Among the many wonders of Ireland, as yet undescribed and little known,
even to Irishmen, beyond their immediate localities, the subject of our
prefixed illustration has every claim to find a place, and to attract our
attention as a subject equally interesting to the geologist, artist, and
historian. That it should have hitherto remained unnoticed, as we think
it has, while objects of the same description in other localities less
remarkable and interesting have been repeatedly described, may be
attributed chiefly to the circumstance of its situation being remote from
any leading road, and in a wild and rarely visited district of country,
namely, the barony of Corran, in the county of Sligo. Of this barony, the
mountain called Ceis or Kish-Corran, is the most striking geographical
feature. It is composed of tabular limestone; has a flat outline at top,
but is precipitous on its sides, and rises to an altitude of upwards of a
thousand feet. To the traveller journeying from Boyle to Sligo it must be
a familiar and pleasing object, as, after passing the little town of
Ballinafad, it offers, for some miles of the road towards the west and
south-west, the charms of a mountain boundary in contrast to the rich
woods of Hollybrook, and the delightful vistas of the water of Lough
Arrow, or Arva, which skirt the road along the east. But the most
precipitous and noble point of Kish-Corran is presented to the west, and
is not seen by the traveller on this road, which must for a time be
abandoned to enable him to see it, as well as the wonderful caves which
open on its face, and to which we have now to call the attention of our
readers. On this western side, the mountain, to within a hundred feet or
two of its summit, presents a green but boldly sloping grassy face,
formed of the debris of the rocks above, which rise perpendicularly, and
look more like a wall--lichen-stained and ivy-decked--formed by the
Cyclops or giants of old, than creations of nature's hand. And such
impression is increased in no small degree by the lofty and magnificent
caves, which present themselves like doorways, and lead into the inmost
recesses of the mountain. It is of one of these entrances, and the most
remarkable for grandeur, that our illustration attempts to give an idea.
Its height is no less than twenty feet. How far the caves extend, we are
unable to speak with certainty; they are undoubtedly of great extent,
and, if the local accounts are to be trusted, reach even to the opposite
or eastern side of the mountain, and contain lakes of unfathomable depth,
and spars of unimaginable beauty.
A spot so striking to the imagination could not be, in Ireland, without
its legends of a romantic and singular character; and some of these are
of a most remote antiquity, and connected with the earliest legendary
history of our country. In the ancient topographical tract called the
Dinnseanchus, which gives the origin, according to the poets, of the
names of the most remarkable mountains, lakes, rivers, caves, forts, &c.
in Ireland, we are told that Corran received its name from the harper of
Diancecht, to whom that magical race, called the Tuátha de Danann, gave
the territory as a reward for his musical skill; and popular tradition
still points to the cave of Kish-Corran as his residence, according to
the ancient form quoted in the Dinnseanchus:--
"Here used to dwell the gentle Corann, whose hand was skilled in playing
on the harp; Corann was the only ollave of Drancich (with whom he
lived), in free and peaceable security.
To Corann of the soft music, the Tuátha De gave with great honour a free
territory for his skilful playing, his knowledge, and his astrology. Here
was he, this generous man, not without literature or in a churlish
fortress, but in a place where the stranger was at liberty to a free
sojournment with him, this liberal prosperous man."
The same authority accounts for the prefix _Ceis_, or, as it is
pronounced, _Kish_, which is applied to the mountain by a very singular
legend, according to which it would appear that it was originally the
name of a lady, who with five others were, by a charm compounded with the
nut-fruit, metamorphosed into pigs, the unhappy Ceis herself being here
subsequently slain. However this may be, there is nothing improbable in
the supposition that the caves of Kish-Corran were in former times the
favourite dens of the wild boar, the wolf, and many other animals now
extinct; they furnish a secure retreat to the fox and many other wild
animals at the present day.