THE "GRAND TOUR"
THERE are many excursions which can be made over and around the
Killarney lakes, but the most important one--the "grand tour," so to
speak--starts at the town, proceeds by car to Kate Kearney's cottage,
then by pony through the Gap of Dunloe, then by boat the full length of
the lakes to Ross Castle, and back to town again by car. This round
takes a day to accomplish, and gives one a very fair idea of Killarney.
It is about all most of the people who come to Killarney ever see of it.
In fact, some of them don't see that much--as will presently appear.
Now Killarney is to Ireland what the Trossachs are to Scotland and
Niagara Falls to America--in other words, its most famous show-place;
and so it has passed more or less under the control of that ubiquitous
exploiter of show-places, Thomas Cook. Cook arranges all the excursions,
Cook controls most of the vehicles, Cook's boats are the biggest and
safest, and so, if you wish to see Killarney "in the least fatiguing
manner," you must resign yourself to Cook. Let me say here that I admire
Cook; there is no place where a traveller is served more courteously,
more fairly, or more intelligently than in a Cook office. No one need be
ashamed to make intelligent use of Cook. The reason of his disrepute is
that he has come to be used so largely by self-complacent people whose
idea of seeing Europe is to gallop from place to place in charge of a
conductor. But that isn't Cook's fault.
Killarney is the one place in Ireland which every tourist wants to see,
not because it is characteristically Irish, but because it has been very
carefully exploited. In my own opinion, a trip to Holy Cross and Cashel,
or to Mellifont and Monasterboice and the tombs of the kings, or to the
congested districts of Connaught, is far better worth while. But the
great bulk of tourist traffic follows the beaten path, and in Ireland
the beaten path leads straight to Killarney.
* * * * *
As we sat at breakfast next morning, we witnessed the ceremonial rites
involved in getting the fishermen started off for the day's sport. The
rotund porter acted as major-domo, and puffed and panted and hurried
hither and yon, his brow creased with the anxieties of his high office.
It is a point of honour with all true fishermen to wear only the most
faded, rain-stained, disreputable of garments, and it was a
weird-looking company which gathered in front of the hotel that morning,
with their hats, decorated with many-coloured flies, flapping around
their brick-red faces. There was one woman in the lot who was going out
with her father--a short, square spinster, evidently hard as nails, with
a face as red as the reddest, and boots as heavy as the heaviest. The
wonder was that she didn't smoke a pipe like the others. They overhauled
their tackle with great care--shook out the lines, tested rods and
reels, examined the flies, and finally trudged away, the boatman
following, laden with rain-proofs and lunch-basket and gaff and
landing-net, and with a broad grin on his face at the prospect of
sharing his employer's tobacco and lunch, and of earning a few shillings
in so pleasant a manner.
When we had finished breakfast, we went out to have a look at the
weather, and found the sun shining brightly, with every prospect of a
pleasant day. The porter assured us that there was no chance of rain;
but we had already had some experience of the fickleness of the Irish
climate, so we went back and prepared for the worst, and clambered
presently to the seat of the car Cook sent for us.
On the way in to the village, we stopped at another hotel to pick up
three American women who had been touring the continent and England, and
who, by a long jump, had managed to squeeze in one day for Killarney
before hastening on to Queenstown to catch their boat. They had arrived
late the night before, and would leave for Cork as soon as the tour of
the lakes had been completed, and they were jubilant because the day was
so fine. They had feared it might rain, and that their long journey
would be for nothing. The only protection against rain they had with
them was two small umbrellas, and I could see that they were somewhat
amused at our rain-coats and leggings.
There was a long open coach, with seats for about twenty people, waiting
in front of Cook's office in the village, and presently, as cars drove
in from the various hotels, this was filled to overflowing, and at last
we rumbled away. We were fortunate in having been assigned to the front
seat with the driver, a handsome, good-humoured fellow, not averse to
talking; and behind us we could hear the merry chatter of the happy and
contented crowd. We passed the workhouse, which, as usual, is the
biggest building in the place, and then the lunatic asylum, which is
almost as big, and then we saw the ruins of Aghadoe high on the
hillside--and then I felt a drop of rain on my cheek. There was another
drop, and then another, and then a gentle patter, and then a rushing and
remorseless downpour.
