A'OTKS ,71. V f>ICTUJiE.V 'H V
F6^ B McM-MANSFIELD
Romantic Ireland
Volume II.
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CROSS AND TOWER OF MONASTKRBOICE.
(See fage .yg).
ROMANTIC
IRELAND
By
M. F. and B. McM. Mansfield
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II.
Boston
L. C. Page & Company
MDCCCCV
623373
Copyright, 1904
BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
All rights reserved
Published October, 1904
COLONIAL PRESS
Eltctrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, Mass., U.S.A.
Contents
VOLUME II.
CHAPTER PAGB
I. QUEENSTOWN, CORK, AND BLARNEY . I
II. GLENGARRIFF AND BANTRY BAY . . 39
III. KlLLARNEY AND ABOUT THERE . . 62
IV. AROUND THE COAST OF LIMERICK . 84
V. THE SHANNON AND ITS LAKES . . 104
VI. GALWAY AND ITS BAY . . . .129
VII. ACHILL TO SLIGO 161
VIII. THE DONEGAL HIGHLANDS . . . 194
IX. LONDONDERRY AND THE GIANT'S CAUSE-
WAY 207
X. ANTRIM AND DOWN . . . .231
XI. THE BOYNE VALLEY .... 248
XII. BELFAST AND ARMAGH .... 290
List of Illustrations
VOLUME II.
CROSS AND TOWER OF MONASTERBOICE (See
page 259) ..... Frontispiece
QUEENSTOWN HARBOUR 3
SHANDON CHURCH TOWER .... 9
CORK 13
AN OLD -STYLE IRISH CAR .... 19
A MODERN IRISH CAR 23
BLARNEY CASTLE 31
GOUGANE BARRA 35
BANTRY BAY 41
GLENGARRIFF BAY 51
HUNGRY HILL 55
KlLLARNEY AND ABOUT THERE ... 63
ST. FINIAN'S ORATORY, INNISFALLEN . . 65
ON THE ROAD FROM CORK TO KERRY . . 69
CLOISTERS OF MUCKROSS ABBEY 73
THE EAGLE'S NEST 77
Ross CASTLE 81
THE GAP OF DUNLOE 85
THE BLACK VALLEY 89
vii
viii List of Illustrations
PAGE
VALENTIA 93
THE SKELLIGS ROCKS 97
LIMERICK CASTLE 101
THE SHANNON AND ITS LAKES . . . 105
KINCORA 107
AN IRISH PIPER 1 1 1
THE STONE OF THE DIVISIONS, WESTMEATH . 117
ATHLONE CASTLE 121
CLADDAGH 135
JUDGE LYNCH'S HOUSE, GALWAY . . . 141
THE CHURCH OF THE CANONS, ARAN . .155
ACHILL ISLAND . . % 163
CATHEDRAL CAVES, ACHILL . . . .171
IN CONNEMARA 175
KYLEMORE CASTLE 179
KILLARY HARBOUR 183
A DETAIL OF SLIGO ABBEY . . . .191
DONEGAL CASTLE 197
LAKE OF SHADOWS, DONEGAL . . . . 203
DERRY 209
THE HONEYCOMB, GIANT'S CAUSEWAY . .217
CARRICK-A-REDE 227
GRAVE OF ST. PATRICK, DOWNPATRICK . . 241
THE STONE OF DESTINY, TARA . . . 255
TRIM 261
THE ROUND TOWER, KELLS .... 267
THE CROSS OF KELLS 271
CROSSES OF CLONMACNOIS, DONEGAL, SLANE,
AND MOONE ABBEY 275
HOLY WELL, KELLS ...... 279
Romantic Ireland
CHAPTER I.
QUEENSTOWN, CORK, AND BLARNEY
^vUEENSTOWN has been called a mere
^ appendage to its harbour, and, truly, it
is a case of the tail wagging the dog, though
the residents of Cork will tell you it is Cork
Harbour, anyway, and Queenstown is noth-
ing but a town that was made by the American
War of Independence, and by the emigration
rush that, during the past sixty years, has de-
prived Ireland of more than half her popula-
tion.
Be this as it may, the harbour dwarfs every-
thing else about the town. Above the enor-
mous expanse of sheltered water, the little
town piles itself up on the overhanging cliffs,
2 Romantic Ireland
pink houses, yellow houses, white houses, like
a veritable piece of Italy. It is always warm
here, or almost always. In the winter time,
the temperature is seldom severe, and, in the
summer, it is one of the finest yachting centres
in the United Kingdom.
The " Beach " of Queenstown is truly Irish,
since it is not a beach at all, but a fenced street
full of shops, occupying the place where a nar-
row strand once ran.
Time was when Galway was a rival to
Queenstown for the honour of being the link
which was, by the emigrant chain, to bind the
Old World to the New; but now the honour
is Queenstown's alone.
If tears, the bitterest ever shed on earth,
the hopeless tears of lonely aged parents part-
ing from their cherished offspring; of man's
love leaving woman's love thousands of miles
behind across the seas; of friend clasping the
hand of friend perhaps for the last time; of
brothers and sisters parting from brothers and
sisters, and all from the land that the Irishman
loves as he loves his own life, if such tears
as these could quench the myriad of fairy lights
that sparkle on the great harbour at dusk,
Queenstown, Cork, and Blarney 5
Queenstown would doubtless be the darkest
city in all the world.
Queenstown is drenched in tears; the air
still quivers inaudibly with the wailings that
have filled it through day after day of half a
century or more of bitter partings. Thousands
have left Ireland every year from these quays,
" the torn artery through which the country's
best blood drains away year by year." To
see an emigrant-ship cast loose from the quay
and steam out of the harbour is a sight, once
witnessed, that will never be forgotten; that
will haunt one's very dreams in years to come.
Until 1849 Cove was the name of the city,
but during a visit of Queen Victoria here at
that time, her first visit to Irish soil, the name
was changed, in her honour, to that which it
now bears.
Cork Harbour, to most travellers, is little
more than a memory; but, in reality, it is
one of those beautiful landlocked waterways
which, for sheer beauty and grandeur, is, in
company with Bantry Bay and Dingle Bay,
which are less known, only comparable to the
fiords of Norway. They have not the majesty
or expansiveness of many of the latter; but
6 Romantic Ireland
they have most of their attributes more subtly
expressed. Indeed, Cork Harbour and the
river Lee, whose waters are in part enfolded
by " the third city of Ireland," Cork (Corcaig,
" a marshy place "), are unapproachable in all
the world for a certain subtle charm which is
perhaps inexpressible in words.
As the Lee divides and encircles the city,
it well illustrates Spenser's lines:
The spreading Lee that like an Island Fayre,
Encloseth Cork with his divided flood."
Even the present-day aspect of Cork Har-
bour and the estuary of the river Lee from the
heights of Queenstown is one of the fairest
blendings of sea and shore anywhere to be
seen.
Spike Island, with its convict establishment;
Haulbowline, with its naval establishment;
Rocky Island, with its powder magazine;
Crosshaven Ring; and Rostellan Castle at
once attract notice; and the eye roams with
pleasure over a charming scene, enlivened with
shipping of all kinds and from all ports, from
the humble lugger to the steam-collier, and,
finally, the ocean leviathans, which, in our
Queenstown, Cork, and Blarney 7
strenuous times, have become known as " rec-
ord-breakers."
Into Cork Harbour Sir Francis Drake re-
treated when hotly pursued by the Spanish
fleet. He was so effectually hidden in Carri-
galine River, above the village of Crosshaven,
that the Spaniards spent several days in fruit-
less search for him, and the spot is still known
as Drake's Pool. About four miles away is
the fort-defended entrance to this spacious
harbour. Old Ocean seems in some freakish
humour to have struck his broad palm against
the barrier-strand, pushed his watery fingers
into the soil, and clutched at the rocks with
his foam-white nails.
From its charming situation and equability
of climate, Queenstown is one of the best
places in Ireland to encounter to their fulness
the charms of Ireland's lovely daughters. This
fact has been somewhat unduly enlarged upon
in the past, it is true, but theirs is a rare and
gracious beauty, and it is a general trait, so
that there is a good excuse for introducing
the subject once again. Some are here with
such a rosy gladness ; such an eglantine beauty-
bloom ; such dark hair and flashing eyes, soul-
8 Romantic Ireland
stirring and beaming with goodness; such a
graceful mien and frankness of manner,
blended with a quiet reserve; and, altogether,
such a kindly air about them as to fully merit
any eulogy which has been bestowed upon
Irish women. One is not surprised at their
being addressed by such mellifluous epithets as
" Ciishla machree, asthore, mavourneen! "
These are endearments which certainly sound
appropriate to all, whatever be the subtle shade
of distinction.
Entrance to Cork via the river Lee gives
prominence, first of all, to Shandon's square
church tower, of whose bells sang Father
Prout :
" The bells of Shandon, that sound so grand on
The pleasant waters of the River Lee."
Shandon Church is, for itself, decidedly
worth seeing, though by no stretch of the
imagination could it be called a beautiful
structure. Up a long hill and up two flights
of stone steps, one climbs to the quiet little old
gray church, built in 1720, with its spiring
tower and sounding peal of eighteenth-century
SHANDON CHURCH TOWER.
Queenstown, Cork, and Blarney n
bells. Seventeen hundred and fifty is the date
cast on each of the eight.
St. Anne Shandon, or Sean-dun, signifying
" the old fort," is situated on Shandon Hill,
and is really a suburb of Cork. Its fame, in
the minds of most, reverts to Father Prout's
world-famous lyric, " The Bells of Shandon."
If " in the mood," the listener will experience
much the same emotions as are set forth in
those pleasing stanzas. If not, as with most
other things which have been similarly eulo-
gized, the traveller will condemn it as mere
hollow sentiment and " bosh." But the latter
will, likely enough, not prove to be the case.
The church was erected on the site of the
old Church of Our Lady, or St. Mary Shan-
don, a very ancient edifice, destroyed at the
burning of the suburbs at the siege of Cork
by Marlborough in 1690. In the decretal
epistles of Pope Innocent III., it is mentioned
as the Church of St. Mary in the Mountain.
In 1536, the rector of St. Mary's, one Dom-
inick Tyrrey, was elevated to the see of Cork,
of which he was the first Protestant bishop.
The Rev. Francis Mahony (" Father Prout "),
though he spent much of his life abroad, is
12 Romantic Ireland
buried in the churchyard in the family vault
at the foot of the tower.
The tower, or steeple, which contains the
celebrated bells, is of unique construction. It
consists of a tower and lantern (170 feet high)
of three stories each. Two sides of the steeple,
west and south, are built of limestone, and
two, north and east, of red stone.
The chime of bells itself does not take a high
rank among campanologists, since it is not
very excellent either in voice or power. Still,
given certain conditions, one may well realize
Mahony's (Father Prout's) sentiments:
" With deep affection
And recollection
I often think on
Those Shandon bells,
Whose sound so wild would
In the days of childhood,
Fling round my cradle
Their magic spells.
" I have heard bells chiming
Full many a clime in,
Tolling sublime in
Cathedral shrine ;
While at a glib rate
Queenstown, Cork, and Blarney 15
Brass tongues would vibrate,
But all their music
Spoke nought like thine."
In the little cemetery of the monastery of the
Christian Brothers, near by, rest the remains
of Gerald Griffin, the novelist and poet, author
of " The Colleen Bawn."
The history of Cork is too vast to chronicle
here, but its interest lies rather with the more
or less fragmentary recollections, which all
of us have, of the traditions and legends of its
environment.
In the ninth century Cork was frequently
plundered by the Danes, who, in 1020, founded,
for purposes of trade, the nucleus of the pres-
ent city. At the time of the English invasion
it was the capital of Desmond, King of Mun-
ster, who did homage to Henry II., and re-
signed the city to him. For receiving Perkin
Warbeck, the pretender to the throne of Eng-
land, with royal honours in 1493, the Mayor
of Cork was hanged, and the city lost its char-
ter, which was, however, restored in 1609.
During the civil war, Cork held out for
King Charles, but its garrison was ultimately
surprised and taken.
1 6 Romantic Ireland
When, in 1685, the bigoted and cruel Louis
XIV. revoked the Edict of Nantes, Cork,
though a Catholic community, opened her
friendly arms to welcome the fugitive sons
of France, and threw around them the mantle
of her protection.
The name of St. Finbarr, the first Bishop
of Cork, is so commonly referred to in con-
nection with Southern Ireland that it is per-
haps allowable to extract and reprint here,
from Butler's " Lives of the Saints," the lead-
ing events of his life:
" Called by some St. Barrus, or Barroeus,
he was a native of Connaught, and instituted
a monastery at Lough Eire, which lake, said
the antiquarian Harris, was the hollowed basin
in which the greater part of the city of Cork
now sits. From this monastery and its imme-
diate surroundings grew up the present city of
Cork. St. Finbarr's disciple, St. Colman,
founded the see of Cloyne, of which he be-
came first bishop. St. Nessan succeeded St.
Finbarr at the monastery and built the town
of Cork. (This saint, too, is honoured, locally,
on the 1 7th of March and ist of December.)
" The name under which St. Finbarr was
Queenstown, Cork, and Blarney 17
baptized was Locahan, the surname Finbarr,
or Barr the White, was given to him after-
ward. He was Bishop of Cork seventeen years,
and died at Cloyne, fifteen miles distant. His
body was buried in his own cathedral at Cork,
which bears his name, and his reliques, some
years after, were put in a silver shrine and pre-
served in the same edifice."
The Abbey of St. Finbarr was a veritable
outpost of Christianity. Dungarvan owes its
name, and Waterford its Christianity, to
Brother Garvan of this abbey; while Brother
Brian became the patron of St. Brienne in
France.
Cork University was a glorious institution
in its time, and many who had no prejudices in
favour of Ireland have endorsed its virtues
from the times of Johnson to those of New-
man, Hallam, and Macaulay.
After the fall of the Western Roman Em-
pire the schools and the abbeys of Ireland
became famous. " Hither fled the timid for
safety, and the leisured for learning." Stu-
dents came from all lands and teachers went
out to all lands.
England's Alfred came here to study, and
1 8 Romantic Ireland
Charlemagne drew his teachers from this
" school of the West," as it was afterward
called by Johnson.
One ancient scrivener writes that at this
period nearly all the learned were under the
influence of Ireland. The great universities
of Oxford, Paris, and Pavia, if not actually of
Irish inception, were greatly indebted to the
learning which spread forth from the Green
Isle. There is scarcely a Continental centre of
learning, from Palermo to Bruges, or from
Grenada to Cologne, where some Irish saint,
patron, or monkish scholar is not known and
revered.
Cork should be endeared to Americans by
reason of the association with the city of two
whose names will never be forgotten Will-
iam Penn, the Quaker, and Father Mathew,
the great temperance advocate.
In proof of the successful labours of the
latter, a great writer of his time stated that
not a single instance of drunkenness came
under his observation during a sojourn of
some weeks in Southern Ireland. It is a happy
change from the rollicking recklessness of the
ould Ireland of the fictionists and comic-song
Queenstown, Cork, and Blarney 21
writers, which, let us hope, has gone for ever,
if it ever existed. Father Mathew is buried
here, in St. Joseph's Cemetery, and a bronze
statue to his memory stands in Patrick Street.
Cork is a picturesque and interesting old
city. Its churches are mostly modern; but
St. Finbarr's Cathedral stands on the site of
a very old and famous church, and is itself a
fine building.
Cork is one of the principal places where
the genuine Irish cloak is at home, and most
picturesque it is, though few of the younger
women of to-day affect it. For the most part,
the girls wear the universal shawl, draped over
head and shoulders. The cloaks worn by the
matrons and elderly women are great full-
length wraps of a black or dark-blue cloth,
with a wide hood. Rumour has it that they
cost from five to ten pounds apiece, and last,
literally, from generation to generation, being
sometimes passed down as an heirloom from
mother to daughter for half a century. There
is a factory for the manufacture of these capes
at Blarney, not far from the celebrated castle,
and the product finds a large sale among lady
visitors who like to spin along the roads at
22 Romantic Ireland
thirty miles an hour, and feel it unbecoming
to wear the hideous motor-cap and mask of
fashion.
Cork abounds in " cars " of all degrees of
decrepitude and luxuriousness. The Irish
jaunting-car is much more a real accessory
of Irish life than the shillalah or the sham-
rock. In Wicklow one finds the cars more
numerous than elsewhere; in the west they
are the most decrepit, and in Dublin the
most luxurious; but in Cork, of all centres of
population, they appear to be the most in use.
There has been considerable fun poked at
them. They are certainly not beautiful, com-
fortable, or magnificent, and their drivers, like
the " jarvies," " cabbies," and " cochers " of
other lands, are a species apart from all other
humanity.
In some parts of the country it is compulsory
that the name of its owner, usually the driver,
be legibly written on the tailboard of every
car. This led to the story which Punch, \i
it did not invent, at least promulgated, that
an inspector, who asked Pat what he meant by
having his name o-bliterated, was met with
the reply : " Ye lie, sor ; it's O'Brien."
Queenstown, Cork, and Blarney 25
There are two distinct varieties of car in
Ireland, quite apart from the tourist caravans,
char-a-bancs, and omnibuses in which visitors
are whirled between the beauty-spots of Erin's
leafy glades. The characteristics of each are
plainly noted in the " inside cars " of Cork
practically extinct elsewhere and the
" outside cars."
Seated in the indescribable native vehicle of
Cork, which whirls one through the town with
unexpected lightness and speed, you converse
with the affable driver through a small hatch-
way, open in fine weather and closed in wet,
and flanked on each side by a glass port-hole.
If you ask for an explanation of the difference
between the two varieties of cars, the driver
will most likely reply :
" The difference between the two cyars, is
it ? That's simple, yer honour. Sure, the out-
side cyar has the wheels inside, and the inside
has them outside, as ye see ! "
Since Blarney, the castle, and the lake are
practically a suburb of Cork, they should be
considered therewith. Blarney Castle which
is situated, as the native says, " a long mile
from the railway station " is of interest
26 Romantic Ireland
more because it is an exceedingly good speci-
men of mediaeval castle building than because
of the notoriety of what Father Prout was
pleased to call an " impudence-conferring "
stone.
As a sentiment or superstition, the alleged
incidents or circumstances connected with the
"Blarney Stone" are harmless enough; but
far more importance has been given to its
rather negative charms than is really justified.
Blarney Castle itself, with its surrounding
" groves of Blarney which look so charming,"
and its real and tangible fabric, is of vastly
appealing interest; but, usually, it has faded
into insignificance in the eyes of those who
contemplate the setting which has been given
to the all-powerful block of stone. The glib
tongue of the native has done much to per-
petuate the tradition that whoever kisses it
and accompanies the act with persuasive elo-
quence, so perceptible in all the folk around
about Cork Harbour is for ever endowed
with blessings innumerable, if not actually
with superhuman power.
The " real stone," which bore the inscrip-
tion, " Cormac MacCarthy Fortis Mi Fieri
Queenstown, Cork, and Blarney 27
Fecit, A. D. 1446," now untraceable, or at least
illegible, Was at the north angle. It was
clasped by two iron bars to a projecting but-
tress at the top of the castle, several feet below
the level of the wall, so that, to perform the
kissing 1 feat in ancient times, it was necessary
to hold on by the bars, and project the body
over the wall. The candidate for Blarney
honours to-day will find another " real stone,"
bearing the date 1703, and clasped by two iron
bars, placed within the tower, where it is quite
accessible.
The " Reliques of Father Prout " contain
this allusion to the " Stone : "
" There is a stone there,
That whoever kisses,
Oh ! he never misses
To grow eloquent.
'Tis he may clamber
To a lady's chamber,
Or become a member
Of Parliament.
" A clever spouter
He'll sure turn out, or
An out and outer,
To be let alone !
28 Romantic Ireland
Don't hope to hinder him
Or to bewilder him,
Sure he's a pilgrim
From the Blarney Stone."
The pleasure-grounds surrounding the castle,
which were formerly adorned with statues,
grottoes, alcoves, bridges, and every descrip-
tion of rustic ornament, are still very beautiful,
although it is true that:
" The muses shed a tear,
When the cruel auctioneer,
With his hammer in his hand, to sweet Blarney came."
And so their beauty has gradually dimin-
ished, and the fine old trees have been felled,
and one looks in vain for the statues of
" The heathen gods,
And nymphs so fair,
Bold Neptune, Plutarch,
And Nicodemus,
All standing naked
In the open air."
1 . . . gravel walks there
For speculation
And conversation "
Queenstown, Cork, and Blarney 29
are still in good order, and to wander in
" The Groves of Blarney
Down by the purling
Of sweet silent streams,"
and among the
"... flowers that scent
The sweet fragrant air "
is a most pleasant occupation for a summer's
afternoon.
Blarney Castle was built in the fifteenth
century by Cormac MacCarthy, and consists,
to-day, of only the massive donjon tower, per-
haps 1 20 feet in height, and another lower
portion, less substantial, though hardy enough
to warrant the conjecture that, before the in-
troduction of firearms, it must have been im-
pregnable. It is almost as marvellous as the
power attributed to the Blarney Stone that a
few lines of rather cheap doggerel, containing
in themselves no merit save their absurdity,
should succeed in gaining a world-wide no-
toriety for a place which, otherwise, might
not have been greatly celebrated beyond its
own neighbourhood.
30 Romantic Ireland
It is altogether incomprehensible to the
writer that the real charm and romance of
this castle, standing up in its fifteenth-century
sternness amidst one of the greenest and most
smiling districts in all green Erin, have been
so obscured, of late, by the popular and vulgar
traditions which are perpetuated in the horse-
play of holding one another head downwards
over the battlements to " kiss the stone,"
though this is no longer really necessary, since
another more conveniently placed stone has
been provided for the purpose. It is a pro-
cedure which creates much excitement among
a certain class of " trippers," and, as it keeps
a certain amount of coin in circulation in the
neighbourhood, it may be accounted as a per-
fectly legitimate enterprise in that no actual
harm is done. What a pity it is, though, that
Ireland has no commission for the care of
historical monuments, as has France!
Macroom, i. e., the Plain of Croom between
Cork and Killarney, was once the home and
gathering-place of the famous song-bards of
the ancients, the druids.
Certainly the druids left a considerable
impress upon Ireland, as they did upon Wales
BLARNEY CASTLE.
Queenstown, Cork, and Blarney 33
and Bretagne; though it may be questioned
to-day, in the light of the latest information
concerning the druidical race, if their strains
of melody actually did pale the cheek of beauty,
or even " rise the slumbering passion of the
warrior to slaughter."
Macroom, to-day, is chiefly famous for its
castle. It was built by the Carews in the time
of King John, shortly after the Conquest, and
was subsequently in the possession of the Mac-
Carthys. It was burned in the rebellion of
1641. The huge square keep, now covered
with ivy, is all that remains of the original
structure. Admiral Sir William Penn, father
of the founder of Pennsylvania, was born here.
Macroom, the centre of the sporting gentry
of Muskerry, for whom this barony was al-
ways famous, can also boast of a band of poets
racy of the soil. In 1774, the poems of John
Connolly, a Macroom man, were published
in Cork. He thus sings the praises of his
native town :
" Whoever means to shake off gloom
Let him repair to sweet Macroom,
For here his cares he will entomb
And think no more of sorrow.
34 Romantic Ireland
" Let Mallow yield to gay Macroom,
For here we know not care nor gloom,
Here nature wears perpetual bloom,
And quite dispels our sorrow."
Near Macroom are the celebrated Inchi-
geela Lakes and the still more celebrated island
and lake of Gougane Barra, the retreat of St.
Finbarr, who had truly an eye for the beauti-
ful and grand when he chose such a site as this
for his meditations.
On the verdant islet are the ruins of the
little church, and the arched praying-stations
of the pilgrims to the shrine. A holy well is
also here, and its primitive materials and rude
masonry indicate, at a glance, the centuries
that have passed since here dwelt the " Island
Saint " and anchorite, the founder of Cork.
Of the many venerable anchorites who after-
ward occupied the dwelling, and imitated the
virtues of St. Finbarr, the last was Father
Denis O'Mahony, whose tomb, erected by him-
self in 1700, is still to be seen.
Westward, near the border of the lake, is
the " Green Valley of Desmond," enclosed by
towering mountains, from the side of one of
which, " Nad-na-nillar " (the Eagle's Nest),
GOUGANE BARRA.
Queenstown, Cork, and Blarney 37
flows the tiny source of the river Lee, which
runs through Cork to the sea. Here one fully
appreciates the appellation, " Lone Gougane
Barra." Callanan, the native bard, has sung
of it as follows:
" There is a green island in Lone Gougane Barra,
Where Allua of songs rushes forth as an arrow ;
In deep-valleyed Desmond a thousand wild fountains
Come down to that lake from their home in the moun-
tains.
There grows the wild ash, and a time-stricken willow
Looks chidingly down on the mirth of the billow,
As, like some gay child, that sad monitor scorning,
It lightly laughs back to the laugh of the morning.
And its zone of dark hills oh ! to see them all bright-
'ning
When the tempest flings out its red banner of lightning,
And the waters rush down, 'mid the thunder's deep
rattle,
Like clans from their hills at the voice of the battle.
And brightly the fire-crested billows are gleaming,
And wildly from Mullagh the eagles are screaming ;
Oh, where is the dwelling in valley or highland
So meet for a bard as this lone little island !
Least bard of the hills, were it mine to inherit
The fire of thy harp, and the wing of thy spirit,
With the wrongs which like thee to our country has
bound me,
38 Romantic Ireland
Did your mantle of song fling its radiance around me.
Still, still in those wilds may young liberty rally,
And send her strong shout over mountains and valley,
The star of the west may yet rise in its glory
And the land that was darkest be brightest in story.
I, too, shall be gone, but my name shall be spoken
When Erin awakens, and her fetters are broken ;
Some minstrel will come in the summer eve's gleaming
When Freedom's young light on his spirit is beaming,
And bend o'er my grave with a tear of emotion,
Where calm Avon Buee seeks the kisses of ocean,
Or plant a wild wreath from the banks of that river
O'er the heart and the harp that are sleeping for ever."
CHAPTER II.
GLENGARRIFF AND BANTRY BAY
TWO of the most famous men in English
literature have passed unstinted praise
on the beauty and charm of the southern Irish
coast.
If one looks at a map of the southwest of
Ireland, it will be seen that its whole coast-
line is broken into serrations, making harbours,
islands, bays, and coves. If he should go to
the coast itself, he will have revealed to him
a wondrous kaleidoscope, alternate scenes
of sweet, pathetic gentleness, and stern and
rugged grandeur, all full of engrossing charm.
Leaving the coast and going inland, as there
is every facility for doing, one finds the finest
lakes in the United Kingdom; and, if there
are no Mont Blancs or Matterhorns, there are,
at least, beautiful hills and mountains with
no less charm and none of their difficulty of
39
40 Romantic Ireland
access. The great Atlantic wlaves beat against
the wild rocks of the south Irish coast; but
the Gulf Stream gives warmth of an almost
subtropical mildness to the fresh sea air, and
the lowlands are enriched by the soft rains
which wash the hills and fall into the great
arms of the sea, called Bantry Bay, Kenmare
River, and Dingle Bay.
