Romantic Ireland;. Volume 1/2

Glendalough will endear itself to all who have not hearts of stone. St. Kevin’s ruins are up and down the glen, and his hermit bed still stands in the dug out of the cliffs. That old, old cemetery of Reefert Church, with the thorn-bushes around it, is reckoned among the unique things in Ireland for its tomb of King O’Toole. The present cemetery, all about and within the ruins of the “cathedral,” is also characteristically Irish and charming. There is a monument here which bears the inscription: “We append a record, as far as obtainable, of clergymen buried in this church,” but has not a single name on it. Is this Irish humour, or is it an indication of Irish poverty? The “oldest inhabitant” could not tell the writer.

Hosts of other dead are commemorated in stone, and, moss-covered, the headstones loll here at all angles, as do they elsewhere in Ireland. Just below is St. Kevin’s “kitchen,” with a tower like that of the broken, but still striking, round tower not far beyond. Formerly, it was one of the hermit’s churches (it was never a kitchen, in fact, and no one seems to be able to explain the nomenclature); but it has now been turned into a little museum of decidedly commonplace attractions.

In the church, the “lady-church” of this group of churches, is the reputed burial-place of St. Kevin.

As might be expected, no memorial exists of the holy man but the walls of this tiny church, if even they have genuinely survived his epoch, – the sixth and seventh centuries. No indications point to the exact resting-place of his bones, and the most that is known is that he died at Glendalough in 618 A. D. at the advanced age of 102. “And that is a doubtful fact,” says the local cicerone.

Wicklow itself is a picturesque crescent-shaped coast town. Its name is borne by the Gap at Glendalough, the county, and that famous headland which juts out into St. George’s Channel, as only a few promontories do outside the school geographies.

The ancient Irish called it Gill-Mantain; but, when it fell before the onrush of the Danes, its name was changed to Wykinlo. The chief architectural remains are those of a Franciscan friary of the reign of Henry III., and an Anglo-Norman castle completed in the fourteenth century. Between Wicklow and Arklow lies the celebrated Vale of Avoca. It has been made immortal by the poet Moore; but, though its fame is well deserved, and it is a spot beloved by all who have ever seen it, it is in reality no more beautiful than other similar spots elsewhere.

The Vale of Avoca shares with Killarney, Blarney Castle, and the Giant’s Causeway a popularity which is not equalled by any other of the beauties of Ireland. Here “in this most pleasant vale,” where the Avonbeg joins the Avonmore, is the “Meeting of the Waters.” Moore lavished his choicest phraseology upon its charms; and tourists – since there have been tourists – have devotedly stood by, book in hand, and attempted to fit in the poet’s words with each tree and stone and rivulet. For the most part they have not been successful; and the words the poet sung —

“There is not in the wide world a valley so sweetAs the vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet.Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must depart,Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.“Sweet vale of Avoca! how calm could I restIn thy bosom of shade with the friends I love best,Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should ceaseAnd our hearts, like the waters, be mingled in peace “ —

might quite as readily have applied to any other spot as fair.

It will never do to disparage Moore’s poetry, and least of all in a chronicle of Irish experiences; but, once and again, an idol does really shatter itself, or at least totters unsteadily on its base; and when one has made the round of all Ireland’s fairest beauties, and heard Moore’s melodies dinned into his ears by importunate touts and mendicants without number, the sentiment is apt to grow thin, and sooner or later the soul rebels. At this point, then, the author’s patience gave out, and so he records his mood, however unseemly it may otherwise appear.

It is indeed a pretty valley, strangely pretty, if you like; and one can hardly remain unmoved and unemotional before its expanse of green, its oaks and beeches, its rocks and rills, its ivies, and more than all else its sunsets. But when one has said with Prince Puckler Muskau – that much-quoted royal German so useful to makers of guide-books – that it is all “exquisitely beautiful,” one has said the first and the last word on the subject. It should be visited and seen in all its beauties; but the experience will not awaken in the hearts of many the emotions which we may presume Moore felt.

Near by is Avondale, the former home of Charles Stewart Parnell. Where the Avonbeg unites with the Avonmore is formed “The Meeting of the Waters.” Many painters have limned its beauties; and, like Killarney, Loch Katrine, and Richmond Vale, on the Thames, replicas of its charms used years ago to find their way in the “table books of art” and “Treasuries,” with which our parents and grandparents used to decorate a small table set before the front window of the parlour.

