome ii. p. lxxiii., and tome iii. p. 751: Paris, 1762, and Amsterdam, 1763.-The Journal of the Proceedings of the Parliament in Ireland, with the Establishment of their Forces there (Li duly censed July 6, 1689), pp. 12, 16, 17: London, Printed for Robert Clavell, at the Peacock, in St. Paul's Church-Yard, MDCXXXIX.-Whitelaw's and Walsh's History of Dublin, vol. ii. appendix, No. IX. p. lxvi.: London, 1818.-The History of Parsonstown in the King's County, from the Earliest Period to the year 1798, &c., p. 119: Dublin, 1826. The Case of Thomas, Earl of Limerick, commonly called Colonel Thomas Dongan, in a folio volume, marked on back, "Scotland & Ireland, vol. xvii. 1-74:" British Museum Library.-Rev. George Story's Continuation of the Impartial History of the Wars of Ireland, &c., p. 137: London, 1693.-Rev. John Mackenzie's Narrative of the Siege of London-Derry, &c., pp. 34, 36, 63: London, 1690, &c. duly qualified has not bequeathed us a "more copious work," like that alluded to. The present work is chiefly valuable for the light it throws on the internal politics of the Irish Jacobites; and, more particularly, for the clear view it presents of the feelings of the old Irish, or great mass of the people of Ireland, respecting the transactions of those times,-feelings nowhere else so well described. But it is to be lamented, that the Colonel should, though a soldier, have written so much more on the mere politics, than on the military occurrences of the three campaigns, during which he adhered to King James's cause in Ireland. A“. more copious work," as regards the details of military events on the Irish or Jacobite side, must have appeared the more necessary, from the very erroneous, or one-sided idea, which the Colonel could not but have perceived, that the world would be led to form of the conduct of the King's adherents in that war, unless their actions should be made known at length, through some other medium, than the publications of their opponents. And the defect of the Colonel's present work, as not affording such a relation, must have been the more obvious, since, in his time, in addition to the knowledge which he himself, as well as so many others of his countrymen, possessed, respecting the military occurrences of the three campaigns, there were in existence several accounts in detail of those occurrences, printed and issued during the war, by King James and his government in Ireland. From such of those Jacobite accounts as have come down to us, we see how very few have been the details, regarding those occurrences, transmitted in the Colonel's present work, compared with the particulars which he might have given. In the first place, amongst those Jacobite military documents, there was a newspaper published in the Irish metropolis, under the appellation of The Dublin Gazette, as we find from the following sentence in some intelligence of the day, printed in London, about the month of April, 1689, upon a broad-sheet, and purporting to be the contents of a letter from a correspondent in Dublin. "There is," says the Williamite writer, in this broad-sheet, "no publick e Mr. Hardiman has cited a similar remark, as to the injurious effects of mere politics on the transmission of facts, from Bishop Fleetwood, in connexion with the subject of his useful work, the Chronicon Preciosum. Having noted that, for forty years before the close of the fifteenth century, he was unable to collect the prices of commodities in England from any of her writers in those days, and also observed, that the same remark was applicable to forty years more, the learned prelate adds, in reference to those writers: "Our chroniclers wanted the care and observation of their predecessors; and, setting up for politicians, quite neglected (as they thought them) lesser matters."(Hardiman's Statute of Kilkenny, pp. 20-21.) d During the preceding war in Ireland, or that against the Parliamentarians, a letter is given by Rushworth, as directed by Bonaventure O' Conney, from St. Isodore's College, at Rome, to Sir Phelim O'Neill, in which the utility of regular, written accounts, on the side of the Irish (as well as their enemies) is thus advocated: "I would advise every chief officer among you to have a secretary along with him, to write a diurnal of your passages, and the overthrows your enemies receive, which will redound much to your glory." There is such a "diurnal," or journal, of that period, yet extant; but, for the War of the Revolution, we have no production at all to compete, in point of detail, on the Jacobite side, with Story's work on the Williamite side. (Moore's History of Ireland, vol. iv. p. 255. Personal information.) |