The Charm of Ireland
by Burton Egbert Stevenson · English · Gutenberg #35529 · 930,919 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Charm of Ireland
Author: Burton Egbert Stevenson
Release date: March 8, 2011 [eBook #35529]
Language: English
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THE CHARM OF IRELAND
[Illustration: TWO TINY CONNAUGHT TOILERS
_See page 356_]
THE CHARM OF IRELAND
by
BURTON E. STEVENSON
Author of "The Spell of Holland," "The Mystery of the Boule
Cabinet," etc.
With Many Illustrations from Photographs by the Author
New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
1914
Copyright, 1914
By Dodd, Mead & Company
_TO_
J. I. B.
_THIS BOOK_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I DUBLIN'S SATURDAY NIGHT 1
II LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF AN ANCIENT CAPITAL 9
III THE ART OF ANCIENT ERIN 26
IV ON THE TRAIL OF THE SHAMROCK 42
V THE COUNTRY OF ST. KEVIN 59
VI DROGHEDA THE DREARY 85
VII HOLY CROSS AND CASHEL OF THE KINGS 97
VIII ADVENTURES AT BLARNEY 113
IX CUSHLA MA CHREE 128
X THE SHRINE OF ST. FIN BARRE 139
XI A TRIP THROUGH WONDERLAND 153
XII THE "GRAND TOUR" 177
XIII ROUND ABOUT KILLARNEY 192
XIV O'CONNELL, JOURNEYMAN TAILOR 203
XV THE RUINS AT ADARE 224
XVI "WHERE THE RIVER SHANNON FLOWS" 242
XVII LISSOY AND CLONMACNOISE 265
XVIII GALWAY OF THE TRIBES 292
XIX IAR CONNAUGHT 314
XX JOYCE'S COUNTRY 339
XXI THE REAL IRISH PROBLEM 358
XXII THE TRIALS OF A CONDUCTOR 375
XXIII THE LEACHT-CON-MIC-RUIS 398
XXIV THE WINDING BANKS OF ERNE 415
XXV THE MAIDEN CITY 438
XXVI THE GRAINAN OF AILEACH 458
XXVII THE BRIDGE OF THE GIANTS 472
XXVIII THE GLENS OF ANTRIM 485
XXIX BELFAST 503
XXX THE GRAVE OF ST. PATRICK 519
XXXI THE VALLEY OF THE BOYNE 534
XXXII THE END OF THE PILGRIMAGE 559
INDEX 567
ILLUSTRATIONS
Two Tiny Connaught Toilers _Frontispiece_
FACING
PAGE
Dublin Castle 10
O'Connell, alias Sackville, Street, Dublin 10
Ruins of St. Mary's Abbey Howth 22
The Evolution of the Jaunting Car 28
The Cross of Cong 40
The Shrine of St. Patrick's Bell 40
Glendalough and the Ruins of St. Kevin's Churches 66
The Road to St. Kevin's Seat 74
The First of St. Kevin's Churches 74
The Round Tower, Clondalkin 88
St. Lawrence's Gate, Drogheda 88
Holy Cross Abbey, from the Cloisters 100
The Mighty Ruins on the Rock of Cashel 100
Cashel of the Kings 104
Blarney Castle 116
A Cottage at Inchigeelagh 144
The Shrine of St. Fin Barre 144
The Bay of Glengarriff 164
The Upper Lake, Killarney, from the Kenmare Road 164
Old Weir Bridge, Killarney 188
The Meeting of the Waters 188
Ross Castle, Killarney 188
Muckross Abbey, Killarney 194
The Cloister at Muckross Abbey 194
The Choir of the Abbey at Adare 232
The Castle of the Geraldines, Adare 232
The Shannon, near World's End 248
St. Senan's Well 248
The Bridge at Killaloe 258
The Oratory at Killaloe 258
Entrance to St. Molua's Oratory 262
A Fisherman's Home 262
The Choir of the Abbey at Athenry 270
A Cottage at Athenry 270
The Goldsmith Rectory at Lissoy 276
The "Three Jolly Pigeons" 276
On the Road to Clonmacnoise 288
St. Kieran's Cathair, Clonmacnoise 288
The Market at Galway 296
"Ould Saftie" 296
The Claddagh, Galway 300
A Claddagh Home 300
A Galway Vista 302
The Memorial of a Spartan Father 302
The Connemara Marble Quarry 322
A Connemara Home 322
In "Joyce's Country" 344
On the Shore of Lough Mask 344
The Cloister at Cong Abbey 348
The Monks' Fishing-house, Cong Abbey 348
The Turf-Cutters 356
A Girl of "Joyce's Country" 356
Cromlechs at Carrowmore 392
Sligo Abbey from the Cloister 400
The Leacht-Con-Mic-Ruis 400
A Ruin on the Shore of Lough Gill 402
The Last Fragment of an Ancient Stronghold 402
A Cashel near Dromahair 408
St. Patrick's Holy Well 408
The Coast at Bundoran 416
The Home of "Colleen Bawn" 416
Birthplace of William Allingham 430
Castle Donegal 430
The Walls of Derry 466
The Grainan of Aileach 466
The "Giant's Head," near Portrush 480
The Ruins of Dunluce Castle 480
The Giant's Causeway 482
The Cliffs beyond the Causeway 482
The Grave of Ossian 496
An Antrim Landscape 496
A Humble Home in Antrim 498
The Old Jail at Cushendall 498
The City Hall, Belfast 516
High Street, Belfast 516
The Grave of Patrick, Brigid and Columba 522
The Old Cross at Downpatrick 522
The Great Rath at Downpatrick 526
The Inner and Outer Circles 526
The Central Mound 526
The Eye Well at Struell 528
The Well of Sins at Struell 528
The Birthplace of John Boyle O'Reilly 540
Entrance to Dowth Tumulus 540
Entrance to Newgrange 546
The Ruins of Mellifont 546
The Round Tower, Monasterboice 554
The High Cross, Monasterboice 554
Muiredach's Cross, Monasterboice 556
THE CHARM OF IRELAND
CHAPTER I
DUBLIN'S SATURDAY NIGHT
TWILIGHT was at hand when the little steamer, slender as a greyhound,
cast loose from the pier at Holyhead, made its way cautiously out past
the breakwater, and then, gathering speed, headed away across the Irish
Sea, straight toward the setting sun.
The boat showed many evidences that the Irish Sea can be savage when it
chooses. Everything movable about the decks was carefully lashed down;
there were railings and knotted ropes everywhere to cling to; and in the
saloon the table-racks were set ready at hand, as though they had just
been used, and might be needed again at any moment. But, on this
Saturday evening in late May, the sea was in a pleasant, even a jovial,
mood, with just enough swell to send a thin shower of spray across the
deck from time to time, and lend exhilaration to the rush of the fleet
little turbine.
There were many boats in sight--small ones, for the most part, rolling
and pitching apparently much worse than we; and then the gathering
darkness obscured them one by one, and presently all that was left of
them were the bobbing white lights at their mastheads. A biting chill
crept into the air, and Betty finally sought refuge from it in the
saloon, while I made my way back to the smoking-room, hoping for a
friendly pipe with some one.
I was attracted at once by a rosy-faced old priest, sitting at one of
the corner tables. He was smoking a black, well-seasoned briar, and he
bade me a cheery good-evening as I dropped into the seat beside him.
"You would be from America," he said, watching me as I filled up.
"Yes," I answered. "From Ohio."
"Ah, I know Ohio well," and he looked at me with new interest, "though
for many years I have been in Illinois."
"But you were born in Ireland?"
"I was so; near Tuam. I am going back now for a visit."
"Have you been away long?"
"More than thirty years," he said, and took a few reflective puffs.
"No doubt you will find many changes," I ventured.
But he shook his head. "I am thinking I shall find Tuam much as I left
it," he said. "There are not many changes in Ireland, even in thirty
years. 'Tis not like America. I am afraid I shall have to give up
smoking while I am there," he added, with a little sigh.
"Give up smoking?" I echoed. "But why?"
"They do not like their priests to smoke in Ireland."
I was astonished. I had no suspicion that Irish priests were criticised
for little things like that. In fact, I had somewhere received the
impression that they were above criticism of every kind--dictators, in
short, no act of whose was questioned. My companion laughed when I told
him this.
"That is not so at all," he said. "Every priest, of course, has
authority in spiritual matters; but if he has any authority outside of
that, it is because his people trust him. And before they'll trust him,
he must deserve it. There is no people in the world so critical, so
suspicious, or so sharp-sighted as the Irish. Take this matter of
smoking, now. All Irishmen smoke, and yet there is a feeling that it is
not the right thing for a priest. For myself, I see no harm in it. My
pipe is a fine companion in the long evenings, when I am often lonely.
But of course I can't do anything that would be making the people think
less of me," and he knocked his pipe out tenderly and put it sadly in
his pocket, refusing my proffered pouch.
"You will have to take a few whiffs up the chimney occasionally," I
suggested.
His faded blue eyes lit up with laughter.
"Ah, I have done that same before this," he said, with a little chuckle.
"That would be while I was a student at Maynooth, and a wild lot we
were. There was a hole high up in the wall where the stove-pipe used to
go, and we boys would draw a table under it, and stand on the table, and
smoke up the chimney, turn and turn about," and he went on to tell me of
those far-off days at Maynooth, which is the great Catholic college of
Ireland, and of his first visit to America, and his first sight of
Niagara Falls, and of how he had finally decided to enter the priesthood
after long uncertainty; and then presently some one came to the door and
said the lights of the Irish coast could be seen ahead, and we went out
to look at them.
Far away, a little to the right, a strong level shaft of light told of a
lighthouse. It was the famous Bailey light, at the foot of the Hill of
Howth, so one of the deckhands said; and then, still farther off,
another light began to wink and wink, and then a third that swept its
level beam across the sea, stared one full in the eye for an instant,
and then swept on; and then more lights and more--the green and red ones
marking the entrance to the harbour; and finally the lights of Kingstown
itself stretched away to the left like a string of golden beads. And
then we were in the harbour; and then we were beside the pier; and then
Betty and I and the "chocolate-drop"--as we had named the brown English
wrap-up which had done such yeoman service in Holland that we had vowed
never to travel without it,--went down the gang-plank, and were in
Ireland!
There is always a certain excitement, a certain exhilaration, in setting
foot for the first time in any country; but when that country is
Ireland, the Island of the Saints, the home of heroic legend and history
more heroic still, the land with a frenzy for freedom yet never
free--well, it was with a mist of happiness before our eyes that we
crossed the pier and sought seats in the boat-train.
It is only five or six miles from Kingstown to Dublin, so that at the
end of a very few minutes our train stopped in the Westland Row station,
where a fevered mob of porters and hotel runners was in waiting; and
then, after most of the passengers and luggage had been disgorged, and a
guard had come around and collected twopence from me for some obscure
reason I did not attempt to fathom, went on again, along a viaduct above
gleaming streets murmurous with people, and across the shining Liffey,
to the station at Amiens Street, which was our destination.
Our hotel, I knew, was only two or three blocks away, and the prospect
of traversing on foot the crowded streets which we had glimpsed from the
train was not to be resisted; so I told the guard we wanted a man to
carry our bags, and he promptly yelled at a ragamuffin, who was drifting
past along the platform.
"Here!" he called. "Take the bags for the gintleman. Look sharrup, now!"
But there was no need to tell him to look sharp, for he sprang toward me
eagerly, his face alight with joy at the prospect of earning a few
pennies--maybe sixpence--perhaps even a shilling!
"Where is it you'd be wantin' to go, sir?" he asked, and touched his
cap.
I named the hotel.
"It's in Sackville Street," I added. "That's not far, is it?"
"'Tis just a step, sir," he protested, and picked up the bags and was
off, we after him.
It was long past eleven o'clock, but when we got down to the street, we
found it thronged with a crowd for which the sidewalks were much too
narrow, and which eddied back and forth and in and out of the shops like
waves of the sea. We looked into their faces as we went along, and saw
that they were good-humoured faces, unmistakably Irish; their voices
were soft and the rise and fall of the talk was very sweet and gentle;
but most of them were very shabby, and many of them undeniably dirty,
and some had celebrated Saturday evening by taking a glass too much.
They were not drunk--and I may as well say here that I did not see what
I would call a drunken man all the time I was in Ireland--but they were
happy and uplifted, and required rather more room to walk than they
would need on Monday morning.
Our porter, meanwhile, was ploughing through the crowd ahead of us like
a ship through the sea, swinging a bag in either hand, quite regardless
of the shins of the passers-by, and we were hard put to it to keep him
in sight. It was farther than I had thought, but presently I saw a tall
column looming ahead which I recognised as the Nelson Pillar, and I
assured Betty that we were nearly there, for I knew that our hotel was
almost opposite the Pillar. Our porter, however, crossed a broad street,
which I was sure must be Sackville Street, without pausing, and
continued at top speed straight ahead. We followed him for some moments;
but the street grew steadily darker and more deserted, and finally I
sprinted ahead and stopped him.
"Look here," I said. "We don't want to keep on walking all night. How
much farther is the hotel?"
He set down the bags and mopped his dripping face with his sleeve.
"I'm not quite sure, sir," he said, looking about him.
"I don't believe it is up this way at all," I protested. "It's back
there on Sackville Street."
"It is, sir," he agreed cheerfully, and picked up the bags again and
started back.
"That _is_ Sackville Street, isn't it?" I asked.
"Sure, I don't know, sir."
"Don't know?" I echoed, and stared at him. "Don't you know where the
hotel is?"
"You see, sir, I'm a stranger in Dublin, like yourself," he explained.
"Well, why on earth didn't you say so?" I demanded.
He didn't answer; but of course I realised instantly why he hadn't said
so. If he had, he wouldn't have got the job. That was what he was afraid
of. In fact, he was afraid, even yet, that I would take the bags away
from him and get some one else to carry them. I didn't do that, but I
took command of the expedition.
"Come along," I said. "You follow me."
"Thank you, sir," he said, his face lighting up again, and fell in
behind us.
As we retraced our steps, I tried to figure out how he had expected to
find the hotel by plunging straight ahead without asking the way of any
one, and for how long, if I had not stopped him, he would have kept on
walking. Perhaps he had expected to keep going round and round until
some good fairy led him to our destination.
At the corner of Sackville Street, I saw a policeman's helmet looming
high above the crowd, and I went to him and asked the way, while our
porter waited in the background. Perhaps he was afraid of policemen, or
perhaps it was just the instinctive Irish dislike of them. This
particular one bent a benignant face down upon us from his altitude of
something over six feet, and in a moment set us right. The hotel was
only a few steps away. The door was locked, and I had to ring, and while
we were waiting, our porter looked about him with a bewildered face.
"What name was it you gave this street, sir?" he asked, at last.
"Sackville Street," I answered, and pointed for confirmation to the sign
at the corner, very plain under the electric light.
From the vacant look he gave it I knew he couldn't read; but he
scratched his head perplexedly.
"A friend of mine told me 'twas O'Connell Street," he said finally, and
I paid him and dismissed him without realising that I had been brought
face to face with the age-long conflict between English officialism and
Irish patriotism.
Ten minutes later, I opened the window of our room and found myself
looking out at Lord Nelson, leaning sentimentally on his sword on top of
his pillar--posing as he so often did when he found himself in the
limelight. Far below, the street still hummed with life, although it was
near midnight. The pavements were crowded, side-cars whirled hither and
thither, some of the shops had not yet closed. Dublin certainly seemed a
gay town.
CHAPTER II
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF AN ANCIENT CAPITAL
I KNOW Dublin somewhat better now, and I no longer think of it as a gay
town--rather as a supremely tragic one. Turn the corner from any of the
main thoroughfares, and you will soon find yourself in a foul alley of
crowded tenements, in the midst of a misery and squalor that wring the
heart. You will wonder to see women laughing together and children
playing on the damp pavements. It is thin laughter and half-hearted
play; and yet, even here, there is a certain air of carelessness and
good-humour. It may be that these miserable people do not realise their
misery. Cleanliness is perhaps as painful to a person reared in dirt as
dirt is to a person reared in cleanliness; slum dwellers, I suppose, do
not notice the slum odour; a few decades of slum life must inevitably
destroy or, at least, deaden those niceties of smell and taste and
feeling which play so large a part in the lives of the well-to-do. And
it is fortunate that this is so. But one threads one's way along these
squalid streets, shuddering at thought of the vice and disease that must
be bred there, and mourning, not so much for their unfortunate
inhabitants, as for the blindness and inefficiency of the social order
which permits them to exist.
[Illustration: DUBLIN CASTLE
(C) Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.]
[Illustration: O'CONNELL, ALIAS SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN]
These appalling alleys are always in the background of my thoughts of
Dublin; and yet it is not them I see when I close my eyes and evoke my
memory of that ancient town. The picture which comes before me then is
of the wide O'Connell Bridge, with the great monument of the Liberator
guarding one end of it, and the curving street beyond, sweeping past the
tall portico of the old Parliament House, past the time-stained
buildings of Trinity College, and so on along busy Grafton Street to St.
Stephen's Green. This is the most beautiful and characteristic of
Dublin's vistas; and one visualises it instinctively when one thinks of
Dublin, just as one visualises the boulevards and the Avenue de l'Opera
when one thinks of Paris, or the Dam and the Kalverstraat when one
thinks of Amsterdam, or the Strand and Piccadilly when one thinks of
London.
It was in this direction that our feet turned, that bright Sunday
morning, when we sallied forth for the first time to see the town, and
we were impressed almost at once by two things: the unusual height of
Dublin policemen and the eccentric attitudes of Dublin statues. There
are few finer bodies of men in the world than the Royal Irish
Constabulary. They are as spruce and erect as grenadiers; throughout the
length and breadth of Ireland, I never saw a fat one. They are recruited
all over the island, and the tallest ones must be selected for the
Dublin service. At any rate, they tower a full head above the average
citizen of that town, and, in consequence, there is always one or more
of them in sight.
As for the statues, they sadly lack repose. The O'Connell Monument is a
riot of action, though the Liberator himself is comparatively cool and
self-possessed. Just beyond the bridge, Smith O'Brien poses with leg
advanced and head flung back and arms proudly folded in the traditional
attitude of haughty defiance; opposite him, Henry Grattan stands with
hand outstretched midway of an eloquent period; and, as you explore the
streets, you will see other patriots in bronze or marble doing
everything but what they should be doing: standing quietly and making
the best of a bad job. For to stand atop a shaft of stone and endure the
public gaze eternally _is_ a bad job, even for a statue. But a good
statue conceals its feeling of absurdity and ennui under a dignified
exterior. Most Dublin ones do not. They are visibly irked and impatient.
I mentioned this interesting fact, one evening, to a Dublin woman of my
acquaintance, and she laughed.
"'Tis true they are impatient," she agreed. "But perhaps they will quiet
down once the government stops calling O'Connell Street by a wrong
name."
"Where _is_ O'Connell Street?" I asked, for I had failed to notice it.
"Your hotel faces it; but the government names it after a viceroy whom
nobody has thought of for a hundred years."
It was then I understood the confusion of the man who had carried our
bags up from the station; for to every good Irishman Sackville Street is
always O'Connell Street, in honour of the patriot whose monument adorns
it. That it is still known officially as Sackville Street is probably
due to the inertia of a government always suspicious of change, rather
than to any desire to honour a forgotten viceroy, or hesitation to add
another leaf to O'Connell's crown of laurel. O'Connell himself, in some
critical quarters, is not quite the idol he once was; but Irishmen agree
that the wide and beautiful street which is the centre of Dublin should
be named after him, and his monument, at one end of it, is still the
natural rallying-place for the populace, whose orators love to
illustrate their periods by pointing to the figure of Erin breaking her
fetters at its base.
At the other end of the street is a very noble memorial of another
patriot--Charles Stewart Parnell. Parnell's fame burns brighter and
clearer with the passing years, and this memorial, so simple, so
dignified, and yet so full of meaning, is one which no American can
contemplate without a thrill of pride, for it is the work of Augustus
Saint-Gaudens--a consummate artist, American to the marrow, though
Dublin-born, of a French father and an Irish mother.
