Romantic Ireland. Volume 2/2

CHAPTER IV

AROUND THE COAST TO LIMERICK

IT is at Fastnet that the great incoming Atlantic liners, bound for Queenstown, or through St. George’s Channel to Liverpool, first make land and run up their four-deep strings of signals; where, as Mr. Kipling says:

Beyond Bantry Bay, Black Bull Head passes on the starboard, and, soon after, Dursly Head and Dursly Island. The island is said to contain a population of over five hundred, with no priest, no public house, and no constabulary. A veritable Arcadia!

Bolus Head, Skelligs Rocks, and Bray Head passed, one comes to Valentia Island and the entrance to Dingle Bay. One of the most fondly recalled of all Irish legends is that of the landing of the Milesians, as they came up through the Biscayan Bay upon what they then knew as “Innis Ealga” – the Noble Isle. Then it was ruled by three brothers, princes of Tuatha de Danaan, after whose wives (who were also three sisters) the island was alternately called, Eire, Banva, and Fiola. By these names Ireland is still frequently known to the poets. Whatever difficulties or obstacles beset the Milesians in landing, they at once attributed to the “necromancy” of the Tuatha de Danaans. When the Milesians could not discover land where they thought to sight it, they simply agreed that the Tuatha de Danaans had, by their black arts, rendered it invisible. At length they descried the island, its tall blue hills touched by the last beams of the setting sun; and from the galleys there arose a shout of joy. Innisfail, the Isle of Destiny, was found!

The legend has furnished Moore the excuse for launching into melody again. He relates it as follows:

Valentia – the most westerly railway-station in Europe, says Bradshaw – is the true spot where West meets East; where the New World first receives its introduction to the Old.

More than half a century ago, the shores of this spacious sheet of landlocked water were selected by the great Duke of Wellington and others as the terminus of a railway which was to be the first link in the chain which was to bind the Old World and the New, and to join the ocean liners that were run from America to Valentia, as they now do to Queenstown. The project fell through, but the island was afterward selected as the old-world end of the Atlantic cable of 1865, and also that laid by the leviathan steamship, the Great Eastern, in 1866. The principal village on the island is called Knightstown. If favoured with a fresh westerly breeze, one beholds from the hillside a scene of grandeur unsurpassed. The ocean engages in conflict with the rugged headlands rising hundreds of feet out of the sea, and hurls its foaming breakers with ceaseless rhythm against the base of the rocks, only to be rolled back in spray and foam. All outside is a scene of wild magnificence, while, such is the perfect shelter, the harbour itself, under all stress of weather, is as placid as a summer lake. Lord John Manners, in his notes of a tour through Ireland, describes the Atlantic here as follows:

“The great waves came in with a roar like a peal of artillery, and leapt up against and over the rocks just below us, sending forth a rainbow in one direction, and an immense jet of foam in another. I do not believe I exaggerate in saying that some of the jets of foam sprung a hundred feet into the air, and then the tints! Sometimes a clear green wave would roll its huge volume on the rocks before it broke; at others, dash greenly up to it and dissolve in wreaths of purest white spray, causing, as it broke, a delicate iris to glow on the opposite rocks; while toward the west a veil of foam overhung the coast, lighted up by the golden rays of the setting sun. No words can describe the fascination of the scene.”

To observe the contrast between nature and the works of man, one has only to visit the isolated premises of the Anglo-American Telegraph Company. The manner in which electricity outstrips the sun in his daily round is here strikingly exemplified. Happening to be in the instrument-room at about eleven o’clock in the forenoon, one sees the operators at work, receiving from, say, Berlin, the reports of the day’s markets, and transmitting the information to New York, to be served up fresh on Uncle Sam’s breakfast-table, which, even at that early hour is already old news in the Eastern world. Lying just inside Valentia Island is Cahirciveen, the birthplace of Daniel O’Connell, and from this point to Dingle, across the bay, is to be seen – though from the seaward side only – the finest rock scenery on the southwest coast. Here Nature seems to have done her best to produce the picturesque with ocean and rock, twisted and split, pierced and tunnelled; every rock seems to have been torn in some gigantic struggle against total destruction, and left to still wage war against storm and tempest. The harbour of Dingle, landlocked and peaceful, is in quiet contrast to all this turmoil, though Dingle’s weekly cattle fair will give the stranger the impression that he is witnessing something very akin to the fabled Donnybrook Fair, so far as riotous good humour is concerned.

