WICKLOW, THE GARDEN OF IRELAND
After dinner that day we bade our friends farewell. Mr. and Mrs.
O’Neill were urgent in their invitation that we visit them again.
“Good-bye,” said Edith to Mike. “I am very glad I have met you, and I
thank you for the pleasure of flying with you.”
“Do not mention it,” said Mike as he held her hand, “You are such a
brave aeronaut that I could fly with you anywhere.”
Edith blushed deeply as Mike’s eyes spoke as well as his tongue.
After we had ascended in the air, Mike circled around, like a carrier
pigeon, and then sped off toward the south.
As we entered County Wicklow, we left the seacoast and crossed Wicklow
about the middle of the County, passing over the Wicklow hills.
This was the most exciting part of our entire trip.
Wicklow has been called a miniature Switzerland, and it well deserves
the name. There are over twenty mountains in this small space that
exceed 2000 feet in height, and as they rise abruptly from the level,
they seem even higher.
Scattered among these hills, there are beautiful valleys, magnificent
mansions, villas, farms and Irish cottages. Much of the country is
thickly wooded. The Woods of Shillelah are in Wicklow. Here the best
blackthorn, out of which Ireland’s ancient weapon was made, used to
grow, and the weapons were called “Shillelahs” from these woods.
In order to see the grandeur of Wicklow to the best advantage, Mike
and I threw discretion to the winds. The motor had been acting so well
since we left County Derry, that we had full confidence in it now.
“Let us go over the tops of the mountains,” I said to Mike.
He was glad to do this, and rose until we reached the dizzy height of
2500 feet. I would not advise aeroplanists to seek this altitude until
they are thoroughly acclimated to life in the atmosphere.
I had become somewhat hardened to aeroplaning, but as I looked straight
down sometimes into a deep valley, half a mile below me, I did not feel
altogether at my ease.
The view was magnificent. We passed over the Valley of Glendalough,
between the mountains of Coomaderry and Lugduff. In this dark valley,
by the side of a lake, St. Kevin lived in an early day. His fear of
womankind has been immortalized by Moore. Formerly in this valley there
was a crowded city, and a great seat of learning, and many kings are
buried in this vicinity.
We saw here the ruins of the Seven Churches, and a Round Tower, said to
date back to the 7th century.
As we entered the vale of Avoca, I remarked to Mike that Thomas Moore
had touched Ireland with his genius, just as Sir Walter Scott threw a
charm over Scotland. The vale of Avoca is best known by Moore’s lines:
“Sweet Vale of Avoca, how calm could I rest,
In thy bosom of shade, with friends I love best;
Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease,
And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace.”
Although the scenery through Wicklow was grand, I felt relieved as we
quitted our lofty altitude, and sailed nearer the earth over the more
prosaic County of Wexford. As Mike lowered the aeroplane within about
100 feet of the land I breathed easier.
Wexford was the home of Dermot McMurragh, who first invited the English
into Ireland. The ruins of his castle and his tomb are near Ferns, but
Wexford is not particularly proud of McMurragh.
Wexford has been called by an Irishman, “the most agricultural county
in Ireland,” and we could well believe it as we swept over its green
pastures and cultivated farms.
We sighted the city of Wexford at 4:00 o’clock. As we circled around
over the city, I observed its excellent harbor, with a complete
breakwater, and also its spacious docks. The city looks like a city
in Palestine on account of its narrow streets, but it is a clean,
prosperous looking place.
We alit, as usual outside the city, and left our aeroplane for the
night in charge of a friendly farmer. We made our escape as quietly as
possible from the gathering crowd, and soon found the quiet of a good
hotel. The Redmond family, noted Irish leaders, reside in Wexford, and
the spirit of the dislike to England is very pronounced.
We saw two magnificent churches called the Twins, on account of their
similarity. These show the religious zeal of the people. The business
part of the town showed their commercial enterprise.
The Quay is a busy place as steamship lines run to England, and there
is much traffic in merchandise between Wexford and England, but there
is none in affection.
Before retiring for the night we met an interesting old Irishman, whose
whole soul was controlled by hatred of Cromwell and England. He had
none of Mr. O’Neill’s charity for ancient wrongs, and, as he told us of
Cromwell’s Wexford campaign, we could sympathize with him a good deal.
To show us how Ireland regarded Cromwell, he quoted from an Irish poet,
a few lines, which ran something like this:
“From Drogheda that man of guilt
To fated Wexford flew,
The red blood reeking on his hilt
Of hearts to Erin true.
He found them there—the young, the old,
The maiden and the wife;
Their guardians brave in death were cold,
Who dared for them in strife.
They prayed for mercy, God on high
Before Thy Cross they prayed,
And ruthless Cromwell bade them die
To glut the Saxon blade.”
[Illustration: IRISH VILLAGE]
After a while we turned the old patriot’s attention to America, and we
found he had a deep interest in the New World. “It’s God’s country over
there,” he told us. We found he had friends in America, and he gave us
a ludicrous verse in which some Irishman had described the American
character.
“He’d kiss a Queen till he’d raise a blister,
With his arms round her neck, and old felt hat on
And address a King by the name of Mister,
And ask him the price of the throne he sat on.”
Mike and I assured him that the Irish poet was too severe on the Yankee.
“Tell us a good Irish story,” I said, before we separated.
“I will that,” he said, and he told us this one.
An excited orator during the American Civil War, exclaimed:
“We have taken Atlanta: we have taken Savannah, Columbus, Charleston,
and now at last, have captured Petersburg, and occupy Richmond: and
what remains for us to take?”
An Irishman in the crowd shouted: “Let’s take a drink.”
As he closed the story our genial friend pointed towards the bar of
the hotel in a significant way, and we saw the direction of his joke.
We declined politely to show our friendship in this way, but we bade
him good-night with a warm handshake and best wishes for the good of
Ireland.