Midway of this great thoroughfare, rises the Nelson Pillar--a fluted
column springing a hundred and fifty feet into the air, dominating the
whole town. I do not understand why Nelson should have been so signally
honoured in the Irish capital, for there was nothing Irish about him,
either in birth or temperament. Perhaps that is the reason. Stranger
things have happened in Ireland. And indeed it is no stranger than the
whim which set another statue to face the old Parliament House--a gilded
atrocity representing William of Orange, garbed as a Roman emperor in
laurel-wreath and toga, bestriding a sway-backed horse!
The Home Rule Parliament will no doubt promptly change the street signs
along the broad thoroughfare which forms the heart of Dublin; but
meanwhile everybody agrees in calling the bridge O'Connell's monument
faces by his name. A very handsome bridge it is, and there is a
beautiful view from it, both up and down the river. Dublin is like
Paris, in that it is built on both sides of a river, and the view from
this point reminds one somewhat of the view along the Seine. There are
many bridges, and many domed buildings, many boats moored to the
quays--and many patient fishermen waiting for a bite!
A short distance beyond the bridge is the great granite structure with
curving facade and rain-blackened columns, a queer but impressive jumble
of all the Greek orders, which now houses the Bank of Ireland. Time was
when it housed the Irish Parliament, and that time may come again;
meanwhile it stands as a monument to the classical taste of the
eighteenth century and its fondness for allegorical sculpture--Erin
supported by Fidelity and Commerce, and Fortitude supported by Justice
and Liberty! Those seem to me to be mixed allegories, but never mind.
Those later days of the eighteenth century were the days of Dublin's
glory, for then she was really, as well as sentimentally, the capital of
Ireland. Her most beautiful public buildings date from that period, and
all her fine spacious dwelling-houses. After the Union, nobody built
wide spacious dwellings, but only narrow mean ones, to suit the new
spirit; and the new spirit was so incapable of living in the lovely old
houses that it turned them into tenements, and put a family in every
room, without any sense of crowding! I sometimes fear that the old
spirit is gone for good, and that not even independence can bring it
back to Dublin.
It was the Irish House of Commons which, in 1752, provided the funds for
the new home of Trinity College, just across the street--a great pile of
time-worn buildings, also in the classic style, and rather dull; but it
is worth while to go in through the great gateway for a look at the
outer and inner quadrangles.
Beyond the college stretches Grafton Street, the principal
shopping-street of Dublin, and at its head is St. Stephen's Green, a
pretty park, with some beautiful eighteenth century houses looking down
upon it. This was the centre of the fashionable residence district in
the old days, and the walk along the north side was the "Beaux Walk."
Such of the residences as remain are mostly given over to public
purposes, and the square itself is redolently British; for there is a
statue of George II in the centre, and one of Lord Eglinton not far
away, and a triumphal arch commemorating the war in South Africa. But,
if you look closely, you may find the inconspicuous bust of James
Clarence Mangan, who coughed his life out in the Dublin slums while Tom
Moore--who was also born here--was posing before fine London ladies; and
Mangan had this reward, that he remained sincere and honest and warmly
Irish to the last, a true bard of Erin, and one whose memory she does
well to cherish. How feeble Tom Moore's tinklings sound beside the white
passion of "Dark Rosaleen!"
Over dews, over sands,
Will I fly for your weal:
Your holy, delicate white hands
Shall girdle me with steel.
At home in your emerald bowers,
From morning's dawn till e'en,
You'll pray for me, my flower of flowers,
My dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
You'll think of me through daylight's hours,
My virgin flower, my flower of flowers,
My dark Rosaleen!
A short walk down Kildare Street leads to a handsome, wide-flung
building with a court in front, once the mansion of the Duke of
Leinster, but now occupied by the Royal Dublin Society. The wing at the
right is the Science and Art Museum, that to the left the National
Library. The latter is scarcely worth a visit, unless there is some
reading you wish to do, but we shall have to spend some hours in the
museum.
On this Sunday morning, however, Betty and I walked on through to
Leinster Lawn, a pleasant enclosed square, with gravelled walks and
gardens gay with flowers, but marred with many statues; and here you
will note that a Victorian government spent a huge sum in commemorating
the virtues of the Prince Consort. We contemplated it for a while, and
then went on to the great building which closes in the park on the
north, and which houses the National Gallery of Ireland. We found the
collection surprisingly good. It is especially rich in Dutch art, and
possesses three Rembrandts, one of an old and another of a young man,
and the other showing some shepherds building a fire--just such a
subject as Rembrandt loved. And there is a good Teniers, and an
inimitable canvas by Jan Steen, "The Village School." There are also a
number of pictures by Italian masters, but these did not seem to me so
noteworthy.
This general collection of paintings is on the upper floor. The ground
floor houses the National Portrait Gallery, composed for the most part
of mediocre presentments of mediocre personalities, but with a high
light here and there worth searching for. Sir Godfrey Kneller's portrait
of Dick Steele is there, and Holbein's Henry Wyatt, and Zuccaro's
Raleigh, and there are three or four portraits by Lely and Reynolds, but
not, I should say, in their best style.
Let me add here that there is in Dublin another picture gallery well
worth a visit. This is the Municipal Gallery, housed in a beautiful old
mansion in Harcourt Street--another memorial of spacious eighteenth
century days, where that famous judge and duellist, Lord Clonmell,
lived. The house itself would be worth seeing, even if there were no
pictures in it, for it is a splendid example of Georgian domestic
architecture; but there are, besides some beautiful examples of the
Barbizon school, a number of modern Irish paintings which promise much
for the future of Irish art.
* * * * *
The day was so bright and warm that it seemed a pity to spend the whole
of it in town, so, after lunch, we took a tram for the Hill of Howth.
Most of the tram lines of the city start from the Nelson Pillar, so we
had only to cross the street to the starting point.
There seems to be a considerable difference of opinion as to the correct
pronunciation of "Howth." Perhaps that is because it is a Danish
word--hoved, a head--the Danes having left the mark of their presence in
the names of places all over Ireland, even in the names of three of its
four provinces. Only far Connaught escaped the stigma. At any rate, when
I asked a policeman which tram to take for Howth, I pronounced the word
as it is spelt, to rhyme with "south." He corrected me at once.
"'Tis the Hill of Hooth ye mean," he said, making it rhyme with "youth,"
"and that's your tram yonder."
We clambered up the steep stairway at the back to a seat on top, and
presently we started; and then the conductor came around with tickets,
and asked where we were going--in Ireland, as everywhere else in Europe,
the fare is gauged by the length of the journey.
"To the Hill of Hooth," I answered proudly.
"Ah, the Hill of H[=o]th, is it," he said, making it rhyme with "both,"
and he picked out the correct tickets from the assortment he carried,
punched them and gave them to me.
We used the pronunciations indiscriminately, after that, and I never
learned which is right, though I suspect that "H[=o]th" is.
Howth is a great detached block of mountain thrown down, by some caprice
of nature, at the sea-ward edge of a level plain to the north of Dublin
Bay, where it stands very bold and beautiful. It is some eight or ten
miles from Dublin, and the tram thither runs through the north-eastern
part of the town, and then emerges on the Strand, with Dublin Bay on one
side and many handsome residences on the other. Away across the bay are
the beautiful green masses of the Wicklow hills, and presently you come
to Clontarf, where, on Good Friday, nine hundred years ago, the Irish,
under their great king, Brian Boru, met the marshalled legions of the
Danes, and broke their power in Ireland.
For the Danes had sailed up the Liffey a century before, and built a
castle to command the ford, somewhere near the site of the present
castle; and about this stronghold grew up the city of Dublin; and then
they built other forts to the south and north and west; bands of raiders
marched to and fro over the country, plundering shrines, despoiling
monasteries, levying tribute, until all Ireland, with the exception of
the extreme west, crouched under the Danish power. The Danes, it should
be remembered, were the terror and scourge of Europe, and since the
Ireland of that day was the richest country of Europe in churches and
monasteries and other religious establishments, it was upon Ireland the
Pagan invaders left their deepest mark.
For a hundred years they had their will of the land, crushing down such
weak and divided resistance as the people were able to offer. And then
came Brian Boru, a man strong enough to draw all Ireland into one
alliance, and at last the Danes met a resistance which made them pause.
For twenty years, Brian waged desperate war against them, defeating them
sometimes, sometimes defeated; but never giving up, though often
besought to do so; retiring to his bogs until he could recruit his
shattered forces, and then, as soon as might be, falling again upon his
enemies.
In the intervals of this warfare, he devoted himself to setting his
kingdom in order, and to such good purpose that, as the historians
tell--and Tom Moore rhymes--a lone woman could make the circuit of Erin,
without fear of molestation, though decked with gold and jewels. Brian
did more than that--and this is the measure of his greatness: he built
roads, erected churches and monasteries to replace those destroyed by
the Danes, founded schools to which men came from far countries, and
"sent professors and masters to teach wisdom and knowledge and to buy
books beyond the sea."
It was in 1014 that the final great battle of Clontarf was fought. Both
sides, realising that this was the decisive struggle, had mustered every
man they could. With Brian were his own Munster men, and the forces of
O'Rourke and Hy Many from Connaught, and Malachy with his Meath legions,
and Desmond with the men of Kerry and West Cork--a wild host, with
discipline of the rudest, trusting for victory not to strategy or
tactics, but to sheer strength of arm.
And what a muster of Danes there was! Not only the Danes of Dublin, but
the hosts from the Orkneys and "from every island on the Scottish main,
from Uist to Arran"; and even from far-off Scandinavia and Iceland the
levies hastened, led by "Thornstein, Hall of the Side's son, and
Halldor, son of Gudmund the Powerful, and many other northern champions
of lesser note." It is characteristic of Irish history through the ages
that, on this great day, one Irish province cast in its lot with its
country's enemies, for the battalions of Leinster formed side by side
with the Danes.
There are Danish and Irish sagas which tell the story of that fight, and
blood-stirring tales they are. Brian Boru, bent under the weight of
seventy-four years, took station apart on a bit of rising ground, and
there, kneeling on a cushion, alternately prayed and watched the battle.
The Danes had the better of it, at first, hewing down their adversaries
with their gleaming axes; but the Munster men stood firm and fought so
savagely that at last the Danes broke and fled. One party of them passed
the little hill where Brian knelt, and paused long enough to cut him
down; but his life's work was done: the power of the Danes was broken,
and there was no longer need to fear that the Norsemen would rule
Ireland.
Just north of Clontarf parish church stands an ancient yew, and
tradition says that it was under this tree that Brian's body was laid by
his men. The tradition may be true or not, but the wonderful tree, the
most venerable in Ireland, is worth turning aside a few moments to
visit. It stands in private grounds, and permission must be asked to
enter, but it is seldom refused.
Like too many other spots in Ireland, Clontarf has its tragic memory as
well as its glorious one, for it was here that O'Connell's Home Rule
movement, to which thousands of men had pledged fealty, dropped suddenly
to pieces because of the indecision of its leader at the first hint of
British opposition. But there is no need to tell that story here.
* * * * *
The town of Howth consists of one long street running around the base of
the hill and facing the harbour and the Irish Sea. The harbour is
enclosed by impressive piers of granite, and was once a busy place, for
it was the Dublin packet station until Kingstown superseded it. Since
then, the entrance has silted up, and now nothing rides at anchor there
but small yachts and fishing-boats. On that clear and sunny day the view
was very beautiful. A mile to the north was the rugged little island
known as Ireland's Eye, and far away beyond the long stretch of low
coast loomed the purple masses of the Carlingford hills. Away to the
east stretched the Irish Sea, greenish-grey in the sunlight, with a
white foam-crest here and there, and to the south lay Dublin Bay against
the background of the Wicklow mountains.
High on a cliff above the haven lie the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey, and
we presently clambered up to them. We found them encircled by an
embattled wall, but a neighbourhood urchin directed us to a pile of
tumbledown buildings at the corner as the home of the caretaker. He was
not there, but his wife was, as well as a large collection of ragged
children, and one of these, a girl of ten or thereabouts, was sent by
her mother to do the honours. She was very shy at first, but her tongue
finally loosened, and we were enraptured with her soft voice and
beautiful accent. Her father was a fisherman, she said; they were all
fisher-families who lived in the tumble-down pile, which was once a part
of the abbey and so comes legitimately by its decay, since it is four or
five hundred years old, and has apparently never been repaired.
Of the abbey church itself, only the walls remain, and they are the
survivals of three distinct buildings. The west front is part of the
original Danish church, built in 1042, and is pierced by a small
round-headed doorway, above which rises an open bell-turret. In 1235,
the Archbishop of Dublin rebuilt the Danish church, retaining only its
facade. The interior, as he remodelled it, consisted of a nave and one
aisle, separated by three pointed arches. They are still there, very low
and rude, marking the length of the Archbishop's church. Two centuries
later, this was found too small, and so the church was lengthened by the
addition of three more arches. They also are still standing, and are
both higher and wider than the first three. The tracery in the east
window is still intact, and is very graceful, as may be seen by the
photograph opposite this page, in which the variation in the arches is
also well shown. Note also the round-headed doorway at the side, with
the remains of a porch in front--a detail not often seen in old Irish
churches. And, last of all, note the ruined building in the corner.
Although it has no roof, it is still used as a dwelling, as the
curtained window shows.
[Illustration: RUINS OF ST. MARY'S ABBEY, HOWTH]
Just inside the east window of the church is the tomb of Christopher,
nineteenth Lord Howth, who died about 1490. It is an altar tomb, bearing
the recumbent figures of the knight and his lady, the former's feet
resting, after the usual fashion, on his dog. Considering the
vicissitudes of weather and vandalism through which they have passed,
both figures are surprisingly well preserved.
The Howth peninsula still belongs to the Howth family, who trace their
line direct to Sir Almericus Tristram, an Anglo-Norman knight who
conquered and annexed it in 1177, and the demesne, one of the most
beautiful in Ireland, lies to the west of the town. The castle, a long,
battlemented building flanked with towers, is said to contain many
objects of interest, but we did not get in, for the gardener informed us
that it was open to the public only on Tuesdays and Saturdays. The
grounds are famous for their gorgeous rhododendrons, and there is a
cromlech there, under which, so legend says, lies Aideen, wife of Oscar,
son of Ossian and chief hero of those redoubtable warriors, the Fianna.
* * * * *
In Ireland, during the summer months, sunrise and sunset are eighteen
hours apart, and so, though it was rather late when we got back to the
hotel, it was as light as midday. We were starting for our room, when a
many-buttoned bell-boy, with a face like a cherub, who was always
hovering near, stopped us and told us shyly that, if we would wait a few
minutes, we could see the parade go past.
During the morning, we had noticed gaily-uniformed bands marching hither
and thither, convoying little groups of people, some of them in fancy
costume, and had learned that there was to be a great labour celebration
somewhere, with music and much oratory. We had not thought it worth
while to run it down, but we said we should be glad to see the parade,
so our guide took us out to the balcony on the first floor, and then
remained to talk.
"You would be from America, sir, I'm thinking," he began.
"Yes," I said.
"Then you have seen Indians!"
"Indians? Why, yes, I've seen a few."
"On the war-path?" he cried, his eyes shining with excitement.
I couldn't help laughing.
"No," I said. "They don't go on the war-path any more. They're quite
tame now."
His face fell.
"But you have seen cowboys?" he persisted.
"Only in Wild West Shows," I admitted. "That's where I have seen most of
my Indians."
"They're brave lads, aren't they?" and his eyes were shining again.
"Why, have you seen them?" I questioned in surprise.
"Ah, I have, sir, many times, in the moving-pictures," he explained. "It
must be a fine thing to live in America!"
I found out afterwards that the Wild West film is exceedingly popular in
Ireland. No show is complete without one. I saw some, later on, and most
sanguinary and impossible they were; but they were always wildly
applauded, and I think most Irishmen believe that the life of the
average American is largely employed in fighting Indians and rescuing
damsels in distress. I tried to tell the bell-boy that life in America
was much like life everywhere--humdrum and matter-of-fact, with no
Indians and few adventures; but I soon desisted. Why should I spoil his
dream?
And then, from up the street, came the rattle and blare of martial
music, and we had our first view of an Irish performer on the bass-drum.
It is a remarkable and exhilarating spectacle. The drummer grasps a
stick in each hand, and sometimes he pounds with both of them, and
sometimes he twirls one over his head and pounds with the other, and
sometimes he crosses his arms over the top of the drum and pounds that
way. I suppose there is an etiquette about it, for they all conduct
themselves in the same frenzied fashion, while the crowd stares
fascinated. It is exhausting work, and I am told that during a long
parade the drummers sometimes have to be changed two or three times. But
there is never any lack of candidates.
There were thousands of men in line, that day, members of a hundred
different lodges, each with its banner. Their women-folk trooped along
with them, often arm-in-arm; and they trudged silently on with the slow
and dogged tread of the beast of burden; and the faces of men and women
alike were the pale, patient faces of those who look often in the eyes
of want. It melted the heart to see them--to see their rough and
toil-worn clothing, their gnarled and twisted hands, their heavy
hob-nailed shoes--and to think of their treadmill lives, without hope
and without beauty--just an endless struggle to keep the soul in the
body. Minute after minute, for almost an hour, they filed past. What
they hoped to gain, I do not know--a living wage, perhaps, since that is
what labour needs most in Ireland--and what it has not yet won!
Our Buttons had watched the parade with the amused tolerance of the
uniformed aristocrat.
"There's a lot of mad people in Dublin," he remarked cheerfully, as we
turned to go in.
CHAPTER III
THE ART OF ANCIENT ERIN
DUBLIN is by far the most fascinating town in Ireland. She has
charm--that supreme attribute alike of women and of cities; and she has
beauty, which is a lesser thing. She is rich in the possession of many
treasures, and proud of the memorials of many famous sons. Despite all
the vicissitudes of fortune, she has remained the spiritual and artistic
capital of Ireland, and she looks forward passionately to the day when
the temporal crown will be restored to her. To be sure, there is a
canker in her bosom, but she knows that it is there; and perhaps some
day she will gather courage to cut it out.
Among her memorials and treasures, are four of absorbing interest--the
grave of Swift, the tomb of Strongbow, the Cross of Cong and the Book of
Kells. It was for the first of these, which is in St. Patrick's
Cathedral, that we started Monday morning, and to get there we mounted
for the first time to the seats of a jaunting-car.
I suppose I may as well pause here for a word about this peculiarly
Irish institution. Why it should be peculiarly Irish is hard to
understand, for it furnishes a rapid, easy, and--when one has learned
the trick--comfortable means of locomotion. Every one, of course, is
familiar with the appearance of a jaunting-car--or side-car, as it is
more often called--with its two seats back to back, facing outwards,
and a foot-rest overhanging each wheel.
Opposite the next page is a series of post-card pictures showing its
evolution from the primitive drag, which is the earliest form of vehicle
all the world over, and which still survives in the hilly districts of
Ireland, where wheels would be useless on the pathless mountain-sides.
Then comes a rude cart with solid wheels and revolving axle working
inside the shafts, still used in parts of far Connaught, and then the
cart with spoke wheels working outside the shafts on a fixed
axle--pretty much the form still used all the world over--just such a
"low-backed car" as sweet Peggy used when she drove to market on that
memorable day in spring. The next step was taken when some
comfort-loving driver removed the side-boards, in order that he might
sit with his legs hanging down; and one sees them sitting just so all
over Ireland, with their women-folk crouched on the floor of the cart
behind, their knees drawn up under their chins, and all muffled in heavy
shawls. I do not remember that I ever saw a woman sitting on the edge of
a cart with her legs hanging over--perhaps it isn't good form!
Thus far there is nothing essentially Irish about any of these vehicles;
but presently it occurred to some inventive Jehu that he would be more
comfortable if he had a rest for his feet, and presto! the side-car. It
was merely a question of refinements, after that--the addition of backs
and cushions to the seats, the enlargement of the wheels to make the car
ride more easily, the attachment of long springs for the same purpose,
and the placing of a little box between the seats for the driver to sit
on when his car is full. In a few of the larger places, the development
has reached the final refinement of rubber tires, but usually these are
considered a too-expensive luxury.
[Illustration: THE EVOLUTION OF THE JAUNTING CAR]
Now evolution is supposed to be controlled by the survival of the
fittest, but this is only half-true of the side-car; for, while
admirably adapted to hilly roads, it is the worst possible conveyance in
wet weather. Hilly roads are fairly frequent in Ireland, but they are
nowhere as compared to wet days, and the side-car is a standing proof of
the Irishman's indifference to rain. Indeed, we grew indifferent to it
ourselves, before we had been in Ireland very long, for it really didn't
seem to matter.
