though it has the bare appearance characteristic of the Irish town. We
had been rather dreading the country-town hotels and here we had our
first experience. The Club House--why so called we did not learn--is a
building not unsightly inside, but on entering it is with difficulty
we could find anyone to minister to our wants. Finally an untidy old
man with bushy whiskers appeared and officiated as porter, chambermaid,
and waiter. He was slow in performing his duties, but the luncheon
was better than we had hoped for. He took our money when we left, but
whether he was boots or proprietor, we never learned.
Cromwell and Rory O'More paid their compliments to Carlow in the same
emphatic manner as at Naas. There remains but little of the castle
excepting the huge round towers that flanked the entrance. Just out of
the town is the largest of Ireland's cromlechs, a mighty rock weighing
one hundred tons, supported on massive upright granite blocks.
Kilkenny is twenty miles farther south. Its castle, the home of the
Duke of Ormonde, is perhaps the most notable private residence in
Ireland. It is of ancient origin, but its present state is due to
modern restoration; no longer is it a fortress, but a castellated
mansion of great extent. It is situated on rising ground lying directly
on the river. The front facade, flanked by two great circular towers,
heavily mantled with ivy, presents a highly-imposing appearance. The
most notable feature of the interior is the art gallery, which is
declared to be one of the most important in the Kingdom.
[Illustration: KILKENNY CASTLE.]
Kilkenny Cathedral is of great antiquity, having been begun early in
the eleventh century. Close to it stands one of the round towers so
characteristic of early Irish architecture. The town has a population
of about ten thousand, and though apparently prosperous, there was
everywhere evident the untidiness that was more or less typical of the
southern Irish towns.
Clonmel, however, easily ranked first in neatness and general
up-to-date appearance among the towns we passed on our run to Cork.
Here we came late in the evening, for we had missed our road and
gone some miles out of the way. After leaving the vicinity of Dublin,
signboards were not to be seen and it was easy to go astray. Houses
were not frequent and often the natives could hardly give directions to
the nearest town. Before we knew it we were entering Carrick-on-Suir,
which we took for Clonmel. Something aroused our suspicions and we
hailed a red-faced priest driving in a cart. The good father was much
befuddled and his honest efforts afforded us little enlightenment, but
we finally learned to our chagrin that Clonmel was about twenty miles
to the west.
Night was falling rapidly and the car leaped onward over a narrow,
grass-grown byroad, passing here and there a farm cottage from which
the inmates rushed in open-mouthed surprise. We soon came into the
main road and reached the town just at dark. The hotel proved quite
comfortable, though distinctly Irish in many particulars; but perhaps
our judgment as to what constitutes comfort in an inn was somewhat
modified by the day's experiences; we were hardly so critical as we
should have been across the channel.
We had come to Clonmel solely to pass the night, since it was the only
place where we might count on fair accommodations. We had gone somewhat
out of our way, for we must turn northward for Cashel, whose cathedral
is perhaps the most remarkable ruin in the Kingdom. It is nearly twenty
miles from Clonmel, and the road is surprisingly good.
We soon came in sight of the mighty rock which legend--ever busy in
Ireland--declares was torn from the distant hills by the enraged devil
and flung far out into the plain of Tipperary. When the fiend performed
this wonderful feat, it perhaps did not occur to him that he was
supplying a site for a church; but had he exercised moderate foresight
he would have known that no such opportunity would be neglected by the
cathedral builders. And so it chanced that more than a thousand years
ago the fortified church that rears its vast granite bulk upon the
rock was begun. It grew by various accretions until it stood complete
in the twelfth century. It has passed through fire and siege, but the
massy walls are still as solid as the granite on which they stand.
The roadway winds up the side of the rock and we are able to drive
to the very entrance. A group of youngsters is awaiting us, and one
unspeakably dirty and ragged little fellow volunteers to "watch the
car."
The custodian greets us at the gate, a keen old fellow, well posted in
the history and tradition of his native land and speaking with little
trace of brogue. He learns that we are from America; his brother is
over there and doing well, as he reckons it, in that Eldorado of every
Irishman forced to remain at home.
