Ireland man.
They pointed out near the spot, a cluster of trees on an eminence, where
James beheld the defeat of his followers. We crossed the Boyne, entered
Drogheda, dismounted among a crowd of beggars, took our places in the
most elegant railway wagon we had ever seen, and in an hour were set
down in Dublin.... I have seen no loftier nor more spacious dwellings
than those which overlook St. Stephen's Green, a noble park, planted
with trees, under which this showery sky and mild temperature maintain a
verdure all the year, even in mid-winter. About Merrion square, another
park, the houses have scarcely a less stately appearance, and one of
these with a strong broad balcony, from which to address the people in
the street, is inhabited by O'Connell. The park of the University, in
the midst of the city, is of great extent, and the beautiful public
grounds called Phenix Park, have a circumference of eight miles.
THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY [Footnote: From "Views Afoot." Published by G. P.
Putnam's Sons.]
BY BAYARD TAYLOR
We passed the Giant's Causeway after dark, and about eleven o'clock
reached the harbor of Port Rush, where, after stumbling up a strange old
street in the dark, we found a little inn, and soon forgot the Irish
coast and everything else.
In the morning, when we arose, it was raining, with little prospect of
fair weather, but having expected nothing better, we set out on foot for
the Causeway. The rain, however, soon came down in torrents, and we were
obliged to take shelter in a cabin by the roadside. The whole house
consisted of one room with bare walls and roof and earthen floor, while
a window of three or four panes supplied the light. A fire of peat was
burning on the hearth, and their breakfast, of potatoes alone, stood on
the table. The occupants received us with rude but genuine hospitality,
giving us the only seats in the room to sit upon; except a rickety
bedstead that stood in one corner and a small table, there was no other
furniture in the house. The man appeared rather intelligent, and, altho
he complained of the hardness of their lot, had no sympathy with
O'Connell or the Repeal movement.
We left this miserable hut as soon as it ceased raining, and, tho there
were many cabins along the road, few were better than this. At length,
after passing the walls of an old church in the midst of older tombs, we
saw the roofless towers of Dunluce Castle on the seashore. It stands on
an isolated rock, rising perpendicularly two hundred feet above the sea,
and connected with the cliffs of the mainland by a narrow arch.
We left the road near Dunluce and walked along the smooth beach to the
cliffs that surround the Causeway. Here we obtained a guide, and
descended to one of the caves which can be entered from the shore.
Opposite the entrance a bare rock called Sea Gull Isle rises out of the
sea like a church-steeple. The roof at first was low, but we shortly
came to a branch that opened on the sea, where the arch was forty-six
feet in height. The breakers dashed far into the cave, and flocks of
sea-birds circled round its mouth. The sound of a gun was like a
deafening peal of thunder, crashing from arch to arch till it rolled out
of the cavern.
On the top of the hill a splendid hotel is erected for visitors to the
Causeway; after passing this we descended to the base of the cliffs,
which are here upward of four hundred feet high, and soon began to find
in the columnar formation of the rocks indications of our approach. The
guide pointed out some columns which appeared to have been melted and
run together, from which Sir Humphrey Davy attributed the formation of
the Causeway to the action of fire. Near this is the Giant's Well, a
spring of the purest water, the bottom formed by three perfect hexagons
and the sides of regular columns. One of us observing that no giant had
ever drunk from it, the old man answered. "Perhaps not, but it was made
by a giant--God Almighty!"
From the well the Causeway commences--a mass of columns from triangular
to octagonal, lying in compact forms and extending into the sea. I was
somewhat disappointed at first, having supposed the Causeway to be of
great height, but I found the Giant's Loom, which is the highest part of
it, to be but about fifty feet from the water. The singular appearance
of the columns and the many strange forms which they assume render it,
nevertheless, an object of the greatest interest. Walking out on the
rocks, we came to the Ladies' Chair, the seat, back sides and foot-stool
being all regularly formed by the broken columns. The guide said that
any lady who would take three drinks from the Giant's Well, then sit in
this chair and think of any gentleman for whom she had a preference,
would be married before a twelvemonth. I asked him if it would answer as
well for gentlemen, for by a wonderful coincidence we had each drank
three times at the well. He said it would, and thought he was confirming
his statement.