I suppose it is the climate, so soft, so sweet, so balmy that one gets
no harm from a wetting. The Irish tramp around without any thought of
the weather, work just the same in the rain as in the sun, never think
of using a rain-coat or an umbrella--would doubtless consider the
purchase of either a waste of money which could be far better spent--and
yet, all the time we were in Ireland, we never saw a man or woman with a
cold! The Irish are proud of their climate, and they have a right to be.
And, now I think of it, perhaps the climate explains the jaunting-car.
That compound, by the way, is never used by an Irishman. He says simply
"car." "Car" in Ireland means a side-car, and nothing else. In most
other countries, "car" is short for motor-car. In Ireland, if one means
motor, one must say motor. But the visitor will never have occasion to
mean motor unless he owns one, for, outside of the trams in a few of
the larger cities, the side-car is practically the only form of
street and neighbourhood conveyance. One soon grows to like it; we have
ridden fifty miles on one in a single day, and many times we rode
twenty-five or thirty miles, without any undue sense of fatigue. The
secret is to pick out a car with a comfortably-padded back extending in
a curve around the rear end of each seat. One can tuck oneself into this
curve and swing happily along mile after mile.
The driver of a side-car is called a jarvey. I don't know why. The
Oxford dictionary says the word is a "by-form of the surname Jarvis,"
but I am not learned enough to see the connection, unless it was Mr.
Jarvis who drove the first side-car. I wish I could say that the jarvey
differed as much from the cabbies and chauffeurs of other lands as his
car does from the cab and the taxi; but, alas, this is not the case. He
is just as rapacious and piratical as they, though he may rob you with a
smile, while they do it with a frown; and he has this advantage: there
is no taximeter with which to control him. Everywhere, if one is not a
millionaire, one must be careful to bargain in advance. Once the bargain
is concluded, your jarvey is the most agreeable and obliging of fellows.
He usually has every reason to be, for nine times out of ten he gets
much the better of the bargain! I have never been able to decide
whether, in these modern times when piracy on the high seas has been
repressed, men with piratical instincts turn naturally to cab-driving,
or whether all men have latent piratical instincts which cab-driving
inevitably develops.
The Dublin jarvey is famous for his ability to turn a corner at
top-speed. He usually does it on one wheel, and the person on the
outside seat has the feeling that, unless he holds tight, he will
certainly be hurled into misty space. We held on, that morning, and so
reached St. Patrick's without misadventure in a surprisingly few
minutes.
St. Patrick's Cathedral is not an especially impressive edifice. It
dates from Norman days, and was built over one of St. Patrick's holy
wells; but, like most Irish churches, it was in ruins most of the time,
and fifty years ago it was practically rebuilt in its present shape. Sir
Benjamin Guinness, of the Guinness Brewery, furnished the money. Like
all the other old religious establishments, it was taken from the
Catholics in the time of Henry VIII and given to his Established
Church--the Episcopal Church, here called the Church of Ireland--and has
remained in its possession ever since, though the church itself was
disestablished some forty years ago.
By far the most interesting fact about St. Patrick's is that Jonathan
Swift was for thirty-two years its Dean, and now lies buried there
beside that "Stella" whom he made immortal. A brass in the pavement
marks the spot where they lie side by side, and on the wall not far away
is the marble slab which enshrines the epitaph he himself wrote. It is
in Latin, and may be Englished thus:
Jonathan Swift, for thirty years Dean of this
Cathedral, lies here, where savage indignation can
no longer tear his heart. Go, traveller, and, if
you can, imitate him who played a man's part as
the champion of liberty.
Another slab bears a second epitaph written by Swift to mark the grave
of "Mrs. Hester Johnson, better known to the world by the name of
'Stella,' under which she is celebrated in the writings of Dr. Jonathan
Swift, Dean of this Cathedral." Whether she should have borne the name
of him who celebrated her the world will never know. She died seventeen
years before him, "killed by his unkindness," and was buried here at
midnight, while he shut himself into a back room of his deanery across
the way that he might not see the lights of the funeral party. He had
faults and frailties enough, heaven knows, but the Irish remember them
with charity, for, though his savage indignation had other fuel than
Ireland's wrongs and sorrows, yet they too made his heart burn, and he
voiced that feeling in words more burning still. He died in a madhouse,
as he expected to die, leaving
"the little wealth he had
To build a house for fools and mad,
And showed by one satiric touch
No nation wanted it so much."
There is another characteristic epitaph of Swift's on a tablet in the
south wall, near the spot where General Schomberg lies--that bluff old
soldier who met glorious death at the head of his victorious troops at
the battle of the Boyne. Swift wished to mark the grave with an
appropriate memorial, but Schomberg's relatives declined to contribute
anything toward its cost; whereupon Swift and his Chapter put up this
slab, paying tribute to the hero's virtues, and adding that his valour
was more revered by strangers than by his own kindred.
There are many other curious and interesting monuments in the place,
well worth inspecting, but I shall refer to only one of them--the one
which started the feud that sent Strafford to the scaffold. It is a
towering structure, erected by the great Earl of Cork to the memory of
his "virtuous and religious" Countess, in 1629. It stood originally at
the east end of the choir near the altar, but Strafford, instigated by
Archbishop Laud, who protested that it was a monstrosity which
desecrated that sacred place, compelled its removal to the nave, where
it now stands. The Earl of Cork never forgave him, and hounded him to
his death. The monument is a marvel of its kind, containing no less than
sixteen highly-coloured figures, most of them life-size. The Earl and
his lady lie side by side in the central panel, with two sons kneeling
at their head and two at their feet, while their six daughters kneel in
the panel below, three on either side of an unidentified infant. After
contemplating this huge atrocity, one cannot but conclude that the
Archbishop was right.
Back of the Cathedral is a little open square, where the children of the
neighbouring slums come to play in the sunshine on the gravelled walks;
and dirty and ragged and distressful as they are, they have still about
them childhood's clouds of glory. So that it wrings the heart to look at
the bedraggled, gin-soaked, sad-eyed, hopeless men and women who crowd
the benches and to realise not only that they were children once, but
that most of these children will grow to just such miserable maturity.
We walked from the Cathedral up to the Castle, that morning, crossing
this square and traversing a corner of the slums, appalling in their
dirt and squalor, where whole families live crowded in a single room. In
Dublin there are more than twenty thousand such families. Think what
that means: five, six, seven, often even eight or nine persons, living
within the same four walls--some in dark basements, some in ricketty
attics--cooking and eating there, when they have anything to cook and
eat; sitting there through the long hours; sleeping there through the
foul nights; awaking there each morning to another hopeless day of
misery. Think how impossible it is to be clean or decent amid such
surroundings. Small wonder self-respect soon withers, and that drink,
the only path of escape from these horrors, even for a little while, is
eagerly welcomed. And the fact that every great city has somewhere
within her boundaries some such foulness as this is perhaps the one
thing our civilisation has most reason to be ashamed of!
* * * * *
Dublin Castle is interesting only because of its history. It was here,
by what was then the ford across the Liffey just above the tideway, that
the Danish invaders built their first stronghold in 837, and from it the
last of them was expelled in 1170 by Strongbow at the head of his
Anglo-Norman knights; here, two years later, Henry II received the
submission of the overawed Irish chiefs; and from that day forward, this
old grey fortress cast its shadow over the whole land. No tribesman was
too remote to dread it, for the chance of any day might send him to rot
in its dungeon, or shriek his life out in its torture-chamber, or set
his head to blacken on its tower--even as the shaggy head of Shan the
Proud blackened and withered there for all the world to see. In a word,
it is from the Castle that an alien rule has been imposed on Ireland for
more than a thousand years, until to-day to say "the Castle" is to say
"the Government."
Of the mediaeval castle, only one of the four towers remains, and the
curtains which connected them have been replaced by rows of
office-buildings, where the Barnacles who rule Ireland have their lairs.
A haughty attendant--not too haughty, however, to accept a tip--will
show you through the state apartments, which are not worth visiting; and
another, more human one, will show you through the chapel. It is more
interesting without than within, for over the north door, side by side
in delightful democratic equality, are busts of Dean Swift and St.
Peter, while over the east one Brian Boru occupies an exalted place
between St. Patrick and the Virgin Mary, while on the corbels of the
window-arches the heads of ninety sovereigns of Great Britain have been
cut--I cannot say with what fidelity.
It is but a step from the Castle to Christ Church Cathedral, by far the
most interesting building in Dublin. The Danes founded it in 1038; then
came Strongbow, who built an English cathedral atop the rude Danish
church, which is now the crypt, and his transepts and one bay of his
choir still survive. There were various additions and rebuildings, after
that, but in 1569 the bog on which the Cathedral is built moved under
its weight, the entire south wall of the nave and the vaulted roof fell
in, and the debris lay where it fell until 1875, when Henry Roe, of
Roe's Whiskey, furnished the money for a complete restoration.
It is a significant coincidence that St. Patrick's was restored from the
profits of a brewery and Christ Church from the profits of a distillery,
for it was by some such profits that they had to be restored, if they
were to be restored at all, because brewing and distilling are the only
industries which have flourished in Dublin since the Act of Union. All
others have decayed or withered entirely away. Wherein is food for
thought!
But this takes nothing from the fact that Christ Church is an
interesting structure; and the most interesting thing in it is the tomb
of Strongbow. Richard de Clare his name was, second Earl of Pembroke,
and it was to him, so legend says, that Dermot MacMurrough, King of
Leinster, appealed for aid, in 1166, after he had been driven from his
kingdom and compelled to restore to Tiernan O'Rourke, Prince of Breffni,
Dervorgilla--otherwise Mrs. O'Rourke--with whom he had eloped. It wasn't
the lady that Dermot wanted--it was revenge, and, most of all, his
kingdom--we shall hear more of this story later on--and Strongbow
readily agreed to assist. He needed little persuasion, for the Normans
had been looking longingly across the Irish Sea for many years; and
Dermot got more than he bargained for, for Strongbow brought his legions
over from Wales, entered Dublin, and soon established English rule so
firmly that it was never afterwards displaced.
When Strongbow died, he was buried here in the church that he had built,
and a recumbent statue in chain armour was placed above the tomb, with
legs crossed above the knees to indicate three crusades. Crossed at the
ankles would have meant one crusade, between knee and ankle, two. I
don't know how the old sculptors indicated four crusades; perhaps they
never had to face that problem. Some critics assert that this is not the
old statue at all; but if we paid heed to the critics, there would be
mighty little left to believe!
If you will lay your hand upon the head of the statue, you will find
that the top is worn away into a hole. And that hole was worn by human
fingers--thousands upon thousands of them--placed there just as yours
are, as witness to the making of a deed or the signing of an agreement
or the paying of a debt. Almost all of such old documents in Dublin were
"Made at the Tomb of Strongbow." Thither people came for centuries to
settle accounts, and the Irish are so conservative, so tenacious of
tradition, that I dare say the tomb is sometimes the scene of such
transactions, even yet. Beside the knight's statue lies a truncated
effigy supposed to represent his son, whom, in a fit of rage, he cut in
two with a single stroke of his sword for cowardice on the battle-field.
There are many other things of interest about the church, especially
about the crypt, where one may see the old city stocks, and the
tabernacle and candlesticks used at the Mass celebrated here for James
II while he was trying to conquer Ulster; and the church is fortunate in
possessing a most intelligent verger, with whom it is a pleasure to
explore it. We talked with him quite a while that day, and he lamented
bitterly that so few visitors to Dublin think the church worth seeing.
I heartily endorse his opinion of them!
* * * * *
Which brings us to those two wonderful masterpieces of ancient Irish
art, the Cross of Cong and the Book of Kells.
The Cross of Cong is in the National Museum of Science and Art, and is
only the most interesting of many interesting things which have been
assembled there. The first exhibit as one passes through the vestibule,
has a flavour peculiarly Irish. It is an elaborate state carriage,
lavishly decorated with carvings and inlay and bronze figures, and it
was ordered by some Irish lord, who, when it was completed, found that
he had no money to pay for it, and so left it on the builder's hands.
What the poor builder did can only be conjectured. Perhaps he took down
his shillelagh and went out and assaulted the lord; perhaps he fled to
the hills and became a brigand; perhaps he just sat philosophically down
and let _his_ creditors do the worrying.
Just beyond the vestibule is a great court, containing a remarkable
collection of plaster replicas of ancient Celtic crosses. They should be
examined closely, especially the two which reproduce the high and low
crosses at Monasterboice. We shall see the real crosses, before we leave
Ireland, but they have iron railings around them, which prevent close
examination, and they are not provided with explanatory keys as the
replicas are. Half an hour's study of the replicas helps immensely
toward appreciation of the originals.
The chief glory of the museum is its collection of Irish antiquities on
the upper floor. It starts with the Stone Age, and we could not but
remark how closely the flint arrow-heads and spear-heads and other
implements resemble those of the Indians and Moundbuilders, so common in
our part of Ohio. Then comes the Bronze Age, with a magnificent
collection of ornaments of hammered gold, and some extraordinarily
interesting examples of cinerary urns and food vessels--for the old
Irish burned their dead, and, after the fashion of most Pagan peoples,
put food in the grave beside them, to start them on their journey in the
other world.
In the room beyond are the so-called Christian antiquities: that is, all
the objects of art, as well as of domestic and military usage, which
date from the time of St. Patrick down to the Norman conquest--roughly,
from 400 A. D. to 1200 A. D. Before that time, Ireland was Pagan; after
the Norman conquest, she was crushed and broken. It was during these
eight hundred years, while the rest of Europe was struggling in
ignorance and misery through the Dark Ages, that Ireland touched the
summit of her artistic and spiritual development--and a lofty summit it
was!
Her art was of home growth, uninfluenced from any outside source, and it
was admirable. Her schools and monasteries were so famous that students
from all over Europe flocked to them, as the recognised centres of
learning. Scholars were revered and books were holy things--so holy that
beautiful shrines were made to hold them, of gold or silver, set with
precious stones. Five or six of them, nine hundred years old and more,
are preserved in this collection.
The bells used by the early Irish saints in the celebration of the Mass
were also highly venerated, and, cracked and worn by centuries of use,
were at last enclosed in shrines. Most holy of all, of course, was the
rude little iron bell used by St. Patrick, and recovered from his grave
in 552. The exquisite shrine made for it by some master artist about
1100 is here, as is also the bell itself. There is a picture of the
shrine opposite the next page; the bell is merely a rude funnel made of
two bent iron plates rivetted together and then dipped in molten
bronze--not much to look at, but an evoker of visions fifteen centuries
old for them who have eyes to see!
I should like to say something of the croziers, of the brooches, of the
chalices which are gathered here; but I must hasten on to the chief
treasure, the Cross of Cong. It is perhaps the very finest example of
early Irish art in existence anywhere. It was made to enshrine a
fragment of the True Cross, sent from Rome in 1123 to Turlough O'Conor,
King of Ireland, and it is called the "Cross of Cong" because Rory
O'Conor, the last titular King of all Ireland, took it with him to the
Abbey of Cong, at the head of Lough Corrib, when he sought sanctuary
there in his last years, and it was by the Abbots of Cong that it was
preserved religiously through the long centuries. The last Abbot died
about a hundred years ago, and the museum acquired the cross by
purchase.
There is a picture of it opposite the next page, which gives some faint
idea of its beauty. It was in a cavity behind the central crystal that
the fragment of the True Cross was placed; but it is not there now, and
nobody seems to know what became of it. Perhaps it doesn't matter much;
at any rate, all that need concern us here is the fact that, eight
hundred years ago in Ireland, there lived an artist capable of producing
a masterpiece like this.
[Illustration: THE CROSS OF CONG]
[Illustration: THE SHRINE OF ST. PATRICK'S BELL]
It is of oak, covered with plates of bronze and silver, washed in places
with a thick coating of gold, and with golden filigree work of the most
exquisite kind around the central crystal. It is elaborately carved,
front and back, with the intertwined pattern characteristic of Irish
ornamentation, and every detail is of the finest workmanship. It is
inscribed with a Latin verse,
Hac cruce crux tegitur qua passus conditor orbis,
"In this cross is the cross enclosed upon which suffered the Founder of
the world"; and there is also a long inscription in Irish which bids us
pray, among others, for Turlough O'Conor, King of Erin, for whom the
shrine was made, and for Maelisu MacBraddan O'Echon, the man who
fashioned it. Thus is preserved the name of a great artist, who has been
dust for eight centuries.
The Book of Kells is even more wonderful. It is to the library of
Trinity College we must go to see it--and go we must!--for it is
indisputably the "first among all the illuminated manuscripts of the
world." No mere description can give any idea of its beauty, nor can any
picture, for each of its pages is a separate masterpiece. Kells was a
monastery celebrated for its sanctity and learning, and it was there,
sometime in the eighth century, that an inspired monk executed this
Latin copy of the Gospels. It is of sheepskin parchment, and each of
its pages is framed with exquisite tracery and ornamentation, and with a
beautiful harmony of colouring. Most wonderful of all, perhaps, the
colours are as fresh and brilliant as they were when they came from the
artist's brush, eleven centuries ago.
There are many other things in this old library worth seeing--among them
the Book of Darrow, thirteen centuries old, and ornamented with designs
which, as Betty remarked, would make beautiful crochet patterns. And
there is Brian Boru's harp--the very one, perhaps, that shed the soul of
music through Tara's halls--only unfortunately, the critics say that it
isn't more than five or six hundred years old. And there are stacks of
modern books, and the attendant who piloted us around remarked sadly
that many of the best of them were never taken off the shelves, except
to be dusted. I couldn't help smiling, for that is a complaint common to
all librarians!
* * * * *
We went out, that night, to a big bazar given for the benefit of the
Passionist Fathers, where we were made almost riotously welcome.
"America" is the open sesame to every Irish heart; and how winning those
bright-eyed Irish girls were in their quaint costumes! Ordinarily Irish
girls are shy with strangers; but they were working in a good cause that
night, and if any man got out of the place with a penny in his pocket it
must certainly have been because he lacked a heart! And the nice old
women, with smiling eyes and wrinkled, pleasant faces--we could have
stayed and talked to them till morning! Indeed, we almost did!
CHAPTER IV
ON THE TRAIL OF THE SHAMROCK
OUR third day in Dublin was ushered in by a tremendous explosion. In a
minute the street outside was filled with dense black smoke, and then in
another minute with excited people. When we got down to breakfast, we
found that the suffragettes had tried to blow up the post-office, which
is next to the hotel, by throwing a bomb through the door. But the woman
who threw the bomb, like most women, couldn't throw straight, and
instead of going through the door, the bomb struck a stone at the side
of it and exploded. Our bell-boy proudly showed us the hole that it had
made in the wall.
The day was so bright and pleasant that we decided to spend it somewhere
in the country, and as we wanted to see a round tower, and as there is a
very handsome one at Clondalkin, a few miles west of Dublin, we decided
to go there. The ride thither gave us our first glimpse of rural
Ireland--rather unkempt, with the fields very lush and green; and then,
when we got off the train, we were struck by a fact which we had
occasion to remark many times thereafter: that railroads in Ireland are
built with an entire disregard of the towns along the route. Perhaps it
is because the towns are only Irish that the railroads are so haughty
and disdainful--for of course the roads are English; at any rate, they
never swerve an inch to get closer to any town. The train condescends
to pause an instant at the point nearest the town, and then puffs
arrogantly on again, while the passengers who have been hustled off hoof
it the rest of the way.
We got off, that morning, at a little station with "Clondalkin" on it,
but when we looked about, there was no town anywhere in sight. We asked
the man who took the tickets if this was all there was of the town, and
he said no, that the town was over yonder, and he pointed vaguely to the
south. There was no conveyance, so we started to walk; and instead of
condemning Irish railroads, we were soon praising their high wisdom, for
if there is anything more delightful than to walk along an Irish lane,
between hedgerows fragrant with hawthorn and climbing roses, past fields
embroidered with buttercups and primroses and daisies, in an air so
fresh and sweet that the lungs can't get enough of it, I don't know what
it is. And presently as we went on, breathing great breaths of all this
beauty, we caught sight of the conical top of the round tower, above the
trees to the left.
