ROUND ABOUT KILLARNEY
WE had been assured more than once, during our trip through the Gap of
Dunloe, that the Irish rain is a soft, sweet rain, which does nobody any
harm, and we found that this was true, for we felt splendidly next
morning. The only evidence of our strenuous experience was a certain
redness of visage, which grew deeper and deeper, as the days went on,
until it approached that rich brick-red, which we had already noted as a
characteristic of Irish fishermen.
The day was bright and warm, and after breakfast we walked in to the
town to take a look at our films. We found the road even more beautiful
in the morning than it had been in the evening, and, since we knew how
long it was, it did not seem long at all. But we were rather
disappointed in the films. I had not appreciated how much the moisture
in the atmosphere diminished the intensity of the sun, and so most of
the films were under-exposed. Amateur photographers in Ireland will do
well to remember that they must use an aperture twice as large or an
exposure twice as long as is necessary anywhere else.
We walked on in to the town, and were sauntering along looking in the
windows, when some one touched me on the elbow.
"Hello, comrade," said a voice, and I swung around to find myself
looking into the face of a tall, thin American whom we had met at
Dublin looking at the Book of Kells in Trinity College Library. We had
fallen into talk upon that occasion, and he had confided to us that he
was from Massachusetts, that he was a bachelor, that he had started out
by himself to see Europe, and that he was very lonely. He looked
lonelier than ever, standing on this Killarney street corner, and he
said that he was getting disgusted with Ireland, that it seemed to be
raining all the time, that Killarney wasn't half as beautiful as he had
been led to believe, and that he had about made up his mind not to go up
the west coast, as he had intended, but to go straight to the continent.
We remarked that we intended going up the west coast, and I saw his eye
light with anticipation, but there are some sacrifices too great for
human nature, and I didn't suggest his coming along.
* * * * *
Perhaps the most interesting show-place in the vicinity of Killarney is
Muckross Abbey, and we spent that afternoon exploring it and its
grounds. Muckross is far surpassed in interest by many other Irish
ruins, but it is very beautiful, embowered as it is in magnificent trees
and all but covered with glistening ivy. It is not very old, as Irish
ruins go, for it dates only from the latter half of the fifteenth
century, when it was founded for the Franciscans. The gem of the place
is undoubtedly the cloister, with its arcade of graceful arches ranged
around a court and lighting a finely-vaulted ambulatory. In the middle
of the court is a giant yew, many centuries old, which spreads its
branches from wall to wall. It is encircled with barbed wire, and I
don't know whether this is to protect it from vandals, or to protect
vandals from it--for the legend is that whoever plucks a spray of this
tree dies within a twelvemonth.
[Illustration: MUCKROSS ABBEY, KILLARNEY]
[Illustration: THE CLOISTER AT MUCKROSS ABBEY]
The adjoining graveyard is crowded with interesting old tombs, and as we
were wandering about looking at them, a funeral arrived. The priest
walked in front, reading the burial service, while his assistant walked
beside him, holding an umbrella over him, for it had begun to rain. Both
of them wore black and white scarfs draped over one shoulder and strips
of black and white cloth tied about their hats. Behind them came the
coffin, carried on the shoulders of four men, the pair in front and the
pair behind gripping each other about the waist so as not to be thrown
apart by the inequalities of the path. Then came the mourners, about a
dozen men, each with a black streamer about his hat. A number of women
came last, their shawls over their heads.
The coffin was placed on the ground, and every one knelt in the dripping
grass, bareheaded under the drenching rain, until the service was
concluded. One of the mourners, at the proper moment, produced from
beneath his coat a little black bottle which proved to contain the holy
water, and with this the priest sprinkled the rude black casket, with
little crosses for the screw-heads. Then the priest and his assistant
went away, and the men hastened to get to their feet and clap on their
hats, and then there was a general production of black clay cutties, and
in a moment a dozen deep puffs of smoke were floating away before the
breeze.
The women of the party retired behind a corner of the abbey to eat a
bite of lunch, and the men stood around talking and smoking; and finally
the caretaker produced four long-handled spades, and there was an
animated discussion as to just where the grave should be dug. As is
usually the case with Irish graveyards, this one was so crowded that it
was no easy matter to find room for a fresh grave, but at last the spot
was fixed upon, and four of the men fell to with the spades. When they
grew tired, four others took up the work, and in half an hour the
shallow grave was dug, the coffin placed in it, and the earth heaped
back upon it. There was no keening.
One of the women who was with the party told us that the funeral
procession had come all the way from the end of the upper lake, more
than fourteen miles away, and that the deceased was a woman of
ninety-six. Fancy the tragedies she must have seen! For she was a woman
of twenty-six, married, no doubt, with children, in the famine of '47.