A cluster of columns about half-way up the cliff is called the Giant's
Organ from its very striking resemblance to that instrument, and a
single rock worn by the waves into the shape of a rude seat is his
chair. A mile or two farther along the coast two cliffs project from the
range, leaving a vast semicircular space between, which from its
resemblance to the old Roman theaters was appropriated for that purpose
by the giant. Halfway down the crags are two or three pinnacles of rock
called the Chimneys, and the stumps of several others can be seen,
which, it is said, were shot off by a vessel belonging to the Spanish
Armada in mistake for the towers of Dunluce Castle. The vessel was
afterward wrecked in the bay below, which has ever since been called
Spanish Bay, and in calm weather the wreck may be still seen. Many of
the columns of the Causeway have been carried off and sold as pillars
for mantels, and tho a notice is put up threatening any one with the
rigor of the law, depredations are occasionally made.
Returning, we left the road at Dunluce and took a path which led along
the summit of the cliffs. The twilight was gathering and the wind blew
with perfect fury, which, combined with the black and stormy sky, gave
the coast an air of extreme wildness. All at once, as we followed the
winding path, the crags, appeared to open before us, disclosing a
yawning chasm down which a large stream falling in an unbroken sheet was
lost in the gloom below. Witnessed in a calm day, there may perhaps be
nothing striking about it, but coming upon us at once through the gloom
of twilight, with the sea thundering below and a scowling sky above, it
was absolutely startling.
The path at last wound with many a steep and slippery bend down the
almost perpendicular crags to the shore at the foot of a giant isolated
rock having a natural arch through it, eighty feet in height. We
followed the narrow strip of beach, having the bare crags on one side
and a line of foaming breakers on the other. It soon grew dark; a
furious storm came up and swept like a hurricane along the shore. I then
understood what Horne means by "the lengthening javelins of the blast,"
for every drop seemed to strike with the force of an arrow, and our
clothes were soon pierced in every part.
Then we went up among the sand-hills and lost each other in the
darkness, when, after stumbling about among the gullies for half an hour
shouting for my companions, I found the road and heard my call answered;
but it happened to be two Irishmen, who came up and said, "And is it
another gintleman ye're callin' for? We heard some one cryin' and didn't
know but somebody might be kilt."
Finally, about eleven o'clock, we all arrived at the inn dripping with
rain, and before a warm fire concluded the adventures of our day
in Ireland.
CORK [Footnote: From "The Irish Sketch Book."]
BY WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.
One sees in this country many a grand and tall iron gate leading into a
very shabby field covered with thistles; and the simile of the gate will
in some degree apply to this famous city of Cork--which is certainly not
a city of palaces, but of which the outlets are magnificent. That toward
Killarney leads by the Lee, the old Avenue of Mardyke, and the rich
green pastures stretching down to the river; and as you pass by the
portico of the country jail, as fine and as glancing as a palace, you
see the wooded heights on the other side of the fair stream, crowded
with a thousand pretty villas and terraces, presenting every image of
comfort and prosperity.
Along the quays up to St. Patrick's Bridge there is a certain bustle.
Some forty ships may be lying at anchor along the walls of the quay;
and its pavements are covered with goods of various merchandise; here a
cargo of hides; yonder a company of soldiers, their kits, and their
dollies, who are taking leave of the redcoats at the steamer's side.
Then you shall see a fine, squeaking, shrieking drove of pigs embarking
by the same conveyance, and insinuated into the steamer by all sorts of
coaxing, threatening, and wheedling. Seamen are singing and yeehoing on
board; grimy colliers smoking at the liquor-shops along the quay; and as
for the bridge-there is a crowd of idlers on that, you may be sure,
sprawling over the balustrade for ever and ever, with long ragged coats,
steeple-hats, and stumpy doodeens.