Farther north is the ample estuary of the
river Shannon and Galway Bay, each with
much the same characteristics. To take a
steamer from Cork for a tour of the south-
west coast will form a unique experience in
the itinerary of most folk. Rounding Cape
Clear, the small coasting-steamer makes the
first stop at the little village of Schull, which
stands at the farther extremity of an almost
landlocked bay. Here the land on three sides
gently shelves to low ranges of verdant hills,
while the harbour is speckled with its fishing
craft.
Leaving Schull, a half-hour or more is
passed before we are clear of the many rocky
islands of its harbour and come to a view of
Brow Head, with its signal-station. Mizen
Head and Sheep's Head are seen in their turn ;
Glengarriff and Bantry Bay 43
and the dawn finds the ship snugly anchored
at Berehaven. Here at Castletown-Berehaven
we are at the home station of the Channel fleet
during the autumn manoeuvres. Before us is
the grand panorama of Glengarriff and the
mountains which shelter Killarney's lakes;
while seaward is only the vast surge of the
Atlantic.
The splendid bay of Bantry, which takes
its name from the town which lies sheltered
at its head, is unsurpassed as a harbour and
roadstead throughout the world. Here the
sturdy Atlantic swell, blue as sapphires, rolls
in great lashes of foam; and Berehaven, just
inside the Bear or Bere Island, is the base
of the yearly autumn manoeuvres of the Eng-
lish Channel fleet. From any view-point this
rugged, walled bay is more than impressive,
more impressive, even, than Glengarriff it-
self, which lies still farther inland, its circum-
ference dotted with weed-embroidered boulders.
Bantry Bay is twenty-one miles in length;
from three to five in width; and has a depth,
in parts, as great as 220 feet. Berehaven and
Castletown, which are nearest the open sea,
lie just inside a jagged fang, which, once
44 Romantic Ireland
rounded, opens up an obscure aperture in the
coast-line, and discloses a harbour in which,
truly, all the fleets of the world might lie at
anchor.
Twice the French fleet invaded Bantry Bay.
The first time, in 1689, in aid of James II.;
and the second, in 1796, by the ill-favoured
expedition organized by General Hoche, when
the Surveillante was engulfed, and the foe-
laden fleet ultimately took their departure with-
out disgorging their army. This latter fleet,
which had been arrayed for the invasion of
Ireland by Carnot and Clarke, with Theobald
Wolfe Tone as the organizer of the Irish
Republicans, consisted of twenty-six sail, with
a force of nearly seven thousand men. The
O'Sullivans were the ancient chieftains or
princes of this territory; and, to-day, quite
half the population of Castletown, says an
imaginative and rollicking Irish writer, are
of the same name, the other half being Mur-
phys.
As a result of this unfortunate venture,
Wolfe Tone quit the country at the pleasure
of the authorities, and went to America. Ul-
timately he returned to France, where he again
Glengarriff and Bantry Bay 45
carried on his conspiracy, occupying himself
in luring Irishmen from among the prisoners
at Brest to enlist in the French service. This
procedure was accomplished by " sending the
poor fellows large quantities of wine and
cognac, a fiddle, and some filles Francaises; "
and, when Pat's heart was soft with love and
warm with passion, Tone induced him to sign
on in the service which had adopted him.
It is difficult to characterize a m&n of Wolfe
Tone's kind. Rash and criminal though he
was, it is hard to condemn him altogether.
He hated England cordially; but he was not
alone among Irishmen in that. Indeed, he
said : " I like the French, with all their faults
and with the guillotine at their head, a thou-
sand times better than I like the English."
Whiddy Island, which lies just off the town
of Bantry, was . a former stronghold of the
O'Sullivans of Bere; and an imposing castled
ruin tells of the times when violence, even in
such a spot as this, had to be met by repression.
Bantry lies in a hollow at the head of the bay.
The whole bay affords a succession of pros-
pects magnificent and grand. Its views vary
from the softness of a landscape nocturne to
46 Romantic Ireland
the rugged splendour of a realistic impression.
Weak as are these similes, they can only mark
the sense of contrast which the scene awakens.
Bantry is in its way an active little place, and,
like Castletown, rejoices in a series of sign-
boards to which the prefix " O " is all but
universal. Its tiny port is busy; and its peo-
ple are apparently imbued with an industry
not always to be noted in these parts.
Near Castletown-Bere is Dunboy Castle,
two miles away along a road which in sum-
mer is hedgerowed with honeysuckle and clem-
atis, ferns and lichen-covered rocks. The
present castle of Dunboy is modern, and is
therefore less appealing than the older fabric,
which so successfully defended itself against
Sir George Carew. The story of the chiefs
of Dunboy is familiar in outline to most; but
the story of its famous siege, when Mac-
Geoghegan fought Dunboy against Carew and
his interesting army of four thousand men, has
often been overlooked in favour of more the-
atrically magnificent performances.
Why this should be so, it is hard to realize.
History has recorded with fidelity and mi-
nutely many of its incidents, and, in " The
Glengarriff and Bantry Bay 47
Two Chiefs of Dunboy," it has inspired an
historical romance of the first rank.
When Donal took his last farewell of his
once proud home, it had become a smoking,
blood-clotted ruin.
" The halls where mirth and minstrelsy
Than Beara's wind rose louder,
Were flung in masses lonelily,
And black with English powder."
The tragic story of the siege is thus con-
densed : The garrison consisted of only 143
chosen fighting men, who had but a few small
cannons; while the comparatively large army
which assailed them was well supplied with
artillery and all the means of attack. At
length, on the i/th of June, when the castle
had been nearly shot to pieces, the garrison
offered to surrender if allowed to depart with
their arms; but their messenger was immedi-
ately hanged, and the order for the assault
given.
Although the proportion of the assailants in
point of numbers was overwhelming, the
storming party were resisted with the most
desperate bravery. From turret to turret, and
48 Romantic Ireland
in every part of the crumbling ruins, the strug-
gle was successively maintained throughout
the livelong day. Thirty of the gallant de-
fenders attempted to escape by swimming;
but the soldiers, who had been posted in boats,
killed them in the water; and, at length, the
surviving portion of the garrison retreated into
a cellar, to which the only access was by a
narrow, winding flight of stone steps. Their
leader, MacGeoghegan, being mortally
wounded, the command was given to Thomas
Taylor, the son of an Englishman, and the
intimate friend of Captain Tyrell, to whose
niece he was married.
Nine barrels of gunpowder were stowed
away in the cellar; and Taylor declared that
he would blow up all that remained of the
castle, burying himself and his companions,
with their enemies, in the ruins, unless they
received a promise of life. This was refused
by the savage Carew, who, placing a guard
upon the entrance to the cellar, as it was then
after sunset, returned to the work of slaughter
next morning. Cannon-balls were discharged
among the Irish in their last dark retreat ; and
Taylor was forced by his companions to sur-
Glengarriff and Bantry Bay 49
render unconditionally. When, however, some
of the English descended into the cellar, they
found the wounded MacGeoghegan, with a
lighted torch in his hand, staggering to throw
it into the gunpowder. Captain Power there-
upon seized him by the arms, and the others
despatched him with their swords. Fifty-
eight of those who had surrendered were
hanged that day in the English camp, and
others a few days after; so that not one of
the 143 heroic defenders of Dunboy survived.
On the 22d of June the remains of the castle
were blown up by Carew with the- gunpowder
of the besieged.
It was Thackeray, who, if possessed of a
certain smugness, was often moved by patri-
otic and sometimes by charitable motives, said :
"What sends picturesque tourists (What, if
you please, Mr. Thackeray, are picturesque
tourists?) to the Rhine or Saxon Switzerland,
when, within five miles of the pretty inn at
Glengarriff, there is a country of the magnifi-
cence of which no pen can give an idea? I
would like to be a great prince, and bring a
train of painters over to make, if they could,
and according to their several capabilities, a
50 Romantic Ireland
set of pictures of the place. Were such a bay
lying upon English shores, it would be the
world's wonder."
Glengarriff is all that Thackeray pictured it
in prose. It is more than that, more, in-
deed, than is within the power of words to
describe, though its beauty is somewhat of
the stage-scenery and landscape-painting order.
Travellers from all the corners of the earth
have raved over its charm; but they all fail
utterly to describe the insinuating peacefulness
of its mirrored sky and emerald-clad hills.
No one but the artist can at all successfully
portray its moods : at times brilliant with sun-
shine and verdure, and again, sombre and mist-
laden with the rains of autumn ; but never, or
seldom ever, even in the most abnormal win-
ter, bare or bleak. Indeed, this region, to-
gether with many others in Ireland, has been,
by many eminent scientists, proclaimed one of
nature's most famous sanitaria.
Prince Puckler Muskau, in his tour of Ire-
land, wrote thus of Glengarriff : " The cli-
mate is most favourable for vegetation, moist
and so warm that not only azaleas and rho-
dodendra, and all sorts of evergreens stand
Glengarriff and Bantry Bay 53
abroad through the winter, but, in favourable
aspect, even camellias, dates, pomegranates,
magnolias, etc., attain their fullest beauty."
Lord Macaulay and Sir David Wilkie called
it the fairest spot in the British Isles.
The former's stanzas, as given below, are
perhaps not of his usual heroic order, and may,
once and again, appear unduly sentimental, but
they are emphatically true and appreciative:
" Hail, charming scene ! Glengarriff's bay,
Yon mountains, streams, and dells,
The Atlantic waters' foaming spray,
Creation's wonder tells.
" Hail, Bantry's noble harbour deep,
Where Britain's fleet may ride,
And giant ships, in safety's keep,
May in or outward glide.
" Thy glorious waters, green and gemmed,
With beauteous islands crowned,
While the enchanting scene is hemmed
With purple hills around.
" At morning's dawn or evening's shade
Thy glory's still the same :
And ever will be so arrayed,
With English tourists' fame."
54 Romantic Ireland
An enthusiastic American, who subscribed
himself as from New Jersey, has left the fol-
lowing lines upon the register of the hotel
at Glengarriff:
ADIEU TO GLENGARRIFF
" Glengarriff ! on thy shaded shore
I've wandered when the sun was high,
Have seen the moonlit showers pour
Through thy umbrageous canopy :
Glengarriff ! might I but delay,
I would not say good-bye to thee :
Alas ! far distant is the day
When I thy charms again may see.
Yet, in the land remote of mine,
Remembrance will thy grace renew,
So, as thou canst not call me thine,
Glengarriff ! loveliest, best, adieu ! "
This valleyed and landlocked harbour of
Glengarriff terminates Bantry Bay, which,
says Mr. Kipling, " lies just to the eastward
of the Fastnet, that well-worn mile-post of
the Atlantic liner."
In Kipling's " Fleet in Being," which first
appeared in the Morning Post (London) in
HUNGRY HILL.
Glengarriff and Bantry Bay 57
1898, and of which even this author's most
ardent devotees appear too frequently to have
no knowledge, are to be found some wonder-
ful bits of descriptions of Irish coast scenery.
Therein are recounted virile experiences and
observations on board the flag-ship of the
Channel fleet during the autumn manoeuvres;
and, from Lough Swilly in the north to Bantry
Bay in the south, the author depicts, with a
master mariner's fidelity, the characteristics of
the coast-line, its harbours, bays, headlands,
and ports, in so incomparable a fashion
that it is to him that we must accord the rap-
idly increasing appreciation of, and interest in,
the charms of Ireland as a tourist resort.
Coupled with the charms of GlengarrifFs
bay is its sister attraction no less winsome
of the monarch mountain of these parts,
Sliabhna-goil ({. e., " the Mountain of the
Wild People "), more commonly called " Sugar
Loaf." Why it is so named is, of course,
obvious to all who see it; but it is a rank de-
parture from its original appellation.
This mountain's taller brother Dhade (now
Hungry Hill) rears itself in grim, severity a
58 Romantic Ireland
little to the westward. Both are conspicuously
coast-line elevations of the first rank.
Time will allow but a glance at the many
beauties of this region; but the leaves of
memory will press the fragments of romance,
in an all-enduring fashion, to all who come
immediately beneath their spell.
One legend, repeated here from a source
well known, must suffice. It refers to the
mountain pass of Keim-an-eigh, " the path
of the deer," through which, according to
M'Carthy's " Bridal of the Year," and in real-
ity, too:
" Streams go bounding in their gladness
With a Bacchanalian madness."
M'Carthy has put the legend into elegant
verse, known of all lovers of Irish song as
" Alice and Una."
Briefly the tale runs thus: A young hunts-
man, Maurice by name, had all day pursued
a fawn, which at evening fled for refuge
" To a little grassy lawn
It is safe, for gentle Alice to her saving breast hath
drawn
Her almost sister fawn."
Glengarriff and Bantry Bay 59
A romantic affection then sprang up be-
tween the two humans, the hunter and the
maid; and this magnet drew the youth often
hither, in spite of the fact that Una, a fairy
queen, was passionately enamoured of the gal-
lant deer-chaser. One evening, as he was
wending his way to see his lady fair, the moon
grew dark, a great storm arose, and the love-
lorn Maurice lost himself in the wood. All
this was of course due to the jealous fairy in
true legendary fashion. At length he falls in
with a noble jet-black steed, which he mounts.
This grim shape proves to be a certain dreaded
Phooka (the same symbol is renowned
throughout Ireland, and has been traced even
to the legends of the Northmen), a genii of
Una's, who immediately rushes off with the
youth through glen and valley, stream and
forest, up and down the mountain sides :
" Now he rises o'er Bearhaven, where he hangeth like a
raven
Ah ! Maurice, though no craven, how terrible for thee !
To see the misty shading of the mighty mountains
fading,
And thy winged fire-steed wading through the clouds as
through a sea !
60 Romantic Ireland
Now he feels the earth beneath him he is loosened
he is free,
And asleep in Keim-an-eigh."
In his trance-dream he hears the rumble of
crashing thunder. The rock opens and dis-
plays within a scene of revelry and joy, to
which a page bids him welcome, and ushers
him through a brilliant assemblage to the very
throne of the Queen-fairy Una. She smiles
graciously upon him; urges him to leave the
world and all its woes to become one of her
happy subjects; and promises him that, if
he will but take the oath of allegiance, she
herself will deign to be his bride. Spellbound
by such an appeal, his lips are all but ready
to utter the irrevocable vow.
" While the word is there abiding, lo ! the crowd is now
dividing,
And, with sweet and gentle gliding, in before him came
a fawn ;
It was the same that fled him, and that seemed so much
to dread him,
When it down in triumph led him to Glengarriff's grassy
lawn,
When from rock to rock descending, to sweet Alice he
was drawn,
As through Keim-an-eigh he hunted from the dawn."
Glengarriff and Bantry Bay 6 1
" The magic chain is broken no fairy vow is spoken
From his trance he hath awoken, and once again is
free;
And gone is Una's palace, and vain the wild steed's
malice,
And again to gentle Alice down he wends through
Keim-an-eigh.
The moon is calmly shining over mountain, stream, and
tree,
And the yellow sea-plants glisten through the sea.
" The sun his gold is flinging, the happy birds are sing-
ing,
And bells are gaily ringing along Glengarriff's sea ;
And crowds in many a galley to the happy marriage
rally
Of the maiden of the valley and the youth of Keim-an-
. eigh ;
Old eyes with joy are weeping, as all ask, on bended
knee,
A blessing, gentle Alice, upon thee."
CHAPTER III.
KILLARNEY AND ABOUT THERE
TV^ILLARNEY is a considerable town,
-t*-. rather prim and staid and too offensively
well kept to be wholly appealing. It is by no
means handsome of itself, nor are its public
buildings.
The chief industry is catering, in one form
or another, to the largely increasing number
of tourists who are constantly flocking thither.
The value of Killarney, as a name of senti-
mental and romantic interest, lies in its asso-
ciation with its lakes and the abounding wealth
of natural beauties around about it.
Tore Mountain and waterfall, Muckross,
Cloghereen, the Gap of Dunloe and its castle,
the upper, middle, and lower lakes, Purple
Mountain, Black Valley, Eagle's Nest, and
Innisfallen are all names with which to call
up ever living memories of the fairies of legend
62
64 Romantic Ireland
and folk-lore, and of the more real personages
of history and romance.
To recount them all, or even to categorically
enumerate them, would be impossible here.
There is but one way to encompass them
in a manner at all satisfactory, and that is
to make Killarney a centre, and radiate one's
journeys therefrom for as extended a period
as circumstances will allow. The guide-books
set forth the attractions and the ways and
means in the usual conventional manner, but
it is useless to expect any real help from them.
The true gem of Killarney's many charms
is without question Lough Leane and Innis-
fallen (Monk's Robe Island), which lies em-
bosomed in the lower lake.
Yeats, the Irish poet, spent the full force
of his lyric genius in the verses which he wrote
with this entrancing isle for their motive.
Robert Louis Stevenson is reported to have
said that, of all modern poets, none has struck
the responsive chord of imagination as did
this sweet singer with the following lines:
"And I shall have some peace there,
For peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning
ST. FIMAN'S ORATORY, INNISFALLEN.
Killarney and About There 67
To where the cricket sings ;
There midnight's all a glimmer
And noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
" I will arise and go now,
For always, night or day,
I hear lake water lapping,
With low sounds by the shore ;
While I stand on the roadway,
Or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core."
Moore's description is perhaps as appropri-
ate, but it is no more beautiful :
41 Sweet Innisfallen, fare thee well,
May calm and sunshine long be thine !
How fair thou art let others tell,
To feel how fair shall long be mine."
From Glengarriff to Killarney via Kenmare
is a long-drawn sweetness of prospect, which
it is perhaps impossible to duplicate for its
sentimental charm, an ability to appreciate
which belongs to us all, even if only to a lim-
ited extent.
The road from County Cork to County
Kerry and one journeys only by road from
Bantry Bay to Dingle Bay, via Kenmare and
68 Romantic Ireland
Killarney, the age of steam not yet having
arrived at these parts winds fascinatingly
up and down hill and dale, diving suddenly
through a tunnelled rock, when a transforma-
tion takes place, and one leaves the rugged-
ness and freshness of Bantry Bay for the more
or less humid fairy-land of the region about
Killarney. The view ahead is peculiarly grand
in its contrast with that left behind. Down
the beetling precipices along which the road is
clinging to its sterile sides, one traces the
valley beneath until it blends with the silvery
surface of Kenmare River. From Kenmare,
the way to Killarney is by the " Windy Gap."
Beneath lies an extensive valley, and beyond
is the Black Valley. Farther on are the sky-
lines of the mountains which encompass the
wild and dark Gap of Dunloe; and, farther
still, will be observed the more jagged outlines
of " MacGillicuddy's Reeks." Soon one be-
holds the first view of the beauties of far-famed
Killarney, the immense valley in which repose
the three lakes, the upper, lower, and mid-
dle, with their numerous islets. En route
from Kenmare to Killarney, one first comes
to Muckross Abbey and Demesne, of which
Killarney and About There 71
Sir Walter Scott has said : " Art could make
another Versailles; it could not make another
Muckross." This is characteristic of Sir Wal-
ter and his fine sentiment; but, as Muckross
is suggestive of nothing ever heard or thought
of at Versailles, the comparison is truly odious.
Muckross is charming. It is thoroughly
Irish ; and reeks of the native soil and its peo-
ple, wherein is its value to the traveller.
The scenery around about Muckross is very
beautiful, but its ruined abbey is the great
architectural relic of all Ireland. The ruins
consist of the abbey and church, which was
founded for the Order of Franciscans by Mc-
Carthy Mor, Prince of Desmond, in 1340, on
the site of an old church which, in 1192, had
been destroyed by fire. The remains of sev-
eral of this prince's descendants are said to
rest here. In the choir is the vault of the
ancient Irish sept., the McCarthys, the memory
of whom is preserved by a rude sculptured
monument. Here also rest the remains of the
Irish chieftains or princes of the houses of
O'Sullivan Mor and the O'Donoghue. The
great beauty of these ruins lies in its gloomy
cloisters, which are rendered still more gloomy
72 Romantic Ireland
by the close proximity of a magnificent yew-
tree of immense size and bulk.
Killarney's lakes are irregular sheets of
water lying in a basin at the foot of a very
high range of mountains, set with islands and
begirt with rocky and wooded heights. They
are three in number; what is known as the
upper, the middle or Muckross Lake, and the
lower lake, the northernmost, more prop-
erly called Lough Leane. The middle lake
is also called the Tore. A winding stream,
known as the Long Range, unites the dif-
ferent bodies of water. The chief of the
natural beauties of the Long Range is the
Eagle's Nest, which rises sheer from the
water's edge 1,700 feet. The upper lake is
the most beautiful of all, though the smallest
of the triad. It is studded with tiny islands
and girt with mountain peaks, bare and stern
above, but clothed with rich foliage at their
base. The middle lake is also a beautiful,
though more extensive, sheet, and contains but
four islands, as compared with thirty in the
lower lake and six in the upper.
The Colleen Bawn Caves reminiscent of
Gerald Griffin's story, "The Colleen Bawn,"
Killarney and About There 75
and Boucicault's famous play of the same name
are also in the immediate neighbourhood
of the middle lake. Tore Cascade and Tore
Mountain lies just to the southward, and is
justly famed as one of the brilliant beauties
of the region, as it fails in numerous sections
over the broken rock to fall finally in a precip-
itous torrent of foam to its ravine-bed below.
Ross Castle, like Muckross Abbey, is one
of Killarney's chief picturesque ruins. It is
on an island in the lower lake, and was built
ages agone by the O'Donoghues. It was the
last castle in Munster to surrender in the wars
of the seventeenth century, giving in only
when General Ludlow and his " ships-of-war,"
as his narrative called them, surrounded it.
MacGillicuddy's Reeks lie farthest to the
westward in the Killarney region. The name
of this stern and jagged range sounds some-
what humourous, and in no way suggests the
majesty and splendour of these hills; for they
resemble the great mountains of other parts
only by reason of their contrast with the low-
lying land around their bases. One portion,
indeed, rises a matter of 3,400 feet, and forms
the most elevated peak in Ireland, grand and
76 Romantic Ireland
majestic, but, for all that, not a great moun-
tain, as is so often claimed by the proud native.
The celebrated Gap of Dunloe is far more
deserving for its natural scenic splendour, and,
in its way, rivals anything in Ireland.
The popular method of imbibing the charm
of Dunloe is a combination of picnic, cd fresco
luncheons, and donkey-riding. This answers
well enough for the " tripper," but is as un-
satisfying to the real lover of nature as an
imitation Swiss chalet set out in a London
park, or a Japanese tea-garden built out of
bamboo poles from Africa.
The Gap of Dunloe is a grand defile, per-
haps five miles in length, which can only be
explored and truly enjoyed by a pilgrimage
along its solitary and rugged road on foot.
Its scenic aspect is gloomy and grand, with
mirrored lakes, lofty mountains, and a thick
undergrowth of heather and ivy. It is, how-
ever, in no manner theatrical. Through this
wild glen ripples the river Lee, linking its five
tiny lakes as with a silver thread.
At the upper end of the gap one emerges
into " The Black Valley," somewhat apoc-
THE EAGLE'S NEST.
Killarney and About There 79
ryphally stated to be " a gloomy, depressing
ravine."
The sun, it appears, does not shine down its
length for long in the day, as it is flanked on
either side by precipitous hills. The average
imagination will not, however, conjure up any
very dark suspicions with regard to its past,
judging from the aspect of the valley between
the hours of nine in the morning and two in
the afternoon. Both before and after these
hours there is no sunlight ; and, because of the
dense, long-reaching shadows which are pro-
jected across it, it was so named.
There is a good week's rambling here to
spots already famed in history for their beauty ;
but one must search them out for himself
as a personal experience.
England's poet laureate has written in praise
of Killarney in a fashion which should please
his severest critics, those who have mourned
the lack of a single thought in his verse. This
is certainly not true with regard to his prose,
which, in the following lines, so justly and
appropriately describes the charm of South-
west Ireland :
" Vegetation, at once robust and graceful,
8o Romantic Ireland
is but the fringe and decoration of that en-
chanting district. The tender grace of wood
and water is set in a framework of hills, now
stern, now ineffably gentle; now dimpling
with smiles, now frowning and rugged with
impending storm ; now muffled and mysterious
with mist, only to gaze out on you again with
clear and candid sunshine. Here the trout
leaps, there the eagle soars ; and there, beyond,
the wild deer dash through the arbutus coverts,
through which they have come to the margin
of the lake to drink, and, scared by your foot-
step or your oar, are away back to the crosiered
bracken or heather-covered moorland. But
the first, the final, the deepest and most en-
during impression of Killarney is that of
beauty unspeakably tender, which puts on at
times a garb of grandeur and a look of awe,
only in order to heighten by passing contrast
the sense of soft, insinuating loveliness. How
the missel-thrushes sing, as well they may!
How the streams and runnels gurgle and leap
and laugh! For the sound of journeying
water is never out of your ears; the feeling
of the moist, the fresh, the vernal is never out
of your heart. . . . There is nothing in Eng-
ROSS CASTLE
Killarney and About There 83
land or Scotland as beautiful as Killarney;
. . . and, if mountain, wood, and water, har-
moniously blent, constitute the most perfect
and adequate loveliness that nature presents,
it surely must be owned that it has, all the
world over, no superior."
CHAPTER IV.
AROUND THE COAST TO LIMERICK
IT is at Fastnet that the great incoming
Atlantic liners, bound for Queenstown, or
through St. George's Channel to Liverpool,
first make land and run up their four-deep
strings of signals ; where, as Mr. Kipling says :
" Every day brings a ship,
Every ship brings a word ;
Well for him who has no fear,
Looking seaward, well assured
That the word the vessel brings
Is the word that he should hear."
Beyond Bantry Bay, Black Bull Head passes
on the starboard, and, soon after, Dursly Head
and Dursly Island. The island is said to con-
tain a population of over five hundred, with
no priest, no public house, and no constabulary.
A veritable Arcadia!
84
Around the Coast to Limerick 87
Bolus Head, Skelligs Rocks, and Bray Head
passed, one comes to Valentia Island and the
entrance to Dingle Bay. One of the most
fondly recalled of all Irish legends is that of
the landing of the Milesians, as they came up
through the Biscayan Bay upon wihat they
then knew as " Innis Ealga " the Noble Isle.
Then it was ruled by three brothers, princes
of Tuatha de Danaan, after whose wives (who
were also three sisters) the island was alter-
nately called, Eire, Banva, and Fiola. By
these names Ireland is still frequently known
to the poets. Whatever difficulties or obsta-
cles beset the Milesians in landing, they at
once attributed to the " necromancy " of the
Tuatha de Danaans. When the Milesians
could not discover land where they thought
to sight it, they simply agreed that the Tuatha
de Danaans had, by their black arts, rendered
it invisible. At length they descried the island,
its tall blue hills touched by the last beams
of the setting sun ; and from the galleys there
arose a shout of joy. Innisfail, the Isle of
Destiny, was found!
The legend has furnished Moore the excuse
88 Romantic Ireland
for launching into melody again. He relates
it as follows:
" They came from a land beyond the sea,
And now o'er the western main
Set sail, in their good ships, gallantly,
From the sunny land of Spain.
1 Oh, where is the isle we've seen in dreams,
Our destin'd home or grave ? '
Thus sung they, as by the morning's beams,
They swept the Atlantic wave.
" And lo, where afar o'er ocean shines
A sparkle of radiant green,
As though in that deep lay emerald mines,
Whose light through the wave was seen,
'Tis Innisfail 'tis Innisfail!'
Rings o'er the echoing sea,
While bending to heav'n the warriors hail
That home of the brave and free."
