history, and the mansion in which the first Duke of Or- | the eastern world—our oriental descent. Although "the

monde often entertained at his table two hundred gentlemen."

The collection of paintings at this castle has long constituted one of its principal attractions; and, as regards portraits, is still entitled to attentive examination; but many of the best pictures, on subjects of more general interest, have been removed. The Gallery is about 180 feet in length, but, like many similar apartments, designed in a past age for parade and the dance, rather than the judicious display of pictures, is greatly disproportionate in

width.

The windows of the gallery, and of several other principal apartments, admit noble and captivating views over the city and a great extent of landscape. Kilkenny, from these windows. stands displayed with peculiar felicity; all its attractive buildings being exhibited in fine combinations, whilst the meaner parts are shut from observation. Here, in 1399, was king Richard II. entertained for fourteen days. On the 23d of March, 1650, Oliver Cromwell invested Kilkenny with a considerable army. The garrison was much reduced by the ravages of the plague; but, however thin their numbers, a gallant spirit animated the defendants. On the following day the assailants endeavoured to gain possession of Irishtown, but were repulsed, and, early on the morning of the 25th, their cannon opened on the castle. A breach was effected about mid-day, but the besiegers were twice beaten off, on attempting to profit by that opportunity, and the breach was quickly repaired. It is said that Cromwell, apprehending a longer resistance than suited the expedition necessary in his military plans, was on the point of quitting the place, when he received overtures from the mayor and townsmen, who offered to admit him into the city. A parley was beaten, and a cessation agreed on at twelve o'clock next day, when the town and castle were delivered up. The articles of capitulation were highly creditable to the garrison; and it is recorded, that Sir Walter Butler and his officers, when they marched out, were complimented by Cromwell, who said, "that they were gallant fellows; that he had lost more men in storming that place than he had in taking Drogheda; and that he should have gone without it, had it not been for the treachery of the townsmen." The first of Cromwell's high courts of justice met at Kilkenny, on the 4th of October, 1652; and it is a curious fact, that this court occupied the identical chambers used by the supreme Catholic council in 1642.

good people still retain a most respectable footing, a pea sant may now travel from Cape Clear to Cunnemara without encountering that once dreaded personage, a ghost. Even the Pooka, or Irish goblin, has not for the last forty years, as far as our recollection serves, been known to shake the dripping ooze from his hairy hide, to approach the haunts of men, or to practise by the conscious light of the moon, like the fairies and satyrs of heathen mythology, any of those unlucky tricks upon his mortal neighbours, for which he was at one period so much dreaded in many portions of our island.

The Pooka is described as a frisky mischievous being, having suck a turn for roguish fun, as to induce him to be all night in wait for the carough returning over the moor from the pleasures of the card-table, or for the frequenter of wakes. His usual appearance was that of a sturdy pony, with a shaggy hide. He generally lay couched like a cat in the pathway of the unfortunate pedestrian, then starting between his legs, he hoisted the unlucky wretch aloft on his crupper, from which no shin-breaking rushings by stone walls, no furious driving through white-thorn hedges, or life-shaking plunges down cliff and quagmire, could unseat him. The first crowing of the March cock respited the sorrowful rider, who generally ended this dearbought tour by a tremendous fling from the pooka's back into some deep bog-hole, or thorny-brake, where ten thousand prickles reared their points to drink the blood of his bruised and broken flesh. On the other hand, he is reported to commisserate the lot of the benighted traveller; and there are some instances on record of his having gently trotted beneath the way-faring cottager for many a mile to the neighbourhood of the well-remembered cabin on the heath.

Feah-a-Pooka, in the county of Kerry, was, as its name imports, the haunt of one of those imaginary monsters. This feah, or marsh, belonged to Tim Dorney, a snug farmer, whose ancestors for many years occupied the adjacent farm, and who, honest men, in that golden age, never found it necessary to disturb the goblin in the favourite haunt, by reclaiming his dreary abode. But when the farm which his grandfather tilled came into Tim Dorney's occupation, a taste for improvement, and the necessary expenditure of a large and increasing family, induced him to cross-cut Feah-a-Pooka by drains and ditches; and two summers had hardly passed, when this haunt of the wild goose and the dark mischievous goblin, afforded a heavy The fabric, viewed as a whole, impresses ideas of dig-sward of hay, and firm footing for man and beast. The nity and baronial splendour; for which it may be, per-pooka, thus beaten up and driven from the marsh, natuhaps, in some measure indebted to the renown it has rally turned his thoughts to the meditation of revenge on obtained in history, as the former residence of noble per- him who, with profane hand, rent asunder that sacred vei. sons greatly distinguished in the annals of their country, which the superstition of ages had woven round the dreaded and as the scene of many important transactions at various spot. periods.

THE POOKA.