We held the rubber lap-robe up under our chins and the water ran down it
in streams. The happy chatter had turned to exclamations of
consternation and dismay, and we did not need to look around to realise
the havoc which the rain was working. The driver chirruped to his horses
and endeavoured to divert his passengers with a few stanzas of a classic
Irish drinking song, rendered in a resounding baritone:
Let the farmer praise his grounds,
Let the huntsman praise his hounds,
The shepherd his dew-scented lawn;
But I, more blest than they,
Spend each happy night and day
With my charming little cruiskeen lawn, lawn, lawn,
With my charming little cruiskeen lawn.
"What does cruiskeen lawn mean?" asked a man's voice behind us.
"Oh, it is just a term of endearment," said a woman's voice in answer.
"Don't you remember the song about Willy Reilly and his dear cruiskeen
lawn?"
"Oh, yes," said the man.
I caught a twinkle in our driver's eye, but he said nothing. After all,
Willy Reilly, being a true Irishman, no doubt loved his cruiskeen lawn,
or little full jug, almost as well as his colleen bawn, or fair-haired
lassie.
So we rolled merrily on, and presently turned into a hilly lane, where a
crowd of ragamuffins mounted on bony steeds awaited us. These were the
pony-boys, and a wild-looking lot they were as they fell in about us and
proceeded to act as a sort of cavalry escort. We took a bridge and a
steep grade beyond at a gallop, and drew up in front of a white-washed,
slate-roofed little house, which our driver announced was Kate Kearney's
cottage, and his bedraggled passengers made a break for its welcome
shelter. It was Lady Morgan who celebrated Kate's charms in the
ingenuous verses beginning,
Oh, did you not hear of Kate Kearney?
She lives on the banks of Killarney,
From the glance of her eye shun danger and fly,
For fatal's the glance of Kate Kearney,
and she is supposed to have lived somewhere in this neighbourhood,
though it is a long way from the "banks of Killarney." At any rate, this
spick-and-span cottage, very unlike Kate's, has been given her name, and
I dare say that any of the girls who tend bar inside would answer to it,
just to keep up the local colour.
The room into which the door opens has a bar at one end and an open fire
at the other, and while the women of the party crowded about the fire,
the men paused before the bar for a taste of potheen. There are many
other opportunities to taste it before one gets through the gap, but if
it is to be done at all, it would better be done here, for here one
gets a clean glass to drink it out of. The whiskey is supposed to be
surreptitious, but of course it has paid the tax like any other; an inch
of it is poured into the bottom of the glass, and then the glass is
filled with milk, and one drinks it and smacks one's lips and looks
knowing. I drank a glass of it in the interests of this narrative, and I
am free to say I have drunk many things I liked better.
At the end of half an hour, everybody had managed to get fairly dry, and
a prolonged discussion arose whether to go on through the gap or turn
back to the town. The rain was still falling steadily, and there was no
sign of break in the heavy clouds, though our conductor contended that
they were clearing away to the westward. The motley crew of pony-boys,
with their shaggy "coppaleens," were all most insistent that the shower
would soon be over, and that it would be a great mistake to go back.
Betty and I had already made up our minds: we were going to see the
thing through whatever happened; but the rest of the crowd vacillated
back and forth in cruel indecision, especially the three women who must
see Killarney to-day or never. We advised them to risk it; but in the
end, only one other member of the party, a little German Jew, decided to
do so, and all the rest clambered back into the bus and were driven off
toward the town. The Cook's conductor stayed with us to act as pilot.
I wish you could have heard the chorus of commendation from those Irish
throats as Betty mounted her pony. Sure she was the brave lady, she was
the wise lady, the torrents and cataracts would be that fine; let the
featherbed trash drive off back to the town, sure they were not worth a
thought; the shower would soon pass by, and it would be a fine day, and
anyway the Irish rain was a soft sweet rain that never did any harm, and
the gap was the grandest sight in the whole world--so their tongues ran
on.
