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clear=all>  <TABLE> <TR> <TD valign="TOP"> <IMG SRC="http://www.irelandseye.com/newmedia/culture/literature/jonathan_swift_logo.jpg" ALT="Jonathan Swift's Ireland logo"> <h3>Jonathan Swift's long journey to Kilroot, County Antrim</h3> <P> The road from Dublin to Carrickfergus, about one hundred and ten miles, was the first of Swift's lengthy journeys in Ireland. It was also the first of many occasions in his life when he would head north on matters of business or friendship. Travelling along the coast road as far as Dundalk, he was still within the "Pale": he would have heard English as well as Irish spoken in the towns. After Newry lay the heartlands of the Glorious Revolution of 1690, Counties Down and Antrim, where Scottish Presbyterianism, rather than English Anglicanism, dominated the religious and political landscape. Passing through the small town of Belfast (home to a mere 2,000 inhabitants), Swift would have ridden up the shore-road which ran below the Cave Hill alongside the expanding waters of Belfast Lough. Carrickfergus, which lay ten miles north of Belfast, was a fortified merchant-town, dominated by an impressive Norman castle which controlled all passage through Belfast Lough. It was here that William of Orange had landed on 14 June 1690 to complete his campaign against James II’s forces. This part of the country was part of Swift's intellectual and religious inheritance, the birth-place of "Protestant liberty" and the theatre of its political mythology. The place would certainly have reminded him of one of his earliest literary compositions, "Ode to the King", written a few months after William's victory at the Battle of the Boyne (a river Swift would have crossed at Drogheda). This poem, composed in the classical form of a Pindaric Ode, pays solemn tribute to King William’s heroic adventure:</p><p> <blockquote> Thus has our prince completed every victory<br> And glad Iërne now may see<br> Her sister isles are conquered too as well as she. </blockquote> Although the poem was written five years before Swift came to live among Scottish Presbyterians, it already shows his inherited and inflexible hatred for Dissenters. According to the poem, one of William’s greatest, almost incredible achievements was his ability to control these fanatical sectaries:</p><p> <blockquote> The Scots themselves, that discontented brood,<br> Who always loudest for religion brawl,<br> (As those do still wh’ have none at all)<br> Who claim so many titles to be Jews,<br> (But, surely such whom God did never for his people choose)<br> Still murmuring in their wilderness for food,<br> Who pine us like a chronical disease;<br> And one would think ’twere past omnipotence to please;<br> Your presence all their native stubbornness controls,<br> And for a while unbends their contradicting souls.<br> </blockquote> While Swift always accepted the necessity and justice of the Glorious Revolution, he never trusted the loyalties of Protestant Dissenters. Carrickfergus had heroic associations for Swift, but it had also been the gateway for the thousands of Scots immigrants who had settled, intractably, throughout Ulster. As far back as 1613, Rev. Edward Bryce had become the first Presbyterian minister to settle and preach in Ireland _ in the prebend of Kilroot. In 1642, the first formal presbytery in Ireland was organised by Scots army regiments in Carrickfergus, soldiers sent over to quell the Irish rebellion. There was something ludicrous about Swift arriving in this area on behalf of the "Established Church": surveying the Antrim and Down coastlines, with Scotland clearly visible on a good day, Swift must have felt more like a missionary for a minority than a secure representative of the state church.</p><p> Kilroot itself (from the Irish <i>Cill Ruaidh</i>, "the red church", the site having a legendary association with a prehistorical battle) was an ancient Christian settlement founded in the late sixth century by St Colman. Up to the Reformation, it had been an important property of the Franciscan monks, who had built a church for the diocese on their land. When Swift arrived, the ruins of that monastic tradition were only picturesque monuments of the mediaeval Christian order. Swift's Anglican church could claim little advance on these emblems of decay and neglect.