and the Sullane, from twelve to fifteen miles parallel to the range, and from four to five miles in breadth from north to south, lies a tract called Gaeragh. This tract evidently formed the bed of a lake subsequently silted up, but at the beginning of the eighteenth century and for a long time afterwards it was a wilderness of bog, alluvial islands, deep pools, tangled underwood, and large trees, and was one of the last refuges of the wolf and the bittern in the South of Ireland. It was much subject to floods, and for more than half the year was practically unpassable. South of this Gaeragh morass lies the Kilmichael district, then a region of wild, thinly-populated land, whose inhabitants had but little intercourse with those to the north of the intervening morass.

A few yards to the south of the point at which the northern plain merges into the valley of the Sullane, and on the eastern side of the river, upon the territory of the MacCarthys, was built in the early part of the thirteenth century a castle, which from the magh or plain referred to, and from the irregularity of the curve (croump) which it formed, was called the castle of Magh Croump, nowadays Macroom. It was a strong castle for its time, capable of protecting the country to the east from the wild western tribes; and in the course of time a town bearing its name arose under its protection, on the higher of the two plains to the east of it. Macroom Castle was long one of the chief strongholds of the MacCarthys, Lords of Muskerry. It was, according to Smith's Cork, "burned down in the wars of 1641, but Donogh MacCarthy, Earl of Clancarty, altered it into a more modern structure. It now (1750) consists of two square towers, about sixty feet high, with a large modern building between them." It faces west, and commands a view of the wooded park rising from the river to the left, the river itself, and the green meadows and timbered lands on the right-a very pleasing though not extensive view.

Amongst the English companies which supplied munitions of war to William the Third during his campaign in Ireland was one called the Hollow Blade or Hollow Sword Blade Company of London. This company had claims to a large amount on the Government, and when the confiscated Irish lands were put up for sale at Chichester House, Dublin (where now stands the Bank of Ireland), they purchased immense tracts, "as a speculation for resale," and amongst them the castle and town of Macroom and the lands adjoining, which had belonged to the MacCarthys of Muskerry. The population of Ireland was scarcely more than a million in 1707, and Macroom was then a small village of probably not more than five or six hundred inhabitants, and consisted chiefly of a row of thatched houses along the north side of the present Square, with a row of inferior ones to the south of it. The eastern wall of the castle extended doubtless along the whole of the western side of the Square, and in the middle of the Square there was a small thatched market-house. There was little business then transacted in Macroom. It was completely cut off on the south by the Gaeragh morass, and it was only from the other sides that it had any trade with the country round.

While things were in this condition, an English settler named Hedges purchased the castle and town of Macroom and a large tract of land in the neighbourhood, and came to reside at the castle. Tradition speaks of him as a man of large means and elevated social position, and though

overbearing and intolerant of opposition, of high honour and a strong sentiment of justice and humanity. He was not only owner of the castle and estates, but he also held the office of Agent to the Hollow Sword Blade Company, the undisposed portions of whose lands he had unrestricted authority to sell, let or manage to the best of his ability, for their benefit.

When he came to Macroom, about 1704, other Protestant settlers had no doubt preceded him in the locality, and acquired lands by purchase or rental, whilst some of the former Catholic landowners had got back as tenants of some of the lands that had been taken from them. . . Merciless though the Penal Laws were at this period, the executive was weak, and they were not always carried out with severity. They could only be enforced by the military, and though there was occasionally a small garrison at Macroom, they were unacquainted with the people and the country, and consequently of little use. When an alleged criminal had to be arrested the magistrates used to fall back on the yeomanry, formed at Bandon in 1690, or on the military from the garrison at Cork. These rarely succeeded in arresting the parties wanted; but when on the search for them they generally taught a lesson to evildoers by flogging suspected criminals, burning their cabins, or otherwise maltreating them. Mr. Hedges held the Commission of the Peace, and so did some of the other settlers in the neighbourhood, but his was the ruling mind. He was the law and the Government. He it seems strongly disliked persecution, and no other magistrate, even if disposed to persecute, would venture to do so in disregard of his views.

These new proprietors were regarded by the Irish as trespassers or robbers; and they as a class hated and dreaded the native population. With the old gentry the old harpers had virtually disappeared; but the pipers then came to the front and began to fill a large space in the social life of the people amongst whom they went much about and kept alive the old airs of their predecessors. Another class that arose at this time were the "Sthokas," men past middle life, who went about the country gathering and retailing news. They gave intimation as to the wood or glen where Mass was to be celebrated on Sunday. They negotiated marriages. They told where farms were to be let or cattle sold, and were, in fact, the chief if not the only means by which people in remote districts could get any glimpse of what was going on in the world around them. They were always welcome and freely accorded board and lodging, and sometimes payment for their services. But in time they deteriorated, and finally disappeared as newspapers arose, and their dirge was sung in the lovely air, "Sthok-an-Varagig," to which Moore has written the lines, "Thee only Thee."

There also sprang up at this time the Shanahiagh, who was generally an old man of comfortable position, but past his work, possessed of good intellect, and able and willing to entertain the younger generation around him with the knowledge of "things gone by." Then there were also the "Cosherers," the sons of the dispossessed Irish Catholic landowners, such as were unfit for military service abroad, and had to remain at home and struggle for existence as best they could. These formed themselves into small batches of twos and threes, got packs of dogs and killed game, and billeted themselves on the minor gentry or well-to-do farmers. The Catholics were in sympathy with them and never refused to enter