like the gentlemen who pursue that line of business in Montana and
Colorado. He is usually a talkative chap, and tells interesting stories
with a deep, rich brogue and quaint wit that is charming, but he drives
quietly through the villages and pulls up at his destination as
modestly as if he were on a cart instead of a coach full of tourists. In
the Rocky Mountains the stage driver always "shows off" at the end of
his journey, but he never tries to do anything of that sort in Ireland.
The road follows along the banks of the Sullane River until it reaches a
string of lakes called Inchageela, which are dotted with lovely little
islands, and are said to be full of fish. There is not a tree to be
seen, but the ground is covered with a rich, thick, velvet turf, and
myriads of wild flowers of all colors and all varieties--a crazy quilt
of bloom. No one ever imagined that there could be so many wild flowers
or such beautiful ones.
The little town of Inchageela is the lunch station, where we were served
with a wholesome meal of roast mutton, potatoes, lettuce, and gooseberry
tart that tasted as good as anything I ever had at the Waldorf, and the
buxom, red-faced landlady gave us a hearty, cordial blessing as we
climbed back into our seats to continue the journey. We passed several
ruined castles, some of them near the roadside and the others
picturesquely situated on the mountain slopes among the rocks. They all
once belonged to the MacCarthys, who were kings in this country until
they lost their power by foolish fighting, and to-day I have been
assured that not one foot of sod in the County of Cork or in the County
of Kerry is owned by a man of that name or clan.
After a while we turned from the main road at a little village called
Carrinacurrah, which is hardly as big as its name, and slowly climbed a
picturesque hill to the mystic lake of Gougane-Barra, and stopped to
rest the horses and ourselves at a neatly kept inn. As it was a holiday,
all the people in the neighborhood were gathered at Cronin's Inn when
the two coachloads of passengers drove in from Macroom, and several of
them accompanied us across to Gougane Island and told us the history of
that sacred place. There was an old man with bog-oak walking sticks to
sell, and boys with post cards, for there isn't a spot in Ireland that
hasn't been photographed and transferred to a post card in hideous
colors. Mr. Benjamin Shorten, a man of importance in the community, had
hailed the coach when it passed his house, and was therefore not only an
entertainer but a fellow-passenger of the strangers within his gate. And
it was a strange story that he told us of the restoration of the ruins
and the erection, by Mr. John R. Walsh of Chicago, in memory of his
parents, of the little shrine on the site of St. Fin-Barre's oratory
which had been blessed by St. Patrick fourteen hundred years ago.
Mr. Walsh could not have chosen a more beautiful or a more appropriate
place for a memorial to his parents, and the work has been well done. It
is a sacred as well as a most romantic spot. Gougane-Barra is what they
call a "tarn," a jagged glen in the mountains nearly a mile long and
about a quarter of a mile wide, almost entirely filled with water like a
Norwegian fiord and entirely inclosed with walls of rock rising to a
height of nearly eighteen hundred feet. The principal peaks are called
Conicar (1,886 feet), Bealick (1,762 feet), and Foilasteokeen (1,698
feet). The cliffs cast a deep shadow over the water and add to the
solemnity and mystery with which the place has been invested from its
association with the patron saint of the city of Cork and one of the
earliest apostles in Ireland. After heavy rains each mountain side
becomes a foaming cataract, and the natives say that the sound of the
water pouring down the rocks may be heard for miles. The lake is very
deep and is the source of the River Lee, which runs sixty-five miles
from here to the Bay of Cork.
The island is approached by a narrow, artificial causeway, at the head
of which is an arched tomb built into the side of the mountain, in which
Father Mahoney, a recluse, was buried in 1728. He was the last of the
monks to live in the little abbey. He is regarded by the peasants as
next to St. Fin-Barre in holiness, and Fin-Barre is ranked next to St.
Patrick, only a little below him in their veneration. When the old women
passed Father Mahoney's tomb they knelt and kissed it and said their
prayers.
