I" I !l EX LIBRJS GVLIELMI lOSEPHI DWYER STL SANCTI BERNARDI ECCLESIAE PASTORIS # KALNOVMDCCCCXXXIIII - " ^^ BEAUTIES AND ANTIQUITIES OF IRELAND KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & Co., Ltd. NEW AND RECENT PUBLICATIONS. THE PAMPHLET LIBRARY. I Edited by ARTHUR WAUGH. Crown 8vo. i POLITICAL PAMPHLETS. Selected and arranged by : A. F. PoLLAKD. 6s. [Readp. ! LITERARY PAMPHLETS. Selected and arranged by ' Eexest Rhis. [Immediately. To be folloived hy RELIGIOUS PAMPHLETS. Selected and arranged by Rev. Percy Deakmer, and DRAMATIC PAMPHLETS. Selected and arranged by Thomas Seccombe. MEMOIRS OF HAWTHORNE. By his daughter, Rose Hawthorne LAXHRor. With Portrait. Crown 8vo. 78. 6d. IN THE LAND OF THE BORA; or Camp -Life and Sport in Dalmatia and the Herzegovina. By " Snaffle," author of "Gun, Rifle, and Hound." With 10 Full-page Illustrations by H. Dixox. Demy 8vo. 15s. THE CRIMEAN DIARY OF THE LATE GENERAL SIR CHARLES WINDHAM, K.C.B. Edited by Major Hugh Pear.se. With an Introduction by Sir William H. Russell, and a portrait of General Windham. Post Svo. 7s. 6d. PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS ROAD. BEAUTIES AND ANTIQUITIES OF IRELAND A TOURIST'S GUIDE TO ITS MOST BEAUTIFUL SCENERY & AN ARCH^OLOGIST'S MANUAL FOR ITS MOST INTERESTING RUINS T. 0. RUSSELL -^ ' AUTHOR OF "DICK MASSEY," "TRUE HEART'S TRIALS," ETC. BOSTON GOLLE€}K LIBRARY CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., Ltd. B. HERDER 17 SOUTH BROADAVAY ST LOUIS, MO. 1897 PREFACE To describe all the beauties and antiquities of Ireland, an encyclopedia, instead of a volume the size of this one would be required. As one of the objects of this book is to show that Irish history is as generally interesting as Irish scenery is generally beautiful, few places are noticed that are not historic ; but in a volume of the size of this, all the historic places could not be mentioned. Many books have been published during the last three-quarters of a century that treat on Irish scenery and antiquities. Some of them are very voluminous and copiously illustrated. They were, for the most part, written by persons utterly un- fitted for the task they undertook. Their remarks on Irish scenery may be of some value ; they may have thought Killarney more beautiful than the Bog of Allen ; but wherever they touch on matters connected with history and antiquities, they are so often incorrect and misleading that the books they have published may, for the most part, be said to be useless. It is not too much to say that many o * '^203 vlii PREFACE of these works would be actually increased in value if the printed matter were torn out of them and nothing left but the illustrations and covers. The people who wTote them were totally unfitted to treat of Irish history and antiquities. They knew little about the history of ancient Ireland, and nothing of the Irish language or its literature. They could hardly be justified to treat of Irish architectural remains, because they were ill-equipped to do so, and were unsympathetic with the race that raised them. If there is any country in Europe about the scenery and antiquities of which an interesting book could be written, it is Ireland. In no other country are scenery and antiquities so closely allied, for the finest remains of her ancient ruins are generally found where the scenery is most weird, most strange, or most beautiful. In no other country, perhaps, can so many places be identified with historic events, or historic person- ages, as in Ireland. It contains more relics of a long vanished past than any other European land. Great Britain seems a new country compared with Ireland. In spite of the wanton and disgraceful destruction of her ancient monuments that has been going on for centuries, more of such can be found in a single Irish county than in a dozen in PREFACE ix Great Britain. Although Stonehenge is the finest druidic monument known to exist, the quantity of druidic remains is much greater in Ireland than in England. In the latter country we miss the dun, the rath, the lis, the round tower and the sepulchral mound, some of which are found in almost every square mile of Ireland. And coming down to later times, when men began to erect structures of stone, we find the remains of castles and keeps in such extraordinary numbers that we wonder for what purpose so many strongholds were erected. Counting ratJis, duns, Uses, cromlechs, round towers, crumbling castles, and deserted fanes, Ireland may be called a land of ruins beyond any other country in Europe. To make these multi- tudinous monuments of a far-back past still more interesting, it will be found that mention is made of most of them even in the remnant of Gaelic literature that by the merest chance has been preserved. The place names of Ireland are as interesting and as extraordinary as her antiquities, and to some are even more fascinating than her beauties. The bewildering immensity of Irish place names is one of the most remarkable things connected with Ireland ; but like her ancient monuments, they are every day disappearing — fading away with the X PREFACE language fi'om which they were formed. Even still, there are, probably, as many ancient place names in a single Irish province as in the whole of Great Britain. If it is not absolutely true when speaking of Ireland to say that, ^^ No dust of hers is lost in vulgar mould," it can at least be said that there is hardly a square mile of her surface where some hoary relic of the past or some beauti- ful object of nature can be met with that is not mentioned in history, enshrined in legend, or cele- brated in song. T. 0. E. CONTENTS KiLLARNEY ...... 1 Its fame world wide— Beauty of its name— Extract from Macaulay in its praise— Comparative smallness of Killarney —Admirable proportion of its scenic features— Softness and beauty its chief attractions— Its weather often moist- Autumn the best time to see it— Its overpowering beauty on fine autumn days— The country round Killarney a won- derland of beauty— Its ruins ; and their historic interest. Tara ....... 12 Its antiquity its chief attraction— Beautiful view from its ruined ramparts— The most historic spot in these islands —Proof of the general correctness of early Irish history— Dr Petrie's great work on the antiquities of Tara— His map of it— Its adaptation for a seat of government in ancient times —Its profanation by the erection of modern buildings on it— Tracks of its principal monuments— No trace of stone buildings found— Its praise sung by Gaelic poets— Was the most important place in Ireland— The roads that centred there— The Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny; prophecy con- cerning it ; was brought from Tara to Scotland ; now under the coronation chair at Westminster; Petrie's mistake about it ; proofs that it was removed from Tara ; the stone there now not the Lia Fail ; is the Lia Fail a meteoric stone?— Tara the great political centre of ancient Ireland— The Leinster Tribute— Slaughter of 3030 maidens— Indiffer- ence of the Irish heretofore about their history and litera- ture—Many valuable gold ornaments found in Tara— The "Tara Brooch "—King Laoghaire buried in Tara ; his face to his foes, the Leinstermen— The old feud between Meath and Leinster not yet quite forgotten— Tara terribly up- rooted—Saint Patrick's goat— Last King that reigned in Tara— Its vast antiquity worthy of credence. Loch Eee ...... 47 One of the least known of the great lakes of Ireland- Its great beauty— Decline of population in the country round it— Want of steam-boats on the Upper Shannon- Number of Islands— Beauty of the Leinster shore of the lake ; is studded with gentlemen's seats— Goldsmith's house xii CONTENTS PAGE —Historic interest of Loch Ree— The treaty of Blein Potog— Athlone ; its beauty of situation ; the most prosperous town on the Upper Shannon ; its manufactures— Decline of the Irish language— Improvement in the condition of the Irish peasantry. " Emania the Golden " . . . .58 Emania a Latinised form of Emain Macha-The second most historic spot on Irish soil— Its history— Its present desolation — Its great extent— Denationalisation of the peasantry in its vicinity ; their almost total ignorance of its history— Emania and the "Children of Uisneach" ; ex- treme beauty of that legend— The tomb of Deirdre— Many gold ornaments found near Emania— Long preservation of a place name— Queen Macha-The city of Armagh ; its antiquity ; founded by St Patrick ; ruined and plundered by the Danes ; was for some years the abode of a Danish King ; its picturesqueness. Queen Mab's Palace . . . .71 Rathcroghan, where Queen Mab lived and reigned, a very celebrated place— She w^as contemporary with Cleopatra, and was Queen of Connacht— Fe w legends about her in Ire- land ; an historic personage there— Proofs of the compara- tively high civilization of Ireland in ancient times- Extra- ordinarily long preservation of the legend of Queen Mab or Medb, in England ; her very long reign and great age ; death in Iniscloran ; her fondness for cold water baths ; the Four Masters do not mention her— Description of the Fort of Rathcroghan ; the wooden palace that once stood on it ; unlike any of the historic forts of Ireland— Rathcroghan desolate since the time of Queen Mab; its vast ancient cemetery; Queen Mab buried there— Longevity of the ancient Irish— Strong proofs that the Connacht queen was the prototype of the Mab of Shakespeare, Drayton, Spenser, etc. ; her sister's name still preserved in an Irish place name— Beauty of the country round Rath- croghan ; its fertility— Many mentions of Rathcroghan in ancient Gaelic writings. The Hill of Uisneach . . . .84 One of the most historic of Irish hills ; its peculiar shape -Magnificence and beauty of the view from it— Knock- cosgrey— Decay of rural population— Uisneach peculiarly adapted for a stronghold— Aill na Mireann, or rock of the divisions ; now called the "Cat Stone"; its very peculiar shape ; Avas supposed to mark the geographical centre of the island— Great Synod held in Uisneach in a.d. 1111— Moat of Bally lochloe ; its extreme beauty ; supposed origin of its name. CONTENTS xiii Clonmacnois ...... 97 strangeness and uniqueness of its situation— Love of the strange and beautiful among ancient Irish Churchmen— The Shannon— Views from Clonmacnois— Small size of its remaining ruined fanes-Its round towers and crosses- Wondrous beauty of its smaller round tower— Petrie's theory of the origin of round towers— Destruction of Clon- macnois— Vandalism manifest -Occupation by the Danes— The nunnery— Clonmacnois founded by St Kieran— De Lacy's ruined castle— Beauty and diversity of scenery of the Shannon ; historic interest of so many places on its banks. Knock AiLLiNN . . . . .111 Third most historic hill in Ireland— Beauty of the view from its summit— On it is the largest fort in Ireland— Anciently the Residence of Kings of Leinster— The hill of Allen ; Finn's residence according to all authentic docu- ments ; but no trace of earthworks on it— John O'Donovan's opinion about it— Probable confusion of the names Aillinn and Allen— Probability that Aillinn was Finn's dun— Im- mensity of the folk-lore about Finn ; as widespread in Scotland as in Ireland ; extraordinary way in which he • impressed himself on his age ; does not seem to have been a lovable personage— Dermot O' Duibhne— Real name of the Campbells of Argyle— Finn, the most powerful man in Ireland in his time— His name incorrectly spelt Fionn. "Kildare's Holy Fane" . . . .126 Not much scenic beauty about Kildare— The Curragh —Few ancient remains in Kildare — Its round Tower— Kildare once a large place ; famous on account of St Brigit —Its "bright lamp"— Moore's noble lyric, "Erin, O Erin" —St Brigit's life in the Leabhar Breac ; extracts from it— Her benevolence and charity ; her love of the poor and the sick ; she was buried in Kildare. Glendaloch . . . . . .138 Its weird situation— A good central point from which to make excursions —" Sugar-loaf " mountain; its horrible modern name, and grand ancient one — Glendaloch the most celebrated place in Wicklow- St Kevin ; his youth ; his piety ; he did not drown Kathleen ; he only whipped her with nettles — Kevin the most popular of Leinster Saints— "St Kevin's bed"— Glendaloch an almost utter ruin —Ancient Irish monasteries ; their great wealth— Antique gold ornaments— The evils of Danish raids— How well the Irish fought the Danes— Round towers— Their uses— Books destroyed by the Northmen— Halo of legend and romance that is round Glendaloch. xiv CONTENTS PAGE " Lordly Aileach " . . . . .157 The second most historic spot in Ulster— Sublime view from it— Noble work done in its partial restoration— Its early history— Its destruction by a Munster King— A funny rann from the Four Masters about it— Its great antiquity —The great Circuit of Ireland made from Aileach— Quota- tions from an ancient poem on the Circuit— A great poem totally ignored by the Irish cultured classes— Muirchear- tach MacNeill a great prince— His capture of the provincial Kings— His tragic and untimely death. Royal AND Saintly Cashel " . . .172 Peculiar situation— Ancient Irish churchmen's apprecia- tion of the beautiful in nature— Superb beaxity of the site of Cashel— A wonder that so few poets have been inspired by it— Sir Aubrey de Vere's Sonnet on Cashel— Marred by the erection of new monuments— Long the seat of Munster Kings— Antiquity of Cashel as a centre of Christian cult- Wondrous beauty of Cormac's Chapel ; the most remark- able of early Irish churches— The ancient Irish had no castles ; they were introduced by the Norman French— The city of Cashel— Cashel, Glendaloch and Clonmacnois the most interesting places of their kind in Ireland. Loch Erne . . . . . .186 Loch Erne, Loch Ree and Loch Derg compared ; the former the most peculiar of all Irish Lochs— Its innumer- able islands, and the great beauty of its shores— "Want of proper passenger steamers on it— Tourists must have good accommodation — Ireland's beauties can never be fully known until good hotels are provided— No other country of its size has so many lakes and rivers as Ireland— Historic attractions of Loch Erne— Devinish Island. Mellifont and Monasterboice . . .195 They are the most interesting ecclesiastical ruins in Louth- Great beauty of the site of Mellifont— Terrible and wanton destruction of its ruins— Its name not Irish— "Was generally known as "the Drogheda Monastery "—Size of the building— Was founded in 1142— Renaissance of Irish ecclesiastical architecture ; it began when Danish plunder- ing ceased — Effects of the Anglo-French invasion— Dear- vorgil, wife of O'Ruarc, buried in Mellifont— Antiquity of Monasterboice— Its glorious ancient crosses— Its round tower— Became a ruin many centuries before Mellifont— Beauty and historic interest of locality— Drogheda— The burgs of the Boyne, New Grange and Dowth. CONTENTS XV PAGE Trim Castle 207 It is the largest of Irish Castles— The Anglo-French great Castle builders— Hugo de Lacy— Many Castles erected by him— He was the greatest of the invaders of Ireland— He wanted to be King of Ireland— Distracted state of the country in his time— Trim once an important place— Claims to be the birth-place of Wellington ; an anecdote about him— The country round Trim most interesting and historic —The Boyne the most historic of Irish rivers. Cong Abbey . . . . . .218 The most interesting ruin in Connacht — Roderick O'Connor; Moore's opinion of him— Cong founded by St Fechin— Was endowed by O'Connor— Description of the Abbey— Its sculptured stones— The Cross of Cong— Cong never plundered by the Danes— Peculiarities and beauty of the country round Cong— Loch Corrib— The Joyce country ; a land of giants ; anecdote about one of them. Loch Derg ... ... 231 Its great size— Want of islands its principal drawback- Its hilly shores— Little traffic on it— Iniscealtra— St Cainin — Killaloe ; its ruined fanes— The Palace of Kincora ; no vestige of it remaining; totally destroyed by Turloch O'Connor in 1118— MacLiag's Lament for Brian and Kincora —The rapids of Doonas ; their great beauty. HoLYCROSs Abbey . . . . .243 Its beautiful situation — One of the largest ruined churches in Ireland— When founded— Its ruins not much marred— Was inhabited until the suppression of mon- asteries—Beauty of one of its sepulchral monuments- Founded too late to be plundered by the Danes. DuNLUCE Castle ..... 247 The most remarkable ruined Castle in Ireland— From its situation it is the finest ruin of the kind in Europe— The narrow causeway by which it is entered— Unusual thinness of its walls— Was evidently erected before cannons were perfected— An awful place in a storm— Giant's Causeway — Dunseverick Castle— Meaning of the name Dunluce— Not known by whom or when it was foimded- Was once owned by the MacQuillins— Sorley Boy— Terrible catastrophe that once happened at Dimluce- Must have been biiilt before the fifteenth century. xvi CONTENTS PAGE Boyle Abbey ...... 254 Not much known to the general public— Its limpid river —Rivers of muddy water an abomination— Irish rivers generally clear— Extraordinarily luxuriant growth of ivy on the ruins ; their effect marred by the erection of a new building close to them— Vandalism in Ireland— Ancient name of Boyle— History of its monastery— Loch Key ; the burning of its c7'anniog—l,och Arrow. The Lakes of Westmeath .... 263 Few in search of the beautiful know anything about them ; are best known to fishermen— Not many places of historic interest in Westmeath— Loch Ouel— Turgesius, the Dane, drowned in it by Malachy the First— Legend about Malachy's daughter— Lover's poem about her— Quotation from the Book of Leinster about Turgesius— Loch Sheelin ; beauty of its name— Beauty of Celtic place names— Beauty of the name Lorraine. Kells in Meath . . . . .271 Its ancient name— Its great antiquity— Fertility of the country round it— The tower of Lloyd— Tailltean ; its im- mense antiquity— The Irish Olympia— Proofs of the general authenticity of early Irish history — Sir Wm. Wilde's opinion of Irish chronology— Assemblies held in Tailltean in recent times— Early Christian Monuments— Kells often burned and plundered by the Danes— The Book of Kells and the Tara Brooch. Cuchulainn's Dun and Cuchulainn's Country 281 Scandalous desecration of his dun ; its situation and vast size ; its existence another proof of the general truth of Irish history— Cuchulainn, the Irish Hercules— Origin of his name— Nothing told about his size or stature— Total ignorance about Cuchulainn in his birth-place ; immensity of the literature in which he figures- Literary industry of early Irish monks— Cuchulainn loved by women; his abduction of Eimer ; his liaison with Fann ; the tract about him in the Book of the Dun Cow— Fann's rhapsody — " CuchTilainn's Death "from the Book of Leinster ; beauty of the view from his fZi6?i— Numerous antiquities of the County Louth — The Cooley and Mourne mountains- Neglect of the scenery of Louth and Down. The Wild West Coast . . . .299 Its magnificence ; comparison between it and the coasts of Norway ; its mild climate— Ban try Bay— The cliffs of Moher— Half Ireland has been swallowed by the sea- Constant erosion by the waves— Killary Harbour— Clew CONTENTS xvii PAGE Bay, the queen of Irish Sea lochs ; comparison between it and other bays— Croagh Patrick— Achill and its cliffs- Antiquities at Carrowmore — Loch Gill — Sligo — Slieve League— Loch Swilly— Grandeur of the scenery from Cape Clear to Inishowen ; its wonderful variety ; its mild climate and wild flowers— Ten people visit the coasts of Norway for one that visits the west coast of Ireland— Want of passenger steamers on the west coast ; its beauties can only be seen to advantage from the sea— Few safe harbours on the Donegall coast. Dublin and its Environs .... 325 Dublin not sufficiently appreciated by some of its in- habitants—Its historj'— Its long Gaelic name — Danish domination in it— Many times taken and sacked by the Irish— Battle of Clontarf— Canute made no attempt to conquer Ireland— Dublin has not sufTered from a siege for one thousand years— Its rapid growth in the eighteenth century — Greatly improved during the last twenty-five years— Its improvement undertaken under enormous diffi- culties—Its educational advantages — Its libraries — Its museum of antiquities; disgraceful management of it — Dublin supposed to be a dirty city— Its situation— Its public buildings— Its environs; their supreme beauty— Glasnevin Botanic Gardens — Dublin Bay; poem on it — Variety of scenery round Dublin — The Dargle — Howth — Fingall — Dublin situated in a land of flowers— Abundance of wild flowers in Ireland — Phoenix Park — Three round towers close to Dublin ; error in its census— What the author has said in its praise is true. Belfast and its Environs .... 357 Its rapid growth, and beauty of its environs— Its linen trade— Business capacity of its inhabitants— Its history and meaning of its name— The Giant's Ring— View from Davis mountain— Belfast Loch— Holly wood — Scenic attractions of the country round Belfast. Cork and its Environs .... 366 Its ancient name— Its history— Its situation— Is not grow- ing as it should— Prophecy about it— Its fine public buildings —Its noble harbour— Cork should be where Queenstown is —Environs of Cork— Its'antiquities— Its sufferings from the Northmen ; their ravages ; Lord Dunraven's theory about them ; they met stranger opposition in Ireland than in any other Country ; what the Irish suffered from them ; the Northmen not builders-up of nations ; gruesome revela- tion of their cruelty found at Donnybrook— The author's theory as to the cause of their invasions. xviii CONTENTS PAGE Gal WAY AND ITS Environs .... 388 Its history— Was once a place of large trade— Frightful decline of its population— Its splendid situation and noble baj^— Its environs— The Isles of Arran ; their gigantic Cyclo- pean remains the most wonderful things of their kind in Europe. The Cloud Scenery of Ireland . . . .394 Ireland the land of cloud scenery ; its situation far out in the "melancholy ocean " ; its moist climate ; its sunsets ; their gorgeousness in fine weather ; not often seen in per- fection but in autumn. Something about Irish Place Names . . 396 Ireland a peculiar country ; its abundance of place names as compared with Great Britain.- Its ballys, kills, raths, duns and Uses; their immensity— Dense rural population of Ireland in ancient times— Antiquity of Ireland. KILLARNEY KiLLARNEY is famed and known all over the civilized world; but there are places in Ireland where isolated scenes can be found as fair as any in Killarney. Much has been written about this " Eden of the West," but most of those who have attempted to describe it have omitted to mention its chief charm — namely, diversity of scenic attrac- tions within a small compass. Almost everything that Nature could do has been done within a tract of country hardly ten miles square. Except some favoured spots in Switzerland, there is no spot of European soil more famed for beauty than Killarney. Its very name is beautiful, as any one can know who has heard Balfe's grand song, "Killarney." No sounds more harmonious or more fitted for a refrain could be uttered by the organs of speech. The name signifies in Gaelic the church of the sloe or wild plum-tree. The real name of the lake, or chain of lakes, which is one of the charms of Killarney, is Loch Lein, but the latter name is now almost obsolete. Before attempting to describe Killarney, it will A "■ 7^ 2 KILLARNEY be well to give the reader an extract from Macaiilay's ''History of England." The passage is a masterpiece of prose. It is a sketch of the scenic characteristics of that part of Ireland where the famous lakes are situated : "The south-western part of Kerry is now well known as the most beautiful tract in the British Isles. The mountains, the glens, the capes stretch- ing far out into the Atlantic, the crags on which the eagles build, the rivulets branching down rocky passes, the lakes overhung by groves in which the wild deer find covert, attract, every summer, crowds of wanderers sated with busiDCss and the pleasures of great cities. The beauties of that country are often, indeed, hidden in the mist and rain that the west wind brings up from the boundless ocean. But, on rare days, when the sun shines out in his glory, the landscape has a freshness and warmth of colouring seldom found in our latitude. The m^Ttle loves the soil; the arbutus thrives better than in Calabria ; the turf has a livelier hue than elsewhere ; the hills glow with a richer purple ; the varnish of the holly and the ivy is more glossy, and berries of a brighter red peep through foliage of a brighter green." * Macaulay, in spite of his Celtic name, was not * "History of England," vol. iii., p. 107. KILLARNEY 3 a lover of Ireland and the Irish, and there is no reason to suppose that this most wonderful word- painting was evoked by any liking for the land it describes. He had seen Killarney, and it must have inspired him to write the greatest descriptive passage he ever penned. Those who expect to find in Killarney the grandeur of the Alps, the Rocky Mountains, or even of the Scottish Highlands, will be dis- appointed. It is too small to be sublime, for it could be ridden round in a day. The most won- derful of its many wonders is variety of scenery in a small compass. In this respect few parts of the know^n world can compare with it. Almost every possible phase of Nature, almost everything she could do with land and water, can be found in Killarney, and found on a little spot of earth hardly larger than the space covered by London. Mountains, lakes, rivers, rocks, woods, w^aterfalls, flowery islands, green meadows and glistening strands, almost exhaust Nature's materials for forming the beautiful. But all are found at Killarney. Man, who mars Nature so often, has helped her here, for the castles and abbeys he raised of yore still stand, and their ivy and flower-decked ruins, tenanted only by the bat and the bee, put the finishing touch on this 4 KILLARNEY earthly Eden, and make it one of the scenic wonders of the workl. If KiUarney had glaciers and eternally snow-clad peaks, it would have every- thing that Switzerland has. Another wonderful thing about Killarney is the admirable proportion its scenic features bear to one another. If the mountains were any higher they would be too high for the lakes, and if the lakes were any bigger they would be too big for the mountains. Even the rivers and waterfalls are almost in exact proportion to the other phases of Nature. The monstrous Mississippi or the thundering Niagara would spoil such a miniature paradise ; but the limpid Laune and O'Sullivan's babbling cascade suit it exactly. Killarney is the most perfect effort of Nature to bring together without disproportion all her choicest charms. Small as KiUarney is, it would take at least a week, or perhaps tAvo weeks, to see it and know all its loveliness. It is only on foot and without hurry that its beauties can be seen in perfection. Its mountains may be ascended, and glorious views of sea and craggy heights obtained ; but the charm of Killarney is not grandeur, but beauty. There are mountain views in Scotland finer than can be had from the summits of Mangerton or Carn Thual. It would be something like waste of time KILLARNEY 5 to climb those hills. Let the tourist rather wander in the hundreds of shadj lanes or paths that skirt the lakes, or take a boat and navigate that most picturesque river, for its length, in the world, the Long Range, that connects the upper with the lower lake. Let him mark the wondrous luxuriance of grass, leaf, ^eed and flower. The arbutus grows so large that it becomes a tree. Ferns of such gigantic proportions may be found in shady nooks that they seem to belong to some far-back geo- logical age. Softness, freshness, luxuriance and heaute riante are the real glories of Killarney. In these it has no rival. There are two drawbacks to Killarney ; there is the guide nuisance and the rain nuisance. The nuisance of guides is probably no greater than in many other places of tourist resort, and, by a strong effort of the will, can be got rid of. But the rain is a more serious matter and must be borne patiently. Some years come when not a dozen dry days occur throughout the entire summer, but generally there is less rainfall than on the west coasts of Scotland or England. There have been quite as many wet days in Liverpool during the three last summers as there usually are in Killarney. It does, however, too often happen that tourists are confined to the hotel for four or five days at a time owing to the 6 ' KILLARNEY rain. It must be borne in mind that this excessive moisture of atmosphere is what has given the south- west of Ireland, and England too, their exquisite charm of verdure and wild flowers. When a fine day comes after rain in summer or autumn all Nature seems to laugh. Flowers of all hues open their petals, birds in multitudes begin to sing, and wild bees and hosts of insects make the air musical with their hum. The American tourist need have no fear when insects are mentioned, for the mos- quito is unknown in Killarney. Midges are the only insect plague, but they never enter houses, and are troublesome only before rain, early in the spring or late in the autumn. Most tourists go to Killarney early in the summer. June and July are favourite times for Americans to visit it. As it lies almost in the direct route between New York and Liverpool, they generally visit it before going to England or the Continent of Europe. But the time to see Killarney is in the autumn — it is then in all its glory. It should not be visited before the 15th of August; from then until the 1st of October it is the most beautiful place, perhaps, on the earth, provided always that the weather is not wet. There is only one thing that mars the weather in the south of Ireland — namely, rain. Cold, in the KILLARNEY 7 general sense of the word, is almost unknown. Every day that is not wet must be fine. There is, it must be confessed, rather more probability of having dry weather in Killarney in the spring or early summer than in the autumn, but, by visiting it in the spring, the tourist would gain nothing, and would lose the wild-flower feast of autumn. No American, or even native of England, no matter from what part of his country he comes, can form the faintest conception of what a Killarney moun- tain is in September, if the weather be fine. The wild-flower that is the glory of Ireland is the heath. It blossoms only in the autumn. Next in glory to the heath comes the furze. Both furze and heath are indigenous in the whole of the south-west of Europe, but, owing to the mildness and moistness of the climate of Ireland, they grow and blossom there with a luxuriance unknown in any other country. When a great mountain be- comes a mighty bouquet of purple and gold, a sight is revealed which surpasses anything on earth in floral beauty. Almost every mountain round about the ''Eden of the West" is clothed from base to summit in a vast drapery of heath. Some of the Killarney mountains are wooded for a few hundred feet up their sides, but most of them are entirely covered with heath interspersed with furze. When 8 • KILLARNEY a fine autumn occurs, tens of thousands of acres of mountain and moorland gleam in the sunlight, an ocean of purple heath and golden furze. Not oidy do the heath and furze blossom in the autumn, but myriads of other wild-flowers appear only at that time of year, or blossom most luxuriantly then. Even white clover, which rarely blossoms in other countries except in the spring or early summer, open its flowers widest and sends out its most fragrant perfume in an Irish autumn. The air is heavy with fragrance of flowers, the mountains are musical with the hum of bees, and " Every winged thing that loves the sun Makes the bright noonday full of melody." Killarney in a fine autumn becomes not only en- trancing, but overpowering in its loveliness. The whole country round Killarney is a wonder- land. Macaulay's description of it is true to the letter. In all his works nothing can be found of a descriptive character equal to the passage quoted from him. He had a great subject, and he handled it as no other writer of the English language could. He has described one of the loveliest regions in the world in a few lines that will stand for ever as one of the greatest efforts of a great writer. His description is a brilliant gem of composition, just KILLARNEY 9 as the place it describes is a brilliant gem of nature. Xo one should visit Killarney without visiting Glengariff. It is only about twenty miles from Killarney, and can be reached by a sort of low- backed car peculiar to Ireland. This car is a very curious sort of conveyance. The occupants sit back to back, with their sides to the horses. In fine weather there is no pleasanter mode of travel- ling than on a low-backed car, but when it rains one is anything but comfortable. Glengariff is thought by some to surpass even Killarney in beauty. It is a deep glen surrounded by mountains of the most fantastic shapes, clothed with a wealth of foliage that would astonish any one who had not seen Killarney. The lake that is seen at Glengariff is sea-water, and opens into Bantry Bay. The tourist will find an excellent hotel there, and no matter how he may be satiated with the beauty of Killarney, he will see other and more striking beauties in Glengariff. Killarney is well supplied with hotels. There are four or five, and they are all good. Most of them are situated in sequestered places, where a view of some enchanting scene spreads before the door. The village of Killarney is about a mile from the lake ; it is a place of no interest at all, but there is a very good hotel in it, and many lo KILLARNEY tourists stop there, for it is just at the railway terminus. Hotel expenses at Killarnej in the tourist season are not so high as at some of the fiishionable Continental summer resorts. Guides