How many of them died, I wondered, and how had she herself managed to
survive the awful years which followed? Her home beyond the upper
lake--I could close my eyes and see it--the dark little cabin with its
thatched roof and dirt floor and single room; I could picture the rocky
field from which she and her husband had somehow managed to wring a
livelihood; I could see her running with her poor bare feet through mud
and over stones beside some laughing tourist in the hope of getting a
penny or two--
But it is too tragic to think about!
The shower passed, after a time, and we went on along a beautiful walk
leading toward the lake--the Friars' Walk, it is called, and it is
bordered by century-old beeches, yews, pines and limes, the most
magnificent trees that I have ever seen, so glorious and inspiring that
we were lured on and on. We came to the shore of the lake, at last,
where the waves have carved the rocks into beautiful and fantastic
shapes, and we followed the shore a long way, stopping at every jutting
headland for a long look out over the grey, wind-swept water. Then the
path turned inland and came out upon the middle lake, and here we found
the fishermen from our hotel just getting to land, in a very drenched
and disconsolate condition, for the water had been too rough for good
sport.
That evening before the fire, the old Englishman, of whom I have already
spoken, relieved his mind to me upon the subject of Ireland and the
Irish. He said it was no use to try to help the Irish: in the first
place, they didn't deserve any help; in the second place they took your
help with one hand and bludgeoned you with the other; and in the third
place any attempt to help them only made matters worse. Take the old age
pensions, for example. They were a farce. Hundreds and hundreds of
farmers had given their property to their children, so that they could
go into court and swear they possessed nothing and claim a pension.
Thousands more who were nowhere near seventy were drawing pensions
because there was no way to prove just how old they were. And most of
the pension money went for drink. Every pensioner had credit at the
public houses, and his pension was usually drunk away long before it was
received. The only effect of the act had been to make the Irish worse
drunkards than ever--and they were already the worst in the world. That
was the cause of their poverty; that was the reason they lived in filth
and wretchedness. They were without ambition, without pride, without any
sense of manhood or decency--all they wanted was whiskey, and they would
do anything to get it. All this, I dare say, is the honest belief of a
great many Englishmen; and there is in it just that small grain of truth
which makes it sting.
But I grew tired of listening, after a time, and went out to the bar,
where a very loquacious Ulsterman with the broadest of Scotch accents
was explaining his woes to the grinning barmaid. He had just been
dismissed, it seemed, from some position in the neighbourhood because he
had "been out with a few friends" the night before. He was convinced
that his late employer was no gentleman, because a gentleman would have
understood the circumstances and overlooked them; he pronounced Kerry
the most God-forsaken of counties, and announced his intention of
getting back to Ulster as soon as he could. No doubt his experience in
the south of Ireland made him a more rabid Orangeman than ever, and I
suppose he lost no time in signing the covenant and enlisting in
Ulster's "army."
* * * * *
We had planned to spend our last day at Killarney walking and driving
about the neighbourhood, and we were delighted, when we came down to
breakfast that Saturday morning, to find the weather all that could be
desired, with the sun shining from a brilliant sky, and not a cloud upon
it, except high, white, fair-weather ones flying before the wind. So as
soon as we had eaten, we started away on a car for a drive through the
deer-park of the Earl of Kenmare, a walk along the "fairy glen" which
traverses it, and then another drive up along the heights to the ruins
of Aghadoe.
We met many little carts driving in to Killarney, for it was market
day--the identical type which had already grown so familiar: a flat cart
with a man driving, his legs hanging down, and his women-folks crouched
behind him under their shawls, with their knees drawn up to their chins,
and the shaggy donkey which furnished the motive power, trotting briskly
and alertly along. I don't know what the poor Irish would do without
this serviceable little beast, long lived and useful in so many ways,
able to exist on stones and nettles, and costing only a pound or two.
Betty was so impressed with their usefulness that she wanted to buy one
and send it home, but that speculation fell through.
As we climbed higher and higher up the heights, the wind grew cold and
cutting, but the view below us over the lakes to the south opened more
and more--a glorious panorama of wood and hill and white-capped water,
with ever-varying light and shade under the drifting clouds. But what a
contrast between this smiling landscape and the one which met our eyes
when we turned them to the north, where one bleak and desolate hill
towered behind another, away and away as far as the eye could see, a
wilderness of grey boulders and black, fissured crags.
The car stopped at last before some stone steps leading over a wall, but
as we started to mount them, a woman came running out of a near-by
cottage and insisted on unlocking the gate for us, in the hope, of
course, of getting a tip. She was the caretaker in charge of the ruins
of Aghadoe, and she tried to tell us something about them, but the
visitor who has to rely on her for information must content himself with
very little.