I should say that Clondalkin is at least a mile from its station, and we
found it a rambling village of small houses, built of stone,
white-washed and with roofs of thatch. Many of them, even along the
principal street, are in ruins, for Clondalkin, like so many other Irish
villages, has been slowly drying up for half a century. There was a
great abbey here once, but nothing is left of it except the round tower
and a fragment of the belfry.
The tower stands at the edge of what is now the main street, and is a
splendid example of another peculiarly Irish institution. For these
tall towers of stone, resembling nothing so much as gigantic chimneys,
were built all over eastern and central Ireland, nobody knows just when
and nobody knows just why; but there nearly seventy of them stand to
this day.
They are always of stone, and are sometimes more than a hundred feet
high. Some of them taper toward the top in a way which shows the high
skill of their builders. That they were well-built their survival
through the centuries attests. The narrow entrance door is usually ten
or twelve feet from the ground, and there is a tiny window lighting each
floor into which the tower was divided. At the top there are usually
four windows, one facing each point of the compass; and then the tower
is finished with a conical cap of closely-fitted stones.
As to their purpose, there has been violent controversy. Different
antiquarians have believed them to be fire-temples of the Druids,
phallic emblems, astronomical observatories, anchorite towers or
penitential prisons. But the weight of opinion seems to be that they
were built in connection with churches and monasteries to serve the
triple purpose of belfries and watch-towers and places of refuge, and
that they date from the ninth and tenth centuries, when the Danes were
pillaging the country. In case of need, the monks could snatch up the
most precious of their treasures, run for the tower, clamber up a ladder
to the little door high above the ground, pull the ladder up after them,
bar the door and be comparatively safe.
I confess I do not find this theory convincing. As belfries the towers
must have been failures, for the small bells of those days, hung a
hundred feet above the ground in a chamber with only four tiny openings,
would be all but inaudible. As watch-towers they were ineffective, for
the enemy had only to advance at night to elude the lookout altogether;
and as places of refuge, they leave much to be desired. For there is no
way to get food or water into them, and the enemy had only to camp down
about them for a few days to starve the inmates out. However, I am not
an antiquarian, and my opinion is of no especial value--besides, I have
no better theory to suggest. Whatever their purpose, there they stand,
and very astonishing they are.
The Clondalkin tower, for the first thirteen feet, is a block of solid
masonry about twenty feet in diameter, and above this is the little door
opening into the first story. New floors have been built at the
different levels and ladders placed between them, so that one may climb
the eighty-five feet to the top, but we were contented to take the view
for granted. While I manoeuvred for a photograph in a field of
buttercups which left my shoes covered with yellow pollen, Betty got
into talk with the people who lived in the cottage at the tower-foot,
and then she crossed the street to look over a wall at a tiny garden
that was a perfect riot of bloom, and by the time I got there, the
fresh-faced old woman with a crown of white hair who owned the garden
had come out, and, after a few minutes' talk, started to pick Betty a
bouquet of her choicest flowers.
Betty was in a panic, for she didn't want the garden despoiled,--at the
same time she realised that she must be careful or she would hurt the
feelings of this kindly woman, who was so evidently enjoying pulling her
flowers to give to the stranger from America. It was at that moment the
brilliant idea flashed into her head to ask if the true shamrock grew in
the neighbourhood.
"Sure, miss, I have it right here," was the answer, and the owner of the
garden picked up proudly a small pot in which grew a plant that looked
to me like clover.
"But doesn't it grow wild?" Betty asked.
"It does, miss; but 'tis very hard to find. This was sent me by my
brother in Tipperary. 'Tis the true shamrock, miss," and she broke off a
spray for each of us.
Let me say here that she knew perfectly well Betty was a married woman;
her first question had been as to our relationship. But all over
Ireland, women, whether married or single, are habitually addressed as
"miss," just as, conversely, in France they are addressed habitually as
"madame." But we had got the old woman's mind off her flowers, and we
managed to escape before she thought of them again.
There are not, I fancy, many visitors to Clondalkin, for, as we
sauntered on along the street, we found ourselves objects of the
liveliest interest. It was a kindly interest, too, for every one who
could catch our eyes smiled and nodded and wished us good-day, just as
the Dutch used to do in the little towns of Holland. We were heading for
the church, and when we reached it we found that there was a large
school attached to it, and most of the pupils were having their lessons
outdoors, a group in this corner and a group in that. The small children
were being taught by older ones, and the older children were being
taught by nuns; but I am afraid that our passage through the school-yard
nearly broke up the lessons. It was a sort of triumphal progress, for,
as we passed each class, the teacher in charge would say "Stand!" and
all the children would rise to their feet and stare at us with round
eyes, and the teacher would bow gravely. I am sorry now I didn't stop
and talk to some of them, but the formal nature of our reception
confused and embarrassed us, and we hastened on.
We took a look at the church, which is new and bare; and then we walked
on toward the gate, past a lawn which two gardeners were leisurely
mowing. It was evident from the way they returned our greeting that they
wanted to talk, so we stopped and asked if we could get a car in the
village to take us back to the station.
"You can, miss," said the elder of the two men, who did all the talking,
while his younger companion stood by and grinned. "There is a very good
car to be had in the village," and he told us where to go to find the
owner. "You would be from America? I have a sister and two brothers
there." And he went on to tell us about them, where they lived and what
they were doing and how they had prospered. And then Betty asked him if
he could find her a piece of the true shamrock. "I can, miss," he
answered instantly, and stepping over a low wire fence, he waded out
into a meadow and came back in a moment with a clover-like clump in his
hand. "This is it, miss," he said, and gave it to her; "the true
shamrock."
We examined it eagerly. It was a trefoil, the leaf of which is like our
white clover, except that it lacks the little white rings which mark the
leaf of ours, and it blossoms with a tiny yellow flower. I confess that
it wasn't at all my idea of the shamrock, nor was it Betty's, and she
asked the gardener doubtfully if he was sure that this was it.
"I am, miss," he answered promptly; "as sure as I am of anything."
"But down in the village," said Betty, "a woman gave me this," and she
took the spray from her button-hole, "and said _it_ was the true
shamrock. You see the leaf is quite green and larger and the blossom is
white."
"True for you, miss; and there be some people who think that the true
shamrock. But it is not so--'tis only white clover. The true shamrock is
that I have given you."
"Well, you are a gardener," said Betty, "and ought to know."
"Ah, miss," retorted the man, his eyes twinkling, "you could start the
prettiest shindy you ever saw by getting all the gardeners in Ireland
together, and asking them to decide which was the true shamrock!"
I suppose I may as well thresh out the question here, so far as it is
possible to thresh it out at all, for though, in the east, the west, the
north and south of Ireland, we sought the true shamrock, we were no more
certain of it when we got through than before we began. The only
conclusion we could reach, after listening to every one, was that there
are three or four varieties of the shamrock, and that almost any trefoil
will do.
The legend is that, about 450, St. Patrick reached the Rock of Cashel,
in his missionary journeyings over Ireland, and at once went to work to
convert Aengus MacNatfraich, the ruling king who lived in the great
castle there. One day, out on the summit of the rock, as the Saint was
preaching to the king and his assembled household, he started to explain
the idea of the Trinity, and found, as many have done since, that it was
rather difficult to do. Casting about for an illustration, his eyes fell
upon a trefoil growing at his feet, and he stooped and plucked it, and
used its three petals growing from one stem as a symbol of the
Three-in-One. This simple and homely illustration made the idea
intelligible, and whenever after that St. Patrick found himself on the
subject of the Trinity, he always stooped and plucked a trefoil to
demonstrate what he meant.
Now of course the true shamrock is the particular trefoil which St.
Patrick plucked first on the Rock of Cashel, but there is no way of
telling which that was. In his subsequent preaching, the Saint would
pluck the first that came to hand, since any of them would answer his
purpose, and so, sooner or later, all the Irish trefoils would be thus
used by him. The Irish word "seamrog" means simply a trefoil, and in
modern times, the name has been applied to watercress, to wood-sorrel,
and to both yellow and white clover; but nowadays only the two
last-named kinds are generally worn on St. Patrick's day. Whether white
or yellow clover is worn is said to depend somewhat on the locality, but
the weight of authority is, I think, slightly on the side of the yellow.
Whatever its colour, it is a most elusive plant and difficult to get.
Our original idea was that every Irish field was thick with shamrocks,
but in no instance except that of the gardener at Clondalkin, do I
remember any one finding some growing wild right at hand. Indeed, in
most localities, it didn't seem to grow wild at all, but was carefully
raised in a pot, like a flower. Where it _did_ grow wild, it was always
in some distant and inaccessible place. I should have suspected that
this was simply blarney, and that our informants either wished to keep
our profane hands off the shamrock or expected to get paid for going and
getting us some, but for the fact that those who raised it always
eagerly offered us a spray, and those who didn't usually disclaimed any
exact knowledge of where it grew.
We bade the Clondalkin gardener and his helper good-bye at last, and
walked on down to the village for a look at the remnant of the fort the
Danes built here as their extreme western outpost against the wild
Irish, and presently we fell in with an old woman, bent with rheumatism,
hobbling painfully along, and she told us all about her ailment, and
then as we passed a handsome house set back in a garden surrounded by a
high wall, she pointed it out proudly as the residence of the parish
priest. Then we thought it was time to be seeing about our car, and
started down the street to find its owner, when we heard some one
running after us. It was a man of about thirty, and his face, though not
very clean, was beaming with friendliness.
"Is it a car your honour would be wantin'?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. "How did you know?"
"The man up at the church told me, sir. He said you'd be wishin' to
drive to the station."
"Well, we do," I said. "It's too far to walk. Have you a car?"
"I have, sir, and it's myself would be glad to carry you and your lady
there."
"All right," I agreed; and then, as an afterthought, "How much will you
charge?"
"Not a penny, sir," he protested warmly. "Not a penny."
I stared at him. I confess I didn't understand. He returned my stare
with a broad smile.
"The Dublin train doesn't go for an hour yet, sir," he went on. "If
you'll just be wanderin' down this way when the time comes, you'll find
me ready."
"It's mighty kind of you," I said hesitatingly; "but we couldn't think
of troubling you. . . ."
"Niver a bit of trouble, sir," he broke in. "I'll be that proud to do
it."
He seemed so sincerely in earnest that we finally agreed, and he raced
away as he had come, while we went on to the village post-office to mail
a postcard--and perhaps find some one else to talk to.
The post-office was a little cubby-hole of a place, in charge of a
white-haired, withered little old woman, whom we found very ready to
talk indeed. At first there were the inevitable questions about America
and about our family history, and then she told us about herself and her
work and the many things she had to do. For every Irish post-office, no
matter how small, is the centre of many activities. Not only does it
handle the village mail, but it is also the village telegraph-office,
and it does the work--by means of the parcel-post--which in this country
has been done until quite recently by the express companies. Furthermore
it is at the post-office that the old age pensions are disbursed and the
multifarious details of the workman's insurance act attended to.
The latter is too complicated to be explained here, but we soon had a
demonstration of the working of the old age pension, for, as we sat
there talking, a wrinkled old woman with a shabby shawl over her head,
came in, said something we did not understand, held out her hand, was
given three or four pennies, and walked quickly out.
"The poor creatures," said the postmistress gently, "how can one be
always refusin' them!" And then, seeing that we did not understand, she
went on, "That one gets an old age pension, five shillings the week; but
it never lasts the week out, and so she comes in for a bit of an
advance. I shouldn't be giving it to her, for she's no better in the
end, but I can't turn her away. Besides, she thinks--and there's many
like her--that the pension may be stoppin' any time, next week maybe,
and so what she gets this week is so much ahead. Many of them have no
idea at all of where the money do be coming from."
I am not myself partial to pensions of any sort, for no permanent good
can come from alms-giving, which weakens instead of strengthens; but
Ireland, perhaps, needs special treatment. At any rate, the pensions
have been a great help. Every person over seventy years of age and with
an income of less than ten shillings a week, receives five shillings
weekly from the government. The same law applies to England and
Scotland, but there is an impression that Ireland is getting more than
her share. Certainly there is a surprisingly large number of people
there whose income is under ten shillings and whose years exceed
threescore and ten. I questioned the postmistress about this, and she
smiled.
"Yes, there be a great many," she agreed. "In this small place alone
there are fifty poor souls who get their five shillings every Friday.
Are they all over seventy? Sure, I don't know; there be many of them
don't know themselves; but they all think they are, only it was very
hard sometimes to make the committee believe it. There is Mary Clancy,
now, as spry a woman as you will see anywhere, and lookin' not a day
over fifty. The committee was for refusin' her, but she said, said she,
'Your honours, I was the mother of fourteen children, and the youngest
of them was Bridget, whom you see here beside me. Bridget was married
when she was seventeen, and she has fifteen children of her own, and
this is the youngest of them she has by the hand--you'll see that he is
four years old. Now how old am I?' The gentlemen of the committee they
looked at her and then they looked at each other and then they took out
their pencils and made some figures and then they scratched their heads
and then they said she should have a pension. And sure she deserved it!"
We agreed with her,--though, as I figured it out afterwards, Mrs. Clancy
may still have been a year or two under seventy--and then she went on to
explain that the pensions had been a blessing in another way, for not
only do they give the old people a bit to live on, but their children
treat them better in consequence. In the old days, the parents were
considered an encumbrance, and whenever a marriage contract was made or
a division of the property, it was always carefully stipulated who
should look after them. Naturally in a land where a man was hard put to
it to provide for his own family, he was reluctant to assume this
additional burden, and the result often was that the old people went to
the workhouse--a place they shunned and detested and considered it a
disgrace to enter. But the pension has changed all that, for a person
with a steady income of five shillings a week is not to be lightly
regarded in Ireland; and so the old people can live with their children
now, and the workhouses are somewhat less crowded than they used to be.
But they are still full enough, heaven knows, in spite of the aversion
and disgust with which the whole Irish people regard them. Let me
explain briefly why this is so, because the establishment of the
workhouse system is typical of the blind fashion in which England, in
the past, has dealt with Irish problems,--the whole Irish problem, as
some protest, is merely the result of a stupid people trying to govern a
clever one!
About eighty years ago, England realised that something must be done for
the Irish poor. Irish industries had been killed by unfriendly
legislation, the land was being turned from tillage to grass, and so,
since there was no work, there was nothing for the labouring class to do
but emigrate or starve. In fact, a large section of the people had not
even those alternatives, for there was no way in which they could get
money enough to emigrate.
The Irish themselves suggested that something be done to develop the
industrial resources of the country, so that the able-bodied could find
work, and that some provision be made for the old, sick and infirm who
were unable to work, and for children who were too young. Instead of
that, and in spite of frenzied and universal Irish protest, a bill was
put through Parliament extending the English workhouse system to
Ireland.
Now, the workhouse system was devised to provide for tramps--for people
who would not work, though work was plentiful; so there is a stigma
about the workhouse which the Irish poor detest and which most of them
do not deserve. They enter it only when driven by direst need--and how
dire that need has been may be judged by the fact that, in 1905, for
instance, the number of workhouse inmates exceeded forty-five thousand.
Of these, about four thousand might be classified as tramps. The
remainder were aged and infirm men and women, young children, and a
sprinkling of starving middle-aged who could find no work--but the
disgrace of the workhouse was upon them all.
To-day, the traveller in Ireland finds one of these mammoth structures
in every town--in nearly every village, for their total number is 159.
In fact, the two most imposing buildings in the average Irish town are
the workhouse and the jail. And there is a savage irony in this, for not
only are there few voluntary paupers in Ireland, but there is amazingly
little crime. Six millions a year of Irish money are spent to maintain
the workhouses; how much the jails cost I don't know; but perhaps in
that golden age which some optimists believe will follow the coming of
Home Rule, workhouses and jails alike will be transformed into schools
and factories, and Irish money will be spent in brightening and
beautifying the lives of Ireland's people.
* * * * *
We bade good-bye, at last, to the little Clondalkin postmistress, with
many mutual good wishes, and wandered forth to find the Samaritan who
had offered to take us to the station; and finally we saw him standing
in a gateway beckoning to us, and when we reached him, we found the
gateway led to the house which had been pointed out to us as that of the
parish priest. It was a beautiful house, with lovely grounds and gardens
and a large conservatory against one end, and we stood hesitating in the
gateway, wondering if we would better enter.
"Come in, sir; come in, miss!" cried our new-found friend. "The Father
is away from home the day, worse luck, but he'd never forgive me if I
didn't make you welcome."
"Oh, then you're the gardener," I said.
"Sure, I'm everything, sir," and he hustled us up the path, his face
beaming with happiness. "And how grieved His Riverence will be when he
comes back and learns that he missed you. If he was anywhere near, I'd
have gone for him at once, but he went to Dublin to the conference and
he won't be back till evenin'. He's a grand man, God bless him, and has
travelled all over the world, and it's himself would know how to talk
to you! There is the cart, sir; but there's no hurry. I must cut some
blooms for your lady."
Betty was already admiring the flowers--great scarlet peonies, white and
pink geraniums, cinerarias, laburnums, and I know not what beside; but
she tried to stop him as he made a dash at them, knife in hand.
"Oh, but you mustn't cut them!" she cried. "What would the Father say!"
"Sure, miss, if he was here, he'd make me cut twice as many!" he
retorted, and went on cutting and cutting. "If he was here, 'tis not by
this train you'd be leaving. He'd take you all over the house, and it
would break his heart if you didn't stop for tea. It's sorry he'll be
when he gets home and I tell him of you!"
We too were sorry, and said so--sorrier, next day, when we learned from
Katherine Tynan Hinkson what an accomplished and interesting man he is.
Meanwhile, the gardener had entered the greenhouse and was attacking the
plants there. Almost by main force, and sorely against his will, we made
him stop. As it was, Betty had about all she could carry--as lovely a
bouquet, she protested, as she had ever had in her life. And the joy of
this simple, kindly fellow in being able to give it to her was beautiful
to see.
Then he brought out a fat little mare and hitched her to the cart, and
insisted on driving us for a while along the fragrant country roads
before he took us to the station. And I am sure that he valued our
thanks much more than the coin I slipped into his hand.
We went out, that night, to see some friends in Dublin, and Betty took
part of her bouquet along to give to them. And as we were walking up
Grafton Street, an old and tattered woman, with two or three grimy
little bouquets in her hands, fell in beside us and begged us to buy
one. Finally she laid one of them on top of the gorgeous bunch Betty was
carrying.
"Take it, miss; take it!" she urged. "Just see how beautiful it is!"
"It's not beautiful at all!" Betty protested. "It's faded."
"And so am I faded, miss," came the instant retort. "Sure, we can't all
be fresh and lovely like yourself!"
Of course, after that, I bought the bouquet!
CHAPTER V
THE COUNTRY OF ST. KEVIN
DUBLIN is fortunate in its environs. A few miles to the south or west,
and one is in the midst of lovely scenery. The Liffey, just above the
town, changes from an unsightly stream into a beautiful river; just to
the south lie the Wicklow hills--one can reach their foot by tram-line
and some of their wildest beauties are within an hour's walk; a short
run by rail takes one to Bray, from where the Dargle, a glen beloved of
Dubliners, is within easy reach. But the wise traveller will keep on to
Rathdrum, and from there drive over to Glendalough. Or the trip may be
made all the way from Dublin by motor-omnibus, and by this route one
gets the full beauty of the Wicklow passes; but I think the car trip
preferable, at least in fine weather.
The forty-mile run from Dublin to Rathdrum is by the very edge of the
sea. The roadway has been cut high in the face of the cliffs that fringe
the coast--sometimes piercing a projecting headland, sometimes spanning
a deep gully, sometimes skirting a sheer precipice--and the view at
every turn is very romantic and beautiful. The train pauses at Bray, and
then, still hugging the coast, reaches Wicklow, where it turns inland
and mounts toward the hills along a pleasant valley to Rathdrum, perched
in the most picturesque way on the steep banks of the Avonmore, for all
the world like an Alpine village.
Betty and I were the only ones who descended at Rathdrum, that day, and
we were glad, for it is peculiarly true of a side-car that two are
company and any larger number a crowd. The car was waiting, and in a few
minutes we were off on the twelve-mile drive.