From Slea Head a magnificent view of Dingle Bay is obtained, – its indented shores flanked by the Dingle mountains stretching away for thirty miles of wonderful panorama of islands and rocks out to and around the Blasquetts. The Blasquetts are a group of eight rocky islands, two of them three miles from the coast. In the sound between these two and the mainland one of the ships of the Spanish Armada sank with all on board.

Perhaps the wildest scene on the southern coast is presented by the Skelligs Rocks, off Dingle Bay, rising as pinnacles of slate, wind-swept and bare. The cliffs seem painted in bands of cream colour, produced by countless crowds of gannets – most powerful of gulls – sitting on their nests on the ledges of cliff. At the sound of an approaching steamer, the air is filled with a swarm of puffins, or sea-parrots, which fly heavily around the crags; while, from the caves on the lower cliffs, like crowds of the smaller gulls fill the air with their shrill, screaming cry.

Limerick is a city which, by very reason of her great past and her matter-of-fact and decidedly ordinary present, presents great and disappointing contrasts. One may read the statistics in the guide-books and learn that 350,000 pigs are killed every year in the town, and of a great many other mundane things which happen here and have no interest whatsoever for him.

There is no doubt about the pigs, sausages, and various pork products, for fat swine,

“razorbacks,” big pigs, and little pigs swarm everywhere.

There is no escaping the Limerick pig. In single file, in battalions, as solitary scout, alive or dead, baconed and sausaged, he dominates the town. Limerick was in existence as long ago as the days of Ptolemy; was scrambled for by the Danes and the Irish kings in Alfred’s time; took the fancy of that good judge of “eligible sites,” King John, and was decorated with one of his innumerable castles, a fine old relic which still remains. The town was in the very thick of the row raised by Cromwell; and, in the wars of “the silent” William of Orange, it manufactured history as fast as its factories turn out sausages now. The name of Sarsfield, the Jacobite general, is for ever identified with Limerick. The city was taken and retaken more often than we should care to state; it was – and is – fortified up to the very limit; and, whenever anything exciting of a political nature went on, in times past, Limerick was ever to the fore front, ready to emphasize her opinions with the high-shouldered fat little cannon that have somehow got left out on the ramparts, quite forgotten except by “tourist touts,” though, truth to tell, not many tourists ever come to Limerick.

To-day Limerick – in spite of its activities with respect to sausages – is no more a maker of history, but sits dozing complacently on the estuary of “the finest river in the kingdoms,” and cares not apparently for the comings and goings of the outside world.

As some poetic soul – possessed by an Irishman of course – has said: “No one cares for Limerick now. Of all the fierce possessors who fought for her when she was young, the local government officially alone remains, like the gray elderly husband of some housewifely woman who was a beauty and a ‘toast,’ and made men’s swords leap from their scabbards for love of her – once.”

At the mouth of the Shannon, near where its tidal waters meet the sea, Limerick has its “fashionable watering-place” of the conventional pattern. The chief “amusement” of this delectable place appears to be the gathering of “Irish moss,” as it is commonly known. Here they call it “Carrageen moss,” but it is the same thing, and ultimately turns up as a dainty and nourishing jelly. The peasantry gather it for profit, the visitors for pastime. It is found in many shallow rock pools at low tide, and grows in short, bushy tufts, coralline in shape. The “moss” must be bleached in the sun, and then boiled down into jelly. “Dulse,” another variety of edible seaweed, which requires no preparation, is also found here; and the central ribs of young oarweed are peeled and eaten like celery, which they very much resemble in looks, but – most emphatically – not in taste.

Dear also, to Americans, will be the memory of County Limerick as the birthplace of Fitz-James O’Brien. The son of an attorney, he was born in 1828, receiving his education at Dublin University. In his youth he saw service as a British soldier, but early drifted toward journalism and America.

Among his earliest compositions were two remarkable poems, “Loch Ine” and “Irish Castles,” which present in a picturesque vocabulary many of the salient charms and beauties of his native isle.

CHAPTER V

THE SHANNON AND ITS LAKES

NO river in Great Britain, neither the Thames, nor the Clyde, nor even the Severn, equals the river Shannon and its lakes, either in length or in importance as an inland waterway. The native on its banks tells you that it rivals the Mississippi; but in what respect, Americans, at least, will wonder. Except that it broadens to perhaps a dozen miles in the widest of its lakes, there is, of course, no comparison whatever. The traffic on the river is of no great magnitude compared with that on the Thames and the Clyde; but, were there a demand for such, its capacity would be far greater than either.