The part played by the Norman invasion of Ireland has been neglected and overlooked by many in favour of that more portentous invasion of England.

In Ireland the Normans first landed in a little creek on Bannon Bay on the Wexford coast. The advance-guard was composed of thirty knights, sixty men in armour, and three hundred foot-soldiery, under Robert Fitzstephen. This brought on the siege of Wexford, of which the annals, as well as the many remains of ruined castles and churches founded by the invaders, tell.

All this ancient history pales, in the minds of the native bar-parlour frequenters one meets in these parts, before the more vivid, or at least more readily recollected “little affair” of Vinegar Hill and “the Men of ’98,” the site of which, with Enniscorthy, lies just to the northward. A half-century ago historians wrote of this as a “matter yet fresh in the memory of living men,” and the great rebellion – so great at least to Ireland – has been dealt with by writers of all shades of opinion ad infinitum. Even the music-hall songs have perpetuated the belligerent aspect of the inhabitants of Enniscorthy, to say nothing of Killaloe. Nevertheless, the incident of the Norman invasion of Ireland, and the parts played therein by Fitzgerald, Diarmid, the traitorous M’Murrogh, Roderick, Strongbow the Dane, and Prendergast, – named in Irish history as “the faithful Norman,” – presents an inextricable tangle of creeds and races which requires a singularly astute historian to place in line.

It is now seven hundred years since the name of Prendergast was linked with honour and chivalry in Ireland; but something of his earnestness and spirit still lives amongst those who bear his name, if we may judge from the tenor of a modern work by one Prendergast, entitled “The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland.”

Aubrey de Vere, in his “Lyrical Chronicle of Ireland,” has emblazoned Prendergast’s valour in verse:

THE FAITHFUL NORMAN“Praise to the valiant and faithful foe!Give us noble foes, not the friend who lies!We dread the drugged cup, not the open blow:We dread the old hate in the new disguise.“To Ossory’s king they had pledged their word.He stood in their camp, and their pledge they broke;Then Maurice the Norman upraised his sword;The cross on its hilt he kiss’d, and spoke:“ ‘So long as this sword or this arm hath might,I swear by the cross which is lord of all,By the faith and honour of noble and knight,Who touches you, prince, by this hand shall fall!’“So side by side through the throng they pass’d;And Eire gave praise to the just and true.Brave foe! the past truth heals at last:There is room in the great heart of Eire for you!”

Round the coast from Wexford to Waterford one passes the famous Tuskar lighthouse, which, with the Saltee light-vessel, thirty miles to the southward, and Carnsore Point, which lies between, forms the turning-point – or the corner which must be rounded – of the vast sea-borne traffic bound up the St. George’s Channel from the Atlantic.

The chief historical monument of Waterford, with the exception of the reconstructed castle and Ballinakil House, the last halting-place of the fleeing Stuart king, is a squat circular building known as “Reginald’s Tower.” It sits close to the quayside, and is by far the most notable landmark, viewed from either sea or land, which the city possesses. Its erection is credited to Reginald, the Dane, some nine hundred and odd years ago. Kingsley, in “Hereward the Wake,” weaves much of romance around its sturdy walls.

In 1171, when Strongbow and Raymond le Gros took Waterford, it was inhabited by Danes, who, with the exception of the prince of the Danes and a few others, were put to death. It was here that Earl Strongbow was married to Eva, daughter of the King of Leinster; and here, too, that Henry II. first landed in Ireland to take possession of the country which had been granted to him by the bull of Pope Adrian.

Near Waterford is Dungarvan, once a fishing-town of considerable importance. Its fishermen were bold, and went far out to sea, for it was a Dungarvan man who was captured and made to act as pilot by the corsairs of Algiers, who sacked the town of Baltimore, close to Cape Clear, in 1631, when all the inhabitants were killed or carried off into slavery. A curious page of the Irish history, and one which reads more like romantic legend than fact. This man’s name was Hackett, and the story tells that his service to the Algerians was repaid, by his outraged countrymen, with the halter.