Valentia the most westerly railway-sta-
tion in Europe, says Bradshaw is the true
spot where West meets East; where the New
World first receives its introduction to the Old.
More than half a century ago, the shores
of this spacious sheet of landlocked water
were selected by the great Duke of Wellington
and others as the terminus of a railway which
was to be the first link in the chain which was
Around the Coast to Limerick 91
to bind the Old World and the New, and to join
the ocean liners that were run from America
to Valentia, as they now do to Queenstown.
The project fell through, but the island was
afterward selected as the old-world end of
the Atlantic cable of 1865, and also that laid
by the leviathan steamship, the Great Eastern,
in 1866. The principal village on the island is
called Knightstown. If favoured with a fresh
westerly breeze, one beholds from the hillside
a scene of grandeur unsurpassed. The ocean
engages in conflict with the rugged headlands
rising hundreds of feet out of the sea, and
hurls its foaming breakers with ceaseless
rhythm against the base of the rocks, only to
be rolled back in spray and foam. All outside
is a scene of wild magnificence, while, such
is the perfect shelter, the harbour itself, under
all stress of weather, is as placid as a summer
lake. Lord John Manners, in his notes of a
tour through Ireland, describes the Atlantic
here as follows :
' The great waves came in with a roar like
a peal of artillery, and leapt up against and
over the rocks just below us, sending forth a
rainbow in one direction, and an immense
92 Romantic Ireland
jet of foam in another. I do not believe I
exaggerate in saying that some of the jets
of foam sprung a hundred feet into the air,
and then the tints! Sometimes a clear green
wave would roll its huge volume on the rocks
before it broke; at others, dash greenly up to
it and dissolve in wreaths of purest white
spray, causing, as it broke, a delicate iris to
glow on the opposite rocks; while toward the
west a veil of foam overhung the coast, lighted
up by the golden rays of the setting sun. No
words can describe the fascination of the
scene."
To observe the contrast between nature and
the works of man, one has only to visit the
isolated premises of the Anglo-American Tele-
graph Company. The manner in which elec-
tricity outstrips the sun in his daily round is
here strikingly exemplified. Happening to be
in the instrument-room at about eleven o'clock
in the forenoon, one sees the operators at work,
receiving from, say, Berlin, the reports of the
day's markets, and transmitting the informa-
tion to New York, to be served up fresh on
Uncle Sam's breakfast-table, which, even at
that early hour is already old news in the East-
Around the Coast to Limerick 95
ern world. Lying just inside Valentia Island
is Cahirciveen, the birthplace of Daniel O'Con-
nell, and from this point to Dingle, across the
bay, is to be seen though from the seaward
side only the finest rock scenery on the
southwest coast. Here Nature seems to have
done her best to produce the picturesque with
ocean and rock, twisted and split, pierced and
tunnelled ; every rock seems to have been torn
in some gigantic struggle against total de-
struction, and left to still wage war against
storm and tempest. The harbour of Dingle,
landlocked and peaceful, is in quiet contrast
to all this turmoil, though Dingle's weekly
cattle fair will give the stranger the impression
that he is witnessing something very akin to
the fabled Donnybrook Fair, so far as riotous
good humour is concerned.
From Slea Head a magnificent view of
Dingle Bay is obtained, its indented shores
flanked by the Dingle mountains stretching
away for thirty miles of wonderful panorama
of islands and rocks out to and around the
Blasquetts. The Blasquetts are a group of
eight rocky islands, two of them three miles
from the coast. In the sound between these
96 Romantic Ireland
two and the mainland one of the ships of the
Spanish Armada sank with all on board.
Perhaps the wildest scene on the southern
coast is presented by the Skelligs Rocks, off
Dingle Bay, rising as pinnacles of slate, wind-
swept and bare. The cliffs seem painted in
bands of cream colour, produced by countless
crowds of gannets most powerful of gulls
sitting on their nests on the ledges of cliff.
At the sound of an approaching steamer, the
air is filled with a swarm of puffins, or sea-
parrots, which fly heavily around the crags;
while, from the caves on the lower cliffs, like
crowds of the smaller gulls fill the air with
their shrill, screaming cry.
Limerick is a city which, by very reason
of her great past and her matter-of-fact and
decidedly ordinary present, presents great and
disappointing contrasts. One may read the
statistics in the guide-books and learn that
350,000 pigs are killed every year in the town,
and of a great many other mundane things
which happen here and have no interest what-
soever for him.
There is no doubt about the pigs, sausages,
and various pork products, for fat swine,
Around the Coast to Limerick 99
" razorbacks," big pigs, and little pigs swarm
everywhere.
There is no escaping the Limerick pig. In
single file, in battalions, as solitary scout, alive
or dead, baconed and sausaged, he dominates
the town. Limerick was in existence as long
ago as the days of Ptolemy ; was scrambled
for by the Danes and the Irish kings in Al-
fred's time; took the fancy of that good judge
of " eligible sites," King John, and was dec-
orated with one of his innumerable castles,
a fine old relic which still remains. The town
was in the very thick of the row raised by
Cromwell ; and, in the wars of " the silent "
William of Orange, it manufactured history
as fast as its factories turn out sausages now.
The name of Sarsfield, the Jacobite general,
is for ever identified with Limerick. The city
was taken and retaken more often than we
should care to state ; it was and is forti-
fied up to the very limit; and, whenever any-
thing exciting of a political nature went on,
in times past, Limerick was ever to the fore
front, ready to emphasize her opinions with
the high-shouldered fat little cannon that have
somehow got left out on the ramparts, quite
ioo Romantic Ireland
forgotten except by " tourist touts," though,
truth to tell, not many tourists ever come to
Limerick.
To-day Limerick in spite of its activities
with respect to sausages is no more a maker
of history, but sits dozing complacently on
the estuary of " the finest river in the king-
doms," and cares not apparently for the com-
ings and goings of the outside world.
As some poetic soul possessed by an Irish-
man of course has said : " No one cares for
Limerick now. Of all the fierce possessors
who fought for her when she was young, the
local government officially alone remains, like
the gray elderly husband of some housewifely
woman who was a beauty and a ' toast,' and
made men's swords leap from their scabbards
for love of her once."
At the mouth of the Shannon, near where
its tidal waters meet the sea, Limerick has
its " fashionable watering-place " of the con-
ventional pattern. The chief " amusement "
of this delectable place appears to be the gath-
ering of " Irish moss," as it is commonly
known. Here they call it " Carrageen moss,"
but it is the same thing, and ultimately turns
Around the Coast to Limerick 103
up as a dainty and nourishing jelly. The
peasantry gather it for profit, the visitors for
pastime. It is found in many shallow rock
pools at low tide, and grows in short, bushy
tufts, coralline in shape. The " moss " must
be bleached in the sun, and then boiled down
into jelly. " Dulse," another variety of edible
seaweed, which requires no preparation, is
also found here ; and the central ribs of young
oarweed are peeled and eaten like celery,
which they very much resemble in looks, but
most emphatically not in taste.
Dear also, to Americans, will be the mem-
ory of County Limerick as the birthplace of
Fitz- James O'Brien. The son of an attorney,
he was born in 1828, receiving his education
at Dublin University. In his youth he saw
service as a British soldier, but early drifted
toward journalism and America.
Among his earliest compositions were two
remarkable poems, " Loch Ine " and " Irish
Castles," which present in a picturesque vo-
cabulary many of the salient charms and beau-
ties of his native isle.
CHAPTER V.
THE SHANNON AND ITS LAKES
NO river in Great Britain, neither the
Thames, nor the Clyde, nor even the
Severn, equals the river Shannon and its lakes,
either in length or in importance as an inland
waterway. The native on its banks tells you
that it rivals the Mississippi ; but in what
respect, Americans, at least, will wonder. Ex-
cept that it broadens to perhaps a dozen miles
in the widest of its lakes, there is, of course,
no comparison whatever. The traffic on the
river is of no great magnitude compared with
that on the Thames and the Clyde; but, were
there a demand for such, its capacity would
be far greater than either.
Moreover, for beauty, either of the dainty
and popularly picturesque sort, or of the su-
premely grand, it has preeminence, and one
can journey its whole length, from Killaloe,
104
STfAMCft HOvrc
PLACES OP CALL KHXALOt
NOTKUO O
THE SHANNON AND ITS LAKES
io6 Romantic Ireland
practically a suburb of Limerick, to Carrick-
on-Shannon, something over a hundred miles,
in steamboats of really comfortable, if not
exactly luxurious, appointments.
It is the tourist traffic mostly that is catered
for; and the traveller, in the season, is likely
to find the company mixed, though by no
means is it of the " tripper " class.
The itinerary comprehends much that is
beautiful and much that is historic.
From Limerick, one usually makes his way
by train, although he may go by car or coach,
such a trip is well worth while, and
embarks upon the tiny steamer at Killaloe.
Here, at the lower end of Lough Derg, near
Killaloe, stood in the ninth century Brian
Boru's palace of Kincora. The mound on
which it was built is all that remains of a
place that displayed, twelve hundred years
ago, the greatest glory of the proud Irish
kings.
Many were the events of historical moment
which took place here, though, as a palace of
great splendour and magnitude, it may have
been exceeded by Tara and Emania.
The memory of Brian Boru's life here
The Shannon and Its Lakes 109
places him in the annals of the world's great
rulers as " every inch a king."
Neither on the Irish throne, nor on that
of any other kingdom, did there ever sit a
sovereign more splendidly qualified to rule;
and Ireland had not for some centuries known
such a glorious and prosperous, peaceful, and
happy time as the five years preceding Brian's
death. He caused his authority to be not
only unquestioned, but obeyed and respected
in every corner of the land. So justly were
the laws administered in his name, and so
loyally obeyed throughout the kingdom, that
the bards relate a rather fanciful story of a
young and exquisitely beautiful lady, who
made, without the slightest apprehension of
violence or insult, and in perfect safety, a
tour of the island on foot, alone and unpro-
tected, though bearing about her the most
costly jewels and ornaments of gold. This
legend will be further recalled by the memory
of the well-known verses beginning " Rich and
rare were the gems she wore."
It was at Kincora that the following inci-
dent took place:
Mselmurra, Prince of Leinster, playing or
no Romantic Ireland
advising on a game of chess, made or recom-
mended a false move, upon which the patri-
otic Morrogh, son of Brian, observed that it
was no wonder Maelmurra's friends, the Danes
(to whom he owed his elevation), were beaten
at Glenmana, if he gave them advice like that.
Maelmurra, highly incensed by the allusion,
all the more severe for its bitter truth,
arose, ordered his horse, and rode away in
haste. Brian, when he heard it, despatched a
messenger after the indignant guest, begging
him to return; but Maelmurra was not to be
pacified, and refused, and concerted and con-
nived with certain Danish agents, always open
to such negotiations, those measures which
led to the great invasion of the year 1014,
in which the whole Scandinavian race, from
Anglesea and Man, north to Norway, bore
an active part.
While Brian was residing at Kincora, news
was brought of his noble-hearted brother's
death, whereupon he was seized with the most
violent grief. Brian's favourite harp al-
ways a legendary and traditional symbol of
Irish emotions was taken down, and he
sang that famous death-song of Mahon, re-
AX IRISH PIPKR.
The Shannon and Its Lakes 113
counting all the glorious actions of his life.
" His anger flashed out through his tears as
he wildly chanted the noble lines," say the
chronicles.
" My heart shall burst within my breast,
Unless I avenge this great king.
They shall forfeit life for this foul deed,
Or I must perish by a violent death."
Of the passionate attachment of the Irish
for music, little need be said, as this is one
of the national characteristics which has been
at all times most strongly marked, and is still
most widely appreciated, the harp being uni-
versally held as a national emblem of Ireland.
Even in the prechristian period that we are
here reviewing, music was an institution and
a power in Erin.
Few spots in Ireland are richer in historical
and archaeological interest than Killaloe.
There is a fine specimen of sixth-century
architecture in the well-preserved cell of St.
Lua, with its steep roof of stone and cun-
ningly devised arches. It is a venerable build-
ing, and nestles under the shadow of the pres-
ent Protestant cathedral, built by O'Brien,
King of Thomond, in the twelfth century.
H4 Romantic Ireland
On a small island in the river Shannon are
the ruins of an ancient friary, and at a little
distance the remains of a small chapel. These
are said to mark the position of a ford used
by pilgrims who came to visit Killaloe before
the bridge, which is itself ancient, was built.
Lough Derg is reputedly one of the prettiest
pieces of water in Ireland. Its shores are well
wooded, and the background all around is
made up of swelling upland, dotted here and
there with the white houses of the peasantry,
while in the far distance are the heather-clad
hills of the Counties Clare, Galway, and Tippe-
rary.
In Lough Derg, on Station Island, is the
reputed entrance to St. Patrick's Purgatory.
A wide-spread superstition accounts for its
popularity, but whether as a purely " tourist
point " or as a place of pilgrimage for peni-
tents, it were better not to attempt to judge.
Tradition has it that St. Patrick had pre-
vailed on God to place the entrance to purga-
tory in Ireland, that the unbelievers might
the more readily be convinced of the immortal-
ity of the soul and of the sufferings that
awaited the wicked after death. A few monks,
The Shannon and Its Lakes 115
according to Boate, an old Irish writer, dwelt
near the cavern that formed the entrance.
" Whoever came to the island with the inten-
tion of descending into the cavern and examin-
ing its wonders had to prepare himself by long
vigils, fasts, and prayers, to strengthen him,
as we are told, for his dangerous expedition;
but, in reality, by reducing his bodily strength
to make his imagination more ready to receive
the impressions which it was thought desirable
to leave upon his mind. He was then let down
into the cavern, whence, after an interval of
several hours, he was drawn up again half-
dead, and, when he recovered his senses, min-
gling the wild dreams of his own imagination
with what the monks told him, he seldom
failed to tell the most marvellous tales of the
place for the remainder of his life. It was not
till the reign of James II. that the monks were
driven away from the place, and the mystery
of the dark cavern dissolved."
From Killaloe to Portumna, the Shannon
flows through Lough Derg, a wide-spread
Waterway, an elaborate expansion of the river
itself. This lake, which is twenty-five miles
long and from two to six miles in breadth,
Ii6 Romantic Ireland
has an average depth of about fifty feet. Close
to Portumna is the Castle of Ballynasheera,
said to have been once the residence of Ireton,
Oliver Cromwell's son-in-law.
From Ben Hill, a few miles below Por-
tumna, near Woodford, is a splendid view of
Lough Derg and the surrounding country.
The lake here stretches along between the
Slieve Aughty Mountains on the Connaught
side and the Arra Mountains on the Munster
side, whose lofty summits tower up high into
the clouds. The shores, sloping gradually
down to the water, are covered with luxurious
foliage, through openings in which may be
seen the ruins of many an ancient castle and
once stately mansion.
Portumna itself is a flourishing town, but
of no great antiquarian interest. The popula-
tion of town and district is about two thou-
sand.
Near by is Victoria Lock, Melleek, adjacent
to which are two strongly built towers, which
formerly mounted eight guns, and which, in
more romantic times, were erected to guard
the pass of the Shannon between Connaught
and Leinster.
) VST
The Shannon and Its Lakes 119
Shannon Harbour, at which the Grand Canal
joins the Shannon, is situated on the river
about six or seven miles from Shannon Bridge,
and is immortalized by Charles Lever in " Jack
Hinton."
As a tourist resort the town appears to have
degenerated sadly, a pretentious hotel estab-
lishment having been converted over into bar-
racks for the constabulary.
From Shannon Harbour the steamer passes
Shannon Bridge, and in due course reaches
Athlone at the lower end of Lough Ree.
" Population, seven thousand. Industry,
manufacture of the celebrated woollen tweeds,
which provides employment for several hun-
dred operators, both male and female; there
are various other smaller manufacturing in-
dustries pursued by the town population. In
the rural districts, cattle rearing, both in West-
meath and Roscommon, and the ; pursuit of
general agriculture is principally followed, and
the inhabitants of these rural districts are
generally comfortable and fairly well-to-do."
Such is the usual guide-book information con-
cerning Athlone, which lies at the juncture of
Roscommon and Westmeath.
I2O Romantic Ireland
As a matter of fact, however, almost every
stone in the prosperous little city has a his-
toric interest and value, from the ruins of its
former splendid ecclesiastical establishments to
its old houses and still more ancient fortifi-
cations, and the castle erected in 1215 by King
John, a counterpart in every respect of a
similar establishment at Limerick. Queen
Elizabeth made Athlone the capital of Con-
naught. After the battle of the Boyne, it
underwent two sieges from the forces of King
William. Some traces of the old fortifications
may be seen, and the castle is still in perfect
repair.
Just north of Athlone, where the Shannon
joins Lough Ree, is Auburn, more popularly
known as " Sweet Auburn," whose old ruined
parsonage is famous as the early home of
Oliver Goldsmith.
Fleeting time has changed this modest man-
sion whose ruin was deplored by Goldsmith
himself but little. It stands about a hun-
dred yards from the public road at the end of
a straight avenue bordered with ash-trees,
a plain rectangular, two-storied house, built
in the ugly and uncompromising style that
The Shannon and Its Lakes 123
was popular in Ireland in the early part of
the seventeenth century. The roof is off, but
the walls remain, and seem still to be haunted
by the shade of the Rev. Charles Goldsmith,
the original Doctor Primrose in " The Vicar
of Wakefield," while his wife, hospitable as
of yore, still seems to invite the passing
stranger to taste her gooseberry wine. The
famous inn, since rebuilt out of all resem-
blance to its former self, immortalized by
Goldsmith, and known as the Three Pigeons,
where were drawn the " inspired nut-brown
draughts," and " where village statesmen
talked with looks profound," is but a little
distance from the house. The country all
around Lishoy for that is the name of the
townland in which Toberclare, this Mecca of
the Goldsmith student, is situated is well
wooded and cultivated. The drive from Ath-
lone to " Sweet Auburn " is one of the most
delightful in Ireland. As the reputed locale
of " The Deserted Village," Auburn, or
Lishoy, as it was formerly known, has an
unusual share of interest for the literary pil-
grim.
Goldsmith was not born at Lishoy, as is
124 Romantic Ireland
sometimes stated, but in Pallas, a village in the
County Longford, his father being at the time
a poor curate and farmer. The infancy of
Oliver was, however, spent in Lishoy, and
there is little doubt but that the scenes of his
childhood became afterward the imaginative
sources whence he drew the picture of " Sweet
Auburn," though it is doubtless true that the
descriptions are general enough in character
to apply to many localities in England as well
as Ireland:
" Sweet Auburn ! loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheer'd the labouring swain ;
Where smiling spring its earliest visits paid,
And parting summer's lingering blooms delay'd.
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please ;
How often have I loitered o'er thy green,
Where humble happiness endear'd each scene !
How often have I paused on every charm !
The shelter'd cot, the cultivated farm :
The never-failing brook, the busy mill ;
The decent church that topp'd the neighbouring hill ;
The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age, and whispering lovers made."
Attempts have been made from time to time
to justify the procedure, which is customary
The Shannon and Its Lakes 125
here, of stripping the hawthorn of its blos-
soms to sell to tourists; and to explain that
it is a perfectly legitimate and artistic thing
to have hung the old broken plates and cups
of the erstwhile Three Pigeons on the walls
of the new inn. Sir Walter Scott attempted
to justify all this as " a pleasing tribute to the
poet," but there is a hollow mockery about
it all that will make the true pilgrim hasten
to commune with
" The never-failing brook, the busy mill ; "
and
" The decent church that topp'd the neighbouring hill,"
all three of which exist to-day, and bear a
far greater likeness to the description of the
poet than does the reputed inn.
Through Lough Ree one journeys along
historical ground. Rindown Castle was built,
it is said, by Turgesius, a Dane, who made of
it an impregnable stronghold, as may be read-
ily believed when one views its rocky promon-
tory.
The island of Inchcleraun, commonly called
" Quaker Island," is associated with early
126 Romantic Ireland
Celtic Christianity, and has on it the remains
of six churches. On this island, Queen Meave
is said to have been killed, while bathing, by
an Ulster chieftain, who threw a stone from
a sling while standing on the shore.
Knockcroghery Bay leads to Roscommon,
the chief town of the county of the same name.
It had its origin at the time wihen St. Coman
founded a monastery there, and to-day may
still be seen elaborate remains of a former
Dominican establishment of the thirteenth
century, and of a fortified castle of the same
era.
At the head of the eastern arm is All Saints'
Island, on which are the well-preserved re-
mains of a church and monastery, an an-
cient foundation which, in the seventeenth
century, was occupied by the nunnery of the
Poor Clares, but was burnt by the soldiery
in 1642. It is recorded that the peasants of
Kilkenny West retaliated by killing the des-
troyers.
Inchbonin, the " Island of the White Cow,"
contains the remains of a church and monas-
tery, the foundation of the religious house
being attributed to St. Rioch, a nephew of
The Shannon and Its Lakes 12,7
St. Patrick. Here, also, are the remains of
several Celtic crosses.
Entering the Shannon proper again at
Lanesborough, one finally reaches Carrick-on-
Shannon, in itself uninteresting enough, but
a centre from which a vast amount of profit-
able knowledge may be obtained. It is the
gateway of the pretty valley of the river Boyle,
where stands the pleasant little town of the
same name, with its famous abbey, which is
in rather a better state of preservation than
many " chronicles in stone." The choir, nave,
and transepts are all in existence, and show,
in their construction, all the elements of the
West Norman and Gothic work of their time.
The nave, with its hundred and thirty-five
semicircular arches, which separate it from
its aisles, is perhaps the best and most char-
acteristic Norman feature, if we except the
square heavy tower. In 1235, the English
sacked these sacred precincts, and even it
is said stripped the monks of their gowns.
In 1595 it was turned into a fortress and be-
sieged by the army of the Earl of Tyrone.
From the " Hibernia Illustrata " we learn
that, " In the cemetery of Kilbronan, not far
128 Romantic Ireland
from Boyle, was buried the famous Carolan,
one of the last of the veritable Irish bards;
and here for several years the skull that had
' once been the seat of so much verse and
music,' was placed in the niche of the old
church, decorated, not with laurel, but with
a black ribbon. He died in the neighbourhood
in the year 1741, at a very advanced age, not-
withstanding that he had been in a state of
intoxication during probably seven-eighths of
his life."
From this we may infer that, if liquor was
not more potent in those days, it was at least
less expensive.
CHAPTER VI.
GALWAY AND ITS BAY
IT may not be recognized, it certainly is
not a widely known fact, that Galway at
one time however extraordinary it may now
appear arrived at a pitch of mercantile
greatness superior, with the single exception of
London, to any port in what is now known
as the British Isles.
From an original letter from Henry Crom-
well and the Irish Privy Council, dated Gal-
way, 7th April, 1657, we learn that:
" For situation, voisenage, and commerce
it hath with Spain, the Strayts, West Indies,
and other parts, noe towhe or port in the three
nations (London excepted) was more con-
siderable."
" Another city so ancient as Galway does
not exist in Ireland," says an old-time trav-
eller.
129
130 Romantic Ireland
" Its situation is flat and unpicturesque, but
the universality of red petticoats, and the same
brilliant colour in most other articles of female
dress, gives a foreign aspect to the population,
which prepares you somewhat for the com-
pletely Italian or Spanish look of most of the
streets of the town." " In Galway," writes
Kohl, " the metropolis of the west, and a
Hesperian colony, he (the traveller) will find
a quaint and peculiar city, with antiquities such
as he will meet with nowhere else. The old
town is throughout of Spanish architecture,
with wide gateways, broad stairs, and all the
fantastic ornaments calculated to carry the
imagination back to Granada and Valencia.
Then the town, with its monks, churches, and
convents, has a completely Catholic air; and
the population of the adjoining country have
preserved something of their picturesque na-
tional costume."
From the earliest times, especially about the
fourteenth century, and until a later period,
extensive trade was carried on betwixt Spain
and Ireland. Galway was always one of the
principal ports frequented by foreigners. The
richer merchants of the town made periodical
Galway and Its Bay 131
visits to Spain, and returned with Spanish
luxuries and Spanish ideas. The result of this
Was that mansions in Spanish style arose and
were rilled with Spanish furniture; while the
ladies used in their dresses the bright colours
and light textures of Spain. It is reasonable,
too, to suppose that in many instances Span-
ish servants, seamen, and even workmen,
formed alliances with the natives of the soil,
and thus the population became, not only in
dress but in blood, allied to their foreign visit-
ors. Many of the houses built for the mer-
chant princes of Galway still remain, though
in a dilapidated state, and have come to be
occupied by the poorest inhabitants. Truly,
" Galway was a famous town when its Spanish
merchants were princes; but their fine dwell-
ings were at one time usurped and defaced
by the rabble, and little remains of the inte-
riors to show their ancient glory." It is prob-
able that, besides the Spaniards, the Italians
also traded with Galway, and that banks were
instituted by Jews from Lombardy. Little
more than fifty years ago, " the tribes of Gal-
way " claimed to themselves the exclusive
right of exercising certain civil privileges.
132 Romantic Ireland
Just how far one may go in promulgating
a theory, in a book such as this, remains an
open question. With regard to the Spaniards
in Ireland, it is not so much conjecture as to
the time of their advent, or their numbers,
as it is with the causes which led up to it.
Galway was one day to be the pride and hope
of Erin's Isle. This we all know and recog-
nize, and, with this end in view, huge ware-
houses and quays were built to accommodate
a vast ocean-borne traffic which was to come
and make it the rival of Liverpool. One may
walk along these quays to-day and see the
ruin of all this enterprise, for Galway, despite
its seventeen thousand inhabitants, is a town
which bears, in its every aspect, the appear-
ance of a place that has already sunk into
irretrievable decay.
As a gateway to Connemara, Galway still
exercises great influence on the prosperity of
the west of Ireland, and, moreover, has an
historic interest which cannot fail to be at-
tractive to the tourist for all time to come.
Recalling how James Lynch FitzStephen, in
1493, condemned and actually executed with
his own hands his only son Walter, who had
Gal way and Its Bay 133
murdered a young Spaniard, brings us to the
fact that Galway was at one time more a city
of Spain than of Ireland.
In ancient times Galway was the most fa-
mous port in Ireland, and had a very exten-
sive trade, especially with the ports of His-
paniola. Many Spanish merchants, sailors,
and fishermen settled here, until, at one time,
probably one-fourth of the population of the
town was pure Spanish. They built their
houses after the Spanish pattern, and mingled
with the native Irish population; but not,
however, without leaving upon it the inerad-
icable mark and powerful impress of their own
character, and imparting the superstition, the
temperament, and the physical qualities of
their race.
Moreover, it is said that a large portion of
the famed Armada was wrecked off the Gal-
way coast; and that, in addition to those
already there, these survivors settled and mul-
tiplied. In consequence, much of the ancient
architecture discernible even to-day is
obviously of Spanish origin; and there is no
doubt that the Spaniards have left their im-
press on the features and character of the
134 Romantic Ireland
inhabitants of the town and the near-by dis-
tricts. One notes this as he strolls through
the market, where the women are selling fish,
for the most part consisting of sea-bream,
red mullet, conger-eels, and lobsters. In their
complexions, their dark hair and eyes, their
high cheek-bones, and their carriage, in the
mantilla-like way in which they wear their
shawls, and in the brilliant colours of their
costumes, they bear a striking resemblance
to the fisherwomen of Cadiz and Malaga. The
men are even more strikingly Spanish.
