The island of Rathlin, or Rachlin, or Raughlinds, or Raghery, or Rachery,—for in all those different ways is its name written,—is the largest of the islands which lie near the north coast of Ireland, and are considered as a part of it. All the others are small and insignificant, with the exception of Tory or Robber island, which is of some importance, and is inhabited. There are other ways of writing the name of this island, as Recarn, Recraiu, Raghlin, Rachri, Raclinda. Pliny calls it Ricnia, and Ptolemy Ricinia. I cannot conceive whence all these names have arisen, since the inhabitants themselves, and the neighbours round, call it plainly Rachri, or Rachrin, in which they agree with Hamilton at the close of the last century, and M'Kenzie still earlier. It is thought that this name is compounded of Ragh Eri (Erin's Fort), which is not improbable, as the Irish have given to several of the islands on their coast names signifying their situation with respect to the mainland; for instance, they call the little island near Dublin, ‘Ireland's Eye;’ and the insular promontory in Connaught, ‘Erin's Head,’ (Errishead.) Rathlin consists of two tracts of land, united at a right angle. One of those arms, which runs parallel with the coast of Ireland, is something more than five miles long, and the other about three. In the middle, where the legs of the angle meet, is a bay, at the head of which stand the church of the island, and the seat of the Rector and owner of the island; whence it is called Church Bay. The entire island, as it stands, is the product of a volcanic eruption; the same, no doubt, which formed the opposite coast of Ireland, for the structure of both exactly corresponds. The basis is a white chalky limestone, on which rests a mass of black basalt, which shows itself in Rathlin, as on the coast of Ireland, regularly in a large handsome columnar formation.
The tides and currents, which run near the island, and between it and the mainland, are particularly remarkable. This northern point of Ireland is, in this respect, as remarkable as the south-west
The sailors who navigate round Ireland must always attend to these tides and eddies. A person sailing from Dublin could, if the wind were favourable, arrive at Carlingford, near the county of Down, with the tide coming in from the south; thence he could continue his voyage northwards, with the tide retreating in that direction; and, at the time when the ebb again changes to flood, could arrive at Rathlin, give himself up to the eddy along the coast, and with it sail against the tide westward as far as
The waters between Rathlin and the shore are violently agitated twice a day, even in the calmest weather; that is, at each return of the flood or ebb; and this agitation lasts until the currents have acquired an equal strength, when they rush peacefully by one another, until the setting in of the next change again produces the agitation. So it is in calm weather. But when a storm comes on, the sea is scarcely navigable; and it is not only impossible for the small coasting vessels to make this little voyage, as we have already seen, but even large ships avoid the passage between the island and the mainland. The prevailing winds and waves come, of course, from the open Atlantic ocean, from the west; and therefore the west coast of Rathlin is the scene of immense waves, breaking almost incessantly. In winter, the inhabitants are often, for an entire month, surrounded by furious storms, waves, and tides, isolated from the rest of mankind, and shut out from all intercourse with the mainland.
Such an island was well adapted to afford secure winter quarters to a flying king and his companions. Robert Bruce, king of Scotland, therefore availed himself of all these circumstances when he was compelled, a short time after his coronation, to leave his kingdom in the lurch. In the autumn of the year 1306, he came to Rathlin, with three hundred armed men, and settled himself between the basaltic rocks of the island, behind the breakers, tides, and storms, safe from his persecutors, and remained there through the winter. Crossing over to Scotland in the spring, with increased numbers, he began that varied and eventful war which at last ended with the glorious battle of Bannockburn, in the year 1314, in which Scotland established her freedom, and Bruce secured his kingdom by a victory over the English.