[Illustration: CHAPEL ERECTED BY MR. JOHN R. WALSH OF CHICAGO ON THE
ISLAND OF GOUGANE-BARRA]
The ruins of St. Fin-Barre's hermitage, which has been carefully
restored, consist of a quadrangle of stone about thirty-six feet square,
and there are eight cells with arched entrances in which the monks used
to live. Over the entrance to each cell are modern plaster casts of the
stations of the cross, and in the center, upon a pyramid of five steps,
a plain wooden cross has been erected.
The little chapel erected by Mr. Walsh upon the foundation of St.
Fin-Barre's Oratory is thirty-six feet long by fourteen feet broad with
a simple little altar and an altar rail. The remainder of the space is
filled with wooden seats. There is no organ or other musical instrument,
and the services that are held there every third Sunday in the month by
an itinerant priest are of the simplest order. But the celebration of
the anniversary of the saint on the 24th of September brings the
peasants from all the country around and is attended with great
solemnity. The people carry their rations with them, and camp upon the
shore of the lake and along the roadway that leads down from the tarn.
When we were there in June the entire island was a mass of rhododendrons
in the fullness of their purple glory. If you searched the world over
you could not find a more beautiful abode for a saint in peace and
retirement. It has been the theme of many poems, and a native bard has
painted with graphic lines the scene that is hallowed by so many pious
associations and surrounded with so much natural beauty.
It is one of the holiest places in Ireland, and the consecrated waters
of a spring called St. Fin-Barre's Well, which has been carefully walled
in, have the power to heal all kinds of diseases except those that have
been caused by dissipation. At the annual festival of St. Fin-Barre the
peasants bring their sick children and even their ailing animals to be
cured. And the neighboring bushes that surround the well and the wooden
crosses that have been erected there in recognition of relief are hung
with votive offerings. A penitent who comes to be cleansed of his sins
may find full instructions engraven upon a large slab of brown stone. It
is said to be more than two hundred years old, but records the good
deeds of Rev. Dennis Mahoney, who died in 1728. It is necessary to say
five "aves" and five "paters" at the first station of the cross within
the ruins, and add five more at each as they are passed, making forty
"aves" and forty "paters" at the last cell.
Of course, there is a legend connected with the well--there always
is--and in this case St. Patrick, after banishing the reptiles from the
country, overlooked one hideous snake. It crawled into the Well of
Gougane to escape him, and it created serious depredation in the
surrounding country, coming out at night to attack the flocks of sheep
and the herds of goats and cattle, until St. Patrick came here and drove
it out by sprinkling the well with holy water. "The ould enemy" vanished
and has never since ventured to leave his loathsome slime upon the green
banks of the island. In order to prevent his return St. Patrick sent St.
Fin-Barre here to watch the well and exterminate the monster if it came
again. But it has not reappeared, and as a token of gratitude St.
Fin-Barre erected the Cathedral of Cork and founded a great monastery
beside it, leaving several devoted priests here in his hermitage to keep
watch of things.
The driver gave us an hour to see this lovely and sacred place, and then
we returned to the main road, resumed our journey, and soon entered the
Pass of Keimaneigh, which divides these savage mountains in twain and
permits people to pass from the former kingdom of the MacCarthy clan to
that of the outlawed O'Sullivans. The mountains were split by some
terrible cataclysm ages ago, but Nature has done what she could to heal
the wound. The almost perpendicular walls were clothed with wild ivy,
arbutus, hawthorn, laburnum, rhododendron, and other trees and shrubs,
which were glorious in color and light up the gloom of the gorge with
wonderful beauty. We have many grander canyons in the Rocky Mountains,
and several of the fiords on the Norwegian coast are grander and
inclosed by loftier peaks and more precipitous walls, but none of them
that I have seen are anywhere near as beautiful.
[Illustration: THE PASS OF KEIMANEIGH THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS BETWEEN CORK
AND GLENGARIFF]
Nor do I remember a panorama where the fiercer and the gentler moods
of nature are expressed in such striking contrast. The eagles and hawks
that soar in the narrow skyline, directly above our heads, and encircle
the rugged and irregular peaks that rise on either side, look down upon
an exhibition of wild flowers that was never surpassed, and the colors
seem to be more brilliant than elsewhere.