The speech is curious, too. It is Gaelic, but
it is full of Spanish idioms and terminations.
These people live for the most part in a village
called the Claddagh, whose population for-
merly kept itself quite distinct from its Irish
neighbours. The people married only among
themselves; had their own religion; in a
measure, their own municipal government;
and pursued their own way without any ref-
erence to what went on around them. Of
late, however, this exclusiveness has, to a
large extent, been broken down. Still the
Claddagh is a spot which has no parallel else-
Galway and Its Bay 137
where in Ireland, and is a distinct survival
of the original Spanish settlement.
The Galway fisheries are still, and always
have been, an important economic factor in
the life of these parts. Their conduct is a
feature no less interesting in many ways than
the more aesthetic aspects of the region. No-
where else in the island can such a sight be
seen as in the salmon season may be observed
from Galway Bridge, when the water in the
river is low. One looks over the bridge into
the water, and sees what is apparently the dark
bed of the river; but drop in a pebble, and
instantly there is a splash and a flash of silver,
and a general movement along the whole bed
of the stream. Then one comes to know that
what apparently were closely packed stones are
salmon, squeezed together like herrings in a
barrel, unable to get up-stream for want of
water.
This salmon fishery, together with the fish-
eries on the coast, constitute the staple indus-
tries of the district; and, as a business prop-
osition, might appeal largely to some company
promoter were he able to corner the supply
and control the traffic. The hardihood of the
138 Romantic Ireland
population, their aptitude for seamanship, their
industrious habits, and their thrifty instincts
make them so capable of rising to any oppor-
tunities that may be offered to them, that there
is no reason why Galway should not become
as great a fishing-port as any on the east
coast of England.
Galway is full of memorials of its ancient
days of commercial greatness, when wealthy
merchant families inhabited the fine stone
mansions now fallen into ruins; and tales of
former glories are on everybody's lips. There
is no dearth of anecdote about Galway. Some
of it is fact; much of it doubtless is not; but
there seems no reason why one could not ex-
pand a short chapter of its history into a great
book were he so inclined.
Galway was practically " discovered " by
the English in the thirteenth century, " when
they took possession of the desirable little
town," and portioned it out among thirteen
English families those of Athy, Blake,
Bodkin, Browne, Deane, D'Arcy, Lynch,
Joyce, Kirwan, Martin, Morris, Skerret, and
French. These became known as the Tribes
of Galway, and before long became " more
Galway and Its Bay 139
Irish than the Irish themselves." This we
learn from the written records ; but, since they
exist so completely and lucidly, there seems
no reason to quarrel with the statement.
The Lynches were, and are, the most numer-
ous and important of the Tribes of Galway.
The name is said to be aboriginal or at least
Celtic, and again tradition has it that all the
Lynches are descended from the daughter and
heiress of a certain lord marshal of the county
of Galway in the year 1280. In 1442 a certain
Edmond Lynch FitzThomas built at his own
expense a bridge called the West Bridge, and
twenty years later another, Gorman Lynch,
held a patent for coining money; and yet
another, James Lynch FitzStephen, the fa-
mous Warden of Galway, whose notoriety
has been described in Button's " Survey of
Galway " (1824), lived at the end of the same
century.
As described by Button, the " notorious "
incident arose from Lynch FitzStephen hav-
ing sent his only son to Spain on some com-
mercial affairs, who, returning with the son
of his father's Spanish friend and a valuable
cargo, conspired with the crew to murder and
140 Romantic Ireland
throw him overboard, and convert the prop-
erty to their own use. One of the party, as
providentially happens in most such cases,
revealed the horrid transaction to the mayor.
He tried and condemned his son to death,
and appointed a day for his execution. It
was imagined by his relatives that, through
their intercession, and the consideration of
his being an only son, he would not proceed
to put the sentence into execution. He told
them to come to him on a certain day, and
they should have his determination. Early
on the day appointed, they found the son hang-
ing out of one of the windows of his father's
house. It was commemorated by the cross-
bones in Lombard Street.
Further records have it that the stone bear-
ing the cross-bones was not put up for many
years after the transaction, when it was
erected on the wall of St. Nicholas's church-
yard, and bore the inscription:
1524
Remember Death.
All is vanity of vanities.
Gal way and Its Bay 143
From this incident a recorded fact of his-
tory be it remembered the familiar " Amer-
icanism " (sic) of " lynch-law " probably
received its derivation. At any rate, the cir-
cumstance is one of significance and plausi-
bility, or it shows once again how the seed
of coincidence takes root and thrives many
thousands of miles from the land of its first
growth.
Galway has ever been an important com-
mercial centre, and rightly enough points out
the fact that to be as proud and honest as a
Galway merchant is to be reckoned as one
of the upright of this world. It is a curious
fact that, notwithstanding the maritime re-
sources of Galway, salt was one of the com-
modities imported to it from Spain, and so
highly was the import prized that John
French, who was mayor in 1538, bore the
distinguishing appellation of Slwne ne Sallin.
The county of Galway must have been a
quarrelsome and belligerent community in
times past, judging from the fact that local
history gives elaborate accounts of certain
fighting gentlemen known as " Blue-Blaze-
Devil-Bob," " Nineteen-Duel-Dick," " Hair-
144 Romantic Ireland
Trigger-Pat," and " Feather-Spring-Ned."
But these honourable cognomens are no longer
cited with a voice of triumph by the leading
citizens; and it may be presumed that Hair-
Trigger and Blaze-Devil exploits are becom-
ing rarer. There is no reason to doubt but
that this is so, judging from appearances and
experiences with which one comes in contact
to-day.
Historians, anthropologists, and antiquari-
ans have attempted before now to draw com-
parisons between the inhabitants of Galway
and those of Spain. The circumstance has
been authenticated and remarked frequently;
but it is interesting, if not valuable, to have
a native first-hand opinion on the subject.
An elderly gentleman whom the author once
met, who had lived in Spain and Galway
respectively a number of years, remarked
many characteristics in common among the
middle class; and, again, at the proceedings
of a philosophical society, it was stated that
" in the lower and more vulgar classes, the
old Milesian habits still prevail." Rather a
contemptuous way of putting it this, but in-
dolence, or at least something more than a
Gal way and Its Bay 145
trace of it, is, one must admit, still apparent
in both places.
Of the spoken speech of Galway much has
been written, and with good excuse, for Span-
ish idioms and words still come to the surface
here, as does the French tongue in certain
parts of Scotland.
The writer recalls an incident in the ex-
periences of an ardent automobilist, which
took place in the neighbourhood of Galway:
He was driving down an extremely steep
hill, and was barely able to keep the automo-
bile in hand. There was a safe " run-down "
ahead, but a number of Irish-speaking chil-
dren kept dancing and running around in front,
deaf to his uncomprehended cries of " Get
away! Take care! you'll be run over!" and
it seemed likely that some one would be killed
when the motor-car should get its head. Just
as that disaster became imminent, however,
the driver remembered the one Irish word he
understood, " Faugh-a-ballagh ! " (a fa-
mous war-cry of olden times, equivalent to
"Clear the way"). He only remembered
it as the name of a race-horse, but yelled it
out; and the children sprang out of his way
146 Romantic Ireland
like arrows, just in time to let the car rush
safely past.
Galway, too, has the reputation of being one
of the few counties left (Cork is another)
where the typical " Paddy " of romance is to
be found. That is, so far as his or her dress
is concerned; and, truth to tell, it has all but
disappeared from here, for it is only of a
bright summer Sunday, or some local feast-
day, that the Irishman, dressed as in the chorus
of a comic opera, is ever seen.
In Galway itself, on an important market-
day, he is still to be seen, and forms a pic-
turesque note to the surroundings which the
sentimentalist would indeed otherwise miss.
He is found in knee-breeches and tail coat,
high caubeen with a pipe stuck in it, and long
home-knit stockings, accompanied by the Gal-
way women in short scarlet petticoat and close-
hooded cloak. All the latter wear this dress,
by the way. There is practically not a woman
of the working class in the town certainly
not one in the Claddagh fishing quarter
who does not cling to this bit of colour, as
thick as a blanket and very fleecy. It is spun,
woven, and made at home; and, as a result,
Gal way and Its Bay 147
raggedness is exceedingly infrequent among
the Galway natives. Indeed, all Connemara is
remarkable for the clean, neat, and whole
clothing of its people, who are otherwise pov-
erty-stricken. It is only in great towns, where
the poor clothe themselves in slop-shop stuffs
and cast-off garments of the upper classes,
that they are ragged and unkempt. Home-
spuns and tweeds, such as We are accustomed
to see only in smart coat and skirt costumes,
or expensive shooting suits, are the daily wear
of every one. They cost little, only the
keep of a few hardy mountain sheep, from
which the wool is obtained, the loan of a spin-
ning-wheel from a neighbour, and the small
fee of a local hand-loom weaver. Thus the
people of Mayo and Galway, though often at
other times miserably clad, go about with a
neat " tailor-made " aspect that is astonishing.
The tourists, i. e., the ladies, buy the charm-
ing Claddagh cloaks and bolts of homespun,
which ultimately appear in more fashionable
centres as the last thing in the world of fash-
ion.
Another form of souvenir, which appears
to be irresistible, is the peculiar marriage-ring
148 Romantic Ireland
of Claddagh. This particular pattern has been
the marriage-ring of the Claddagh fishing
tribes for many centuries. Indeed, every peas-
ant matron in the county wears one. The de-
sign is that of a heart over two clasped hands,
surmounted by a crown, the signification be-
ing " Love and friendship reign." Among
the upper classes in Ireland, these rings are
often used as guards for engagement and wed-
ding rings.
A more interesting monument than any
memorial stone in the abbey, or, indeed, in
Sligo, is Misgoun Meave, which dominates
the whole neighbourhood, the traditional
burial-place of Queen Meave. On the top
of Knocknarea, a hill over one thousand feet
high, stands an immense cairn of stones, al-
most like a second peak to the hill. Here,
overlooking a wide range of beautiful sea-
coast and country, tradition states that the
famous Irish Queen of Connaught, after she
had buried three husbands, chose her tomb.
Nearly two thousand years have passed since
the date popularly assigned to her reign, but
there can be no reasonable doubt that she was
a thoroughly genuine personality, and left her
Galway and Its Bay 149
individual mark upon the history of her time.
Like Boadicea, she led her own armies in per-
son, and seems, according to the wild legends
told of her exploits, to have been an Amazon
of terrible reputation and dauntless courage.
She had the red-gold hair that may still be
seen in Connaught, a heritage popularly
supposed to have descended from her, and
wore it flowing like a mantle over her. Her
beauty was considerable, her temper ungov-
ernable, and her virtue, apparently, doubtful.
She was often accompanied to battle by her
stalwart sons of middle age; and her own
years are reported to have counted well over
a century before death at last loosened her
iron grip on blood-stained Connaught. One
can well understand how such a woman, dying,
chose to be buried where, even in death, her
sightless eyes might look down upon the land
of lake and island, forest, hill, and sea that
had been hers so long.
A lively French writer, who travelled in
Ireland in the early part of the nineteenth
century, was evidently much smitten with the
fair sex.
He says, in part:
150 Romantic Ireland
" The greatest gaiety reigns there, in
fact, the belles of Galway are capable of in-
structing most French young ladies in the art
of coquetry. In the early morning, one sees
five or six young ladies, perched upon a jaunt-
ing-car, go two miles from the city to refresh
their charms by a sea bath, and in the after-
noon, if there be no assembly, they go from
shop to shop, buying, laughing, and chatting
with their friends. There are many in this
city who grow old without knowing it."
All of which seems a simple and innocuous
enough amusement. In spite of which, how-
ever, no very 'apparent coquettishness on the
part of Galway young ladies is to be noted
to-day, at least, it has not --been observed
by the writer of this book. Perhaps that
merely points to a lack of susceptibility on his
part.
T. P. O'Connor once told the story of a
travelling showman who brought to Galway
from America a panorama of America. " He
knew what he was about," said Mr. O'Connor,
" when he declared that Chesapeake Bay was
the finest bay in the world with two excep-
Gal way and Its Bay 151
tions, the Bay of Naples and the Bay of
Galway; and he was very loudly cheered.
" Without exaggeration, it is a beautiful
bay, almost landlocked, with mountains
small enough in comparison with others, but
to the untravelled eye of the Irish villager
solemn and imposing as the Matterhorn
bounding it on the far side, and with a some-
what narrow mouth opening out into the At-
lantic. A mouth that, under the light of morn-
ing or evening, is something to suggest either
the vastness of this world of human beings,
or the anticipation of the greater vastness of
that other world beyond, which haunted the
imaginations and thoughts of the pious Cath-
olics of that region."
These few lines serve to give a most truthful
word-picture of Galway Bay; and also a
glimpse of the brilliancy with which Mr.
O'Connor writes. Continuing, Mr. O'Connor
writes of his school-days in Ireland thus, in
words which give a far more sympathetic and
clear knowledge of things as they are or
were than most reminiscences of a like na-
ture:
" There had come to my native town of
152 Romantic Ireland
Athlone a new school, and it was but natural
that my father should like me to go there, and,
accordingly, I had no more of Galway ex-
cept at vacation-time for five long years.
" These years belong to my native town
and the school near it; and they were among
the most unhappy years of my life.
" I remember still the bitter flood of tears
I wept the first day after I returned to Athlone
from the year or so I had spent in Galway.
" But Galway had to me, then, many of the
chief charms of boyhood. There was a second
house behind that in which we lived, which
was usually unoccupied. From its roof you
could see one of those beautiful scenes that,
once seen, haunt one ever afterward. Beyond
the town you could catch sight of the sea;
and there, on certain evenings, you saw the
fleet of herring-boats as they went out for
their night-watch and night harvest of fish,
a sight that was more like something of
f-airy-land than of reality, though I dare say the
poor crews found much grimmer reality than
romance in their hard and laborious night-
watches."
Just off the mouth cf Galway Bay are the.
Gal way and Its Bay 153
Aran Islands. Between them and the main-
land the sea is often so rough as to make it
impossible for small boats to undertake the
crossing. The principal food of the inhab-
itants is dried fish, naturally a home product.
The chief patron saint of Munster, aside
from St. Finbarr's association with Cork, was
St. Albeus. He had already been converted
by certain Christianized Britons, and had trav-
elled to Rome before the arrival of St. Patrick
among the Irish. After his return, he became
the disciple and fellow labourer of that great
apostle, and was ordained by him as first
Archbishop of Munster, with his see fixed at
Emely, long since removed to Cashel.
He possessed, according to the chroniclers,
the wonderful art of making men, not only
Christians, but saints, and for this great abil-
ity King Engus bestowed upon him the isles
of Aran in Connaught, where he founded a
great monastery.
So famous did the island become for the
sanctity of its people that it was long called
" Aran of Saints."
The rule which St. Albeus drew up for them
is still extant in the old Irish manuscripts.
154 Romantic Ireland
Though zeal for the divine honour and charity
for the souls of others fixed him in the world,
he was always careful, by habitual recollec-
tion and frequent retreats, to nourish in his
own soul the pure love of heavenly things,
and to live always in a very familiar and in-
timate acquaintance with himself and in the
daily habitual practice of the most perfect
virtues. In his old age, it was his earnest
desire to commit to others the care of his dear
flock, that he might be allowed to prepare
himself in the exercise of holy solitude for
his great change. For this purpose, he begged
that he might be suffered to retire to Thule,
the remotest country toward the northern pole
that was known to the ancients, which seems
to have been Shetland, or, according to some,
Iceland or some part of Greenland; but the
king guarded the ports to prevent his flight,
and the saint died amidst the labours of his
charge in 525, according to the Ulster and
Innisfallen annals.
These islands are three in number: Inish-
more, Imishmaan, and Inisheer, and contain
among them such a wealth of pagan and
Christian antiquities as is excelled by no lo-
Galway and Its Bay 157
cality in Ireland of the same area: perhaps
fifteen square miles in all.
There is a work published in Dublin, known
as " The Illustrated Programme of the So-
ciety of Architects," which contains a brief
account of the wealth of the architectural and
historical lore of these parts. More one could
not wish to know unless he were profoundly
interested, and less would not even satisfy
him if he became at all enamoured of these
islands, so full of dreary old places and quaint
customs, to say nothing of the wealth of tra-
dition and legend which hangs about it all.
Westward, the nearest land is America,
where so many stalwart sons of Galway
and daughters, too have migrated. Here
the peasants still reverently believe in the far-
famed land of Hy or O, Brazil, the para-
dise of the ancient pagan Irish.
The praises of the " great fictitious island "
were sung by the bards of olden time, and
tradition has perpetuated its fame as a " land
of perpetual sunshine, abounding in rivers,
forests, mountains, and lakes. Castles and
palaces arise on every side, and, as far as the
eye can reach, it is covered with groves, bow-
158 Romantic Ireland
ers, and silent glades ; its fields are ever green,
with sleek cattle grazing upon them ; its groves
filled with myriads of birds. It is only seen
occasionally, owing to the long enchantment,
which will, they say, now soon be dissolved.
The inhabitants seem always young, taking
no heed of time, and lead lives of perfect hap-
piness. In many respects this fabulous land
resembles the Tirna-n'oge, the pagan Irish
Elysium."
Among the chief and assuredly unique
reliques of these few square miles of terra
firma are the ruins of the old fortified Castle
of Ardkyne, in which are built the remains
of the great church of St. Enna, chief of the
Oriels, who, upon his conversion, abandoned
his secular rule, and eventually settled (not
later than A. D. 489) in Aran, which hence-
forth became Ara-nor-noamh, " Aran of the
Saints." The church was one of several
destroyed by the soldiers of Cromwell; but
its plan, about twenty by ten feet, can be
traced behind the village. Above the village
is the stump of a round tower, and, on the
ridge, the oratory of St. Benen, a unique speci-
men of early Irish church architecture, which
Galway and Its Bay 159
has remarkably steep pitched gables. The
window in the east wall has its head and splay
of a single stone. The narrow north doorway
has inclined jambs. If the name refers to
the apostle of Connaught, St. Benen of Ar-
magh, it must be a dedication, as he died in
468. The building may with confidence be
assigned to the sixth century.
St. Edna's burial-place, known as TeglocK
Edna, is another curious premediasval church.
On the Aran Islands there are no bogs, but
one has, instead, to dodge his footsteps in
and -out among pebbles and rolling stones of
every size and shape. This is particularly so
if one is to make the journey to Dun yEngus,
one of the finest prehistoric forts of Western
Europe; called, indeed, by Dr. Hindes Petrie,
" The most magnificent barbaric monument
now extant in Europe."
It is, undoubtedly, the most noteworthy ob-
ject in Ara^n. It consisted originally of a
triple line of works, but the two inner lines,
of horseshoe shape on the verge of a bold
headland, are those best preserved. Tradition
assigns it to ^Engus, a Firbolg chief who lived
about two thousand years ago. The chevaux-
160 Romantic Ireland
de-frise defending the second line is unmistak-
able, and the whole is as majestic in its grand-
eur as its supposed antiquity might indicate.
Temple MacDuagh, near Kilmurvy, is a
" cyclopean " church of the seventh century,
and Dun Oghil is a grand fort consisting of
a circular cashel, within a second, which is
roughly square.
These are the chief features of the great
island, with the Temple Brecan, which has
a chancel of rude ancient masonry, a choir
which more nearly approaches our own time
by four or five hundred years and is still mod-
ern, and a sacred enclosure devoted to the
burial of saints, of which the Irish calendar
seems quite full.
On Inisheer are the remains of an ancient
place of worship dedicated to St. Cavan,
brother to St. Kevin, the legend of whose life
everywhere confronts one in County Wicklow.
There is another to St. Gobnet, abbess of the
sixth century.
CHAPTER VII.
ACHILL TO SLIGO
IT has been suggested before now that the
domain of Achill Island, off the coast of
Mayo, that wonderland of natural unspoiled
grandeur, be preserved as a sort of national
park.
Its primitive beauties are impressively great
without rising to splendour or magnificence.
Said Sir Harry Johnston, in writing to the
London Times:
11 Is it impossible that individuals and the
State together should intervene before it is
too late and save Achill Island as a national
park, as a paradise in which the last aspects
of the indigenous British fauna may be ex-
hibited? This might be done without dis-
turbing the indigenous population, who could
still carry on their fishing industry and the
161
1 62 Romantic Ireland
amount of agriculture necessary to their sub-
sistence, without interfering unduly with the
wild birds and beasts of the island. There
would be, of course, an absolute interdict
against ' sportsmen ' and gunners ; it would
no longer be permissible to shoot the seals
that haunt the caves and rocks around Achill,
while the deer, wild goats, foxes, eagles, ra-
vens, swans, gulls, choughs, and other wild
birds and beasts would be similarly protected.
People would then visit Achill Island at all
seasons of the year (the climate is remarkably
mild in winter) for the pleasure and interest
afforded by the contemplation of its wild
fauna. We should, in short, have an object-
lesson of what Ireland and most other parts
of the British Isles were like under prehistoric
conditions."
From this it will be inferred that there is
every encouragement for such a procedure,
did the powers but take their rightful initia-
tive.
Whether such an event, if it come to pass,
would make for a greater admiration of this
lone and sea-girt bit of terra firnta, it remains
for others than the writer of this book to
Achill to Sligo 165
prognosticate. Certainly, under any aspect
except that of the erection of multitudinous
" resort hotels " and " furnished bungalows,"
Achill Island is a wonderful resort for those
in need of soothing influences; and, for its
natural and unspoiled charms alone, should
be kept quite as it now is.
Achill is a veritable unknown wonderland.
Not that it is actually unexplored, that it is
vast, or that it is inaccessible. It is none
of these ; but few foreigners, or " aliens," as
the Irish prefer to think of strangers, have
ever visited this little-known corner of Ireland,
or even know where it is. Achill Island is the
largest island on the Irish coast, in shape not
unlike an irregular triangle, and contains an
area of fifty-five square miles. To the north
is the deeply indented Black Sod Bay, with
its myriad smaller bays, while to the south is
Clew Bay, populated with numerous tiny
islets, and the high-held head of Croagh Pat-
rick. Off to the northwest are the " Enchanted
Isles," the legendary homes of saints and re-
cluses, among them Inishglora, Inishkeenah,
and Inishkea.
On one of these it is fondly believed by the
1 66 Romantic Ireland
natives that Ossian resided. Tradition has
preserved the record thus:
" Ossine MacFoin, seated on the banks of the
Shannon, adoring the Author of Nature in
the contemplation of his works, was suddenly
hurried away to Tirna-n'oge (the country of
youth, or island of immortals), which he de-
scribes with all the vivacity that fancy, aided
by the sight of so lovely a country as Ireland,
could assist the bard with. He remained here
for some days he thought, and, on his return,
was greatly surprised to find no vestige of his
house or of his acquaintance. In vain did he
seek after his father Fion, and his Fonne
Eirion; in vain sounds the buabhal, or well-
known military clarion, to collect those in-
trepid warriors. Long since had these heroes
been cut off in battle; long had his father
ceased to live! Instead of a gallant race of
mortals which he had left behind, he found a
puny and degenerate people, scarce speaking
the same language. In a word, it appeared
that, instead of two days, he had remained
near two centuries in this mansion of the
blessed." (O'Halloran.)
Achill itself contains scarcely a tree worthy
Achill to Sligo 167
the dignity of the name; but heath, gorse,
juniper, and coarse grasses abound.
Sleivemore has a height of 2,204 feet and
Croghan 2,192. Both rise abruptly from the
sea, after the manner of the castellated peaks
in the fairy books, which, with their compo-
nent castles, mostly do not exist out of books.
Kildavnet Castle on Achill Sound was one
of the numerous retreats of Grace O'Malley.
Its square keep still stands. The arm of the
sea on which it was built was so deep that
vessels rode at low water under the very walls
of the castle. " Here," tradition states, " the
skull of Grace O'Malley was formerly pre-
served, and valued as a precious relic. One
night, however, so the legend goes,
the bones of the famous sea-queen were
stolen from their resting-place, and conveyed,
with those of thousands of her descendants,
into Scotland, to be ground into fertilizer.
The theft was of course perpetrated in secret,
and in the night-time. If the crew had been
seized by the peasantry, with their singular
cargo, not a man of them would have lived to
tell the tale, for the Irish regard with peculiar
horror any desecration of the graveyard."
1 68 Romantic Ireland
According to a recent census, the popula-
tion of Achill and Achill-beg, the baby islet
off the southern limb of its parent, has de-
creased nearly ten per cent, in the space of
ten years ; from which fact it may be inferred
that the popularity of this salubrious spot
for it ranks high among the world's great
natural sanatoria is not increasing with the
rapidity that might be expected.
The two villages of the larger island, Keel
and Dooagh, seem populous enough, as is also
the Protestant community of Dugort. The
island, in general, is exceedingly unproductive,
though the sea yields a wonderful harvest to
the fisher folk.
There is but a narrow margin between the
well-being and distress of the inhabitants, but
signs are not wanting that whatever, in ex-
ceptional periods, may have been their condi-
tion, at present they are relatively better off
than many of their compatriots in the west
of Ireland. Considerable numbers annually
migrate to the north of England and the south
of Scotland for the harvest, just as, with the
same motive, the " East-Enders " of London
throng to the hop-fields of Kent, and the will-
Achill to Sligo 169
ing and industrious Bretons cross the Chan-
nel, in the autumn, to the hay-fields of Eng-
land's " home counties."
Off the western Irish coast, from Connemara
and Mayo, there are yet to be found remote
islands with an exceedingly primitive civiliza-
tion. Achill owes much of its interest to the
fact that it exhibits a similar state of things,
in many points little altered by contact with
the mainland. The people, the cabins they
inhabit, and their manner of life show very
little change, in spite of the introduction of
a good many articles of manufacture which
a generation or two ago were quite unheard
of. One thing which cannot fail to be noticed
will be the queer little " public houses." The
tenement itself, however aboriginal, is sure
to contain an assortment of strong drinks as
varied as the average West End bar. The qual-
ity may be dubious, but there will be no ques-
tion as to the strength and specific gravity
of the spirit, particularly the eau-de-vie, or the
" mountain dew."
Of the charms of Dugort, the " Settlement,"
and Dugort proper, the poet-laureate, in the
170 Romantic Ireland
pages of " Maga," has written eulogistically.
He says :
" A more perfect place of holiday resort
it would not be possible to imagine. There
are fine yellow sands, where children may
make dykes, fortresses, and mountains of mod-
erate height. . . . There is fishing, either in
smooth or rolling water, for those who love the
indolent rocking or the rough rise and fall of
the sea; precipitous and fretted cliffs, carved
with the likeness of some time-eaten Gothic
fane by the architecteonic ocean ; rides, drives,
and walks amid the finest scenery of the king-
dom. ' I think she prefers Brighton/ said a
stranger to me of his companion ; and, if one
prefers Brighton, one knows where to go.
But if nature, now majestically serene, now
fierce and passionate, be more to you than
bicyclettes and German bands, you can no-
where be better than at Achill."
The Settlement, or modern Dugort, is a
group of cabins above the shore, which owed
its creation to the Rev. Edward Nangle, a
clergyman of the Established Church. In 1831
he visited Achill, and was so impressed with
what he deemed the " spiritual destitution "
CATHEDRAL CAVES, ACH1LL.
Achill to Sligo 173
of the islanders that he organized a mission.