I gave my camera into the keeping of the pony-boy who was going along
with us, and scrambled into the saddle. I have had mighty little
equestrian experience since my hobby-horse days, and I cannot pretend
that I enjoyed that ride, for the road was rough and up-and-down and the
pony anything but a smooth stepper. If I had it to do again, I think I
should walk. The distance is only about five miles, and a person not
thoroughly at home in the saddle has far more leisure to survey the
beauties of the gap when he is using his own legs than when he is
bumping along on a "coppaleen."
The accompaniments of the ride are more diverting than the ride itself.
We had gone scarcely a dozen yards, when we found a photographer with
his camera set up in the middle of the road, who took our pictures on
the off chance that we'd buy one. Then from the shelter of a rock arose
a battered human, with a still more battered cornet, which looked as
though it had been used as a shillelagh in moments of absent-mindedness,
and he offered to awake the echo for a penny. I produced the penny, but
the blast he blew upon the horn was so faint and wavering that Echo
slept on undisturbed. Then we came to an individual playing with great
violence upon a wheezy accordion. The pony-boys said that he had been a
great actor, but that rheumatism had overtaken him, so that he could
strut the boards no longer, and he had finally been reduced to playing
an accordion in the Gap of Dunloe, and they besought charity for him, as
the most deserving case in the gap. And then we came to two men with a
small cannon, which they offered to discharge for sixpence. And then
began a long procession of barefooted old women, pretending to offer
homeknit woollen socks and home-distilled potheen for sale, but really
begging--begging most insistently, running along beside the ponies with
their poor red feet slopping in the mud or slipping over the stones;
voluble with their blessings if they got a small coin, and plainly
thinking themselves insulted if they didn't.
Meanwhile, we had mounted into the gap along a rough and winding
bridle-path, and a desolately-impressive place we found it. A little
river, the Loe, runs at the bottom, and close on either side high,
frowning, rock-strewn precipices tower steeply upwards. There is no sign
of vegetation--except a patch of heather maintaining a perilous foothold
here and there on the bare and desolate hills,--the Tomies on one side
and McGillicuddy's Reeks on the other. And then, at what seemed the most
desolate spot, we came to a substantial, two-storied house, a station of
the Royal Irish Constabulary. What the police could find to do in such a
desert was difficult to imagine; but we stopped a few minutes to talk
with them, and they evidently welcomed the diversion.
Legend has it that the Gap of Dunloe was cleft by Finn MacCool with a
single blow of his great sword, and that it was here, in the Black Lough
into which the River Loe presently widens, that St. Patrick imprisoned
the last snake in Ireland, by persuading it to enter a box on the
promise that he would release it to-morrow. When the morrow came, the
too-trusting serpent reminded the Saint of his promise, and asked him to
open the lid, but Patrick replied that it was not yet to-morrow, but
only to-day, and so the snake is still there in the box on the bottom of
the lake, waiting for to-morrow to come. It makes such a fearful
bubbling sometimes that it scares all the fish away, so that, while
there are fish in plenty in the other lakes, there is none in this.
There is a bridge at one end of the lake, and if one makes a wish as one
crosses it, the wish will come true.
The road mounts steadily, curving from side to side of the valley, and
one should stop from time to time and look back, or the full beauty of
the place will be lost. We found the wind rushing along the heights, as
we worked our way upward, and the rain fairly poured at times, so that
the cataracts performed splendidly. At least I can vouch for two of
them--one down Betty's nose and the other down mine! But presently, the
clouds blew away, and the rain stopped just before we came out on the
heights above the Black Valley.
This is undoubtedly the most beautiful point of the ride. To the right a
savage glen runs back into the very heart of the Reeks, ending in a
pocket shut in by sheer and rugged precipices. Far below lies the
valley, with a silver ribbon of a river winding through it, and to the
left shine the blue waters of the upper lake.
