OF THE CAMDEN SOCIETY, ELECTED MAY 2, 1840. President, THE RIGHT HON. LORD FRANCIS EGERTON, M.P. THOMAS AMYOT, ESQ. F.R.S. Treas. S.A. Director. CHARLES FRED. BARNWELL, ESQ. M.A., F.R.S., F.S.A. THE RT. HON. RICHARD LORD BRAYBROOKE, F.S.A. JOHN BRUCE, ESQ. F.S.A. Treasurer. JOHN PAYNE COLLIER, ESQ. F.S.A. C. PURTON COOPER, ESQ. Q.C., D.C.L., F.R.S., F.S.A. THE RT. HON. THOMAS PEREGRINE COURTENAY. T. CROFTON CROKER, ESQ. F.S.A., M.R.I.A. THE REV. ALEXANDER DYCE. SIR HENRY ELLIS, K.H., F.R.S., Sec. S.A. THE REV. JOSEPH HUNTER, F.S.A. SIR FREDERICK MADDEN, K.H., F.R.S., F.S.A. THOMAS STAPLETON, ESQ. F.S.A. WILLIAM J. THOMS, ESQ. F.S.A. Secretary. THOMAS WRIGHT, ESQ. M.A., F.S.A. Sir Valentine Blake, of Galway, by the widow of Maurice Cuffe, an Irish merchant of English extraction, and to which she retired with her sons for security and protection, when they observed that the Roman Catholic party, or the native Irish, were arming and seizing upon the cattle and other property of their Protestant neighbours. The account of these violent proceedings in the county of Clare commences on the 1st of November, 1641, and terminates on the 15th June following. On the 27th of December the surrender of the arms which Mrs. Cuffe had collected in the Castle of Ballyally for the defence of herself and family were required by Derman (Anglicé, Edward) O'Brien, Esq. who with other Irish gentlemen had been authorised by his relative the Earl of Thomond, Lord Lieutenant of Clare, to execute martial law and to preserve the peace of the county. Mrs. Cuffe refused to comply with this demand, although it appears to have been peaceably and legally made, and therefore whether she or the Earl of Thomond's authorised agents, most of whom are particularly enumerated by the writer of this Narrative as "cheefe rebels," should be correctly so designated is a question which I must leave to the general historian to determine. It may be inferred, also, from this narrative, that the possessors of thirty-one castles in the county of Clare (who are all with their little garrisons described by name) pursued the same line of conduct as that adopted by the tenant of Ballyally. To the request of her landlord, made on the 24th, and delivered to her son on the 28th of January, that she would surrender her castle to the legal authorities, answer was returned by the heroine of Ballyally, that "by the help of God the castle should be to the hazzard of life kept possession of for the King's Majesty's use against any that should oppose or besiege it." And this dignified reply, not unbecoming of any military governor, was accompanied by a sly bit of Irish humour-the modest request to Sir Valentine Blake, that he would aid her with powder for "the better defence thereof," with which request the writer of the narrative quaintly assures us "he never did" comply. The most remarkable features in the proceedings of a thirty-six days' siege which ensued, commencing on the 4th of February, and brought to an unsuccessful close on the 12th of March, are, the attack made on the castle by means of a classical military engine called a sow, and the use of a leathern piece of ordnance which with a great report exploded at the breech, "the bullet remain * Livy. "Vineis ac testudinibus constitutis proprius muros accessit." |