are not much wanted, unless mountains are to be ascended. Then thej are indispensable, for mists may suddenly come during the very finest day. ROSS CASTLE. and the tourist without a guide would run a chance of spending a night on a bleak mountain or being drowned in a lake or bog-hole. Ponies of a most docile character can be hired cheap. Pony-back travelling is a favom-ite mode of ^' doing" Killamey, especially with ladies and lazy men, but no one into whose soul the charm of Killarney really enters KILLARNEY ii would think of travelling through such lovely scenes on horseback. On foot or in a boat is the way to see Killarney. There are ruins of the most interesting kind in Killarney. Muckross Abbey is not so large as some of the ruined shrines of England, but it is a vener- able and imposing building. It was built by one of the MacCarthys, chiefs of the district, in 1340. Ross Castle is another imposing ruin. It is situated on a green promontory that juts into the lake. There is some doubt as to the exact time when it was erected, but it could hardly have been before the fourteenth century. The most interesting ruin near Killarney, and by far the most ancient, is the monastery on the supremely beautiful island of Inisfallan. It was founded by Saint Finian in the sixth century. It was there the yet unpublished "Annals of Inisfallan" were compiled. Hardly any of the Avails of the old monastery remain. The arbutus and the hawthorn are growing where once were cloisters, and are fast completing the ruin of what was one of the first of the ancient churches that were erected in Ireland, TARA The supreme attraction of Tara is its antiquity. It must not, however, be thought that a visit to this famous hill reveals no beauties. It is not situated among mountains ; hardly a lake is visible from its summit : yet the view from it is so fine that if there was no historic interest attached to it, the tourist in search of the beautiful alone would have his eyes feasted with as fair a scene from one of its grassy ramparts as could be gazed on in any part of Ireland. Eastward the view is obstructed by the hill of Screen, but on every other side it is superb. Westward the eye ranges over the fairest and most fertile part of Ireland, the great plain of Meath and West Meath, anciently called Magh Breagh, or the fair plain. And fair indeed it is in summer time, one great green sea of grass and wild flowers, reaching to the Shannon, sixty miles away. But it is south- ward that the view from Tara is most striking. The Dublin and Wicklow mountains are more imposing when seen from Tara than from any other place. They rise in a vast, blue rampart. TAR A 13 and seem so colossal as to appear thousands of feet higher than they are. Those old, barbaric Irish kings and chieftains must have been lovers of the beautiful, for they almost invariably fixed their strongholds not only in the fairest parts, but in places commanding the fairest j^rospects. There are hardly two other places in Ireland the surroundings of which are more beautiful than those of Tara and Uisneach, or from which fairer prospects are to be seen. They were, from far- back antiquity, the seats of those by whom the country was supposed to be ruled, for it often happened that he who was styled chief king had but little control over his vassals. There is no other spot of European soil the records of which go so far back into the dim twilight of the past as do the records of Tara. Before the first Roman raised a rude hut on the banks of the Tiber, when the place where the Athenian Acropolis now stands was a bare rock, kings, whose names are given in Irish history, ruled in Tara. When one gazes on those grassy mounds, that are almost all that remain of what our ancient poets used to call "the fair, radiant. City of the Western World," he can hardly believe that such a place could ever have been the abode of royalty, the meeting-place of assemblies, and 14 TARA the permanent home of thousands. Other deso- lated strongholds of ancient royalty and dominion bear ample evidence of their former greatness. Ruined columns of Persepolis yet remain. The site of Tadmor is marked by still standing pillars of marble, and vast piles of decomposed bricks tell of the greatness of ancient Babylon ; but green, grassy mounds and partially obliterated earth-works are almost all that remain of Tara. It is so ruined that it can hardly be ruined any more. Time may yet destroy even what remains of the bricks of Babylon, but time can hardly change what remains of the ruins of Tara. No other spot of Irish earth can compare Avith Tara in historic interest or in antiquity. Emania and Rathcroghan are little more than places of yesterday compared with it. It is over three thousand years ago since the first king reigned in Tara. Some may say that it is only bardic history that tells of what took place in Ireland in those very remote times, and that it is unworthy of credence. It is true that there is a great deal of fiction mixed with the early history of Ireland, as there is with the early history of all countries ; but the ancient Irish chroniclers did not attempt much more than a mere sketch of the salient points of Irish history of very remote times, say from TARA 15 beyond the third century b.o. Some of the facts they mention have been verified in remarkable ways by what may be called collateral e\ddence. This evidence is found in place names, and in the names of persons and things. One of those proofs of the general correctness of what is related in Gaelic literature about far-back events of Irish history is so remarkable that it deserves special mention. One of the kings who ruled in Tara considerably over a thousand years B.C. was named Lugh, or in English, Le^\^ or Louis. He established the games that were held annually at Tailtean, near Kells, that were regularly celebrated down to the time of the Anglo-French invasion, in honour of his mother, whose name was Tailte. Those games were held in the first week in August, and from them the Irish name for the month of August is derived ; it is Lughnasa. This is the only name known in Gaelic to the present hour for the month of August, except a periphrastic one meaning "the first month of autumn." This name for August is known in every part of Ireland and Scotland where the old tongue still lives, but it has been corrupted to Lunasd in the latter country. The meaning of the word Ldighnasa is, the games or celebrations of this same Lugh or Lewy, who lived and reigned cen- turies before Rome was founded, and before a stone 1 6 TAR A of the xlthenian Acropolis was laid. It seems almost impossible to conceive that the Gaelic name for the month of August could have had any origin other than that given above on the authority of one of the most learned of ancient Irish ecclesiastics, Cormac MacCuillenan, Archbishop of Cashel, in the ninth century. The descriptions of Tara given in ancient Gaelic writings have been verified in the most remarkable manner by the researches of modern archa3ologists. Dr Petrie's great work, ''The Antiquities of Tara Hill," would go far to remove the prejudices of the most bigoted despiser of Irish historic records. He was one of the most learned and scientific investi- gators of antiquities that ever lived, and was not only a good Gaelic scholar himself, but had the assistance of the greatest Gaelic scholar of the century, John O'Donovan. Those two gentlemen translated every mention of Tara that they could find in prose or verse in ancient Irish manuscripts ; they compared every mention they could find of the monuments of Tara with what remains of them at present ; and they found such a general agreement between ancient descriptions of those monuments and the existing remains of them as proved what is said in Gaelic manuscripts about the extent and splendour of Tara in Pagan times to be well worthy TARA 17 of credence. Every one who visits Tara, and who is in any way interested in archfeology, should have Doctor Petrie's map of it, which will be found in his minute and elaborate work on the ^' Antiquities of Tara Hill." That map is reproduced here. The book is very scarce, as only a small edition of it was printed, but it can be found in the " Trans- actions of the Royal Irish Academy." Armed with Petrie's map a visit to Tara would be one of the most interesting and enjoyable excursions that could be made fi'om Dublin. Kilmessan Station can be reached from the Broadstone terminus in an hour, and less than two miles of a walk through a beautiful country brings one to the summit of " the Hill of Supremacy," as it was called of old when he who ruled in Tara ruled Ireland. No matter how confirmed an archaeologist he may be who stands for the first time on this celebrated hill, his first feeling will be of joy at the beauty of the prospect that is spread before him. To know how beautiful Ireland is, even in those places that are not on the track of tourists, and that are seldom mentioned in guide books, one should see the view from the hill of Tara. It would be hard to find any other hill in Ireland so well adapted for a place of assembly or for the dwelling of a ruler as Tara. Uisneach, in West- B i8 TARA meath, is, perhaps, the only hill in Ireland that possesses all the advantages of Tara. In ancient times, when war was the rule and peace the ex- ception, it was imperative that a stronghold should be on a height. Athens had its acropolis and so had Corinth. Tara had the advantage of extent as well as of height, and could be made a permanent dwelling-place as well as an acropolis, for there are fully a hundred acres on what may be called the summit of the hill. It is unfortunate that some of the hill has been enclosed, planted with deal trees, and a church erected on the very track of some of the most ancient monuments. This planta- tion and church have terribly interfered with the picturesqueness and antique look of Tara. Plant- ing deal trees and erecting a modern church amid the hoariest monuments, and on the most historic spot of European soil, was little less than sacrilege. If there had been a proper national spirit, or a due veneration for their past among the Irish, they never would have allowed a church or any modern build- ing to be erected on the most historic spot on Irish soil ; and even now they ought to have the church removed, the wall torn down, and the plantation uprooted. All Greece would rise up in indignation were any one to erect a church or chapel amid the ruins of the Athenian Acropolis. 0iq61uh Sf-^OoUnc r<-aprO-«iip; (-,.,..„■.,-., (^ jl;..r.sur-v™rn:,.rr',u!,m,n '^ ..,,.■, '■ wuir niuii indentation in the hard stone of which the cross is made. It was its extreme hardness that saved it from destruction and de- facement. But hard as the stone of those crosses may be, it cannot resist the action of the elements, for the sculptures with which they are covered are now so effaced by time and weather, that they seem little more than masses of unintelligible tracings ; but when those noble crosses were fresh from their makers' hands they must have been magnificent specimens of early Irish art. The round tower of Monasterboice is one of the finest in Ireland. Its top has been broken off by lightning, but what remains of it is 110 feet in height. It must have been at least 130 feet high when perfect, which would make it one of the highest of the round towers of Ireland. The mason work is of the very best kind, although the stones are uncut, and were evidently found in the immediate neighbourhood of the tower. There is a peculiarity about this tower which is not to be seen in any other structure of the same kind — it is not quite perpendicular. The author of the great book on ancient Irish architecture, already referred to, says that "it leans to one side on the north-west, and MELLIFONT AND MONASTERBOICE 203 has a very peculiar cun^e. Where the curve com- mences a distinct change of masonry is visible. When the tower was built to this height the foundation began to settle down, and when this was perceived the builders very skilfully carried up the building in a nearly vertical line, so as to counteract the tendency to lean and to pre- serve the centre of gi-avity." It seems a pity that the Board of Works does not repair this splendid structure, and put a new top of antique model on it ; it would be, if perfect, the grandest of Irish round towers. Monasterboice became a ruin many centuries before MeUifont ; the latter continued to be a Catholic religious establishment down to the time of Elizabeth, but Monasterboice seems to have been abandoned in the twelfth or thirteenth century. The last notice of it, or any one connected with it, by the Four Masters, is under the year 1122, when they record the death of Fergna, ''a wise priest." What caused this famous establishment to be abandoned, or at least to cease to be men- tioned in Irish annals at such an early period, seems enveloped in a good deal of mystery. It was plundered more than once by the Danes, and it may be that any wooden buildings it contained were burnt by them and never re-erected, for, like 204 MELLIFONT AND MONASTERBOICE Cloiimacnois, what remains of its two churches shows them to have been so small that they could not accommodate any large number of persons. Being so near Mellifont may also have led to its abandonment when the latter place became one of the greatest religious houses in Ireland. If Monasterboice was not so large as Mellifont, its abbots and professors seem to have been greater scholars and harder workers than those of the great monastery. Flann of Monasterboice was one of the most noted literary men of ancient, or rather of media3val, Ireland, for he flourished in the eleventh century. He is considered one of the most truthful and correct of Irish annalists, and has left behind him important works that have been preserved to the present day. The country in the vicinity of Mellifont and Monasterboice is not only very fair to look on, but highly interesting in an archa3ological point of view. The town of Drogheda, the nearest place to the interesting ruins treated of in this article, is the only place in their vicinity where hotel accommoda- tion can be found. It is full of historic interest and curious remains of the past. But to the anti- quarian, to one who wants to see monuments as old as the Pyramids of Egypt, the Brogha na Boinne, or burghs of the Boyne, should be a great MELLIFONT AND MONASTERBOICE 205 attraction. They are the most colossal things of the kind known to exist in any part of Europe. One is known by the name of Xew Grange, and the other is called Dowth. Both places are on the Boyne, and only a few miles west of Drogheda. They are enormous, partially underground caverns, lined and roofed with great flag-stones. They are entirely pre-historic, and are supposed to have been used as places in which to deposit the ashes of the dead ; but their real use can hardly be more than guessed at. It is generally thought by archaeolo- gists that they were erected by the Tuatha de Danaans, who occupied Ireland before the Mile- sians ; but authentic history is silent about these gigantic structures. ^lore than a dozen of such structures were discovered some years ago in the Sleeve na Caillighe Hills, near Oldcastle, in the County Meath. They are just like those in New Grange and Dowth, but not nearly so large. The flat stones that form the linings of those curious caverns or tumuli are covered with incised and generally semi-circular markings. They bear all the appearance of being writing of some kind, but no clue to its interpretation has yet been dis- covered. These markings were certainly not made for fun ; neither could they have been made for ornament, for they are not ornamental. There are 2o6 MELLIFONT AND MONASTERBOICE thousands of them, counting what are in the tumuli on the banks of the Bojne and in the same kind of places in the hills near Oldcastle. It is a pity that no one competent for it has ever tried to decipher this curious writing, for writing of some kind it certainly is. When the cuniform inscrip- tions on the bricks of Assyria have been inter- preted, it is strange that no one has tried to find out the meaning of the writing on the stones of these Irish tumuli. TRIM CASTLE Of all the buildings for defensive purposes that the Anglo-Normans, or, more correctly, the Anglo- French, ever raised in Ireland, the castle of Trim is the largest and most imposing. It has stood many a siege, and it seems that one wing of it has entirely disappeared; but what remains of it still is a gigantic structure. No other Anglo- French keep in Ireland had such an extensive enceinte. There cannot be much less than three acres of enclosed ground round it. The outworks have been, to a large extent, demolished, but enough of them remains to show that when the castle was in repair, when its outward defences were perfect, and before the invention of gun- powder, it could have defied the largest army that ever Irish king or chieftain led. The place chosen for the site of this castle is perfectly flat. It is not on a hill. Its builder seems to have known that its six feet thick walls would be impregnable to any army that could be brought against it, whether it was on a hill or in a hollow. Its situation is very fine on the banks of the Boyne, 2o8 TRIM CASTLE and ill the centre of a country considered by many to be the richest land in Ireland. Xever did any people bring the art of castle- building to such perfection as did the Anglo- French ; and, strange as it may appear, it was not in England they raised their finest castles, TRIM CASTLE. but in Wales and in Ireland. They must have knoAvn almost immediately after the battle of Hastinofs that no serious resistance would ever be made against them in England, but they w^ere not so sure about Ireland and Wales ; there do TRIM CASTLE 209 not seem, therefore, to have been any castles erected by them in England during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as fine as those they erected in those parts of their dominions like Ireland and Wales, that were not fully conquered. Conway and Caernarvon Castles in Wales, and Jk gjj ■ '■Ml I TRIM CASTLE. Trim Castle in Ireland, are thought to be the finest they ever erected. With all the architectural skill the Greeks and Romans possessed, it is very doubtful if they understood the art of castle building as well as the Norman-French did. 2IO TRIM CASTLE The latter biiilt buildings that would last almost as long as the earth itself. That part of the walls of Trim Castle that yet remains is as sound as it was the day it was built ; and if let alone and not overturned by an earthquake it will be as sound a thousand years hence as it is to-day. Trim Castle was built tow^ards the close of the twelfth century by Hugo de Lacy, the greatest castle builder ever the Anglo-French produced. He built the great castle at Clonmacnois, which has been already described. He built another fine one in Carlow, and was building the castle of Durrow^, in the King's County, when a young Irishman, who had evidently come prepared to kill him, struck off his head with a blow of an axe as he was stooping do^^Ti to examine the work. If Hugo de Lacy had not been killed, he would certainly have built many more castles, not only in the English Pale, but throughout Ireland. But Trim Castle was the finest structure of its kind that he ever raised. Lewis' Irish Topography says that the Castle of Trim was built in 1220. This is just such a mistake as one would expect to find in books like it. Hall's, and others of their kind, which were written by persons almost w^holly unacquainted with the history of the country about TRIM CASTLE 211 which they wrote, and entirely unacquainted with its language and native literature. Trim Castle must have been built before 1186, for Hugo de Lacy was killed in that year. The same extra- ordinary publication says that Trim was burned by Connor O'Melaghlin in 1108, and that over two hundred people were burned in the monastery. It would be interesting to know where Lewis got his information about this matter. He did not get it from any authentic source, for the annals of the Four Masters, the annals of Clonmacnois, the annals of Inisfallan, the annals of Ulster, and the Chronkon Scottormn are all silent about it. Hugo de Lacy was undoubtedly the greatest of the Anglo-French invaders of Ireland. Although he was killed, he was not killed for any other cause except that of his having been an invader ; for in spite of his castle-building propensities, he was in no way prejudiced against the native Irish. This is proved by his having married a daughter of Roderick O'Connor, King of Connacht, and nominally, but only nominally. King of Ireland. For having done so, he was recalled from the nominal government of Ireland with which he had been entrusted by Henry the Second; but Henry, probably finding that he could not get 212 TRIM CASTLE anyone else so well fitted for the office, allowed him to retain it. But Hugo appears to have again given offence to Henry on account of his leniency to the Irish lords who were under him, and Prince John, who was after- wards King, was sent to Ireland by Henry because Hugo did not exact any tribute from the Irish. We are not told hoAv he got out of this scrape, and he was killed the next year. He was buried in Bective Abbey, but his body was afterwards removed to Dublin. Hugo de Lacy seems to have been as friendly to the Irish as it was possible for one in his position to be, and it is almost certain that he cherished the hope of bringing the whole island under his rule and making himself King. It was evidently his ambition, of which Henry appears to have been fully aware, that caused the trouble between him and his master. That the Irish petty kings, and the Irish people of the time, would have accepted the rule of a stranger wdio had proved himself a strong man, is very probable, for the country was in the very deepest slough of political confusion and anarchy. Never, during the worst times of Danish plundering, had Ireland been in such a state of political chaos as she was in the twelfth century. The usurpation of the chief TRIM CASTLE 213 kingship by Brian Boramha was followed by a century and a half of revolution caused by those who aspired to be chief kings. O'Brians, O'Con- nors, O'Lochlainns, Mac Murroughs, all aspirants for the monarchy, made the island, as the Four Masters so graphically put it, "a shaking sod," and the Irish would have accepted the rule of anyone who would have saved them from them- selves. It was the state of political chaos into which the country had fallen that accounts for the slight resistance that Strongbow met in Ireland. The Northmen were met by the sword, and fought for over two hundred years, until they were, if not entirely banished, at least reduced to political powerlessness ; but a mere handful of invaders, whose military prowess was in no way superior to that of the Northmen, became, de facto, the rulers of the country in a few years after they had landed. It is more than probable that if Hugo de Lacy had lived, he would have risked a war with Henry, and have tried to make himself King of Ireland ; and it is more than probable that the Irish would have willingly accepted his rule. If de Lacy's gigantic castle had never been built in Trim, it would still be an historic place. According to the most authentic annals, St Patrick 214 TRIM CASTLE founded a church there as early as 432, and Bishop Ere is the first name that is mentioned in connection with it after that of St Patrick. Trim continued to be an important place on account of its castle and its Church of St Mary's, until the time of Cromwell. It was strongly garrisoned by the Eoyalists ; but after hearing of the taking of Drogheda, and the shocking massacre committed there, the garrison surrendered. Only one gable of the old Church of St Mary's remains. Judging by the great height of the part that remains, the Church must have been a very large one. The exact date of the building of the church or monastery to which the still-standing tower or steeple belonged, is not known with certainty, but it could not have formed part of the original one erected in the time of St Patrick. The most celebrated place in the immediate vicinity of Trim is Dangan Castle, where the Duke of Wellington is said by some to have been born. When Dangan passed out of the Duke's family, it was inhabited by a person who let it go partially to ruin. It was burned early in the present century, and is now an unsightly ruin. It is curious that there should be such doubt about the birth-place of one who made such a figure in the world as Wellington. Some say TRIM CASTLE 215 he was bom in Dangan Castle ; some say he was bom in Dublin ; but the people of Trim maintain that he was bom in their town. The last time the writer was in Trim he was shown the house in which tlic Duke was said to have been born. He was told by a truthful and respectable resident of Trim that the Duke's mother had started from Dangan on her way to Dublin so that she might have the best medical aid dur- ing her expected accouchement, but having been taken ill when she got as far as Trim, she took lodgings in the town, and that it was there the Duke of Wellington was born. The exact truth about tlie matter will probably never be known. A curious story is told in Trim about the early boyhood of Wellington. It is said that he clomb the still standing tower or gable of the old church so high that he found it impossible to get down, and was in a position of great danger. All the ropes and ladders in the town were brought out, but it was found impossible to get him down. A rough tower like that at Trim might be clomb easily enough, but it might not be so easy to cret down. The afterwards victor of Waterloo was told that he could not be saved, and that, if he had any will to make, to make it without 2i6 TRIM CASTLE delay. He is said to have taken the announce- ment very coolly, and to have willed his tops, balls, and other playthings to the boys that were his favourites, and not to have shed a tear or shown any fear whatever. After having been many hours in his dangerous and far from com- fortable situation, he was at length, and with great difficulty, rescued. The country round Trim is most interesting and full of ruined fanes. The church of Trim was believed to contain an image or picture of the Virgin, at which we are told many and extra- ordinary miracles were performed. Trim was a sort of Irish Lourdes in the middle ages, to which the sick and suffering used to go in multitudes. There was also the Abbey of Newtown, the ruins of which still stand on the banks of the Boyne close by Trim. It was founded in the year 1206 by Simon Rochefort, Bishop of Meath, the first Englishman that is know^n to have had so high an ecclesiastical position in Ireland after the in- vasion. The ruins of Bective Abbey are only a few miles up the river from Trim, in a beautifid situation on the banks of the ^^ clear, bright Boyne," as the old Gaelic poets loved to call it. Bective was founded for the Cistercian order by O'Melachlinn, King of Meath, about the middle TRIM CASTLE 217 of the twelfth century. It is a beautiful ruin, and in a beautiful localitv. There is, perhaps, no part of Ireland more interesting to the antiquarian, the historian, or the lover of rich landscapes than the valley of the Boyne. That little stream is the most his- toric waterway in Ireland. Its name occurs oftener in Irish history and legend than that of any other river. On its banks are to be seen the pre-historic tumuli of New Grange and Dowth, the oldest monuments of pre-historic civilisation that have yet been discovered on Irish soil. The Boyne may be said to be the river of Tara, for it flows almost at the foot of that hill so celebrated in Irish history, legend, and song. CONG ABBEY It is doubtful if there is in Ireland — there certainly is not in the province of Connacht — a more in- teresting ruin than Cong Abbey. Its situation is beautiful, between two great lakes, with a back- ground of some of the wildest and ruggedest mountains in Ireland. It would be hard to con- ceive of a place more suited for a life of re- ligious meditation than this venerable pile, into which he who is called Ireland's last chief king retired to bewail his sins and lament for the power that his own pusillanimity and careless- ness had allowed to pass aw^ay from him and his family for ever. If Roderick O'Connor was the last of Ireland's monarchs, he was also one of her worst. History hardly tells of a good act of his except the endowment of the Abbey of Cong ; and the greater the light is that is thrown on the history of Ireland by the translation of her ancient annals, the weaker and more imbecile the character of Roderick appears, and the more just and merited that which Moore says of him in his history of Ireland : — " The only CONG ABBEY 219 feeling the name [of Roderick] awakens is that of pity for the doomed country which at such a crisis of its fortunes, when honour, safety, inde- pendence, and national existence were all at stake, was cursed for the crowning of its evil destiny with a ruler and leader so entirely un- worthy of his high calling." If the Anglo-French invasion of Ireland had occurred in the reign of his brave and warlike father, Turloch, one of the greatest of those who claimed the chief sover- eignty of Ireland, the invaders would almost certainly have been all killed within a month after they landed, and the subsequent history of Ireland would probably be very different from what it has been. Irish annals tell us that the first religious establishment in Cong was founded by St Fechin in the year 624; but John O'Donovan says in a note in his translation of the Four Masters that Roderick O'Connor founded and endowed the Abbey of Cong. That a religious house of some kind was founded in it by St Fechin there can be no doubt at all, for up to a recent period it was known as Cunga Fechin, or Cong of Fechin. O'Donovan may have meant that Roderick O'Connor endowed and founded the abbey, the remains of which 2 20 CONG ABBEY exist at present, for not a vestige of the original building founded by St Fechin remains. It was, like most of the very early churches and religious houses of ancient Ireland, built entirely of wood, and has consequently long ago disappeared. Cong was originally a bishopric. There were five bishoprics in the province of Connacht — namely, Tuam, Killala, Clonfert, Ardcharne, and Cong. The Synod that settled the question of the bishoprics of Connacht met at Rathbrassil, in what is now the Queen's County, in 1010. The abbey, the remains of which still exist, was founded in 1128 by the Augustinians, during the reign of Roderick O'Connor's heroic father, Turloch. Roderick subsequently endowed it, and ended his days in it. It is an interesting and suggestive fact that most of the great religious establishments of Ireland were not only founded but built in the material that now remains of them before the Anglo-French invasion, showing clearly that that event put a stop to almost everything that could be called progress. The invaders, although professing the same faith as the invaded, were much more anxious to build castles than churches. There was hardly a castle in Ireland before the time of Strongbow. This was not caused by ignorance of the art of building CONG ABBEY 221 among the Irish, for some of the round towers and churches erected long before the time of Strongbow are as perfect specimens of architec- ture as were erected in any country at the same period. The native Irish king, or chief, was contented with a wooden house surrounded by an embankment, capped with a palisade of wood ; but the Norman raised mighty edifices of stone to protect him from the wrath of those he had robbed. Cong Abbey is a large building nearly 150 feet in length. Few of the ancient churches of Ireland are any longer, and many of them are not nearly so long. It would be a mistake to say that the ruins at Cong are in a good state of preservation, for traces of violence and vandalism are apparent almost everywhere on them. The whole place has a terribly dilapidated look. It has been said that only for ivy and the Guinnesses the Abbey of Cong would have tumbled down long ago. It is true that ivy has prevented great masses of masonry from falling ; and it is true that the late Sir Benjamin Guinness did a good deal of mending on the old walls. But it was before his time, when religious intolerance was worse than it is at present, that Cong Abbey was mutilated and defaced. It is sad to know 22 2 CONG ABBEY that there is hardly an old religious edifice in Ireland that has not suffered from sectarian animosity. The ruins of Mellifont, near Drogheda, have been torn up from their foundations, so that hardly a trace of that once magnificent abbey now remains except the crypts and the vast walls and fosses by which it was surrounded. Ruthless vandals tried their best with sledges and hammers to overthrow the great cross of Monasterboice in Louth, but the stone of which it consists was too hard for them, for they only succeeded in mutilating what they could not destroy. In its present dilapidated condition it is hardly possible to form a correct idea of what Cong Abbey was in the days of its splendour. It is almost impossible, also, to form an exact idea of its general plan, for many comparatively modern additions have evidently been made to it. Its having been used as a burying place within recent times has, as the same thing has done at Clonmacnois, sadly interfered with its pictur- esqueness. But, as at Mellifont, ''enough of its glory remains" to show that it must have been a building of exquisite beaut}^ Some of its floral capitals carved on limestone are as fine specimens of the carver's art as can be found anywhere in the world. Both Sir William Wilde CONG ABBEY 223 and Doctor Petrie agree in this. There was probably no abbey in Ireland