"O, yes! it is a great country, and how closely the old sod is bound
to it; there is no house that you will pass in all your journeys that
has not someone there. It has been the one hope of my life to go to
America, but it has slipped away from me. I am too old now and must die
and be buried in Cashel."
He said this with a look of sadness, which suddenly forsook his face as
he noted our interest in the ruin. It was the joy of his life to tell
the story of its every nook and corner.
We found a strange mixture of art and crudity; the square, unadorned
lines of the walls and towers would not lead one to expect the
exquisite artistic touches that are seen here and there. The great
structure once served the purpose of a royal residence as well as a
cathedral. The date of the stone-roofed chapel is placed at 1127; that
of the perfect round tower is unknown, though doubtless much earlier.
The active history of the cathedral-fortress closed with its surrender
to the forces of Cromwell, which was followed by the massacre of the
garrison and dismantling of the buildings.
[Illustration: CASHEL CATHEDRAL, TIPPERARY.]
Our guide urges us to ascend the tower--it is the day of all days to
see the golden vale of Tipperary from such a viewpoint--and indeed
the prospect proves an enchanting one. It is a perfect day and the
emerald-green valley lies shimmering under the expanse of pale-blue
sky. In the far distance on every hand are the purple outlines of
the hills--they call them mountains in Ireland--and stretching away
toward them the pleasant fields intersected by sinuous threads of
country roads. The landscape is cut up into little patches by the stone
fences and gleams with tiny whitewashed cottages. Flashing streams
course through the valley and herds of cattle graze upon the luxuriant
grasses. It is a scene of perfect peace, and though the lot of the
people may be one of poverty, it is doubtless one of contentment.
Right at the foot of the ruin-crowned rock lies the wretched little
town, and on leaving the cathedral we stop in the market place. A
busy scene greets our eyes; it is market day and the people of the
surrounding country are thronging the streets. The market place is
full of donkey carts and our car seems in strange company. Old crones
with shawls thrown over their heads, barefooted and brown as Indians,
are selling gooseberries and cabbages. There appears to be little else
in the market and business is far from brisk. There are many husky
farmers from the country and bright-looking young maidens that seem of
a different race from the old market women. We see and hear much to
interest us during our hour's stop in Cashel.
To one other Tipperary shrine we must make a pilgrimage--Holy Cross
Abbey, which is only a few miles away. We see its low square tower
just above the trees as we approach the town which bears the same
name as the abbey, and we find the caretaker living in wretchedly
dirty quarters in a part of the ruin. A genuine surprise awaits the
visitor to Holy Cross Abbey. Like Cashel, its outlines give no hint of
the superb and even delicate touches of art one will find about the
ruin. Nothing of the kind could be more perfect than the east window,
in which the stone tracery and slender mullions are quite intact,
and there are other windows, doors and arches of artistic design and
execution. The abbey stands on the banks of the Suir, and it is just
across the shallow river that one gets the finest viewpoint. It took
its name from the tradition that it once possessed a portion of the
true cross which had been given it by Queen Eleanor of England, one
of whose six sons was buried here. And thus it chances that a brother
of Richard the Lion-Hearted sleeps amid the mouldering fragments of
Holy Cross. The footprints of history cross and recross one another in
these ancient shrines, and how often they bring remote sections of the
Kingdom to common ground!
[Illustration: HOLY CROSS ABBEY, TIPPERARY.]
Leaving Cashel on the main highway to Cork, we begin to verify the
stories we have heard of the dreadful condition of much of the Irish
roads. We have so far found them stony, rough and ill-kept in places,
but on the whole fair to one who has had much experience with very bad
roads. But we now come into a broad stone road that has been neglected
for years, and words are quite inadequate to characterize it. It is a
series of bumps and depressions over which the car bounces and jumps
along, seemingly testing every bolt and rivet to the utmost. Any speed
except one so slow as to be out of the question results in the most
distressful jolting, to which there is not a moment's respite. A fine
gray dust covers the road to a depth of two or three inches and rolls
away from the wheels in dense clouds. There is considerable traffic and
for several miles along one section are military barracks; the soldiers
are maneuvering on the road with cavalry and artillery. Some of the
horses go wild at the car and it is only by great effort that the
soldiers bring them under control. But the dust they kick up! It hangs
over the road like a fog and makes the sky seem a dull gray. It settles
thickly over the car, almost stifling its occupants, for it is really
warm. On we go--bounce, bump, half blinded and nearly choked. Why did
we ever come to Erin, anyway?--we could have gotten this experience
at less cost nearer home. There are few towns on the road; Caher,
Mitchelstown and Fermoy, all bald and untidy, are the only places of
any size. We pass through the "mountains" for a considerable distance,
but the wretched road and blinding dust distracts attention from the
country, which in places is rather pretty. Our route is well away from
the railroad and we see much of retired rural sections which would not
be easily accessible by other means of travel. The infrequent cottages
are mean and dirty, but those we saw later were so much worse that the
recollection of the first is nearly effaced.