Some seventy acres of land having been
bought, two or three cottages were erected in
1833, and in the following year Mr. Nangle
settled at what is now the bright little village
of modern Dugort. Whatever opinion may
be held as to the value or wisdom of his
undertaking, Catholic and Protestant alike,
now that the dust of the battle has settled,
will agree that Mr. Nangle had in him the
stuff that heroes are made of. His immediate
oversight was withdrawn about 1852, though
for the rest of his life he took an active share
in promoting the continuance of his work.
He died in 1883, in his eighty- fourth year,
but long before that time the " mission " had
ceased to be a cause of dispute, and now
Dugort is merely a small Protestant preserve
in a Catholic district.
Just south of Achill, in Clew Bay, is Clare
Island, which has been likened to the pirate
islands of the transformation scenes of the
theatre. Certainly the description is a good
one, as it is a spot typically suitable in shape
and outline for hidden treasures, shipwrecks,
and blood-letting galore. Its outline is bold
174 Romantic Ireland
and jagged, and it sits ensconced in a basin
of blue water, which, in the twilight, is lit
up by the western sun in a manner like noth-
ing else so much as that of the theatre.
It was perhaps merely an odd fancy though
a likely enough one that is responsible for the
simile; but it is pertinent to remark that this
tiny emerald, set in a sea of sapphire, was
really one of the many haunts of Grace O' Mai-
ley, the famous chieftainess and warring ama-
zon of the sixteenth century. Here she ac-
tually did live, hoarded her arms and muni-
tions, concealed her treasures, and imprisoned
her captives, hence it is with reason that
the description lives to-day. One commends
the perspicacity of Grace O'Malley, or Grania
Uaile, as she is sometimes called, in having
selected such a beautiful spot for her strong-
hold, sheltered on one side by the purple hills
of Connemara, and on the other guarded by
the open sea.
Next to the headlands of Kerry, Connemara
is the westernmost part of Ireland. Its iden-
tity is now lost in that of County Galway, but
it is still known to travellers as " wild Conne-
mara." Not that it is entirely unpeopled, or
Achill to Sligo 177
that there is any special hardship involved in
traversing its area; the hotels are more nu-
merous than ever, and it is an open question
if the accommodation offered at Recess, Clif-
den, Westport, and many other of the purely
tourist points is not the equal of any in Ire-
land. They have not the electric light in many
instances, and often not water " laid on," but
the genuine traveller will not care for this
if he can but be sure of his bed and board.
To feel sure of the former, however, it will
be necessary for him to bespeak it in advance
if he travels here in the season.
In Connemara there is no great wealth of
historical or archaeological memorials. In
fact, there is a scarcity of both, and one has
to take his fill of the wild, natural beauties
of the rock-bound coast scenery, the bracing
atmosphere, and the wholly unspoiled charm
of the place, which, in spite of the advent of
the great hotels before mentioned, has not yet
become travel-worn.
Lough Carib, which is possessed (at Ough-
terard) of a fine ruined castle, just north of
Galway, is the largest of the score of purple,
deep-looking lakes with which the western
178 Romantic Ireland
part of the county is dotted. The scenery of
lake and sea, of bracken-clad hills and plains,
and of great sombre, gloomy mountains makes
up an ensemble of surpassing beauty. The
centres of population are few, far between, and
of minute dimensions.
The railway line from Galway ends at Clif-
den, a town so unimportant and quiet that,
in itself, it does not warrant remark. It was
founded in the reign of George IV., and this
early foundation consisted of but a single
house, though it is the gateway to the wonder-
ful coast scenery of the region to the north-
ward, not actually in Connemara, but what
is known as " Joyce's Country."
Of all the landlocked bays of this region,
none equals Killary Harbour, which is simply
the elongated estuary of the tiny river Eriff.
The hamlet of Leenane is the metropolis of
these parts, and is so very small and unim-
portant that it would hardly be remarked, ex-
cept for the fact that no other of even the
same rank lies within a radius of twenty miles.
The situation of Leenane is charming, at the
head of Great Killary. Around about are hills
of mountainous pretentions, and before its
Achill to Sligo 181
doors is a fiord, as ample and as calm as many,
of more fame, to be found in Norway. Sea-
ward, the great hills come down to the water's
edge and almost join hands across the nar-
row mouth of the estuary, forming a sheltered
and landlocked haven of so great a depth as
to allow anchorage for even a great battle-ship.
Between Galway and Clifden is Recess, a
point of vantage from wlhich to visit much
that is characteristic of the scenery of Conne-
mara. Firstly, the region is of interest to the
fisherman; secondly, the geologist; and,
thirdly, to all lovers of nature, which, judging
from the recent popularity of " nature books,"
is perhaps much the largest class.
The chief topographical feature, which
forms the background to Recess, is the moun-
tain range of the " Twelve Bens," a glorious
group of dark-mantled mountains with stony
peaks and flinty-quartz hearts.
One may tramp Connemara for weeks, and
not know all its beauty-spots, or he may scam-
per around it by coach and rail in two days,
and depart thinking he has seen it all; but
in either case, his memory, if it be a good
one, will sooner or later call him to task for
1 82 Romantic Ireland
his presumption. For this reason, it is mani-
festly presumptuous to attempt to give its
proper rank to its great wealth of natural
attractions among the various collections which
Ireland possesses.
The scenery about Recess is a picturesque
combination of lake and river and mountain;
but, to the southward, there are wild and
rugged bits of coast and red bracken-covered
hills, which look to-day exactly as they did
in times primeval.
Lough Glendalough, which lies immediately
before Recess, is but the foreground of a lovely
picture which it will take many days to dis-
sect and fully appreciate.
There has ever been a dispute as to whether
the glory of the " Twelve Bens " really be-
longed to Recess or Leenane. It certainly
matters little, since they are a wonderfully
impressive background viewed from either
point.
It must be a well-booted and strong-limbed
pedestrian who will essay the task of ascend-
ing these famous mountains. Benbaun is the
monarch of the Bens, and is 2,395 ^ ee ^ i n
height. Not a very great altitude as Conti-
Achill to Sligo 185
nental mountains go, but withal a very re-
spectable eminence to climb.
North of Achill is Black Sod Bay, whose
memory comes down to us through Kipling's
reminiscence in " A Fleet in Being." More
anciently, it was one of the harbours where
a part of the ill-fated Armada was supposed
to have gone ashore. There are no great cen-
tres of population here in the bleak northwest
of County Mayo, and there are no architectural
remains of note; but there is local colour,
and much of it, for one who would study the
poor Irish peasant on his native heath.
Until one rounds the headland of Benwee,
and passes the " Stags of Broadhaven," a
head of deep-water pinnacles of rock whose
jagged outlines have been likened to a stag's
antlers, and reaches Killala Bay, there is
naught of twentieth-century civilization to
remind one he is not living in other days, or
certainly in other lands and among other asso-
ciations than those which city folk have come
to consider necessaries.
Killala Bay is flanked on the west by Down-
patrick Head, which rises two thousand feet
sheer above the sea-level. It is one of Ireland's
1 86 Romantic Ireland
true wonders, but attracts few, visitors save
migratory sea-fowl.
Killala itself, one learns from the " Life of
St. Patrick," is a place of great age. The
holy man himself
" Came to a pleasant place where the river
Muadas (Moy) empties itself into the ocean;
and on the south banks of said river he built
a noble church called Kill Aladh, of which he
made one of his disciples, Muredach, ,the first
bishop."
The present cathedral was entirely rebuilt
in the seventeenth century, and has no archi-
tectural importance. Close by, on a knoll,
about which the village is built, is a round
tower, eighty-four feet high and fifty-one feet
in circumference.
" At Kilcummin, on the west side of Killala
Bay, a body of French troops, under General
Humbert, landed, August 22, 1798, with the
object of supporting 1 the United Irishmen.
They at once took Killala and Ballina, and
at Castlebar the government levies were in
such haste to retire without fighting as to give
rise to the nickname, * Castlebar Races.' '
Ballina, at the head of Killala Bay, is the
Achill to Sligo 187
" tourist resort " of the region. It is pleasant
and delightful in all of its aspects, and in its
neighbourhood are some very interesting ar-
chitectural remains. There are, as is often the
case, a Roman Catholic and a Protestant ca-
thedral in the town, and an Augustinian
monastery, a ruin of a fifteenth-century struc-
ture, also many attractive vistas 'and spots
most worthy of the brush and pencil of the
artist.
These attractions pall in the mind of the
local spreader of publicity, who extols only
the size and varieties of fish which may be
taken in the river Moy and other near-by
waters.
From Ballina one reaches Sligo in five and
a half hours by means of that still prevalent
institution, the genuine Irish " low-backed
car."
Somewhere in the county of Sligo is the
" Valley of the Black Pig," which is possessed
of a legend which recounts how, for genera-
tions, the Irish peasantry have comforted
themselves in adversity by the memory of a
great battle fought here in this valley.
W. B. Yeats tells how, a few years ago, in
1 88 Romantic Ireland
the barony of Lisadell in Sligo, a peasant
would fall to the ground in a trance as it were,
and rave out a description of the bloody battle
which once took place.
This shows, at least, that tradition and
legend alike die hard in the minds of the peo-
ple, and when Mr. Yeats tells us that men
have told him that they have seen the girths
instantaneously rot and fall from horses; and
that few, if any, who enter the Black Valley
ever come out alive, we realize fully how
close we are, even in these times, to the age
of superstition in Ireland.
Mr. Yeats furthermore eulogized the inci-
dent in verse.
" The dew drops slowly ; the dreams gather ; unknown
spears
Suddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes ;
And then the clash of fallen horsemen, and the cries
Of unknown perishing armies beat about my ears.
We, who are labouring by the cromlech on the shore,
The gray cairn on the hill, when day sinks drowned in
dew,
Being weary of the world's empires, bow down to
you,
Master of the still stars, and of the flaming door."
Achill to Sligo 189
Sligo itself, with its ten thousand souls and
its important and matter-of-fact seafaring
trades, is a centre for journeying afoot or
awheel amid many charming scenes of lough
and lake and sea and shore.
Southward is Carrick on Shannon, the
gateway to the Shannon's lakes and rivers;
northward is the Bay of Donegal, backed by
its famous rugged "Highlands;" and, east-
ward, is Lough Erne, which, with its upper
and lower lakes and the river Erne trickling
minutely southward, is quite the rival of the
long-drawn-out Shannon, or would be if the
tide of popular fancy ever turned that way.
Enniskillen is the metropolis of Lough Erne.
Locally it is known as the Island City by rea-
son of its being apparently surrounded by the
all-enfolding waters of the upper and lower
lakes. Its fame lies principally in its entranc-
ing situation, and the memory of its various
regiments of Enniskillen Dragoons who have
fought and won gloriously in many of Eng-
land's " little wars," and big ones, too, for
that matter. The colours borne by the two
Enniskillen regiments at Waterloo are still
preserved in the parish church.
190 Romantic Ireland
Until the days of James L, Enniskillen was
no more than a stronghold of the Maguires,
but it then gained much prominence through
the eventful part it played in the domestic
struggles and troubles of the latter half of the
seventeenth century. Of the old castle, which
has braved so many fights, only a small por-
tion remains, and is incorporated in the mod-
ern military barracks, which, in one way, in-
dicate the importance of Enniskillen.
" The Falls of Erne," at Ballyshannon,
where the river joins its estuary with its rapid,
tumbling torrent falling over a thirty-foot
wall of rock, indicate in no unmistakable man-
ner the volume of water which flows from
source to sea. At Ballyshannon, which has
more than a local renown among disciples of
Izaak Walton, is the famous " salmon leap "
which, at certain seasons, provides a display of
the wonderful acrobatic ability of this gamy
fish. But a short three miles from Ballyshan-
non is Belleek, with its famous china factories
which produce a peculiarly lustrous egg-shell
ware much admired for its simplicity and
crudeness of form, but very transparent and
light. Here, too, are another series of rapids,
Achill to Sligo 193
as great in their way as those farther down-
stream. Sir Joseph Paxton called them " the
most picturesque in the world," but one should
judge for himself. They are marvellously ef-
fective, however, for the river falls nearly 150
feet in three miles or less.
Sligo itself, in spite of its commercial im-
portance, is not greatly appealing in its inter-
est, if one excepts its old abbey, now a ruin,
but once an exceedingly ambitious Dominican
establishment. Founded in 1252, it was des-
troyed by a fire in 1414, though immediately
rebuilt. Its Gothic is of that superlative qual-
ity known best in the superb monkish erections
of the Continent of Europe. There are vari-
ous monuments yet to be seen therein of local
and historical interest, but the chief attraction
is what remains of the beautiful cloister, fairly
perfect as to preservation, and surrounding
three sides of a rectangle. There are forty-
six arches, each about four feet and a half in
height, all elaborately carved, and quite differ-
ent one from another.
By an ancient and inalienable right, the
abbey grounds are still used as a Roman
Catholic burial-place.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DONEGAL HIGHLANDS
HT*HE Bay of Donegal, and indeed the
-*- whole Donegal district, is mellowed and
tempered by the ever-flowing Gulf Stream,
which, so the scientists say, were it diverted
by any terrestrial disturbance, would give to
the entire British Isles the temperature and
climate of Labrador. As this event is hardly
likely to take place, and certainly cannot be
foretold, the interest in the subject must rank
with that which one takes in the announce-
ment of the statisticians, for instance, that an
express-train travelling at sixty miles an hour
would take millions of years to reach Saturn,
were it once headed in that direction and had
the elevating and sustaining qualities of an
air-ship.
Certainly, the mean temperature of the
194
The Donegal Highlands 195
whole south and west coast of Ireland is mar-
vellously mild, and that of Donegal is ex-
ceptionally so.
The cliffs of Slieve League, which form a
jagged, many-coloured precipice, rise at a
sharp angle from the northern shore of Done-
gal Bay to the summit of the storm and wave-
riven mountain, a rock wall 1,972 feet high.
It is a grand and noble headland, as a glance
at the map will show, and is one of the most
lofty elevations seen from Bundoran and the
southern shores of the bay; moreover it is
accounted unique in all the world, by reason
of its marvellous colouring.
Bundoran is a bustling, thriving place, but
of the tourist order pur sang s with golf-links,
electric lights, and up-to-date hotels, and, for
that reason, if for no other, is a place for the
genuine lover of the road to avoid.
Donegal itself is an improvement. It is a
small but attractively placed town at the head
of its own bay, and, in spite of its being a
coast town, it is more allied with agricultural
interests than with trade by sea.
The guide-books tell one little of Donegal,
and so much the better. One enjoys finding
196 Romantic Ireland
out. things for oneself, and so one has prac-
tically a virgin field at Donegal unless he will
delve deep into frowsy historical works, such
as the " Annals " of the " Four Masters " of
the old Abbey of Donegal. The retreat where
they patched and pieced together this ancient
record is no more, but it stood, " proud,
grand, and rich " upon the site still marked by
some ruinous heaps of stones.
Donegal has the usual accompaniment of a
castle, but, in this case, it is a sixteenth-cen-
tury descendant of a former stronghold. It
is a fine Jacobean building, built up out of the
remnants of its parent, and, with its tall gabled
towers and turrets, is in every way a satis-
factory example of a mediaeval baronial resi-
dence, though differing in many essentials
from those common throughout Ireland.
Killybegs, between Donegal and Slieve
League, on the north shore of the bay, is one
of those picturesque coast villages on a land-
locked tiny bay, of which so many examples
exist in the British Islands. It is no more at-
tractive, nor any less so, than others, but it
has this distinction a lengthy sojourn there
will demonstrate beyond all doubt that one
DONEGAL CASTLE.
The Donegal Highlands 199
can live far away from a great city and yet
never miss its whilom attractions.
With many other places similarly situated,
a run " up to town " is inevitable and neces-
sary; here, one is apparently as completely
isolated from the distractions of the great
World outside as if he were marooned on a
desert isle, with the advantage, however, of
being able to get away at once by means of
what, to all appearances, is a toy railway run-
ning to Donegal.
Carrick is another village a little further on
and similarly isolated, more so, if anything,
in that the diminutive engine and its toy car-
riages stop, in its not rapid course, at Killy-
begs, and one journeys onward by " car."
To the southward are the heights of Slieve
League, Malin Beg and Teelin Head, and, if
one will brave the waves to the extent of
rounding these headlands by boat, he will then
experience something of the feeling which in-
spired the following lines, which, if rather
pretentious, are in no way fulsome :
" Once seen in morning sunshine, the view
of the southern face of Slieve League, rising
steeply from the sea, can never be forgotten;
2OO Romantic Ireland
the impressiveness and matchless colouring of
the rock defy description; its beauty must be
seen to be believed. Its glorious colours are
grouped in masses on the mountain's face:
stains of metal, green, amber, gold, yellow,
white, red, and every variety of shade are ob-
served, particularly when seen under a bright
sun, contrasting in a wonderful manner with
the dark blue waters beneath."
Some one has compared these variegated
cliffs to the effects to be seen, elsewhere, only
in the Yellowstone Park and the canyons of
Arizona or Colorado. Those who know Bier-
stadt or Moran's paintings of these wonders
of nature, or, better yet, the originals them-
selves, will appreciate the comparison.
The festival of St. Adamnan, eighth in de-
scent from the great King Nial and from
Conal, the ancestor of St. Columbkille, is kept
with great solemnity in many churches in
Ireland, of which he is titular patron, and in
the whole diocese of Raphoe, in the county of
Donegal, of which he was a native. The
abbatial church of Raphoe was changed into
a cathedral soon after, when St. Eunan was
consecrated the first bishop. He originally en-
The Donegal Highlands 201
tered the monastery founded by St. Columba,
and became its fifth abbot. In 701 he was ap-
pointed ambassador to King Alfred of the
Northern Saxons, to demand reparation for
the injuries committed upon Irish subjects in
Neath. It was St. Adamnan who first prevailed
upon the Church authorities in Ireland to cele-
brate Easter at the true and appointed time.
When he died, he left among his effects a
treatise on the right time of keeping Easter,
which disposed his people sometime after to
forsake their erroneous computation. He
wrote, too, the life of St. Columbkille, and also
certain canons, and a curious description of the
Holy Land as that country stood in his time.
This book furnished the Venerable Bede with
his principal memorials.
In this work on the Holy Land, St. Adam-
nan mentions the tombs of St. Simeon and of
St. Joseph at Jerusalem, and many relics of the
passion of Christ, as well as the impression of
the feet of the Saviour on Mount Olivet, cov-
ered with a church of a round figure, with a
hole open on the top, over the impression of
the footsteps. He also mentions grasshoppers
in the deserts of the Jordan, which the com
2O2 Romantic Ireland
mon people eat, boiled with oil ; and a portion
of the Cross in the Rotunda Church in Con-
stantinople, which was exposed on a golden
altar on the three last days of Holy Week,
when the emperor, court, army, clergy, and
others went to the church at different hours,
to kiss that sacred wood.
Two landmarks, known to all travellers to
the Clyde from America, by way of the north
of Ireland, are The Bloody Foreland and
Tory Island.
The guide-books tell but little concerning
this wild land of promontory and cliff, and
with some reason, too, for there is little or no
population there, except the fi'sherfolk and a
rather primitive race of agriculturists.
Donegal is assuredly a land of intermittent
beauty, and the hill-encircled loughs and the
verdant glens of Donegal Bay give way here
to a stern, relentless gray stone formation,
with here and there patches of green and
purple which indicate nothing so much as the
lonesomeness which is inevitable under such
conditions. But there is an impressiveness in
it all which is inexplicable, since the scenery,
The Donegal Highlands 205
though by no means tame, is not of the gran-
deur of many other parts.
It is doubtful if Tory Island which is
but a mere name, even to the few who know it
at all will ever be inundated by any large
flow of travel. If it was, there would doubt-
less be little accommodation provided for them,
for the simple reason that it does not exist,
though the island is possessed of a population
of some hundreds of men and women and chil-
dren, with schools and a church in fact two,
which are ever a point of contention and ar-
gument among their respective constituencies.
It was not long since that the cleric in charge
of one of these houses of God nearly starved,
because he would not desert his post, and " the
powers that be " on the mainland had evidently
abandoned him to his fate, or had forgotten
him altogether.
Between the Tory Island and Malin Head,
that other beacon-light for seafarers, is the
great inlet or fiord of Lough Swilly, meaning
in Celtic " Lake of Shadows," which, though
quite as beautiful as Lough Foyle, its neigh-
bour on the east, is, for some unexplained
reason, quite neglected. Of Lough Foyle, at
2o6 Romantic Ireland
the head of whose ample waters sits that city
familiarly called Derry, built by certain
citizens of London in the reign of James I.,
Sir Walter Scott has said :
" Nothing can be more favourable than this
specimen of Ireland a beautiful variety of
cultivated slopes, intermixed with banks of
wood; rocks skirted with a distant ridg~e of
healthy hills, watered by various brooks; the
glens or banks being in general planted or cov-
ered with copse."
This is not a particularly vivid statement,
to be sure, but it is true and temperate, and far
more likely to fit in with the views of the casual
observer than the rather florid word-paint-
ings of other parts of Ireland which have been
offered by rhapsodists of all shades of opinion.
CHAPTER IX.
LONDONDERRY AND THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY
LONDONDERRY was the original site
of an abbey for the canons of the Au-
gustinian order founded by St. Columbkille in
546. There was also an abbey for Cistercian
nuns founded in 1218, and a Dominican friary
founded in 1274, "by request of St. Domi-
nick," as the chronicles put it, whatever sig-
nificance that statement may have.
Derry, as it is commonly called, owes its
name to the confiscation of the estates of the
O'Neills in 1609, most of the lands being be-
stowed on various citizens of London. Derry,
the ancient name, means " the place of oaks."
All this part of Ulster was once heavily for-
ested, but it is now conspicuously bare. Nearly
160,000 acres of the county are still owned
by the Irish Society, while two London liv-
207
208 Romantic Ireland
ery companies, the Skinners' and the Drapers',
are also owners of large holdings.
Derry is usually described as " a prettily
situated town, built upon a high hill." It is
quite in keeping with the description, and is
also a place of much interest, as will be found
upon a close acquaintance, though it is un-
questionably a curious mixture of old and new,
of foundries, distilleries, and manufactories,
which, at every turn, are contrasted with a
celebrity and an interest quite of the past.
Londonderry was formerly fortified, con-
trary to the usual Irish conception of military
science and architecture, which favoured the
method advanced in the Spartan proverb,
" The city is best environed which has walls
of men instead of brick."
There were originally four gates (afterward
six) piercing the city walls, Bishops Gate,
Ships Quay Gate, New Gate, and Ferry Gate.
The Cathedral of Derry is a plain Gothic
structure far inferior in rank and splendour to
those of its class in other lands, and dates only
from the early seventeenth century. The epis-
copal palace occupies the site of St. Columb-
kille's abbey.
Londonderry and Giant's Causeway 211
The chief event in Berry's history, and one
which is called to the visitor's attention at
every turning-point and stopping-place, was the
siege so graphically described by Macaulay.
In brief, the event took place thus :
" A letter was sent to the Earl of Mount
Alexander at Cumber in County Down on
December 3, 1688, giving the information that
six days later certain numbers throughout Ire-
land, in pursuance of an oath which they had
taken, were to rise and massacre the Protes-
tants, men, women, and children. This letter
furthermore warned the earl to take particu-
lar care of himself, as a captain's commission
would be the reward of the man who would
murder him."
The information reached Derry too late to
secure the safety of the city. The terrified
Protestants were filled with doubt as to what
measures of precaution should be taken. Two
companies of the Irish appeared on the oppo-
site bank of the stream, and the officers were
ferried over to make proposals for entering
the town, which was nearly betrayed into their
hands by the treachery of the deputy mayor,
who was inclined to favour King James II.
212 Romantic Ireland
Impatient for the return of their officers, the
soldiers crossed the river, and came to within
three hundred yards of the Ferry Gate.
" The young men of the city observing this,"
says Gordon's " History of Ireland," " about
eight or nine of them, whose names deserve
to be preserved in letters of gold, viz., Henry
Campsie, William Crookshanks, Robert Sher-
rard, Alexander Irwin, James Steward, Robert
Morrison, Alexander Coningham, Samuel
Hunt, with James Spike, John Coningham,
William Cairns, Samuel Harvey, and some
others who soon joined them, ran to the main-
guard, seized the keys, after a slight opposi-
tion, came to the Ferry Gate, drew up the
bridge, and locked the gate just as Lord An-
trim's soldiers had advanced within sixty yards
of it."
The siege lasted one hundred and five days,
during which time the townspeople were re-
duced to the direst extremities. " Reduced,"
writes the historian, " to the extremity of dis-
tress, and endeavouring to support the remains
of life by such miserable food as the flesh of
dogs and vermin, even tallow and hides, nor
able to find more than two days' provisions of
Londonderry and Giant's Causeway 213
such substances, the garrison was still assured
by the harangues of Walker, in a prophetic
spirit, that God would relieve them; and men
reduced almost to shadows made desperate
sallies, but were unable to pursue their advan-
tage." The besiegers had thrown a boom
across the river to prevent all navigation, and
Kirk, the Orange admiral, had already been
deterred by it from attempting the relief of
the town. At length two provision ships and
a frigate drew near to the city. One ship
" dashed with giant strength against the bar-
rier, and grounded, though subsequently
floated out into deep water."
Nearly twenty-five hundred citizens died of
famine or at the hands of the enemy during
the siege.
Near Londonderry is the Grianan of Ail-
lach, upon which are the remains of what is
thought to have been an ancient royal residence
which, in splendour and importance, must have
ranked high among the ancient palaces of the
Irish kings.
By some, however, it has been asserted that
this remarkable work, of which, to be sure,
only fragmentary ruins remain, was a former
Ii4 Romantic Ireland
temple dedicated to the worship of the sun. At
any rate, it was evidently a splendid and im-
posing structure.
Its present appearance is that of a truncated
cairn of extraordinary dimensions, which, on
closer inspection, proves to be a building con-
structed with every attention to masonic regu-
larity, both in design and workmanship. A
circular wall, of considerable thickness, en-
closes an area of eighty-two feet in diameter.
Judging from the numbers of stones which
have fallen off on every side, so as to form, in
fact, a sloping glacis of ten or twelve feet
broad all around it, this wall must have been
of considerable height, probably from ten to
twelve feet; but its thickness varies, that por-
tion of it extending from north to south, and
embracing the western half of the circle, be-
ing but ten or eleven feet, whereas, in the cor-
responding, or eastern half, the thickness in-
creases to sixteen or seventeen, particularly at
the entrance.
One of the inevitable illustrations of the
old-time school geographies of our youth was
a representation of the " Giant's Causeway,"
with its queer, hassocklike, basaltic stones,
Londonderry and Giant's Causeway 215
built in fantastic forms, like the structures
children themselves are wont to erect from their
building-blocks.
Next in order come the books of pictorial
travel and " table books " of the " wonders
of the world," where the same picture appears
again; and, finally, the astute proprietors of
ardent spirit which is distilled at Bushmills,
an ancient town of perhaps a thousand in-
habitants, between Portrush, Coleraine, and
the basalt-bound coast of Northern Ireland,
have covered walls and fences with quite
the most pleasing and alluring of all the pic-
torial representations of this unique rocky
formation.
By these various means, the aspect of " The
Giant's Causeway " has become familiar to all.