At the other extremity of the town, if it be assize time, you will see
some five hundred persons squatting in the Court-house, or buzzing and
talking within; the rest of the respectable quarter of the city is
pretty free from anything like bustle. There is no more life in Patrick
Street than in Russell Square of a sunshiny day; and as for the Mall, it
is as lonely as the chief street of a German Residenz.... That the city
contains much wealth is evidenced by the number of handsome, villas
round about it, where the rich merchants dwell; but the warehouses of
the wealthy provision-merchants make no show to the stranger walking the
streets; and of the retail shops, if some are spacious and handsome,
most look as if too big for the business carried on within. The want of
ready money was quite curious. In three of the principal shops I
purchased articles, and tendered a pound in exchange--not one of them
had silver enough; and as for a five-pound note, which I presented at
one of the topping booksellers, his boy went round to various places in
vain, and finally set forth to the bank, where change was got. In
another small shop I offered half-a-crown to pay for a sixpenny
article--it was all the same.
Half a dozen of the public buildings I saw were spacious and shabby
beyond all cockney belief. Adjoining the Imperial Hotel is a great,
large, handsome, desolate reading-room, which was founded by a body of
Cork merchants and tradesmen, and is the very picture of decay. Not
Palmyra--not the Russell Institution in Great Coram Street--present more
melancholy appearances of faded greatness. Opposite this is another
institution, called the Cork Library, where there are plenty of books
and plenty of kindness to the stranger; but the shabbiness and faded
splendor of the place are quite painful.... I have said something in
praise of the manners of the Cork ladies; in regard of the gentlemen, a
stranger must remark the extraordinary degree of literary taste and
talent among them, and the wit and vivacity of their conversation. The
love for literature seems to an Englishman doubly curious. What,
generally speaking, do a company of grave gentlemen and ladies in Baker
Street know about it? Who ever reads books in the City, or how often
does one hear them talked about at a Club? The Cork citizens are the
most book-loving men I ever met. The town has sent to England a number
of literary men, of reputation too, and is not a little proud of their
fame. Everybody seemed to know what Maginn was doing, and that Father
Prout had a third volume ready, and what was Mr. Croker's last article
in the Quarterly. The clerks and shopmen seemed as much "au fait" as
their employers, and many is the conversation I heard about the merits
of this writer or that--Dickens, Ainsworth, Lover, Lever.
I think, in walking the streets, and looking at the ragged urchins
crowding there, every Englishman must remark that the superiority of
intelligence is here, and not with us. I never saw such a collection of
bright-eyed, wild, clever, eager faces. Mr. Maclise has carried away a
number of them in his memory; and the lovers of his admirable pictures
will find more than one Munster countenance under a helmet in company of
Macbeth, or in a slashed doublet alongside of Prince Hamlet, or in the
very midst of Spain in company with Signor Gil Blas. Gil Blas himself
came from Cork, and not from Oviedo.
I listened to two boys almost in rags: they were lolling over the quay
balustrade, and talking about one of the Ptolemys! and talking very well
too. One of them had been reading in Rollin, and was detailing his
information with a great deal of eloquence and fire. Another day,
walking in the Mardyke, I followed three boys, not half so well drest as
London errand-boys: one was telling the other about Captain Ross's
voyages, and spoke with as much brightness and intelligence as the
best-read gentleman's son in England could do. He was as much of a
gentleman, too, the ragged young student; his manner as good, tho
perhaps more eager and emphatic; his language was extremely rich, too,
and eloquent. Does the reader remember his school-days, when half a
dozen lads in the bedrooms took it by turns to tell stories? How poor
the language generally was, and how exceedingly poor the imagination!
Both of those ragged Irish lads had the making of gentlemen, scholars,
orators, in them.
I have just been strolling up a pretty little height called Grattan's
Hill, that overlooks the town and the river, and where the artist that
comes Corkward may find many subjects for his pencil. There is a kind of
pleasure-ground at the top of this eminence--a broad walk that draggles
up to a ruined wall, with a ruined niche in it, and a battered stone
bench. On the side that shelves down to the water are some beeches, and
opposite them a row of houses from which you see one of the prettiest
prospects possible--the shining river with the craft along the quays,
and the busy city in the distance, the active little steamers puffing
away toward Cove, the farther bank crowned with rich woods, and
pleasant-looking country-houses--perhaps they are tumbling, rickety, and
ruinous, as those houses close by us, but you can't see the ruin
from here.