"Goblins haunt from fire or fen,

Or mine, or flood, to the walks of men."- Collins. Now that "the schoolmaster is abroad," there can be no question that the warm sun of education will, in the course of a very few years, dissipate those vapours of superstition, whose wild and shadowy forms have from time immemorial thrown a mysterious mantle around our mountain__summits, shed a darker horror through our deepest glens, traced some legendary tale on each unchiselled column of stone that rises on our bleakest hills, and peopled the green border of the wizard stream and sainted well with beings of a spiritual world. While, however, the friends of Ireland cannot but be pleased in thinking that our peasantry should, from being better informed, renounce their belief in these idle tales of superstition, to which they, unfortunately, have for centuries been taught to listen with delight, to the exclusion of matters more rational and more important; it is to be hoped that the two prominent features of our antiquity as a nation, will not be altogether lost sight of namely, our vernacular language, and those extraordinary legends, which are esteemed by many as going a great length to prove--from their remarkable analogy with the tales of

Tim was a painstaking, industrious peasant, and accustomed to traverse his farm every night, to ascertain that no neighbouring cattle trespassed on his ground. One night, as he returned along the border of the marsh, he saw something shaped like a dark-coloured, long-tailed pony lie in the narrow way, directly across his path; and before he could slip aside, to shun the lurking apparition, the pooka (for it was he) suddenly started between the legs of the terrified farmer, and bore him off the ground. The goblin rushed along with the speed of the whirlwind, and Tim's first moment of reflection was employed in a fruitless attempt to fling himself to the ground; but he found that some invisible hand had bound him to the back of his supernatural enemy. It would be tedious to recount the hard rubbings against stone walls, and the wild rushings through quickset hedges, that Tim Dorney endured, while the rapidity of his flight completely deprived him of breath and utterance. At last they rushed towards a tall cliff, which frowned in horrid gloom above the deep river, and intercepted, by its giant bulk, the yellow light of the moon that gilt the mountain tops, quivered in the rustling foliage of the trees, and, brightening in its advance, burnished the trembling waters with liquid fire. pooka pushed with unabated speed to the edge of the rock -then suddenly stopped, as if to add to the death-pang of his agonised victim, by a previous view of the fearful height and the dark waves that surled among the pointed

The

"The night flew on with songs an' clatter,
And aye the ale was growing better."

rocks below. Tim Dorney now concluding that all of his life would be ended for him in the next plunge, yelled a shriek of unutterable dismay. The tall cliff returned But Tim being retained that night to form one of a party the piercing sound, which with the scream of the startled that had engaged to play at cards for two hundred of herwild-fowl, and the demon voice of the pooka, that com-rings, and as he was a famous carough, he could not disbined the mockery of human laughter with a wild, inde- appoint his friends, who mainly depended on Tim's adscribable howl, blended in horrid unison along the lonely dress to carry off the wager. The rain had now ceased, glen. Whether the pooka was satisfied with thus inflict- and after grasping the sailor's hand, and requesting his ing the pangs of a frightful death by anticipation, or that company on a given night at Feah-a-Pooka, he departed. he possessed no power over human life, does not appear; The moon, yet obscured by heavy clouds, cast a sad and but in the next moment he started from the fearful cliff, sickly gleam along his path, which winding round a preciand returning through the deep ravines and tangled under-pitous descent, led into the bosom of a deep glen, where wood, to a furze brake that skirted the border of a stand- the turbid mountain torrents had swelled into muddy ing pool, plunged his unfortunate rider among the sharp waves the clear and beautiful brook, that erewhile had bushes. Happy in his deliverance, he heard the troubled bubbled with soothing murmurs along the yellow pebbles. waters of the dark pool resound to the plunge of the There was no sound on the hill, save the plaintive howl of The night returning pooka-beheld his uncouth figure glance darkly the watch-dog, baying the broad round moon along the moor, till the lessening form grew dimly faint in wind slightly shook the thin foliage of the decaying wood the moonshine-and the hurried splashing of his rapid that surmounted the steep sides of the glen, and the hoof broke the silence of the night no more. Tim, as may hoarse, hollow sound of the roaring river, that would seem naturally be supposed, made the best of his way to the to a fanciful ear the boding voice of the water fairy, echoed cottage; and being of true Milesian origin, determined along the distant banks. Though Tim Dorney's educaon having his revenge upon his fiendish enemy. tion had taught him to people the loneliest scenes with beings of another life, yet he passed unappalled to the brink of the torrent, and sighed to behold that the force of the stream left him little chance of crossing over with safety. While he loitered along the bank, he was agreeably surprised to behold in a little cove, which led into a ford, a small horse, resembling a Kerry pony. He was tied by a halter, had a pilleen susa, or straw saddle, on his back, and into one of the foldings of the straw saddle was stuck a white thorn plant.* Tim, grateful for this favourable opportunity of moving homeward, had already his leg raised to mount, when the titter of suppressed laughter behind a crag, shook his heart with terror, and excited his suspicion of the pony. He had not meddled with the whitethorn stick, for he rarely went abroad by day or night unprovided with a choice hazel sapling.† This miraculous plant, against which nothing evil can contend, well served this time of need; for retiring a little, Tim Dorney bestowed so hearty a salute on the guileful pooka, (for it was he,) that the laughter sounds were changed into a wild howl, and as the pooka disappeared along the troubled stream, the dashing waters deluged the sounding banks.

It was a fine night in the month of August, when Tim Dorney, having sufficiently recruited himself after his adventure of wild horsemanship, walked forth, like hin" that hath his quarrel just," doubly armed. His heels were furnished with a pair of long-necked spurs, that bore rowels contrived at the next forge, which could goad a rhinoceros to death. His hand wielded a loaden whip, so called from the handle being set with lead, and in the grasp of a strong man was capable of felling an ox. "He whistled as he went. not "for want of thought," for his miud was brooding over a plan of revenge against the pooka, who, according to his usual habit, started between the farmer's legs, and bore him off. Tim, nothing loth at the abduction, just when the pooka was commencing his antics, twisted the lash of the whip round his hand, and levelled such blows about the goblin's ears, as would have crushed any skull made of mortal, penetrable stuff, while the sharp-roweled spurs gave ample revenge for the pointed insults of the preceding night. "Dire were the tossings, deep the groans," of the pooka during this unmerciful ride; but Tim Dorney clung to him like a monkey, until the pooka lay down, outmastered by his mortal antagonist. Next night, Tim walked abroad in quest of his acquaintance. He whistled his favourite air of "Tham-ahulla," to lull the suspicions of the latter, who held aloof, quite on his guard, eying the other from his lurking-place, and breaking his usual taciturnity by asking, in an uncouth voice, the well-remembered question, “A will na gerane urth "*

But a time arrived when the persevering goblin wreaked cruel revenge on his hitherto fortunate adversary. It was approaching the 25th of March, when the farmers usually pay the rent; and Tim, who was extremely punctual in the payment of the half-year's gale, prepared to send a quantity of the last season's butter to Cork for that purpose. Wheel carriages were then totally unknown in Some years had now rolled their seasons round, and the that part of the country-" the sliding car, indebted to pooka seemed to have entirely forgotten his antagonist, no wheels," glided in the vicinity of the farms, while burand his ancient dwelling of the marsh, when Tim Dorney dens were conveyed to more remote places on the backs had occasion to visit a gossip's sister's cousin's brother-in- of horses. Five or six neighbours at this time were setting law, who had lately come home after an absence of twen-off to transmit the produce of the dairy to Cork, and Tim, ty-five years on board a man of war. The credit side of the account-sheet of this seaman's life was fraught with a copious list of wonders" all his travels' history"-and a pension of nine-pence a day. On the debtor side stood the loss of the right arm, the closing of his starboard eye, and sundry minor details, received in the duty of boarding and cutting out, with occasional tavern scuffles. Tim was highly delighted at the "tough yarn" of his old acquaintance-heard with "gaping wonderment" the recital of a battle with a French seventy-four off the island of Elbow (Elba), where the relater lost his precious arm; an encounter with a Salee rover, which they sent down to Old Davy; and a dreadful storm near the island of Moll Tow (Malta): of voyages along the coast of Tunis, where the people are all musicianers; by Tripoli, famous for its wrestlers; and a journey through the desert of Barka, where the inhabitants, men and women, have dog's heads! The ale of a neighbouring shebeen greatly improved the sailor's turn for narration; and though the rain poured in torrents through the grass-grown roof of the cabin, yet

• Have you the sharp things on.

with four stunted nags that usually ran wild and free on
the mountains, fell into their company. Each little horse
was generally laden with two fullbounds of butter; but
one or two, whose owners were unable to furnish the even
number of firkins, carried a large stone placed on the op-
After journeying
posite side to balance the single one.
all night, on the next morning an accident happened to
Tim Dorney in his way through Millstreet, that seemed
the type and forerunner of the evening's misfortune. As
the Kerry dragoons marched in long procession through
the single street that composes this little town, the drum-
mer of a company of soldiers stationed in the barrack," beat
the doubling drum," with such furious heat" as set all
the ponies prancing beneath their riders and butter fir-

• The whitethorn is said to be an unlucky

e, and the pea

santry are particularly careful that none of it forms any part of the roof or doorways of their houses, as such habitations would be liable to fairy visits.

t Tradition says, that the staff with which St. Patrick banished serpents and evil spirits from Ireland, was hazel-that the touch of hazel is instant death to venomous reptiles-and that unholy spirits fly at its approach.

THE

CONDUCTED BY P. DIXON HARDY, M.R.I.A.

JULY 11, 1835.