When Bruce landed here, the island was then, as now, inhabited by solitary islanders, tending sheep, catching fish, and cultivating patches of oats. At first they fled before the mail-clad knight to the other side of the island; but when they saw that the iron lord treated them mildly and kindly, they came forward, promised to provide him and his men daily with provisions, fish, mutton, and oat-cakes; and at last, choosing him their lord and king, they appointed themselves his fishers, shepherds, and oat-cake makers, and delivered up to him a castle that had stood from ancient times on their island, and is called ‘Bruce's Castle’ to this day, while a cavern near it is still called ‘Bruce's Cave.’ The castle stands on a high promontory, on the east side of the island, within sight of Scotland; and the rock on which it is built
The present successor to Robert Bruce in the government of the island, is a Mr. Gage, who being the spiritual head, the rector, as well as the chief magistrate and the owner of the soil, thus rules his subjects in more relations and by more titles than many a king his kingdom, though he has neither the parade and splendour of sovereignty, nor a prince's crown. This reverend gentleman is a vassal of the Antrim family, from whom his progenitors have held the island, since the year 1740, by lease for ever. King Charles I., as I have already stated, made a grant of it to the Antrim family. The head of the Antrim family is still called the ‘Chief’ of Rathlin. ‘The Antrim family holds the Chiefry or Chiefdom,’ the people say; but Mr. Gage is called the proprietor; and although he still pays a trifling head-rent to his chieftain, yet the latter has nothing whatever to do with the internal management of the island. The rector's tenants are all only ‘at will;’ i. e. they can immediately, and without more ado, be deprived by him of their farms and land, and driven from the island.
Mr. Gage might, if he chose, change his residence to Dublin, or some other place, and give up the entire income of his hereditary island to some other person, who would pay him a rent and take the trouble of its management. Such a man would be called by the Irish ‘a middleman.’ This middleman, to whom the whole island might be leased, would have it in his power to let separate parts of it to under-middlemen, who would then be the immediate landlords of the tenants: thus we should have, from the king to the tenant, a succession of possessors, or at least persons having a title to the soil, one over another, as really happens in an extraordinary number of cases in Ireland. In the first place, there would be the head ruler of all the land, the Queen, to whom all the possessions of the Antrim family would revert under certain circumstances, for instance, should the family become extinct, or should they fail to pay the proper number of falcons due to the Viceroy of Ireland, on the feast of St. John the Baptist. Next, the Antrim family, who reckon the island of Rathlin as part of their earldom, and would take possession of it
The population of the island amounts to about 1100. This number was first accurately determined in the year 1758, when the spiritual chief, and governor of the island, imposed a tax of a shilling on every head, in order with the proceeds to build a new Mass-house, as they term here what in other places people would call a Catholic church. The numbering was accomplished with great trouble; for the islanders opposed it, believing that, out of every numbered family, one individual would surely die. This island also lies under the great injustice which extends all over Ireland, in the relative positions of the Protestants who rule, and the Catholics who are ruled. The rector and owner of the island, who resides here throughout the year with his family, has a good income, and lives in the enjoyment of all imaginable comforts, is a Protestant; but his poor tenants and vassals, from whom he draws this income, and who, in order to be able to pay it, fish, cultivate oats, navigate the stormy sea, and eat seaweed, are poor taxed Catholics, while only sixty or eighty of them are said to be Protestants. For the Catholics, the Protestant rector keeps a Catholic priest, and also, as has been said, keeps a ‘Mass-house’ in good repair for them. An Irish Protestant, who praised the management of the present rector, thus expressed himself: ‘he keeps them (the Catholics) in very good order.’ In winter, of
The sheep of Rathlin are much praised: the rocky meadows of the island afford them excellent pasture, and in the north of Ireland they are known by the name of ‘Rachries;’ a name also given to the islanders themselves, when they cross over to the mainland, where, on account of their rude habits, they appear sometimes to afford considerable merriment to the continentalists of Ireland,—for Ireland naturally stands to Rathlin in the relation of a continent, and all continentalists are accustomed to make themselves merry with the peculiarities of islanders. All these islanders, with the exception perhaps of the Protestants, are said still to speak the ancient Irish language, which is preserved in all the little islands about Ireland, like the Scottish Gaelic, which is even still spoken in greater purity in the kingdom of the Isles than in the rest of Scotland.