that contained more beautiful specimens of the carver's art than Cong. Vast numbers of its sculptured stones have been defaced by vandalism or carried away to build walls or out-houses. It is not easy to know what was the exact extent of the gardens or mensal grounds of the abbey, for the walls that enclosed them cannot be fullv traced, and are not intact like the walls around the Abbey of Boyle in the County Roscommon. The Abbey of Cong seems to have been the great depository for the precious things of the province of Connacht. The Order of Augustinians, to whom it belonged, was very rich, and had vast possessions in the province, and it would seem that no abbey in it was as rich as that of Cong. In it were kept deeds, books, records, and many other precious things, all of which have disaj)peared save the marvel- lously beautiful cross now to be seen in the Dublin Museum, and which artists and connois- seurs have pronounced to be "the finest piece of metal work of its age to be found in Europe." It is known from the Gaelic inscription on the Cross of Cong that it was made in Roscommon, for the name of the maker is identified with that town. The fact of such a 224 CONG ABBEY priceless relic and such a gein of art having been kept in the Abbey of Cong shows that it was considered to be the most important and most secure place in the province. The Cross of Cong was supposed to be formed from part of the real cross. The Irish inscription on it is perfectly legible, and can be easily understood by any one who know^s the modern language. The name of the maker is on it, and also that of Turloch O'Connor, who claimed to be chief King of Ireland, and for whom it was made in the year 1123. The Abbey of Cong was never plundered by the Danes ; if it was, no record of its having been plundered is to be found in the Annals of the Four Masters, or in the Annals of Loch Key. This fact of Cong not having suffered from the Danes would seem to show that it did not contain much wealth during the ninth and tenth centuries, when the maraudings of the Norsemen were at their worst. If the Abbey of Cong was worth plundering, it is hard to conceive how it could have been spared by them. It is probable that the church founded there by St Fechin was very small, and that the establishment became important only when the O'Connor family rose to prominence in the province, for it was richly CROSS OF CONG. P CONG ABBEY 227 endowed by Turloch and by Roderick O'Connor, both of whom claimed to be chief kings of Ireland. None of onr ancient seats of piety and learning will repay a visit better than Cong. In it and around it there is a great deal to interest the antiquarian, the tourist, and the lover of Nature. The neck of land that lies between Loch Corrib and Loch Mask is one of the most curious, varied, and beautiful spots in Ireland. It has rushing, limpid rivers above, and boiling, roaring ones below. The whole country in the vicinity of Cong seems to be honeycombed by subterranean waters. There is probably as much running water underground and overground in the narrow strip of country between Loch Corrib and Loch Mask as would turn all the grist mills in Ireland, but unfortunately there is hardly a wheel moved by it. There is much in the vicinity of Cong, outside of its glorious old abbey, to interest both the antiquarian and the tourist. It was close to it that the greatest battle history records as having been fought on Irish soil took place — namely, that of Moy Tuireadh, between the Firbolgs and the Tuatha de Danaans, a full account of which will be found in Sir William Wilde's charminir 2 28 CONG ABBEY book "Locli Corrib," which should be read by every one who desires to visit Cong or its vicinity. Cong is very nearly on the road to Connemara, which, \^dth the exception of parts of Donegal, is the wildest, most savage, and most extra- ordinary part of Ireland. Those who want to see all the wildness of Connemara, its chaotic mountains, its innumerable lakes, far-entering bays, and illimitable bogs, should drive from Cong, or from Oughterard to Clifden, and go fi-om there to Galway by rail. Whoever travels that route will see some of the most charming as well as some of the most terrific scenery in Ireland. He wiU see more lakes than can be found on an area of equal size in any part of the known world. If the visit is made when the heath is in full bloom, he will have such a world of flowers to feast his eyes on as can hardly be seen anywhere else, not even in Ireland. Loch Corrib, at the head of which Cong is situated, is one of the great lakes of Ireland. The traveller going to Cong sails up it from Galway. There is not very much of antiquarian interest on its shores or on its islands, save the ruins of Caisledn na Ceirce, or the Hen's Castle. They are on a promontory on the lake. It is CONG ABBEY 229 not a very old building, being probably of the fourteenth century, and was built, it is supposed, by one of the O'Flaherties. There are the ruins of what antiquarians think are those of one of the oldest churches ever erected in Ireland, on the bleak island of Incha-goile. There are also the ruins of another church on the same island ; but judging from the extremely archaic architecture of the one first mentioned, it must be many centuries older than the other. Both churches must have been very small. But although the lower part of Loch Corrib cannot boast of much scenic beauty, its upper part is magnificent. It thrusts its sinuous arms up into the wildest recesses of the Joyce Country, and among mountains of fantastic forms. The Joyce Country, Dnthaigh Sheoghach in Gaelic, has ever been remarkable for the gigantic size of its men. There have been scores of Joyces who were from six feet four to six feet six in height, and stout in proportion. There are still some of its men of immense size. It is said that not so very long ago a giant Joyce was going home from a fair or market, and that a faction of ten men who were not on perfectly friendly terms with him, followed him to beat or perhaps kill him. Joyce had no weapons or means of defence of 230 CONG ABBEY any kind, so he unyoked the horse from the cart or dray on which he was riding, tore it to pieces, armed himself with one of its shafts as a ^^ shillelagh," and awaited his enemies; but they seem not to have liked being hit with the shaft of a cart and retreated. Those who like can believe or not believe this story. It is given as the writer heard it from a very respectable gentle- man who knew Joyce. LOCH DERG This is another of the great lakes of Ireland. It is over twenty miles long and between two and three miles in average breadth. It is really curious that a small island like Ireland should have so many immense lakes in it. There is, probably, no other country in the world of the same size — there is certainly no island of the same size — on which so much fresh water is to be found. It would seem as if nature intended Ireland for a continent, and not for an island, by giving it lakes so entirely disproportioned to its size. Loch Derg, anciently called Deirgdheirc, and at present pronounced Dharrig by the peasantry, would be the most beautiful of all the great lakes of Ireland if its islands were as numerous as those of Loch Erne, or even of Loch Ree. It has the defect that almost all lakes have w^hose shores are mountainous or hilly. Want of islands is the great drawback to the pictur- esqueness of most of the Scotch lakes and those of the north of England. A few islands do not add much to the beauty of a lake. There must 232 LOCH DERG be plenty of them to produce full effect. The few islands in Loch Lomond, because they are so few, hardly add to its beauty. The islands in Loch Derg are very few, and the most pic- turesque of them are so near the shore that they seem part of it to the voyager on the lake. There is one very large island, Illaunmore — the great island, as its name signifies — but it does not add very much to the scenic attractions. The charms of Loch Derg are its semi-mountainous shores. It would be incorrect to call the bold hills on either side of the lake mountains, for very few of them reach an altitude of more than a thousand feet ; but they are most grace- ful in their outlines, and are, for the most part, covered with luxuriant grass up to their very summits. The lake is by no means straight ; its shores are tortuous and full of indentations, so that there is a good deal of change of scene when sailing on it. But if the tourist or traveller who Avishes to sail on Loch Derg is not what is usually called a ^'good sailor," he should con- sult the barometer before he goes on to this great lake, for sometimes, when the south-west wind sweeps up its twenty or twenty-five miles of water, a sea almost worthy of the Channel will sometimes rise in a very short time. Many a LOCH DERG 233 sea-sick passenger used to be seen in the good times long ago on Loch Derg, when large side- wheel passenger boats used to run regularly between Athlone and Killaloe. Those boats were large enough to carry over a hundred passengers without being in the least crowded, and the cabins were large enough to accommodate fifty people at dinner. A trip from Athlone to Killaloe on a fast boat would, on a fine summer day, be one of the most enjoyable things in the way of an excursion by water that can be imagined. It is over thirty years since the writer experienced the pleasure of it, and the remembrance of its enjoyableness haunts him still. The shores of Loch Derg are much wilder than the shores of Loch Erne or Loch Ree. Very few houses, and nothing that could be called a to^\ai, can be seen through the whole twenty-five miles of the lake. The hills that bound it both on the Munster and on the Connacht sides are almost altogether grass land, and very little cultivation is therefore to be seen. But the bold, winding shores and the green hills form a landscape of a very striking kind, and there are many who maintain that the scenery of Loch Derg is finer than that of Loch Ree. Both lakes are magnificent sheets of water, and environed with a fair and goodly country ; 234 LOCH DERG and were they anywhere else bnt in Ireland, their waters would be the highway for dozens of steamers, while at present they are almost deserted, and may be said to be " As lone and silent As the great waters of some desert land." Loch Derg is full of interest for the anti- quai'ian, especially its lower part. One of the most ancient and important ecclesiastical establishments of ancient Ireland, Iniscealtra, the island of the churches, is on its western shore, close to the land, separated from it only by about a quarter of a mile of water. Iniscealtra was one of the most important places of its kind in the south of Ireland. It was founded by St Cainin certainly not later than the end of the sixth or beginning of the seventh century, for he died in 653. John O'Donovan in his unpublished letters says that he is represented in ancient Irish literature as " A very holy man, a despiser of the world, and an inexorable chastiser of the flesh. He is said to have been author of commentaries on the Psalms. He was buried in Iniscealtra." There is a fine round tower in Iniscealtra which is traditionally supposed to have been built by St Senanus. It is eighty feet in height, and in fairly good preservation, but it wants the top. The ruins of St Cainin's LOCH DERG 235 Church show it to have been a small building. There are the ruins of two other churches on the island, one called St Mary's and the other St Michael's. The establishments on Iniscealtra are of very great antiquity. It is first mentioned in the Annals of the Four Masters under the year 548, recording the death of St Colam in the island. The oldest church in it was dedicated to St Cainin, who was evidently the founder of the place, and the first who sought it as a retreat. He is said to have lived for a long time in a solitary cell, until the fame for holiness he acquired brought an immense number of disciples, for whom he erected a noble monastery in the island, which afterwards became famous. The ruins of St Cainin's Church prove that it must have been a very beautiful building. It was thought by Petrie and other antiquarians that it and the very beautiful one of Killaloe were erected during the short time in the tenth and eleventh centuries when Brian Boramha and Malachy the Second, by their vic- tories over the Danes, gave the country some rest from the plunderings of those marauders. At the extreme lower end of Loch Derg is the small but ancient town of Killaloe. Its real name is Cill Dalua, it was called after an ecclesiastic of the name of Dalua, sometimes written Malua, who 236 LOCH DERG lived ill the sixth century. He placed his disciple, Flannaii, over the church. He was made Bishop of Killaloe in the seventh century. The church is known generally as St Flannan's. The Earl of Dunraven, speaking of the beauty of the ruins of this church and the buildings attached to it, says, '^ These ancient buildings are on a wooded hill which slopes in a gentle incline down to the brink of the Shannon. The cathedral and small stone- roofed church stand side by side, and the walls of the latter are thickly covered with ivy. Nothing can be more impressive than the aspect of this venerable and simple building, surrounded by majestic trees, and hidden in deep shadows of thick foliage. A solemn mystery seems to envelop its ancient walls, and the silence is only broken by the sound of the river that rolls its great volume of water along the base of the hill on which it stands." But the most historic and probably the most interesting thing about Killaloe is the site of King Brian's palace of Kincora, a place so famed in history and song. Perhaps it will be better to let such a famous man on Irish history and archeology as O'Donovan tell about Kincora. He says in his unpublished letters while on the Ordnance Survey : "On the summit of the hill opposite the bridge of LOCH DERG 237 Killaloe stood Brian Boramlia's palace of Kincora, but not a trace of it is now visible. It must have extended from the verge of the hill over the Shannon, to where the present Roman Catholic chapel stands. I fear that it will be impracticable to show its site on the Ordnance map, as no field works are visible. Of the history of the palace of Kincora little or nothing is known, but from the few references to it we occasionally find, we may safely infer that it was first erected by Brian, Imperator Scottorum, and that it was not more than two centuries inhabited by his successors. Kincora was demolished in 1088 by Donnell MacLachlin, king of Aileach (Ulster), and we are told that he took 160 hostages consisting of Danes and Irish." Kincora must have been rebuilt after it was demolished by MacLachlin, for we are told in the Annals of the Four Masters that in 1107 Kincora and Casliel were burned by lightning, and sixty vats of metheglin and beer were destroyed; but it must have been again rebuilt, for the same annals say that in 1118 Turloch O'Connor (King of Connacht), at the head of a great army of Connacht- men, burned Kincora and hurled it, both stones and timber, into the Shannon. Kincora was, like all dwelling-places in those times, built almost entirely of wood ; and it is haidly to be wondered 238 LOCH DERG at that after having been burned so often by man and by the elements, no vestige of it should remain. It has been completely wiped out. A description of Kincora would hardly be com- plete without giving MacLiag's Lament for it, trans- lated by Clarence Mongan. MacLiag was chief poet and secretary to Brian Boramha. The poem is little known even in Ireland; to the English reader it will be absolutely new. The writer gives two prime reasons for reproducing it ; one, because it is such a very fine poem ; and the other, because it has heretofore never been correctly given. MacLiag's Laivient for Kincora. " Where, oh Kincora, is Brian the Great 1 And where is the beauty that once was thine ? Oh where are the princes and nobles that sate At the feasts in thy halls and drank the red wine, Where, oh Kincora ? " Where, oh Kincora, are thy valorous lords. Oh whither, thou Hospitable, are they gone 1 Oh where the Dalcassians of cleaving swords, And where are the heroes that Brian led on. Where, oh Kincora ? " And where is Morough, descendant of kings, Defeater of hundreds, the daringly brave, Who set but light store on jewels and rings. Who swam down the torrent and laughed at the wave, Where, oh Kincora ? LOCH DERG 239 " And where is Donagh, King Brian's brave son, And where is Conaing, the beautiful chief, And Cian and Core ? alas, they are gone ! They have left me this night all alone in my grief, Alone, oh Kincora ! " And where are the chiefs with whom Brian went forth, The ne'er vanquished sons of Evin the Brave, The great King of Eogh'nacht,"^ renowned for his worth. And Baskin's great host from the western wave. Where, oh Kincora ? " And where is Duvlann of the swift-footed steeds, And where is Cian who was son of Molloy, And where is King Lonergan, the fame of whose deeds In the red battle-held, no time can destroy ? Where, oh Kincora ? " And where is the youth of majestic height. The faith-keeping prince of the Scotts 1 1 even he, As wide as his fame was, as great as his might. Was tributary, oh Kincora, to thee, To thee, oh Kincora ! * The Eoghanachts were the posterity of Eoghan Mor, King of Munster in the third century. Eoghanacht meant a people of Munster, descendants of Eoghan ; and Connacht, the descendants of Conn, — usually kno\\Ti ■ as Conn of the Hundred Battles, most of which were fought against Eoghan. t Prince of Scotts ; this was evidently the great Steward, or mor niaor of Lennox, who aided the Irish at the battle of Clontarf, and was killed there. 240 LOCH DERG " They are gone, those heroes of royal birth, Who plundered no churches and broke no trust 'Tis weary for me to be living on earth When they, oh Kincora, lie low in the dust. Low, oh Kincora ! " Oh never again will princes appear To rival Dalcassians of cleaving swords ! I can ne'er dream of meeting afar or near. In the east or the west, such heroes and lords. Never, Kincora ! " Oh dear are the images mem'ry calls up Of Brian Boru,* how he never would miss To give me at banquet the first bright cup, — Oh, why did he heap on me honour like this, Why, oh Kincora 1 " I am MacLiag, and my home's on the lake ; And oft to that jDalace whose beauty has fled Came Brian to ask me, — I went for his sake ; — Oh my grief ! that I live when Brian is dead ! Dead, oh Kincora ! " So far the demolished palace of Brian, and the writer, like Brian himself, ^^ returns to Kincora no more." No lover of the beauties of nature should be on this part of the Shannon and not visit the great rapids of Doonass. They are only about ten miles * This is an incorrect form of the word. It is Boramha in the most correct ancient manuscripts, and is a word of three syllables— Borava. It means "of the tribute." LOCH DERG 241 below Killaloe. If seen when the river is full they are the grandest thing of their kind in the British Isles. The Shannon here looks like a continental river, containing ordinarily a volume of water greater than any river in France. The country round Doonass, though flat, is superlatively beautiful. The limpid, rushing river flows on among meadows and pastures of the brightest verdure, adorned with stately trees, and bright in summer-time with innumerable flowers. There is nothing terrible or awe-inspiring about Doonass. It is quiet and peacefid in the true sense of the word. Even the great rushing river, as it glides down the gentle slope of the rapids, makes no noise except a deep, musical murmur that would lull to sleep rather than startle. The rapids of Doonass fonn a scene so incomparably lovely, and so unlike anything to be seen in Great Britain, or to be seen in any other part of Ireland, that it is a wonder they are not better known. They can be reached best from Limerick, being not over three miles from that city. One of the most curious things about those grand and beautiful rapids, is the almost total ignorance which exists about them, not only in Great Britain, but in Ireland itself. If they were situated on a wild, hard-to- be-got-at part of the Shannon, the general ignor- 242 LOCH DERG ance that exists about them among seekers after the beautiful, would not excite so much wonder. A scene of such great beauty and uniqueness, so near a fine and interesting city like Limerick, to be so little known to those who go so far in search of the beautiful, shows how much the w^orld at large, and even the Irish themselves, have to learn about Ireland. If the rapids of Doonass were in England, or even in the United States, there would be not only one, but perhaps three or four hotels on their banks, — hotels which would be full of guests every summer. Let us hope that the beauties of this charming place will be soon better known. HOLYCEOSS ABBEY The situation of this abbey, like most places of its kind in Ireland, is very beautiful — on the banks of the gentle-flowing Suir, and surrounded by a fine fertile country. Holycross is thought to have been, with the exception of Mellifont, the largest of the ancient churches of Ireland. There is some doubt as to the exact time of its foundation — some authorities say the year 1182, and others 1208. The probability is that both dates may, in a cer- tain sense, be correct. It may have been begun to be built in 1182, and may not have been finished before 1208. Although founded after the Anglo-French invasion, it was a purely Irish institution, for all authorities say that it was founded by Donagh Cairbreach O'Brian, King of Munster, and that it was founded on account of his having obtained what was believed to be a piece of the cross on which Christ suffered. It is called in Irish annals Mainister na croiche naoimhe, or Monastery of the Holy Cross. This relic is said, on good authority, to be at present in the keeping of the nuns of the Presentation Order 244 HOLYCROSS ABBEY iit Black Rock, near Cork. O'Briaii, the founder of tlie Church, endowed it with a great tract of land, so that it was for many centuries one of the most important places of its kind, not only in the province of Munster, but in Ireland. Holvcross is two miles from the neat and thriv- gmm l^^fl^MltA. i^ ^"^ ^M^EW^^^^^^^H^ m^ p^Sffc ^ i«^^^ ,>,^''^> ,'-' -^^^^^jHHMBiljHifaBB '^^^H^I^^B' '■'-— ^^-"*-^^-'*^i m^^^fa^^x „--v.^-^i^jggp^--f>^i^ J ■ .,.:3gWife--?;d HOLYCROSS ABBEY. ing town of Thurles, in the County Tipperary. Un- like so many ruined shrines of former days, and especially unlike Mellifont in the County Louth, most of the walls of Holycross still remain. The existing ruins show it to have been a large church. Its length is 130 feet ; the nave is 58 by 49 feet. HOLYCROSS ABBEY 245 The entire ruins are very beautiful and impressive, and their situation on the banks of the Suir, amid as fine pastoral scenery as can be found in the fine county of Tipperary, make them well worth a visit. Holycross was founded for the Cistercian order, and remained in undamaged condition until the suppression of monasteries in the latter part of the seventeenth century. It appears that it lost its distinctively Irish character soon after English domination became established in Ireland, for in 1267 it was subjected by the abbot of Clairveaux to the abbey of Furness in England. It is the opinion of many antiquarians and judges of ecclesi- astical structures that many additions and altera- tions were made to and in the abbey, and some of them in comparatively recent times. Some judges of church architecture have been loud in their praise of the beauties of the ruins of Holycross, while others have expressed their disappointment. Here is the testimony of O'Donovan, one of the greatest of Irish antiquarians, on the subject: "The ruins of this abbey entirely disappointed my ex- pectations. The architecture of the choir and side chapel is indeed truly beautiful, but they are not lofty, but the nave and side aisles are contemptible. I am certain, however, that this newer part of the abbey is not more than four centuries old." 246 HOLYCROSS ABBEY The sepulchral monument that was erected to the memory of Elizabeth, daughter of Gerald, Earl of Kildare, who died about the year 1400, is considered one of the most chaste, remarkable, and beautiful things of its kind in Ireland. If nothing remained of Holycross but this remark- able monument, it would be well worth a visit. There is not so much historical interest con- nected with Holycross as there is with smaller establishments of its kind throughout Ireland. It was founded too late to be plundered by the Danes, and in all the troublesome times between its foundation and the time when it was aban- doned, it does not seem to have been plundered or burned, neither do the vandals seem to have damaged or defaced it much. It is a beautiful and impressive ruin that will for a long time to come attract the notice of lovers of the abandoned fanes that are to be found in almost every parish of Ireland — the land that is richer in ruins than perhaps any other country in the world, Egypt alone excepted. DUNLUCE CASTLE If Cash el is the most remarkable ecclesiastical ruin in Ireland owing to its situation, Dunluce Castle is, for the same reason, the most remarkable military one. Cashel has, however, the advan- tage of being remarkable from whatever side it is looked at; but Dunluce is remarkable only when seen from the sea, or from the strand from which the rock the ruins rest on rises. From the road that goes along the shore, Dunluce looks absolutely disappointing, because the road is as high, apparently somewhat higher, than the castle itself. But seen from a boat on the sea under it, or from the base of the cliffs on wdiich the road to it runs, it forms the grandest and most im- posing sight of a Viking's ruined stronghold that is to be seen anywhere in Europe. The rock on which the ruins stand rises sheer from the sea to the height of over a hundred feet. Before the castle was built on it, the rock was completely isolated, and must have been an island, standing about thirty feet from the mainland. Across the profound gulf that separated the rock from 248 DUNLUCE CASTLE the land, a mighty bridge of solid masonry has been erected, over which all who enter the castle must pass. This bridge is only about twenty inches wide, and few, except masons, or those who are accustomed to ascend heights, would care to cross it, for there is not, or at least there was not in DUNLUCE CASTLE. 1873, a rope, railing, or protection of any kind for those who wanted to visit the ruins of the castle. No one but such as have steady nerves and good heads should think of crossing this bridge, for a fall from it would mean certain death on the jagged rocks more than a hundred feet below. DUNLUCE CASTLE 249 The first thing that strikes one after examining the ruins is the unusual thinness of the walls. They are no thicker than those of a modern stone- built house. The reason of this is easily under- stood ; for when the castle was built, which must have been before cannons were so perfected that they could be used for battering down buildings, it was absolutely impregnable, as no battering- ram, or mediaeval siege-engine, could by any pos- sibility approach near enough to the walls to be used against them. There was, therefore, no neces- sity that the walls should be thick. The space on the top of the rock is entirely covered with the ruins of the castle. The walls rise up sheer from the most outward margins of the rock. On look- ing out from one of the narrow windows the sea is straight below one. When the castle was in- habited its inmates must have had an awful experi- ence during the storms that so often sweep over the wild west and north coast of Ireland, when the giant waves of the stormiest ocean in the world beat against the rock on which the ruins stand. If such a place was secure against the assaults of men, it was not secure against the fury of the elements ; and it would seem that some of the cliff did at one time give way, for there are some gaps in the walls that appear to have been caused 25o DUNLUCE CASTLE by rock, upon which they were built, having given way. The Giant's Causeway and Dunseverick Castle are both in the immediate vicinity of Dunluce, only a few miles west of it ; both are well worth seeing; but nothing on all that magnificent, iron- bound, clifF-guarded coast of Antrim can compare in interest with Dunluce. The isolated, almost sea-surrounded rock on which it stands, the great bridge that connects it with the mainland, the narrow and dangerous footpath overlooking hor- rible depths, and over which the castle can only be entered, make it one of the grandest and most suggestive ruins in the world. Dunluce is a revela- tion. It shows, perched on its storm-beaten, once impregnable rock, the awful savagery of the time when might was the only law recognised by humanity; and that only a few centuries ago life and property were no safer in Christendom than they are to-day in the Soudan. The name Dunluce is a combination of the two most generally used Irish words to express a mili- tary stronghold dun and lios, and may be trans- lated ^^ strong fort " ; and strong it must have been in olden times, when cannons were either unknown altogether, or principally remarkable for the noise they made, and the greater danger they DUNLUCE CASTLE 251 were to those who used them than to those they were used against. The name of this place is spelled Dunlis or Dunllos in ancient annals. The earliest mention of it by the Four Masters, and in the "Annals of Loch Key," is under the year 1513. It does not appear to be mentioned in any of the other Irish annals, unless it is mentioned in the " Annals of Ulster " ; but as they have been as yet translated only down to the year 13/5, the question cannot be yet decided. It is remarkable that so little is known about the early history of such a remarkable place as Dunluce Castle, x^o trustworthy statement as to when and by whom it was built has, so far, come to light. It was in the possession of the Mac Quillins, spelled Mac Uldhlin by the Four Masters, in 1513. It then, by conquest or in some other way, passed into the hands of Sorley Boy, one of the Scotch McDonnells, who kept it until 1584, when it was besieged and taken by Sir John Perrott, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. Fifty thousand cows, and all his land in Antrim County, of which he had an immense quantity, were taken from Sorley Boy. But he repaired to Dublin, made his submission to Queen Elizabeth, and was reinstated in his posses- sions in Antrim, but we are not told if he got back his cows. Dunluce seems to have become a ruin 252 DUNLUCE CASTLE early in the seventeenth century, and is becoming more ruined every day, for it is not in the nature of things that the sea is not gradually undermining and weakening the rock on which the ruins stand, exposed as it is to the wrath of the stormiest ocean probably in the world. It is said that long before Dunluce was abandoned, the kitchen and its staff of cooks were swallowed up on a night of a fearfid gale of wind. This could only have hap- pened by part of the rock foundations of the castle having been washed away by the sea. The gap in one part of the walls would seem to indicate that some such catastrophe did occur. Dunluce must have been built before the inven- tion of what is now known as artillery. It is not possible to tell by the style of its architecture in what century it was built, for there was practi- cally no change in the architecture of Irish castles for nearly four centuries. The art of castle-build- ing was just as well understood in the twelfth century as in the fourteenth. Those who pretend to be able to tell within a century of the time when a castle was built, by examining its masonry and architecture, draw greatly on their imaginations. If Dunluce was built after artillery had become so perfected that castles could be destroyed by it at half a mile, or even a quarter of a mile distant. DUNLUCE CASTLE 253 those who built Diinliice were fools, for guns could be brought within fifty yards of it. If it was built to resist artillery, the walls would have been made three times as thick as they are. It was evidently built before artillery began to be used for battering down walls. It must, therefore, have been built before the year 1400, for even at that early date the principal use that was made of artillery was for battering down walls. Half a dozen shots from the very rude and imperfect artillery of the date mentioned would have made a heap of ruins of the thin walls of Dunluce Castle. BOYLE ABBEY There are very few of the once great abbeys of Ireland of which so little is generally known to the public as of Boyle Abbey. One reason of this may be the remoteness of its situation, and its invisible- ness from the town of Boyle. It is not on the track of tourists, and is in a rather uninteresting part of the country in a scenic point of view. Besides, the Abbey is not in the town of Boyle, but over quarter of a mile from it, on a road not so much frequented as some others in the locality. It is a wonder that more is not known about this noble ruin. It may not be so interesting in its architecture as Holycross, or so striking in its situation as Cashel, but it is, nevertheless, one of the finest ecclesiastical ruins in Ireland. If the country round Boyle Abbey cannot be said to be very interesting or beautiful, the place where the ruins stand is charming. They rise from the banks of the Boyle river, the first large tributary of the Shannon. The river rushes under the very walls of the monastery with a rapid current, and at its highest flood it is generally as clear as crystal, 254 BOYLE ABBEY 255 for it rises in, or at least flows through, Loch Ui Gara, which is only a few miles from Boyle, and its waters are filtered in that lake before