I dismounted at this point, turned my pony over to the boy, and went
down the winding road on foot, for I didn't want anything to distract
my eyes from this wonderful view. And presently we were down among the
trees, before a little lodge called for some unknown reason "Lord
Brandon's Cottage," in which sat a man to whom we had to pay a shilling
each before we could pass to the landing-place at the head of the lake,
where the boats and lunch were waiting. Killarney is about the only spot
in Ireland which is exploited in this manner, but here you will find
fees exacted at every turn--a petty annoyance which, added to the
persistent begging and insistent demands for tips, does much to
interfere with the pleasure of the Killarney trip.
At the landing we found two boats which had rowed up from Ross Castle
during the morning--a small one with two oarsmen and a larger one with
four. The conductor marshalled us into the big one, took his seat at the
stern, got out our lunches, which had been sent up from the hotel,
tucked us in with heavy waterproofs, drew the tiller-lines across his
lap and gave the signal to start.
The upper lake is much the most beautiful of the three, with its many
islands, and the high hills hemming it in. Near its lower end is Arbutus
Island, and it is worth pausing a moment beside it to look at the
arbutus, that handsomest of shrubs, with ruddy stem and glossy leaf,
which is indigenous all about Killarney, but reaches its height of glory
on this little island. It is impossible to tell where the outlet of the
lake is, until you are right upon it, but it suddenly opens out between
two high rocks, and the boat enters the Long Range--the winding river
some three miles in length which connects the upper and middle lakes.
The rock on the left is called Colman's Leap, and the legend is that,
once upon a time, this Colman, who was lord of the upper lake, was
chased down the mountain by some supporters of The O'Donaghue, and took
a flying leap across the river, in proof of which you may still see the
print of his feet in the rock where he landed on the other side. Our
guide offered to show us the foot-prints, if we required any proof of
the story, but we assured him of our unquestioning belief.
The Reach itself is quite as beautiful as any of the lakes, for its
banks are covered with the most varied and luxuriant vegetation; and
once, as we drifted quietly along, we saw a red deer browsing among the
bracken. And then we drifted past the foot of a great precipice, and the
channel narrowed, the current quickened, and the boatmen prepared to run
the rapids into the middle lake.
One of the boatmen was a wild-eyed old fellow, very nervous and fidgety,
who had considerable difficulty in wielding an oar against the husky
fellow opposite him, and more than once the steersman had admonished him
to put more ginger into it. Now, as we drew near the rapids, his
agitation increased, his eyes grew wilder than ever, and as the current
caught us and we shot under the ancient arch of masonry called the Old
Weir Bridge, he managed to strike his oar on a rock with a force that
nearly broke it. The nose of the boat swerved alarmingly for an instant,
but the steersman brought her round with a quick jerk, and in a minute
more we were in the quiet waters of the middle lake. The atmosphere was
far from quiet, however, as the steersman relieved his mind. Let it be
added that the rapids are not very terrible, as will be seen from the
picture opposite this page, and even if the boat struck a rock and was
ripped in two, one could get ashore without much difficulty.
[Illustration: OLD WEIR BRIDGE, KILLARNEY]
[Illustration: THE MEETING OF THE WATERS]
[Illustration: ROSS CASTLE, KILLARNEY]
Just beyond, at the "meeting of the waters," there is a whirlpool called
O'Sullivan's Punchbowl, and every rock and cave along the shore has its
tradition, many of them manufactured, I suspect, for the consumption of
the summer visitor. Most of the traditions are of The O'Donaghue,
Chieftain of the Glens. A long cave is O'Donaghue's Wine-cellar; a
depression at its mouth is O'Donaghue's Chair; and a tall knoll beside
it is O'Donaghue's Butler, otherwise Jockybwee.
