Wrong hymn-sheet on the Rock
I stopped as has been my practice for several years now at the Rock of Cashel, Co Tipperary, to say a few prayers at the site of the massacre of September 13, 1647.
The Rock of Cashel is of great significance in the history of Munster, and of Ireland generally, in secular and ecclesiastical terms.
For several hundred years it was the location of the coronation of the Kings of Munster.
Approaching Cashel from the Dublin direction, the Rock of Cashel is as visually impressive as the City of Toledo in Spain.
On September 13, 1647, Catholics from the Cashel locality were slaughtered in the old cathedral on the Rock by Parliamentarian soldiers commanded by Murrough 'of the Burnings' O'Brien, Lord Inchiquin, who, incidentally, converted to Catholicism some time after that.
The causes of several of the slaughtered were presented to Rome some years ago, with a view to their being beatified and, in due course, canonised.
I looked for car park change at the desk on the way in to the Rock complex and was told that I'd get that at their publications desk on the upstairs floor of the restored Hall of the Vicars Choral. The Vicars Choral were originally a group of vicars, lay and clerical, who were in charge of the choir of the cathedral nearby.
I could scarcely believe that that part of the restored hall had been changed into a place of commerce since my last visit.
On the official notices of the now-defunct Dúchas/the Heritage Council, the Hall of the Vicars Choral was misrendered in Irish as Halla Córlainne an Viocáire, as if there had been only one vicar choral.
One of those martyred on September 13, 1647, was Theobald Stapleton the Catechist (born c1589).
The Irish version of Cormac's Chapel was given as 'Séipéal Chormaic', though it was known formally in Irish as Teampall Cormaic.
Miler Magrath, the renegade Conventual Franciscan, who was Anglican Archbishop of Cashel (1571-1622), was rendered in the relevant Irish language notice as 'Miler Magrath', and not Maol Mhuire Mac Craith, although it is definite that he was a native speaker of Irish, and some signed Irish language letters of his survive.
There was a band playing in the open space between the restored Hall of the Vicars Choral and the old cathedral.
I recognised two of the tunes, 'Just a Song by Twilight' and 'Bridge Over Troubled Waters'.
One wouldn't object to a band playing such tunes on the East Pier in Dún Laoghaire, but on the Rock of Cashel, on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the day after the anniversary of the Cashel Massacre, they could hardly have been more inappropriate. There is a Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann facility right beside the Rock of Cashel, Brú Bórú.
Surely they could have been prevailed upon to provide some appropriate music. There is too much of the 'don't give a damn' attitude to our cultural heritage. The way the Rock of Cashel is being treated is just one example.
Séamas de Barra,
83, Beaufort Downs,
Rathfarnham Village,
Dublin 14.