they reach Boyle. And here it may not be out of place to say that the generally clear waters of most of the rivers of Ireland add greatly to the beauty of its scenery. Scotch rivers are also generally clear. BOYLE ABBEY. and the reason they are clear is the reason why the Irish rivers are clear, and that is, because they are filtered in the lakes through which they gener- ally flow. A limpid river is one of the most beautiful things in nature, but a river of dirty water would not be beautiful if it flowed through 256 BOYLE ABBEY the Garden of Eden. Almost all rivers that are not filtered by passing through lakes are sure to be dirty. For this reason the St Lawrence may be said to be the only one of the great American rivers the waters of which are clear. To know what an abomination a river of dirty water is, one should see the Missouri. The river that rushes past the ruins of Boyle Monastery is not only clear but limpid. Its pure, rushing waters are one of the principal attractions in the vicinity of the ruins. The ruins of Boyle Abbey are very fine. The monastery was a large one, one of the largest in Ireland, and was surrounded on almost every side with extensive gardens. The walls of many of those gardens still remain, and seem as sound as they were when first built. The ruins of the Monastery, and the ruins of its adjoining buildings, are covered with the most luxuriant growth of ivy to be seen on any ruins in Ireland. The thickness of its stems, and the size and deep green of its leaves, are remarkable. This extraordinary growth of ivy must eventually tumble down the walls. It may preserve them for a time, but will destroy them in the long run. But without its ivy and its limpid river, the ruined Monastery of Boyle, grand and interesting as it is, would lose a great deal of its attractions. BOYLE ABBEY 257 The ruins of the great church of Boyle, like the ruins of Cashel, and like the historic hill of Tara, have been spoiled by the erection of modern build- ings near them. Some parson has erected here a new, intensely vulgar gimcrack house that almost touches the hoary ruins, it is so close to them. It entirely spoils their effect, and would disgust any one with any veneration for the past. In no other country, perhaps, in the world has the want of respect for the antique been more manifest among the masses than in Ireland. In no other country have so many monuments of the past been more wantonly destroyed, more defaced, and less re- spected. If it had not been for the care exercised by the Board of Works, during the last thirty years, most of the ruins of Ireland would now be either entirely uprooted, or so marred, like the Rock of Cashel, or the ^lonastery of Boyle, by the erection of new buildings in their vicinity, that they would have little attraction for any one in whose soul there remained the slightest reverence for the past. There are, however, unmistakable signs that more patriotic and enlightened ideas about their country, and everything relating to it, are rapidly gaining ground among all classes of the Irish people, but especially among the more educated. Irish history, Irish antiquities, and even the Irish language get B 258 BOYLE ABBEY more of the attention of the upper and middle classes in Ireland now than they ever got before. It seems almost a certainty that the ancient monument-defacing epoch has passed, or is rapidly passing away from a country to which it has been a disgrace so long. It is not enough that the Board of Works should continue to do the good work it has been doing for the last quarter of a century in the preservation of our ruins, it should prevent such outrageous bad taste as the erection of new buildings in the very centre of time- honoured monuments like those on the Rock of Cashel and on the Boyle river. The ancient name of Boyle was AtJi dd laarg, that is, the "ford of two forks." It is not easy to understand why such a curious name should have been given to it, for the river at Boyle, even in time of floods, is fordable, and has usually not over six or eight inches of water in it. It has, however, been proved that the rivers of Ireland, and prob- ably of most other countries, had much more water in them in ancient times than at present. The other name for Boyle was Buil, whence Boyle. The word Buil is entirely obsolete. It is supposed to mean handsome or beautiful. The Monastery, of which the ruins exist, was founded in 1161 by Maurice O'DufFy, a noted ecclesiastic of the BOYLE ABBEY 259 period, but it is knowii that a smaller and more ancient monastery occupied the site on which the larger one was built at the date mentioned. Boyle Abbey was an offshoot of the great Abbey of Mellifont in the County Louth, that had been founded some twenty years before the Abbey of Boyle. Both abbeys belonged to the Cistercian order; and it would appear that so many monks flocked to Mellifont that accommodation could not be made for them all there, so the Abbey of Boyle was erected for them. The " Annals of Boyle," known also as the ^'Annals of Loch Ce, or Key," say that the Church of Boyle was con- secrated in 12*20; but that the church was built in 1161 there seems no reason to doubt. The Four Masters mention it under the year 11/4. Their last mention of it is under the year 1602, and it must have been abandoned very soon after. It was granted to Sir John King in 1603, when it must have ceased to be a monastery. Xo one should visit Boyle and its grand ruins and not see the two very beautiful lakes that are near it. Loch Key and Loch Arrow. Loch Key is not over a mile from the town, and Loch Arrow not more than three. The very fine domain of Rockingham may be said to be almost sur- 26o BOYLE ABBEY rounded by Loch Key. It was on an island in this hike that the McDennotts, chieftains of ]Moyhn-g, had a stronghokL The island has a castle on it at present, bnt, seen from the shore, both island and castle appear very small. The fortress the McDermotts had on the island nuist have been a sort of cranniog, or wooden castle, like so many that have been discovered both in Ireland and Scotland in the tracks of dried-up lakes. Those cranniogs were sometimes built entirely on piles, and sometimes on islands, with extensions on piles if the water was not too deep. This last must have been the kind of fortress the McDermotts had on Loch Key, for it must have been much larger than the present island, and must have been large enough to give space to a multitude of people to assemble on it. We read in the annals of Loch Key of the following awful catastrophe that happened on it in 1184: ''The Rock of Loch Key was burned by lightning — i.e., the very magnificent, kingly residence of the Muiutir Maolruanaigh (the McDermotts) where neither goods nor people of all that were there found protection ; where six or seven score of distinguished persons were de- stroyed, along with fifteen men of the race of kingfs and chieftains, with the wife of McDermott BOYLE ABBEY 261 . . . and every one of them who was not bnrnecl was drowned in that tumultuous consternation in the entrance of the place ; so that there escaped not alive therefrom but Connor ^VlcDermott with a very small number of the multitude of his people." The same catastrophe is mentioned by the Four Masters, but under the year 1187. This account of the burning of the castle, or, as the annalist calls it, a residence, shows that it was a wooden structure, for it would hardly have been possible to burn a building of stone so quickly that the people in it would not have had time to escape, even if it were on an island. Loch Arrow is the least kno\\^l of all the beautiful lakes of Ireland, and beautifid it is in very nearly the highest style of beauty. There are no mountains round Loch Arrow, and none to be seen from its waters; but its numberless attractions in the way of wooded islands, bold promontories, and swelling shores render it one of the lovely lakes of Ireland; and yet, few, except those living in its immediate vicinity, know any- thing about it, or have ever heard of it. The land near it seems to be, for the most part, in the hands of small farmers ; and neater or more attractive peasant homesteads cannot be found in any part of Ireland than on the banks of 262 BOYLE ABBEY Loch Arrow. It is not more than four miles from Boyle ; and small as it is, not more than five miles long, and from two to two and a half miles broad, it is a gem of a lake that seems to be forofotten bv the world. THE LAKES OF WESTMEATH The lakes of Westmeath, like Loch Arrow in Sligo, are almost unknown to those who go to Ireland in search of the picturesque. These lakes are, for the greater part, in the centre of the County. Loch Ree is not included in them. There may be said to be only four of them worthy of the attention of those who see something to be admired in a lake besides the excellence of the fish that is in it. Those in search of the beautiful very seldom go to see the lakes of Westmeath. The only people who generally visit them are fishermen, very few of whom would turn round their heads to gaze on the fairest prospect the lakes afforded, for seldom, indeed, do those usually styled sportsmen trouble themselves very much to see the beauties of nature, and they are, unfortunately, about the only class of people who come from afar to visit the lake district of Westmeath. The lakes best worth seeing in Westmeath are Loch Deravarragh, Loch Ouel, Loch Ennel, usually called Belvedere Lake, Loch Iron, and 263 264 THE LAKES OF WESTMEATH Loch Sheelin. The last mentioned lake lies on the borders of four counties — Longford, Cavan, Meath, and Westmeath. It cannot be claimed by the most devoted admirer of the Westmeath lakes that there is very much historic in- terest attached to any of them. It would be hardly possible to find a square mile of Irish soil wholly devoid of historic interest; but while it may truly be said that there is no country in Europe, not excepting even Greece, where so many places of historic interest are to be found as in Ireland, some parts of it are richer than others in memorials of the past. From whatever cause it happened is not very clear, but it is a fact that Westmeath is one of the least historic of Irish counties. The hill of Uisneach is its most historic spot. There are, at the same time, some other places of historic interest in it. Its most beautiful lake. Loch Ouel, anciently called Loch Uair, is the one in which Malachy the First disowned Turgesius the Dane. Turgesius seems to have had what Americans would call ^^a high old time" in Ireland for some years — robbing churches and monasteries, and living on the fat of the land ; until the Irish, under Malachy, at length defeated him in battle, took him prisoner, and drowned him in one of the THE LAKES OF WESTMEATH 265 most beautiful lakes iu Irelaud. It seems queer that Malacliy, instead of giving him a grave in such a beautiful sheet of water, did not fling him into a bog hole, and it is a pity that there should not be any really trustworthy authority for the legend according to which it was love for King Malachy's beautiful daughter that was the means of entrapping Turgesius. Keating gives a very interesting account of the capture of the Danish Viking in his History of Ireland ; how Turgesius asked Malachy for his daughter : how Malachy said that the marriage, or rather the liaison should not be made public for fear of giving offence to the Irish ; and how fifteen beardless youths, dressed as girls, conducted Malachy's daughter to the Dane, overpowered his guard, took himself prisoner, and then drowned him. A great deal of romance has been written about this affair, but it remained for the inimitable Sam Lover to write the funniest thing in the way of a poem about it. He said that the tyranny of the Danes was so heavy on the Irish that the clergy ordered them a long time of prayer and fasting to seek Divine aid to rid themselves of their persecutors. But it would appear that the unfortunate Irish had been keeping a compulsory fast for a long time 266 THE LAKES OF WESTMEATH previous, for the Danes had left them nothing to eat. They could not understand being ordered to fast still more, and said to the clergy : — " We can't fast faster than we're fastin' now." The account of the drowning of Turgesius is given with tantalising curtness in the ''Book of Leinster " : " This is the year, a.d. 843, that Turgesius was taken by Maelseachlainn (Malachy). He was then drowned in Loch L^air." * The "Book of Leinster" does not say that Turgesius w^as taken in battle, but those who do not believe Keating's story think he was. If he had been taken in battle and defeated, it must be admitted that it is strange that L'ish annalists did not say so and give particulars of the battle. This omission makes it appear probable that there is some truth in the version of his capture as given by Keating, although it is altogether discredited by those best read in Irish History. Loch Ouel can be seen from the train on the Sligo division of the Great Western Railway. Passing as the glimpse of it is from the train, it is enough to reveal some of the beauties of this fairest of Westmeath lakes. But to see it * Is hi seo bliadain ra gabad Tuirgeis la Maelseachlainn. Ra baided ar sain h^ il Loch Uair. "Book of Leinster," p. 307. THE LAKES OF WESTMEATH 267 properly one should wander by its pebbly shores, for not a yard of them is swampy, or ascend one of the hills of brilliant green that are on all sides of it. Loch Ouel has the great defect of being almost islandless. There are only one or two small ones in it. If it had proportionately as many islands in it as Loch Erne, it would be one of the fairest sheets of water of its size in Ireland. Belvedere Lake is a good deal larger than Loch Ouel, and its shores are better wooded, but part of them, in fact a very large part of them, is boggy. Its banks are adorned with gentlemen's seats, and in spite of the SAvampy shore on one side of it, it is a very beautiful lake. Loch Derravaragh is the most peculiarly-shaped of all the Westmeath lakes. It is shaped some- thing like a tadpole, only that, unlike a tadpole, it is its head that is narrow, and its tail, or lower part, that is wide. It has bolder shores than any other lake in the county, some of the hills near it being almost mountains. It has hardly any islands, and its shores are wilder than any other of the Westmeath lakes. It wants the woods that do so much to adorn the swampy shores of Belvedere Lake ; but comparatively bare as the shores of Loch Derravaragh are, it is a 268 THE LAKES OF WESTMEATH most picturesque lake, and some think it more beautiful than Loch Ouel. Both Loch Derra- varagh and Loch Iron are formed by the river Inny, but it does not, as most rivers do, flow through the lakes it forms and feeds, for it flows out of them within a short distance of where it enters them, and the lakes extend in an opposite direction from where they receive their water. This is rather a strange fact in physical geo- graphy. The next most important of the Westmeath lakes is Loch Sheelin, but as three other counties — Longford, Meath, and Cavan — border it, it cannot be strictly called a Westmeath lake. However, as it is so close to the very picturesque sheets of water which are the chief scenic attractions of the county they adorn, it has been thought best to include it when describing them. Loch Sheelin has only a few islands, but its shores, although low, are very well wooded. Seen from the hills in the vicinity of Oldcastle in Meath, it is as fair a sight as can well be imagined, with its wood-crowned, indented shores. If there are fairer lakes in Ireland than Loch Sheelin, there are few that have a more beautiful name. It is euphony itself. Its name is the original one of Moore's sweet melody, ^' Come, rest in this THE LAKES OF WESTMEATH 269 Bosom." It has often been said, "What's in a name ? " There is a great deal. A name so beautiful as Loch Sheelin would give a certain charm to a bog hole. It must be confessed that Celtic, of all European languages, seems to con- tain the most sonorous place names. Such names as Bassenthwaitewater, Ullswater, Conistonwater, Derwentwater, Thuner See, and Zuger See, sound very tame compared with Loch Lomond, Loch Erne, Loch Awe, Loch Ree, Loch Layn, and Loch Sheelin. There is, however, one continental place- name of wondei-ful beauty of sound, and that is Lorraine. Its German name is Lothringen, but the French, by eliding its consonants, or by what is generally called aspiration in Gaelic grammar, have turned the harsh German name into one of the most euphonious and beautifid in the world. Loch Iron and Loch Lene, pronounced Loch Layne, are small sheets of water, but are well worth a visit, even from those who are neither fishers of fish nor of men. The country all round the Westmeath lakes is as beautiful as it is possible for any country to be in which there are neither mountains nor waterfalls. It is never flat, and never uninteresting, covered almost ever- lastingly with verdure, for although most of the county is hilly, it is one of the most fertile in 270 THE LAKES OF WESTMEATH Ireland. Its still, clear lakes, undulating surface, and rich soil, make it, even in the absence of mountains (and, unfortunately, in the absence of good hotels in its small towns and villages), one of the most picturesque of the counties of Leinster. KELLS OF MEATH Kells, the ancient name of which was Ceannanus, and the one by which it is still known in Irish, is one of the most ancient towns in Ireland. Ac- cording to Irish annalists it was fonnded by an over-king called Fiacha, 1203 years B.C. If its situation and environs are of no great beauty, it is yet a place of great historic interest. It can boast of the possession of one of the finest round towers in Ireland, a very ancient cross, and a still more ancient stone-roofed church. If there are no mountains or romantic scenery round Kells, it has the advantage of being situated in the midst of the most generally fertile of Irish counties. It is on the river Black water, a .tributary of the historic Boyne. Nothing can exceed the fertility of the land round Kells ; but that does it no good, for the land is almost all in grass, the rural population sparse, and consequently, of very little outside support to the town. But Kells is no worse off than the other towns of Meatli. It is, as far as soil is concerned, the richest county in Ireland, but its townis are either in a state of 2 72 KELLS OF MEATH absolute decay, or at a standstill. There is hardly any tilled land in the county; its herds are large, and its population consequently de- clining. Where cattle abound, people are generally scarce. For those who visit Kells merely to see the wondrous luxuriance of its grassy environs, the best thing they can do is to ascend the hill of Lloyd, which is close to the town, and go to the top of the tower that crowns the summit of the hill. It is over a hundred feet high, with a winding flight of stairs, and a turret on top, capable of containing a dozen people. The view from the tower is very fine, and will well repay those who see it. Almost the whole of Meath, Louth, Cavan, and parts of other counties can be seen. The tower was built more than a hundred years ago by the first Earl of Bective. It is sometimes called "Bective's Folly," because it serves for nothing except giving a fine view to those who ascend it. It is generally known as the tower of Lloyd. To the antiquarian, the neighbourhood of Kells is of supreme interest. Four miles south-east of it, on the banks of the Blackwater, lies the site of what is considered, next to Tara, the most ancient spot of Irish soil — namely, the place where the KELLS OF MEATH 273 games of Tailltean were, for some thousands of years, celebrated. The place is now called Telltown, an evident Anglicisation of its Irish name ; but it is still called Tailltean by any old persons in its vicinity who speak Irish. If any credence can be given to Irish annals and history, the antiquity of this place is astounding. The sceptic has to admit that the mere fact of the preservation down to the present day of the name by which it was known from remote an- tiquity is in itself an extraordinary fact. The games or sports of Tailltean were somewhat similar to the Olympic games of Greece, except that those of Tailltean were celebrated every year. The whole of Ireland used to assist at them, and they seem to have been celebrated every year down to 1168, when they were for the last time celebrated by the unfortunate and foolish Roderick O'Connor, the last of those who were, even in name, chief kings of Ireland. In spite of internal wars, Danish invasions and plunderings, a single year does not appear to have elapsed from the time they were first es- tablished down to the twelfth century in which they were not celebrated. It would also seem that no matter what wars or troubles were dis- tracting the country, the games of Tailltean were s 274 KELLS OF MEATH never omitted. They took place at the begmnmg of August, as has been mentioned in the article on Tara, and from them the Irish name of the month of August — Lughnasa — is derived. The name Tailltean is the genitive case of Taillte, the woman in whose memory they were established by her son, Lugh, who lived and reigned in Tara, according to the chronology of the Four Masters, which differs only slightly from that of other annalists, 1824 years B.C. ! It is no matter how we may smile or shake our heads when this astounding antiquity is mentioned, the preserva- tion of those two names, Lughnasa and Tailltean, down to the present day, drives away the smile and makes us look serious. Such collateral proofs of the existence of historic personages of such antiquity cannot be furnished by any other nation in the world, not even by Egypt or by Greece. We must not pooh-pooh the statement of Irish annalists as to the enormous antiquity they give to persons who figure in early Irish history. Here is what the late Sir William Wilde says in his book, '' Loch Corrib " : " With respect to Irish chronology, we believe it will be found to ap- proach the truth as near as that of most other countries ; and the more we investigate it and endeavour to synchronise it with that of other KELLS OF MEATH 275 lands, the less reason we shall have to find fault with the accounts of our native annalists." There are not many monuments of the past to be seen at Tailltean save an earthen fort of about a hundred paces in diameter, and two small lakes that bear evidence of having been formed artificially. To show how long traditions live in countries that even partially preserve their ancient language, it need only be said that up to about a hundred years ago, the peasantry of the neigh- bourhood used to meet on the first of LitgJinasa, or August, at Tailltean to have games and athletic sports of different kinds. The meeting was called a pattern, but it was not held on any patron saint's day. It was merely the traditional remem- brance of the old games that had not been cele- brated for seven hundred years pre\aously, that caused the peasantry to meet at Tailltean. It is said that on account of the drinking and con- sequent fighting that used to take place, the clergy forbid the people to assemble. Irish history and annals, while they constantly mention the games of Tailltean, leave us a good deal in the dark about the nature of the sports that used to take place. But they do say that marriages, or, rather, alliances of a somewhat evanescent kind used to be contracted ; and 276 KELLS OF MEATH to this day, all through the part of the country in the neighbourhood of Tailltean, when a matri- monial alliance turns out badly, or when the parties separate, it is called "a Telltown marriage." No one who has ever written about Telltown, not even such profound archaeologists as O'Donovan and Petrie, has ever had any doubt about its being the exact place where the games of Tailltean were held in ancient times. There cannot be said to be any very ancient monuments of Christian times to be seen in Kells save a very fine round tower, the top of which is gone ; a very ancient cross in the market-place, two in the churchyard, and a stone-roofed church or oratory. The last is the oldest and most interesting ancient monument in Kells. It is a small building, only nineteen feet long, fifteen broad, and twenty-five high. It is one of the most ancient edifices built with cement that exists in Ireland. Its foundation is attributed to St Columba; and it is considered to be at least of his time, or the middle of the sixth century. It is apparently as sound and as solid as it was the day it was built. Everything that could with any certainty be believed to have been part of the great monastery that was in Kells has dis- appeared. Its stones were probably taken to KELLS OF MEATH 277 build tlie present church that stands near to where the monastery was. The stones of the ancient buikling that has been described woukl also probably have been used for some purpose if they could have been easily removed, but it is so solid, and the stones are so firmly bound together by grouting, that the labour of tearing it down deterred the vandals from destroying it. Kells was so often burned and so often plundered by the Northmen that it is a wonder how anything in it remains. According to the annals it was burned twenty-one times, and plundered seven times, before the twelfth century ! Every vestige of the great castle, that was built either by Hugo de Lacy or John de Courcy, has disappeared. This castle must have been nearly as large as that of Trim, for it was built for the protection of some of the most valuable country conquered by the invaders. It is said that the monastery was in a ruined condition at the close of the twelfth century, and that de Lacy renovated it and richly endowed it. That wondrous manuscript known as the Book of Kells, although it is not believed to have been written in that town, has been named from it, and consequently should be mentioned in connec- tion with it. That the book found its way to 278 KELLS OF MEATH Kells, and that it was there for many centuries, there cannot be any doubt. Neither can there be any doubt that it belonged to the Church of Kells, for there are curious charters in it, wiitten in Irish of a very archaic kind, relating to the clergy of that town. It seems to have been in Kildare in the twelfth century, for it is evidently of it that Giraldus Cambrensis speaks when he says, ''Of all the wonders of Kildare, I found nothing more wonderful than the marvellous book that was written in the time of St Brigit." It was in the church of Kells until 1620, when Archbishop Ussher saved it from being destroyed. It is a Latin version of the Gospels, with some Gaelic charters, relating to the Church of Kells, that were bound into it many centuries after it was written. It was taken by the Danes, it is believed, and the golden cover torn off it ; it was found buried in the ground some time after. This is recorded to have happened in 1006. It is the most wonderful work of art of its kind known to exist in any country, and it is no wonder that in a credulous age it should have been believed to be the work of angels. Westwood, an English- man, and author of the greatest work on illumi- nated manuscripts ever written, says of it : " It is unquestionably the most elaborately executed KELLS OF MEATH 279 manuscripts of so early a date now in existence." Doctor Waagen, Conservator of the Royal Museum of Berlin, says of it : ^' The ornamental pages, borders, and initial letters exhibit such a rich variety of beautiful and peculiar designs, so admirable a taste in the arrangement of colours, and such an uncommon perfection of finish, that one feels absolutely struck with amazement." Where and when the Book of Kells was executed, and by w^hom, will probably never be known ; but it must have been written as early as the sixth century. Tradition attributes it to Columba, or, as he is usually called, Columb Cille. The late Dr Todd, one of the most learned archaeologists, and one of the best Gaelic scholars that ever Ireland produced, believed that it was as early as the time of Columba. The author of Topogrcvpliia Hiberniae says of it : '' The more frequently I be- hold it, the more diligently I examine it, the more I am lost in admiration of it." No one who has not seen the Book of Kells can form an idea of its beauty. In the pages that have not been soiled the colours are as pure and as bright as if they were laid on only yesterday. The naked eye can- not follow all its delicate and minute tracings ; to see it aright, it should be seen through a microscope. It is beyond any doubt the most 28o KELLS OF MEATH wonderful book of its kind in the world. In it and in the Tara Brooch Ireland possesses two works of ancient art, two gems of artistic beauty which are unequalled of their kind and of their age. The art treasures of metallurgy exhumed in Pompeii, and all that have been found in Greece and Asia Minor by Schliemann, contain nothing equal in exquisite finish to the Tara Brooch ; and in all the treasures of illuminated manuscripts in the libraries of the world, there is nothing of its kind equal to the Book of Kells. The Tara Brooch can be seen in the Museum, Kildare Street, Dublin, and the Book of Kells in Trinity College, in the same city. All the ecclesiastical establishments that have been described owed their origin to native piety, benevolence, and enterprise. CUCHULAINN'S DUN AND CUCHU- LAINN'S COUNTRY No one, whether an Irishman or a stranger, can look on the vast monnd and vast earthen ramparts that mark the home of him whom the most trust- worthy of Irish annalists, Tighearnach, calls fortis- simus heros Scottorum^ without feelings of indigna- tion and shame — indignation at the way one of the greatest and most interesting monuments of Irish antiquity has been profaned, and shame that so little reverence for their country's past should be found among the Irish people. If the Copts and Arabs of Egypt sell and uproot the antiquities of that countr}, they can, at least, say that they are not the descendants of the men who lived under the sway of the Pharaos ; but those who have, in recent times, done most to obliterate and profane the most historic monuments of Ireland are the lineal descendants of the men who raised them. Nothing that ancient Irish monuments have suffered, and they have suffered a great deal, can exceed the wrong committed by him who built a horrible, modern, vulgar, gewgaw 281 282 CUCHULAINN'S DUN AND house on top of the dun of Ciichulainn ! To show how utterly obtuse, and how unsympathetic with his country's past the person was who built the vukar structure on one of the most curious and interesting historic monuments in Ireland, he has actually engraved his name and the date of the cuchulainn's desecrated dun. erection of the house on its front wall ! seeming to glory in the vandalism he committed. The legend on the w^all says that the house was built in 1780 by a person named Patrick Byi-ne for his nephew. About a mile from the Dundalk railway station, CUCHULAINN'S COUNTRY 283 crowning the summit of a hill that rises amid green fields and rich pastures, stands all that remains of the dun on which the wooden dwelling of Cuchu- lainn stood wellnigh two thousand years ago. Before it was partially levelled to build the gew- gaw house that now stands on it, it must have been the finest monument of its kind in Ireland. It is quite different from the remains of Tara, Knock Aillinn, Emania, or Dinrigh. Those places were evidently intended to accommodate large numbers of people ; but Cuchulainn's dun was evidently that of one person or one family. It answered to the Xorman keep that some lords of the soil built for their own private protection in later times. Cuchulainn's dun was immense, and its remains are even still immense in spite of the way it has been ruined. It is yet over forty feet in perpendicular height, and, like most struc- tures of its kind, is perfectly round. It has an area of over half an acre on its summit. The enceinte outside the central dun encloses fully two acres, and where it has not been levelled, is still colossal, being thirty feet high in some parts. The immense labour it must have taken to raise such a gigantic mound, and to dig such vast en- trenchments on so high a hill, strikes one with astonishment. If it had not been ruined and 284 CUCHULAINN'S DUN AND partially levelled by the utterly denationalised and soulless person who built the vulgar struc- ture on it, it would be the finest thing of its kind in Ireland, and would attract antiquarians from all parts of these islands and from the Continent. The existence of this fort is another collateral proof of the general truth of what has been called Irish bardic history. It says that Cuchulainn lived at Dundealgan, or Dundalk, and there his dun is found. He can hardly be said to figure in what are generally know^n as Irish authentic annals. The "Annals of the Four Masters" do not men- tion him at all, although they do mention some of his contemporaries. Tighearnach, who lived in the eleventh century, is the only one of the Irish annalists who mentions him. His annals have not yet been translated or published ; but the following passage occurs in them : ^^ Death of Cuchulainn, the most renowned champion of Ireland, by Lughaidh, the son of Cairbre Niafer [chief king of Ireland]. He was seven years old when he began to be a champion, and seventeen when he fought in the Cattle Spoil of Cooley, and twenty- seven when he died." Tighearnach makes Cuchu- lainn and Virgil contemporary. He and Queen Meave are the tw^o great central figures in the longest and greatest prose epic in the Irish CUCHULAINN'S COUNTRY 285 language, the Tain Bo Cuailgne, or Cattle Spoil of Cooley, which Sir Samuel Ferguson has made familiar to the English reader in his poem, ''The Foray of Meave." Cuchulainn is the Hercules of Irish romantic history ; but