The horses of the island are small, being mere ‘ponies,’ as the people in Ballycastle told me. This is also the case with the horses of the Scottish islands. In the Baltic sea, too, the horses of the island of Gothland are well known and sought after on account of their small size. What can be the cause of the diminutive proportions of island horses? A large horse was once carried over from Ireland to Rathlin, and, as the Ballycastle people say, the islanders took it for a monster, thought it would eat them, and ran away from it.
The only four-footed wild animals belonging to the island, are, according to Hamilton, the rat and the mouse. It is said to contain neither foxes, hares, rabbits, nor badgers, though they are plentiful both in the neighbouring parts of Scotland, and on the coast of Ireland. Foxes are said to have been once introduced into the island by command of a Lord Antrim, and a party of his huntsmen were sent there to form a new hunting-ground; but the islanders, who have a great dislike to this animal, bribed the huntsmen, and induced them to disobey their orders. Lord Antrim, who afterwards became acquainted with this, took occasion therefrom to impose on them a new annual tax, for their immunity from foxes. I believe the people here are very much afraid of those animals; for I happened to hear a woman, whose
The islanders, as I have already said, cultivate some barley and oats; but besides this, one of their principal sources of gain consists in the preparation of kelp from seaweed, which is the occupation of the women and children. Hamilton thus describes their mode of proceeding:—They gather the seaweed from the shore after a storm, or cut it from the rocks on which it grows, and spread it out in the sunshine to dry. In the evening they gather it into little heaps, which are again spread out to dry next day. When the weeds are dry, they make a hole in the ground, line it with stones, and in this extempore oven burn the weeds slowly and carefully to ashes. The vegetable salts melt, and, falling to the bottom of the hole, form a solid mass, in which state it is exported, as they do not understand how to purify the soda from the common salt and other matters mixed with it. This preparation of kelp, as the English call it, is carried on through the entire north-west coast of Ireland, and in a similar manner on the south-western coasts of Scotland, and it forms a not inconsiderable article of trade with England.
What was told me of the manners of the simple inhabitants of this island, brought to my recollection the inhabitants of some of the islands in the Baltic. Thus it is remarkable, that the same trait is related of the Racheries as of the people of Runoe, in the Gulf of Riga, that the greatest punishment that can be inflicted on them is banishment from their island, which they love exceedingly, regarding Ireland as an altogether foreign country.
We have two accounts, by learned men, of the nature of the island of Raghery: one by Dr. W. Hamilton, in his description of the County of Antrim; and one by Dr. J. Drummond, in the xvii. vol. of the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. From the first account I take a few remarks that may perhaps be acceptable to most of my German readers, who may not have the book itself at their command. Small as the island is, two races of very different characters may be discovered among its 1100 inhabitants. The island, as I have already said, consists of two points of land, joined at a right angle. The west, or longer end, is called
As the Isle of Man was formerly an apple of discord between England and Scotland, so was Rathlin between Scotland and Ireland. It often served the Scottish and Irish chieftains as the place of meeting and the sallying point of their expeditions. There are therefore many of those tumuli, such as are found in Ireland and Scotland, on a little plain in the centre of the island, which was probably more than once a blood-soaked battle-field. In the centre of one of these tombs, a stone coffin containing bones has been found, while all round were strewn many other human bones, being probably those of a hero, and the common soldiers he commanded. Bronze swords and lance-heads, likewise dug up in this plain, are irrefutable testimonies of the bloody dramas which were performed here. The recollection of the atrocities perpetrated here on one occasion, by the clan of the Campbells, remained so long in the memory of the island population, that so lately as at the end of the last century, no Scotchman of that name was permitted to settle on the island, and this law is probably in force at