The boat leaves the middle lake under another massive, high-hipped arch
of masonry--Drohid-na-Brickeen, "The Bridge of the Little Trout," or
Brickeen Bridge, as it is called now--and emerges into Glena Bay,
another place of beauty; but, as we were gazing at its loveliness, the
boat suddenly pitched sideways, then tried to stand on end, and we
started round to find ourselves in the midst of an ugly expanse of
white-capped water. We had never thought of rough water on Killarney;
yet here it was, and mighty rough at that. The lower lake is five miles
long and half as wide, and when the wind gets a good sweep at it, it can
kick up a sea that is not to be despised.
"'Tis just O'Donaghue's white horses out for a frolic," said the
steersman encouragingly, and took a new grip of his lines. The oarsmen
bent to their work, and we headed out into the lake, for it was
necessary to cross to Ross Island.
We said nothing, but held tight, and grinned palely at each other when
the boat made a peculiarly ferocious pitch; the spray flew in sheets,
the wind dashed the spindrift viciously in our faces, and we would have
been very wet indeed but for the waterproofs. But after the first few
minutes, we began to enjoy it, for it was evident that the boat was a
staunch one, and even if it went over, it wouldn't sink. I don't suppose
there was really any danger of its going over, though it hung at an
alarming angle on the side of a huge wave, once or twice; and at the end
of half an hour, we swept under the lee of Ross Island, and our sweating
boatmen paused to take breath. The excitable one was trembling so he
could scarcely get his pipe between his teeth.
That night at the hotel, Betty was talking to two Englishwomen who had
hired a boatman to row them out to Inisfallen Island. The lake hadn't
been especially rough when they went out, and it wasn't until they got
out of the lee of the island on the return trip that they realised its
fury. Their boatman, at the end of a few moments, found himself unable
either to get ahead or to go back; the most he could do was to keep the
boat's head to the waves, and for nearly an hour they tossed there,
shipping great seas, bailing desperately, too frightened to be sea-sick,
and finally giving themselves up for lost, when the wind shifted and
their boatman managed to struggle past the point of Ross Island. They
expressed surprise that their hair wasn't white, and said that they
would consider all the remainder of their lives sheer gain, because they
felt that, except for a miracle, they would have ended on June 5, 1913.
No doubt they exaggerated their danger, but just the same I would advise
any one who is nervous on the water to be sure that the lower lake is
fairly smooth before attempting to cross it. We certainly drew a breath
of relief when we stepped ashore in the shadow of the ivy-clad ruins of
Ross Castle.
The castle itself is not of especial interest, for all that is left of
it is the ruin of the old keep, with some crumbling outworks, not nearly
so imposing as Blarney. About the only reason to visit it is to get the
view from the top, which is very fine. But it has some stirring
associations, for it was the stronghold of the great O'Donaghue, whose
legend dominates the whole district. The story goes that, every May
morning just before sunrise, the old warrior, armed cap-a-pie, emerges
from the lake, mounts his white horse, and rides like the wind across
the waters, attended by fairies who strew his path with flowers.
It was here the Royalist forces made their last stand against Cromwell,
and they thought they were safe, because the castle was a strong one,
and was built on an island, which made it unusually difficult to attack;
and furthermore there was an old legend which said it would never be
taken until a fleet swam upon the lake. Ludlow brought an army of four
thousand men over the mountains, and started a siege, but made little
progress; and then, one morning, as the garrison looked out over the
battlements, they saw a fleet of boats bearing down upon them across the
lake, and they rubbed their eyes and looked again, only to see the boats
nearer, and now they could discern the pieces of ordnance mounted in
the bows and the soldiers who crowded them, and they were so awed by the
fulfilment of the prophecy that they surrendered without more ado. That
was the end of Ross Castle, but nobody knows certainly to this day how
Ludlow got the boats over the hills from Castlemaine.
* * * * *
A pretty drive along the margin of the middle lake brought us back to
the hotel, where we found all the fishermen assembled, for the water had
been too rough for fishing. We hurried out of our wet things, and dinner
certainly tasted good; and when we joined the others about the fire,
that evening, we found that we had qualified for admission to their
charmed circle by going through the gap and crossing the lake on such a
day. We were no longer tenderfeet.