in spite of all the fabulous tales of which he is the hero, there cannot be any doubt that he was an historic personage, that his dwelling-place was on the dun that has been described, and that he lived shortly before the Christian era. The name Cuchulainn is a sobri- quet ; it means ''the hound Culann." This Culann was chief smith to Connor, King of Ulster. He had a fierce dog that he used to let out every night to watch and guard his premises, which were in the \icinity of Emania, the palace of the Ulster kings. Cuchulainn, who was nephew to Connor, was going to some entertainment at his uncle's ; but having been out later than usual, was attacked by Culann's fierce hound. He had no weapon with which to defend himself save his hurling ball ; but he cast it with such force at the dog that he killed him on the spot. Culann complained to King Connor about the loss of his great watch dog, and Cuchulainn, who was then only a boy of eight or nine years old, said that he would act as watch dog for the smith 286 CUCHULAINN'S DUN AND and be Culann's hound, or dog. Whether he did so or not is left untold. It is very curious that in all the romantic tales in which Cuchulainn figures, and in spite of his incredible strength and prowess, there does not seem to be a passage in any tract that has been translated about him up to the present where anything is mentioned about his size or stature. We are left under the impression that he was no bigger than ordinary men ; and it may have been that he was not. Size and strength do not always go together. Some of the feats that he is said to have performed are utterly incredible ; such as flinging his spear haftwise, and killing nine men with the cast; and pulling the arm from its socket out of a giant whom he was unable to get the better of w^itli weapons. It is very natural that such impossible feats would, in a credulous age, be attributed to any one who was possessed of more than ordinary prowess. Things quite as impossible are found in the classics relative to Hercules. The Irish had just as good a right to relate impossibilities about Cuchulainn as the Greeks had to do the same about Hercules. But Cuchulainn figures in Celtic legend and romance in a manner in which Hercules does not figure in the legends of Greece, for the CUCHULAINN'S COUNTRY 287 Irish hero was more of a ladies' man than was the giant of the Greeks. If Cuchulainn did not fill such an important place in what may be called classic Gaelic litera- ture, the total ignorance about him in the very place where he was born and where he lived would not be such a national disgrace as it is. The mere remnant of Gaelic literature in which he is the central figure is immense. No other race in Europe w^ould have so totally lost sight of a personage that was the hero of so many tracts and stories, and who was, besides, an historic character, and not a myth. Even sixty years ago, during the Ordnance Survey of Louth, the parties employed on it found that no one in the neigh- bourhood of Castletown, the modern name of the place in which Cuchulainn's fort is situated, knew or heard anything about him. They were told by the peasantry that the fort was made by the Danes ! Some said it was the work of Finn Mac Cool ; but of the real owner of it, they knew nothing. It is e\ddent that the Irish monks of early mediaeval times were much more broad-minded and liberal than their countrymen of the same class of more recent years. It is to monks and inmates of monasteries that we owe nine-tenths 288 CUCHULAINN'S DUN AND of the Gaelic literature that has come dowii to us. They produced more books in proportion to their numbers than j)erhaps any class of men of their kind that lived in ancient times. They were sincere Christians, but, like patriots, they loved to record the deeds of their pagan ancestors. Just as soon as national decay set in they were succeeded by men of their ow^n calling, who appear to have thought little worth recording except the works of saints, or at least of those who professed Chris- tianity. If the monks of the early centuries of Christian Ireland were as narrow-minded as the Four Masters, we never, probably, would know anything about Cuchulainn, Queen Meave, Conall Carnach, or any of the heroes of pagan Ireland, round whom there is woven such a wondrous web of legend, romance, and song. Every patriotic Irishman should revere the memories of those liberal-minded monks who handed down to us the doings of their pagan forefathers. To show how much those men valued the literature, and loved to recount the exploits of their pagan ancestors, it will only be necessary to give the words of the dear old soul who copied the Tain Bo Cuailgne, the great epic of pagan times, into the "Book of Leinster " : '^ A blessing on every one who will faithfully remember the Tain as it is [written] CUCHULAINN'S COUNTRY 289 here, and who will not put another shape on it." Cuchulainn, above all men who figure in ancient Irish literature, seems to have been " grddh ban Eireann,'' the darling of the women of Ireland. While yet in his teens, the nobles of Ulster came together to determine who should be a fitting wife for him. After a long search they found a lady named Eimir, accomplished in all the feminine education of the time ; but her father, a wealthy chief or noble who lived near Lusk, in the present County of Dublin, did not like to give his daughter to a professional champion. Cuchulainn had seen her, and had succeeded in gaining her love. She was guarded for a year in her father's dun; and during all that time, Cuchulainn vainly strove to see her. At last he lost patience and became desperate, scaled the three fences that encircled her father's fort, had a terrible fight for her; killed three of her brothers ; half killed half-a-dozen others who opposed him, and carried her and her maid northward in his chariot to his home in Dundalk. Like all violent love, Cuchulainn's love for Eimir seems soon to have cooled, for we find that a lady called Fann, the wife of Manannan MacLir, King of the Isle of Man, or some place T 290 CUCHULAINN'S DUN AND east of Ireland, fell in love with him. She came to see her father, a man of rank and wealth, who lived somewhere on the east coast of Ireland. She eloped with Cuchulainn, and Eimir, finding that she and her erring husband were staying at Newry, in the present County of Down, followed him, attended by fifty maids armed with knives, in order to kill Fann. This lady, in spite of her errors, must have been an intellectual woman, for her speech when leaving Cuchulainn and going home with ^lacLir is very fine, and would be a credit to the literature of any language. The ti'act in which it occurs is in the Book of the Dun Cow, an Irish manuscript compiled in the eleventh century, and is entitled "The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn and only Jealousy of Eimir." It was admirably translated nearly forty years ago by Eugene O'Curry, and was published in the long since dead periodical, the Atlantis. None but a few Celtic savants have ever read it. To the general public it will be absolutely new. Fann, finding that she must leave Cuchulainn, says : — " It is I who shall go on a journey ; I give consent with great affliction ; Though there is a man of equal fame, I would prefer to remain [here]. CUCHULAINN'S COUNTRY 291 " I would rather be here To be subject to thee without grief, Than go, though it may wonder thee, To the sunny palace of Aed Abrat.* " Woe to the one who gives love to a person, If he does not take notice of it ! It is better for one to be turned away. Unless he is loved as he is loved." It seems that by some occult means it was revealed to Manannan MacLir that his wife, Fann, was in trouble between the jealous women of Ulster and Cuchulainn. So he came from the east to seek his eloped spouse. When Fann found out that Manannan had found her out, she utters the following very quaint, extraordinary, and touching rhapsody : — " Behold ye the valiant son of Lir From the plains of Eoghan of Inver, — Manannan, lord of the world's fair hills. There was a time when he was dear to me. " Even to-day if lie were nobly constant, — My mind loves not jealousy ; Affection is a subtle thing ; It makes its way without labour. " When Manannan the Gi'eat me espoused I was a spouse worthy of him ; He could not win from me for his life A game in excess at chess. * Aed Abrat was Fann's father. 292 CUCHULAINN'S DUN AND " When Manannan the Great me espoused I was a spouse of him worthy ; A bracelet of doubly tested gold He gave me as the jDrice of my blushes. " I had with me going over the sea Fifty maidens of varied beauty ; I gave them unto fifty men Without reproacli, — the fifty maidens. " As for me I would have cause [to be grieved] Because the minds of women are silly ; The person whom I loved exceedingly Has placed me here at a disadvantage. " I bid thee adieu, O beautiful Cu ; Hence we depart from thee with a good heart ; Though we return not, be thy good will with us ; Every condition is noble in comparison with that of going away." It would appear that Cuchulainn was as much distracted about Faun as she w^as about him ; for when he found that she had gone home with Manannan MacLir, he became desperate, and the tale says, with extraordinary grotesqueness and apparent inconsequence, that ''It was then Cuchulainn leaped the three high leaps and the three south leaps of Luachair ; and he remained for a long time without drink, without food, among the mountains ; and w here he slept each night was on the road of Midhluachair." But what good did the jumping do him, or why did he jump ? CUCHULAINN'S COUNTRY 293 Connor, King of Ulster, and the nobles and Druids of the province, had a hard time with Cuehulainn after Fann left him, as he seems to have gone downright crazy. The tale says that Connor had to send poets and professional men to seek him out in his mountain retreat, and that when they found him he was going to kill them. At last the Druids managed to give him a drink of forgetfulness, so that he remembered no more about Fann. The death of Cuehulainn in the " Book of Lein- ster" is one of the finest things in ancient literature. It has not yet been fully translated, but a partial translation of it by Mr Whitley Stokes appeared in the Revue Celtique in 1876. An epitome of it here can hardly be out of place : When Cuchu- lainn's foes came against him for the last time, signs and portents showed that he was near his end. One of his horses would not allow^ himself to be yoked to the war chariot, and shed tears of blood. But Cuehulainn goes to the battle, per- forms prodigies of valour; but at last he receives his death wound. Though dying, his foes are afraid to approach him. He asks to be allowed to go to a lake that was close by to get a drink. He is allowed to go, but he does not want a drink, he merely wants to die like a hero, standing up ; 294 CUCHULAINN'S DUN AND for there is a pillar-stone close by, and he throws his breast-girdle round it, so that he might die standing up, and not lying down. His friend Conall determines to avenge his death. Here the literal translation is so fine that it must be given : "Now there was a comrades' covenant between Cuchulainn and Conall — namely, that whichever of them was first killed, should be avenged by the other. 'And if I be first killed,' said Cuchulainn, * how soon wilt thou avenge me ? ' ' The day on which thou shalt be slain,' says Conall ; ' I will avenge thee before that evening.' 'And if I be slain,' says Conall, Miow soon wilt thou avenge me ? ' ' Thy blood will not be cold on earth,' says Cuchulainn, ' when I shall avenge thee.' " Lugaid, the slayer of Cuchulainn, had lost his right hand in the fight. He goes south in his chariot to a river to rest and drink. His charioteer says, ''One horseman is coming to us, and great are the speed and swiftness with which he comes. Thou wouldst deem that all the ravens of Erin were above him, and that flakes of snow were specking the plain before him." "Unbeloved is the horseman that comes there," says Lugaid. " It is Conall mounted on [his steed] the Dewy-Red. The birds thou sawest above him are sods from that horse's hoofs. The snowflakes thou sawest specking the plain CUCHULAINN'S COUNTRY 295 before him are foam from that horse's lips and nostrils." Conall and Liigaid fight, of course ; but as Lugaid has but one hand, Conall has one of his hands bound to his side with ropes, so that he should have no advantage over his foe. They fight for hours, until at last Lugaid falls by Conall, and Cuchulainn is avenged. The tale v^inds up thus: "And Conall and the Ulstermen returned to Emain Macha (Emania). That week they entered it not in triumph. But the soul of Cuchu- lainn appeared there to the fifty queens who had loved him ; and they saw him floating in his spirit- chariot over Emain Macha, and they heard him chaunt a mystic song of the coming of Christ and the Day of Doom." There are few views in Ireland more beautiful than that from the summit of the mound on which Cuchulainn's mansion stood. It may not be so extensive as other views in the locality, but for beauty and variety it can hardly be exceeded. If admittance is obtained into the house that is built on the track of Cuchulainn's, the view will be still finer. It is said by some that that house is haunted. It is to be hoped that it is ; and that Cuchulainn's ghost will drive away sleep from the eyes of every one of Patrick Byrne's descendants who stop in it. The ancient name of the country round Dundalk 296 CUCHULAINN'S DUN AND was Muirimhne ; but it has not been called by that name for some centuries. It appears to have been the patrimony of C^uchulainn ; for in the tale, in the " Book of the Dun Cow," from which extracts have been given, Fann calls him, " Great chief of the plain of Muirimhne." He, probably, or the clan of which he was the head, owned all that part of northern Louth where the land is level, and up to the foot of the Cooley hills. All the County Louth is fairly studded with ruins of one sort or another. It is one of the most interesting counties in Ireland in an antiquarian point of view. It contains the remains of nearly thirty castles in almost all stages of preservation. One of the finest of them is only a few hundred yards from the dun of Cuchulainn. It is not in the least ruined, but its architecture shows it to be one of the oldest castles erected by the Anglo-Xormans in Ireland. Its style is almost exactly that of the castle at Trim, which we know was built before the end of the twelfth century. Like Dunsochly Castle, near Finglas, in the County Dublin, the one near Cuchulainn's dim must have been inhabited at a comparatively recent date, for modern windows have been opened on its front. The only light that was admitted into those old castles was what came throusfh the narrow slits in the walls, about CUCHULAINN'S COUNTRY 297 three feet long and six or eight inclies wide. These served the double purpose of letting in light and discharging arrows through them. It does not seem to be known by whom the very fine Norman Keep at Castletown, County Louth, was built. There are many larger castles of the same kind in different parts of Ireland, but there are not many of its age in such a good state of pre- servation. There is a church in the immediate proximity of the castle, and the exact date of its erection seems also unknown. It is in a state of almost utter ruin. The County Louth can boast of having been the birth-place of St Brigit. She was born at Fachart, only a few miles from Castle- town, but it was in Kildare she spent almost all her life, and it was there she died and was buried. There are few parts of Ireland more beautiful than the country round the ancient dun of Cuchulainn, and few parts less generally visited by tourists. Carlingford Loch is only a few miles from Dundalk, and except Clew Bay, and one or two others, there is nothing finer on all the coasts of Ireland. But the grandest and most striking scenery in this part of the country are the INIourne mountains in the County Down. There are higher mountain ranges in Ireland, but there are not any more bold, or more truly Alpine. Seen from the central parts of 298 CUCHULAINN'S DUN AND COUNTRY the County Louth, they and the Cooley mountains seem to form a continuous range of ^'sky-pointing peaks," forming one of the finest, if not the very finest, mountain view in Ireland. The ancient name of the Mourne mountains was the Beanna Boirche. They were called the Mourne mountains from being in a territory anciently called Crioch Mugliorna. It gave a title to Lord Cremorne, from whom, it is generally believed, the Cremorne Gardens in London derive their name. It has to be admitted that, in this instance, the Anglicised form of the name is the more euphonious. The County Louth, and all that part of the County Down bordering on it, have not had their due share of attention from those who go in search of the picturesque and beautiful. Although the direct route between the two largest cities in Ireland, northern Louth and southern Down are not at all known as well as they should be. There are, even in Kerry or Connemara, few places in which finer views of mountain, bay, and plain can be had, and all within less than two hours by rail from Dublin or Belfast. And as for antiquities, no county of its size in Ireland possesses so many as Louth. THE WILD WEST COAST By the west coast is meant the whole of that wondrous succession of far-penetrating fiords and bays, cHfF-guarded shores, and sea-washed moun- tains from Ban try Bay to MaHn Head, a distance of over four hundred miles. There may be wilder scenery on the coasts of Norway, Labrador, or Scotland, but for wildness, sublimity, and beauty combined, there is hardly in Europe, or in the world, another four hundred miles of coast equal to it. Its variety is one of its principal charms. There is the grandeur and wildness of Norwegian coast scenery, together with scenes of radiant beauty which cannot be found on the coasts of Norway or of Scotland. The more southern lati- tude of the Irish west coast, and its consequently milder climate, give it a great advantage over the coasts of Norway or of Scotland. Its grass is greener and more luxuriant, and its flowers bloom earlier in spring and later in autumn than those of more northern climes. The mild climate of the southern part of the Irish west coast is almost phenomenal. Winter, in its real sense, or 299 300 THE WILD WEST COAST as it generally is on the coasts of Norway, or even of Scotland, may be said to be unknown on the west coast of Munster. Snow is seldom seen, and frost still less frequently. Rain and wind are about all the climatic disagreeableness that those living on the south-west coasts of Ireland have to con- tend against. It is, however, a fact that the rain- fall is not so heavy immediately on the coast as it is some ten or twenty miles inland. This is owing to the fact that the higher mountains are generally some distance from the sea ; and it is well-known that mountains are great attractors of rain. Bantry Bay is the first great sea loch of the south-western coast. It is one of the finest natural harbours in Europe, but, unfortunately, ships are seldom seen in it except when they take shelter from the " mid west wind," which blows on tliese storm-beaten shores with a fury hardly known any- where else in the world. The whole of the coast of Kerry, up to the mouth of the Shannon, is a succession of the wildest and grandest scenery, with here and there land of only slight elevation, with level meads and pastures of perennial green. Still further north, we come to the mouth of the Shannon, which forms another very fine harbour. About twenty miles north of the Shannon the THE WILD WEST COAST 301 famous cliffs of Moher appear. There are higher isolated cliffs than those on the west coast, but there is no long range of cliffs so high. They average between six and seven hundred feet in perpendicular height above the sea. To be seen in all their grandeur they should be seen from the sea, but to be seen in all their terribleness, they should be seen in a storm. Such is the force of the west wind on these coasts, sweeping over three thousand miles of unbroken, islandless sea, that the waves sometimes break over the cliffs of Moher in spite of their nearly seven hundred feet of perpendicular height. In no other part of the world is the force of the sea, when driven before a gale from the west, more terrific than on the west coast of Ireland. Old men who lived close to this iron-bound coast on the night of the great storm of January 6, 1839, known over the most of Ireland as the "Night of the Big Wind," say that none but those who were near these coasts on that awful night could have even a faint idea of what the Atlantic is when a storm from the south-west drives it against the rocky barriers that seem to have been placed where they are to prevent it from overwhelming the whole island. They say that when some gigantic wave of millions of tons of water was hurled against these 302 THE WILD WEST COAST cliffs, the noise made was so loud that it could be heard miles inland above the roar and din of the storm ; and that the very earth would tremble at every assault of the waves on those tremendous barriers to their fury. Recent soundings taken off the west and south- west coast of Ireland have fully proved that a very large part of the island has been washed away by the fury of the west wind and the sea, and that at some far-back epoch it extended nearly three hundred miles further towards the south-west. The sea, for some tAvo or three hundred miles west and south-west of Ireland, is shallow — hardly deeper than the Channel be- tween Great Britain and Ireland — but at that distance there is a sudden increase of over two thousand feet in the depth of the sea. Scientists think that this submerged mountain was once the south-west coast of Ireland, and that the shallow sea between the present coast and the deep sea, about three hundred miles south-west, was once dry land, and, of course, part of Ireland. There do not seem to be any reason- able grounds to doubt this theory, for the fury of the sea is every year washing away both land and rock on these western coasts, and the way it has encroached, even in the memory of living THE WILD WEST COAST 303 persons, is very remarkable. Not a year passes during which hundreds of thousands of tons of rocks are not washed away from cliff and moun- tain by the ceaseless assaults of the stormy sea that beats with such force on the western coast of Ireland. Were it not for the cliffs and mountains that guard the whole of the west coast, the probability is that thousands of acres would be submerged every year, until there would be very little of the country left in the long run. It may be said that there must be a time coming when those barriers of cliff and mountain that now guard almost the entire west coast will be swept away, seeing that they are being constantly broken down and washed into the sea. Such a time must certainly come, imless some unforeseen event should alter the course of the Gulf Stream, or change the prevailing west and south-west winds to opposite points of the compass. The question is. How long will it be until there is real danger from the encroachment of the sea on the west coast of Ireland? This is a question which the most profound geologist living could not answer with even approximation to correctness. It is impossible to know what amount of erosion takes place every year, or what amount has taken place in any given number of years ; but 304 THE WILD WEST COAST that not only the cliffs of Moher, but the still more gigantic ones of Slieve More in Achill, and Slieve League in Donegal, must finally succumb to the fury of the Atlantic's waves there can hardly be a doubt. Thousands of years may elapse before the cliff barriers on the western coast become so weakened that the island Avill be in danger from the assaults of the sea. From the cliffs of Moher to the Killaries, or Killary Bay, or Harbour, for it is known by all these names, there are many scenes of very great beauty; but to take even passing notice of all of them would be entirely beyond the scope of a work of the size of this. The coasts of Connemara, if not remarkable for very striking cliff scenery, are wild, sea-indented, strange, and interesting in a very high degree. But Killary Bay is one of the glories of the wild w^est coast. It has more the character of a Norwegian fiord than any other sea loch in Ireland. It divides the counties of Galway and Mayo. Some put it before the famed Clew Bay, and Inglis said, over half a century ago, that if the shores of the Killaries were as w^ell wooded as Killarney, the latter might tremble for the supremacy it enjoys of being the fairest lake either of fresh or salt water in Ireland. The Killaries run some ten THE WILD WEST COAST 305 or fifteen miles inland, between some of the highest hills in the province of Connacht, with Maolrea, the king of Connacht mountains, on its northern side. This fiord, or narrow sea loch, is one of the most splendid harbours, not only in Ireland, but in the world, with not only complete shelter from winds from all points, but with depth of water enough to float the biggest ship that ever has been or ever will be built. But, unfortunately, there is little to attract commerce to these desolate shores, where there are no large towns, and only a sparse population. It has been said by some who have seen almost all the fiords of Norway, that there are few of them superior to the Killaries in everything that constitutes beauty, sublimity, and wildness. That this sea loch is, in a certain degree, dark and gloomy has to be admitted, because the mountains come so close to it that they seem in some places to rise almost perpen- dicularly out of the water. But Killary harbour is a glorious place on a clear, sunny mid-day, when its sombre mountains cast but little shade on its ever calm waters ; for no matter how rough the sea may be outside, this mountain fiord is ever calm, as it is sheltered on all sides by towering heights. As an enchanting bay it is the only one on all the Irish coasts of which Clew Bay or u 3o6 THE WILD WEST COAST Dublin Bay, were they living things and tor- mented with human passions, could possibly feel jealous. We now approach the queen, not alone of Irish bays, but of all bays in these islands, and, according to its most ardent admirers, of all bays in Europe. This is the glorious sheet of salt water, presided over by the most symmetrical and beautiful of Irish mountains, Croagh Patrick, and guarded from the stormy Atlantic by the rocky shores of Clare Island. This is Clew Bay, the radiant beauty, the "matchless wonder of a bay," that not one in a hundred of those in search of the beautiful know anything about. It is indeed strange that this gem of sea lochs is not better kno^vn, now that a railway brings one to its very shores. It is almost impossible to draw a comparison between Clew Bay and the many magnificent arms of the sea that penetrate the west coasts of Ireland and Scotland, for it is so unlike most of them : Dublin Bay, while less grand and not so beautiful as Clew Bay, is the one that is most like it. Ho^^i;h has somewhat the same position with regard to Dublin Bay that Clare Island occupies with regard to Clew Bay, and Slieve Coolan — in the name of all that's decent THE WILD WEST COAST 307 let that abominable name '^Sugarloaf " be dropped for ever — is the presiding mountain genius of Dublin Bay, just as Croagh Patrick is the pre- siding mountain genius of Clew Bay. Both bays are beautiful rather than sublime ; they are bright and cheerful rather than dark and frowning. With all the wildness and grandeur of the many far-entering fiords of the coast of Scotland, with all the Alpine glories of their shores, there is not one of them that for beauty alone can be com- pared with Clew Bay. It is shrouded by no terror-striking precipices. No cataracts pour into it even in flood time. No mountains overhang it. It seems to have been made to cheer and to delight, and not to terrify or to startle. It seems to have said to the mountains round it — ^' Stand back ; come not too near me lest your shadows should fall on me and hide, even for an instant, one gleam of my radiant loveliness." So the mountains round it do stand back, and this is the one cause of its winsomeness, bright- ness, and cheerfulness. When the tide is full on a sunny day, Clew Bay seems absolutely to laugh. No shadow of surrounding hills can fall upon it, for they are too far away. It is as bright and as radiant a bay as there is in the world, and the glory of the coasts of Connacht. 3o8 THE WILD WEST COAST Clew Bay has a great advantage over the greater part of the bays on the Irish coast on account of its size. Killary Bay is in no place more than a mile wide, but Clew Bay is fully seven miles wide at its narrowest part, and about sixteen miles long — that is from Clare Island to the quay at Westport. Those who desire to see this splendid bay aright should not attempt to look at it from the town of Westport, for it cannot be seen to advantage from there. Neither can it be seen to advantage except during high tide, when all its multi- tude of islands are clearly defined. Let them ascend the high lands east of the town of West- port for about a mile, and then look back on the scene beneath them. If the day is fine, if there is plenty of sunlight, they will have to be the least sensitive of mortals if they can gaze on such a scene unmoved. Scenes sublimer and grander, and views more extensive, can be found in other countries ; but for pure beauty — a beauty that seems to laugh and rejoice at its own match- less charms — Clew Bay may challenge anything of its kind on earth. North of the bay rises that most symmetrical of Irish mountains, Croagh Patrick, or the Reek, as it is frequently called. It seems to have been made THE WILD WEST COAST 309 to order, it is so regular and at the same time so graceful and grand in its outlines. There are few mountains of its heiojht that look so hio^h as Croaofh Patrick. It is somewhat less than three thousand feet high, but owing to its symmetry and its steep- ness it looks higher and more imposing than many mountains of double its altitude. Exactly at the mouth of the bay, stretching almost straight across it, and almost completely shutting it in from the Atlantic, rises the great mass of Clare Island, making the bay a safe harbour as well as adding in a most extraordinary degree to its beauty. Clare Island is almost a mountain ; its highest point cannot be less than fifteen hundred feet above the sea level, and it rises sheer from the water. It is almost as beautiful an object as Croagh Patrick itself. The hills on the north side of the bay are rather tame, but the beauty of the famous Reek is such that almost any other mountain would appear tame in comparison with it. The number of islands in Clew Bay is said to be three hundred and sixty-five — one for every day in the year. There seem not to be any exact details as to the number of these islands, but it cannot be much less than the number stated. They seem so numerous as to be uncountable. The reason that those wishing to see this wondrous 3IO THE WILD WEST COAST bay at its best are advised to see it when the tide is full is because all the islands do not appear at low water. This is certainly a defect, but no sea loch looks so well at low water as when the tide is full. The citizens of Dublin know what a difference the tide being in or out makes in the appearance of their own magnificent bay. But in Clew Bay the difference in its appearance caused by the tide being full or low is much greater than in the bay of Dublin, for the reason that has been already stated. However much the difference the state of the tide may make in Clew Bay, it is beyond all doubt the most beautiful bay, not only in Ireland, but in all those countries known as the British Isles. Those who go to this part of the west coast in search of the sublime and beautiful should not omit to ascend Croagh Patrick, and gaze from its top on one of the grandest and most extensive views to be seen in Ireland. The mountain, seen from Westport or its environs, appears wellnigh in- accessible, but it is not so steep on its south side, and can be ascended with no great amount of dif- ficulty. The view from Croagh Patrick is one of the most sublime that can be imagined. The whole of that wild, storm-beaten, cliff-guarded coast of Connacht, from Slyne Head in Connemara to the THE WILD WEST COAST 311 most northern part of Mayo, lies before one ; and Clew Bay, beautiful as it is from wherever it is seen, seems fairer than ever when seen from the summit of Croagh Patrick. Going north from Clew Bay the next most interesting and wild spot is the island of Achill, and the grandest things there are the cliffs of Minnaun and Slieve More. As we are sroing north, Minnaun Cliffs, which are on the southern side of Achill, must be spoken about first. They are seven hundred feet in height, and will, there- fore, average higher than the cliffs of INIoher in the County Clare, but they do not rise perpen- dicularly from the sea as those of Moher do. But their sea sides are so steep as to be quite inaccessible even to the wild goats which still haunt the cliffs of Achill. The cliffs of Minnaun are magnificent, but if they rose sheer from the sea they would form a much more grand and impressive sight. But the cliffs of Minnaun, gigantic as they are, are only insignificant things compared with the great sea wall on the northern shores of the island, formed by Slieve j\Iore and Croghan. The whole northern shore of Achill, from Achill head in the extreme west of the island to the narrow straight that separates it from the main- 312 THE WILD WEST COAST land on the east, a distance of some thirteen miles, may be said to be a terrific barrier of cliffs, rising to the height of over two thousand feet at the hills Croghan and Slieve More. It is generally allowed that the north shore of Achill has the most stupendous mural cliffs that are to be seen anywhere nearer than Norway, and that even Norway has not very much cliff scenery more magnificent. There is nothing in the shape of cliffs or sea walls in these islands that can compare with the cliffs of Achill in grandeur except Slieve League in Donegal, of which mention will soon be made. A geologist has said, speaking of the cliffs of Achill, that it appeared to him as if part of the mountain which forms the western extremity of the island, and terminates in the noted cape of Achill head, had suffered dis- severance from a sunken continent by some convidsion of Nature. These gigantic cliffs can only be seen to advantage from the sea, but in the almost entire absence of passenger steam- boats on these coasts, it is very difficult for those who visit them to get a proper means of seeing them as they ought to be seen. They rise from out of one of the stormiest oceans in the world, that even in summer-time is often rough and dangerous ; and very few would care to risk their THE WILD WEST COAST 313 lives in the cockle-shell boats, or currachs, of fishermen to see the stupendous cliffs of Achill from where they look best. In far distant Nor- way there are plenty of large and commodious steamboats to take tourists all round its coasts ; but if they want to see some of the grandest and most beautiful scenery of their own country to its best advantage, they must trust to a fisherman's cot. It would take at least a week of the longest summer days to see all the wonders and grandeur of these tremendous cliffs, or rather cliff mountains, of Achill. In the interior of the island there is not anything of great interest to be seen, but it has more cliff scenery of the stupendous sort to boast of than perhaps any other island of its size in the world. It is a " far cry " from Achill to Slieve League in Donegal — considerably over a hundred miles if the coast is followed ; but between the giant sea walls of that island and Slieve League there is nothing of their kind that will in any way bear com- parison with them. There is, however, much mag- nificent scenery on the northern coast of Connacht, and also a great many things of antiquarian interest. There is the extraordinary Druid remains of Car- rowmore, only three miles fi.