So, too, most people are familiar with the chief
characteristics; for which reason it is useless
to repeat them in detail here.
It was in the last years of the seventeenth
century that this wonderland of nature first
attracted the attention of the inquisitive, and
from that time on its peculiarities have drawn
many thousands of visitors of all ranks, from
the mere pleasure and sensation loving tourist
2 1 6 Romantic Ireland
of convention to the profound scientist and
antiquarian.
The five and six-sided basalt rocks are piled
perpendicularly one upon the other, in contrast
to most rocky formations, which lie on their
sides, and the varying heights of the columns
form those significantly named groups known
as the " Organ and Pipes," " Samson's Ribs,"
and the three " Causeways," the chief of which
gives its name to the group.
By those who have delved into the subject,
armed with a profound geological knowledge,
plummet and line, and rule and level, we are
informed that " There is only one triangular
pillar throughout the whole extent of the three
Causeways. It stands near the east side of
the Grand Causeway. There are but three
pillars of nine sides; one of them situated in
the Honeycomb, and the others not far from
the triangular pillar just noticed. The total
number having four and eight sides bears but
a small proportion to the entire mass of pillars,
of which it may be safely computed that ninety-
nine out of one hundred have either five, six,
or seven sides."
For a further description, which shall be
Londonderry and Giant's Causeway 219
brief and to the point, we have the remarks of
Kohl, the antiquarian who devoted so much
of his energy to a study of Ireland's peculiar
and rare beauties.
He says : " With all the explanations that
can be offered with respect to the origin of
this phenomena, so much is left unexplained
that they answer very little purpose. On a
close investigation of these wonderful forma-
tions, so many questions arise that one scarcely
ventures to utter them. With inquiries of this
nature, perhaps not the least gain is the knowl-
edge of how much lies beyond the limits of our
inquiries, and how many things that lie so
plainly before our eyes, which we can see and
handle, may yet be wrapped in unfathomable
mystery. We see in the Giant's Causeway the
most certain and obvious effects produced by
the operation of active and powerful forces
which entirely escape our scrutiny. We walk
over the heads of some forty thousand col-
umns (for this number has been counted by
some curious and leisurely persons), all beau-
tifully cut and polished, formed of such neat
pieces, so exactly fitted to each other, and so
cleverly supported, that we might fancy we
220 Romantic Ireland
had before us the work of ingenious human
artificers; and yet what we behold is the re-
sult of the immutable laws of nature, acting
without any apparent object, and by a process
which must remain a mystery for ever to our
understanding. Even the simplest inquiries it
is often impossible to answer; such, for in-
stance, as how far these colonnades run out
beneath the sea, and how far into the land,
which throws over them a veil as impenetrable
as that of the ocean."
There are to be found in this group a great
number of caves ; some of a unique character,
and many more like most other caves, present-
ing no striking peculiarity. Portcoon Cave is
noted for its echo, and Dunkerry Cave for
the fact that it can only be entered from the
sea.
There is a " Giant's Well," of course, which
legend tells was but one of the many domestic
arrangements which nature had provided for
the former Gargantuan inhabitants of these
parts, but the chief of all the attractions is the
Causeway itself, which is divided into three
tongues, the Little, the Middle, and the Grand
Causeways.
Londonderry and Giant's Causeway 221
" The Giant's Organ," with its pipes, sug-
gested by the basaltic erections of various
heights, possesses perhaps the greatest senti-
mental interest. The guide-books tell one that
he should imagine some gigantic personage
seated as if before a keyboard, and ringing
out wild melodies in quick succession. It will
take an exceedingly vivid imagination to call
up this inspiration, and one had much better
accept the tale as set forth in the ancient leg-
end, and not attempt to revivify the scene in
these advanced days, when the electric-tram
from Bushmills is depositing its hundreds
daily at the very foot of the Causeway.
There are traditions without end which at-
tempt to account for this wonderful natural
production of the Causeway itself, but one
shall suffice here. If the reader wants more
he can get them without number and without
end if he will but listen to the voluble guides
of the neighbourhood. The Giant Fin M'Coul
was the champion of Ireland, and felt very
much aggrieved at the insolent boasting of a
certain Caledonian giant, who offered to beat
all who came before him, and even dared to
tell Fin that if it weren't for the wetting of
222 Romantic Ireland
himself, he would swim over and give him a
drubbing. Fin at last applied to the king, who,
not daring, perhaps, to question the doings of
such a weighty man, gave him leave to con-
struct a causeway right to Scotland, on which
the Scot walked over and fought the Irishman.
Fin turned out victor, and with an amount of
generosity quite becoming his Hibernian de-
scent, kindly allowed his former rival to marry
and settle in Ireland, which the Scot was not
loath to do, seeing that at that time living in
Scotland was none of the best, and everybody
knows that Ireland was always the richest
country in the world. Since the death of the
giants, the Causeway, being no longer wanted,
has sunk under the sea, only leaving a portion
of itself visible here, a little at the island of
Rathlin, and the portals of the grand gate on
Staffa off the Scottish coast.
This certainly seems an acceptably plausible
legend, so far as legends can meet those con-
ditions. It is certainly a picturesque one, and
the great gateway of the island of Staffa has
much if not all the attributes of its brother
across the sea.
As a whole, the Causeways and their attri-
Londonderry and Giant's Causeway 223
butes are indeed suggestive as has been said
before by some discerning person of a scene
from Dante's Inferno. More particularly
they might be likened to a drawing of Gus-
tave Dore's, illustrating that immortal poem,
as we have mostly drawn our conception of
what that land was like from his work, rather
than from Dante's descriptions.
At all events, it is a huge nightmare of scenic
effect, although a pleasant one.
Between Portrush, really the seaport of
Coleraine, and the Giant's Causeway is Dunluce
Castle, " the most picturesque ruin ever be-
held," said an enthusiastic Irishman. As the
Scot will tell you the same of Melrose, the
statement may well be left in doubt.
At any rate, Dunluce, like Dunseverick, the
ancient seat of the O'Cahans or O'Kanes, has
been in part hewn out of the coast-line rocks,
and possesses a precipitous and jagged barrier
which might well be expected to forbid any
attack by sea. It is, moreover, entirely sepa-
rated from the mainland, though at low water
connected therewith by a miniature causeway
in much the same manner as was originally
224 Romantic Ireland
the famous abbey of Mont St. Michel in Nor-
mandy.
Among the ruins is a small vaulted cham-
ber in which, it is believed by a great many
folk around about, a banshee resides. The
reason assigned for this belief is that the floor
is always perfectly clean. It is difficult to
follow this line of reasoning; more probably
the true solution of the problem is that the
wind, having free access to and egress from
the apartment, carries dust and dirt before it.
Another chamber in the northeast side has
fearful attractions for the venturesome. The
rock which formerly supported this room has
fallen away, and, like a dovecot, it is sus-
pended in the air only by its attachment to the
main building.
The erection of Dunluce Castle has been
assigned to De Courcy, Earl of Ulster, and
the castle was in the hands of the English in
the fifteenth century. In 1 580, or thereabouts,
Colonel M'Donald, the founder of the family
of MacDonnells of Antrim, came to Ireland
to assist Tyrconnel against the O'Neill, a
powerful chieftain, and was hospitably enter-
tained by M'Quillan, the Lord of Dunluce,
Londonderry and Giant's Causeway 225
whom he assisted in subduing his savage
neighbours. Being successful in their enter-
prise, M' Donald returned to Dunluce, and was
pressed to winter in the castle, having his
men quartered on the vassals of M'Quillan.
M'Donald, however, took advantage of his
position as a guest, says history, and privately
married the daughter of his host. Upon this
marriage the MacDonnells afterward rested
their claim to M'Quillan's territory. A con-
spiracy among the Irish to murder the Scot-
tish chief and his followers was discovered by
his wife, and they made their escape, but re-
turned afterward and came to possess a con-
siderable portion of the county of Antrim.
The affairs of the M'Quillans and their suc-
cessors, the MacDonnells, have left endless
traditions, but the descendants of the former
are now no more known as " kings and lords,"
having fallen to the condition of " hewers of
wood and drawers of water," says a local his-
torian. The Scottish family became lords of
Antrim and Dunluce.
In the autumn of 1814 a visit was paid to
the ruins of Dunluce by Sir Walter Scott, who
observed a great resemblance in it to Dunottar
226 Romantic Ireland
Castle in Kincardineshire. A detailed descrip-
tion of the ruins is given in his diary.
Just off the Giant's Causeway is Rathlin
Island, between which and the Mull of Cantyre
on the Scottish coast all the Clyde-bound ships
feel their way and the traveller by sea knows
that he is well in toward the Firth of Clyde.
Rathlin Island may naturally enough be pre-
sumed to be of the same strata of rocky forma-
tion of which the Causeway is built, practically
a link which once may have bound Ireland and
Scotland.
Robert Bruce, in 1306, during the wars be-
tween him and Baliol, fled to this island with
three hundred men, returning to Scotland in
the spring of the following year. A ruined
castle, said to be inhabited by Bruce, and still
bearing his name, is situated on a high, almost
perpendicular piece of land, and from it may
be obtained a view of the Scottish coast. Many
of the inhabitants, who number above a thou-
sand, speak only the ancient Irish language.
All the world knows Carrick-a-Rede and its
famous rope-bridge. It has even been pictured
in the school geographies along with such won-
ders of the world as Niagara Falls and the
CARRICK - A - REDE.
Londonderry and Giant's Causeway 229
Pyramids of Egypt. It is a precipitous island-
rock, a hundred feet or more high, which is
linked to the mainland by an airy swinging
bridge of ropes and " slats," sixty feet long.
There are no sights on the tiny island itself,
and the bridge is only meant for the accom-
modation of fisher and shepherd folk, who,
according to the guide-books, run across it
heavily laden with baskets or carcasses, and
in a manner amazing to the ordinary beholder.
In practice, or at least so far as the casual
traveller is concerned, they do this only as a
sort of side-show before an appreciative au-
dience who may have paid the price of admis-
sion. Nevertheless, it is a more or less fright-
ful crossing, and one which seems to fascinate
all who view it; so much so that the desire
to emulate the venturesome native rises high in
the stranger's breast. There is no hand-rail to
the bridge, only a rope that swings clear away
from the slight foothold if it is heavily
grasped ; and each step makes the whole fabric
quiver like a jelly from end to end. Still, by
stepping quickly and lightly, and keeping the
eyes fixed on the opposite rock, the pass can
be made; and if the venturesome traveller
230 Romantic Ireland
misses his footing, and takes a header of a
hundred feet, " he will not be drowned," says
the enterprising writer of a certain railway-
guide; " the fall generally kills him outright."
The return journey is the worst, the bridge
sloping downward toward the mainland. The
local fisher-people, however, are quite accus-
tomed to getting out boats in order to release
some unlucky voyager from imprisonment on
the rock, when discretion has suddenly over-
powered valour at the commencement of the
return trip ; but again it is a question of price.
It will be gathered from the above that the
writer's advice, concerning the crossing of the
rope-bridge, is paraphrased in one word,
" Don't."
CHAPTER X.
ANTRIM AND DOWN
JOURNEYING from the Giant's Causeway
to Belfast and Dublin, through the north-
eastern counties of Antrim and Down, one
comes upon a region little known to the casual
traveller, who is usually smitten at once with
the charms of Killarney and the South, and
who neglects this more conveniently and com-
fortably traversed region.
Truth to tell, the large centres of popula-
tion of Dublin and Belfast, and sundry visit-
ors from the " Midlands " of England, have
appropriated it as their own playground, and,
" in the season," are found here in large num-
bers.
This need be no detraction from the charms
of the region, which, if not historically and
picturesquely possessed of the same qualities as
the middle and south of Ireland, at least has
231
232 Romantic Ireland
the advantage of being an unworn road to the
majority of travellers.
Drogheda, on the estuary of the river Boyne,
is the first happy hunting-ground for the stu-
dent of history and architecture, after he
leaves the immediate environs of Dublin itself.
Drogheda is at once ancient and modern.
Its shops and factories, its shipping and its
tramways, are evidences of that modernity
which is ever obtrusive in an old-world shrine
of history.
Drogheda, according to one authority, was
formerly called Tredagh, and originally Imb-
bar Colpa. "It is so very ancient that it is
supposed to have been founded by Heremon,
one of the sons of Milesius, who, having ar-
rived from Spain with Heber and his other
brothers at Imbbar Sceine (Bantry Bay), was
subsequently separated from Heber by a storm,
and, while Heber regained the Kerry coast,
Heremon, after innumerable hardships, put
into Drogheda, where he effected a landing,
but with the loss of his brothers and Colpa, the
swordsman, who perished in the bay, and from
which circumstance the town derived its
name." Thus writes Anthony Marmion, in
Antrim and Down 233
his " History of the Maritime Ports of Ire-
land." " There can be no doubt," he continues,
" that an eastern colony of Mithraic, or sun-
worshippers, had been early established in the
neighbourhood of Drogheda." Coming, how-
ever, to less remote and fabulous happenings,
Drogheda, whose Irish name was Droicehead-
atha, the Bridge of the Ford, was taken by
Turgesius the Dane in 911, and made a strong-
hold for raids into the surrounding country.
Its importance was also recognized by the
Anglo-Normans, who built a bridge across the
Boyne at this point. The most celebrated
military event in the town's history was its
siege and capture by Cromwell in 1649.
The walls and gates, so unusual in Ireland,
were formerly a line of defence a mile and
a half or more in circumference, and, from the
very substantial remains of the St. Laurence
Gate and the West or Butler Gate, it may be
inferred that they were a wonderfully effective
defence, sharing with the walls of Derry the
glory of being the most elaborate works of
their kind in Ireland.
The most curious architectural embellish-
ment of Drogheda is the famous Magdalen
234 Romantic Ireland
steeple all that remains of the Dominican
Abbey founded in 1224 by the Archbishop of
Armagh, whose remains lie buried in the ruins.
Here, in 1395, Richard II. of England held
court, and within the building four Irish
princes did homage to the king, and were
knighted by him. Cromwell's cannon razed
the building until only the grim, gaunt tower
or steeple was left. A sepulchral cairn of stone,
known as the Mill Mount, appears to have
been the ancient citadel of Drogheda. A myth-
ical hero of the prechristian era, " Ghoban the
Smith," is supposed to have been buried here.
North of the Boyne estuary is Dundalk Bay,
in itself a beautifully disposed body of water
which, if not possessed of the ruggedness of
the fiords of Western Ireland, is in every way
an attractive setting for Dundalk itself, which
is mostly a town of one long vertebrate street
along which short spines radiate for a brief
distance and lose themselves in the background
of hills or in the strand of the sea.
Edward Bruce, the brother of the Scottish
Robert, stormed Dundalk after Bannockburn,
and lived here, after taking the town, for two
Antrim and Down 235
years. He died in the engagement fought near
Dundalk with the English army, in 1318.
In 1649 Monk held the town for the king
against Cromwell.
At the head of Carlingford Lough is Newry,
pleasantly situated in a valley overlooked by
the Carlingford Mountains. It is one of the
most ancient towns in the island, being famed
even in Irish bardic literature. It was also
the seat of a monastery, where St. Patrick
himself, it is said, planted a yew-tree, referred
to in no complimentary strain in Swift's satiric
couplet :
" High Church, low steeple,
Dirty streets, and proud people."
Newry took to itself the admonition, cleaned
itself up in later years, and has become in all
respects a flourishing modern town.
A Cistercian abbey was founded here in
1175, according to the " Monasticum Hiber-
nica," but no remains exist to-day to suggest
its former importance.
Rostrevor is the chief tourist centre of
Carlingford Lough. It is confidently claimed
236 Romantic Ireland
by many to be the most popular resort in all
Ireland, which it evidently is.
Moreover, it is a marvellously pretty place
of the stage-scenery order, but its attractions
are somewhat exaggerated. Its popularity is
accounted for by its accessibility to Dublin
and Belfast, whose work-worn habitants flee
here in large numbers, in season and out.
Rostrevor, as might be expected, has its popu-
lar legend also. It runs as follows:
" The Bell of St. Bronach, now to be seen
on the altar of the Catholic Chapel, has a
strangely romantic history. There is a ruined
Church of Kilbroney on the hillside, not far
from the town. For hundreds of years, the
legend of a fairy bell had been current about
Kilbroney. It was said that, whenever mis-
fortune threatened the town, the note of a
strange, silvery, unearthly sounding bell echoed
through the forests. Many heard the bell, but
no one succeeded in solving the mystery, or
indeed, ever suspected that there was any solu-
tion save a supernatural one. In the end of
the eighteenth century, however, an ancient
tree was blown down, and, in its hollow heart,
was found a bronze church-bell of immense
Antrim and Down 237
size and of great antiquarian value. It was
this bell, hidden in the heart of the tree many
centuries before, that had sounded its note
of death and terror, whenever a storm of un-
usual force rocked the great tree in whose
depths it lay concealed. No doubt it had been
hidden in the tree for safety, during some
raid of pagan tribes, and by accident, or
through the death of the pious ecclesiastic who
concealed it, was never removed."
Carlingford itself, and the celebrated beauty
of the Lough, will ever appeal to all lovers of
nature and romantic associations.
The great attraction is Carlingford Castle,
one of King John's Irish fortresses, erected in
1210 by De Courcy at the king's bidding.
Some ruined castles are interesting, some
rather the reverse. Carlingford Castle belongs
to the former class. The courtyard, with its
walls eleven feet in thickness, and galleries
fitted with recesses for archers at each loop-
hole; the curious little secret chamber, which
one may reach by climbing up a wall, and
through a mass of tangled ivy; the spiral
staircase winding up to an airy battlemented
height; all these are as interesting as they are
238 Romantic Ireland
picturesque. Underground, there is a range
of small, gloomy dungeons, hewn out of the
solid rock, where many a gallant life must
have been worn away in bitter agony and des-
pair, seven centuries ago, in those times when
chivalry and romance were inextricably mixed
with brutality. Just above the dungeon-cells
runs the ruined stone terrace, looking out to
sea, where (tradition says) the lords and ladies
who accompanied King John to Ireland used
to walk up and down of a summer evening, in
the cool of the sunset wind. This of course
is most probable, and it is perhaps a not un-
usual proceeding, still it is pleasant to recall.
The lute must often have sounded across the
waters of the lough in those golden evening
hours, the careless laugh rung out, the silken
cloak swung, and the gauzy veil fluttered from
the high "sugar-loaf" head-dress, within sound
of clanking chains, and cries from half-mad-
dened, famishing, and tortured wretches below.
One need go no deeper into history than any
account of King John, to understand what kind
of treatment his prisoners were likely to re-
ceive.
Greenore, at the mouth of Carlingford
Antrim and Down 239
Lough, is the key to the passenger traffic be-
tween England and Belfast, Londonderry,
Enniskillen, and other places in the north and
northwest of Ireland. It is a remarkable fact
that the strategic importance of Carlingford
Lough should be thus recognized in a peaceful
fashion at the end of the nineteenth century;
for one recalls that the ruined castles at Car-
lingford and Greencastle were built by the
Anglo-Normans, at the close of the twelfth
and beginning of the thirteenth centuries, to
protect their lines of communication when in-
vading, in a far different and more tragic
fashion, the hills and dales of Ulster. The
frowning ruins of Carlingford Castle still seem
to guard the western shore of the lough, while
the fortress of Greencastle, on the eastern
shore, commands a glorious view from its lofty
battlements.
Greenore supposedly presents many attrac-
tions for the tourist, but they are mainly of the
kind set forth in the tourist programmes of the
shipping companies and the railways, and, in
fact, they are but of the conventional variety,
though it is only fair to say they are here
perused under very attractive and charming
240 Romantic Ireland
conditions. But the various journeyings of
the collaborators to this volume were not for
the sake of sea-bathing, golf, or tennis ; hence
Greenore is now dismissed and gladly.
The railway runs the length of Carlingford
Lough, along the base of Carlingford Moun-
tain, which rises to nearly two thousand feet,
to Newry at the head of the Lough, where, on
a rock which projects into the river, stands
Narrow Water Castle, built in 1663 on the site
of a thirteenth-century edifice erected by Hugh
de Lacy.
Ardglass, between Carlingford and Belfast
Loughs, is seldom heard of in literature or the
news items of the daily press ; but it is a quaint
little town of half a thousand inhabitants
situated on the seacoast, with Dundrum Bay
and the Mourne Mountains of County Down
for a background.
Once it was the chief port of Ulster (its
name, Ard-glas, means the green height), and
was so important a town that it was guarded
by seven castles, but one of which, Jordan's
Castle, is to-day in any state of preservation.
The county town of Down is Downpatrick.
It is ancient and historic, and has a prospect,
>*'; .>
&J11
"~ T*_- *^~
Antrim and Down 243
on the river Quoile, which shows off its im-
posing cathedral in a most pleasing manner.
The native Kings of Ulster had their resi-
dence here before the coming of Christianity.
The town was known anciently to Ptolemy,
who called it Dunum.
The religious foundation of the place dates
from 432 to 440, when St. Patrick established
the see and the Abbey of Saul of the Canons
Regular, who was superceded in 1183, a few
years after the town was taken by John de
Courcy, by the Benedictines.
The cathedral of to-day is a rehabilitation
of an ancient ecclesiastical building, though to
all appearances it is a comparatively modern
work and is often credited as such.
Locally, great importance is naturally at-
tached to the supposed fact that Downpatrick
is the burial-place of St. Patrick, and a rough,
unhewn boulder marks the spot in the church-
yard where his bones rest or do not rest,
for there is great and constant doubt as to
whether this is really so or not. However,
there are, it is to be presumed, many who
would like to believe they had visited such a
244 Romantic Ireland
hallowed spot, and perhaps for this reason the
want has been supplied.
Moreover, in the old church which stood on
the site of the present cathedral, which Harris,
the antiquarian, described in 1744, there was
an inscription in monkish Latin which, trans-
lated, reads:
" Three saints do rest upon this holy hill,
St. Patrick, Bridget, and Columbkille."
This would seem to justify in a measure the
claim, though the rhyme is pretty bad.
Jeremy Taylor was for a time Bishop of
Down, as was also Thomas Percy, celebrated
for his famous edition of the " Reliques of An-
cient Poetry."
There are many historical and ecclesiastical
remains in the immediate neighbourhood, in-
cluding the Cistercian Abbey of Inch, founded
in 1187 by John de Courcy, and the celebrated
Wells of Struell, supposedly of great virtue
for the lame, the halt, and the blind. To-day
their efficacy seems somewhat dimmed, as one
does not hear of any remarkable cures which
have recently taken place.
About the only convenient way to reach
Antrim and Down 245
Armagh, Ireland's most ancient and famous
seat of learning, when making the coast
tour of the north of Ireland, is from Belfast.
Armagh, about which so much has been
written by all manner of pen-wielders, and
about which so miuch is yet destined to be
written, is one of the most attractive towns in
Ireland, albeit it is not on the seacoast or on
an important waterway.
Newcastle, in the minds of many, is merely
the home of " The best golf-links in Ireland."
This is perhaps a sign of the advanced age in
which we live, but Newcastle, forty miles north
of Dublin, can lay claim to more than that.
Newcastle, as a tourist point and " a beauty-
spot," really exists by means of, and on ac-
count of, Slieve Donard, the highest mountain
in Ulster, which hangs its 2,796 feet right over
the little seacoast town, and provides non-
golfing visitors with a continual field for pleas-
ant excursions. The beautiful estate of Donard
Lodge lying on the slope of the mountain is,
too, a great attraction, as also are Castlewellan,
the seat of the Earl of Annesley, and the Earl
of Roden's domain of Tollymore Park; and
as these three estates enclose or command most
246 Romantic Ireland
of the beautiful mountain and forest scenery
for which Newcastle is noted, they really form,
the irresistible attractions of the place. The
whole range of the beautiful blue Mourne
Mountains can be seen from Castlewellan,
which lies on the side of Slieve-na-Slat.
Not far from Newcastle is Rostrevor, a
prettly little village with a church-spire nes-
tling among the trees and overhanging the
picturesque coast-line of Carlingford Lough.
Much morbid interest is usually awakened
by the recollection of certain events which took
place in the neigbourhood. At Bloody Bridge
was a terrible massacre in 1641 ; Mourne
Park and Mourne Abbey are generally famous
spots ; the village of Killowen, from which the
late Lord Russell of Killowen chose his title,
contains the house where Pat Murphy, the Irish
giant, was born, and the ruined chapel where
the celebrated Yelverton marriage took place
in 1861.
Many will recall the details of this famous
cause celebre. Pretty Miss Longworth, a
Roman Catholic girl of high family, met and
was loved by the Protestant Major Yelverton,
whom she nursed in the Crimea. A secret
Antrim and Down 247
marriage was arranged after both had returned
to Ireland, and a hurried journey was made
from Waterford to Rostrevor. They rowed
down the lough to the little chapel next
morning, and were married by the parish priest.
In after years came the desertion of the bride
and an action for maintenance, which was de-
cided by an Irish jury in the lady's favour,
but subsequently reversed by the House of
Lords. Probably no mixed-marriage case
ever excited so much interest in the three king-
doms, and even yet the chapel and the village
are inextricably associated with this sad story
of love and betrayal.
CHAPTER XI.
THE BOYNE VALLEY
DROGHEDA, at the mouth of the Boyne,
first calls to mind the memorable siege
by Cromwell, and the " Battle of the Boyne."
In 1649 Cromwell landed at Dublin with an
army of twelve thousand men besides artillery.
Drogheda was the first place he attacked.
The assailants were twice repulsed, but the
third attack, led by Cromwell in person, was
successful; and then commenced that indis-
criminate slaughter which has rendered the
name of the Protector execrated throughout
Ireland.
It was a plain, matter-of-fact, brutal war-
fare, this, but the battle of the Boyne asso-
ciated with the doubly historic little river
which rises out of one of Ireland's famous
" holy wells," in the county of Kildare pos-
sesses more largely the elements of romance
248
The Boyne Valley 249
than many another, though they were more
bloody and the results of greater moment.
Here, within a mile of Drogheda, where the
unlovely obelisk still marks the spot, was
fought, in 1690, the celebrated battle between
the Prince of Orange and his father-in-law,
James II. The armies were nearly equal in
strength, thirty thousand men. Five hundred
were killed on the side of William of Orange,
and one thousand on the other. The account
of the flight of James II., taken from Kohl's
"Ireland," is interesting:
" James II. displayed but little courage in
this memorable battle. He abandoned the field
even before the battle was decided, and made
a ride of unexampled rapidity through Ire-
land. In a few hours he reached the castle of
Dublin, and in the following day he rode to
Waterford, a distance of one hundred English
miles. Nevertheless, James sought to throw
the whole blame of the defeat on the Irish.
On arriving at the castle of Dublin, he met
the Lady Tyrconnel, a woman of ready wit,
to whom he exclaimed, ' Your countrymen,
the Irish, madam, can run very fast, it must
be owned.' ' In this, as in every other re-
250 Romantic Ireland
spect, your Majesty surpasses them, for you
have won the race,' was the merited rebuke of
the lady."
An obelisk to-day marks the spot where
William commenced the attack, and where
Schomberg fell. The inscription which it
bears is significant, sectarian, and sentimental,
it is true; but it is explanatory of much that
makers of guide-books have often neglected or
ignored.
