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!