*om Sligo town, where 314 THE WILD WEST COAST there are almost, if not quite, half a hundred cromlechs to be seen on about half a dozen acres. They are of almost all sizes. Some of them are baby cromlechs, the top stones of which are not nmch more than a hundredweight. This place nuist have been a sort of Stonehenge at one time. In no other known spot of either these islands or France are so many cromlechs to be seen in so small a space, and very few seem to know any- thing about it. Sir Samuel Ferguson seems to have been the only person who has written anything about it. But here the same disrespect for monuments of antiquity that has been so long prevalent all over the country may be noticed. Many of the cromlechs have been torn down, and some of them have been actually made to serve as road walls and have been built over. Fully half of them have been either utterly torn down or in some way mutilated. Their generally small size has made them an easy prey for those who wanted stones to build walls or houses. These curious relics of far-back ages should not be allowed to be any further ruined. The country in the vicinity of Sligo is one of the most interesting and beautiful in Ireland. Close to it is the famous Loch Gill, the queen of the fresh water lakes of Connacht. It is so THE WILD WEST COAST 317 near the coast that it is not improper to say something about it in treating of the scenery of the coast. It is connected with the sea by a river only a few miles in length that passes through the town of Sligo, consequently it is only three or four miles in a direct line from the sea. There is no other large fresh water lake in Ireland, except Loch Corrib, so near the sea as Loch Gill. It is fully ten miles in extreme length, and from three to four in breadth. Its shores cannot be said to be moun- tainous, but the hills around it are so bold, and their lower parts are so well wooded, that Loch Gill, in spite of its having comparatively few islands, is yet one of the most beautiful lakes in Ireland, and no one in search of the beautiful should omit to see it. There is no other town in Ireland that has more objects of scenic and arch^ological interest in its vicinity than Sligo. There is the immense cairn on top of Knocknarea, sixteen hundred feet above the level of the sea. There are four or five other immense cairns close to the town, and there is the extraordinary moun- tain of Ben Bulben, anciently Ben Gulban. that is shaped like a gigantic rick of turf. It is a couple of miles long, and some sixteen hundred feet above the level of the sea. Its summit is 3i8 THE WILD WEST COAST perfectly flat. It can be ascended in a carriage from the south side ; but on the north side, facing tlie sea, it is not only perpendicular, but over- hangs its base in some places. If not the highest or most beautiful mountain in Ireland, it is cer- tainly the most extraordinary. We now approach the famous Slieve League, the grandest, the boldest, the steepest, if not the highest, of all the cliff" barriers on the coasts of these islands, and one of the most remarkable in the known world. It can be seen from the shore near Sligo, rising almost perpendicularly from the sea. The cliff'-mountains of Achill, colossal as they are, seem to shun the full fiu'y of the western gales, for they face the north- west ; but Slieve League looks almost due south- west, and thrusts itself out into the ocean as if to court the most tremendous shock of the Atlantic's billows. It forms the culminating point of a range of cliff's that are over six miles in extent, extending from Carrigan Head to Teelin Head, the lowest cliff" of which is over seven hundred feet in height. Slieve League is two thousand feet high, and almost perpendicular. It is two hundred feet lower than the highest of the cliff'-mountains of Achill, but it is bolder, nearer being perpendicular, grander, and more THE WILD WEST COAST 319 rugged than they. Those who have not been on the sea at the base of SHeve League cannot form a true idea of its awful grandeur. Its summit is ahnost as sharp as a knife blade ; and he who could look from the jagged rocks that form its cone down on to the seething ocean under him without feeling giddy should have a steady head and strong nerves. Those who go from these islands to Xorway in search of the sublime should first see this king Irish clifF-mountains, and know how grand and beautiful are the sights that may be seen at home. The whole of the coast of Doneo:al is maor- nificent. There is no other cliff on it as high or as grand as Slieve League, but there are hundreds of places along its nearly a hundred miles of iron-bound, storm-beaten coast that are well worth seeing. It has nothing like Clew Bay, but it has gigantic cliffs, narrow arms of the sea, some of which are nearly as wild and as grand as the famous Killary Bay that has already been described. There may be certain places in the more southern coasts that are finer and fairer than anything on the coasts of Donegal with the exception of Slieve League, but for general wildness and cliff" scenery there is hardly any sea-coast county in Ireland can equal It. It 320 THE WILD WEST COAST has the longest sea loch in the island on its coast — namely, Loch S willy. Following its wind- ings from its mouth to where it begins must be over five and twenty miles. It is a beautiful lake also, and hardly known at all to tourists, and never can be known until better means are supplied for seeing it from a steamer on its waters. The "wild west coast" may be said to end at the mouth of Loch Swilly. From there eastward it is the northern coast. There is much of the grand, beautiful, and curious to be seen on the northern coast from Inishowen to Fair Head, including the celebrated Giant's Causeway, and "high Dunluce's castle walls." The latter have been already described. It would be hard to find anywhere in the world another sea coast of the same length as that from Cape Clear in the south to Inishowen in the north, where there is so much to be seen of the grand, the terrible, and the beautiful. If the mountains on the coasts of Norway are higher, if its fiords penetrate further inland, and if in some places the shining glacier may be seen from them, there is not such astonishing variety of scenery on the coasts of Norway as there is in the west coast of Ireland. The climate of Nor- way does not permit the growth of many species THE WILD WEST COAST 321 of wild flowers which add so much to the beauty of even the wildest and most sterile parts of Ireland. In Norway there are no mountains radiant with purple heather and golden furze, — mountains that may be unsightly and sombre for ten months out of the twelve, but are, in autumn, turned into living bouquets, thousands of feet in height, and with areas of tens of thousands of acres. Moisture and mildness of climate are the parents of flowers. If rain and mist hide for days and weeks the most beautiful scenery in Ireland, there is ample compensation afterwards in the bloom of wild flowers more luxuriant and more plentiful than can be found where there is more sunlight and less moisture. It is a curious and humiliating fact that, so far as can be learned from the sources at command, there are ten people who go from these islands to the coasts of Norway every year for the one that visits the west coast of Ireland. It may be that many people go to Norway just because it has become fashionable to go there, but all the fashion in the world would not send people five or six hundred miles across a stormy sea if there was not good accommodation for them to go to that distant country, and good means for seeing its beauties. Let there be the same means for seeing the X 322 THE WILD WEST COAST beauties of the west coast of Ireland as there are for seeing the coast of Xorway, and thousands will visit the former every year. Those who want to see the grandeur of the Norwegian coast go in large and well-equipped steamers, and live in them, eat and sleep in them for weeks together, while they are brought from fiord to fiord and from town to to^vn. Let similar means be had for those who desire to see the west coast of Ireland, and it will not be long unknown. There is no way to see coast scenery properly except from the sea. One might be looking at Slieve League or the Cliffs of Moher all his life from the land, but he could never have a full idea of their grandeur unless he saw them from the sea at their base. Those who see the cliffs and cliff-mountains of Norway from the deck of a commodious steamer see them aright. Most of those who make the trip to Norway are loud in praise of its magnificent coast scenery; but if they had to go by land from fiord to fiord, as they would have to do on the west coast of Ireland did they want to see its beauties, would they be so enchanted ? They certainly would not. When tourists go to see the Norwegian fiords, they need not trouble themselves about engaging beds, or worry themselves by fearing that the THE WILD WEST COAST 323 hotel in such a place will be full, for they have an hotel on board the steamer, are carried from place to place, and are given ample time to see the beauties of each place. If there were the best hotels in the world at every romantic spot on the west coast of Ireland it would never attract visitors, and never would be known as it should be, and as its w^ondrous grandeur and beauty entitle it to be, until large and com- modious steamers were provided in which people could live, if they chose, wdiile being brought from one place of attraction to another, or from one town to another. There are few coasts in the world better provided with harbours than the west coast of Ireland. It could hardly happen that a steamer like those that take tourists from Leith to the coasts of Norway could be caught by a gale on any part of the coast from Cape Clear to Malin Head, ten miles from a harbour in which she could not take shelter. The danger of shipwreck would be so small as to be infinitesi- mal. The trip from Cape Clear to Malin Head, or even to the Giant's Causeway, could be made in two weeks, and give sufficient time to stop a day or more at such remarkable places as Clew Bay or the Arran Islands, where things of more than ordinary interest are to be seen, such as the 324 THE WILD WEST COAST view of Clew Bay from the high lands east of it, and the cyclopean ruins in the islands Arran, the most colossal and extraordinary things of their kind in Europe. There ought to be enterprise enough in Ireland to put a steamer, like those that take tourists to Norway every summer, on the Irish west coast for three or four months every year. Without such means of seeing the beauties of the west coast, as only a large, com- modious steamer could furnish, the beauties and the grandeur of the cliffs of Moher, Clew Bay, Slieve More, and Slieve League \vill never be known as they should be. There is only one part of the Irish west coast where harbours for large craft are scarce, and that is the Donegal coast. It is said that there is no safe harbour between Killybegs and Loch Swilly, a distance of nearly a hundred miles. This is unfortunate ; but stormy as the north-west coast is, there are always many days in summer when steamers could go from harbour to harbour in a calm sea. DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS Some may think, especially natives of Ireland, that writing about Dublin and its environs is mere waste of time, ink, and paper, seeing that there is so much kno\\ii about them already. It should, however, be remembered that this book is intended for people who are not Irish, as well as for the Irish themselves. But even the Irish, and above all, the natives of Dublin, want to be told some- thing that may be new to some of them about a city which so many of them seem neither to love nor admire as they should. There is, unfortu- nately, a certain class of people in Dublin w4io, although many of them were born there, think that it is one of the most backward and unpleasant places in Europe. They do not admire the beauty of its environs, and will not acknowledge willingly that it has been improved so much as it has been during the last twenty-five years. It has been improved and beautified in spite of them. Those citizens of Dublin who take no pride in it should go abroad and see as many cities as the author of this book has seen, and they would come back 32s 326 DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS with more just ideas about Dublin. If there is any other city in Europe as large as Dublin, with environs more beautiful, where life is more enjoy- able, and where life and property are more secure, it would be interesting to know where that city is. Dublin is a great deal too good for a good many who live in it. The history of Dublin may be said to commence with the Danish invasions of Ireland. It is rarely mentioned in Irish annals before the time when the Danes took it, and first settled in it in the year 836, according to the Four Masters. It prob- ably existed as a small city long before the Danes got possession of it, and there is reason to believe that it was a place of some maritime trade at a remote period. It is stated on legendary more than on historic authority, that when Conn of the Hundred Battles and Eoghan M6r divided the island between them in the third century, the Liffey was, for a certain part of its length, the boundary between their dominions ; and that the fact of more ships landing on the north side of the river than on the south side gave offence to Eoghan, who owned the southern shore of the Liffey, and caused a war between the two poten- tates. It is, however, hardly probable that Dublin was a place of much importance before its occupa- DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS 329 tion by the Scandinavians in the first half of the ninth century. The Irish name of Dublin is, perhaps, the longest one by which any city in Europe is called. It is Baile Atha Cliath Dubhlimie, and means the town of the ford of hurdles of black pool. In ancient Irish documents it is generally shortened to Ath Cliath, and sometimes to Duhhllnn. We have no means of knowing what was the size or population of Dublin in Danish times ; but long after it became the seat of English government in Ireland, it extended east no further than where the city hall now stands in Dame Street, no further west than James Street, and no further south than the lower part of Patrick Street ; both Patrick's cathedral and the Comb having been outside the city walls. We have no account of the first siege of Dublin by the Danes in 836. The annals merely say that a fleet of sixty ships of Northmen came to the Liffby, and that that was the first occupation of the city by them. The Irish captured and plundered Dublin a great many times, but do not appear to have ever tried to banish the Danes permanently out of it. It is probable that the Irish found them useful as carriers of merchandise to them from foreign countries ; for seeing how often the city 330 DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS was captured and plundered by the Irish, it is incredible that they could not have held it had they chosen to do so. The Four Masters record its capture and plunder by the Irish in a.d. 942, 945, 988, and 998. In 994 Malachy 11. sacked Dublin and carried off two Danish trophies, the ring of Tomar and the sword of Karl; and in 988 he besieged it for twenty days and twenty nights, captured it, and carried off an immense booty ; and issued the famous edict, " Every Irish- man that is in slavery and oppression in the country of the foreigners (Danes) let him go to his own country in peace and delight." But the Irish were not always lucky in their attacks on the Danes of Dublin, for in 91/ Xiall Glundubh, King of Ireland, was killed by them, and his army defeated at Killmashogue, beyond Rathfarn- ham. He evidently intended to take Dublin from the south, because it was so well defended on the north by the Liffey. The battle usually known as the battle of Clontarf was not fought in the locality now called by that name, but between the Liffey and the Tolka. Where Amien Street is now was probably the very centre of the battle-field. Here it may not be out of place to make a remark on the curious fact that the Danes never made any serious attempt to conquer Ireland after the battle DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS 331 of Clontarf, although they were at the height of then- power some six or eight years after by the terrible defeat they gave the Saxons at x\shingtoii, in Essex, which gave Canute the crown of England. He thus became not only King of England, but was King of Denmark and Norway as well — the most powerful potentate in Christendom in his time. It is strange that historians have not taken any notice of this extraordinary fact. There was com- paratively little fighting between the Irish and the Danes after the battle of Clontarf, although the foreign people held Dublin until the arrival of Strongbow, and made a very poor stand against him, for he captured the city with very little diffi- culty. Dublin has hardly suffered what could be called a siege since 988, when Malachy II. took it from the Danes. When Strongbow held it, the Irish under the wretched Roderick O'Connor marched a great army under its walls, and w^ere going to take it ; but before they began siege operations, and while they were amusing them- selves by swimming in the Liffey, Strongbow sallied out on them and totally defeated them. That was the last serious attempt to besiege Dublin. Dublin does not appear to have grown much until after the wretched, and for Ireland terribly 332 DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS unfortunate, Jacobite wars were over. It grew and prospered rapidly almost all through the eigh- teenth century when a native parliament sat there ; but from about 1820 until about 1870 there was not very much either of growth or improvement in it. Since then, in spite of what the census may show, it has grown considerably, and has been improved immensely. It is not easy to see what has caused such improvement in Dublin since 1870. The only way that the improvement in the state of the streets, the pulling do^vn of old buildings and the erection of new ones, can be accounted for, is by the fact that the local government of the city is in the hands of a different class of men from those who ruled it so long and so badly up to about the time mentioned. When one con- siders all that has been done since then in the paving of streets, the laying down of new side walks, the tearing down of old buildings, the erection of cottages for the working classes where rotten and pestiferous houses had stood, the deepening of the river so that the largest ships can now enter it, the extension and perfecting of the tram-car system, and other improvements too numerous to mention, it strikes him as some- thing astonishing ; but when it is remembered that all these improvements have taken place in the DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS 333 face of declining trade, declining population, and declining wealth in the country at large, what has been accomplished becomes absolutely sublime. It shows clearly that there is a class of the Irish people who, with all their faults, possess hearts and souls " that sorrows have frowned on in vain, Whose spirit outlives them, unfading and warm " ; and that they never give up and never despair. Never has any city been so much improved in so short a time, and in the face of such difficulties. The improvements are still being carried on. If they are carried on for another quarter of a century at the same rate at which they were carried on during the last quarter of a century, Dublin wuU be one of the cleanest, pleasantest, healthiest, and most beautiful cities in the world. In an educational point of view, there are very few cities either in these islands or on the Continent that offer more facilities for culture than Dublin. Its new National Library is, for its size, one of the finest and best organised and best managed in Europe. It is not a British Museum, nor is it a Biblioth^que Nationale ; and the citizens of Dublin who have children who are fond of reading, and who wish to add to their store of knowledge, ought to feel very well satisfied that 334 DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS their National Library is not like either the mon- strous and little-good-to-the-masses institution in London, or the still more monstrous and still less good -to -the -masses institution in Paris. Those to whom time is of little value can afford to wait during a considerable part of the day to get a book from the great libraries of London and Paris ; but for any one to whom time is really valuable, to visit the great libraries mentioned as a reader of their books, should, in most cases, be the last thing he should think of. There are three libraries in Dublin, of which two are free to any one kno^\ai as a respectable person — these are the National Library and the Royal Irish Academy. To become a reader in Trinity College Library costs, to a person known to be re- spectable, only a couple of shillings a year. See- ing the facilities that are in Dublin for cultured people, or for those who wish to become cultured, it is strange that it does not stand higher as an educational centre. The three great libraries it contains — that is, the National Library, Trinity College Library and the Royal Irish Academy — contain almost every sort of book required for the most complete education in every art and science known to civilised men. But one of the grand advantages of these institutions, an advantage DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS 335 almost as great to the people at large as the treasures they contain, is the fact that they are not controlled by "red tapeism." The amount of trouble and downright humiliation one has to go through to become a reader in the British Museum of London, or in the Bibliotheque Rationale in Paris, is enough to deter any but a person of nerve from seeking admittance to them as a reader. The British Museum is not so bad in the matter of '^ red tapeism " as it might perhaps be ; but the Bibliotheque Rationale puts so many obstacles in the way of those who desire to become readers, that it is little else than a disgrace to Paris and to France. For ridiculous red tapeism it beats any institution of its kind on earth. There are prob- ably not three libraries in the world more easy of access than the three Dublin ones that have been mentioned, and in which there is less red tapeism, or more courtesy shown to readers. The buildings that have been recently erected in Kildare Street, Dublin, the LibraiT and the Museum, would be considered chaste and elegant in any city in the world ; and it is questionable if any buildings of their kind can be found in any city to surpass them in architectural beauty. Even the Picture Gallery and the Natural History Gallery, close to them in Leinster Lawn, are very handsome 33^ DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS buildings. If the front of Leinster House, facing Kildare Street, were brightened up and made to look like its rear, the whole group of buildings, including Leinster House itself, w^ould form an architectural panorama hardly to be surpassed anywhere ; and if Dublin contained nothing else worthy of being seen, it would make Dublin worth travelling hundreds of miles to see. But it is the IMuseum of Irish Antiquities that is, or that ought to be, the glory of this splendid group of buildings, and it is the only one of them with the management of which fault can be justly found. The way it has been managed ever since the articles it contains were removed fi'om the Royal Irish Academy in Dawson Street is a dis- grace to all Ireland, and a blot on the Irish people. There is not room to show the public much more than half the objects of antiquity. They are stow^ed away in drawers, and have been so for nearly ten long years. They might as w^ell be in the earth from which they were recovered as be packed into drawers in a back room where none but officials can see them. If there was a decent and proper national spirit among the Irish people, such treatment of Ireland's wonderful and unique antiquities would not be tolerated for a single week. Her antiquities are among the chief glories of Ireland. In monu- DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS 337 ments of the past she stands ahead of almost all countries save Greece and Egypt. It is not alone in her ruined fanes, round towers, gigantic raths, sepulchral mounds, and Cyclopean fortresses that she can boast of antiquarian curiosities more numerous and more unique than those of almost any other country, but also in her multitudinous articles in gold, bronze, and iron. A good many of these — the greater part of them, perhaps — are in positions where they can be seen ; but thousands of them are where no one but an official can see them. If the Irish antiquarian department were properly arranged, and if all the objects it pos- sesses that have been dug up from Irish soil were properly exhibited, Ireland could boast of an ex- hibition of national antiquities greater, more en- tirely her own, and more unique than that possessed by any other country in Europe. Some may think that this statement is not true. They may point to the enormous collection of anti- quities in the museum in Xaples. It is, however, hardly fair to class the treasures of that museum with the objects found in Ireland. It was the accidental calamity that befel Herculaneum and Pompeii that stocked the museum in Naples. If that calamity had not happened, it is all but certain that not a single object in the Neapolitan Y 338 DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS museum would now be extant. It was by no accidental calamity that the enormous number of Irish antique objects were brought to light. They were found from time to time all over the country. There are many private collections in the hands of private individuals in almost all the large towns in Ireland, and a very large percentage of the bronze objects in the British Museum were found in Ireland. No other country of its size has yielded so many objects of a far-back antiquity. It seems a pity that those who have so many private collec- tions of antique objects in so many parts of Ireland do not send them all to the Royal Irish Academy ; but if they are to lie there, stowed away in drawers in a back room, they might better remain in the hands of private collectors. If there was a real national press in Ireland, there would be such wide- spread indignation awakened at the way Irish anti- quities have been treated since they were removed to the Museum in Kildare Street that those who manage it would be forced to treat one of the finest collections of its kind in the world in a very different manner. Hardly a word has appeared in the Dublin press protesting against the way the department of Irish antiquities has been managed. With all the advantages Dublin possesses over most of the European capitals in great facilities for DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS 339 education, in cheap house rent as compared with many other cities, in uncommon beauty of environs, very few rich, retired peoj^le w4th famihes to educate, choose it for a residence. It is not to be wondered at that wealthy English and Scotch people should prefer to live in their own countries, but wealthy Irish people seem not to desire to live in Dublin unless it is their native place. Ireland, unfortunately, does not possess very many rich people, but she has at least some outside of Dublin ; but very few of these, even if they have young, growing-up families, go to reside in the capital in order to educate them. Some seem to think that outside of Trinity College, Dublin has no advantages in an educational point of view worth speaking of. This is not now the case. It is true that some years ago Trinity College was the only institution in Dublin where high-class educa- tion could be obtained, but it is not so any longer, since the rise of other educational institutions. But it is in the excellence of its libraries, and the easy access that there is to them, that Dublin offers such great advantages to those who do not desire to enter Trinity College. There is, of course, a much larger collection of books in the British Museum, and in many of the Continental libraries, than there is in the libraries of Dublin ; 340 DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS but between red tapeism, and the greater number of readers tliat frequent those places as compared with the Dublin libraries, it is safe to say that more reading could be done and more knowledge gained by a student in one week in a Dublin library than in two weeks in any of those enormous places where there are such crowds and consequently such loss of time. It is, however, hardly to be wondered at that Dublin has heretofore attracted so few rich people to it. It got a name for being dirty and ill- governed; and it has to be confessed that the name was, in a large measure, deserved. Dublin ivas dirty and was badly governed, but it is not now. A bad name lasts a long time, and is not easily got rid of; and the improvements made in Dublin are of such recent origin that it is only natural that outsiders should think it is still what it was thirty years ago. Let Dublin continue to be improved for the next twenty years as it has been during the twenty years that have elapsed, and it will be one of the most attractive of the European capitals. It is not yet what it should be ; there are many things of many kinds in it which require improvement or alteration ; but so much good has been done already that it is only reasonable to expect that still more will be done, DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS 341 and that the time cannot be far distant when the city ^'of the black pool," badly as its English translation may appear, will attract not only visitors from all parts of the world, bnt rich people who will take np permanent abode there, attracted by the educational advantages it will afford, by the beauty and cleanliness of the city itself, and by the superlative beauty of the country around it. The situation of Dublin can hardly be called romantic. It is built at the mouth of a river, and consequently not on high ground ; but the site is good, for the ground rises on both sides of the Liffey, making the drainage easy. When the system of main drainage that is now being carried out is finished, it will be one of the best drained cities in the world. Dublin has not such a pictur- esque site as Edinburgh has, neither has any other city in Europe ; but outside of Edinburgh there are no objects of scenic interest unless one goes forty or fifty miles away to see them. But if the site of Dublin cannot be called picturesque, it can boast of having some of the most beautiful, if not the largest, public buildings in the world. For chasteness, harmony, symmetry, and grace, the Bank of Ireland, if it has any equals at all in modern architecture, has very few. The Custom 342 DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS House is one of the finest buildings in Europe. The new public buildings, containing the National Library and the Museum, are gems of architectural beauty ; so are some of the banks, and so is the Great Southern Railway Terminus, and so are many other public buildings. Dublin cannot boast of possessing