The story, as I piece it together, is something like this: About the
middle of the seventh century, there dwelt at Killarney a very holy man
named St. Finian the Leper, and on Inisfallen, the largest of the
Killarney islands, he founded an abbey, whose ruins may yet be seen
there; and here at Aghadoe, the Field of the Two Yews, he built a
church, which became the seat of a bishop. As was often the case, the
original church proved, in time, to be too small, and an addition was
tacked on to it. A round tower was also built as a protection against
the Danes, and a little farther down the slope, a rude castle was put up
as a residence for the bishop.
There is very little left of the castle and the round tower, but the
walls of the church are still standing. The early church built by St.
Finian forms the western part, or nave, and is entered by a beautiful
round-headed doorway, of the familiar Celtic type. The rain of centuries
has washed away much of the carving, but enough remains to show how
elaborate it was. The windows here are also round-headed, but the later
portion, or choir, is lighted by narrow lancet windows, which prove that
it was built some time in the thirteenth century, after the Normans
came. These are the only things of interest left in the ruins, and the
visit to them is worth making not so much on their account, as for the
magnificent view over the lakes.
We drove back to Killarney along the border of the lower lake, through
the Kenmare demesne, and past the many-gabled mansion of the Earl, which
has since been destroyed by fire; and we spent a very pleasant hour
wandering about the village. The main street at Killarney is
unattractive enough, crowded as it is with shops whose principal stock
in trade is post-cards and photographs and books of views and
monstrosities in bog oak and Connemara marble--souvenirs, in a word, for
Cook tourists to take home. But turn up any of the narrow lanes which
branch off on either side, and there is authentic Ireland--the Ireland
of plastered cottages and thatched roofs and half-naked children and
gossiping women leaning over their half-doors.
As it was market day, the lanes were more than usually crowded, and I
explored them one after another, to an accompaniment of much
good-humoured chaffing from the girls and women, especially when I
unlimbered my camera. Then we walked out and took a look at the
cathedral, a towering structure, still uncompleted as to its interior
and bare and cold, but an impressive proof of the influence of the
church which could raise the money to build so great an edifice in this
poverty-stricken land; and then we stopped at some of the shops and
looked at the Irish homespun, and spent a little time at an
auction-sale, where the bidding was very slow and cautious, and finally
we caught the omnibus back to our hotel.
* * * * *
There was still one place we wished to see. That was the Torc cascade,
and, after tea, we set out to walk to it. The road lay for about a mile
along the road skirting Muckross Lake, and then we came to a gate where
a boy was waiting to exact a fee of nine-pence. Then we mounted a steep
path, under magnificent pines, close beside the brawling Owengarriff
River, up and up, with a lovely view of the lakes opening below us; and
finally we came to the cascade--a white welter of water slithering down
over the black rocks, very beautiful and impressive.
We sat there for a long time, looking at it and at the stately wood
which clothed the opposite hillside, and at the blue water lying far
below us, and at the green hills away beyond, and we both agreed that,
next to the view from the Kenmare road, this was the most glorious view
to be had about Killarney. Subsequent reflection has not altered this,
and, after the trip through the Gap of Dunloe and across the lakes, I
should certainly place this one to the Torc cascade. Beside it, the view
from Aghadoe is nowhere.
We went on reluctantly, at last, mounting still higher until we came to
a path bearing away to the left through the woods, and we followed this
until we came to a mountain road which we had been told was there. It is
called the Queen's Drive, and I suppose Victoria passed this way during
her visit to the lakes; and it led us past the reservoir which supplies
Killarney with water, and on down through magnificent woods whose beauty
is marred only by a lot of so-called "monkey trees"--a monstrosity which
had annoyed us all through Ireland, but to which I have not yet
referred.
The monkey tree is a sort of evergreen, with long, thin branches clad
with close-growing foliage, and looking not unlike monkeys' arms. In
fact, the tree itself resembles in a grotesque way a lot of monkeys
swinging in midair, and hence its name. It is a hideous thing, and yet a
specimen grows in every dooryard. There was one in front of our hotel,
there were others along the road; here they had been planted in great
numbers and reached an unprecedented size--but we were glad to observe
that a few were dying. The monkey tree seems to be to Irish homes what
the rubber-plant used to be to American ones, and it appalled us to see
how many little ones were being started in tiny front yards, which they
would one day overshadow and render abominable. I can only hope that, in
some happy hour, a wave of reform will sweep over Ireland and carry
these monstrosities before it.
We came out, at last, upon a little huddle of houses on the hillside
above our hotel, and stopped to talk to some children and their mother,
then went on downward, in the gathering dusk, very happy because of a
beautiful and satisfying day. And just as we turned into the highroad,
Betty saw something gleaming on the ground at her feet, and stooped and
picked up a shilling. From what ragged pocket had it fallen, we
wondered? How great a tragedy would its loss represent? We looked up and
down the road, but there was no one in sight. So we decided to keep it
for luck, and we have it yet.