Between Cork – with its poetic associations of the Shandon Bells, the river Lee, and of Blarney Castle – and the glens and vales of Wicklow, there is no spot to equal in picturesqueness and romantic environment the celebrated valley of the Blackwater, which, forming a broad estuary, mingles with the waters of the Atlantic at Youghal Harbour. The great beauties of the Blackwater only unfold themselves as one ascends the stream some twenty miles above Youghal, but the whole lower river has a placid charm which is quite inexplicable.

For what is Youghal famous, say the untravelled? In matters Irish, for many things, but the most lively interest is awakened by the recollection of Myrtle Grove, the one-time residence of Sir Walter Raleigh, Governor of the Virginia Colony in the New World, who, though he had never been there, is popularly supposed to have introduced its tobacco into Great Britain. As a matter of fact, he did not, but some one of his understudies did; and it was at Myrtle Grove that his servant sought to save him from incineration by deluging him with water while he was smoking his favourite pipe. There is doubtless somewhat of legend about this; and the incident has been worn threadbare in its use by an enterprising firm of tobacco manufacturers; but, since Myrtle Grove really exists, and Raleigh really lived there, there is some excuse for it.

It was here, too that the potato, since become a too staple article of diet, was first introduced to Irish soil.

Truly Raleigh is entitled to a reputation as a true benefactor of the race exceeding that due to his reputed chivalry to Queen Elizabeth. Without potatoes and tobacco, what might not have happened to the British race long before now?

CHAPTER IX.

KILKENNY TO CORK HARBOUR

IF Lismore is the most celebrated and stately of Irish castles, Kilkenny, at least, comes more nearly to the popular conception of the feudal stronghold of the romancers and poets, and, withal, it is historic and is second in preeminence, only, to any other in the land.

Kilkenny itself is an ancient city, and it is something of a city as the minor centres of population go. “Does it not contain,” says the proud inhabitant, “nearly fifteen thousand souls?” It does, indeed, but it is more justly famous for its archæological remains than for its manufactures of woollens, which formerly was great.

Probably the most novel impression the stranger will get of Kilkenny will be that which he gains at the annual agricultural show or fair, when the effect produced by the cheering of the crowds will sound unlike anything ever heard elsewhere. It is a fact that this cheering is peculiar to Kilkenny. These are no hurrahs of the ordinary British kind, but every time the feelings of the people find a vent, a long, shrill wail resounds over the fields, rising and falling, at its loudest, like the shriek of a steamer’s siren, and, when more subdued, like the moaning of a winter wind. Perhaps this is the modern descendant of the banshee’s wail.

The history of the modern political and social events which took place at Kilkenny, in times past, make curious and interesting reading. Many “parliaments” were held here, and, in 1367, one of them ordained that death should be the punishment of any Englishman who married an Irishwoman. This was manifestly bigoted, uncharitable, and unkind, and no wonder that here, and elsewhere in Ireland, English domination has so often been reviled.

Its most famous and important political function took place in 1642, when was held the Rebel, or Roman Catholic, Parliament, which gave to Kilkenny the name of “The City of Confederation,” though the same act culminated in its siege by Cromwell, and its ultimate downfall into the hands of “the Protector.” The outcome of all this to-day has been the indissoluble endearment of Kilkenny to all Irishmen of “the faith.”

The history of Kilkenny’s famous castle is more acceptable to those who love Ireland in a familiar way. It is famous, some one has already said, as being “one of the few places where Cromwell treated an Irish gentleman politely.”

The chronology of this stronghold of the middle ages – still the seat of the Marquis of Ormonde, the founder of whose ancestors, Theobald FitzWalter, was one of the retinue of Henry II. – is as follows:

It was built in 1195 on the site of a former edifice, erected by Strongbow in 1172. Donald O’Brien destroyed it in the following year, but again it took form as the ancestral home of a race of men whose members have all figured more or less prominently in Irish annals since the coming of the Normans.