People always ask, How did they come there?--these blotches of scarlet
and purple and pink and blue and gold against the dark gray surface of
the rock. The wind was the landscape gardener here, and a wonderful
artist he is. The dust that gradually accumulated in the crevices and
scars of this mountain wall was carried, storm by storm, from some dry
spot, upon the wings of the wind. And the same messenger carried the
seeds, perhaps for many miles, and dropped them in the nest that he had
already provided, where the sun and the rain could reach them and they
could germinate and their souls could awaken. The germs of life that lay
hidden in their tiny cells then reached out for air and began to grow
and bloom and illuminate this stern and gloomy canyon with their smiles.
As the journey continues the gorge grows wilder, the walls higher, and
the vegetation less, except in the turf beside the roadway, where the
violet, the forget-me-not, the belated shamrock, and that other modest
little flower called "London Pride," sing a silent song of praise to
Heaven.
They call Glengariff "the Madeira of Great Britain," because its climate
varies only a few degrees, winter and summer, and is about the same as
that of the Madeira Islands, without a trace of frost or snow except up
among the rugged mountains that protect it from the cold winds and make
it an ideal resort for those who seek health, rest, or solitude. The
name signifies "a rough glen," and that describes it exactly--a deep
cleft in the mountains, a gash which some irresistible glacier made ages
ago in the rugged rocks, about three miles long and a quarter of a mile
wide, which terminates upon an exquisite little sheet of water, a branch
of the Bay of Bantry, on the far southwestern coast of Ireland. The glen
is filled with wonderful trees and wonderful flowers, which seem to
bloom perennially. The surrounding mountains are of the wildest
description, being naked moorlands covered with heather and gorse and
huge gray bowlders and peaks which project into the air. Among them, it
is said, there are no less than 365 little lakes, that number having
suggested to the pious peasants, who attribute everything to apostolic
interposition, that some holy saint prayed effectually for a separate
one to supply water for each day of the year. The rocks reach far away
to the westward and down into the cold blue of an uneasy ocean, which
beats impetuously upon the outer walls, but the water is seldom
disturbed by more than a ripple within the bay. For a combination of
ocean, mountains, lakes, rocks, waterfalls, forests, and flowers I have
never seen the like, and any one can easily understand why Glengariff is
called the most beautiful spot in Ireland.
The town of Glengariff is composed of fourteen houses, six saloons, a
post office, a vine-covered headquarters for the constabulary, which
looks altogether too picturesque and beautiful for such a practical
purpose, a Catholic church, brand new and built with money from America,
an old church where the Catholics formerly worshiped, now used as a
school for teaching lace making, a pretty little Church of Ireland
chapel, an ivy-clad rectory adjoining, and several comfortable hotels.
There are four hundred inhabitants in the parish, mostly farmers,
scattered within the glen and upon the surrounding rocks. They are
mostly Harringtons, Sullivans, Caseys, and O'Sheas, and are nearly all
related. All the population are Roman Catholics, except twelve families
who belong to the Church of Ireland and are ministered to by the Rev.
Mr. Harvey, who is paid a salary of £200 a year and is given a
picturesque old manse in the midst of one of the loveliest gardens and
groves you can imagine.
Eccles Hotel has been famous for more than a century. You will find a
flattering account of it in Mrs. Hall's book on Ireland, published in
the '50s. And, by the way, that work contains a charming description of
the country, although so much in detail that it fills three ponderous
volumes that weigh four or five pounds each. There have been many
changes since the book was written, but they concern only the people and
their customs. Its historical references, its legends, and descriptions
of scenery hold good to-day.
The hotel, not the book, is a rambling, irregular structure with many
gables and many chimneys, and is almost completely covered with a
lustrous robe of English ivy. It sits at the foot of the glen where the
rocks and the ocean meet and the prospect from the front windows is
unsurpassed. The bay is enclosed like a wall with mighty mountains.
Titanic rocks have rolled down into the water in some great cataclysm
and now lie in picturesque shapes, here and there, as a tasteful artist
would have arranged them, clad in vivid green. The outlines of the bay
are irregular. Little arms of water reach up among the rocks that
inclose it, and, when the tide goes out, it discloses deep beds of
wondrous seaweed, curious vegetable and animal forms that Nature in her
fantastic moods has designed in her studio under the waters of the sea.