Never did a hotel seem more inviting to us than did the Imperial at
Cork. The car and everything about it is a dirty gray; one tire is
flat, and has been--we don't know how long. But we are fortunate in
our hotel and our troubles are soon forgotten. Our room is an immense
high-ceilinged apartment with massive furniture and a vast deal of
bric-a-brac, including a plaster bust of Washington. There are plenty
of settees and easy chairs--things uncommon enough in hotels to merit
special mention. We have an excellent dinner served just to suit, and
the experiences of the day soon begin to appear in a different light
than they did when we were undergoing them. We are soon in the ample
tall-posted beds, clean and unspeakably comfortable, and our sleep is
too deep to even dream of Irish roads and motor cars.
XIX
THROUGH SOUTHERN IRELAND
Cork is the gateway by which a large number of visitors enter Ireland,
and is pretty sure to be on the route of anyone making a tour of the
Island. It manifestly has no place in this record, nor has Blarney
Castle, the most famous ruin in the world--among Americans, at least.
And yet, who could write of an Irish tour and make no reference to
Blarney. We may be pardoned for a hasty glance at our visit to the
castle on the day after our arrival at Cork.
The head porter at the Imperial, clad in his faultless moss-green
uniform, the stateliest and clearly the most important man in the
hotel, marshals his assistants and they strap our luggage to the
car--he does no work himself, nor would anyone be so presumptuous as to
expect it of a man of such mighty presence. We recognize the fact that
his fee must be in proportion to his dignity, and he receives it much
as his forefathers, the ancient Irish kings, exacted tribute from their
vassals. He is not content to have us take the direct route to Blarney,
only five or six miles, but tells us of a longer but more picturesque
route and gives us a rather confusing lot of directions, which we have
some little difficulty in following. Suffice it to say that after
a deal of inquiry and much wandering through steep stony lanes--an
aggregate of more than fifteen miles out of our way--we catch sight of
the square-topped tower of Blarney and hear the shouts and laughter of
a train-load of excursionists who are just arriving.
Though annoying at the time, we now have no regret for the many miles
we went astray; we saw much of rural life along these lonely little
lanes. We passed tiny huts as wretched as any we saw in Ireland, which
is to say they were wretched beyond description; but in them were
cheery, good-natured people whose efforts to tell us the way to Blarney
only got us farther from it.
Blarney Castle to some extent deserves the encomiums that have been
so lavishly heaped upon it. It is the one place in Ireland that every
tourist is expected to see; and its fame is probably due more to its
mythical Blarney stone than to its historical importance. As we saw
it on a perfect summer day, the great square tower with overhanging
battlements rising out of the dense emerald foliage and darkly outlined
against the bluest of Irish skies, it seemed to breathe the very spirit
of chivalry, but a rude, barbarous chivalry, for all that. From the
tower, which we ascended by ruinous and difficult stairs, the view
was magnificent, though the groves, famous in song and story, have
been largely felled. And after all, Blarney seems rather "blase" on
close acquaintance, with its throngs of trippers and souvenir hawkers
at every turn. Even the Blarney stone is a sham, a new one having been
placed in a rebuilt portion of the wall knocked down by Cromwell's
cannon; the original is said to be quite inaccessible.