It is one of the most ancient habitable buildings in the land, and also one of the most picturesque. Its massive gray towers and ivy-grown walls stand high upon a natural rampart and overlook the slow-drifting river. The old stone bridge that spans this river here mayhap was often crossed by Congreve and Swift on their way to school in the city. Above, the castle rises boldly against the wistful blue of Irish skies, while at night it looks like a true palace of enchantment when the moon rises beyond its turrets and towers, and throws indistinct, distorted, and mysterious shadows on the river’s surface. One feels a sense of complete repose, – but a repose that is interrupted by the occasional shriek of a locomotive, the drowsy bell of some convent, or the sharp notes of a military bugle.

A later Theobald became the sixth Butler of Ireland, and was made the Earl of Carrick. His son was created Earl of Ormonde, and married Eleanor de Bohun, the granddaughter of Edward I.

The second earl, James, became known as “the Noble Earl,” from being the great grandson of Edward I., and became Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, and he it was, the second earl of the house of Ormonde, – the direct ancestor of the present marquis, – who, in 1391, acquired the castle from another branch, which had sprung from Theobald FitzWalter.

The Ormondes were a true race of noblemen, as history tells, although their story is too elaborate to chronicle completely here.

The fourth earl, it is said, – by tradition, of course, and in this case quite unsupported, – was favoured by the sun’s having remained stationary in its course long enough for him to have achieved a victory over a hereditary enemy.

The fifth earl became Lord High Treasurer of England, but was unfortunately beheaded, so his career did not end exactly gloriously. The sixth earl was smitten by the fervour of the Crusades and died in Jerusalem, and one of the daughters of the seventh earl married Sir William Boleyn and became the mother of the unfortunate Queen Anne, and grandmother of Elizabeth.

One of the most famous men of the line was James, the twelfth earl, who, for services to Charles I., was created a marquis and raised to a dukedom by Charles II. Bishop Burnett states that “He was of graceful appearance, a lively wit, and a cheerful temper; a man of great expense, but decent even in his vices, for he always kept up the forms of religion; too faithful not to give always good advice, but, when bad ones were followed, too complaisant to be any great complainer.” For thirty years he was Chief Governor and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, when he incurred the hatred of a bold rascal, Thomas Blood, the son of a black-smith, and a staunch supporter of Cromwell. After the Restoration even, Blood plotted against royalty, one of his schemes being to surprise Dublin Castle and to seize the lord lieutenant. This plot was discovered, and Blood managed to escape, though his accomplices were hanged. Blood swore that he who ordered their execution should share their fate. A price was set upon the scoundrel’s head, but he came to London, and set about his vengeance on the Duke of Ormonde.

The Earl of Ossory, the duke’s son, joined the invading forces of William of Orange, fought for him at the Battle of the Boyne, and entertained him sumptuously at Kilkenny Castle. Later, he became a favourite of Queen Anne, and succeeded Marlborough as commander-in-chief of the land forces of Great Britain. Suspected of plotting for the Stuarts, he was attainted, his estates confiscated, his honours extinguished, and a price set upon his head by the Parliament of George I.

The titles being extinguished, the earl’s brother was allowed to purchase Kilkenny Castle; but neither he nor his heirs and successors assumed the titles until 1791, when the Irish Parliament decided that the Irish Act of Attainder affected estates only, and not Irish titles, though the English attainder included the loss of both. The Earldom of Ormonde, a purely Irish title, was therefore restored to John Butler, who became seventeenth in the line. The rank due to earls’ daughters was allowed to his sisters, of whom Lady Eleanor became famous as one of the eccentric recluses known as the Ladies of Llangollen. The eighteenth earl was created a marquis in 1816.

A writer in a recent review recounts a visit to Kilkenny Castle which presents a wealth of detail that makes interesting reading for the inquisitive. Among other things, she says, – assuredly it was a person of the feminine persuasion who wrote:

“In the evening there was a great reception at the castle of the county gentry, about four hundred ladies and gentlemen being included. If the castle was picturesque in the day, it was doubly so at night. The town itself was illuminated by countless fairy lamps, which marked the lines of the streets with points of light, and outlined the old stone bridges which cross the little river Nore, and – as it should – the full moon rose in a sapphire sky behind the castle, whose shadow fell softly upon the placid mirror of the water below, and the pale moonlight gleamed upon the white houses and walls of the lower town. Every hotel and inn – and there are many from some unexplained reason – was crowded with guests invited to the castle, while in the doorways one caught glimpses of officers in uniform and levee dress, and women in white gowns with jewels that flashed in the lamplight, waiting for their carriages and coaches to convey them to the castle entrance. Many of their vehicles were of strange archaic shape, and might have done service in Kilkenny when William the Silent was the guest of another Lord Ormonde in the days of long ago. The streets were crowded with Kilkenny folk in quaint old-world garments, – men in broad-brimmed, low-crowned hats, gray breeches, and stockings, and others with leaden buckles; women with shawls over their heads; here and there a monk in brown habit with rope girdle, and groups of soldiers.