The road mounted steeply for a time, passed through a dingy village
clinging to a hillside, and then suddenly emerged high above the lovely
Vale of Clara. Far down, so far it seemed the merest ribbon, the
Avonmore sparkled over its rocky bed; beside it, here and there, a
thatched cottage nestled among the trees; and the greenest of green
fields ran back to the hills on either side. Here the gorse began,
mounting the hillsides in a riot of golden bloom, only to be met and
vanquished on the highest slopes by the low, closely-growing heather,
brown with last year's withered flowers, but soon to veil the hilltops
in a cloud of purple. But the gorse was in its glory--every hedge, every
fence, every wall, every neglected corner was ablaze with it; it
outlined every field; the road we travelled was a royal way, bordered on
either side with gold. "Unprofitably gay?" Betty hotly disputed it. For
how could such beauty be unprofitable?
It was a perfect day, with the air magically soft and the sun just warm
enough for comfort, and we sat there, mightily content, drinking in mile
after mile of loveliness. Away across the valley, we caught a glimpse of
Avondale House, a school of forestry now, but sacred to every Irishman
as the home of Parnell. A little farther on, Castle Howard glooms down
upon the valley where the Avonmore meets the Avonbeg--that "Meeting of
the Waters" celebrated by Tom Moore. But it would take a far greater
poet to do justice to that exquisitely beautiful Vale of Avoca,
stretching away into the shimmering distance.
The road turned away, at last, from the edge of the valley and plunged
into a beautiful wood, and we could see that the bracken was alive with
rabbits. It was a game preserve, our driver said, and he told us to whom
it belonged, but I have forgotten. I suggested that, when he had nothing
better to do, it would be easy enough to come out and knock over a
rabbit.
"They would be putting a lad away for six months for the likes of that,"
he protested.
"Surely no one would grudge you a rabbit now and then!"
"Ah, wouldn't they?" and he laughed grimly. "There's nothing the keepers
like so much as to get their hands on one of us. Why, sir, 'tis a crime
for a man to be caught on the far side of that wall. Not but what I
haven't got me a rabbit before this," he added, "and will again."
We passed a gang of men repairing the road, and two or three others
sitting along the roadside, breaking stone by hand, and wearing goggles
to protect their eyes from the flying splinters; and our driver told us
how the contract for keeping each section of road in shape was let each
year by the county council to the lowest bidder, and the roads inspected
at regular intervals to see that the work was properly done. Two
shillings a day--fifty cents--was about the average wage. I suppose it
is because stone is so plentiful and labour so cheap that the roads all
over Ireland are so good; but one would be inclined to welcome a rut
now and then, if it meant a decent wage for the labourers!
We emerged from the wood presently, and then, away to the left, our
jarvey pointed out the high peaks which guard the entrance to
Glendalough--and let me say here that the word "lough," which occurs so
frequently in Irish geography, means lake, and is pronounced almost
exactly like the Scotch "loch." Glendalough is one of the most beautiful
and romantic spots in Ireland, and its story runneth thus:
In the year 498, the King of Leinster had a son whom he named
Caomh-ghen, or Gentle-born, and whom to-day we call Kevin. The King had
been converted by St. Patrick himself, and he brought his boy up a
Christian; and Kevin had never the slightest doubt as to his vocation,
but knew from the very first that he must be a priest. So he was sent
first to St. Petroc's school in Wicklow, and then to his uncle, St.
Eugenius, who had a school near Glenealy.
Kevin grew in grace and wisdom, and likewise in beauty, until a
handsomer lad was to be found nowhere in Erin, and many a girl looked
sideways at him as he passed, but he paid no heed. One of them, seeing
him so fair and saintly, lost her heart to him entirely, and her head as
well, for she grew so shameless that she followed him in his walks,
pleading with him, touching his hand, kissing his robe--all of which
must have been most embarrassing to that modest and retiring man. At
last, one day, she waylaid him in a wood, and, hungry with passion,
flung herself upon him.
There are two versions of what followed. One is that St. Kevin escaped
by jumping into a bush of nettles, and cooled the damsel's ardour by
beating her with a branch of them, whereupon she asked his pardon and
made a vow of perpetual virginity. The other, and much more plausible
one, is that, after the manner of women, she loved Kevin more
desperately after he had beaten her than she had before, and that
finally the Saint, worn out by a struggle in which he saw that he would
some day be defeated, resolved to hide himself where no man could
discover him, and betook himself to the wild and inaccessible spot where
the mountains meet above Glendalough. There high in the side of the
cliff above the lake, he found a crevice where he made his bed, and lay
down with a sigh of relief for the first peaceful sleep he had had for a
long time. Here is Tom Moore's rendering of the rest of the story:
On the bold cliff's bosom cast,
Tranquil now he sleeps at last;
Dreams of heaven, nor thinks that e'er
Woman's smile can haunt him there.
But nor earth nor heaven is free
From her power if fond she be;
Even now while calm he sleeps,
Kathleen o'er him leans and weeps.
Fearless she had tracked his feet
To this rocky, wild retreat,
And when morning met his view,
Her wild glances met it too.
Ah! your saints have cruel hearts!
Sternly from his bed he starts,
And, with rude, repulsive shock,
Hurls her from the beetling rock.
Glendalough, thy gloomy wave
Soon was gentle Kathleen's grave!
Soon the saint (but, ah! too late)
Felt her love and mourned her fate.
When he said, "Heaven rest her soul!"
Round the lake light music stole,
And her ghost was seen to glide
Smiling o'er the fatal tide.
Most biographers of the Saint hotly deny that he killed the fair
Kathleen, and point out that he was far too holy a man to do such a
thing, even in a moment of anger; but, on the other hand, Kathleen's
ghost may be seen almost any night sitting on a rock by the lakeside,
combing its yellow hair and lamenting its sad fate. What, then, are we
to believe? My own theory is that when the Saint opened his eyes, that
fatal morning, and found his tempter bending over him, he sprang hastily
away, well knowing to what lengths her passion led her, and
inadvertently brushed her off the narrow ledge of rock. The horrified
Saint scrambled down the cliff as quickly as he could, but the
too-impulsive girl was dead. A good many people will add that it served
the hussy right.
This seems to me a reasonable theory; whether it be true or not, Saint
Kevin dwelt seven years in his cave, after Kathleen's death, without
being further disturbed. Then one day, a shepherd climbing down over the
cliff searching for a lost sheep, came upon the holy man, sitting
meditating in his cell, and hastened away to spread the news of the
discovery of a new saint. Great throngs crowded the lake to get a
glimpse of him, much to his annoyance, and besought him to come down so
that they could see him better. This he sternly refused to do, and told
them to go away; but finally he permitted them to build him a little
chapel on a shelf of rock near his cell. That was in June, 536; but the
number of his disciples increased so rapidly that the chapel soon proved
too small, and at last an angel appeared to him and ordered him to found
a monastery at the lower end of the lake. This he did, and it soon
became one of the most famous in Ireland.
It must have been a picturesque place; for there was a special
stone-roofed cell for the Saint, and no less than seven churches to hold
the people, and a great huddle of domestic buildings to protect the
students from the rain and cold, and finally a tall round tower, from
which to watch for the Norse invader. St. Kevin himself died in the
odour of sanctity on the third day of June, 618. What I like about this
story of St. Kevin are the dates--they give it such an unimpeachable
vraisemblance!
After his death, the monastery had a varied history. It was destroyed by
fire in 770, and sacked by the Danes in 830 and many times thereafter;
but the final blow was struck by the English invaders in 1308, when the
place was burnt to the ground. Since then it has been in ruins, much as
it is to-day.
As we drove into the valley, that lovely day in May, no prospect could
have been more beautiful. To right and left, in the distance, towered
the bare brown hills, very steep and rugged, with the blue lake nestling
between. In the foreground lay the ruins of the seven churches, with the
round tower rising high above them; and, from among the trees, peeped
here and there the thatched roof of a cottage with a plume of purple
smoke rising from its chimney. It was like a vision--like some ideal,
painted scene, too lovely to be real--and we gazed at it in speechless
enchantment while our jarvey drove us around the lower lake, under the
shadow of the hills, and so to the little inn where we were to have
lunch.
[Illustration: (C) Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
GLENDALOUGH AND THE RUINS OF ST. KEVIN'S CHURCHES]
We were looking in delight at the inn, with its thatched roof and
whitewashed walls, when a formidable figure appeared in the door--a
towering young woman, with eyes terrifically keen and a thick shock of
the reddest hair I ever saw. She was a singularly pure specimen, as I
afterwards learned, of the red Irish--a sort of throw-back, I suppose,
to the old Vikings of the Danish conquest. I admit that I quailed a
little, for she was looking at us with an expression which seemed to me
anything but friendly.
"Can we get lunch?" I inquired.
"You can," she answered, short and sharp like the snap of a whip, and
she stood in the doorway staring at us, without making any sign that we
should enter.
"Is it ready?" I ventured further, for the long drive had made us very
hungry.
"It is not."
Let me say here that very rarely does any one of Irish blood say "yes"
or "no" in answer to a question. When you ask the man at the station,
"Is this the train for So-and-so?" he will invariably answer, "It is,"
or "It is not," as the case may be. When you ask your jarvey if he
thinks it will rain to-day, his invariable answer is "It will not." I
never heard an Irishman admit unreservedly that it was going to rain.
But before I had time to ask the red-headed girl any further questions,
she was hustled aside by a typical little brown Irishwoman, who asked us
in and made us welcome. Lunch would be ready in fifteen minutes, she
said; meanwhile, if we wished, we could walk to the waterfall.
Of course we _did_ wish, and set eagerly forth past the end of the upper
lake, across a bridge, past a great empty hotel which was falling to
decay, and up a little stream to the fall. It is really a series of
rapids rather than a fall, and only mildly pretty; but growing
abundantly in the damp ground along the margin of the stream was what
Betty declared to be the true shamrock--a very beautiful trefoil,
evidently a variety of oxalis, and certainly much nearer our ideal of
the shamrock than the skimpy plant shown us by the gardener at
Clondalkin. We gathered some of it, and then hastened back--for we
didn't want to be late for lunch. As we were passing the lake, we
noticed an extremely dirty and unkempt individual, who looked like a
vagabond, sitting on a stone, and as soon as he saw us, he jumped up and
fell in beside us.
"Your honour will be goin' to St. Kevin's bed," he began.
"Where is the bed?" I asked.
"In the cliff beyant there, sir," and he pointed across the lake.
"How do we get to it?"
"Sure I'll carry your honour and your lady in me boat."
I looked at the fellow, and at the wide lake, and at the little
flat-bottomed skiff moored to a rock near by, and I had my doubts as to
the wisdom of entrusting ourselves to the combination. He read the doubt
in my face, and broke in with voluble protests.
"Arrah, you must go to the bed, your honour," he cried; "and your
honour's lady, too. 'Tis the place where the blessed Saint lived for
siven years, and if you sit down in his seat you will niver have the
backache, and if you lie down in his bed you will niver have any ache at
all, at all, and if you make three wishes they will surely come true."
Betty and I glanced at each other. We were tempted. Then I looked at our
would-be guide.
"Why don't you make three wishes yourself?" I asked.
"I have, your honour."
"Did they come true?"
"They did, your honour," he answered instantly. "I asked for a light
heart, a quick wit and a ready tongue. Your honour can see that I have
all of them."
My heart began to warm to him, for he was the first person we had met in
Ireland who talked like this.
"Now just be lookin' at this, your honour," he went on, and led us to
the side of the road where stood a cross of stone--the terminal cross,
as I afterwards learned, which marked the boundary of the old monastery.
"Do you see them marks? This large one is the mark of a horse's hoof,
and this small one of a colt's; and 'twas by a miracle they came there.
In the old time, there was a man who stole a mare and her foal, but who
denied it, and who was brought before St. Kevin. The Saint placed the
man in front of this cross and told him if he was guilty to be sayin'
it, and if he was not guilty to be sayin' it; and the man said he was
not guilty. And as he spoke the words, the shape of the hoofs appeared
on the cross, and when the man saw them, he knew it was no use tryin' to
deceive the Saint, so he confessed everything. And there the hoof-prints
are to this day."
They certainly bore some resemblance to hoof-prints, and I could not but
admire the ingenuity of the tale which had been invented to explain
them.
"What happened to the thief?" I asked. "Did the Saint let him go?"
"He did not, your honour, for it was the law that he must be hanged. But
before he died, he asked the Saint to grant him one favour, and the
Saint told him to name it; and the man asked that he be buried in the
same graveyard with the Saint himself, and that on his grave a stone be
placed with a hole in the middle, so that, if a horse stepped over his
grave, he might put out his hand and pull it in. The Saint kept his
promise, and in the graveyard yonder you may see the stone."
As, indeed, we did; at least, there is a grave there covered by a stone
with a large round hole in the middle.
"And now, your honour," went on our guide, as we came to the door of the
inn, "you will be wantin' me to row you over to the Saint's bed, I'm
thinkin'."
"What is the fare?" I asked.
"As much over sixpence as you care to give, your honour."
"All right," I said. "We'll be ready presently." And we went in to
lunch.
We certainly enjoyed that meal, though I have forgotten its ingredients;
but I have not forgotten the clean, pleasant dining-room in which it was
served. And then we sallied forth for the visit to St. Kevin's bed.
Our guide was awaiting us, and helped us into his boat and pushed off;
and at once began to recount the legends of the lake; how the fairies
danced punctually at nine every evening, whenever there was a moon,
while at eleven the ghost of the fair Kathleen sat on a stone and sang
and combed her hair, and at twelve the wraith of a wicked sorceress
struck blind by St. Kevin glided about the lake. I forget what else
happened, but it was evident that any one spending a night there would
not lack for entertainment. And he told us why no skylark ever sings in
the vale of Glendalough.
It seems that when St. Kevin was building his monastery, he had a great
number of workmen employed, and the rule was that they should begin the
day's labour with the singing of the lark and end it when the lambs lay
down to rest. It was summer time, and the larks began to sing about
three in the morning, while the lambs refused to retire until nine at
night. The workmen thought these hours excessive, and so complained to
St. Kevin, and he listened to them, and looked at them, and when he saw
their poor jaded faces and tired eyes wanting sleep, his kind heart
pitied them, and he promised to see what he could do. So he raised his
eyes to heaven and put up a prayer that the lark might never sing in the
valley, and that the lamb might lie down before the sun was set; and
the prayer was granted, and from that day to this Glendalough has been
famous as
"the lake whose gloomy shore
Skylark never warbles o'er."
At what hour the lambs now go to rest our boatman did not state, and I
did not have time to make any observations for myself; but I commend the
question to the attention of antiquarians.
By the time all these tales had been told, we were across the lake and
drawing in toward a high cliff on the other side; and suddenly somebody
shouted at us, and, as the hills shuttlecocked the echo back and forth
across the water, we looked up and saw two men clinging to the cliff
about forty feet up. As our boat ran in to the shore, they came
scrambling down and helped us out upon a narrow strand.
"The seat and the bed are up yonder," said our guide. "Them ones will
help your honour up."
I looked at the perpendicular cliff, quite smooth except for a little
indentation here and there where one might possibly put one's toe, and
my desire to sit in St. Kevin's seat suffered a severe diminution, for I
have no head for heights. I said as much and listened sceptically to the
fervent assurances of the guides that there was no danger at all, at
all, that they had piloted thousands of people up and down the cliff
without a single mishap, glory be to God. I knew they were talking for a
tip, and not from any abstract love of truth. But in matters of this
sort, Betty is much more impulsive than I--as will appear more than once
in the course of this narrative--and she promptly declared that she was
going up, for the chance to be granted three wishes was too good to be
missed. So up she went, one man pulling in front and the other guiding
her toes into those little crevices in the rock; and presently she
passed from sight, and then her voice floated down to me saying that she
was all right.
Of course I had to follow, if I was to escape a lifetime of derision,
and after a desperate scramble, I found her sitting on a narrow ledge at
the back of a shallow cave in the cliff, with her eyes closed, making
her three wishes. Then I sat down and made mine; and then the guides
offered to conduct us to St. Kevin's bed, but when I found that the bed
was a hole in the cliff into which one had to be poked feet first, and
that to get to it one had to walk along a ledge about three inches wide,
I interposed a veto so vigorous that it prevailed.
Having got up, it was necessary to get down, and when I looked at the
cliff, I understood why St. Kevin had stayed there seven years. The
method of descent is simply to sit on the edge and slide over and trust
to the man below. Fortunately he was on the job, so we live to tell the
tale. As to the efficacy of the seat, I can only say that two of my
three wishes came true, which is a good average. I don't know about
Betty's, for it breaks the charm to tell!
I asked our boatman afterwards why he didn't pilot his passengers up the
cliff himself, and so earn the extra sixpence which is the fee for that
service; and he told me that he couldn't because that was an hereditary
right, controlled by one family, in which it had been handed down for
generations. The father trains his sons in the precise method of
handling the climbers, so that they become very expert at it, and there
is really no great danger. One member of the family is always on the
lookout above the cliff, and when any visitor approaches, two members
climb down to offer their services. Our boatman added that he wished he
belonged to the family, because in good seasons they made a lot of
money.
We pushed out into the lake again, and rowed up a little farther to
another narrow beach, whence a rude flight of steps led to a shelf of
rock many feet above the lake, on which are the ruins of St. Kevin's
first little church. There is not much left of it, which is natural
enough since it was built nearly a thousand years before America was
discovered; but I took the picture of it which is reproduced opposite
the next page, and which gives a faint idea of the beauty of the lake.
All during the afternoon, I had been conscious, at intervals, of a dull
rumbling among the hills, and as we pushed out from the shore, I heard
it again, and asked the boatman if it was thunder, for the clouds had
begun to bank up along the horizon, and I remembered that we had twelve
miles to ride on a side-car before we reached the station. But he said
that it wasn't thunder; there was an artillery camp many miles away
among the hills and the rumbling was the echo of the guns. He also
assured me, after a look around, that it wouldn't rain before morning.
The basis of an Irish weather prediction, as I have said before, is not
at all a desire to foretell what is coming, but merely the wish to
comfort the inquirer; but in this case the prediction happened to come
true.
When we got back to the inn, we found a new arrival, a very pleasant
woman who had come over in the coach from Dublin. Her husband, I
learned, was an inspector employed by the National Education Board, who
had come to Glendalough to inspect the schools in the neighbourhood. He
had started out to inspect one at once, but when he returned I had a
most interesting talk with him concerning education in Ireland, and the
problems which it has to face.
[Illustration: THE ROAD TO ST. KEVIN'S SEAT]
[Illustration: THE FIRST OF ST. KEVIN'S CHURCHES]
The Irish schools, like everything else Irish, are controlled by a
central board which sits at Dublin Castle. There are sixty-six other
boards and bureaus and departments sitting there, each dealing with some
special branch of Irish affairs, and all of them are costly and
complicated. These sixty-seven varieties must cause a pang of envy in
the breast of our own Heinz, for that is ten more than he produces! The
particular board which controls the schools is called the National
Education Board, and, like all the others, it is in no way responsible
to the Irish people. In fact, it isn't responsible to anybody. Its
members are appointed for life, and it is virtually a self-perpetuating
body, for vacancies are usually filled in accordance with the
recommendation of a majority of its members. It is absolutely supreme in
Irish educational affairs.
The elementary schools in Ireland are known as "National Schools," and
each of them is controlled by a local manager, who is always either the
priest or the rector of the parish--the priest if the parish is largely
Roman Catholic, the rector if it is largely Protestant. If there are
enough children, both Catholic and Protestant, to fill two schools,
there will be two, and the two creeds will be separated. This is always
done, of course, in the cities, and in the north of Ireland there are
separate schools for the Presbyterians; but in the country districts
this cannot be done, so that, whatever the religious complexion of the
school, there will always be a few pupils of the other denomination in
it. In the villages where there is a church, as at Clondalkin, the
school is usually connected with the church and in that case, if it is
Roman Catholic, the teachers will be nuns.
The local manager of the school has absolute authority over it. He
employs and dismisses the teachers; he prescribes the course of study;
no book which he prohibits may be used in the school; any book, within
very wide limits, which he wishes to use, he may use; he determines the
character of the religious instruction. If he is a Catholic, this is, of
course, Catholicism; if he is a Protestant, it is Protestantism--which
means in Ireland either Presbyterianism in the north or Church of
Irelandism in the south and west. But, as a very noted preacher remarked
to me one evening, if he should happen to be a Mohammedan, he would be
perfectly free to teach Mohammedanism.
