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THE COUNTIE OF KERRY.
THe Countie of Kerry neere unto the mouth of Shanon, runneth forth like a little tongue into the sea, beaten on with barking bil∣lowes on both sides: a country mounting aloft with wooddy, wild, and solitarie mountaines: between which there lye many vallies, in some places garnished with corn-fields, in others beset also thicke with woods. This is reputed a Countie Palatine, and the Earles of [ B] Desmond had in it the dignitie and priviledges of a Count-Palatine, and that by the bountifull gift of K. Edward the third, who granted unto them all Re∣gall liberties, except foure pleas, namely, of Burning, Rape, Forstall, and Treasure trouue, with the profit growing de Croccis, reserved for the Kings of England. But through the licentious iniquitie of the men, who neither would nor knew how to use this liber∣tie, it became of late a very sinke of mischiefes, and a common receptacle for rebels. In the entrance into this countrie there is a territorie called Clan-Moris, of one Mo∣ris descended from the stocke of Raimund le Grosse, whose heires successively were called the Barons of Lixnaw. A little river now namelesse (which the situation in some sort implieth to be DUR in Ptolomee) cutteth through the midst of this, run∣ning [ C] by Trayley a small towne, laid now in manner desolate, (where the Earles of Desmund had an house.) Hard by standeth Ardart, where the Bishop called of Arde∣fert, a poore one God wot, hath his poore See. In the farthest point well neere of this, where it maketh a promontorie, there sheweth it selfe on the one side Dingle, a com∣modious port, on the other side Smerwic Sound a road for ships, for so they tearme it short in steed of S. Mary-wic: at which of late, when Girald Earle of Desmund, a man notorious for deep treacherie to his Prince and countrey, wickedly wasted Mounster with continuall harrying and raising booties out of the fields, there arrived certaine companies of Italians and Spaniards, sent under-hand to aide him from Pope Grego∣rie the thirteenth, and the King of Spaine; who here fortifying a place which they [ D] called Fort del Ore, made their bragging bravadoes, and thundred out many a terrible threat. But the most noble and martiall Baron, Arthur Lord Grey, Lord Deputie, with his very comming and first onset that he made upon them, decided the matter, and ended the quarrell. For immediately they yeelded themselves, and the most part of them were put to the sword, which was in policie thought the wisest and safest course, considering in what ticklish tearmes the state of this Realme then stood, and how the rebels in every place were up in armes. And the Earle of Desmund himselfe at length in his fearefull flight being forced to take the woods hard by for his refuge, was soone after in a poore cottage by a souldier or two rushing in upon him, first wounded, and afterwards being knowne, cut shorter by the head, and so paid worthi∣ly [ E] for his perfidious treason, and the wasting of his countrey.
Here some man happily would thinke it not correspondent to the gravity of this worke, if I should but relate what a ridiculous opinion hathfully possessed the minds of a number of the Irishry, yea and perswaded them verily to beleeve that he who in that barbarous Pharoh and out cry of the Souldiers, which with great strai∣ning of their voice they use to set up when they joine battaile, doth not cry and hout as the rest doe, is suddenly caught up from the ground, and carried as it were flying in the aire, into these desert vallies, out of any country of Ireland whatsoever: where he eateth grasse, lappeth water, knoweth not in what state he is, good or bad, hath some use of reason but not of speech, but shall be caught at length with the help [ F] of hounds and the hunters, and brought home to their owne homes.