IRISH RELIQUARIES.

One of the most curious Irish reliquaries extant is the Caah of the O’Donnels, still in the possession of that ancient family. I gave a description of it in my novel of ‘O’Donnel,’ which brought me, for the first and only time in my life, within the walls of a court of justice. The circumstance is illustrative of Irish manners and opinions, and is therefore worth relating. It should seem that a tradition had been handed down from the old times, forbidding, under some terrible ‘Blue Beard’ penalty, the indulgence of an unhallowed curiosity respecting the contents of the Caah; and that, in the memory of man, it had never been opened. When it was placed, with other family documents, in the custody of the Ulster king at arms, that gentleman, it was alleged, had, with the natural curiosity, the birth-right of the children of Eve, (who are all more or less Prys or Pandoras,) indulged himself with a peep into the Caah; for, else, how could Lady Morgan describe it? It so happened that, though the lineal descendants of the O’Donnels have for some generations been Protestants, the eldest of its female members, and the immediate proprietress of the relic, still retained a fanciful and sentimental, if not a religious superstition on the subject; and if the king at arms really looked into the box, he found at the bottom, not hope, but its antipodes—a law-suit! The lady brought her action for the lost services of the mystery; and I, who had received my information from the kindness (and general knowledge of such antiquities) of the defendant, was subpœnaed to prove that he was better acquainted with “such secrets in this farthel and box, which none must know,” than he could be, from a mere external inspection.⁠[42] Fortunately for all the parties concerned, just as the cause was about to be called on, the good taste and timely intervention of the other and younger members of this most respectable and excellent family, prevailed with the plaintiff to abate something of her resentment, and the dispute was settled l’aimable. The Caah contained only a mouldering piece of vellum, in all probability a copy of one of the gospels.

Another celebrated relic was the Caah or Corpnua of the O’Briens. These portable shrines were devoted to the preservation of the holy volume, copies of which were formerly so precious and so rare in Ireland, that none but religious societies, or wealthy and noble families, could obtain them. Not only the gospels were difficult to be had, but persons sufficiently skilful in penmanship to copy them, could scarcely be found for any recompense. A learned clerk (Fra Dominick) engaged for this purpose by St. Cronan, refused to write longer than one day, from sun-rise to sun-set. In all times “les grands talens se font prier.”⁠[43] St. Cronan, who “was Yorkshire too,” closed with the agreement, having previously made a clandestine arrangement with the sun to shine uninterruptedly for forty days; and the copyist, out-witted by the saint, was obliged to hold by his bargain. This, I believe, is the identical missal sent, in the superb Caah, as a donation to the Irish monastery at Ratisbon, by Tirdellagh O’Brien, King of Munster.

The gospel, thus sumptuously enshrined, was first inclosed in a case of the most durable wood, generally of yew or oak, which, in time, became as sacred as the holy deposit. It was then placed in a box of copper (the Caah) plated with silver or gold, embossed with precious stones and crystals, and covered with effigies of saints, angels, and scriptural devices. They were also marked with some inscription, such as that on the Caah of the O’Briens, which, as well as I remember, ran thus:—“Thady O’Brien caused me to be gilt; the Prince of Hy——, coadjutor of the Bishop, lately restored me; and Shaneen, the artist, decorated me.”

The relics of antique times are always precious. They are the monuments of the barbarity, ignorance, and dupery, from which knowledge, by its powerful agent, the printing-press, is slowly redeeming us. Philosophy, no less than antiquarian research, is deeply interested in their conservation.