The secular instruction given in the schools is supposed not to be
coloured by religion, but it is inevitable that it should be; and this
is especially true of Ireland, in whose history religious differences
have played and still play so large a part. The result is that the
memory of old wrongs, far better forgotten, is kept alive and flaming;
and not only that, but the wrongs themselves are magnified and
distorted out of all resemblance to the truth. Some one has remarked
that half the ill-feeling in Ireland is caused by the memory of things
that never happened; and furthermore such atrocities as did occur in
some far distant day are spoken of as though they happened yesterday. To
every Catholic, Limerick is still "The City of the Violated Treaty,"
although the treaty referred to was made (and broken) in 1691, and
Catholics have long since been given every right it granted them. In
Derry, the "siege" is referred to constantly as though it were just
over, though as a matter of fact it occurred in 1689. To shout "To hell
with King Billy!" is the deadliest insult that Catholic can offer
Protestant, though King Billy, otherwise William III of Orange, has been
dead for more than two centuries. And when one asks the caretaker of any
old ruin how the place came to be ruined, the invariable answer is
"'Twas Crummell did it!" although it may have been in ruins a century
before Cromwell was born.
A certain period of every day, in every National School, is set apart
for religious instruction. When that period arrives, a placard on the
wall bearing the words "Secular Instruction," is reversed, displaying
the words "Religious Instruction" printed on the other side. Then
everybody in the schoolhouse who does not belong to the denomination in
which religious instruction is to be given is chased outside. Thus, as
you drive about Ireland, you will see little groups of boys and girls
standing idly in front of the schoolhouses, and you will wonder what
they are doing there.
They are waiting for the religious instruction period to be ended.
No Protestant child is permitted to be present while Catholic
instruction is going on, and no Catholic child while Protestant
instruction is being given. The law used to require the teacher forcibly
to eject such a child; but this raised an awful rumpus because, of
course, both Catholics and Protestants are anxious to make converts, and
the teachers used to say that they had conscientious scruples against
driving out any child who might wish to be converted. So the law now
requires the teacher to notify the child's parents; and the result is, I
fancy, very painful to the child.
All of which, I will say frankly, seems to me absurd. I do not believe
that religious and secular instruction can be combined in this way,
especially with a mixed population, without impairing the efficiency of
both. The first real struggle the Home Rule Parliament will have to
face, in the opinion of my friend the inspector, is the struggle to
secularise education. And this, he added, will not be a struggle of
Protestant against Catholic, but of clerical against anti-clerical, for,
while religious instruction is a far more vital principle with the
Catholic church than with the Protestant church, Protestant preachers in
Ireland are just as jealous of their power over the schools and just as
determined to retain it, as the Catholic priests. The influence of the
clergy in Ireland is very great, and I am inclined to think they will
win the first battle; but I also think that they are certain to lose in
the end.
The General Education Board keeps in touch with the local schools by
employing inspectors, who visit them three times a year and report on
their condition. These visits are supposed to be unexpected, but, as a
matter of fact, they seldom are.
"Word always gets about," my informant explained, with a smile, "that we
are in the neighbourhood, and of course things are furbished up a bit."
"I should like to visit some of the schools," I said.
"You are at perfect liberty to do so. Any orderly person has the right
to enter any school at any time."
"It is the poor little schools I wish to see," I added.
"You will find plenty of them in the west of Ireland--in fact, that is
about the only kind they have there. And you will probably scare the
teacher out of a year's growth when you step in. He will think you are
an inspector, or a government official of some kind, who has heard
something to his discredit and has come to investigate."
"Something to his discredit?" I repeated.
"Perhaps that he doesn't try to make the children in his district come
to school. That is one great fault with our system. We have a compulsory
education law, and every child in Ireland is supposed to go to school
until he is fourteen. But no effort is made to enforce it, and not over
half the children attend school with any sort of regularity. Often, of
course, their parents need them; but more frequently it is because the
parents are so ignorant themselves that they don't appreciate the value
of an education. That isn't their fault entirely, for until thirty or
forty years ago, it was practically impossible for a Catholic child to
get any education, since the schools were managed by Protestants in a
proselytising spirit and the priests would not allow Catholic children
to attend them.
"I have some of the old readers that were used in those days," went on
the inspector, with a smile, "and I wish I had them here. They would
amuse you. In one of them, the Board cut out Scott's lines,
"'Breathes there a man with soul so dead
Who never to himself has said
This is my own, my native land,'
and so on, fearing that they might have a bad effect upon Irish children
by teaching them to love the land they were born in, and substituted
some verses written by one of their own members. One stanza ran
something like this:
"'I thank the goodness and the grace
Which on my birth have smiled,
And made me in these Christian days
A happy English child.'
The Board claimed there was nothing sectarian about that stanza, but I
wonder what the O'Malleys over in Joyce's Country thought when their
children recited it? I'll bet there was a riot! And the histories had
every sort of history in them except Irish history. Ireland was treated
as a kind of tail to England's kite, and the English conquest was spoken
of as a thing for which Ireland should be deeply grateful, and the
English government was held up to admiration as the best and wisest that
man could hope to devise.
"Ah, well, those days are over now, and they don't try to make a happy
English child out of an Irish Catholic any longer. The principal
trouble now is that there isn't enough money to carry on the schools
properly. Many of the buildings are unfit for schoolhouses, and the
teachers are miserably paid. The school-books are usually poor little
penny affairs, for the children can't afford more expensive ones. We
visit the schools three times a year and look them over, but there isn't
anything we can do. Here is the blank we are supposed to fill out."
The blank was a portentous four-page document, with many printed
questions. The first section dealt with the condition of the schoolhouse
and premises, the second with the school equipment, the third with the
organisation, and so on. As might be expected, many of the questions
have to do with the subject of religious instruction. Here are some of
them:
Note objections (if any) to arrangements for
Religious Instruction.
Have you examined the Religious Instruction
Certificate Book?
Are the Rules as to this book observed?
Is the school _bona fide_ open to pupils of all
denominations?
In case of Convent or Monastery schools, paid by
capitation, state is the staff sufficient.
The "Religious Instruction Certificate Book"--note the reverent
capitals--is the book in which the religion of each child is certified
to by its parents, so that there can be no controversy on the subject,
and in which the child's attendance is carefully entered. There is also
a Punishment Book, in which the teacher, when a child is punished, must
enter the details of the affair for the inspector's information; and an
Observation Book, in which the inspector is supposed to note
suggestions for the teacher's guidance; as well as records of attendance
and proficiency, and all the usual red tape of the Circumlocution
Office. I have never seen any of these books, but I fancy that, with the
exception of the first-named, few teachers spend much time over them.
As I have said before, the local manager has absolute control of the
school, and the poverty of the school funds is sometimes due to his
desire to keep this power wholly in his own hands. The government grant
is intended only as a partial support, and is supposed to be
supplemented by a local contribution. But frequently no local
contribution is asked for or desired, because, if one was made, the
persons who made it would rightfully claim some voice in the management
of the school. I have heard queer tales of managers' eccentricities. One
of them read somewhere of the high educational value of teaching
children to fold paper in various shapes, and so had the children in his
school devote an hour every day to this exercise. It was popular with
the children, but the indignation of their parents may be imagined. They
were, however, quite powerless to do anything except raise a row.
Another, who believed that the highest function of education was to
develop the aesthetic consciousness, had the children in his school
arrange rags of various colours in symphonies, and the people in his
parish nearly went mad with rage.
But these, of course, were exceptions. As a rule, the course of study is
utilitarian and humdrum enough, and the only colour the manager injects
into it is that of religion. I note that the subjects of study
mentioned in the inspector's blank are oral and written English,
history, arithmetic, geography, object lessons and elementary science,
cookery and laundry work, singing, drawing, needlework, and training of
infants. This sounds ambitious enough, but I fancy it is mostly blarney,
so far as the small schools are concerned, at any rate. About all most
of them do is to teach the children to read and write and cipher--and
these most haltingly. Twenty per cent of the people in western Ireland
are still unable to do even that.
"You are a Nationalist, I suppose?" I said, after I had finished looking
through the blank.
"I am," he assented emphatically.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because it is bad for Ireland to be treated like a spoiled child. That
is the way England treats us now--we can get anything we want if we yell
loud enough. And it's bad for England, too. She has problems enough of
her own, heaven knows, but all she can think about is Ireland. Every
sensible Englishman will be glad to get rid of us, so his government can
have a little time to attend to its own affairs. What Ireland needs is
to be chucked overboard and told to sink or swim. We'll swim, of course,
but the shore's a long way off, and it will be a hard pull; but the
harder it is, the closer we Irishmen will be drawn together. Home Rule
won't bring any shower of blessings--it's more apt to bring hardships
for a while; but it will give us a chance to stop thinking about our
wrongs, and go to work to make Ireland a country worth living in."
The time had come for us to take our leave, and the inspector and his
wife walked with us, for half a mile or so, along a beautiful path
through the woods on the other side of the lower lake, and finally, with
many expressions of good-will, bade us good-bye. We went on again, to
the ruins of St. Kevin's seven churches, with the round tower looming
high above them, while all about are the mounds and slabs of the old
graveyard. All the churches are little ones--mere midgets, some of
them--and they are in all states of preservation, from a few fragments
of wall to the almost perfect "St. Kevin's Kitchen"--a tiny structure
with high stone roof, which was set apart for the Saint's use, and which
was so solidly built that it passed unharmed through the many burnings
and sackings of the monastery, and still stands intact, defying the
centuries. There is a queer little tower at one end of it, and a chamber
above between the vault and the high roof; but most of these pre-Norman
churches are small and bare of ornament, and remarkable only for their
great age.
We spent some time in the graveyard, looking at the crosses and
ornamented tombstones, and sculptured fragments lying about, and then we
inspected the round tower; but my picture of it looks like a silhouette
against the sunset sky; and finally we went on to the road, where our
car was waiting. As we swung along through the fresh, cool air of the
evening, we drew our jarvey into talk. He was very pessimistic about the
state of the country, and apparently did not believe that Home Rule
would help it much. There was no chance, he said, for a man to get
ahead. It was a hard struggle for most of them to get enough to eat and
a place to sleep and a few clothes to wear. A little sickness or bad
luck, and there was nothing left but the workhouse--the workmen's
insurance act did not include men like him. His own wages were ten
shillings ($2.40) a week, and there were many who could not earn even
that. On ten shillings--eked out by such tips as he picked up from his
passengers--he managed to clothe and feed himself, but that was all.
Marriage was not to be thought of; there was no hope of saving money
enough to go to America; in fact, there was no hope of any kind. But
though he spoke bitterly enough, he didn't seem unreasonably cast down,
and I dare say spent little time thinking about his hard fate except
when some passing Americans like ourselves reminded him of it.
And at last, just as dusk was falling, we wound down into the valley at
Rathdrum; and presently our train came along; and an hour later we were
again walking along O'Connell Street. It was long past nine o'clock, but
not yet dark.
CHAPTER VI
DROGHEDA THE DREARY
THERE was one more excursion we wanted to make from Dublin. That was to
Drogheda (pronounced Drawda) of bitter memory; from where we hoped to
drive to the scene of the battle of the Boyne, and on to Dowth and
Newgrange, the sepulchres of the ancient kings of Erin, and finally to
the abbeys of Mellifont and Monasterboice. So we set forth, next
morning, on this pilgrimage; but fate willed that we were not to
accomplish it that day.
Drogheda is about thirty miles north of Dublin, near the mouth of the
River Boyne, and the ride thither, for the most part close beside the
sea, is not of special interest, as the coast is flat and the only town
of any importance on the way is Balbriggan, celebrated for its hosiery.
Drogheda itself is an up-and-down place, built on the side of a hill. I
suppose the castle which was the nucleus of the town stood on top of the
hill, and houses were gradually built from it down to the ford from
which the town takes its name. Encircled with walls and dominated by its
castle, it was no doubt picturesque enough, but it is singularly dingy
and unattractive now, with slums almost as bad as Dublin's and evidences
of biting poverty everywhere.
We blundered into the fish-market, as we were exploring the streets, and
watched for some time the haggling between the dealers and the women
who had come to market--a haggling so vigorous that it often threatened
to end in blows. Most of the fish had been cut up into pieces, and every
piece was fingered and poked and examined with a scrutiny almost
microscopic; and then the would-be purchaser would make an offer for it,
which would be indignantly refused. Then the dealer would name his
price, and this never failed to arouse a storm of protest. Then dealer
and purchaser would indulge in a few personalities, recalling with
relish any discreditable facts in the other's private life or family
history; and finally, sometimes, an agreement would be reached. In any
case, the price was never more than a few pennies, and the reluctance
with which they were produced and handed over proved how tremendously
hard it had been to earn them.
Drogheda recalls Cromwell to every Irishman, usually with a malediction,
for it was here that the massacre occurred which made and still makes
the Great Protector anathema in Catholic Ireland. Briefly, the facts are
these: The Irish Catholics, under Owen Roe O'Neill, had, naturally
enough, supported Charles I against the Parliament, and when the
Parliament cut off his head, promptly declared for his son, Charles II,
and started in to conquer Ulster, which was largely Protestant then as
now.
Cromwell realised that, before the Commonwealth would be safe, the
rebellion in Ireland must be put down, and at once addressed himself to
the task. He landed at Dublin about the middle of August, 1649, and
marched against Drogheda, which was held by an Irish force of some three
thousand men. Arrived before it, he summoned the town to surrender;
upon its refusal, took it by storm, and "in the heat of action," as he
afterwards wrote, ordered that the whole garrison be put to the sword.
Not more than thirty of the three thousand escaped, and such Catholic
priests as were found in the place were hanged. Cromwell afterwards
sought to justify this cruelty on two grounds: as a reprisal for the
killing of Protestants in Ulster, and as the most efficacious way to
strike terror to the Irish and end the rebellion. As a matter of fact,
it cannot be justified, as John Morley very clearly points out in a
chapter of his life of Cromwell which should be read by every one
interested in Irish history.
Some fragments of the old walls still remain, and one of the gates,
which will be found pictured opposite the next page. It spans what is
now the principal street, and consists of two battlemented towers,
pierced with loopholes in each of their four stories, and connected by a
retiring wall also loopholed. It is so well preserved because it stands
on the opposite side of the town from the one Cromwell attacked, and is
the most perfect specimen of the mediaeval city-gate which I saw anywhere
in Ireland. When one has seen it, one has exhausted the antiquarian
interest of Drogheda, for all that is left of the old monastery is a
battered fragment. As for the modern town, the churches are rococo and
ugly, while the most imposing building is the workhouse, capable of
accommodating a thousand inmates.
Having satisfied our curiosity as to Drogheda, we addressed ourselves to
getting out to the battlefield and abbeys. The railroads sell
combination tickets for the whole trip, at three or four shillings
each, carrying their passengers about in brakes; but these excursions do
not start till June, so it was necessary that we get a car. At the
station, and again at the wharf by the river, we had observed large
bulletin boards with a list of the jaunting-car tariffs fixed by the
corporation, and giving the price of the trip we wanted to take as ten
shillings for two people. In the square by the post-office, a number of
cars were drawn up along the curb, and, picking out the best-looking
one, I told the jarvey where we wanted to go.
[Illustration: THE ROUND TOWER, CLONDALKIN]
[Illustration: ST. LAWRENCE'S GATE, DROGHEDA]
"Very good, sir," he said. "I'm the lad can take ye. Do you and your
lady get right up."
"What is the fare?" I asked.
"One pound, sir."
"The legal fare is just half that," I pointed out.
"It may be," he agreed pleasantly.
We left him negligently flicking his horse with his whip, and presently
we met a policeman, and told him we wanted to drive out to
Monasterboice, and while we didn't mind being robbed, we didn't care to
be looted, and we asked his advice. He scratched his head dubiously.
"Ye see it is like this, sir," he said; "there is no one to enforce the
regulations, so the jarvies just charge what they please. I'm free to
admit they have no conscience. There is one, though, who is fairly
honest," and he directed us to his house. "Tell him you come from me,
and he'll treat you well."
But that transaction was never closed. We found the house--grimy, dark,
dirt-floored, trash-littered--with the man's wife and assorted children
within; but the woman told us that "himself" had driven out into the
country and would not be back till evening. And just then it began to
drizzle most dismally.
"This is no day for the trip, anyway," I said. "Suppose we wait till we
get to Belfast, and run down from there."
So it was agreed, and we made our way back to the station, through a sea
of sticky mud, and presently took train again for Ireland's ancient
capital.
* * * * *
We were ready to leave Dublin for a swing clear around the coast of
Ireland, and late that afternoon, having sifted our luggage to the
minimum and armed ourselves cap-a-pie against every vicissitude of
weather, we bade our friends at the hotel good-bye (not forgetting the
bell-boy), drove to the station, and got aboard a train, which presently
rolled away southwards. It was very full--the third-class crowded with
soldiers in khaki bound for the camp on the Curragh of Kildare, and our
own compartment jammed with a variety of people.
In one corner, a white-haired priest mumbled his breviary and watched
the crowd with absent eyes, while across from him a loud-voiced woman,
evidently, from her big hat and cheap finery, just home from America,
was trying to overawe the friends who had gone to Dublin to meet her by
an exhibition of sham gentility. In the seat with us was a plump and
comfortable woman of middle age, with whom we soon got into talk about
everything from children to Home Rule.
What she had to say about Home Rule was interesting. Her home was
somewhere down in the Vale of Tipperary, and I judged from her
appearance that she was the wife of a well-to-do farmer. She was most
emphatically not a Nationalist.
"It isn't them who own land, or who are buyin' a little farm under the
purchase act that want Home Rule," she said. "No, no; them ones would be
glad to let well enough alone. 'Tis the labourers, the farm-hands, the
ditch-diggers, and such-like people, who have nothin' to lose, that
shout the loudest for it. They would like a bit of land themselves, and
they fancy that under Home Rule they'll be gettin' it; but where is it
to come from, I'd like to know, unless off of them that has it now; and
who would be trustin' the likes of them to pay for it? Ah, 'tis foolish
to think of! Besides, if everybody owned land, where would we be gettin'
labour to work it? No, no; 'tis time to stop, I say, and there be many
who think like me."
"What wages does a labourer make?" I asked.
"From ten to twelve shillin's a week."
"All the year round?"
"There's no work in winter, so how can one be payin' wages then?"
"But how can they live on that?"
"They can't live on it," she said fiercely; "many of them ones couldn't
live at all, if it wasn't for the money that's sent them from America.
But what can the farmers do? If they pay higher wages, they ruin
themselves. Most of them have give up in disgust and turned their land
into grass."
"What do the labourers do then?" I asked.
"They move away some'rs else--to America if they can."
"Perhaps Home Rule will make things better," I suggested.
"How, I'd like to know? By raisin' taxes? That same is the first thing
will happen! No, no; the solid men hereabouts don't want Home
Rule--they're afraid of it; but they know well enough they must keep
their tongues in their mouths, except with each other. The world's goin'
crazy--that's what I think."
Now I look back on it, that conversation seems to me to sum up pretty
well the situation in rural Ireland--the small farmer, handicapped by
poverty and primitive methods, ground down in the markets of the world,
and in turn grinding down the labourers beneath him, or turning his farm
into grass, so that there is no work at all except for a few shepherds.
And I believe it is true that, as a whole, only the upper class and the
lower class of Irishmen really want Home Rule--the upper class from
motives of patriotism, the lower class from hope of betterment; while
the middle class is either lukewarm or opposed to it at heart. The
middle class is, of course, always and everywhere, the conservative
class, the class which fears change most and is the last to consent to
it; in Ireland, it is composed largely of small farmers, who have
dragged themselves a step above the peasantry and who are just finding
their feet under the land purchase act, and I think their liveliest fear
is that a Home Rule Parliament will somehow compel them to pay living
wages to their labourers. I can only say that I hope it will!
