Some Account of the Family of O'Hurly.
(Continued from page 123.)
[p. 177] In the old church at Emly was, until it was taken down after the disestablishment of the State Church, a beautiful tomb of the O'Hurlys. It contained on a stone, four feet by two feet three inches, upon a border little raised, about one and a half inches, the following inscription:—
Perillustris Domnus; D. Mauritius Hurlaeus Armiger Movmetu.
Hoc sibi suisq. charissimis. conjugibus. Gramæ Hoganæ, et Graciæ Thorentonæ, totiq. postentati. posuit, elaborarig. fect.
Hic jacet hospitis columen, pietatis asijlum, Ano Di. 1632
Ingenio clarus, clarus, et eloquio
Lauspatriæ litumsuppssor, pacis amator
Regula institiæ, religionis ebur
Hostibus Hurlæus, fuit hostis amicus amicis,
Mauritius moderans tempora temporibus.
Fax fidee fulcrum miserorum gemma virorum.
Stemmatis antiqui, gloria magna sue,
Huic decus, huic probitas, sors corporis integra Mille
Naturæ dotes, unicus omne capit.
Vixisti mundo, vives in soecula, vivis.
Fortuna fælix prole pereximia.
Ergo vive Deo vivo, cui vivere vita est;
Sic tibi, dante Deo, vita perennis, erit.
Maurice Hurly was Bishop of Emly 1630–49.
"To travellers on the Great Southern and Western Railway, the grassy hill of Knocklong, crowned by its castle ruins, forms a conspicuous object, lying immediately south of the Knocklong station. This hill was, many ages ago, the scene of a warlike gathering, the memory of which is still preserved in the name.
"In the middle of the third century, Cormac mac Art, monarch of Ireland, undertook an expedition against Fiacha Muilleathan (Mullahan), king of Munster, to reduce him to submission, and lay the province under additional tribute; and his army marched from Tara unopposed, till they pitched their tents on this hill, which was up to that time called Druim-damhghaire (davary), the hill of the oxen. The Munster king marched to oppose him, and encamped on the slope of the opposite hill, then called Slieve Claire, but now Slievereagh (grey mountain), lying south of Knocklong, and north-east of Kilfinane.
"After a protracted struggle, and many combats in the intervening plain, Cormac, defeated and baffled, was forced to retreat without effecting his object. He was pursued, with great loss, as far as Ossory, [p. 178] and obliged by Fiacha to give security that he would repair the injury done to Munster by this expedition. And from this event the hill of Knocklong received its name, which is in Irish Cnoc-luinge, the hill of the encampment."
These are the bare historical facts. In the Book of Lecan there is a full narrative of the invasion and repulse; and it forms the subject of a historical tale called the Forbais or Siege of Druim damhghaire, a copy of which is found in the Book of Lismore. Like all historical romances it is embellished by exaggerations and by the introduction of fabulous circumstances, and the druids of both armies are made to play a conspicuous part in the whole transaction by the exercise of their magical powers.
—Dr. Joyce's Irish Names of Places.
The Latin epitaph above survives only as printed in 1905; the tomb itself had already been removed from the old church at Emly following disestablishment (1871) some decades before this article appeared, and we are not aware of any surviving photograph of the stone. The Latin text is reproduced exactly as printed, including what appear to be several typesetting corruptions in the verse (e.g. "Movmetu," "postentati," "asijlum," "fælix") that likely reflect either damage to the original stone or errors introduced somewhere between the stone and the 1905 typesetter; we have not attempted to emend or translate it, since doing so confidently would require access to the original inscription. Maurice Hurly, Bishop of Emly (1630–49), commemorated here, appears to be a different, senior-generation Maurice Hurly from the Maurice Hurly of Knocklonge whose 1634 will is transcribed at Section 11 — the two were near-exact contemporaries with a shared name, a coincidence the original article does not flag or resolve, and neither do we.