Moreover, for beauty, either of the dainty and popularly picturesque sort, or of the supremely grand, it has preëminence, and one can journey its whole length, from Killaloe, practically a suburb of Limerick, to Carrick-on-Shannon, something over a hundred miles, in steamboats of really comfortable, if not exactly luxurious, appointments.

It is the tourist traffic mostly that is catered for; and the traveller, in the season, is likely to find the company mixed, though by no means is it of the “tripper” class.

The itinerary comprehends much that is beautiful and much that is historic.

From Limerick, one usually makes his way by train, although he may go by car or coach, – such a trip is well worth while, – and embarks upon the tiny steamer at Killaloe.

Here, at the lower end of Lough Derg, near Killaloe, stood in the ninth century Brian Boru’s palace of Kincora. The mound on which it was built is all that remains of a place that displayed, twelve hundred years ago, the greatest glory of the proud Irish kings.

Many were the events of historical moment which took place here, though, as a palace of great splendour and magnitude, it may have been exceeded by Tara and Emania.

The memory of Brian Boru’s life here places him in the annals of the world’s great rulers as “every inch a king.”

Neither on the Irish throne, nor on that of any other kingdom, did there ever sit a sovereign more splendidly qualified to rule; and Ireland had not for some centuries known such a glorious and prosperous, peaceful, and happy time as the five years preceding Brian’s death. He caused his authority to be not only unquestioned, but obeyed and respected in every corner of the land. So justly were the laws administered in his name, and so loyally obeyed throughout the kingdom, that the bards relate a rather fanciful story of a young and exquisitely beautiful lady, who made, without the slightest apprehension of violence or insult, and in perfect safety, a tour of the island on foot, alone and unprotected, though bearing about her the most costly jewels and ornaments of gold. This legend will be further recalled by the memory of the well-known verses beginning “Rich and rare were the gems she wore.”

It was at Kincora that the following incident took place:

Mælmurra, Prince of Leinster, playing or advising on a game of chess, made or recommended a false move, upon which the patriotic Morrogh, son of Brian, observed that it was no wonder Mælmurra’s friends, the Danes (to whom he owed his elevation), were beaten at Glenmana, if he gave them advice like that. Mælmurra, highly incensed by the allusion, – all the more severe for its bitter truth, – arose, ordered his horse, and rode away in haste. Brian, when he heard it, despatched a messenger after the indignant guest, begging him to return; but Mælmurra was not to be pacified, and refused, and concerted and connived with certain Danish agents, always open to such negotiations, those measures which led to the great invasion of the year 1014, in which the whole Scandinavian race, from Anglesea and Man, north to Norway, bore an active part.

While Brian was residing at Kincora, news was brought of his noble-hearted brother’s death, whereupon he was seized with the most violent grief. Brian’s favourite harp – always a legendary and traditional symbol of Irish emotions – was taken down, and he sang that famous death-song of Mahon, recounting all the glorious actions of his life. “His anger flashed out through his tears as he wildly chanted the noble lines,” say the chronicles.

Of the passionate attachment of the Irish for music, little need be said, as this is one of the national characteristics which has been at all times most strongly marked, and is still most widely appreciated, the harp being universally held as a national emblem of Ireland. Even in the prechristian period that we are here reviewing, music was an institution and a power in Erin.

Few spots in Ireland are richer in historical and archæological interest than Killaloe. There is a fine specimen of sixth-century architecture in the well-preserved cell of St. Lua, with its steep roof of stone and cunningly devised arches. It is a venerable building, and nestles under the shadow of the present Protestant cathedral, built by O’Brien, King of Thomond, in the twelfth century. On a small island in the river Shannon are the ruins of an ancient friary, and at a little distance the remains of a small chapel. These are said to mark the position of a ford used by pilgrims who came to visit Killaloe before the bridge, which is itself ancient, was built.

Lough Derg is reputedly one of the prettiest pieces of water in Ireland. Its shores are well wooded, and the background all around is made up of swelling upland, dotted here and there with the white houses of the peasantry, while in the far distance are the heather-clad hills of the Counties Clare, Galway, and Tipperary.

In Lough Derg, on Station Island, is the reputed entrance to St. Patrick’s Purgatory. A wide-spread superstition accounts for its popularity, but whether as a purely “tourist point” or as a place of pilgrimage for penitents, it were better not to attempt to judge.

