h a
pointed roof, which seems to grow out of a cluster of farm-buildings, so
surrounded is its base by roofs of thatch and slates. Incongruous, vulgar,
and ugly in every way, the old keep appears to look down on them--time-worn
and battered as it is--as might a reduced gentleman regard the unworthy
associates with which an altered fortune had linked him. This is all that
remains of Kilgobbin Castle.

In the guidebooks we read that it was once a place of strength and
importance, and that Hugh de Lacy--the same bold knight 'who had won all
Ireland for the English from the Shannon to the sea'--had taken this
castle from a native chieftain called Neal O'Caharney, whose family he had
slain, all save one; and then it adds: 'Sir Hugh came one day, with three
Englishmen, that he might show them the castle, when there came to him a
youth of the men of Meath--a certain Gilla Naher O'Mahey, foster-brother
of O'Caharney himself--with his battle-axe concealed beneath his cloak,
and while De Lacy was reading the petition he gave him, he dealt him such
a blow that his head flew off many yards away, both head and body being
afterwards buried in the ditch of the castle.'

The annals of Kilronan further relate that the O'Caharneys became adherents
of the English--dropping their Irish designation, and calling themselves
Kearney; and in this way were restored to a part of the lands and the
castle of Kilgobbin--'by favour of which act of grace,' says the chronicle,
'they were bound to raise a becoming monument over the brave knight, Hugh
de Lacy, whom their kinsman had so treacherously slain; but they did no
more of this than one large stone of granite, and no inscription thereon:
thus showing that at all times, and with all men, the O'Caharneys were
false knaves and untrue to their word.'

In later times, again, the Kearneys returned to the old faith of their
fathers and followed the fortunes of King James; one of them, Michael
O'Kearney, having acted as aide-de-camp at the 'Boyne,' and conducted the
king to Kilgobbin, where he passed the night after the defeat, and, as the
tradition records, held a court the next morning, at which he thanked the
owner of the castle for his hospitality, and created him on the spot a
viscount by the style and title of Lord Kilgobbin.

It is needless to say that the newly-created noble saw good reason to keep
his elevation to himself. They were somewhat critical times just then for
the adherents of the lo