any building as large as St Paul's or the Tuileries ; but size and beauty are two different things. But it is in its environs that Dublin stands ahead of all the capitals in Europe, or, perhaps, of any other city of equal size in any country. Because the beauties around Dublin were not described in the first chapters of this work does not imply that they are much inferior to what may be seen in other parts of the country. There is nothing like the Lakes of Killarney in the en\4rons of Dublin, and Dublin Bay is hardly equal to Clew Bay ; but barring those two gems of scenic loveliness, it is questionable if there is, for beauty alone, leaving sublimity aside, anything in Ireland that surpasses the immediate environs of Dublin, without going ftu'ther north than Howth, or further south than Bray. Every inch of the country round Dublin has some peculiar scenic charm of its-o^^ai. The Botanic Gardens of Glasnevin are the most inter- esting and beautiful in Europe ; not so much for DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS 343 the care that has been taken of them, or the quantity and variety of the plants that are in them, but principally on account of the charming locality in which they are situated. It is not meant to be implied that they are not well taken care of, or that their collection of plants is not both rare and large. What is meant is that had they the rarest and largest collection of plants to be seen in any gardens in the world, they would not have the same attraction were they situated in a less picturesque locality. If ever there was a place made to spend a hot summer day in, it is these gardens, with their murmuring river, their shaded, sunless walks, their gigantic trees and deep glens. The place where the flower gardens of Glasnevin are would still be beautiful if there wasn't a flower in it. Its bay is the great scenic attraction round Dublin. It cannot be seen to real advantage but from the south-west side of the hill of Howth. The bay has very few islands, but its background of mountains on one side and woodland on the other is so wonderfully fair, that were there myi-iads of islands to be seen, they could hardly add to the wondrous beauty of the \4ew. What a Scotch mechanic said about the view of Dublin Bay from the high land on the south-west of Howth the first 344 DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS time he was there will give the reader a better idea of Dublin Bay than a whole chapter of de- scriptions, and loses nothing by being expressed in the strong doric of the north : ^^ Ech, mon, I seed mony a bonny sicht in Scotland, but this beats a'." There are many who think the view from Killiney Hill finer than that from Howth. The view from the former takes in Sorrento Bay, which is in reality part of the Bay of Dublin that can hardly be seen from Howth, and also takes in many valleys in Wicklow and plains in the interior that are not visible from Howth. It is not easy to say which of the views is the finer ; but either is worth travelling not only ten miles, but a hundred miles, afoot to see. In describing the beauties of Dublin Bay, it cannot be out of place to give the finest poetic address to it that was ever written. It will be new to most EngHsh and many Irish readers. The poem is by the late D. F. McCarthy :— " My native Bay, for many a year I've loved thee with a trembling fear, Lest thou, though dear and very dear, And beauteous as a vision, Shouldst have some rival far away. Some matchless wonder of a bay, AVliose sparkling waters ever play 'Neath azure skies elysian. DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS 345 " 'Tis love, methought, blind love that pours The rippling magic round these shores, For whatsoever love adores Becomes what love desireth ; 'Tis ignorance of aught beside That throws enchantment o'er the tide, And makes my heart respond with pride To what mine eye admireth. " And thus unto our mutual loss, Whene'er I paced the sloping moss Of green Killiney, or across The intervening waters ; Up Howth's brown side my feet would wend To see thy sinuous bosom bend. Or view thine outstretched arms extend To clasp thine islet daughters. " My doubt was thus a moral mist, — Even on the hills when morning kissed The granite peaks to amethyst, I felt its fatal shadow ; It darkened o'er the brightest rills, It lowered upon the sunniest hills. And hid the winged song that fills The moorland and the meadow. " But now that I have been to view All that Nature's self could do. And from Gaeta's arch of blue Borne many a fond memento ; And gazed upon each glorious scene. Where beauty is and power has been, Along the golden sliores between Misenum and Sorrento ; 346 DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS " I can look proudly on thy face, Fair daughter of a hardier race, And feel thy winning well-known grace, Without my old misgiving ; And as I kneel upon tliy strand. And clasp thy once unhonoured hand, Proclaim earth holds no lovelier land Where life is worth the living." One great charm of the country around Dublin, like one of the great charms of Killarney, is its diversity. There are mountain, bay, woodland, and river. There is a variety of scenery in the im- mediate vicinity of Dublin such as cannot be found so near any other European capital, and such as not even Naples itself can boast of. Great indeed is the difference in the style of scenery between the cliffs of Howth and the green lanes of Clontarf, although both places are hardly more than four miles apart. To go a few miles further from the city. Bray is reached. It is only twenty- five minutes by train from Dublin. There one finds himself almost within a gunshot of some of the most picturesque and peculiar sceneiy in the world. The Dargle and Powerscourt Waterfall are in the same locality. They are gems of loveliness that surpass anything of their kind in these islands. Even Killarney has nothing like them. Their very smallness adds to their charms. The Dargle is DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS 347 exactly what its name, Dair-gleann, signifies, an oak-glen. It is a chasm some two or three hun- dred feet deep, every inch of the sides of which is covered in summer-time with some sort of tree, shrub, or flower. In its depths laughs or murmurs a limpid stream that can rarely be noticed, such is the thickness and luxuriance of the trees and shrubs that overhang it. Powerscourt Waterfall is close by the Dargle. The river that forms it leaps down a rock nearly three hundred feet in height, into a valley of brightest verdure, covered with a thick growth of primeval oak-trees. An enchanting spot — which it is gross folly to attempt to describe — in a land of towering hills and flower- crowned rocks. Its wildness, winsomeness, and loveliness must be seen in order to form anything like a just idea of it. And all within about twelve miles of Dublin ! Then there is Hovvth on the north side, and only nine miles from Dublin, one of the most wonderful spots of earth for its size in Europe. It is a hill-promontory that juts out into nearly the middle of the bay, about three miles in width and nearly the same in length. It is over five hundred feet high, and in autumn is a pyramid of crimson and gold ; for wherever there are not trees or cultivation, there are furze and heath. A place 34B DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS of wondrous beauty of its own, in no way like the Dargle or Powerscourt. From the summit of Howth there is one of the most enchanting and extensive views conceivable, reaching north to the Moume Mountains and east to Wales. And all this about nine miles from Dublin ! Yet with all these glories at her very feet, Dublin is still the Cinderella among the caj^itals of Em-ope. There is beauty of a '' truly rural " kind within half-an-hour's walk from the Dublin General Post Office, or from the centre of the city. Thackeray said in his "Irish Sketch Book," half a century ago, that it was curious how some of the streets of Dublin so suddenly ended in potato fields ; but the potato fields Thackeray saw there are all covered with houses now. It is true, however, that on the north side of Dublin one gets into the real country by walking only a quarter of an hour from the city limits; no sham country of cabbage gardens, but real fields of grass and grain growing from soil of the most exuberant fertility. Trees and hedgerows abound ; so do some of the best and most thrifty farmers in Ireland, who generally pay enormous rents for their land. The country north of Dublin is almost perfectly flat, while on the south side the mountains commence within a few miles of the city limits. But flat as the country north of DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS 349 Dublin is, it i« one of the finest and most fertile parts of Ireland, and was known in ancient times as Fingall, because some Finn Galls, or fair-haired foreigners fi'om Scandinavia settled in it when they ceased to plunder churches and monasteries. Those who prefer a flat, well-wooded, and very fertile country to a land of mountains and valleys, like that on the south side of Dublin, should see the plains of Fingall. It has been said that the gentle and refined are ever fond of flowers. If this be so, the gentle and refined ought to be very plentiful in Dublin and its environs, for in no other pai't of this planet known to man are there as many wild flowers to be seen so near a great city as in the environs of Dublin. This statement is made in sober earnest- ness, and with absolute certainty as to its truth. It may be asked, if this is so, how is it to be accounted for? It is easy of explanation. To beghi, Ireland is, imr excellence, the land of wild flowers because of its moist, mild climate and generally rich soil. Sunlight, when it is the burning sunlight of southern climes, is death to flowers. Dublin enjoys a milder climate than any city in Great Britain, although not so mild as Cork or some other Irish southern cities. It is only a few miles from the mountains on the south of 350 DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS Dublin to Howtli on the north. Between Howth and the mountains, if the whole of the mountains of Wicklow are counted and taking inequaUties of surface into account, for government surveys always mean level surfaces, there are every autumn at least a hundred thousand acres of wild flowers within half a day's journey of Dublin. It may be said that these w41d flowers are nearly all of one species — heath. That is true ; but heath, or heather as it is more frequently called, is a wild flower, and one of the most beautiful that grows. The reason the Irish mountains produce so much more heath than those of Great Britain is be- cause they are less rocky and more boggy, and are in a milder climate. The mountains of Wales, being so stony, have hardly any heath on them. Then there is the fiu'ze or gorse, as it is generally called in England. Heath and gorse bloom side by side over thousands of acres in Howth and on the Dublin and Wicklow mountains. Then there is the hawthorn. Where in these islands, or on the continent of Europe, are there as many haw- thorns to be seen on an equal space of ground as in the Phoenix Park, Dublin ? Let those who have seen them in their snowy glory of white blossoms in the early summer answer. But there are still other flowers that do certainly bloom in greater DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS 351 luxuriance, and are more plentiful round Dublin than round any other city in these islands — one of these is laburnum. Florists have said that no- where else does it bloom with such luxuriance as around the Irish capital. Dublin is indeed seated in a flowery land, for it is well known that even the rich soil of Ireland produces more wild flowers than the rich soil of Great Britain. It is true that not only the flora but the fauna of Ireland are less numerous in species than those of Great Britain. There are a great many species of flower- ing plants that are common in the larger island but unknown in the smaller one except in gardens. It is not easy to account for this ; but if there are fewer indigenous flowering plants in Ireland than in Great Britain, the former country produces those that are natural to it in much greater abundance than the latter. The reason of this is easily under- stood. It is because the climate of Ireland is milder and moister than that of Great Britain ; and it is probable that the soil is of a different quality in Ireland. But one thing is certain, that not in England or in any Euroi^ean country are there such a quantity of wild flowers to be seen as in Ireland. It is not alone on Irish bogs and mountains that wild flowers are more abundant than in most other countries, for the most fertile 352 DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS soil ill Ireland, the best fotteiiiiig laud, generally grows wild flowers in such abundance that pastures become parterres. Dublin and its vicinity are not quite so rich in antiquities as some other parts of Ireland. Very few traces of the old Danish city have been left. Its walls can be traced in some few places. But what sort of houses the people lived in can only be guessed at. They were probably, for the most part, built of wood ; for it cannot be too often impressed on those w^io have a taste for anti- quarian studies, that in aucient, and even what is generally know^l as medieval times, almost the entire populations of northern countries lived in houses of wood or of mud, and sometimes in houses made of both materials. For centuries after the art of building with stone and mortar was well understood, stone houses were rarely used by the masses either in towns or country places. They had stone-built churches and round towers, and sometimes castles, but the people lived in w^ooden or in mud houses. Dublin has more round towers in its immediate vicinity than any other Irish city. There are three of them within a few miles' distance. That of Clondalkin is on the Great Southern Railway ; that of Lusk is on the Great Northern ; and that of Swords is only DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS 353 seven miles from Dublin by road, and only two miles from Malahide Station on the Great Nor- thern. All these towers are in a good state of preservation ; but the one at Swords will soon be a ruin if the ivy, with which it has been foolishly allowed to become completely covered, is not re- moved from it. Ivy holds up for a time a build- ing that is in a state of decay, but in the long run it is sure to ruin it completely; for when the ivy becomes strong enough, it forces its way between the stones, gradually displaces them, and the building then tumbles down. If it is the Board of Works that has charge of the Sw^ords round tower, they are greatly to blame for allow- ing the ivy to be gradually but surely bringing it to certain ruin. If it is under the control of a private person, public opinion should compel him to have the ivy removed from what was not long ago one of the most perfect and best preserved of Irish round towers. There is something connected with the census of Dublin published in Thom's directory from official documents which may be more interesting to some than any description of the Irish capital, however graphic. This something is an evident error that has, by some means, been made in enumeration of its inhabitants. According to the published census, z 354 DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS there were in round numbers 13,000 more people in Dublin in 1851 than in 1891 ; and only 14,000 more in county and city included in 1891 than in 1851. There is a gross error here, for between the two epochs mentioned, the increase in what is generally known as the metropolitan district has been so great that it is visible to anyone who has been familiar with Dublin for forty years. It is known that since 1851 nearly 25,000 houses have been erected in city and county. That number of houses would represent at least 100,000 people, but it only represents 14,000 according to the census, or two-thirds of a person to each house ! It may be said that a great many houses have been pulled down in the city since 1851. True, there have ; but ten have been built since then for the one that has been pulled down. There are at least a dozen streets, large and small, in Dublin, the population of which is four times greater than it was in 1851 ; for there were no tenement houses in those streets then, whereas they are all tenement houses now, and consequently there are four or five families instead of one in each house. The great increase in the population of Dublin during the last forty or forty-five years is quite apparent in the more crowded state of the thoroughfares. It seems not only probable, but DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS 355 certain, from all the data that can be got at outside the census, that there are from fifty to one hundred thousand more people in what is known as the metropolitan district of Dublin than is shown by the published census. This will go far to account for the weekly death-rate of Dublin being generally higher than that of any other city in these islands ; for if the weekly number of deaths is based on a population less than what it is, it will make the weekly death-rate per thousand higher than it should be. This is a very serious matter for Dublin, for nothing has a more detrimental effect on the welfare of a city than getting the name of being unhealthy. It is to be hoped that the reader will not set down either to national bigotry or private advan- tage what has been said in praise of Dublin and its environs. The writer may be national in the broad sense of the word, but he has no sentimental love for Dublin beyond any other Irish city. He is not influenced by the genius loci; he has no personal interest whatever in Dublin. What he has said in its praise, and in praise of its environs, would be said of Timbuctoo had he the same knowledge of the African city that he has of Dublin, and were Timbuctoo and its environs as worthy of laudation. Dublin is not his native city ; but even if it were 356 DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS he would be perfectly justified in telling the truth about it. If what he has said about Dublin be untrue, it can easily be shown to be untrue. If that city has not been improved and beautified in a most remarkable manner during the last twenty- five years ; if some of its public buildings are not remarkable specimens of architectural excellence ; if its environs are not beautiful beyond those of any other European capital ; if any of these state- ments be untrue, let them be proved to be so at the very earliest opportunity. BELFAST AND ITS ENVIRONS Belfast is not only the second city in Ireland in population and wealth, but the second in beauty of environs. Its growth has been, during the last three- quarters of a century, greater than that of any city in these islands. It is an immense jump in popu- lation from 37,000 in 1821 to 2/3,000 in 1891. In splendour of public buildings, cleanliness of streets, and general appearance, Belfast can be favourably compared with any city of equal size in any country. Its citizens are proud of it, and so they ought to be, for it was their own enter- prise that made it what it is. The extraordinarily rapid growth of Belfast shows what manufactures can do for a city, for without them it would still be hardly more important than any of the pro- vincial towns of Ulster. It has an excellent harbour, and besides its linen manufactures, it has become one of the most important ship-building places in the world. But it was its linen manu- factures that gave Belfast the start. It is the largest linen mart in the world ; but unfortunately for it, and every other place in which the mann- as? 358 BELFAST AND ITS ENVIRONS factiire of linen is carried on, tlie competition of cotton fabrics is rapidly making the manufacture of linen less profitable, and threatens to drive it out of use almost entirely in the long run. If cotton were unknown, Belfast would be now, in all probability, a place of a million of inhabitants, and Ireland would be one of the richest, if not the very richest, country of its size in the world. It is well known that for flax growing and for linen bleaching Ireland is ahead of all countries. Experts say that in no other country can flax be gro\\^l with a fibre so strong and yet so fine as in Ireland. It seems to be the country of all others that is best suited for the growth of flax out of which the finest linen fabrics can be made. It would almost seem as if Ireland was fated to be for ever suffering some sort of ill-luck, and that things which are blessings to humanity at large are often misfortunes to her. There cannot be any doubt but that the cotton plant has proved one of the gi-eatest of blessings to mankind in general, but it has been a great misfortune to Ireland. Were it not for cotton, three-fourths of the land of Ireland would now be growing flax, and it would most likely contain a dozen linen manufacturing centres as large as Belfast. What- ever the future of the linen trade may be, it is BELFAST AND ITS ENVIRONS 359 hardly possible that Belfast can ever sink into insignificance, for its people have so much of the true commercial spirit in them that if linen became as useless as the chain armour of the middle ages, they would turn their energies to some other branch of manufacture and make it a success. Belfast hardly figures at all in ancient Irish history or annals. It is a comparatively new place. It is first mentioned in the Annals of the Four Masters under the year 14/6, where it is said, ''A great army was led by O'Xeill against the son of Hugh Boy O'Neill; and he attacked the castle of Bel-feiriste, which he took and demolished, and then returned to his house." The name Belfast is a corruption of Bel-feiriste, or as it would probably be written in modern Irish, Beul- fearsaide, the mouth or pass of the spindle. This seems nonsense, but the following, fi'om Joyce's "Irish Names of Places," will explain it : " The word fearsad is applied to a sand-bank formed near the mouth of a river by the opposing currents of tide and stream, which at low water often formed a firm and comparatively safe passage across. The term is pretty common, especially in the west, where these feavsets are of considerable importance ; as in many places they serve the inhabitants instead of bridges. A sand-bank of 360 BELFAST AND ITS ENVIRONS this kind across the mouth of the Lagan gave name to Belfast, which is called in Irish authori- ties Bel-feirisde, the ford of the far set ; and the same name in the uncontracted form, Belfarsad, occurs in Mayo." The Irish name for a spindle is fearsaid ; it also means a sand-bank, as described above, probably because the shape of such sand- banks is generally something like that of a spindle. According to the orthography of the Four Masters, whose spelling of place names is generally correct, feiriste is the genitive singular of fearsaid ; while in the name '' Belfarsad," mentioned by Joyce, forsad seems to be the genitive plural. Belfast and its environs cannot be said to be very rich in monuments of antiquity. There are, however, two round towers not far from it ; one at Antrim, some fifteen miles away, in excellent preservation ; and one at Drumbo, in the County Down, about five miles from the city. The last is in a ruined condition — not much more than thirty feet of it remains. But Belfast can boast of the most extraordinary monument of antiquity of its kind in Ireland being in its im- mediate vicinity. This is the vast rath known as the Giant's Ring. There is nothing in Ireland so fine as it. The rath on the summit of Knock Aillinn, in the County Kildare, which has been BELFAST AND ITS ENVIRONS 361 already described in the article on that hill, is much larger, and encloses three times the space ; but the earthen ramparts are not nearly so high as those of the Giant's Ring. The space enclosed by this gigantic rath is seven statute acres. When standing in the centre of this ancient fortress, nothing is seen but the sky above and the vast earthworks all around. The centre is as level and almost as smooth as a billiard table, and exactly in the centre stands a cromlech. Old men living in the locality say that the ramparts were for many years planted with potatoes. This must have reduced their height by many feet ; but they are still nearly, if not quite, twenty feet high. Like most ancient raths, it has two entrances, one exactly opposite the other. It would give ample room to a population of some thousands, and was evidently an ancient city. But one of the most extraordinary things connected with the Giant's Ring is that annals, history, and legend are silent about it. So far, there seems to be no more known about those who built the Giant's Ring than about the builders of the temples of Central America. It is the same with many of the vast Cyclopean forts along the west coast, of which the Stague fort in Kerry and the forts in the islands of 3^2 BELFAST AND ITS ENVIRONS Arran in Galway are the most remarkable. There are, however, very few large earthen forts in any part of Ireland about which annals and history are ahke silent. The Giant's Ring is by far the most remarkable structure of its kind in Ireland, and the most remarkable of all the ancient re- mains in the vicinity of Belfast. It has been much better preserved than most of. the remains of its kind in Ireland, for the landlord on whose property it is has built a stone wall round it, so it is safe from spoliation. The environs of Belfast are finer and more interesting than those of any Irish city, Dublin alone excepted. It is really curious that so little notice has been taken of them. The view from Devis Mountain, the top of which is hardly more than four miles from the centre of the city, is one of the finest and most extensive that can be seen in any part of Ireland. The greater part of the north of Eastern Ulster can be seen from it. Ailsa Craig in the Firth of Clyde seems almost at one's feet w^hen standing on the summit of Devis Mountain. To know the im- mensity of Loch Neagh, it should be seen from there. It appears like a vast inland sea, out of all proportion to the size of the island to which it is a curse rather than an adornment : BELFAST AND ITS ENVIRONS 365 for it is one of the most utterly uninteresting of Irish lakes. The view from Cave Hill is also very fine. This hill is only three or four miles from Belfast. Belfast Loch, as it is called, if not as picturesque as Dublin Bay, is, nevertheless, a very fine bay, and has most beautiful and sumptuous residences on its shores, particularly on the southern side. It is on this side of the loch that Hollywood is situated. There are more fine, well-kept residences in Hollywood than there are in the neighbourhood of any other Irish city. The people of Belfast are proud of Hollywood, and they ought to be. There are few places in the immediate vicinity of any city of the size of Belfast in England or Scotland where so many fine, well-kept, and sumptuous residences can be seen as in Hollywood. The greater part of them are owned by Belfast merchants. Few go to Belfast in search of the picturesque. It has got such a commercial name that those who have never been there think that it has no attractions save for the business man. But if Belfast is visited in the summer time, if the views from its hills are seen, and if its beautifiil suburb of Hollywood is seen, it will be found that there are scenic attractions of a very high order in the neighbourhood of the northern capital. CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS Cork, like Dublin, is a place of considerable antiquity. It does not figure in the annals or history of pagan Ireland, but Christian establish- ments were founded there very soon after the time of St Patrick. Its Irish name, and the one by which it is mentioned in all ancient Irish annals and history is Corcach Mor Mumhan, literally, the great swamp of Munster. A very inappropriate name seemingly, for, although the place where the city is built might have been a swamp, it never could have been a big one, as it is a narrow, and by no means a long, valley. It is, however, clear that the word mor — big — was not intended to relate to the size of the swamp, but to the greatness of either the town or ecclesiastical establishments that grew up in it. The earliest notice of Cork that appears in Irish annals is in the still uni^ublished "Annals of Inisfallen," where it is stated, under the year 617, that "In this year died Fionnbarre, first bishop of Cork, at Cloyne. He was buried in 366 CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS 367 his own church at Cork." Under the year 795, the following curious entry occurs in the same annals : — '^ In this year the Danes first appeared cruising on the coast [of Ireland] spying out the country. Their first attacks were on the ships of the Irish, which they plundered." The same annals say that Cork, Lismore, and Kill MolaVse were plundered by the Danes in the year 832, and that in 839 they burned Cork ; and that in 915 they plundered Cork, Lismore, and Aghabo. They also state that in 978 Cork was plundered twice, presumably by the Danes. The Chronicon Scottorum says that Cork was also plundered by the Danes in 822. It was so often plundered by them that it is hardly to be wondered at that the annalists should not have been able to keep account of every time it was harried by the Northmen. But the Danes were not the only parties by whom the south of Ireland suffered, for we read in the Four blasters, that in the year 84/ Flann, over-king of Ireland, for what reason does not a^^pear, harried ^lunster from Killaloe to Cork. They say also that a great fleet of foreigners (Northmen) arrived in Munster in 1012 and burned Cork. They were, however, defeated by Cahall, son of Donnell. This fleet had evidently come to Cork for the purpose of making 368 CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS a diversion in the south of Ireland, so that the great Danish army, whose headquarters were in Dublin, and who contemplated the entire con- quest of the country, should not have the men of Munster to oppose them. The Danish army that came to Cork in 1012 (the correct date seems to be 1013), were not able to give any assistance to their countrymen at the battle of Clontarf by making a divereion in JVIunster, for it would appear that they were wholly de- stroyed. There is no record in the Irish annals of the Danes making any attack on Cork after the battle of Clontarf. The situation of Cork, like that of Dublin and Belfast, is at the mouth of a river, and on low- lying land. While the country round the city is exceedingly fine, it has not, like the country in the neighbourhood of Dublin and Belfast, any places from which extensive views can be had. The country round Cork is by no means flat, but there is nothing near it that could be called a mountain, or even a high hill. It is, however, as beautiful as any country of its kind could be, with green, rounded eminences, but not as much wood on them as there should be to make them look to best advantage. The river between Cork and the Cove, or Queenstown, as it is now called, CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS 2>^^ is one of the finest six or eight miles of river scenery to be found anywhere. The people of Cork are proud of it, as they may well be. Cork, unfortunately, is not growing as Dublin and Belfast are. There is a curious belief, partly a prophecy, that it will yet be the capital of Ireland. '^Limerick was, Dublin is, but Cork will be the capital," is frequently heard in the south of Ireland. So far, there is not much sign that the southern city will overtake Dublin, nor is it quite clear that Limerick was ever the principal city of Ireland. It was, however, a very important place during the greater part of the eleventh century. Limerick seems to have been in the possession of the Danes for nearly a hundred years, until Brian Boramha took it from them about the year 970. It continued to grow as long as his descendants retained political power, which they did for nearly a century after his death. Giraldus Cambrensis calls Limerick '' a magnificent city," but it must have begun to decline even before he saw it, about the year 1190, for the O'Briens, or descendants of Brian Boramha, had by that time lost a great deal of their political power. Cork has, for at least two centuries, been a more important place than Limerick. Some of the streets and public buildings in Cork are very fine, and will compare favourably w4th 2 A 370 CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS those of any city. But it is evident that the city was built too far up the river. Cork should be where Queenstown is. If it were, there would be a chance of its becoming at some future day the capital of Ireland. It is curious that almost all cities that are built on rivers, and that were founded in ancient times, are generally at the head of navigation. This habit of building cities as far up rivers as ships could go was followed in order to give greater security from attacks by sea. The farther up a river a city was, the more easily it could be defended from attacks by sea. In olden times, when the largest ships drew no more than eight or ten feet of water, Cork was as advan- tageously situated for trade where it is as if it were where Queenstown is. But such is not the case now. This defect of being too far up the river is the only thing in its situation that is not favourable. It has one of the finest harbours in Europe, and one of the finest in the world, but the harbour is too far from the city. If there is a single place on the whole of the west coast of Europe especially adapted for the site of a great city, it is the spot on which Queens- town is built. It was nothing but the constant warfare of ancient times that prevented Cork from being built there. There is that magnificent harbour CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS 371 that the mightiest ironclad leviathan that floats can enter at any state of the tide and be in it in five minutes from the time she leaves the main ocean. Then there is that splendid site for a great city on a gentle ascent, where street behind street and terrace behind terrace could deck the hill-side, and all look down on that gloiious land- locked bay where a thousand ships could anchor. There cannot be any doubt that with the ever- growing trade and passenger traffic between Europe and America, both Cork and Queenstown must be benefitted. Even if an American packet station were established at Galway, it would hardly interfere seriously with Queenstown or Cork, for harbours like the Cove are too scarce on the coasts of Europe, and the trade between Europe and America is too great and increasing too fast to leave Loch Mahon * in the slightest danger of being deserted. As long as ships navigate the Atlantic they must enter it. ISTothing but the establishment of aerial traffic between Europe and America can ever leave the Cove of Cork shipless. The country round Cork is very fine, and there are many splendid and well-kept gentlemen's seats in its suburbs. It would be hard to find any city more picturesque in its situation, although built * The old name of what is now called Queenstown Harbour. 