Outside, meanwhile, rural Ireland was unfolding itself under our eyes,
varied, beautiful--and sad. The first part of it we had already
traversed on our excursion to Clondalkin; beyond that village, the road
emerged from the hills encircling Dublin, and soon we could see their
beautiful rounded masses far to the left, forming a charming background
to meadows whose greenness no words can describe. Every foot of the
ground is historic; for first the train passes Celbridge where Swift's
"Vanessa" dwelt, and just beyond is Lyons Hill, where Daniel O'Connell
shot and killed a Dublin merchant named D'Esterre in a duel a hundred
years ago--an affair, it should be added, in which D'Esterre was the
aggressor; and presently the line crosses a broad and beautiful
undulating down, the Curragh of Kildare, where St. Brigid pastured her
flocks, and it was made in this wise:
One time, when Brigid, who was but a poor serving-girl, being the
daughter of a bond-woman, was minding her cow, with no place to feed it
but the side of the road, the rich man who owned the land for leagues
around came by, and saw her and her cow, and a pity for her sprang into
his heart.
"How much land would it take to give grass to the cow?" said he.
"No more than my cloak would cover," said she.
"I will give that," said the rich man.
"Glory be to God!" said Brigid, and she took off her cloak and laid it
on the ground, and she had no sooner done so than it began to grow,
until it spread miles and miles on every side.
But just then a silly old woman came by, bad cess to her, and she opened
her foolish mouth and she said, "If that cloak keeps on spreading, all
Ireland will be free."
And with that the cloak stopped and spread no more; but the rich man was
true to his word, and Brigid held the land which it covered during all
her lifetime, and it has been a famous grazing-ground ever since, though
the creatures are crowded off part of it now by a great military camp.
Beyond the Curragh, the train rumbles over a wide bog, which trembles
uneasily beneath it, and the black turf-cuttings stretch away as far as
the eye can see; and then the Hill of Allen looms up against the
horizon, where the Kings of Leinster dwelt in the old days, and the
fields grow greener than ever, but for miles and miles there is not a
single house.
And this is the sad part of it; for this fertile land, as rich as any in
the world, supports only flocks and herds, instead of the men and women
and children who once peopled it. They have all been driven away, by
eviction, by famine, by the hard necessity of finding work; for there is
no work here except for a few herdsmen, and has not been for half a
century. For when the landlords found--or fancied they found--there was
more money in grazing than in agriculture, they turned the people out
and the sheep and cattle in--and the sheep and cattle are still there.
But the landscape grows ever lovelier and more lovely. Away on either
hand, high ranges of hills spring into being, closing in the Golden Vale
of Tipperary, and one realises it was a true vision of the place of his
birth that Denis McCarthy had when he wrote his lilting verses in praise
of it:
Ah, sweet is Tipperary in the springtime of the year,
When the hawthorn's whiter than the snow,
When the feathered folk assemble and the air is all a-tremble
With their singing and their winging to and fro;
When queenly Slievenamon puts her verdant vesture on
And smiles to hear the news the breezes bring;
When the sun begins to glance on the rivulets that dance--
Ah, sweet is Tipperary in the spring!
Slievenamon is not in sight from the train--we shall see it to-morrow
from the Rock of Cashel; but just ahead is a rugged hill with a
singular, half-moon depression at the summit, for all the world as
though some one had taken a great bite out of it--and that is precisely
what happened, for once upon a time the Prince of Darkness passed that
way, and when he came to the hill, being pressed with hunger, he took a
bite out of the top of it; but it was not to his taste, so he spat it
out again, and it fell some miles away across the valley, where it lies
to this day, and is called the Rock of Cashel, while the hill is known
as the Devil's Bit.
And then we came to Thurles--and to earth.
Now Thurles--the word is pronounced in two syllables, as though it were
spelled Thurless--is a small town and has only two inns. We knew nothing
of either, so we asked the advice of a bluff, farmer-looking man in our
compartment, who was native to the place. He declined, at first, to
express an opinion, saying it would ill become him to exalt one inn at
the expense of the other, since the keepers of both were friends of
his; but after some moments of cogitation, he said that he would
recommend one of them, since it was kept by a poor widow woman. I
confess this did not seem to me a convincing reason for going there; but
our new-found friend took charge of us, and, having seen us safely to
the platform, called loudly for "Jimmy," and an old man presently
shambled forward, to whose care, with many wishes for a pleasant
journey, we were committed.
The old man proved to be the driver of a very ramshackle omnibus, in
which we were presently rumbling along a wide and dreary street. The
hotel, when we got to it, proved bare and cheerless, with every corner
crowded with cots. The landlady explained that the great horse-fair
opened in a day or two, and that she was preparing for the crowds which
always attended it; but finally she found a room for us away up in the
attic, and left us alone with a candle. The weather had turned very
cold, and we were tired and uncomfortable, and even our electric torch
could not make the room look otherwise than dingy; and I think, for a
moment, we regretted that we had come to Ireland--and then, presto!
change. . . .
For there came a knock at the door, and a soft-voiced maid entered with
towels and hot water, and asked if there wasn't something else she could
do for us; and then another came, to see if there was anything _she_
could do, and between them they lapped us in such a warmth of Irish
welcome that we were soon aglow. I left them blarneying Betty and went
down to the shining little bar, where I smoked a pipe in company with
two or three habitues and the barmaid, and had a most improving talk
about the state of the country. They were as hungry to hear about
America as I was to hear about Ireland, and it was very late before I
mounted the stairs again.
All through the night, we were awakened at intervals by the tramping and
neighing of the horses arriving for the fair.
CHAPTER VII
HOLY CROSS AND CASHEL OF THE KINGS
IF one doesn't like bacon and eggs, one must go without breakfast in
Ireland, unless one likes fish, or is content with bread and butter.
Every evening Betty would have a colloquy with the maid, which ran
something like this:
"What will ye be wantin' for breakfast, miss?"
"What can we have?"
"Oh, anything ye like, miss."
"Well, what, for instance?"
"There's bacon and eggs, miss, and there's fish."
We usually took bacon and eggs, for fish seemed out of place on the
breakfast-table. Besides, we were sure to encounter it later at dinner.
"And will ye have coffee or tay, miss?" the maid would continue.
We took coffee once, and after that we took tea. The tea is good, though
strong, and it seems somehow to suit the climate; but one sip of Irish
coffee will be enough for most people.
So next morning we sat down to our breakfast of tea and bacon and eggs
with a good appetite. The cloth was not as clean as it might have been,
but the eggs were fresh and the bacon sweet, and the bread and butter
were delicious--as they are all over Ireland--and the tea tasted better
than I had ever imagined tea could taste, and outside the sun was
shining brightly, but no brighter than the face of the maid who waited
on us, and there was a pleasant stir of movement up and down the street,
for it was Saturday and market-day, so that it was quite impossible to
be otherwise than happy and content. And presently the car I had
arranged for the night before drove up, and we were off on the four-mile
drive to the ruins of Holy Cross Abbey.
We had to go slowly, at first, for the street was crowded with people
come to market, and with the wares exposed for sale. There were little
carts heaped high with brown turf, which might be bought for two or
three shillings a load, though every load represented as many days' hard
work; there were red calves in little pens, and chickens in crates, and
eggs and butter in baskets; and there were a lot of pedlars offering all
sorts of dry-goods and hardware and odds and ends to the country-people
who stood stolidly around, apparently rather sorry they had come. The
faces were typically Irish--the men with short noses and shaved lips and
little fuzzy side-whiskers, and the women with cheeks almost startlingly
ruddy; but there wasn't a trace of those rollicking spirits which the
Irish in books and on the stage seldom fail to display.
Once clear of the crowd, we rolled out of the town, over a bridge above
the railway, and along a pleasant road, past little thatched cottages
overflowing with children; meeting, from time to time, a family driving
to town, all crowded together on a little cart behind a shaggy donkey,
the men with their feet hanging down, the women scrooched up under their
shawls, with their knees as high as their chins. They all stared at us
curiously; but our driver passed them by with disdain, as not worth his
notice, and from a word or two he let fall, it was evident that he
considered them beneath him.
The road was rather higher than the surrounding country, and we could
see across it, north and south, for many miles; then it descended to a
winding stream, the Suir, flowing gently between rushy banks, and
presently we saw ahead a great pile of crumbling buildings--and then we
were at Holy Cross, one of the most exquisite and interesting of the
hundreds of ruins which cover Ireland.
That word "hundreds" is no exaggeration. In a single day's journey, one
will see scores; and as one goes on thus, day after day, one begins to
realise what a populous and wealthy country Ireland was eight hundred
years ago, how crowded with castles and monasteries; and I think the
deepest impression the traveller bears away with him is the memory of
these battered and deserted remnants of former grandeur. And yet it is
not quite just to blame England for them, as most of the Irish do. It
was the English, of course, who broke up the monasteries and destroyed
many of the castles; but the march of the centuries would probably have
wrought much the same ruin in the end; for men no longer live in
castles, finding homes far pleasanter; and it is not now to monks they
go for learning, nor is the right of sanctuary needed as it was in the
time when might made right, and a poor man's only hope of safety lay in
getting to some altar ahead of his pursuers. Yet one cannot tread these
beautiful places without a certain sadness and regret--regret for the
vanished pomp and ceremony, the cowled processions and torch-lit feasts,
the shuffle of feet and the songs of minstrels--in a word, for the old
order, so impressive, so picturesque--and so cruel!
[Illustration: HOLY CROSS ABBEY, FROM THE CLOISTERS]
[Illustration: THE MIGHTY RUINS ON THE ROCK OF CASHEL]
Holy Cross was a great place in those days, for, as its name indicates,
it held as its most precious relic a fragment of the True Cross, given
by the Pope, in 1110, to Donough O'Brien, grandson of Brian Boru, and
thousands of pilgrims came to pray before it. The relic had many strange
vicissitudes, in the centuries that followed, but it was not lost, as
was the one which the Cross of Cong enshrined, and it is preserved
to-day in the Ursuline convent at Blackrock. Holy Cross had better luck
than most, for, at the dissolution in 1563, it was granted to the Earl
of Ormonde, a friend who cherished it. But the end came with the passing
of the Stuarts, and now it is deserted save for the old woman who acts
as caretaker, and who lives in a little ivy-covered house built against
the wall of the great church.
She opened the iron gate which bars access to the ruins, and let us
wander about them at will, for which we were grateful. The plan of the
place is that common to almost all monastic establishments: a cruciform
church, with the altar at the east end, as nearest Jerusalem, the arms
of the cross, or transepts, stretching north and south, and the body of
the cross, or nave, extending to the west, where the main entrance was;
a door from the nave opened to the south into a court around which were
the cloisters and the domestic buildings--the refectory, the
chapter-house and the dormitories; and still beyond these were the
granaries and storehouses and guest-houses and various out-buildings.
Also, like most others, it stands on the bank of a river, for the monks
were fond of fishing,--and had no mind to go hungry on Friday!
The roof of the church has fallen in, but it is otherwise
well-preserved, even to the window-tracery; and the square tower above
the crossing is apparently as firm as ever. The whole place abounds in
beautiful detail, proof of the loving workmanship that was lavished on
it; but its bright particular gem is a little sanctum in the north
transept, surrounded by delicate twisted pillars and covered by a roof
beautifully groined. Whether this was the sanctuary of the relic, or the
place where the monks were laid from death to burial, or the tomb of
some saintly Abbot, no one knows; but there it is, a living testimony to
the beauty of Irish artistry.
The cloister is now a grass-grown court, and only a few arches remain of
the colonnade which once surrounded it; but the square of domestic
buildings about it is better preserved than one will find almost
anywhere else, and deserves careful exploration.
As was the custom in most of the abbeys, the friars, when they died,
were laid to rest beneath the flags of the church floor; the church is
still used as a burial place, and is cluttered with graves, marked by
stones leaning at every angle. One's feet sink deep into the mould--a
mould composed, so the caretaker told us in awestruck voice, of human
dust.
We mounted the narrow staircase to the tower roof and sat there for a
long time, gazing down on these lichened and crumbling walls, restoring
them in imagination and repeopling them with the White Brothers and the
pilgrims and the innumerable hangers-on who once crowded them. It
required no great stretch of fancy to conjure the old days back--that
day, for instance, three centuries and more ago, when Red Hugh
O'Donnell, marching southward from Galway with his army to join the
Spaniards at Kinsale, came down yonder white highway, and stopped at the
monastery gate, and invoked a blessing from the Abbot. And the Abbot,
with all the monks in attendance, carried the fragment of the Cross in
its gilded shrine out to the gate, and held it up for all to see, and
Red Hugh and his men knelt down there in the road, while the priest
prayed that through them Ireland might win freedom. And even as they
knelt, a wild-eyed rapparee came pounding up with the news that a great
force of English was at Cashel, a few miles away; so Red Hugh had to
flee with his men over the hills to the westward, to die a year later,
poisoned by a man he thought his friend.
We descended after a time, and crossed the river to have a look at the
Abbey from that vantage-ground; and at last, most regretfully, we
mounted the car again and drove back to Thurles. An hour later, we were
at Cashel--the one place in all Ireland best worth seeing.
I write that in all earnestness. If the traveller has time for only one
excursion out of Dublin, he should hesitate not an instant, but go to
Cashel. I shall try to tell why.
Cashel is a rock some three hundred feet high dropped down among the
pastures along the northern edge of the Golden Vale of Tipperary. I do
not know how the geologists explain it. How the Irish explain it I have
told already. Its sides are of the steepest, and its flat top is about
two acres in extent. In itself it is a natural fortress, and it was of
course seized upon as such by the dim people who fought back and forth
over the length and breadth of Ireland in the far ages before history
begins. At first it was strengthened by a wall around the top. Any such
defensive wall in Ireland is called a cashel, as one of earth is called
a rath, and there are both raths and cashels all up and down the land,
for forts have always been sorely needed there; but this is the Cashel
above all others.
Buildings were put up inside the wall, rude at first, but gradually
growing more elaborate, and when the real history of the place begins,
say about fifteen centuries ago, it was already the seat of the Kings of
Munster, that is of the southern half of Ireland. Hither about 450 came
St. Patrick to convert the King and his household; it was while
preaching here that he is said first to have plucked the trefoil or
shamrock to illustrate the principle of the Three-in-One; Brian Boru
strengthened its fortifications; and in 1134 was consecrated here that
wonderful chapel of Cormac McCarthy, King of Munster, which still
endures as a most convincing demonstration of the beauty of old Irish
architecture. Then a round tower was put up, and then a castle, and then
a great cathedral, for King Murtough had granted the Rock to "the
religious of Ireland," and the Archbishop of Cashel came, before long,
to be nearly as powerful as the great Archbishop of Armagh; and then a
monastery was built, and schools, under the sway first of the
Benedictines and later of the Cistercians. All this made a stupendous
group of buildings, a splendid and impressive symbol of Cashel's
greatness.
[Illustration: (C) Underwood & Underwood, N.Y.
CASHEL OF THE KINGS]
But under Elizabeth, the scale turned. Dermot O'Hurley, Archbishop of
Cashel, was taken prisoner and carried to Dublin and hanged. His
successor, Milar Magrath, abjured his religion, under Elizabethan
pressure, and to prove the sincerity of his Protestantism, married not
once, but twice. From that time on, the place was used as a Protestant
cathedral, until, in 1744, Archbishop Price succeeded to the see.
Now the Archbishop was a man who loved his ease, and though his palace
was situated conveniently enough at the foot of the Rock, his church was
perched most inconveniently upon it, and the only way even an archbishop
could get to it was to walk. Price spent a lot of money trying to build
a carriage road up the Rock, but finally he gave it up and procured from
Parliament an act decreeing that, whereas, "in several dioceses,
cathedral churches are so incommodiously situated that they cannot be
resorted to for divine service," power should be given the chief
governor, with assent of the privy council, to "remove the site of a
cathedral church to some convenient parish church." Two years later, in
1749, an act was passed directing that the cathedral be removed from the
Rock into the town. This was, of course, impossible in any but a
metaphorical sense; but, incredible as it may seem, since he couldn't
remove it, Price determined to destroy it, secured from the government
the loan of a regiment of soldiers, and set them to work tearing it
down. They stripped off the leaden roof, knocked in the vaulting, and
left the place the ruin that it is to-day. It might be remarked, in
passing, that here is one ruin "Crummell" didn't make. George II was
King of England in 1749, and Cromwell had been dead nearly a hundred
years.
I shall never forget my first glimpse of this stupendous pile of
buildings, looming high in air, all turrets and towers, like those fairy
palaces which Maxfield Parrish loves to paint. A short branch runs from
Goold's Cross to Cashel, and it was from the windows of the rickety
little train we peered, first on this side and then on that--and then,
quite suddenly, away to the left, we saw the Rock, golden-grey, high
against the sky, so fairy-like and ethereal that it seemed impossible it
could be anything more than a wonderful vision or mirage. And then the
train stopped, and we jumped out, and hurried from the station, and
presently we were following the path around the Rock. But that was too
slow, and with a simultaneous impulse we left the path and climbed the
wall, and hastened upward over rock and heather, straight toward this
new marvel. We skirted another wall, and climbed a stile--and then we
were stopped by a high iron gate, secured with a chain and formidable
padlock.
But we had scarcely time to feel the shock of disappointment, when we
saw hastening upward toward us a sturdy old man, with weather-beaten
face framed by a shock of reddish-grey hair and beard, and a moment
later we had the pleasure of meeting John Minogue, the caretaker--the
most accomplished caretaker, I venture to say, in all the length and
breadth of Ireland. For, as we soon found, he has the history and
legends and architectural peculiarities of Cashel at his tongue's
end--he knows them intimately, accurately, in every detail, for he has
lived with them all his life and loves them.
He unlocked the iron gate and ushered us in, and chased away the rabble
of ragged children who had followed him up from the village; and then
began one of the most delightful experiences that I have ever had. I
almost despair of attempting to describe it.
At our feet lay the Vale of Tipperary--an expanse of greenest green
stretching unbroken to the foot of a great mountain-chain, the Galtees,
thirty miles away. Farther to the north, we could just discern the gap
of the Devil's Bit, beyond which lay Limerick and the Shannon. And then
we walked to the other side of the Rock, and there, away in the
distance, towered the great bulk of "queenly Slievenamon," the Mountain
of Fair Women, and as we stood there gazing at it, John Minogue told us
how it got its name.
It was in the days when Cormac son of Art was King of Erin, and Finn son
of Cumhal, Finn the Fair, he of the High Deeds,--whose name I shall
spell hereafter as it is pronounced, Finn MacCool--had been declared by
birthright and by swordright Captain of that invincible brotherhood of
fighting-men, the Fianna. Finn was past his youth, and had a comely son,
Ossian the sweet singer; but at times his spirit hung heavy on him, for
his wife was dead, and no man has peaceful slumber who is without a
fitting mate. So he looked about for one to share his bed, but found it
hard to choose, for there were many fine women in Erin; and at last in
his perplexity he sat himself down on the summit of Slievenamon, and
said that all who wished might run a race from the bottom to the top,
and she who won should be his wife. So it was done, and the race was won
by Grainne, daughter of the great Cormac himself. The feast was set for
a fortnight later, in the king's hall at Tara--and what happened there
we shall hear later on.
We might have been standing yet upon the Rock, gazing out across that
marvellous valley, if John Minogue had not dragged us away to see the
wonders of the place. Not the least of them is the weather-beaten stone
cross, with the crucifixion on one side and an effigy of St. Patrick on
the other, which stands just outside the castle entrance, on the rude
pedestal where the Kings of Munster were crowned in the old, old days.
Here it was, perhaps, that St. Patrick himself stood when he stooped to
pluck the trefoil, and that King Aengus was baptised. Legend has it that,
as he was performing that ceremony, the Saint, without knowing it, drove
the spiked end of his crozier through the King's foot. Aengus said never
a word, nor made complaint, thinking it part of the rite; but when the
Saint went to take up his crozier and saw what he had done, he blessed
the King and promised that none of that royal stock should die of wounds
forever. Perhaps the promise was not "forever," for, five centuries
later, Brian Boru, the greatest of them all, was killed in battle at
Clontarf, as I have told.
But the greatest wonder of all at Cashel is the jewel of a chapel built
by Cormac and standing as firm to-day as when its stones were laid,
eight centuries ago. It nestles in between the choir and south transept
of the later cathedral, and its entrance is the most magnificent doorway
of its kind existing anywhere on this earth.