</p><p> The prebend of Kilroot must have struck Swift as something worse than a ghostly inheritance: there was no manse, no glebe in Kilroot, not even a church. Tradition, rather than documentary evidence, suggests that he lived in a substantial cottage close to the shore of Belfast Lough. The prebend comprised three parishes: Kilroot, Templecorran and Ballynure. The only available church was in Ballynure village, a journey about ten miles to the west over the hills from the coast. A decade before Swift arrived in this most unpromising place, Richard Dobbs, a local squire and landlord, had written an extensive narrative on County Antrim, which contained the following observations:</p><p> <blockquote> The parish of Kilroot is but small, the whole tithes not worth forty pounds, and the great tithes belong to the Earl of Donegall, the small tithes to the Prebendary, one Milne, a Scotchman; the inhabitants (except my family and some half a dozen that live under me) all presbyterians and Scotch, not one natural Irish in the Parish, nor Papist; and may afford 100 men. </blockquote> Dobbs had written his history of the county for William Molyneux of the Dublin Philosophical Society, and later became Lord Mayor of Carrickfergus. In June 1690, he welcomed King William to the town at the outset of the monarch’s Irish campaign. Swift’s potential congregation, we may infer, constituted a mere handful of local landowners and dignitaries who had subscribed to the Church of Ireland. In reality, however, the newly arrived clergyman made scant appearances at his occasional service in Ballynure. After the civilised and intimate security of Surrey, Swift must have been appalled at the monotony of this religious outpost.</p><p> Read more about the early career of Jonathan Swift in the <a href="http://www.irelandseye.com/aarticles/culture/literature/jonathan_swift_ireland_03.htm"><b>third part</b></a> of this biographical journey, extracted from Joseph McMinn's '<b>Jonathan's Travels</b>'.<hr></p><p><br> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0862814537/applepress03-20/ref=nosim"><img src="http://www.appletree.ie/cat/books/covmed4537.gif" Height=150 ALIGN=LEFT></a>From the Appletree Press title: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0862814537/applepress03-20/ref=nosim"><I>Jonathan's Travels</I></a>, by Joseph McMinn. For more information on the book, click <A href="http://www.appletree.ie/cat/books/4537.htm">here</a>.<br> Also from Appletree: <A href="http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0862817595/applepress03-20/ref=nosim"><I>Famous Irish Lives</I></a>, <A href="http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0862817595/applepress03-20/ref=nosim">click here to buy</A> or <A href="http://www.appletree.ie/cat/books/7595.htm">here</A> for more information & <A href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0862815487/applepress03-20/ref=nosim"> <I>Irish Museums and Heritage Centres</I></a>, click <A href="http://www.appletree.ie/cat/books/5487.htm">here</A> for more information.<P></P> </TD> <TD width="180" align="RIGHT" valign="TOP"> <script type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script></TD> </TR> </TABLE> <P> [ <A HREF="#top">Back to Top</A> ]<P><FONT SIZE=2>All Material © 1999-2005 Irelandseye.com and contributors</FONT><BR><BR clear=all></FONT></TD> </TR> <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#336699" width=120 valign=bottom><IMG SRC="/newmedia/ssi/bluwaves.jpg" WIDTH=120 HEIGHT=145 ALIGN=TOP></TD> <TD><IMG SRC="/Images/spacer.gif" WIDTH=20 HEIGHT=2 ALIGN=TOP></TD> </TR> <TR><TD colspan=5 BGCOLOR="#336699" align=right><IMG SRC="/Images/spacer.gif" WIDTH=100 HEIGHT=1 ALIGN=TOP></TD> </TR></TABLE> <BR><CENTER><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="ARIAL, HELVETICA">[ <A HREF="http://www.irelandseye.com">Home</A> | <A HREF="http://www.irelandseye.com/aarticles/features/index.shtm">Features</A> | <A HREF="http://www.irelandseye.com/aarticles/culture/index.shtm">Culture</A> | <A HREF="http://www.irelandseye.com/aarticles/history/index.shtm">History</A> | <A HREF="http://www.irelandseye.com/aarticles/travel/index.shtm">Travel</A> ]</FONT></CENTER> </body> </html> </body> </html>