372 CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS very nearly at the mouth of a river. It is, more than any large place in Ireland, a city of hills and hollows. Some of its streets are very steep, rather too much so for pleasant walking. But this hilly- ness makes it all the more picturesque, and makes the drainage all the better. Cork is a beautiful city, and — surrounded by a beautiful country. If it has not the busy appearance of Belfast, or the metropolitan appearance of Dublin, it is, never- theless, a fine city, and on account of its magnifi- cent harbour, it has, in all probability, a great and prosperous future before it. The antiquities of Cork have almost entirely dis- appeared. It suffered so much from the North- men and was so often plundered and burned by them that it is not to be wondered at that so few of its ancient monuments exist. It had a fine round tower, of which nothing is left but the foundation. It was, presumbly, the Northmen who destroyed it. Every vestige of the old church founded by St Finnbar has disappeared long ago. The fact that Cork was so often plundered by the Danes and other Northmen shows that it must have been an important place, at least in the matter of churches and monasteries. The Danes knew that wherever the largest religious establishments were the CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS 373 most wealth was. This is proved by history and annals telling ns that Armagh, Kildare, Cork, Glendaloch, Downpatrick, Clonmacnois, and other important religious centres, were most frequently plundered by them. Just in proportion to the importance of a place in an ecclesiastical point of view, the more frequently it was plundered by the Danes. When they began their attacks on Ireland, they seem to have known, as well as the Irish themselves, where the principal wealth of the country would be found. As Cork is the last large place that suffered greatly from the Danes that shall be mentioned in this work, it cannot be uninteresting or out of place to give an extract from the Earl of Dunraven's book on ancient Irish architecture about those terrible Vikings, and the causes that made them a terror to all the maritime nations of Europe for so many years, more especially as such an expensive work is not generally read, and not within reach of the masses : '^ Dense as is the obscurity in which the cause of the wanderings and ravages of the Scandinavian Vikings is enveloped, 3^et the result of the investigations hitherto made on the subject is, that they were, in a great measure, consequent on the conquests of Charlemagne in the north of 374 CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS Germany, and on tlie barrier which he thereby — as well as by the introduction of Christianity — set on their onward march. It can hardly be attributed to accident that, with the gradual strengthening of the Frankish dominions, the hordes of Northmen descended on the British Isles in ever-increasing numbers. The policy of Charlemagne in his invasion of Saxony, and the energy by which he succeeded in driving his enemies beyond the Elbe and the German Ocean, were manifestly intensified by religious zeal. The Saxons were still heathens ; and the first attack made by the Frankish King was on the fortress of Eresbourg, where stood the temple of Irminsul, the great idol of the nation. We read that he laid waste their temples and broke their idols to pieces. . . . However it may appear from ancient authorities that for some centuries before then, the Scandinavians had occasionally infested the southern shores of Europe ; yet in the added light that is cast by the Irish annals on the subject, we perceive that from this date their piratical incursions afford evidence not before met with of preconcerted plan and incessant energy; and these events in the reign of Charles may lead us to discover what was the strong impulse that thus tended, in some measure, to CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS 375 condense and concentrate their desultory warfare. Impelled by some strong, overmastering passion, these hordes of northern warriors held on from year to year their avenging march ; and such was the fury of their arms that even now, after the lapse of a thousand years, their deeds are in appalling remembrance throughout Europe, not only in every city on the sea-shore, or on river, but even in the peasant traditions of the smallest village." It is curious, and for the Irish a source of very legitimate pride, that of all the countries attacked by the Northmen, they got the hardest blows and the most terrible, as well as the most frequent, defeats in Ireland. They seem to have made more frequent attacks on it than on any other country, and to have poured more men into it than into any other country. This appears not only from Irish annals and history, but from Icelandic literature, which was the common property of all the Scandinavian nations, and the only literature in which the doings of the Vikings are recorded by writers who were nearly contemporary with them. There appears to be more written about Ireland and its people in the Icelandic Sagas than about any other country or people the Vikings harried. The 376 CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS terrible defeat the Xortlimeii suffered at Clontarf ill 1014 is fully acknowledged in the Icelandic Sagas. It must, however, in truth be admitted that that battle, while it turned out to be a national one, originated in a family quarrel, and was brought about, as many 'battles had been brought about before, by a bad and beautiful woman. If Gormfhlaith and King Brian had not quarrelled, if Broder had not been desperately enamoured of her, and if she had not been of the royal blood of the terribly maltreated and so often ravaged province of Leinster, the battle of Clontarf never would have been fought. Brian was an elderly man when he became over-king, and was quite willing to allow the Danes to hold Dublin and other sea-ports as trading points, for after a time they became traders and carriers. . He was willing to let them alone provided that they let him alone. This is proved by his having given one of his daughters in marriage to Sitric, the Danish King or Governor of Dublin. The Danes, knowing they had the entire strength of the province of Leinster at their back by Brian's quarrel with Gormfhlaith, Avho was sister to the King of Leinster, seem, probably for the first time, to have seriously contemplated the complete conquest of Ireland. CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS 377 That the Irish suffered some terrible defeats from the Northmen has to be admitted. In justice to those who compiled the various Irish annals, it must be said that they always freely acknowledge when the invaders had the best of it in a battle. It is, however, evident that, taking the almost continuous fighting between the invaders and the invaded for two hundred years, or from about the year 814 to the time of the battle of Clontarf in 1014, the net gains of the fighting was decidedly on the side of the Irish. INIany of those well-versed in Irish history think that if Ireland had been really under the dominion of one sovereign, even as England was under the later Saxon Kings, the Northmen would certainly have conquered Ireland and held it as they held, for a time, England, Normandy, and other countries. Very few of those called Irish chief kings were such except in name. Their vassals used to lick them as frequently as they licked their vassals. The Northmen defeated in battle and killed more than one Irish chief king, but that does not seem to have brought them any nearer the conquest of the island, for the provincial kings used to fight them on their own account. The Northmen had too many heads to cut off, and none of the heads controlled 378 CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS the destinies of the country. Tlic most terrible defeat that was probably ever inflicted on the Irish by the Northmen was at the battle of Dublin in 917. The over-king, Niall Glundubh, was killed in it, and from what the Irish annals say, it would seem that his whole army was cut to pieces ; but the victory was of little use to the invaders, for the very next year they suff'ered a defeat from the Irish in Meath, in which their whole army was destroyed and almost all their leaders slain. We are told that only enough of the Danes were left alive to bear tidings of their defeat. How the Irish managed to get the better of the Danes and at the same time do so much fighting amongst themselves is one of those historic puzzles the solution of which seems hopeless. Many thoughtful persons among the Irish regret that Ireland had not been thoroughly con- quered by the Northmen. They say that had it been conquered by them it would have been united under one supreme ruler, the provincial divisions would have been obliterated, a strong central government formed, and intestine wars brought to an end. Such a state of things might have come to pass ; but it seems clear that the Northmen were not capable of building CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS 379 up a nation. They failed to do it whenever they tried. They had complete control in England for two generations when they were at the height of their power, but they failed to keep their grip on England, although having had the ad- vantage of a large, and what might be called an indigenous, Scandinavian population north of the Huniber. Hardly a trace of their nearly three hundred years' rule in some Irish cities remain, and in the entire island all the traces left of their language is to be found in less than a dozen place names. They became great in Normandy only when they ceased to be Northmen and mingled their blood with that of the people whom they had conquered, and became French. Whatevei* benefit other countries may have received from the Danes or Northmen, Ireland received none. To her they were nothing but a curse. If they had conquered her, they might, in the long run, have benefitted her. It would be not only difficult, but absolutely impossible, to point out a single way, except, perhaps, by an admixture of a little new blood, in which Ireland was benefitted by the visits of the Northmen. In spite of their very great skill in ship-building and navigation, they introduced not a single art into Ireland. Confused as the political state of 380 CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS the country was before they came to it, it was still more confused when they ceased to be plunderers and became merchants. They had nothing themselves that could be called literature, and were the greatest enemies that Irish literature had ever encountered, for the number of books they must have destroyed is beyond calculation. N^ot a monastei-y or church from one end of Ireland to the other escaped being plundered by them, and most of the monasteries were plundered ten times during the two hundi*ed years their plun- derings lasted. lona, though not in Ireland, was an Irish establishment ; it was so often plundered by them, and its entire population so often killed, that it had to be entirely abandoned in the ninth century. It became a ruin, and remained such until the Xorthmen ceased their raids ; its treasures, or what remained of them, were re- moved to Kells in Ireland. Nothing can show more plainly the knowledge the Northmen pos- sessed of the country, and their determination to leave nothing in it unplundered, than their having plundered the anchorites' cells on the Skelligs rocks, off the coast of Kerry. It is said that there is but one spot at which a boat can land on these rocks, and then only on the very finest and calmest day; but the Northmen found out the landing- CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS 381 place, plundered the cells, and, of course, killed every one they found in them. It is very curious how it came to pass that a people so very brave as the Northmen undoubtedly were should be so lacking in almost every quality that goes to form a great, conquering people and builders up of nations. They never impressed themselves on any nation or province they con- quered. A very large part of the north of Eng- land was not only conquered but settled by them, and three Danish kings reigned in England, yet it remained Saxon England until the battle of Hastings. In France they not only lost their language, but lost their identity in less than three generations, and became absolutely French. They did not even call themselves Northmen, or Normans ; for on the Bayeux Tapestry we find the legend. Hie Francl puynant, showing plainly that they regarded themselves as nothing but French. They conquered the greater part of the island of Sicily, but, as usual, have left hardly a trace of their occupation in it. It need hardly be repeated that in Ireland, in spite of their having held and ruled some of its chief cities for three hundred years, and in spite of their many alliances with Irish chiefs and nobles, all they have left that in any way shows that they 382 CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS ever set foot on Irish soil are less than a dozen place names. The Northmen might well be for- given for their pliinderings and burnings if it Avere not for the quantity of books they burned. But for them, ancient Celtic literature would be so immense that it would be regarded with respect even by those who would be most hostile to the nation that produced it. The successful resistance of the Irish against the Northmen is a very curious historic fact. Of all countries in Europe in the middle ages, it ought to have been, no matter what might be the valour of its inhabitants, the most easy of subjugation on account of its political divisions, and the conse- quent state of almost continual war that existed among the provinces. Yet in spite of all, in no part of Europe which the Northmen attacked, did they encounter such strong and such long-sustained resistance as in Ireland, in spite of the fact that for many years before the battle of Clontarf, the province of Leinster, whose soldiers from time inniiemorial had been considered the bravest in Ireland, was in alliance with the invaders. The successfid resistance the Irish made against the Northmen is proved from sources that are neither Scandinavian nor Irish ; for the Norman Chronicle says, " that the Franks, or French, were grateful to CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS 383 the Irish for the successful resistance they made against the Danes ; and that in the year 848 the Northmen captured Bordeaux and other places which they burned and laid waste ; but that the Scotts (Irish) breaking in on the Northmen drove them victoriously from their borders." It is absolutely sickening to read of all the plunderings, murderings, and burnings committed by the North- men in Ireland. When we think of all the similar sort of work the Irish practised on one another, we wonder how it happened that there were any people left in the island ; and we are almost driven to the conclusion that if it had not been for the extraordinary fecundity of the race, it would have become depopulated. It was not only the numbers of Irish that were killed by the Northmen, but also the numbers that were brought into captivity by them that tended to depopulate the country. Under the year 949 the Annals of the Four Masters state that Godfrey, a Danish king or general, plundered Kells and other places in Meath, and carried off three thousand persons into captivity, and robbed the country of an enormous quantity of gold, silver, and wealth of all kinds. That sort of work had been carried on for nearly two hundred years, and it is a wonder that the entire country was not utterly ruined. 384 CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS An interesting as well as gruesome illustration of what Ireland suffered from Danish raids was revealed some few years ago while workmen were levelling ground for the erection of a house at Donnybrook, near Dublin. They unearthed the skeletons of over six hundred people, of almost all ages ; from those of full-grown men to those of babies, all buried in one grave, and only about eighteen inches under the surface. This vast grave was close to the banks of the little river Dodder. The Northmen had e\ddently gone up the river in their galleys, for at full tide it had enough of water to float them. By some chance the leader, or one of the leaders, of the Danes was killed in the foray, for his body was found a little distance from the grave of the victims. His sword was buried with him ; it was of recognised Danish make, and had a splendid hilt inlaid with silver. Not a vestige of clothing or ornaments was found on the bodies of the slain, save a common bronze ring on the finger of one of them. Everything they had seems to have been taken. A village had evidently stood in the locality; it was raided by the Danes, the inhabitants all killed, and everything of value they possessed, even to their clothing, taken ; for if they had been buried in their clothing, which must have been almost entirely of woollen material, which CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS 385 resists decay for a long time, some vestige of it would have been discovered. The remains of the victims of the massacre were carefully examined by the most eminent scientists and arch^ologists of Dublin, among them Dr Wm. Fraser, who wrote an article on the discovery that may be seen in the transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. Irish history and annals are silent about this terrible massacre, and it is hardly to be wondered at that they should not have mentioned it, for such things were of such frequent occurrence in Ireland during the time of the Northmen that it was impossible to keep track of them all. It is hard to agree with the Earl of Dunraven in what he says in the passage that has been quoted a few pages back, as to the cause of the invasions and plunderings of the Northmen. The victories of Charlemagne over the Saxons could scarcely have caused the vast outpourings of Northmen on southern and western Europe. The Saxons were Germans, pure and simple ; but there seems to have been a very great difference beween Northmen and Germans. They may both have belonged originally to the same race, and their languages may have been, and undoubtedly were, closely allied, but they seem to have had very little in common. One was an essentially sea- 2 B 386 CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS faring people, and keeps up a love for the sea to the present day. The other was not a sea- faring people, and hardly yet takes kindly to maritime life. The Norse and German races lived side by side in England for some centuries, but they lived apart, quite as much apart as the Celts and Scandinavians lived apart in Ireland. It would rather seem as if it was want, added to a bold and restless nature, that was the primary cause of Norsemen's raids on the south-western coasts of Europe. Their ow^n country was barren, and cold, and unable to support a dense popula- tion. It sometimes happens that people multiply faster than they can be supported. Such a state of things occurred in Ireland in the early part of the present century. Not that Ireland could not have supported a much larger population than it ever contained, provided the social condition of the country was different ; but under the con- ditions that existed, the people multiplied beyond their means of support. The same thing may have occurred in Scandina\ia. The people may have been forced by hunger to seek a living by foul means or fair, somewhere else than in their own country. Cruel as they were, they were probably not more cruel than any other people of their time would have been under the same CORK AND ITS ENVIRONS 387 circumstances. It would seem that it was ex- haustion of population in Scandinavia that put an end to Scandinavian raidings. Its people having become Christians may have had some effect in softening their manners ; but it is certain that it was not hatred of Christianity that prompted them to plunder Christian nations. It was love of plunder, intensified, in all probability, by want and semi-starvation at home. It is, how- ever, very curious that the people who were once the terror of southern Europe should have become what they are to-day, and what they have been for some centuries, as peaceable and as law-abiding nations as there are in the world. GALWAY AND ITS ENVIKONS Galway is one of the most modern of the Irish provincial capitals. It does not figure at all in ancient annals. The first mention of it in the annals of the Four Masters is under the year 1124, when it is stated that the men of Connacht erected a castle in Galway. The first mention of it in the annals of Loch Key is under the year 1191, when it is stated that the river Gaillimh, from which the town takes its name, was dried up. The cause of this phenomenon is not stated. Galway was at one time a place of considerable wealth and trade. It was, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the port to which most of the Spanish wine destined for Ireland used to come; and it is generally believed that a Spanish type of features can still be noticed on some of its inhabitants. But whatever mercantile prosperity Galway enjoyed some centuries ago, very little of it unfortunately remains ; for of all Irish towns the decrease of its population has been the most terrible. In 1845 it contained very close on 35,000 inhabitants, in 1891 it had only 14,000! It is painful to walk GALWAY AND ITS ENVIRONS 391 in the outskirts of the town and pass through whole streets in which nothing remains save the ruins of cottages. Gal way ought to be a pros- perous place, for it is situated on a noble bay that forms a spacious harbour, sheltered from the fury of the Atlantic by the Isles of Arran. It is pleasant to be able to state that the condition of this once fine city is improving. In spite of the signs of decay that are only too visible in Galway, it is a very quaint and interesting town. It contains many buildings that were erected centuries ago, in the days of its prosperity, that are evidences of its former wealth and trade. In what may be called media3val remains, it is, perhaps, richer than any other town in Ireland, and will well repay a visit. It is one of the few large towns in Ireland in which a majority of the people are bilingual, using both the English and Irish languages. There is not much either of scenic or antiquarian interest in the immediate vicinity of Galway; but if those who wish to see the most ancient and gigantic cyclopean remains in Europe, or perhaps in the world, go to the Isles of Arran, to which a small steamer sails from Galway, they will be well repaid for a two hours' trip. The Arran Islands contain more antique monuments of the 392 GALWAY AND ITS ENVIRONS pre-liistoric past and of a more interesting kind than any other places of eqnal extent in these Islands. These monuments consist of vast drjstone fortresses that were raised by some pre-historic race. There is what may be called historic tradition that they were built by a remnant of the Firbolgs in the century preceding the Christian era ; but those most learned in things pertaining to Irish anti- quities, do not think there is any reliable historic evidence as to where or by whom they were erected. The principal fortresses are, Dun Aengus, Dun Connor, Dun Onacht and Dun Eochla. They are all in the Great Island, or Arran M6r, except Dun Connor, which is in the Middle Island, or Inis Maan. Dun Connor is the largest. It is considerably over two hundred feet long, and over a hundred feet wide. Its treble walls are still twenty feet high in some places, and from sixteen to eighteen feet in thickness. These vast fortresses look as if they were the work of giants. Like almost every relic of the past, they seem to have been more marred by men than by time. They have evidently been injured by people looking for treasure ; and a good deal of their stones have been removed to build cabins and outhouses. Miss Margaret Stokes, who has devoted almost all her life to the study of Irish antiquities, and who GALWAY AND ITS ENVIRONS 393 consequently knows more about them, perhaps, than any one in Ireland, says of these vast for- tresses in Arran : " They are the remains of the earliest examples of architecture known to exist in Western Europe." There is something awfully grand and grim in the aspect of these ruined for- tresses. To gaze on their colossal dimensions and barbaric rudeness seems to carry us back almost to the beginning of time, when the earth was inhabited by beings unlike ourselves. But how- ever old the forts in Arran may be, it is evident that they were the strongholds of a seafaring people ; for the whole products of the barren islands on which they stand would not be worth the labour of erecting such gigantic fortresses for their protection. These islands support a good many people now, thanks to the potato ; but in ancient times, when it was unknown, it is hard to under- stand how the multitude of men it must have taken to build so many vast fortresses could have found sustenance on these barren isles ; and we are, therefore, almost driven to the conclusion that the fortresses in the Isles of Arran were built by pirates or seafaring men of some kind. THE CLOUD SCENEEY OF IRELAND It is only those who have lived a long time in continental conntries that can fully appreciate the beauty of Irish cloud scenery. As a rule, insular countries are richer in cloud scenery than con- tinents. Any one who has lived even in the western part of continental Europe knows that Great Britain, owing to its being an island, is much richer in cloud scenery than France ; and the further east one goes, the drier the climate will be found to be, the fewer the clouds, and consequently the less attractive the sky. Ireland being situated so far out in the " melan- choly ocean" is, beyond all European countries, a land of clouds, and it has to be admitted that she very often has too much of them. But if these clouds frequently pour down more rain than is necessary for the growth of crops, there is a certain amount of compensation given by skyey glories they create ; and marvellous these glories sometimes are. It is not only at sunset or sunrise that Irish cloud scenery is fine; for often during even a wet summer, when the rain ceases for a 394 THE CLOUD SCENERY OF IRELAND 395 time, and the sun appears, the sky becomes what it is hardly incorrect to call a wonderland of beauty, with its *' temples of vapour and hills of storm." But the real glories of Irish cloud scenery are its sunsets. Ireland is, beyond any other country perhaps in the world, the land of gorgeous sunsets. Sometimes they are such wonders of golden glory that even the most stolid peasant gazes on them with emotion. As a rule, it is only in the latter part of summer and the first half of autumn that Irish sunsets can be seen in their greatest beauty. Sometimes, when the summer is very wet, fine sunsets are seldom seen ; but in fine weather they are generally such as can be seen in no other country. For months during the fine summer and autumn of 1893, every sunset was a wonder of indescribable beauty, with almost half the heavens a blaze of golden clouds. SOMETHING ABOUT IRISH PLACE NAMES It has been said that ahnost everything connected with Irish history and topography is peculiar. The truth of this can hardly be doubted. If the ancient Irish were a non-Aryan race, the strange phases of their history and the abundance of Irish place names might not strike us as so curious. But it is well known that the Irish are Aryans, and that they are substantially the same people as the ancient Britons were ; yet nothing in the history of England or of Great Britain will satisfactorily account for the fewness of place names in the latter country as compared with Ireland. British, but especially English, place names are, in a vast majority of cases, either of Saxon, Norse, or Celtic origin. Their fewness as compared with Irish place names is what strikes a native of Ireland with astonishment. There are probably as many place names in a single Irish province as there are in the whole of England. The townland nomenclature of Ireland is almost unknown in England. The names of all the town- lands in Ireland can be seen in the Government 396 SOMETHING ABOUT PLACE NAMES 397 Survey of 1871. They number, exclusive of the names of cities, towns, and villages, about 37,000. But it is only the place names that mean human habitations, places erected by men, and where men dwelt, that shall be mentioned here. Let five denominations of place names suffice to show their immensity — namely, balli/s, kills, raths, duns and Uses. The first means towns or steads ; the second, churches or cells ; and the three last mean fortified habitations of some kind. Of hallys there are 6700, of kills 3420, of Uses 1420, of raths 1300, and of duns 760, making altogether 13,600 place names meaning habitations of some kind. But this is not the half of them ! The place names in the subdivisions of townlands are not mentioned at all. There is a parish in Westmeath in which there are three place names beginning with rath, and three with kill, none of which is mentioned in the printed list of townlands. Multitudes of names in which some one of the five words mentioned is included have been translated or changed; just as Ballyboher has been made Booterstown, and Dunleary made Kingstown. Many place names in which halhj, kill, du)i, rath, and liss occur are not included in the numbers given, for very often the adjective goes before the noun, as in such names as Shanbally, Shankill, 39B SOMETHING ABOUT PLACE NAMES Sliaiilis, Shandun, &c. Taking everything into consideration, it would seem fair to estimate that not more than half the place names formed from the five words that have been mentioned appear in the printed list of Irish townlands ; then we have the astounding total of over twenty-seven thousand place names in Ireland formed from five words that mean human habitations. The only explanation of the astonishing number of ancient place names found in Ireland, as com- pared with England, seems to be the dense rural population that must have existed in the former country in ancient times. That an enormous percentage of ancient place names have totally faded away owing to the disuse of the Gaelic language, the consolidation of farms, and the decline of population, there cannot be any doubt at all. The puzzle about Irish place names is, if their extraordinary numbers were caused by a more dense population in Ireland than in England — why was Ireland more densely peopled than England in ancient times ? The soil of Ireland is hardly more fertile than the soil of England, and the climate of Ireland is not as good, for it is much wetter than that of the larger island. England is nearer to the Continent, and therefore was more easy of access to continental traders. The situa- SOMETHING ABOUT PLACE NAMES 399 tion as well as the soil and climate of England were rather more favourable to the growth of a large population than were those of Ireland. It is now generally conceded that the ancient Britons and Irish were of the same race, and spoke a lan- guage that was substantially the same. But why should there seem to have been such a difference in the political and social condition of the Irish and the ancient Britons who were their contem- poraries? Why are there so comparatively few ancient place names in Great Britain and such an overwhelming number of them in Ireland? Why should Ireland have a history that goes so far back into the dim twilight of the past, and England have no history beyond the time of Ca3sar ? These are most interesting and important questions, but how can they be answered ? It is to be hoped that some future savant will succeed in solving them. The End. PRINTED BY TUENBULL AND SPEAKS, EDINBURGH Date Due : If 1 19'^- ^ ?t)01 JAN (|) BOSTON COLLEGE ■11 9031 01646073 5 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRAR UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. Books may be kept for two weeks and mi renewed for the same period, unless reserved Two cents a day is charged for each book overtime. If you cannot find what you want, as Librarian who will be glad to help you. The borrower is responsible for books c on his card and for all fines accruing on the