It is round-headed, as in all Irish Romanesque, with five deep mouldings
rich in dog-tooth and lozenge ornamentation, and though it is battered
and weather-worn, it is still most beautiful and impressive.
Inside, the chapel is divided into nave and chancel, both very small,
but decorated with a richness and massiveness almost oppressive--twisted
columns, arcaded walls, dog-tooth mouldings, rounded arches, traceried
surfaces, sculptured capitals, and I know not what beside. Facing the
choir is a stone sarcophagus, beautifully ornamented with characteristic
Celtic serpent work, as may be seen in the photograph. It is called
"King Cormac's Coffin." It was in the small apartment over the nave and
under the steep stone roof that Cormac was struck down by an assassin,
as he knelt in prayer.
It was something of a relief to get out into the high, roofless
cathedral, where one feels at liberty to draw a deep breath. The
cathedral is rich with sculptures, too; but I shall not attempt to
describe them. I can only hope that it may be your fortune to visit the
place, some day, and have John Minogue to take you round. But, let me
warn you, he does not waste himself on the unsympathetic. While we stood
admiring the sculptures of St. Patrick and St. Brigid and eleven of the
apostles, in the north transept (the sculptor omitted St. Matthew for
some unknown reason; or perhaps our guide told me why and I have
forgotten); as we stood there gazing in delight at these inimitable
figures, a party of four or five entered the church, and stood staring
vacantly about.
"See here, Mr. Minogue," I said, after a time, "we can amuse ourselves
for a while, if you'd like to look after those other people."
Minogue shot one glance at them.
"No," he said; "they're not worth it. Now come--I must show you the
round tower."
A beauty the tower is, with walls four feet thick, built of great blocks
of stone, and a little round-headed doorway, twelve feet above the
ground. It stands eighty-five feet high, and is wonderfully preserved;
but when we looked up it from the inside, we saw that the old masons did
not succeed in getting it quite true.
* * * * *
It was an hour later--or perhaps two hours later--that we emerged again
from the iron gate, and found the rabble of children still waiting. They
closed in on us at once, murmuring something in a queer half-mumble,
half-whisper, of which we could not understand a word.
"What is it they're saying?" we asked.
"They're saying," explained Minogue, "that if your honour will toss a
penny amongst them, they will fight for it; or, if you'd rather, they
will put up a prayer for you, so that you will get safe home again. They
don't consider that begging, you see, since they offer some return for
the money."
And then, as they hustled us more closely, he turned and shouted
something at them--some magic incantation, I fancy, for they scurried
away as though the devil was after them. I regretted, afterwards, that I
had not asked him for the formula--but in the end, we found one of our
own, as you shall hear.
Our guide insisted that we go down with him to his house and see his
books, and write our names in his album, and have a cup of tea. He lived
in an ivy-covered cottage, just under the Rock, and his old wife came
out to welcome us; and we sat and talked and wrote our names and looked
at his books--one had been given him by Stephen Gwynne, and others by
other writers whose names I have forgotten; but the treasure of his
library was a huge volume, carefully wrapped against possible soiling,
which, when unwrapped, proved to be a copy of Arthur Champneys' "Irish
Ecclesiastical Architecture," and with gleaming face our host turned to
the preface and showed us where Champneys acknowledged his indebtedness
for much valuable assistance to John Minogue, of the Rock of Cashel.
We bade him good-bye, at last, and made our way down through the quaint
little town, which snuggles against one side of the Rock--a town of
narrow, crooked streets, and thatched houses, and friendly women leaning
over their half-doors, and multitudinous children; but the most vivid
memory I have of it, is of the pleasant tang of turf smoke in the air.
And presently we came out again upon the road leading to the station.
From the top of the Rock we had seen, in the middle of a field not far
away, a ruin which seemed very extensive, and Minogue told us that it
was Hore Abbey, a Cistercian monastery built about 1272, but had added
that it was scarcely worth visiting after Cashel. That was perhaps
true--few ruins can compare with Cashel--but when we saw the grey bulk
of the old abbey looming above the wall at our left, we decided to get
to it, if we could.
It required some resolution, for the way thither lay across a very wet
and muddy pasture, with grass knee-high in places, and Betty would
probably have declined to venture but for the assurance that there are
no snakes in Ireland. The nearer we got to the ruin, the worse the going
grew, but we finally scrambled inside over a broken wall, and sat down
on a block of fallen masonry to look about us.
The mist, which had been thickening for the last half hour, had, almost
imperceptibly, turned to rain, and this was mizzling softly down,
shrouding everything as with a pearly veil, and adding a beauty and
sense of mystery to the place which it may have lacked at other times.
But it seemed to us singularly impressive, with its narrow lancet
windows, and plain, square pillars. Such vaulting as remains, at the
crossing and in the chapels, is very simple, and the whole church was
evidently built with a dignity and severity of detail which modern
builders might well imitate. It seems a shame that it is not kept in
better order and a decent approach built to it; but I suppose the Board
of Works, whose duty it is to care for Irish ruins, finds itself
overburdened with the multiplicity of them.
We sat there absorbing the centuries-old atmosphere, until a glance at
my watch told me that we must hurry if we would catch our train. We
_did_ hurry, though with many a backward glance, for one is reluctant
to leave a beautiful place which one may never see again; but we caught
the train, and the last glimpse we had of Cashel was as of some gigantic
magic palace, suspended in air and shrouded in mist.
CHAPTER VIII
ADVENTURES AT BLARNEY
IT was getting on toward evening when we caught our train on the main
line at Goold's Cross. The storm had swept southward, and the hills
there were masked with rain, but the Golden Vale had emerged from its
baptism more lush, more green, more dazzling than ever. We left it
behind, at last, plunged into a wood of lofty and magnificent trees, and
paused at Limerick Junction, with its great echoing train-shed and wide
network of tracks and switches. Beyond the Junction, one gets from the
train a splendid view of the picturesque Galtees, the highest mountains
in the south of Ireland, fissured and gullied and folded into deep
ravines in the most romantic way.
The train had been comparatively empty thus far, and we had rejoiced in
a compartment to ourselves; but as we drew into the station at
Charleville, we were astonished to see a perfect mob of people crowding
the platform, with more coming up every minute. The instant the train
stopped, the mob snatched open the doors and swept into it like a tidal
wave. When the riot subsided a bit, we found that four men and two girls
were crowded in with us, and the corridor outside was jammed with people
standing up. We asked the cause of the excitement, and were told that
there had been a race-meeting at Charleville, which had attracted a
great crowd from all over the south-eastern part of Ireland, especially
from Cork, thirty-five miles away.
Our companions soon got to chaffing each other, and it developed that
all of them, even the two girls, had been betting on the races, and I
inferred that they had all lost every cent they had. It was assumed, as
a matter of course, that nobody would go to a race-meeting without
putting something on the horses; it was also assumed that every normal
man and woman would make almost any sacrifice to get to a meeting; and
there was a lively discussion as to possible ways and means of attending
another meeting which was to be held somewhere in the neighbourhood the
following week. And finally, it was apparent that everybody present had
contemplated the world through the bottom of a glass more than once that
day. As I looked at them and listened to them, I began to understand the
cause of at least a portion of Irish poverty.
It was a good-humoured crowd, in spite of its reverses, and when a girl
with a tambourine piped up a song, she was loudly encouraged to go on
and even managed to collect a few pennies, found unexpectedly in odd
pockets. Then one of the men in our compartment told a story; I have
forgotten what it was about, but it was received uproariously; and then
everybody talked at once as loud as possible, and the clatter was
deafening.
We were glad when we got to Cork.
* * * * *
Cork is superficially a sort of smaller Dublin. It has one handsome
thoroughfare, approached by a handsome bridge, and the rest of the town
is composed for the most part of dirty lanes between ugly houses. In
Dublin, the principal street and bridge are dedicated to O'Connell; in
Cork both bridge and street are named after St. Patrick--that is about
the only difference, except that Cork lacks that atmosphere of charm and
culture which makes Dublin so attractive.
We took a stroll about the streets, that Saturday night after dinner,
and found them thronged with people, as at Dublin; but here there was a
large admixture of English soldiers and sailors, come up from Queenstown
to celebrate. Many of them had girls on their arms, and those who had
not were evidently hoping to have, and the impression one got was that
Cork suffers a good deal from the evils of a garrison town. There is a
tradition that the girls of Cork are unusually lovely; but I fear it is
only a tradition. Or perhaps the lovely ones stay at home on Saturday
night.
Sunday dawned clear and bright, and as soon as we had breakfasted, we
set out for the most famous spot in the vicinity of Cork, and perhaps in
all Ireland, Blarney Castle. Undoubtedly the one Irish tradition which
is known everywhere is that of the blarney stone; "blarney" itself has
passed into the language as a noun, an adjective, and a verb; and the
old tower of which the stone is a part has been pictured so often that
its appearance is probably better known than that of any other ruin in
Europe. Blarney is about five miles from Cork, and the easiest way of
getting there is by the light railway, which runs close beside a pretty
stream, in which, this bright morning, many fishermen were trying their
luck. And at last, high above the trees, we saw the rugged keep which
is all that is left of the old castle. Almost at once the train stopped
at the station, which is just outside the entrance to the castle
grounds.
[Illustration: BLARNEY CASTLE]
"The Groves of Blarney" are still charming, though they have changed
greatly since the day when Richard Milliken wrote his famous song in
praise of them. There were grottoes and beds of flowers, and terraces
and rustic bowers there then, and statues of heathen gods and nymphs so
fair all standing naked in the open air; but misfortune overtook the
castle's owner and
The muses shed a tear when the cruel auctioneer,
With his hammer in his hand, to sweet Blarney came.
So the statues vanished, together with the grottoes and the terraces;
but the sweet silent brook still ripples through the grounds, and its
banks are covered with daisies and buttercups, and guarded by giant
beeches. Very lovely it is, so that one loiters to watch the dancing
water, even with Blarney Castle close at hand.
Approached thus, the massive donjon tower, set on a cliff and looming a
hundred and twenty feet into the air, is most impressive. To the left is
a lower and more ornamental fragment of the old castle, which, in its
day, was the strongest in all Munster. Cormac McCarthy built it in the
fifteenth century as a defence against the English, and it was held by
the Irish until Cromwell's army besieged and captured it. Around the top
of the tower is a series of machicolations, or openings between
supporting corbels, through which the besieged, in the old days, could
drop stones and pour molten lead and red-hot ashes and such-like
things down upon the assailants, and it is in the sill of one of these
openings that the famous Blarney stone is fixed.
Legend has it that, once upon a time, in the spring of the year when the
waters were running high, Cormac McCarthy was returning home through the
blackness of the night, and when he put his horse at the last ford, he
thought for a moment he would be swept away, so swift and deep was the
current. But his horse managed to keep its feet, and just as it was
scrambling out upon the farther bank, McCarthy heard a scream from the
darkness behind him, and then a woman's voice crying for help. So he
dashed back into the stream, and after a fearful struggle, dragged the
woman to safety.
In the dim light, McCarthy could see only that she was old and withered;
but her eyes gleamed like a cat's when she looked at him; and she called
down blessings upon him for his courage, and bade him, when he got home,
go out upon the battlement and kiss a certain stone, whose location she
described to him. Thereupon she vanished, and so McCarthy knew it was a
witch he had rescued. Next morning, he went out upon the battlement and
found the stone and kissed it, and thereafter was endowed with an
eloquence so sweet and persuasive that no man or woman could resist it.
Such is the legend, and it may have had its origin in the soft,
delutherin speeches with which Dermot McCarthy put off the English, when
they called upon him to surrender his castle. Certain it is that it was
fixed finally and firmly in the popular mind by the stanza which Father
Prout added to Milliken's song:
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;
Don't hope to hinder him, or to bewilder him,
Sure he's a pilgrim from the Blarney Stone.
And ever since then, troops of pilgrims have thronged to Blarney to kiss
the stone.
The top of the tower is reached by a narrow staircase which goes round
and round in the thickness of the wall, with narrow loopholes of windows
here and there looking out upon the beautiful country, and a door at
every level giving access to the great, square interior. The floors have
all fallen in and there is only the blue sky for roof, but the graceful
old fireplaces still remain and some traces of ornamentation, and the
ancient walls, eighteen feet thick in places, and with mortar as hard as
the rock, are wonderful to see; and finally you come out upon the
battlemented parapet, with miles and miles of Ireland at your feet.
But it wasn't to gaze at the view we had come to Blarney Castle, it was
to kiss the stone, and we went at once to look for it. It was easy
enough to find, for, on top of the battlement above it, a row of tall
iron spikes has been set, and the stone itself is tied into the wall by
iron braces, for one of Cromwell's cannon-balls almost dislodged it, and
it is worn and polished by the application of thousands of lips. But to
kiss it--well, that is another story!
For the sill of which the stone forms a part is some two feet lower than
the level of the walk around the parapet, and, to get to it, there is a
horrid open space some three feet wide to span, and below that open
space is a sheer drop of a hundred and twenty feet to the ground below.
When one looks down through it, all that one can see are the waving
tree-tops far, far beneath. There is just one way to accomplish the
feat, and that is to lie down on your back, while somebody grasps your
ankles, and then permit yourself to be shoved backward and downward
across the abyss until your mouth is underneath the sill.
Betty and I looked at the stone and at the yawning chasm and then at
each other; and then we went away and sat down in a corner of the
battlement to think it over.
We had supposed that there would be some experienced guides on hand,
anxious to earn sixpence by assisting at the rite, as there had been at
St. Kevin's bed; but the tower was deserted, save for ourselves.
"Well," said Betty, at last, "there's one thing certain--I'm not going
away from here until I've kissed that stone. I'd be ashamed to go home
without kissing it."
"So would I," I agreed; "but I'd prefer that to hanging head downward
over that abyss. Anyway, I won't take the responsibility of holding you
by the heels while you do it. Perhaps some one will come up, after
awhile, to help."
So we looked at the scenery and talked of various things; but all
either of us thought about was kissing the stone, and we touched on it
incidentally now and then, and then shied away from it, and pretended to
think of something else. Presently we heard voices on the stair, and a
man and two women emerged on the parapet. We waited, but they didn't
approach the stone, they just looked around at the landscape; and
finally Betty inquired casually if they were going to kiss the Blarney
stone.
"Kiss the Blarney stone?" echoed the man, who was an Englishman. "I
should think not! It's altogether too risky!"
"But it seems a shame to go away without kissing it," Betty protested.
"Yes, it does," the other agreed; "but I was here once before, and I
fought that all out then. It's really just a silly old legend, you
know--nobody believes it!"
Now to my mind silly old legends are far more worthy of belief than most
things, but it would be folly to say so to an Englishman. So the
conversation dropped, and presently he and his companions went away, and
Betty and I sat down again and renewed our conversation.
And then again we heard voices, and this time it was two American women,
well along in years. They asked us if we knew which was the Blarney
stone, and we hastened to point it out to them, and explained the
process of kissing it. There were postcards illustrating the process on
sale at the entrance, and we had studied them attentively before we came
in, so that we knew the theory of it quite well.
"We were just sitting here trying to screw up courage to do it," Betty
added.
The newcomers looked at the stone, and then at the abyss.
"Well, _I'll_ never do it!" they exclaimed simultaneously, and they
contented themselves with throwing a kiss at it; and then _they_ went
away, and Betty and I, both rather pale around the gills, continued to
talk of ships and shoes and sealing-wax. But I saw in her eyes that
somehow or other she was going to kiss the stone.
And then a tall, thin man came up the stair, and _he_ asked us where the
stone was, and we showed him, and he looked at it, and then he glanced
down into the intervening gulf, and drew back with a shudder.
"Not for me," he said. "Not--for--me!"
"We've come all the way from America," said Betty, "and we simply
_can't_ go away until we've kissed it."
"Well, _I've_ come all the way from New Zealand, madam," said the man,
"but I wouldn't think for a minute of risking my life like that."
"It used to be a good deal more dangerous than it is now," I pointed
out, as much for my own benefit as for his. "They used to take people by
the ankles and hold them upside down outside the battlement. I suppose
they dropped somebody over, for those spikes were put there along the
top to stop it. If the people who hold your legs are steady, there
really isn't any danger now."
The New Zealander took another peep over into space.
"No sirree!" he said. "No sir--ree!"
But he didn't go away. Instead, he sat down and began to talk; and I
fancied I could see in his eyes some such uneasy purpose as I saw in
Betty's.
And then a boy of twelve or fourteen came up. He was evidently native to
the neighbourhood, and I asked him if he had ever kissed the stone.
"I have, sir, many a time," he said.
"Would you mind doing it again, so that we can see just how it is done?"
He readily consented, and lay down on his back with his head and
shoulders over the gulf, and the New Zealander took one leg and I took
the other. Then the boy reached his hands above his head and grasped the
iron bars which ran down inside the battlement to hold the stone in
place.
"Now, push me down," he said.
My heart was in my mouth as we pushed him down, for it seemed an awful
distance, though I knew we couldn't drop him because he wasn't very
heavy; and then we heard a resounding smack.
"All right," he called. "Pull me up."
We pulled him up, and in an instant he was on his feet.
"That's all there is to it," he said, and sauntered off.
"Hm-m-m!" grunted the New Zealander, and sat down again.
I gazed at the landscape for a minute or two, my hands deep in my
pockets.
When I turned around, Betty had her hat and coat off, and was spreading
her raincoat on the parapet opposite the stone.
"What are you going to do?" I demanded sternly.
She sat down on the raincoat with her back to the abyss.
"Come on, you two, and hold me," she commanded.
I suppose I might have refused, but I didn't. The truth is, I wanted her
to kiss the stone as badly as she wanted to; so I knelt on one side of
her and the New Zealander knelt on the other, and we each grasped an
ankle. She groped for the iron bars, found them after an instant, and
drew herself toward them.
"Now, push me down," she said.
We did; and as soon as we heard the smack, we hauled her up again, her
face aglow with triumph. It took her some minutes to get her hair fixed,
for most of the hair-pins had fallen out. When she looked up, she saw
that I had taken off my coat.
"What are you going to do?" she demanded, in much the same tone that I
had used.
"I'm going to kiss that stone," I said. "Do you suppose I'd go away now,
without kissing it? Why, I'd never hear the last of it! Get hold of my
legs," and I sat down, keeping my eyes carefully averted from the
hundred-and-twenty-foot drop.
"Oh, but look here," she protested, "I don't know whether I'm strong
enough to hold you."
"Yes, you are," I said, making sure that there was nothing in my
trousers' pockets to fall out. "Now, then!"
Just then four or five Irish girls came out upon the tower, and Betty,
stricken with the fear of losing me, asked them if they wouldn't help,
and they said they would; so, with one man and four women holding on to
my legs, I let myself over backwards. One doesn't realise how much two
feet is, till one tries to take it backwards; it seemed to me that I was
hanging in midair by my heels, so I kissed a stone hastily and started
to come up.
"That wasn't it," protested one of the girls who had been watching me;
"you've got to go farther down."
So they pushed me farther down, and I saw the smooth, worn stone right
before my eyes.
"Is this it?" I asked.
"Yes," she said; so I kissed it, and in a moment was right side up
again; and I don't know when I have felt prouder.
And then the New Zealander, his face grim and set, began to take things
out of his trousers' pockets.
"If you people will hold me," he said, "I'll do it too."
So we held him, and _he_ did it.
Then he and I offered to hold the Irish girls, but they refused,
giggling, and as there was nothing more to do on top of that tower, we
went down again, treading as if on air, more elated than I can say.
That sense of elation endures to this day, and I would earnestly advise
every one who visits Blarney Castle to kiss the stone. I am not aware
that I am any more eloquent than I ever was, and Betty never had any
real need to kiss it, but to go to Blarney without doing so is--well, is
like going to Paris without seeing the Louvre, or to the Louvre without
seeing the Winged Victory and the Venus of Milo. Really, there isn't any
danger, if you have two people of average strength holding you; and
there isn't even any very great sense of danger, since your back is to
the abyss and you can't see it. My advice is to do it at once, as soon
as you get to the top of the tower, without stopping to think about it
too long. After that, with a serene mind, you can look at the view,
which is very, very lovely, and explore the ruin, which is one of the
most interesting and noteworthy in Ireland.
* * * * *
We sat down on a bench just outside the castle entrance to rest after
our exertions. There was a young man and woman on the bench, and in
ab
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