In the foreground at the right is a landing place for the little steamer
that comes over from Bantry twice a day, and beyond it, rising from a
rocky eminence, are the ruins of an ancient castle with a tower intact
that was once a stronghold of the O'Sullivans, when they were kings in
these parts. Now it belongs to the estate of the late Earl of Bantry.
On the other side of the bay a long point of land protrudes across the
horizon, and there it was that the French troops intended to land under
Wolfe Tone and General Hoche on Dec. 26, 1796. There were 17 ships of
the line, 13 frigates, 5 corvettes, 2 gunboats, and 6 transports, with
about 14,000 men and 45,000 stands of arms, and it was expected that the
news of their landing would be the signal for an uprising of the Irish
people. Simon White, who lived near the point where the landing was to
be made, was a man of quick movements and energy, and as soon as the
fleet was sighted he saddled his horse and rode direct to
Cork--sixty-five miles--in half a dozen hours to notify the military
commander and other authorities of the invasion. For that the king made
him the Earl of Bantry and gave him a strip of land around the bay
twenty-two miles on one side and twenty-two miles on the other,
stretching back into the mountains an average of six miles. The title
has lasted through three generations, but has expired because the third
Earl of Bantry left no son to wear it when he died a few years ago.
Providence intervened, however, on the side of the English, and averted
what might have been a disastrous struggle with France, with Ireland as
the battlefield, as well as a civil war for the overthrow of British
authority. A storm came up and dispersed the fleet. When the wind
subsided, a dense fog overspread Bantry Bay and the ocean. When the air
cleared the ships were so scattered that each sailed away on its own
account during the next fortnight, and one by one they returned to the
harbors of France. General Hoche, in the _Fraternitie_, finally reached
Rochelle, after several narrow escapes, with his ship in a sinking
condition. Several of the largest ships went upon the rocks, and about
eighteen hundred sailors and soldiers perished. No Frenchman trod upon
Irish soil with the exception of a lieutenant and seven seamen, who were
sent out in a small boat from one of the ships during the fog to
reconnoiter, and, running aground, were captured by James O'Sullivan.
Bantry Bay is a magnificent inlet twenty-one miles long, and with an
average breadth of four miles and an average depth of sixty fathoms,
without a shoal or sandbank or any other peril to navigation. It is
completely sheltered from the weather and is considered the finest
harbor in Ireland. It is the rendezvous of the British North Atlantic
fleet and the fleet of the channel, which come here regularly to
practice maneuvers, to correct their compasses and regulate their range
finders and do light repairs. The only town on the bay is a village of
the same name, which has been described as a seaport without trade, a
harbor without shipping, and a fishery without a market. There is a
convent, a monastery, and a factory for the manufacture of Irish tweeds.
[Illustration: GLENGARIFF BRIDGE]
Adjoining the village is Bantry House, a stately mansion surrounded
by a beautiful lawn and grove, which was the residence of the late Earl
of Bantry, and was inherited by his nephew, Leigh White. Another nephew,
Simon White, occupies the ancient Glengariff Castle, which is nearer the
head of the bay--a large and gloomy-looking structure almost entirely
hidden by the surrounding trees. Thirty-one thousand acres of land
around the bay was inherited by these two young men, but it is very poor
land. Three-fourths of it is bare rock, and the entire population upon
their holdings is only about four hundred men, women, and children. A
daughter of the late Earl of Bantry married Lord Ardilaun, who was
Arthur Edward Guinness, a son of the great brewer of Dublin and probably
the richest man in Ireland. The hotel is inclosed in a beautiful hedge
of fuchsias, which flourish in this climate, and are commonly used for
hedges. The grounds of the hotel extend over two hundred and fifty
acres, mostly dense forest, with a beautiful garden of twelve acres or
more. All the vegetables, poultry, eggs, and other produce are raised on
the place, and the milk and cream and butter come from a private herd of
cows, which is a great luxury.
