We will not attempt to describe the tumult of delight which agitated
Reilly's heart on his way home, after this tender interview with the
most celebrated Irish beauty of that period. The term _Cooleen Bawn_,
in native Irish, has two meanings, both of which were justly applied to
her, and met in her person. It signifies _fair locks_, or, as it may be
pronounced _fair girl_; and in either sense is peculiarly applicable to
a blonde beauty, which she was. The name of _Cooleen Bawn_ was applied
to her by the populace, whose talent for finding out and bestowing
epithets indicative either of personal beauty or deformity, or of
the qualities of the mind or character, be they good or evil, is, in
Ireland, singularly felicitous. In the higher ranks, however, she was
known as "The Lily of the Plains of Boyne," and as such she was toasted
by all parties, not only in her own native county, but throughout
Ireland, and at the viceregal entertainments in the Castle of Dublin. At
the time of which we write, the penal laws were in operation against the
Roman Catholic population of the country, and her father, a good-hearted
man by nature, was wordy and violent by prejudice, and yet secretly kind
and friendly to many of that unhappy creed, though by no means to all.
It was well known, however, that in every thing that was generous and
good in his character, or in the discharge of his public duties as a
magistrate, he was chiefly influenced by the benevolent and liberal
principles of his daughter, who was a general advocate for the
oppressed, and to whom, moreover, he could deny nothing. This accounted
for her popularity, as it does for the extraordinary veneration and
affection with which her name and misfortunes are mentioned down to the
present day. The worst point in her father's character was that he never
could be prevailed on to forgive an injury, or, at least, any act that
he conceived to be such, a weakness or a vice which was the means of all
his angelic and lovely daughter's calamities.