What a strange air of forlorn gaiety there is about the place!--the sky
itself seems as if it did not know whether to laugh or cry, so full is
it of clouds and sunshine. Little fat, ragged, smiling children are
clambering about the rocks, and sitting on mossy doorsteps, tending
other children yet smaller, fatter, and more dirty. "Stop till I get you
a posy" (pronounced pawawawsee), cries one urchin to another. "Tell me
who is it ye love, Jooly," exclaims another, cuddling a red-faced infant
with a very dirty nose. More of the same race are perched about the
summerhouse, and two wenches with large purple feet are flapping some
carpets in the air. It is a wonder the carpets will bear this kind of
treatment at all, and do not be off at once to mingle with the elements;
I never saw things that hung to life by such a frail thread.
This dismal pleasant place is a suburb of the second city in Ireland,
and one of the most beautiful spots about the town. What a prim,
bustling, active, green-railinged, tea-gardened, gravel-walked place
would it have been in the five-hundredth town in England!--but you see
the people can be quite as happy in the rags and without the paint, and
I hear a great deal more heartiness and affection from these children
than from their fat little brethren across the Channel.
BLARNEY CASTLE [Footnote: From "Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, Etc."]
BY ME. AND MRS. S. C. HALL
Few places in Ireland are more familiar to English ears than Blarney;
the notoriety is attributable, first, to the marvelous qualities of its
famous "stone," and next, to the extensive popularity of the song,--
"The groves of Blarney, they are so charming."
When or how the stone obtained its singular reputation, it is difficult
to determine; the exact position among the ruins of the castle is also a
matter of doubt; the peasant-guides humor the visitor according to his
capacity for climbing, and direct, either to the summit or the base, the
attention of him who desires to "greet it with a holy kiss." He who has
been dipt in the Shannon is presumed to have obtained, in abundance, the
gift of that "civil courage" which makes an Irishman at ease and
unconstrained in all places and under all circumstances; and he who has
kissed the Blarney stone is assumed to be endowed with a fluent and
persuasive tongue, altho it may be associated with insincerity; the term
"Blarney" being generally used to characterize words that are meant
neither to be "honest nor true."
It is conjectured that the comparatively modern application of the term
"Blarney" first had existence when the possessor, Lord Clancarty, was a
prisoner to Sir George Carew, by whom he was subjected to several
examinations touching his loyalty, which he was required to prove by
surrendering his strong castle to the soldiers of the Queen; this act he
always endeavored to evade by some plausible excuse, but as invariably
professing his willingness to do so. The particulars are fully detailed
in the "Pacata Hibernia."
It is certain that to no particular stone of the ancient structure is
the marvelous quality exclusively attributed; but in order to make it as
difficult as possible to attain the enviable gift, it had long been the
custom to point out a stone, a few feet below the battlements, which the
very daring only would run the hazard of touching with their lips. The
attempt to do so was, indeed, so dangerous, that a few years ago Mr.
Jeffreys had it removed from the wall and placed on the highest point of
the building; where the visitor may now greet it with little risk. It is
about two feet square, and contains the date 1703, with a portion of the
arms of the Jeffreys family, but the date, at once, negatives its claim
to be considered the true marvel of Blarney. A few days before our visit
a madman made his way to the top of the castle, and after dancing round
it for some hours, his escape from death being almost miraculous, he
flung this stone from the tower; it was broken in the fall, and now, as
the guide stated to us, the "three halves" must receive three distinct
kisses to be in any degree effective.
The stronghold of Blarney was erected about the middle of the fifteenth
century by Cormac Mac Carthy, surnamed "Laider," or the Strong; whose
ancestors had been chieftains in Munster from a period long antecedent
to the English invasion, and whose descendants, as Lords of Muskerry and
Clancarty, retained no inconsiderable portion of their power and estates
until the year 1689, when their immense possessions were confiscated,
and the last earl became an exile, like the monarch whose cause he had
supported. The castle, village, mills, fairs, and customs of Blarney,
with the land and park thereunto belonging, containing 1400 acres, were
"set up by cant" in the year 1702, purchased by Sir Richard Pyne, Lord
Chief Justice, for £3000, and by him disposed of, the following year, to
General Sir James Jeffreys, in whose family the property continues.