There is splendid fishing, both in the bay and in two small lakes, one
hour's walk from the hotel, also boating, swimming, and any number of
beautiful walks and drives through the woods and along the mountain
roads. The only antiquity in the immediate neighborhood is a picturesque
ruin called Cromwell's bridge. While the grim old Covenanter was passing
up the glen with an escort to visit the O'Sullivans, citizens of
Glengariff who had heard of the devastation he had created elsewhere
tore down a bridge over a mountain gorge, hoping that it would turn him
back. But after much trouble he and his men succeeded in crossing the
canyon into the village, and there he summoned the inhabitants and told
them that if they did not restore the bridge by the time he returned
from his visit he would hang a man for every hour's delay. The bridge
was ready for him, "fur they knew the auld villain would kape his
word."
The surrounding country is sparsely settled by a hardy, stubborn race,
who fish in the winter and farm in the summer, like the people who live
on the bleak New England coast. The children herd cattle, sheep, and
goats upon the mountain sides; the pigs and the poultry share the
ancient stone hovels occupied by their owners; the women cultivate a
little spot of soil wherever they can find it in the crevices among the
rocks, raising a few potatoes and cabbages, and look after the chickens
and the babies. Scattered over the mountain side and reached by steep
but perfect roads, are the roofless walls of what once were the homes of
neighbors who have emigrated to America. The fate of those who remained
seemed hopeless until recently, but the benevolent purposes of the
government are brightening the lives and improving the condition of many
of them. At Glengariff I got my first chance to observe the work of the
Congested Districts Board through which the government is trying to
relieve the distress of the poor and make life worth living for those
wretched but courageous souls who dwell always in the mists of the
mountains and among the moorlands and the peat bogs on the west coast of
Ireland. They are the poorest, the least nourished, and the most
helpless portion of the population. They are scattered widely. The
arable soil is so scarce that they cannot live in communities and
survive. Here and there among the rocks, where the kindly winds have
dropped grains of earth during the ages, they are cultivating little
patches of potatoes and cabbage. They follow a few cows and goats that
nibble at the blades of grass that grow in the cracks of the rock and
keep a few chickens, which share with them the roof shelter of a leaky,
straw-thatched cabin built of rough stone and with a mud floor.
The cabins are as comfortless as one can imagine, but they are no worse
than thousands that may be found in our southern States, in the
mountains of Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Virginia.
Thousands of "crackers" in Georgia have no better homes and no more
consolations in life, but their cabins are more neatly kept and are not
situated among such filthy and loathsome surroundings as those of the
poor "bog-trotters" of Ireland.
The interior of the cabins is quite as repulsive as the exterior. The
chickens run in and out with the children, and they "kape the pig in the
parlor" because that is the only room in the house and there is no other
pen. The inevitable baby--you never enter a cabin without finding
one--is always in its mother's arms and another is generally clinging to
her skirts, while two or three more are playing in the filth around the
door. There is only one room, where they all sleep, the elder ones upon
rough benches, covered with pallets of straw, and the younger ones on
the floor--grandparents, parents, children, pigs, and chickens--young
and old, both sexes, lying side by side, with whatever covering their
scanty earnings enable them to provide. There are no sheets or
mattresses; no pillows, only comfortables that have been used for
generations, and tattered blankets that are never washed. There is no
furniture but a table and two or three stools. There are shelves, and a
few nails and hooks driven into the walls. There is no stove, but a peat
fire under the chimney where the mother cooks in pans and kettles when
the weather is stormy and uses a rock outside for a kitchen when it
doesn't rain or blow. There are few dishes, mostly broken china, and the
covers of tin cans. The walls are windowless; there is no light but that
which comes through the door, and during the long winter nights, when,
in this latitude, it becomes dark at four o'clock, the family hibernate
in the darkness because candles are beyond their means and burning peat
gives no light. You can understand why so many of these poor wretches
lose their wits. The insane asylums of Ireland are filled with
unfortunates from this coast, most of them are hereditary and chronic
cases caused by melancholia, nervousness, and starvation. I have been
trying in vain to find out how they spend their time during the long
winter evenings, but have been unable to get any satisfactory
information on that point.