. . vpon the highest hights
Of _Arlo-hill_ (Who knowes not _Arlo-hill?_)
That is the highest head (in all mens sights)
Of my old father _Mole_, whom Shepheards quill
Renowmed hath with hymnes fit for a rurall skill.
His poem called _Colin Clouts Come Home Again_,
written in 1591, and dedicated to Sir W. Raleigh 'from
my house at Kilcolman the 27 of December, 1591'{5}--
written therefore after a lengthy absence in England--
exhibits a full familiarity with the country round
about Kilcolman. On the whole then we may suppose that
his residence at Kilcolman began not later than 1588.
It was to be roughly and and terribly ended ten years
after.
We may suppose he was living there in peace and
quiet, not perhaps undisturbed by growing murmurs of
discontent, by signs of unrepressed and irrepressible
hostility towards his nation, by ill-concealed
sympathies with the Spanish invaders amongst the native
population, when the Armada came and went. The old
castle in which he had lived had been one of the
residences of the Earls of Desmond. It stood some two
miles from Doneraile, on the north side of a lake which
was fed by the river Awbeg or Mulla, as the poet
christened it.
'Two miles north-west of Doneraile,' writes
Charles Smith in his _Natural and Civil History of the
County and City of Cork_, 1774, (i.
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