During the afternoon we follow the valley of the Lee over a road
that averages fairly good and that seldom takes us out of sight of
the river. In many places it ascends the rugged hills and affords a
far-reaching prospect over the valley. At Macroom, the only town of any
size, the road branches; one may cross the hills and reach Killarney
in only twenty miles or may follow the coast along Kenmare River and
Dingle Bay, a total of about one hundred and twenty miles. While we
pause in the village street, a respectable-looking citizen, divining
the cause of our hesitation, approaches us. He urges us to take the
coast route, for there is nothing finer in Ireland. We can heartily
second his enthusiastic claims, but would go farther--there is nothing
finer in the world.
The Eccles Hotel is a rambling old house, situated at the head of
Bantry Bay on Glengariff Harbor. It stands beneath the sharply rising
hill and only the highway lies between it and the water's edge; the
outlook from its veranda is not surpassed by any we saw in the Kingdom,
not even by the enchanting harbor of Oban or the glorious surroundings
of Tintagel. True, we saw it at its best, just as the sun was setting
and transforming the blue waters into a sheet of burnished gold. As
far as the eye can reach the long inlet lies between bare granite
headlands, interspersed here and there with verdant banks, while the
bright waters were dotted with wooded islets. The sun sank beneath
the horizon, purple shadows gathered in the distance, and the harbor
gleamed mirrorlike in the twilight. An old coast-defense castle,
standing on a headland near the entrance, lent the needed touch of
human interest to the scene. Well might Thackeray exclaim, "Were such a
bay lying upon English shores it would be a world's wonder. Perhaps if
it were on the Mediterranean or Baltic, English travellers would flock
to it by the hundreds. Why not come and see it in Ireland?" Indeed,
more are coming to see it today; the hotel was crowded almost to our
exclusion and we had to take what was left. The motor is bringing many,
for it is more than ten miles from Bantry, the nearest railway station,
and is not easily accessible to travelers whose time is somewhat
limited.
Our route from Glengariff leads directly over the hills to Kenmare.
The ascent is steep in places and a long tunnel pierces the crest of
the hill. We see much weather-beaten country, stretches of purple
granite boulders devoid of vegetation and bleak beyond description.
From the summit of the hills we glide down a winding and stony road
into Kenmare, passing with considerable difficulty many coaches loaded
with trippers, for this is a favorite coaching route.
Someone has said that Ireland is like an ugly picture set in a
beautiful frame. We may dissent from the view that the interior is
ugly; we have seen much charming country, though on the whole not
the equal of England or Scotland. The vast peat bogs are dreary,
the meadowlands monotonous, the villages, if interesting, far from
beautiful, and the detached cottages often positively painful in their
filth and squalor. But the frame of the picture--the glorious coast
line--surely, mile for mile, its equal may hardly be found on the
globe. One will behold every mood of sea and shore and sky; beauty and
grandeur combined and every range of coloring, from the lucent gold of
the sunset and the deep blue stillness of the summer noonday to the
gray monotone of the storm-swept granite waste.
Out of Kenmare, we follow the wide estuary of the river, leaving it
only when the road sweeps a few miles inland to the village of Sneem.
And we behold this Sneem in astonishment; we have seen nothing so
primitive and poverty-stricken since we landed in Ireland, nor do we
see anything later that may match it in apparent wretchedness. Two or
three long rows of low thatched-covered cottages--the thatch green
with weeds--of one or two rooms each, with sagging doors and tiny
windows, make up the village. The interior of the huts is the plainest
imaginable; earthen floors, rough stone walls and open roof under the
rotting thatch. The cottages surround a weed-grown common where the
domestic animals roam at will. A native approaches us, a man of fair
intelligence, who talks freely of the wretched condition of the people.
All who were able to get away have gone to America; only the old, the
desperately poor, and the incompetent remain, and what can one expect
under such conditions? Many eke out their existence on the money
that comes from over the sea. There is no use trying to improve the
situation; if anyone has any ambition, there is no chance for him in
Ireland, and the speaker illustrates with concrete instances. No doubt
Sneem is typical of many retired villages. It is twenty-five miles to
the nearest railroad, and to see this phase of Ireland the motor is
indispensible.
The road soon takes us again to the estuary of the Kenmare, following
it to the extreme western point of Kerry, with views of river and ocean
on one hand and the stern granite hills on the other. Cahersiveen is
the terminus of the railway and famous in Ireland as the birthplace
of Daniel O'Connell. A memorial chapel of gray granite overshadows
everything else in the village, which, mean and dirty as it is, looks
live and prosperous to one coming from Sneem. Just out of the town is
the ivy-covered ruin of Carhan House, where O'Connell was born.