Altho the walls of this castle are still strong, many of the outworks
have long since been leveled; the plow has passed over their
foundations, and "the stones of which they were built have been used in
repairing the turnpike-roads."
MUCROSS ABBEY [Footnote: From "Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, Etc."]
BY MR. AND MRS. S. C. HALL
The abbey of Mucross adjoins the pretty village of Cloghreen, [in Kerry]
and is in the demesne of Henry Arthur Herbert, Esq., which includes the
whole of the peninsula. The site was chosen with the usual judgment and
taste of "the monks of old," who invariably selected the pleasantest of
all pleasant places. The original name was Irelough--and it appears that
long prior to the erection of this, now ruined structure, a church
existed in the same spot, which was consumed by fire in 1191. The abbey
was built for Franciscan monks, according to Arehdall, in 1440; but the
annals of the Four Masters give its date a century earlier: both,
however, ascribe its foundation to one of the Mac Carthys, princes of
Desmond. It was several times repaired, and once subsequently to the
Reformation, as we learn from the inscription on a stone let into the
north wall of the choir.
The building consists of two principal parts--the convent and the
church. The church is about one hundred feet in length and twenty-four
in breadth; the steeple, which stands between the nave and the chancel,
rests on four high and slender pointed arches. The principal entrance is
by a handsome pointed doorway, luxuriantly overgrown with ivy, through
which is seen the great eastern window. The intermediate space, as
indeed every part of the ruined edifice, is filled with tombs, the
greater number distinguished only by a slight elevation from the mold
around them; but some containing inscriptions to direct the stranger
where especial honor should be paid. A large modern tomb, in the center
of the choir, covers the vault, in which in ancient times were interred
the Mac Carthys Mor, and more recently the O'Donoghue Mor of the Glens,
whose descendants were buried here so late as the year 1833.
Close to this tomb, but on a level with the earth, is the slab which
formerly covered the vault. It is without inscription, but bears the
arms of the Earl of Clancarty. The convent as well as the church is in
very tolerable preservation; and Mr. Herbert has taken especial care, as
far as he can, to balk the consumer, time, of the remnants of his
glorious feast. He has repaired the foundations in some parts and the
parapets in others, and so judiciously that the eye is never annoyed by
the intrusion of the new among the old; the ivy furnishing him with a
ready means for hiding the unhallowed brick and mortar from the sight.
In his "caretaker," too, he has a valuable auxiliary; and a watch is
set, first to discover tokens of decay, then to prevent their spread,
and then to twist and twine the young shoots of the aged trees over and
around them.
The dormitories, the kitchen, the refectory, the cellars, the infirmary,
and other chambers, are still in a state of comparative preservation;
the upper rooms are unroofed; and the coarse grass grows abundantly
among them. The great fireplace of the refectory is curious and
interesting--affording evidence that the good monks were not forgetful
of the duty they owed themselves, or of the bond they had entered into,
to act upon the advice of St. Paul, and be "given to hospitality." This
recess is pointed out as the bed of John Drake--a pilgrim who, about a
century ago, took up his abode in the Abbey, and continued its inmate
during a period of several years. As will be supposed, his singular
choice of residence has given rise to abundant stories, and the mention
of his name to any of the guides or boatmen will at once produce a
volume of the marvelous.
The cloister, which consists of twenty-two arches, ten of them
semicircular and twelve pointed, is the best preserved portion of the
abbey. In the center grows a magnificent yew-tree, which covers, as a
roof, the whole area; its circumference is thirteen feet, and its height
in proportion. It is more than probable that the tree is coeval with the
abbey; that it was planted by the hands of the monks who built the
sacred edifice centuries ago. The yew, it is known, lives to a
prodigious age; and in England, there are many of a date considerably
earlier than that which may be safely assigned to this.
FROM GLENGARIFF TO KILLARNEY [Footnote: From "The Irish Sketch Book."]
BY WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY