illegal Commission was sent to try his whole movement. It is history that his triumphant vindication was followed by a greater fall. The happiness of Ireland was sucked into the maelstrom of his ruin. He refused to retire from leadership at Gladstone's bidding, and Ireland staggered into civil war. The end is known-Parnell died as he had lived. Of his moral fault there is no palliation, but it may be said he held his country's honor dearer than his own, for he could not bear to see her win even independence by obeying the word of an Englishman.

REFERENCES:

Lecky: Leaders of Irish Opinion; Mitchel: Jail Journal; Duffy: Young Ireland; O'Brien: Life of Parnell; D'Alton: History of Ireland.

IRISH HEROINES

BY ALICE MILLIGAN.

HE worth and glory of a nation may well be measured

and adjudged by the typical character of its womanhood: not so much, I would say, by the eminence attained to by rarely gifted, exceptionally developed individuals, as by the prevalence of noble types at every period, and amongst all classes of the community, and by their recurrence from age to age under varying circumstances of national fortune.

Judged by such a standard, Ireland emerges triumphant and points to the roll of her chequered history, the story of her ancient race, with confidence and pride. Gaze into the farthest vistas of her legendary past, into the remotest eras of which tradition preserves a misty memory, and the figure of some fair, noble woman stands forth glimmering like a white statue against the gloom. At every period of stern endeavor, through all the generations of recorded time, the pages of our annals are inscribed with the names of mothers, sisters, wives, not unworthy to stand there beside those of the world-renowned heroes of the Gael.

In the ancient tales of Ireland we read of great female physicians and distinguished female lawyers and judges. There were ban-file, or women-poets, who, like the file, were at the same time soothsayers and poetesses, and there are other evidences of the high esteem in which women were held. There can be no doubt, to judge by the elaborate descriptions of garments in the saga-texts, that the women were very skilful in weaving and needlework. The Irish peasant girls of today inherit from them not a little of their gift for lacemaking and linen-embroidery. Ladies of the highest rank practiced needlework as an accomplishment and a recreation. Some of the scissors and shears they used have come to light in excavations.

In the stories of the loves of the ancient Irish, whether immortals or mortals, the woman's rôle is the more accentuated, while in Teutonic tradition man plays the chief part. Again, it has often been remarked that the feminine interest

is absent from the earlier heroic forms of some literatures. Not so, however, in the earliest saga-texts of the Irish. Many are the famous women to whom the old tales introduce us and who stand out and compel attention like the characters of the Greek drama. Everyone knows of the faithful Deirdre, the heroine of the touching story of the "Exile of the Sons of Usnech", and of her death; of the proud and selfish Medb. the ambitious queen of Connacht, the most warlike and most expert in the use of weapons of the women of the Gael-far superior in combat and counsel to her husband, Ailill; of Emer, the faithful wife of Cuchulainn; of Etain of the Horses (that was her name in Fairyland); and of many others too numerous to mention.

It is with the introduction of Christianity into Ireland that the Irish woman came into her rightful place, and attained the preponderating influence which she, ever since, has held among the Celtic people. In the period which followed the evangelization of the island many were the "women of worth" who upheld the honor and glory of "Inisfail the Fair", and women were neither the less numerous nor the less ardent who hung upon the lips of the Apostle of Ireland.

Amid the galaxy of the saints, how lustrous, how divinely fair, shines the star of Brigid, the shepherd maiden of Faughard, the disciple of Patrick the Apostle, the guardian of the holy light that burned beneath the oak-trees of Kildare! Over all Ireland and through the Hebridean Isles, she is renowned above any other. We think of her, moreover, not alone, but as the centre of a great company of cloistered maidens, the refuge and helper of the sinful and sorrowful, who found in the gospel that Patrick preached a message of consolation and deliverance. Let it be remembered that the shroud of Patrick is deemed to have been woven by Brigid's hand; that when she died, in 525, Columcille, the future apostle of Scotland, was a child of four. So she stands midmost of that trilogy of saints whose dust is said to rest in Down.