I would that the language were mine to even faintly portray the
transcendent beauty of Dingle Bay, along which we course most of the
afternoon. The day is serenely perfect and the sky is clear save for a
few fleecy clouds that drift lazily along the horizon. Our road climbs
the hills fronting on the bay--in places the water lies almost sheer
beneath us--and the panorama that lies before us is like a fairyland.
Of the deepest liquid blue imaginable, the still water stretches out
to the hills beyond the bay, which fade away, range after range, into
the dun and purple haze of the distance; in places their tops are swept
by low-hung clouds of dazzling whiteness--an effect of light and color
indescribably glorious. We have seen the Scotch, Swiss and Italian
lakes, and, second to none of them, our own Lake George, but among them
all there is no match for this splendid ocean inlet on such a day as
this. And truly, the day is the secret of the beauty; the color and
the distant hills vanish in the gray mists that so often envelop the
Irish coast.
It is a jar to one's sensibilities to pass from such lofty and
inspiring scenes into Killorglin, the shabbiest, filthiest, most
utterly devil-may-care village we see in the Island. It does not show
the almost picturesque poverty of Sneem, but for sheer neglect and
utter lack of anything in the nature of civic pride, we must give
Killorglin the supremacy among numerous competitors for the honor--or
rather, dishonor. The market square is covered with masses of loose
stone intermingled with filth; the odors are what might be expected
from the general condition of the town. There is little temptation
to linger here, and we make hasty inquiries for the Killarney road.
It proves dreadfully rough and stony, a broad and apparently once
excellent highway, but now quite neglected. There is nothing to detain
us on the way and we soon turn into the grounds of the Victoria Hotel
just before we reach Killarney.
The Victoria, fronting on the lake, is most pretentious, but there are
many little signs of the laxity and untidiness that is seen everywhere
in Ireland. We wait long for a porter to remove the luggage from the
car, and finally begin the task ourselves, when the porter appears
and takes our chaffing good-naturedly. An old lame crow--he has been
a hanger-on at the Victoria for fifteen years, the porter says, and
comes regularly to the kitchen yard for food--clings to a chimney pot
and pours out his harsh guttural jargon.
"Swearing at us, isn't he?" we remark.
"Not at all," answers the ready-witted son of Erin. "That's just his
way of expressin' his pleasure at your arrival."
The Royal Victoria boasts of even a more astonishing array of
distinguished and royal guests than the Royal Bath at Bournemouth--both
have surely earned the prefix to their names. In the drawing-rooms were
posted letters and autographs of royalty from King Edward (as Prince of
Wales) down to ordinary lords and ladies; and there were also letters
from other guests of distinction, including well-known Americans. All
of which only partially atoned for the rather slack service which we
found in many particulars. Still, the Royal Victoria suffered from
no lack of patronage; we had telegraphed the day before and yet with
difficulty were able to secure satisfactory accommodations.
[Illustration: A GLIMPSE OF THE LOUGH, IRELAND.
From Original Water Color by Alexander Williams, R. I.]
I will not write of Killarney's "Lakes and Fells," pre-eminently the
tourist center of Ireland. The drive to Muckross Abbey and along the
shores of the lake is one of surpassing beauty, though the road is
narrow and crooked. Much of the drive is through the private grounds
of Lord Ardilaun, the poetical title which has been accorded to Mr.
Guinness, whose "stout" has given him a wider and more substantial
fame than he can ever hope for from a mere title of nobility. However,
the famous product is responsible for the title, since the wealthy
brewer was elevated to the peerage ostensibly on account of his immense
benefactions to the city of Dublin. His Killarney house--one of several
he owns in Ireland--a modern mansion in the Elizabethan style, may
be plainly seen from the road. And one can hardly wonder that Lord
Ardilaun has thriven greatly and built up what is freely advertised as
the largest brewery in the world, when he has such an unlimited market
for his product right at home--for Ireland is cursed with drink perhaps
beyond any country on earth. Fortunately there is now a marked tendency
toward improvement and the Catholic church is exerting a strong
influence against the drink evil.