Tradition has it that St. Patrick had prevailed on God to place the entrance to purgatory in Ireland, that the unbelievers might the more readily be convinced of the immortality of the soul and of the sufferings that awaited the wicked after death. A few monks, according to Boate, an old Irish writer, dwelt near the cavern that formed the entrance. “Whoever came to the island with the intention of descending into the cavern and examining its wonders had to prepare himself by long vigils, fasts, and prayers, to strengthen him, as we are told, for his dangerous expedition; but, in reality, by reducing his bodily strength to make his imagination more ready to receive the impressions which it was thought desirable to leave upon his mind. He was then let down into the cavern, whence, after an interval of several hours, he was drawn up again half-dead, and, when he recovered his senses, mingling the wild dreams of his own imagination with what the monks told him, he seldom failed to tell the most marvellous tales of the place for the remainder of his life. It was not till the reign of James II. that the monks were driven away from the place, and the mystery of the dark cavern dissolved.”

From Killaloe to Portumna, the Shannon flows through Lough Derg, a wide-spread waterway, an elaborate expansion of the river itself. This lake, which is twenty-five miles long and from two to six miles in breadth, has an average depth of about fifty feet. Close to Portumna is the Castle of Ballynasheera, said to have been once the residence of Ireton, Oliver Cromwell’s son-in-law.

From Ben Hill, a few miles below Portumna, near Woodford, is a splendid view of Lough Derg and the surrounding country. The lake here stretches along between the Slieve Aughty Mountains on the Connaught side and the Arra Mountains on the Munster side, whose lofty summits tower up high into the clouds. The shores, sloping gradually down to the water, are covered with luxurious foliage, through openings in which may be seen the ruins of many an ancient castle and once stately mansion.

Portumna itself is a flourishing town, but of no great antiquarian interest. The population of town and district is about two thousand.

Near by is Victoria Lock, Melleek, adjacent to which are two strongly built towers, which formerly mounted eight guns, and which, in more romantic times, were erected to guard the pass of the Shannon between Connaught and Leinster.

Shannon Harbour, at which the Grand Canal joins the Shannon, is situated on the river about six or seven miles from Shannon Bridge, and is immortalized by Charles Lever in “Jack Hinton.”

As a tourist resort the town appears to have degenerated sadly, a pretentious hotel establishment having been converted over into barracks for the constabulary.

From Shannon Harbour the steamer passes Shannon Bridge, and in due course reaches Athlone at the lower end of Lough Ree. “Population, seven thousand. Industry, manufacture of the celebrated woollen tweeds, which provides employment for several hundred operators, both male and female; there are various other smaller manufacturing industries pursued by the town population. In the rural districts, cattle rearing, both in Westmeath and Roscommon, and the pursuit of general agriculture is principally followed, and the inhabitants of these rural districts are generally comfortable and fairly well-to-do.” Such is the usual guide-book information concerning Athlone, which lies at the juncture of Roscommon and Westmeath.

As a matter of fact, however, almost every stone in the prosperous little city has a historic interest and value, from the ruins of its former splendid ecclesiastical establishments to its old houses and still more ancient fortifications, and the castle erected in 1215 by King John, – a counterpart in every respect of a similar establishment at Limerick. Queen Elizabeth made Athlone the capital of Connaught. After the battle of the Boyne, it underwent two sieges from the forces of King William. Some traces of the old fortifications may be seen, and the castle is still in perfect repair.

Just north of Athlone, where the Shannon joins Lough Ree, is Auburn, more popularly known as “Sweet Auburn,” whose old ruined parsonage is famous as the early home of Oliver Goldsmith.

Fleeting time has changed this modest mansion – whose ruin was deplored by Goldsmith himself – but little. It stands about a hundred yards from the public road at the end of a straight avenue bordered with ash-trees, – a plain rectangular, two-storied house, built in the ugly and uncompromising style that was popular in Ireland in the early part of the seventeenth century. The roof is off, but the walls remain, and seem still to be haunted by the shade of the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, the original Doctor Primrose in “The Vicar of Wakefield,” while his wife, hospitable as of yore, still seems to invite the passing stranger to taste her gooseberry wine. The famous inn, – since rebuilt out of all resemblance to its former self, – immortalized by Goldsmith, and known as the Three Pigeons, where were drawn the “inspired nut-brown draughts,” and “where village statesmen talked with looks profound,” is but a little distance from the house. The country all around Lishoy – for that is the name of the townland in which Toberclare, this Mecca of the Goldsmith student, is situated – is well wooded and cultivated. The drive from Athlone to “Sweet Auburn” is one of the most delightful in Ireland. As the reputed locale of “The Deserted Village,” Auburn, or Lishoy, as it was formerly known, has an unusual share of interest for the literary pilgrim.