Who that hears of Columcille will forget how he won that name, "dove of the Church", because of his early piety, and that surely bespeaks a mother's guiding care. Ethne, mother of Columcille, remains a vague but picturesque figure, seen

against the background of the rugged heath-clad hills of TirConal by the bright blue waters of Gartan's triple lake. Her hearth-stone or couch is shown there to this day, where once in slumber, before the birth of her son, she saw in a glorious visionary dream a symbol of his future greatness. A vast veil woven of sunshine and flowers seemed to float down upon her from heaven: an exquisitely poetic thought, which gives us warrant to believe that Columcille's poetic skill was inherited from his mother.

Ronnat, the mother of his biographer, St. Adamnan, plays a more notable part in history, for, according to an ancient Gaelic text recently published, it was to her that the women of Ireland owed the royal decree which liberated them from military service. The story goes that once, as she walked beside the Boyne, after some sanguinary conflict, she came upon the bodies of two women who had fallen in battle. One grasped a reaping hook, the other a sword, and dreadful wounds disfigured them. Horrified at the sight, she brought strong pressure to bear upon her son, and his influence in the councils of the land availed to bring about the promulgation of the decree which freed women from war-service.

Our warrior kings had noble queens to rule their households, and of these none stands out so distinctly after long lapse of time as Gormlai, the daughter of Flann Siona, and wife of Nial Glondubh. Her story has in it that element of romance which touches the heart and wins the sympathy of all who hear it.

Her father was king of the Meathan branch of the Clan Nial, and ard-ri of Ireland for thirty-seven years. Nial Glondubh was king of Tir-Eoghain, and heir of Flann in the high kingship, for at that era it was the custom for the kings of Meath and of Tyrone to hold the supreme power alternately. In order to knit north and south, Flann betrothed his beautiful daughter to Cormac macCuillenan, king of Cashel, an ideal husband, one would have thought, for a poetess like Gormlai, for Cormac was the foremost scholar of the day; but his mind was so set on learning and religion that he took holy orders and became bishop-king of Cashel, repudiating his destined bride. Gormlai was then given as wife to Cearbh

ail, king of Leinster, and was was waged against Cormac who was killed in the battle of Ballymoon. Coming home wounded, Cearbhail lay on his couch, and while tended by Gormlai and her ladies told the story of the battle and boasted of having insulted the dead body of King Cormac. Gormlai reproached him for his ignoble conduct in such terms that his anger and jealousy flamed up, and striking her with his fist he hurled her to the ground.

Gormlai rose indignant and left his house forever, returning to the palace of King Flann, and on Cearbhail's death she at last found a true lover and worthy mate in Nial Glondubh, who brought her northward to rule over the famous palace of Aileach. In 916 Nial became high king, but the place of honor was also the place of danger, and soon he led the mustered hosts of the north against the pagan foreigners, who held Dublin and Fingal, and he fell in battle at Rathfarnham.

A poem, preserved for us ever since, tells us that Gormlai was present at his burial and chanted a funeral ode. Her long widowhood was a period of disconsolate mourning. At length it is said she had a dream or vision, in which King Nial appeared to her in such life-like shape that she spread her arms to embrace him, and thus wounded her breast against the carven head-post of her couch, and of that wound she died.

Many saintly, many noble, many hospitable and learned women lightened the darkness that fell over Ireland after the coming of the Normans.

I pass to the time when a sovereign lady filled the throne of England, "the spacious days of great Elizabeth," which were also the period of Ireland's greatest, sternest struggle against a policy of extermination towards her nobles and suppression of her ancient faith. Amid all the heroes and leaders of that wondrous age in Ireland, there appears, like a reincarnation of legendary Medb, a warlike queen in Connacht, Grace O'Malley, "Granuaile" of the ballads. Instead of a chariot, she mounts to the prow of a swift-sailing galley, and sweeps over the wild Atlantic billows, from isle to isle, from coast to coast, taking tribute (or is it plunder?) from the clans. First an O'Flaherty is her husband, then a Norman Burke. In Clare Island they show her castle tower, with a hole in the