11 Sacred to the glorious memory of King William the
Third, who, on the first of July, 1690, passed the river
near this place to attack James the Second at the head
of a Popish army, advantageously posted on the south
side of it, and did on that day, by a single battle, secure
to us, and to our posterity, our liberty, laws, and religion.
In consequence of this action James the Second left this
kingdom and fled to France.
" This memorial of our deliverance was erected in the
9th year of the reign of King George the Second, the first
stone being laid by Lionel Sackville, Duke of Dorset,
Lord Lieutenant of the Kingdom of Ireland.
"1736."
The entire Boyne valley, restricted though
its area is, encompasses much more of the his-
toric past of Ireland than any other spot.
The Boyne Valley 251
There may elsewhere be grander scenery,
admittedly there is, and there may even be
more numerous historic remains, and of greater
magnitude; but from Drogheda to its source
in Kildare is a grand succession of spots which
have made much history for Ireland, and great
fame for those who figured in the events that
took place.
The great figure of prechristian Erin is
undoubtedly that of Cormac-Ard-ri-Cormace
the First, who reigned in the early years of the
third century.
" His reign," says Haverty, the historian,
" is generally looked upon as the brightest
epoch in the entire history of pagan Ireland."
He established three colleges; one for war,
one for history, and the third for jurispru-
dence. He collected and remodelled the laws,
and published the code which remained in force
throughout all Ireland until the English in-
vasion (a period extending beyond nine hun-
dred years), and which, outside the English
pale, lingered for many centuries after! He
assembled the bards and chroniclers at Tara,
and directed them to collect the annals of Ire-
land, and to write out the records of the coun-
252 Romantic Ireland
try from year to year, making them agree
with the history of other countries, by col-
lating events with the reigns of contemporary
foreign potentates, Cormac himself having
been the inventor of this kind of chronology.
If this be so, the modern historians who claim
to have been the originators of this cochrono-
logical scheme have an apology to make. These
annals formed the " Psalter of Tara," which
also contained full details of the boundaries of
provinces, districts, and small divisions of land
throughout Ireland. Unfortunately, this great
record has been lost, no vestige of it being
now, it is believed, in existence.
The magnificence of Cormac's palace at
Tara was commensurate with the greatness of
his power and the brilliancy of his actions. He
fitted out a fleet which he sent to harass the
shores of Alba or Scotland, until that country
also was compelled to acknowledge him as
sovereign. He wrote a book, or tract, called
" Teagusc-na-Ri," or the " Institutions of a
Prince," which is still in existence, and which
contains admirable maxims on manners, mor-
als, and government. He died A. D. 266, at
Cleitach, on the Boyne, a salmon-bone, it is
The Boyne Valley 253
said, having fastened in his throat while din-
ing, and defied all efforts at extrication. He
was buried at Ross-na-Ri, the first of the pagan
monarchs for many generations who was not
interred at Brugh, the famous burial-place of
the prechristian kings.
Ferguson's poem, classically entitled " The
Burial of King Cormac," recounts the inci-
dent of his death at length, and picturesquely.
Cormac must have been altogether a glorious
personage, judging from a description which
has come down to us from an ancient Irish
MS.:
" Beautiful was the appearance of Cormac
(this was before he lost his eye) in that as-
sembly. Flowing, slightly curling hair upon
him; a red buckler with stars and animals of
gold and fastening of silver upon him; a
crimson cloak in wide, descending folds upon
him, fastened at his breast by a golden brooch
set with precious stones ; a neck-torque of gold
around his neck; a white shirt with a full
collar, and intertwined with red-gold thread
upon him; a girdle of gold inlaid with pre-
cious stones around him ; two wonderful shoes
254 Romantic Ireland
of gold with runnings of gold upon him ; two
spears with golden sockets in his hand."
This, then, is the description of the royal
Cormac with his curling, golden hair and opu-
lence of barbaric trappings, and the scenes
over which he presided were surely in keeping
with his magnificence, though only by a strong
effort of imagination can they now be recalled.
The chief and most splendid structures of
the interior of Ireland in ancient times were
Emania and Tara. The former, the one-
time palace of the kings of Ulster, was alleged
to have been built about three hundred and
fifty years before the Christian era. It existed
as late as Columba's time, though it had ceased
to be a royal residence; and the antiquarians,
Camden and Speed, attest that fragmentary
remains of this splendid establishment existed
even in their day (seventeenth century). If
this be really so, the ruin, if it could even be
called by so explicit a namfe, must have been
one of the most ancient existing in northern
climes.
Tara was a place of greater, and yet more
modern, celebrity. It was situated in the plain
of Bregia, which extended between the Boyne,
Thd Stont of Destiny.
The Boyne Valley 257
the Liffey, and the sea, and was preeminent
above all other edifices as having been the resi-
dence of Irish kings for upwards of a thousand
years.
A contributor to the " Transactions of the
Royal Irish Academy," writing in 1830, has
described Tara as it appeared to him on a re-
cent visit :
" Only when one finds himself at the base
of the venerable mount does it present an at-
titude of much interest. At the left are the
gloomy remains of the church of Screen and
the once noble mansion and demesne of Lord
Tara, back of which are the remains of several
old stone edifices and of a particularly narrow
bridge which still spans a weedy rivulet. Pass-
ing through the villages and by the church, one
identifies some large rocks as having exercised
the strength or yielded to the sword of Fin
MacComhal (Fingal). Here one finds him-
self on the summit of Tara; and if he goes
there with none of that wild enthusiasm which
requires towers and battlements and draw-
bridges and bower-windows, and donjon-keeps,
to gratify it, he will feel most awfully the un-
alterable royalty of the prospect it commands.
258 Romantic Ireland
" When the natural advantages of the scene
have obtained their due homage, let the visitor
look for vestiges of the past, and there he will
not be disappointed; for the place seemeth to
bear the shew of an ancient and famous monu-
ment."
All of which observations are sufficiently
noncommittal to be undisputed; and unless
one is an arrant idol-breaker, and we haven't
many in these days, he will be quite willing
to accept the description as being sufficiently
explicit to permit of his putting himself in the
same place, and making the same observations.
The site is assuredly authentic, and the link
of history which binds its past with the present
is something more than a suggestion ; though
by no means need we seek or envy the emotions
which inspired Moore's verses:
The harp that once through Tara's Halls
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls,
As if that soul were fled,
So sleeps the pride of former days,
So glory's thrill is o'er,
And hearts that once beat high for praise,
Now feel that pulse no more.
The Boyne Valley 259
" No more to chiefs and ladies bright
The harp of Tara swells,
The chord alone, that breaks at night,
Its tale of ruin tells.
Thus freedom now so seldom wakes
The only throb she gives,
Is when some heart indignant breaks
To show that she still lives."
Near Drogheda is Monasterboice, a collec-
tion of celebrated ecclesiastical ruins. Within
an enclosed churchyard, which stands quite
apart from any settlement of to-day, are two
tiny chapels, a round tower of considerable
proportions (no feet high and 50 feet in cir-
cumference at its base), and three stone
crosses, the principal of which, known as St.
Boyne's Cross, is reputedly the most ancient
religious relique now standing in Ireland.
Among its rude sculptures, there is an inscrip-
tion in Irish characters, in which is plainly
legible the name of Murdoch, a king of Ire-
land who died in 534, about one hundred years
after the arrival of St. Patrick. The height
of this cross is twenty-seven feet, and it is
composed of two stones. The shafts are di-
vided into compartments ornamented with
figures. One group represents " a couple of
260 Romantic Ireland
harpers in paradise," of which Kohl says:
" No Irishman of the olden times would have
thought paradise complete without his beloved
national instrument."
This recalls Lover's verses, but whether or
no so rude a symbolism inspired them it is
impossible to state.
41 Oh ! give me one strain
Of that wild harp again,
In melody proudly its own,
Sweet harp of the days that are gone."
The entire region of the Boyne valley is
rich in tradition and history, far more so than
any other area of its size in Ireland.
From Drogheda, at the river's mouth, to
Trim, just beyond Tara, and to Kells on the
Blackwater (not to be confounded with the
Blackwater of the south), the Boyne's chief
tributary, is scarce fifty miles; but there are a
succession of shrines of history of which even
the most unfamiliar are household words.
At Trim one is in the midst of military and
ecclesiastical ruins which will make the lover
of architectural remains long for the oppor-
tunity of knowing them better. There is the
The Boyne Valley 263
usual " King John's Castle," in reality Dangan
Castle, an ancient military erection of the De
Lacys, commonly called, and apparently with
justification, " the finest example of Anglo-
Norman military architecture in Ireland."
It was founded in 1 1 70 by the De Lacy who
was given, by Henry II., the lordship of Meath,
one of the five original kingdoms of Ireland.
The original structure was burnt to prevent
its falling into the hands of Roderic, King of
Connaught. The present remains date from
1220, and, though locally known as " King
John's Castle," the records tell us that the
monarch himself is only known to have visited
Trim for but two days; hence his occupancy,
if not his actual proprietorship, was very brief.
It must, truly, have been formerly a magnif-
icent work" of its kind, its shape being tri-
angular, as is that noblest of all Anglo-Nor-
man castles, Chateau Gaillard in Normandy.
Ten flanking towers protected its gateways,
which, in their turn, were preceded each by a
barbican. The most imposing of its details,
which is more or less intact, is the keep, a
massive to-wer sixty-four feet square and sixty
feet in height. In this detail it differed greatly
264 Romantic Ireland
from its Norman brothers and sisters : in that
at Chateau Gaillard, and others in Normandy,
the keep was invariably circular.
Trim's ecclesiastical history dates back to the
foundation of a church here by St. Patrick in
the fifth century. Its site is perpetuated to-
day by the famous Yellow Tower of the church
of St. Mary's Abbey, the most lofty Anglo-
Norman erection in Ireland (125 feet). Its
outlines and stages were reduced nearly to
ruin by Cromwell's warriors, but enough re-
mains to-day to suggest that its former func-
tions of watch-tower and refuge must have
been most efficient.
" Literary pilgrims " will be more interested
perhaps in visiting the tiny parish of Laracar,
so indelibly associated with the lives of Swift
and his " Stella." It lies but two short miles
south of Trim, and is still one of those delight-
ful, unspoiled, old-time villages which one
occasionally comes across. Swift was the in-
cumbent of this parish in 1699, and " Stella,"
chaperoned by Mrs. Dingley, was quartered
here in lodgings. The ladies moved into the
glebe-house, so literary gossip says, when Swift
was on his travels, and the, " Journal to Stella "
The Boyne Valley 265
was addressed there. Swift's house, now but
a fragment of a ruin, remains, as also the
church in which " dearly beloved Roger " was
clerk.
Down the Boyne from Trim one comes first
to Bective Abbey, which, according to a local
authority, differs from every other monastic
establishment in the kingdom, in that it was
a monastic castle or fortress. It was a Cis-
tercian foundation of the twelfth century, first
endowed by O'Melaghlin, a prince of Meath.
It is a fine ruin to-day, and, although the parts
of its original outlines are somewhat lost, the
pointed fenestration is remarkable and un-
usually well preserved. Hugh de Lacy, after
his assassination at Durrow Castle, was
brought here for burial, but his head was in-
terred in the tomb of Rosa de Monmouth in
the Abbey of St. Thomas at Dublin.
Here one is in the immediate vicinity of
Tara and its famous hill, the site of Ireland's
most celebrated and splendid kingly residence.
Between Tara and Kells is Navan, which,
of itself, is an ordinary " market town," with
nothing to commend it to the lover of beauty
and history but its immediate vicinity to the
266 Romantic Ireland
junction of the rivers Blackwater and Boyne.
This particular spot, just below Navan, is one
of exceptional charm, though, as has been
truly said, " the people of Navan have turned
their backs upon it," and from scarce a spot
in the town itself can a glimpse o(f either
stream be had.
Navan has a past decidedly more interesting
than its present. Its ancient patronymic was
Nuachongbhail, and it was one of the earliest
fortified places in the county of Meath. Hugh
de Lacy walled it around ; but remains of this
work have now almost disappeared, though
there are still some very tangible evidences of
the " earliest style of fortifications known in
Erin " in the Great Moat of Navan.
The Round Tower of Donaghmore, the most
perfect of its kind in Ireland, and the ruins of
Donaghmore church, are near by. Professor
Flinders Petrie ascribes the date of the tower
to the tenth century. It is one hundred feet
in height, and its base circumference is sixty-
six and a half feet. He further describes the
remarkable doorway as having " a figure of
Our Saviour, crucified, sculptured in relief on
its keystone and the stone immediately above
2* *$> " 4*
Tk J.fc ?
r
V ^*
The Boyne Valley 269
it." This fact should establish beyond all
doubt that the motive of these great round
towers of Ireland, or at least of this particular
one, was Christian and not pagan.
One is bound to visit Kells if only to take
cognizance of its famous market-cross. Kells,
in the county of Meath, is, or should be, coup-
led, in the minds of visitors, with the name
of Tara. They have nothing in common, but
they are neighbours, and properly should be
seen in connection with each other. Tara pre-
sents, at first glance, nothing more than a
small conical elevation rising above the Boyne;
but its memories as the residence of the mag-
nificent Cormiac, St. Patrick, the Druids, the
law-givers, the bards, and all the ancient pre-
historic civilization which centred around it,
are very great.
Kells is a dozen or more miles from Tara,
and should not be confounded with Kells in
Kilkenny. Kells was granted to St. Columba
in the sixth century, and a small house still
exists which is fondly believed to have been
either the oratory or the residence of the saint.
In the market-place of Kelis was built a
castle, in 1178, and opposite to it was erected
270 Romantic Ireland
a stone cross, reputedly the most beautiful of
its class known. As to just what was the pre-
cise and full significance of these famous
crosses, which abound in Ireland, authorities,
self-styled ecclesiastical experts, and genuine
archaeologists alike, fail to agree. Certainly
nothing has puzzled people more than the
scenes depicted on the bases of some of the
crosses. At Kells, for instance, there is, on
one side of the base, a hunting-scene, where
a man with a shield and spear, preceded by a
dog, pursues a collection of animals, among
which we may distinguish two stags, a pig, a
monstrous bird, and three other animals. On
another side there are two centaurs, one armed
with a trident, the other with bow and arrow,
and having a bird on its back. There also is
a bird with a fish in its talons, and another
bird on a quadruped of some kind. On the
third side there is a contest between foot-
soldiers, and on the fourth a procession of four
mounted warriors.
Primarily, of course, the significance of
these crosses was Christian, but whether or not
of the superstitious order, as were the gar-
goyles and grotesque water-spouts seen so
THE. CROSS OF KELLS.
The Boyne Valley 273
frequently on continental churches, is appar-
ently a matter of doubt.
The subjects pictured on many of these
crosses can hardly be assumed to be Scriptural,
and are certainly not appropriate to the ideas
of Christian art of our own time, nor indeed
with those which were put to use in churches
and monasteries in the Middle Ages. It has
been suggested that they represent lingering
pagan notions of the Happy Otherworld of the
Celts, since hunting and fighting were among
their principal joys; but this again is mere
conjecture, and, though pagan influences had
perhaps not wholly died out when this cross
of Kells was first set up, it is hardly likely
that pagan enthusiasm would express itself on
a Christian symbol.
The crosses of Monasterboice, Kells, Clon-
macnois, and Burrow were all either in, or
on the very border of, the ancient kingdom of
Meath, and may perhaps be grouped together
as belonging to a local school which ranked
perhaps above all others in the magnitude and
beauty of its sculpture.
Many other crosses, which once existed
throughout Ireland, are now known only by
274 Romantic Ireland
a broken fragment of the shaft, or a base,
which may or may not preserve the inscrip-
tion; and it seems quite probable that no
ecclesiastical centre existed which did not, at
one time, boast of its Celtic cross standing as
a dominant monument of art among all other
memorials.
The great question which the antiquaries
have apparently yet to settle among themselves
is as to whether the decoration of these stone
crosses, so different from other sculptured stone
work to be seen in churches and elsewhere, is
really the result of Celtic inspiration, or not.
It certainly is partly Roman and partly
Byzantine in its motive, though unquestion-
ably the development of the idea was distinct-
ively Celtic or Irish.
From ancient records one learns that the
Irish craftsmen first worked out their ideas, not
on stone, but on parchment, and that these were
transferred from illuminated MSS. to the
crosses, and again in metal work, where so
many similar designs are seen.
It is a popular supposition that these motives,
spirals, frets, and interlaced bands originated
in Ireland or were peculiar to Celtic art. But
CROSSES OF CLONMACNOIS, DONEGAL, SLANE, AND
MOONE ABBEY.
The Boyne Valley 277
really the origin of these ornaments and their
travels from one country to another show
quite the contrary to be the case. Investigation
has shown that early civilization, advancing
along primitive trade routes, or, more gener-
ally, on the lines of communication between
different countries or races, was responsible
for the diffusion of many arts that have been
wrongly ascribed as having been born in one
locality or another. Scandinavia, Greece,
Egypt, and even farther east, all contributed
something, no doubt, to what afterward be-
came known as Celtic art; just how much, or
by what process, is the question to decide.
At any rate, the result achieved by the
artisans who carved these ancient Irish crosses,
whatever may have been their source of inspira-
tion, indicates that they were the work of no
" 'prentice hand." It is evident that no mere
underling or stone-cutter chiseled out spiral,
fret, and knot, and twisted zoomorph, which
one sees on these crosses. It was a master-
mind that planned and a master-hand that drew
the same patterns on many an Irish vellum.
And it was in the depth of the dark ages, too,
that Ireland set this bright example to Europe.
278 Romantic Ireland
In the twelfth century one of her books, then
perhaps four hundred years old, compelled the
admiration of Gerald of Wales, in most things
her detractor. " If you examine the drawings
closely," he says, " you will find them so deli-
cate and exquisite, so finely drawn, and the
work of interlacing so elaborate, while the
colours with which they are illuminated are so
blended, and still so fresh, that you will be
ready to assert that all this is the work of
angelic, and not human skill." This is cer-
tainly high praise; but, within its limits, the
early Irish school of decorative art, in its best
products, whether on parchment, metal, or
stone, has, of its kind, been hitherto unsur-
passed by man.
Though the market-cross of Kells is not
perfectly preserved its top is broken off
it may be considered, with that at Monaster-
boice, to be a remarkable expression of the art
of stone-carving. There are a notable richness
and elaboration of detail most curious and
quite unique.
In the churchyard are three other crosses of
lesser importance, though one of them is over
eleven feet in height.
The Boyne Valley 281
The famous " Book of Kells," a manuscript
copy of the Gospels in Latin, dating from the
eighth century and described as the " most
elaborately executed monument (sic) of early
Christian art now extant," is preserved in the
library of Trinity College, Dublin.
Next to the idyllic and vague figure of Erin,
and the more definite, but still apocryphal, one
of St. Patrick, that of St. Columba, the real
founder of the religious community of Kells,
stands out the most prominently. To his era
belonged a glorious race of scholars, all of
whom gained their learning from the many
universities, convents, and monasteries which
covered the island. Among those most prom-
inent are the names, first of all, of St. Co-
lumba, or Columcille (Dove of the Cell) ; St.
Columbanus; St. Gall, who evangelized Hel-
vetia; St. Livinus, who suffered martyrdom
in Flanders ; St. Argobast, who became Bishop
of Strasburg; and St. Killian.
Columba's history is well set forth in sun-
dry places, and is too extended to recount here.
Suffice to say that the events of his life were
most dramatic, and his attachment to learn-
282 Romantic Ireland
ing, poetry, and literature, in particular, most
profound.
Montalembert, the historian, says:
" He was a poet and writer of a high order
of genius, and to an advanced period of his
life remained an ardent devotee of the muse,
ever powerfully moved by whatever affected
the weal of the minstrel fraternity. His pas-
sion for books (all manuscript, of course, in
those days, and of great rarity and value) was
destined to lead him into that great offence of
his life, which he was afterward to expiate
by a penance so grievous. He went every-
where in search of volumes which he could
borrow or copy; often experiencing refusals
which he resented bitterly."
In the following manner occurred what
Montalembert calls " the decisive event which
changed the destiny of Columba, and trans-
formed him from a wandering poet and ardent
bookworm into a missionary and apostle."
" While visiting one of his former tutors,
Finian, he found means to copy clandestinely
the abbot's Psalter by shutting himself up at
nights in the church where the book was de-
posited. Indignant at what he considered as
The Boyne Valley 283
almost a theft, Finian claimed the copy when
it was finished by Columba, on the ground that
a copy made without permission ought to be-
long to the master of the original, seeing that
the transcription is the son of the original
book. Columba refused to give up his work,
and the question was referred to the king in
his palace of T'ara."
What immediately followed, and its sequel,
should be read in the words of Montalembert.
The accusation of theft, or something akin to
burglary, was followed by Columba's with-
drawal to his native province of Tyrconnell,
where he set to work to excite the natives to
proceed against King Diarmid, who had de-
cided against him.
" Diarmid marched to meet them in battle
at Cul-Dreimhne, upon the borders of Ultonia
and Connacia. He was completely beaten, and
was obliged to take refuge at Tara. The vic-
tory was due, according to the annalist Tigher-
nach, to the prayers and songs of Columba,
who had fasted and prayed with all his might
to obtain from Heaven the punishment of the
royal insolence, and who, besides, was present
284 Romantic Ireland
at the battle, and took upon himself before all
men the responsibility of the bloodshed."
As for the manuscript which had been the
object of this strange conflict of copyright,
elevated into a civil war, it was afterward
venerated as a kind of natural military and
religious palladium. Under the name of
Cathach or Fightu, the Latin Psalter tran-
scribed by Columba, enshrined in a sort of
portable altar, became the national relic of the
O'Donnell clan. For more than a thousand
years it was carried with them to battle as a
pledge of victory, on the condition of being
supported on the breast of a clerk free from all
mortal sin.
Still struggling with a stubborn self-will,
Columba found his life miserable, unhappy,
and full of unrest ; yet remorse had even now
" planted in his soul the germs at once of a
startling conversion and of his future apostolic
mission." Various legends reveal him to us at
this crisis of his life, wandering long from
solitude to solitude, and from monastery to
monastery, seeking out holy monks, masters
of penitence and Christian virtue, and asking
them anxiously what he should do to obtain
The Boyne Valley 285
the pardon of God for the murder of so many
victims as was caused by the battle of Cul-
Dreimhne.
At length, after many wanderings in con-
trition and mortification, " he found the light
which he sought from a holy monk, St. Mo-
laise, famed for his studies of Holy Scripture,
and who had already been his confessor.
" This severe hermit confirmed the decision
of the synod; but, to the obligation of con-
verting to the Christian faith an equal num-
ber of pagans as there were of Christians
killed in the civil war, he added a new con-
dition, wdiich bore cruelly upon a soul so pas-
sionately attached to country and kindred.
The confessor condemned his penitent to per-
petual exile from Ireland! "
This was more hard than to bare his breast
to the piercing sword; less welcome than, to
wallk in constant punishment and suffering,
so long as his feet pressed the soil of his wor-
shipped Erin !
But it was even so. Thus ran the sentence
of Molaise: "Perpetual exile from Ireland!"
Staggered, stunned, struck to the heart,
Columba could not speak for a moment. But
286 Romantic Ireland
God gave him in that great crisis of his life
the supreme grace to bear the blow and en>
brace the cross presented to him. At last he
spoke, and in a voice choked by emotion he
answered: "Be it so; what you have com-
manded shall be done." From that instant
his life was one long penitential sacrifice. For
thirty years he lived and laboured in the dis-
tant lona, and the fame of his sanctity and
devotion filled the world.
As a farewell gift to some Irish visitors at
lona, Columba presented the following verses,
deservedly classed among the world's beautiful
poetic compositions. The literal translation
into English doubtless loses much of the origi-
nal beauty, but enough, at least, is left to in-
dicate the charm of the original Gaelic thought
and sentiment.
" What joy to fly upon the white-crested sea ; and watch
the waves break upon the Irish shore !
" My foot is in my little boat ; but my sad heart ever
bleeds !
" There is a gray eye which ever turns to Erin; but never
in this life shall it see Erin, nor her sons, nor her
daughters I
The Boyne Valley 287
" From the high prow I look over the sea ; and great
tears are in my eyes when I turn to Erin
" To Erin, where the songs of the birds are so sweet, and
where the clerks sing like the birds ;
" Where the young are so gentle, and the old are so
wise ; where the great men are so noble to look at,
and the women so fair to wed !
" Young traveller ! carry my sorrows with you ; carry
them to Comgall of eternal life !
" Noble youth, take my prayer with thee, and my bless-
ing ; one part for Ireland seven times may she be
blest and the other for Albyn.
" Carry my blessings across the sea ; carry it to the West.
My heart is broken in my breast !
" If death comes suddenly to me, it will be because of
the greatest love I bear to the Gael ! "
It was to the rugged and desolate Hebrides
that Columba turned his face when he accepted
the terrible penance of perpetual exile.
Columba did return to Ireland, as history
tells. But, though this may be traditional, he
returned blindfolded. " The Dove of the Cell "
made a comparatively long stay in Ireland,
visiting with scarf-bound brow the numerous
monastic establishments subject to his rule.
288 Romantic Ireland
At length he returned to lona, where, far into
the evening of life, he waited for his summons
to the beatific vision. The miracles he wrought,
attested by evidence of sufficient weight to
move the most callous skeptic, the myriad won-
drous signs of God's favour that marked his
daily acts, filled all the nations with awe. The
hour and the manner of his death had long
been revealed to him. The precise time he
concealed from those about him until close
upon the last day of his life; but the manner
of his death he long foretold to his attendants.
" I shall die," he said, " without sickness or
hurt; suddenly, but happily, and without ac-
cident." At length one day, while in his usual
health, he disclosed to Diarmid, his " minis-
ter," or regular attendant monk, that the hour
of his summons was nigh. A week before he
had gone around the island, taking leave of
the monks and labourers; and when all wept,
he strove anxiously to console them. Then he
blessed the island and the inhabitants. " And
now," said he to Diarmid, " here is a secret ;
but you must keep it till I am gone. This is
Saturday, the day called Sabbath, or day of
rest : and that it will be to me, for it shall be
The Boyne Valley 289
the last of my laborious life." In the even-
ing he retired to his cell, and began to work
for the last time, being then occupied in tran-
scribing the Psalter. When he had come to
the thirty-third Psalm, and the verse, " In-
quirentes autem Dominum non deficient omni
bono," he stopped short. " I cease here," said
he; " Baithin must do the rest."
The above is an abridgment of Montalem-
bert's chronicle which must be accepted as
truthful. It certainly is as profound and in-
teresting an account of Christian martyrdom
and devotion as any extant.
CHAPTER XII.
BELFAST AND ARMAGH
THE stranger to Ireland will never imag-
ine, as the result of his visit to Belfast,
that the land is the home of the effete civili-
zation that some English writers would have
him believe.
Belfast, more than all other centres of popu-
lation in Ireland, more even than Dublin, the
capital, is the equal of any city of its size in
the known world for transportation facili-
ties of a thoroughly up-to-date order.
This, perhaps, does not aid in any way in
the serious contemplation of its other charms;
but it is a significant " sign of the times,"
nevertheless.
Savants will tell one that here, at the head
of Belfast Lough, was fought, in the year 665,
a great battle between the Ulidians and the
Cruthni. This event is sufficiently remote to
290
Belfast and Armagh 291
have lost some interest, and appears somewhat
lacking in appeal in view of what happened
afterward, though the region in the immediate
vicinity of Belfast does not abound in the
wealth of interesting shrines which exist in
most other parts of Ireland.