“Meanwhile, at the castle a brilliant scene was taking place in the long picture-gallery, with its priceless paintings by old masters, where the guests were being received. In the adjoining dining-room, glowing in the candlelight, gleamed the wonderful and historic gold plate of Kilkenny Castle, estimated to be worth a million and a quarter sterling.

“It was much after midnight before the guests left the castle, and far into the early hours the city of Kilkenny was noisy with the merriment of its citizens, who were loath to end a day that will be long remembered in their history.”

The above account is quoted here because it seems, to the writer, to present in a few words the conventionalities of the occasion in a frame of picturesqueness and environment which similar functions “in town” lack in almost every way.

Certainly, convention is robbed of half its banality and insincerity under such conditions, and, though most of us know it only in costume novels, sword-and-cloak dramas, and comic-opera settings, it is pleasurable to know that such things do really exist to-day.

In our day, Kilkenny Castle has been repaired, preserved, and restored, as was its due, but with that paternal care and affection which would not allow a child to be ill or inappropriately dressed. The adaptations and modernizations have not discounted its grand towers, battlements, and bastions, and though, chiefly, it is a modern building which contains the greater part of the domestic establishment of the present Marquis of Ormonde, the three massive central towers stand to-day practically unaltered as to their walls.

In every way the castle suggests Spenser’s epithet, “Faire Kilkenny.” Its picture-gallery reputedly contains the best private collection in Ireland, – portraits by Holbein, Lely, Van Dyck, Kneller, and Sir Joshua, of men who have illustrated those tragedies of history which, with time, have assumed the rich colouring of romance. Their curious watchful eyes have scanned royal guests; indeed, more than one of that now silent company have intermarried with the scions of royalty.

In Kilkenny itself – though, for that matter, the castle abuts upon the Market Place – is the Cathedral of St. Canice, founded about 1180, which is the gem of Kilkenny’s architectural remains. It is a cruciform church in plain, simple Gothic style, small but stately, and has in its collection of monuments the most varied and rich in Ireland. It also possesses the “Chair of St. Kieran.” Both the east and the west windows are notable, and there is a well-preserved round tower over one hundred feet high at the corner of the south transept.

St. John’s (thirteenth century), with some beautiful windows; St. Mary’s, older even than the cathedral; the Black Abbey; the Franciscan Friary; and the modern Roman Catholic Cathedral complete the galaxy of ecclesiastical monuments of Kilkenny.

The Blackwater River is called by the guide-books one of the largest in Ireland. The description is, however, misleading. It is neither a very great river, a very long one, nor a very important one in the world of commerce; but it is, truly, a romantic and picturesque one.

Its panorama presents the following views, which are highly important and interesting:

Just above the bridge on Youghal quay (Youghal derives its name from yew-wood) rises a cliff which is surmounted by a ruined Knights Templars’ preceptory, known as Rhincrew Castle and founded by Raymond le Gros in 1183. Ardsallat follows; and the square castle keep of Temple Michael, one of the ancient fortresses of the Geraldines, is near Ballintra.

On the island of Molana are the ruins of the Abbey of Molanfidas, a most ancient institution, founded by St. Fachman in 501. Raymond le Gros is claimed to have been buried here, but no definite trace of the exact location appears to be known.

Northward and westerly, to its source near Killarney, the Blackwater – most picturesquely and significantly named – is a unique succession of attractions such as is lacked by most streams of its size. Strancally Castle is now but a moss-grown rock; but it possesses a traditional tale of horror, which gives the waters at this point the name of “The Murdering Hole.” The Knockmeledown Mountains, a bare, bleak range, stand out to the northward in strong contrast to the fertile river-bottom.