Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/136

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MY LIFE IN TWO HEMISPHERES

travellers, but made a new one running from one historical site to another. We visited the rude little church of Dungannon, where the Volunteers had held their memorable Convention. It had got new aisles since '82; at that time it could not accommodate more than three hundred persons on the ground floor. There is no memorial of the great transaction of which it was the theatre. A few Volunteer flags would have been welcome. At Charlemont, now a mere hamlet, we visited the first fortified place which opened its gates to Sir Phelim O'Neill, afterwards the quarters of his illustrious kinsman, Owen Roe. The site is one of the most commanding in Ireland. Owen could survey nine counties from the battlements, and feast his eyes on the fertile plains of Armagh and the noble waters of Lough Neagh. We traversed the field of Benburb, where Owen completely overthrew the army of Munro and the Ulster Puritans. We knelt at the reputed grave of St. Patrick at Downpatrick, and visited the tomb of Thomas Russell, the Protestant patriot of '98. The reputed grave of the Irish Apostle is shamefully neglected. No monument, no railing, no cross, and the naked sod scratched into holes, doubtless by the piety of the poor people who love to carry a fragment of the clay to their homes. The tomb to the memory of Russell in the Protestant church was not erected by public spirit, but by the private affection of a woman, Miss M'Cracken, sister to his friend, Henry Joy M'Cracken. We made a détour to the graveyard where the first Presbyterian minister, hanged for his connection with the United Irishmen, sleeps in an old Dominican Abbey. I kept a diary of that journey, from which I shall only extract an account of the battle of Ballynahinch, the first battle Catholics and Presbyterians fought side by side for Ireland. It was furnished to us on the battlefield by one of the survivors named Innes:—

"The night before the engagement the insurgents were mustered on the Hill of Ednavady. The Presbyterians, who were greatly in the majority, commenced singing psalms which contained expressions offensive to the Catholics, and it was reported that Munro, the Commander, said they should have a Presbyterian Government, which gave great offence. Bullocks were roasted and whisky distributed, and the insur-