John de Courcy built a fortified castle here
in 1177, after Ulster had been granted to him
by Henry II., but no trace of it remains to-
day.
The city really owes its rise, however, to the
Scottish settlers who came here in large num-
bers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centur-
ies. Before which time, says one writer, " the
town consisted of but one hundred and twenty
odd huts, and a castle roofed with shingles."
It is on record that the town made a vigorous
protest against the execution of Charles I., as
might have been expected from its religious
and political tendencies. In connection with
this protest the usually gentle Milton wrote
contemptuously concerning " the blockish pres-
byters of Clandeboye. . . . The unhallowed
priestlings of an unchristian synagogue."
The town was incorporated in 1613, but was
only given civic dignity in 1888, when its popu-
Romantic Ireland
lation had grown to 250,000 from its previous
minute proportions. The name of the city is
evolved from Bel, a ford or river-mouth, and
fcarsal, a sand-bank.
The chief features of interest in the city
proper are unquestionably its attributes of
modernity. With such aspects this book has
little to do. This is not so, however, with its
famous flax and linen industries, made familiar
to children of all nations in their very earliest
years, when they are given for playthings the
spools or bobbins of Barbour's linen thread,
with the gaudy end label picturi-ng the
" bloody hand of Ulster."
The linen industry in Ireland can be traced
as far back as 1216, and, in the reign of Henry
III., the spinning of linen thread was estab-
lished as a definite branch of the trade. In
1665 the head of the house of Ormonde, the
unfortunate duke, obtained an Act of Parlia-
ment for the encouragement of the industry.
Up to 1805 linen yarns appear to have been
universally spun by hand. Then abortive at-
tempts were made to introduce machinery, but
it was only after 1828, when the industry was
freed from the restrictive legislation which had
Belfast and Armagh 293
been in force since Queen Anne's time, that
healthy competition among enterprising pri-
vate firms finally did away with hand spin-
ning.
From that time onward the Irish linen in-
dustry developed with great rapidity, especially
in Belfast, which is the principal seat of the
trade in the United Kingdoms.
The chief archaeological treasures of Belfast
are Cave Hill, three miles north of the city,
which is a curious geological formation pos-
sessing three caves, which may or may not
have more than a geological interest; and
" the Giant's Ring," lying to the southward
near Ballylesson. This latter is an object of
antiquarian regard, consisting of a great cir-
cular earthwork, a third of a mile or more in
circumference, which encloses a mound of earth
about perhaps eighty feet in diameter.
There is also a stone altar, or cromlech, as-
signed by some to druidical inception, and
again denied. At any rate, it is one of those
curious artificial erections in which the British
Isles and Brittany abound, and its actual sig-
nificance may be great or little. It is impossi-
294 Romantic Ireland
ble, apparently, for the doctors to agree among
themselves.
There is also a castle at Belfast, it's an
exceedingly impoverished town in Ireland that
hasn't a castle, though in this case it is
merely an imposing residence dignified, or
glorified, by the more ancient name. It has,
however, a wonderful outlook over the lough,
showing, under certain conditions of the atmos-
phere, the Scottish coast and the Isle of Man.
It is, however, the note of modernity alone
which sounds in Belfast, as one might naturally
expect of a city which has now reached a popu-
lation of around four hundred thousand souls
and has doubled its numbers in thirty years.
One industry of general interest in these
days of universal travel is the great shipbuild-
ing works at Queen's Island. Twelve thou-
sand hands are employed, and the construction
of such leviathans as the great White Star
liners, the Oceanic, the Celtic, and the Baltic,
of a tonnage exceeding twenty thousand, is an
art of which their builders are apparently the
sole possessors.
As might further be expected, the shipping
trade of Belfast is considerable, and the city
Belfast and Armagh 295
more than holds its own in progress in this
line with any in the three kingdoms.
Within the immediate vicinity of Belfast
at least within the area of the great city's in-
fluence is the sleepy old town of Carrick-
fergus, once the site of one of the most power-
ful fortresses in Ireland. Now it is but a
memory, so far as its impregnability goes,
though its remains are suggestive enough of
the position it once occupied; one of great
strategic value when the means of ancient
warfare are considered.
If the " bloody hand of Ulster " should ever
grasp firearms and enter into warfare again,
the result might be different to this old castle
of Carrickfergus, one of the few in Ireland
which are not claimed as having belonged to
King John.
Southward toward Armagh one first comes
to Lisburn, noted principally for its great dam-
ask industry. It is truly enough a busy manu-
facturing town, and has thrived amazingly
since the linen manufacture was introduced by
the Huguenots who fled to this refuge after
the Edict of Nantes.
The cathedral here contains a monument to
296 Romantic Ireland
Jeremy Taylor, who was bishop of County
Down. Referring to Taylor's tenure in Ire-
land, it has been the custom to recount it
thus:
" Under the restoration of Charles II. he
was given a bishopric in the wilds of Ireland,
in a sour, gloomy country, with sour, gloomy
looks all around him . . . which broke him at
the age of fifty-five."
Part of this is true, the latter part, but it
was not the gloomy, sour wilds around Lis-
burn that did it, for the whole neighbourhood
around about is a charming place, and must
have been then. It seems, indeed, always to
smile, and, though possessed of no great
grandeur, such as rugged peaks and roaring
waters, it in every way fulfils one's idea of
a busy town, charmingly environed.
Armagh is to-day a " cathedral town "
which possesses two cathedrals. One is the
ancient and venerable cathedral which belongs
to the Established Church, and dates from the
thirteenth century ; and the other is the modern
Roman Catholic Cathedral, which dates only
from 1873.
Armagh is now, as it always has been, a
Belfast and Armagh 297
most important centre of religious and churchly
activity.
St. Patrick came here to preach the gospel
in 432, and a quarter of a century later founded
the Church of Armagh. The first edifice en-
dured for nearly four hundred years when it
was sacked by the Danes. Reerected again in
1268, it was burned by Shane O'Neill in the
sixteenth century, and rebuilt and again burned
inside the next half-century. The final re-
building, or rather the building up from the
old fire-swept remains of the ancient structure,
took place at the instigation and expense of
the Primate Margetson. Armagh is one of
the metropolitan sees of Ireland, Dublin being
the other; but the Archbishop of Armagh is
Primate of Ireland.
The chief centre of interest in Armagh lies
with the church and its foundation, though,
of itself, Armagh is what many other towns
of as great promise are not, a charmingly
unspoiled old-world spot which, in spite of the
advent of the steam railway, the telegraph, and
the telephone, apparently conducts its daily life
much as it did three-quarters of a century ago.
It is a well-kept little city or town, with no
298 Romantic Ireland
great evidences of modern improvements,
though nowhere are there any indications of
squalor or decay.
In the year 685 Aldfred, son of Ossory, be-
came King of Northumberland. He was edu-
cated at Armagh, then a world-famed school
of learning, and had written some verses in
the Irish tongue descriptive of his impressions
of Ireland.
Translated into English his descriptions
might apply to-day.
" I travelled its fruitful provinces round,
And in every one of the five I found,
Alike in church and in palace hall,
Abundant apparel, and food for all."
This sounds to-day somewhat like triviality.
Perhaps, however, it has lost some of its vir-
tues by translation. Another stanza reads
somewhat more melodiously:
" I found in Meath's fair principality
Virtue, vigour, and hospitality ;
Candour, joyfulness, bravery, purity,
Ireland's bulwark and security."
THE END.
Index
Achill Island, 161-173, ^S-
Achill Sound, 167.
Achill-beg, 168.
Adamnan, St., 200, 201.
^Engus, 159.
Aillach, Grianan of, 213-214.
Albeus, Saint, 153-154.
Alfred the Great, 17, 201.
" Alice and Una," 58-61.
All Saints' Island, 126.
Anne, Queen, 293.
Annesley, Earl of, 245.
Antrim, 224, 225, 231.
Antrim, Lord, 212.
Aran Islands, 153-160.
Ardglass, 240.
Ardkyne Castle, 158.
Argobast, St., 281.
Armagh, 159, 245, 295-298.
Archbishop of, 234.
Arra Mountains, 116.
Athlone, 119-120, 123, 152.
Athy Family, 138.
Auburn, 120-125.
The " Three Pigeons," 123-
125.
Baliol, 226.
Ballina, 186-187.
Ballylesson, 293.
Ballynasheera Castle, 1 16.
Ballyshannon, 190.
Bantry, 45-46.
Bantry Bay, 5, 40, 43-46, 53
54, 57, 67, 68, 84, 232.
Barms, Saint, 16.
Battle of the Boyne, 120,
248-250.
Bear Island, 43.
Bective Abbey, 265.
Belfast, 231, 236, 239, 290-
295-
Cave Hill, 293.
Giant's Ring, 293.
Queen's Island, 294.
Belfast Lough, 240, 290.
Bell of St. Bronach, 236-
237-
Belleek, 190.
" Bells of Shandon, The," 8-
'3-
Ben Hill, 116.
Benbaun, 182.
Benen, St., 158-159.
Benwee, 185.
Bere, 45, 46.
Bere Island (see Bear Island).
Berehaven, 43, 59.
299
300
Index
Biscayan Bay, 87.
Black Bull Head, 84.
Black Sod Bay, 165, 185.
Black Valley, 62, 68, 76-79,
1 88.
Blackwater, The, 260, 266.
Blake Family, 138.
Blarney, 21, 25.
Castle (Blarney Stone), 21,
25-30.
Lakes, 25.
Blasquetts, The, 95.
Bloody Bridge, 246.
Bloody Foreland, 202.
Boate, 115.
Bodkin Family, 138.
Bolus Head, 87.
Boru, Brian (see Brian Bora).
Boucicault, 75.
Boyle, 128.
Boyle, The, 127.
Boyne, The, 232, 234, 248-
251, 252, 254, 260, 265,
266, 269.
Boyne, Battle of the (see
Battle of the Boyne).
Bray Head, 87.
Bregia, 254.
Brian Boru, 106-113.
Brian, Brother, 17.
" Bridal of the Year," 58.
Bridge of the Ford (see
Drogheda).
Brow Head, 40.
Browne Family, 138.
Bruce, Edward, 234-235.
Bruce, Robert, 226, 234.
Brugh, 253.
Bundoran, 195.
"Burial of King Cormac,
The," 253.
Bushmills, 215.
Butler, 16.
Cahirciveen, 95.
Cairns, William, 212.
Callanan, 37.
Camden, 254.
Campsie, Henry, 212.
Cape Clear, 40.
Carew, Sir George, 46, 48, 49.
Carews, The, 33.
Carlingford, 237-238.
Castle, 237-238, 239.
Carlingford Lough, 235-240,
246.
Carlingford Mountains, 235,
240.
Caraot, 44.
Carolan, 128.
Carrick, 199.
Carrick-a-Rede, 226-230.
Carrickfergus, 295.
Carrick-on-Shannon, 106, 127,
189.
Carrigaline River, 7.
Cashel, 153.
Castle of Ardkyne, 158.
Castle of Bally nasheera, 116.
Castlebar, 186.
Castletown, 43, 44, 46.
Castlewellan, 245, 246.
Cavan, St., 160.
Charlemagne, 18.
Charles I., 15, 291.
Charles II., 296.
Claddagh, 134, 146, 147, 148.
Claire, County, 114.
Clare Island, 173-174.
Clarke, 44.
Cleitach, 252.
Clew Bay, 165, 173.
Clifden, 177, 178, 181.
Cloghereen, 62.
Clonmacnois, Cross of, 273.
Cloyne, 16, 17.
Coleraine, 215, 223.
Index
301
Colleen Bawn Caves, 72.
"Colleen Bawn, The," 15, 72.
Colman, St., 16.
Colpa, 232.
Columba, St., 201, 254, 269,
281-289.
Columbanus, St., 281.
Columbkille, St., 200, 201, 206,
208.
Coman, St., 126.
Conal, St., 200.
Coningham, Alexander, 212.
Coningham, John, 212.
Connacia, 283.
Connaught, 16, 116, 120, 148,
149. 153. 59> 263.
Connemara, 132, 147, 169,
174-181.
Connolly, John, 33.
Corcaig (see Cork).
Cork, i, 5-25, 26, 30, 33, 34,
37, 40, 67, 146, 153.
Abbey of St. Finbarr, 17.
Christian Brothers, Monas-
tery of the, 15.
Cork University, 17.
Patrick, St., 21.
Shandon Bells, 8-15.
Shandon Hill, n.
St. Anne Shandon, Church
of, 8-15.
St. Joseph's Cemetery, 21.
Cormac, 26, 29, 251-254, 269.
Cove (see Queenstown).
Croagh, Patrick, 165.
Croghan, 167.
Cromwell, Henry, 129.
Cromwell, Oliver, 99, 116,
158, 233, 234, 235, 248, 264.
Crookshanks, William, 212.
Croom, Plain of, 30.
Crosshaven, 7.
Crosshaven Ring, 6.
Cul-Dreimhne, 283, 285.
Cumber, 21 1.
D'Arcy Family, 138.
Dangan Castle, 263.
Dante's " Inferno," 229.
De Courcy, 224, 237, 243, 244,
291.
De Lacy Family, 263.
De Lacy, Hugh, 240, 265,
266.
Deane Family, 138.
Demesne, 68.
Derry (see Londonderry).
" Deserted Village, The,"
123-125.
Desmond, 34-37.
Prince of, 71.
Desmond, King of Munster,
'5-
Dhade Mountain, 57.
Diarmid, King, 283.
Diarmid, St., 288.
Dingle, 95.
Dingle Bay, 5, 40, 67, 87, 95,
96.
Dingle Mountains, 95.
Dingley, Mrs., 264.
Donaghmore Church, 266.
Donaghmore, Round Tower
of, 266-269.
Donegal, 194-202.
Castle, 196.
Donegal Bay, 189, 194, 202.
Donegal Highlands, 189.
Donnybrook Fair, 95.
Donard Lodge, 245.
Dooagh, 168.
Dore", Gustave, 223.
Down, County, 211, 231, 240,
296.
Downpatrick, 240-244.
Downpatrick Head, 185.
302
Index
Drake, Sir Francis, 7.
Drake's Pool, 7.
Drogheda, 232-234, 248, 249,
251, 259, 260.
Gates, 233.
Magdalen Steeple, 233.
Mill Mount, 234.
Droiceheadatha (see Dro-
gheda).
Dublin, 22, 157, 231, 232,
236, 245, 248, 249, 265,
290, 297.
University, 103.
Dugort, 168-173.
Dun /Engus, 159.
Dun Oghil, 160.
Dunboy Castle, 46-49.
Dundalk, 234-235.
Dundrum Bay, 240.
Dungarvan, 17.
Dunloe, 76.
Castle, 62.
Dunloe, Gap of (see Gap of
Dunloe).
Dunluce Castle, 223-225.
Dunottar Castle, 226.
Dunseverick, 223.
Durrow Castle, 265.
Durrow, Cross of, 273.
Dursly Head, 84.
Dursly Island, 84.
Dutton, 139.
Eagle's Nest, 34, 62, 72.
Edna, St., 159.
Elizabeth, Queen, 120.
Emania, 106, 254.
Emely, 153.
Enchanted Isles, 165.
Engus, King, 153.
Enna, St., 154.
Enniskillen, 189-190, 239.
Eriff, The, 178.
Eme, The, 189.
Eunan, St., 200.
Falls of Erne, 190.
Fastnet, 54, 84.
Ferguson, 253.
Fingal, 257.
Fin M'Coul, 221-222.
Fin MacComhol, 257.
Finbarr, St., 16, 34, 153.
Finian, St., 282-283.
FitzStephen, James Lynch,
132, 139-143-
FitzStephen, Walter, 132,
139-143.
FitzThomas, Edmond Lynch,
>39-
"Fleet in Being, A," 185.
French Family, 138.
French, John, 143.
Gall, St., 281.
Galway, 2, 129-152, 157, 178,
181.
Bridge, 137.
Lombard St., 140.
St. Nicholas's Church, 140.
West Bridge, 139.
Galway Bay, 40, 151.
Galway County, 114, 139, 143,
146, 174.
Gap of Dunloe, 62, 68, 76.
Garvan, Brother, 17.
George II., 250.
George IV., 178.
Gerald of Wales, 278.
Ghoban the Smith, 234.
Giant's Causeway, 214-223,
226, 231.
Glengarriff, 43, 49-57. 6o 61,
67.
Glenmana, no.
Goldsmith, Rev. Charles, 123.
Index
303
Goldsmith, Oliver, 120-125.
Gordon, 212.
Gougane Earra, 34-38.
Grand Canal, 119.
Grania Uaile (see O'Malley,
Grace).
Greencastle, 239.
Greenore, 238-240.
Grianan of Aillach, 213-214.
Griffin, Gerald, 15.
Hallam, 17.
Harris, 16, 244.
Harvey, Samuel, 212.
Haulbowline, 6.
Haverty, 251.
Heber, 232.
Henry II., 15, 263, 291.
Henry III., 292.
Heramon, 232.
Hoche, General, 44.
Humbert, General, 186.
Hungry Hill, 57.
Hunt, Samuel, 212.
Imbbar Colpa (see Dro-
gheda).
Imbbar Sceine (see Bantry
Bay).
Imishmaan Island, 154.
Inch, 244.
Inchbonin Island, 126.
Inchcleraun Island, 125.
Inisheer Island, 154, 160.
Inishglora Island, 165.
Inishkea Island, 165.
Inishkeenah Island, 165.
Inishmore Island, 154.
Innisfail, 87, 88.
Innisfallen, 62, 64-67, 154.
Innocent III., n.
Ireton, 116.
Irwin, Alexander, 212.
Island of the White Cow,
126.
"Jack Hinton," 119.
James I., 190, 206.
James II., 44, 115, 211, 249-
250.
John, King, 33, 99, 120, 237,
238, 263, 295.
Johnson, 17, 18.
Johnston, Sir Harry, 161.
Jordan's Castle, 240.
Joyce Family, 138.
Keel, 168.
Keim-an-eigh, 58, 60, 6l.
Kells (Kilkenny), 266.
Kells (Meath), 260, 265, 269-
270, 281.
Book of, 281.
Cross of, 269-273, 278.
Kenmare, 67-68.
Kenmare River, 40, 68.
Kerry, County, 67, 174, 232.
Kevin, St., 160.
Kilbronan, 127.
Kilbroney, 236-237.
Kilcummin, 186.
Kildare, County, 248, 251.
Kildavnet Castle, 167.
Kilkenny, 126, 269.
Kill Aladh, 186.
Killala, 186.
Killala Bay, 185-187.
Killaloe, 104, 106, 113-114,
US-
Cell of St. Lua, 113.
Killamey, 30, 62-83, 2 3 l -
Killarney Lakes, 43, 62, 68,
72-75.
Killary Harbour, 178-181.
Killian, St., 281.
Killowen, 246.
34
Index
Killybegs, 196, 199.
Kilmurvy, 160.
Kincardineshire, 226.
Kincora, 106-113.
Kipling, Rudyard, 54, 84, 185.
Kirk, Admiral, 213.
Kirwan Family, 138.
Knightstown, 91-92.
Knockcroghery Bay, 126.
Kohl, 130, 219-220, 249.
Lake of Shadows (see Lough
Swilly).
Lanesborough, 127.
Laracar, 264-265.
Lee, The, 6, 8, 37, 76.
Leenane, 178, 182.
Leinster, 109.
Lever, Charles, 119.
Liffey, The, 257.
Limerick, 96-103, 106.
Castle, 99, 120.
Lisadell, 188.
Lisburn, 295.
Lishoy (see Auburn).
Livinus, St., 281.
Locahan (see Finbarr, St.).
Londonderry, 206, 207-213,
239-
Cathedral, 208.
Gates of, 208, 212, 233.
Long Range, The, 72.
Longford, County, 124.
Longworth, Miss, 246-247.
Lough Carib, 177-178.
Lough Derg, 106, 114-116.
Lough Eire, 16.
Lough Erne, 189.
Lough Foyle, 205-206.
Lough Glendalough, 182.
Lough Leane, 64, 72.
Lough Ree, 119, 120, 125.
Lough Swilly, 57, 205.
Louis XIV., 16.
Lover, 260.
Ludlow, General, 75.
Lynch Family, 138, 139.
Lynch, Gorman, 139.
M'Carthy, 58-61.
McCarthy Mor, 71.
McCarthys, The, 71.
M'Coul, Fin, 221-222.
M'Donald, Colonel, 224, 225.
M'Quillan, 224, 225.
Macaulay, Lord, 17, 53, 211.
MacCarthy, Cormac (see
Cormac).
MacCarthys, The, 33.
MacDonnells of Antrim, 224,
225.
MacFoin, Ossine, 166.
MacGeoghegan, 46-49.
MacGillicuddy's Reeks, 68,
75-76.
Macroom, 30-34.
Maelmurra, Prince of Lein-
ster, 109-110.
" Maga," 170.
Maguires, The, 190.
Mahony, Rev. Francis (see
Prout, Father).
Malin Beg, 199.
Malin Head, 205.
Mallow, 34.
Manners, Lord John, 91-92.
Margetson, 297.
Marlborough, Duke of, n.
Marmion, Anthony, 232-233.
Martin Family, 138.
Mathew, Father, 18, 21.
Mayo, 147, 161, 169, 185.
Meath, 263, 265, 266, 269,
273-
Meave, Que,n, 126, 148-
149.
Index
305
Melleek, 116.
Milesius, 232.
Milton, 291.
Misgoun Meave, 148-149.
Mizen Head, 40.
Molaise, St., 285.
Monasterboice, 259-260, 273,
278.
Monk, General, 235.
Monk's Robe Island (see
Innisfallen).
Monmouth, Rosa de, 265.
Montalembert, 282-284, 2 &9-
Moore, Thomas, 67, 87-88,
258-259.
Morris Family, 138.
Morrison, Robert, 212.
Morrogh, no.
Mount Alexander, Earl of,
211.
Mourne Abbey, 246.
Mourne Mountains, 240, 246.
Mourne Park, 246.
Moy, The, 186, 187.
Muadas, The, 186.
Muckross, 62, 71.
Muckross Abbey, 68, 71-72,
75-
Muckross Lake, 72.
Munster, 15, 75, 116, 153.
Muredach, 186.
Murphy, Pat, 246.
Murphys, The, 44.
Muskau, Prince Puckler, 50.
Muskerry, 33.
Nad-na-nillar (see Eagle's
Nest).
Nangle, Rev. Edward, 170-
173-
Narrow Water Castle, 240.
Navan, 265-266.
Great Moat, 266.
Neath, 201.
Nessan, St., 16.
Newcastle, 245-246.
Newman, 17.
Newry, 235, 240.
Nial, King, 200.
O'Brien, Fitz-James, 103.
O'Brien of Thomond, 113.
O'Cahans, The, 223.
O'Connell, Daniel, 95.
O'Connor, T. P., 150-152.
O'Donnell, The, 284.
O'Donoghues, The, 71, 75.
O'Halloran, 166.
O'Kanes, The, 223.
O'Mahony, Denis, 34.
O'Malley, Grace, 167, 174.
O'Melaghlin, 265.
O'Neill, Shane, 297.
O'Neills, The, 207, 224.
O'Sullivan Mor, 71.
O'Sullivans, The, 44, 45.
Ormonde Family, 292.
Ossian, 166.
Oughterard, 177.
Pallas, 124.
Patrick, St., 114, 126, 153,
187, 235, 243-244, 259, 264,
269, 281, 297.
Paxton, Sir Joseph, 193.
Penn, William, 18, 33.
Penn, Admiral Sir William,
33-
Percy, Thomas, 244.
Petrie, Hindes, Dr., 159.
Portrush, 215, 223.
Portumna, 115-116.
Power, Captain, 49.
Prout, Father, 8-13, 26, 27,
28.
Purple Mountain, 62.
306
Index
Quaker Island, 125.
Queenstown, 1-8, 84, 91.
The Beach, 2.
Quoile, The, 243.
Raphoe, 200.
Rat hi in Island, 226.
Recess, 177, 181-182.
Richard II., 234.
Km down Castle, 125.
Rioch, St., 126.
Rocky Island, 6.
Roden, Earl of, 245.
Roderic, King of Connaught,
263.
Roscommon, 119, 126.
Ross Castle, 75.
Ross-na-Ri, 253.
Rostellan Castle, 6.
Rostrevor, 235-236, 246, 247.
Catholic Chapel, 236.
Sackville, Lionel, 250.
Sarsfield, General, 99.
Schomberg, 250.
Schull, 40.
Scott, Sir Walter, 71, 125,
206, 225.
Screen, Church of, 257.
Shannon, The, 40, 100, 103-
128, 1 66, 189.
Bridge, 119.
Harbour, 119.
Sheep's Head, 40.
Sherrard, Robert, 212.
Skelligs Rocks, 87, 96.
Skerret Family, 138.
Slea Head, 95.
Sleivemore, 167.
Sliabhna-goil, 57.
Slieve Aughty Mountains,
116.
Slieve Donard, 245.
Slieve League, 195, 196, 199-
200.
Slieve-na-Slat, 246.
Sligo, 148, 187-193.
Abbey, 193.
County, 187.
Speed, 254.
Spenser, 6.
Spike Island, 6.
Spike, James, 212.
St. Patrick's Purgatory, 114-
115.
Stags of Broadhaven, 185.
Station Island, 114.
" Stella," 264-265.
Stevenson, R. L., 64.
Steward, James, 212.
Sugar Loaf Mountain, 57.
Swift, Dean, 235, 264-265.
Tara, 106, 251-259, 260, 265,
269, 283.
Psalter of, 252.
Taylor, Jeremy, 244, 296.
Taylor, Thomas, 48.
Teelin Head, 199,
Temple Brecan, 160.
Temple MacDuagh, 160.
Thackeray, 49-50.
Thomond, 113.
Tighernach, 283.
Tipperary, County, 114.
Toberclare, 123.
Tollymore Park, 245.
Tone, Theobald Wolfe, 44-
45-
Tore Lake, 72.
Tore Mountain, 62, 75.
Tore Waterfall (or Cascade),
62,75.
Tory Island, 202, 205.
Tredagh (see Drogheda).
Trim, 260-265.
Index
307
Tuatha de Danaan, Princes
of, 87.
Turgesius, 125, 233.
Twelve Bens, The, 181, 182.
Tyrconnel, 224.
Tyrconnel, Lady, 249-250.
Tyrell, Captain, 48.
Tyrrey, Dominick, II.
Ulster, 154, 207, 224, 239,
240, 243, 245, 254, 291, 292,
295.
Ultonia, 283.
Valentia Island, 87-95.
Valley of the Black Pig, 187-
188.
Venerable Bede, 201.
"Vicar of Wakefield, The,"
123.
Victoria Lock, 116.
Victoria, Queen, 5.
Walker, 213.
Walton, Izaak, 190.
Warbeck, Perkin 15.
Waterford, 17, 247, 249.
Wellington, Duke of, 88.
Wells of Struell, 244.
Westmeath, 119.
Westport, 177.
Whiddy Island, 45.
Wicklow, 22, 160.
Wilkie, Sir David, 53.
William of Orange, 99, 120,
249-250.
Windy Gap, 68.
Woodford, 116.
Yeats, W. B., 64, 187-188.
Yelverton, Major, 246-247.
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